Unofficially Spring

Yoyo Hair Pins

I made my first few fabric yoyos awhile ago, after watching that one season of Project Runway with the contestant who yoyo'd everything. I can relate, because after making a handful more the other day now I want to yoyo everything, too. So I started with these bobby pins.

To make them, I just snipped two tiny holes through the fabric on the underside of the yoyo (there's a good yoyo tutorial here), then slid it onto a bobby pin, like so:

Super easy. They do lack a "finished" feel—as they are the yoyo is liable to slip off the pin if it's floating around in a purse or pocket, and you kind of have to hold the yoyo in place on the pin when you're putting it in your hair—but if it's just for me I'm okay with them as-is, and once they're secured in your hair the yoyo really stays put. The whole pin would have to come off your head before the yoyo can slide off. And you know how bobby pins often get over-opened and lose thier grip? Well, with this attachment method vs. a more permanant one (i.e., glue) you can easily just switch to a new bobby pin whenever.

But, if something more finished-seeming is desired, like for giving or selling, another option would be to switch out the bobby pin for this hair clip style, which more easily lends itself to glueing:

I didn't actually glue these ones in place, but you get the idea. And I'm pretty confident they'd just glue right on and stay put.

I also think the yoyos would look really cute with a button affixed in the center of them. If you use smaller, more closely spaced stitches, the fabric won't gather up all the way to the middle, and you'll wind up with an opening in the center of the yoyo, allowing the perfect space to fit a button. I think I'll try that next.

Fort!

By day...

...and by night.

Note: The lighting element (lamp) has been deemed unsafe. But one of Zoë's favorite fort activites is turning it on and off, so I need to figure out some other light source that she can control, something battery-powered probably.

Here, have some eye candy while standing by...

Well, no progress on the computer issues front yet, but I can’t bear to leave that hideous last post as the first thing you see here for however long it’s going to take to get things up and properly running again. So I’ll leave you with these images instead, sure to please the eye.

These photos are from a free mini calendar I just got, compliments of Nordic Naturals (the fish oil supplement folks). They are all taken in Norway and each by a different photographer (Bård Løken, Asle Svarverud, and Per Eide, respectively). That first one is my favorite I think—grass growing on the rooftops!—although they're all just achingly beautiful. I can't believe there are places that actually look like this.

Please stand by...

...while internet connectivity issues are sorted out.

(Image borrowed from here)

I know, dear audience, that all two of you will be eagerly anticipating my return! (And don't worry, my computer is not really fried as the above photo might suggest, just being dramatic.)

Extract Success!

Following a Cook's Illustrated recipe, I started work on making vanilla bean extract last fall and just now got to bottling it today. Even though, per recipe, I could've strained and bottled it after only a week, the color of the extract had me worried because it wasn't near as dark as my store-bought one. I even reheated it and added an extra vanilla bean at one point. (That's when I took the above photo, and you can see how translucent the extract is in the jars in the background. The store-bought one I was using for comparison let almost no light shine through at all.) Letting it sit for a long time didn't do any harm, in fact you can leave the beans in indefinitely if you want, but it also never got all that much darker. It's in a brown glass jar here, but you can see that its still pretty translucent.


Turns out that didn't matter, but I'd still like to know how they got theirs so much darker than mine. The Mister and I did a taste test in plain milk today, homemade vs. store-bought, and both liked the homemade better. The store-bought flavor was overwhelmed by alcohol, whereas I could barely detect it in the homemade. Not sure why that would be—maybe the grain alcohol in the store-bought is higher proof than the vodka I used in mine? I went with organic vodka, by the way, which I was so happy to find even existed. Turns out there are actually a number of brands of it available. I chose one called "Rain" because it was the least expensive.

Once in a Blue Moon

Snow!