Evidently, I Am A Tasty Doggy Treat

This week, I got bit by a dog.  A pit bull. On the leg.

What a cliche!

I hated that there wasn't much funny about the story, except for the fact that the guy told me the dog was up on his rabies shots because "he was going to Hawaii."

Why couldn't this have been a more interesting injury?

I couldn't have been treed by a trio of these dogs?

Dove into the bed of a Chevy truck to avoid a murderous rabbit?

Had a ferret leave a heart-shaped chomp on my booty?

Instead, bitten.  In the leg.  By a pit bull.

Oh, brother.

CLICHE.

But the bunny with murder in his heart made me think of this brilliant movie...

... and then this character:

"None shall pass tell a boring injury story!"

And I found a way to cheer myself up:

I think if the Black Knight still had any arms...

 he'd give me a round of applause.

Happy Candy Day!

What Valentines did I hand out today?

A Valentine from the Moodys, Stink and Judy!

The Judy Moody and Stink books are the fine products of the author Megan McDonald.

(The image I used can be found at Ms. McDonald's link.)

I had read two of the books to the second graders I work with, 

so I thought a Valentine featuring the Moody siblings

would be a nice alternative to a  pop-culture Valentine.

Sorry, Justin.

I'd rather Bieb Valentines with Stink Moody.

I Do The Math So You Don't Have To

The Sweet Man asked me to make him a cover for his new laptop.

"To the internets!" I cried.

(I... dunno.  I Googled for a "horse charge", and this is one of the first images.  But it seems oddly appropriate for the Wide Wide World of Web, doesn't it?")

I found this nice tutorial at One Pearl Button for a tablet cozy...

... and soon made both a laptop and tablet cozy for the Sweet Man's electronics.

But then I thought, hmmmm...

Wouldn't this method of making a nice pouch work well for my passport covers?

I had seen a lot of patterns for passport covers that worked like a fancy book cover...

... but I was wondering if government officials

 might make you take the whole thing out of the cover.

So why not start with something that is designed to be removed?

(That... sounds kinda dirty.)

So after getting out my Spoonflower fabrics,

(check out the site; it's fabric porn)

and putting on my math hat...

... I got to work.

Since Spoonflower fabric is not inexpensive, I did a mock-up with cheap muslin first.

Once I was happy that the passport would fit nicely, I got to work cutting.

You'll need fabric for both the outside and the lining fabric;

the lining fabric should co-ordinate with the outside fabric since a band of it will act

as an accent along the edge.

For the outside, for a directional print (one that has a definite "up"),

 cut two rectangles,

4 1/2 inches wide by 5 inches high.

If it's not directional,

cut one rectangle,

4 1/2 inches wide by 9 1/2 inches wide.

If you have an image you want to center, you may have to "fussy cut."

For the lining, 

cut one big rectangle,

12 1/2 inches high by 4 1/2 inches wide.

Sew together the two outside pieces at the bottoms.

Iron the seam open.

Sew together the lining and the outside pieces at their top edges, right sides together,

with a quarter inch seam.

You will end up with one tube of fabric.

Iron the seam to the darker, heavier fabric.

Now line up the seams for the outside fabric, and iron along the edge of the lining fabric.

You're marking the middle of the lining fabric.

If you used a non-directional fabric, iron along the top edge of the outside fabric, too.

Flip your tube right-side out, and match up that lining line you ironed

and the bottom seam of the outside fabric.

(Or, if you used non-directional fabric, match the two iron lines.)

Iron it nice and flat.  This will ensure that your accent fabric at the edge is even.

Flip it over and iron some more.

This is what it will look like at this point.

Now, fold it in half, outside cover fabric to outside cover fabric,

 and sew an 1/8 inch seam around the three raw edges.

 1/8 inch seam!  1/8 inch seam!  

If you make it wider, your passport won't fit!

Turn your pouch right side out.

Use something like a big ole not-too-pointy knitting needle

to poke in there and  make the corners crisp.

Iron the pouch flat, and choose a nice coordinating thread 

to top-stitch a 1/4 inch seam around the three sewn sides.

Don't make it more than a 1/4 inch seam!

Again, your passport won't fit!

I started stitching at the bottom of the accent band, 

back-stitched to the top, then continued on around.

That way, you won't have a raggedy end stitch right at the open edge where

there's the most stress on the seam.

Isn't the end result adorable?

I made one for all four of us.

There's kitties for me,

cameras for my photobug Sweet Man,

Darwin's journal for my science-y Girl....

... and get a load of this one for the Boy!

It's made with a Spoonflower fabric featuring 

that great Doctor Who quote about time being all Wibbley Wobbly, Timey Wimey!

It seems very appropriate for a passport.

The Doctor gives it two thumbs up!

Addendum:

Speaking of passports,

the Sweet Man, the Girl, and I all received our passports with no problem.

But the Boy?

We got a letter in the mail from some official person stating he would need

FIVE 

more pieces of "identifying material", each at least

FIVE 

years or more old.

We're thinking this is because he got his driver's license so late;

evidently only terrorists wait until they are almost twenty-one to legally drive.

Anyhoo, I collected a presidential library's worth of

 transcripts, yearbook photos, immunization records, and outdated ID cards,

copied them all, then stuffed them in the return envelope.

The end results look like Arthur Weasley attempting Muggle Post.

Time To Par-tay!

The Sweet Man recently celebrated his fiftieth birthday.

I guessed he didn't want a Princess Party...

... and he certainly didn't deserve this:

I thought about what he liked, and hit upon Grumpy Cat!

I picked a photo, and took out the color and made it lower contrast.

Then I played around in Word*** until I had a letter on top of each picture.

I cut out the images, punched two holes in the top of each,

strung yarn through them, and voila!

It looked awesome.

I also used Grumpy Cat's image on the Sweet Man's birthday card,

got him one of these mugs...

...and set one of these little paper dudes in front of his presents:

(Click the link to download and make your own Grumpy Cat!)

This party experience made me think of other meme-related opportunities for banners.

What about instead of a lame stork theme,

you decorated a baby shower around the Ermahgerd! girl?

You could make a banner with Ermahgerd!  Berbees!,

have everyone bring their favorite baby Berk! as a gift,

and ask for people to wear pigtails.

(Hey, I'd wear pigtails.)

And what about Darwin the Ikea monkey for a going-away banner?

The banner could read "Miss You Already"

and presents could be wrapped with homemade Darwin wrapping paper:

In addition to a banner, it would be cool to blow this image up,

and use it as a photo-booth background!

I think even Grumpy Cat would approve.

***I have Word 2003, so it might be easier/different for you to make the banner images,

but here's what I did.  I wouldn't doubt there's an easier way, but I was messing around without the Sweet Man's help:

1)  I pasted/inserted however many images I needed, at the size I wanted.  I made them so there were two per landscape 8 1/2" by 11" sheet... or at least I tried.  Word kept fighting me, so I often only had one per page. 

2) After the images, I made as many letters I needed to spell out the message.  I made them red, so they would pop against the grey and white image.  It would probably be easier at this point to make your viewing 25%, so you can see what you're doing.

3) One at a time, I clicked on an image, went to Format, chose Picture from the drop-down, and then chose Layout.  Once at Layout, I chose Behind Text.  Before I moved onto the next image...

4) I copied the a letter and pasted it on top of the image.  The image kept moving around, but it should have the box around it so that you can grab it and move so the letter is centered.  (You'll want to chose "center" for the alignment.)

If you're still having trouble, you could try running the paper through your printer twice, once for the image and once for the letters.  It would take some futzing around,

but it would be doable.