Bye MCR

I'm not emo or a disaffected youth but I do love me some MCR. More in the musical sense not the gaga love for Gerard.

Well MCR broke up so this is my video tribute to them...



The LA Kings used MCR's "Welcome to the Black Parade" another awesome song. Wishing all the best to the guys in their future endeavors. :)

Fuji film set

Now here is the film that wasn't developed that we found one day cleaning out junk.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see some picture of the kids & us probably in 2004. The kids are both little with baby faces. :)

Josh

Tyler

Time is fleeting.

You can see the whole set here.

Canon A-1: first batch

Finally got my first roll of film developed using my Canon A-1. Definitely a learning curve but the pics that are focused are really nice. I even tried a couple of double exposures. :)

I already notice that I have to take my time to compose, focus and shoot. A tad different than than the DSLR which I still do those steps but I need to double check myself with film. So action shots and candids are not on the agenda yet.

Tyler

Tyler doesn't have as much patience with me & a camera so this is the best I have of him on this roll.

Tyler double exposed.

Or maybe this one where he is doing his best impression of a flower.

Joshua has more patience and more expressions...he is my muse. :)

Daily skateboarding session.

Walking home.

Heading to school.

Being silly.

Josh double exposed.

So those are my best from this roll although I did find & develop another roll from 2003-04 so I'll scan those later...

Latest projects

Phew!! Feeling like I'm being pulled in all sort of knitting directions. I have socks to complete along with several smaller projects for my steampunk cosplay but today I have several to share.

First are my Ernies. Pattern from my Cookie A sock yarn club and the yarn is such a pretty forest green.





It took me a while to finish these up but that's because I was distracted with other things. Of course.
I have some other socks on the needles so I can get back to those.



So here is the steampunk portion of the FO's. Some Spiffy Spats. I ironed the ruffle so it would lay flat which sort of messed up the acrylic yarn but it's okay. The cuff is still all right and stretchy unlike that poor ruffle which is sort of crunchy.





Very difficult to take photos of my feet with my DSLR w/ 50mm lens. I was in too much of a hurry to look for a different lens. You get the idea. I'm thinking these shoes for the cosplay since I'll be on my feet all day long and should be comfortable.



This pic was the hardest though. I had to set up the tripod and timer to get this. The other shots were bad and blurry. I knit these ruffled wristers with some leftover sock yarn and had just enough. Phew! My colors are all over the place...light blue hat topper, brown spats, purplish wristers to go with my brown skirt, white blouse and dark gray vest. At this point, I don't really care if it matches. :)

Making Butter

Nice weekend plus with the added bonus of an extra day off today for the kiddos. Woo hoo! Not much planned but we do need to finish up Josh's science project for the science fair.

Super easy and fun to do...Make your own butter. :)

Who doesn't like butter???

Super simple experiment that we Googled and came up with all sorts of sites.

This is what we did:

1. Get heavy whipping cream and let it get to room temp. I think we left the quart of cream out on the counter for about 6 hours.
2. Measure out about 2 cups or whatever fills your jar about 1/2 full.
3. Close that lid up tight and START SHAKING!
4. Ours took about 3 minutes before all that butter formed.
5. Save the leftover liquid = buttermilk for baking biscuits or pancakes.
6. Rinse the butter with COLD water, add salt if desired and store in Fridge.

That is all. We were all pretty impressed with this and even though it's not really not cost effective to do regularly, it is fun to get some homemade butter and buttermilk.



Boom! Yummy Butter!

northern lights

Interesting and music by NIN. Pretty cool.

Okay, if that's not your thing, here's an oldie but goodie.

Weekend Antics

I had a really fun weekend. I got to hang with some girlfriends for some dinner and the LA Kings game. We went to The Farm for dinner where I had a burger with bleu cheese and a watermelon margarita. Yum.

We were there early so we were able to stake a spot behind the stage of the pre-game show. Well, Kat and I did. I think the others watched us act goofy. See here is the proof of us waving and grinning like fools. I took picures from my taped recording.

Kat in the Bailey hat/me in gray hat.

Add caption

The game was awesome especially when the Kings win 6-2. :)

I also picked up a nice find at a garage sale. It helps that my SIL keeps an eye out for me. She was having a garage sale with some of her friends to earn some spending money for Paris and her friend was selling this camera.



Canon A1

She sent a text pic to me asking me if I was interested. Um, yes. How much? $25 for everything, camera, lens, flash and bag. SOLD.

I took it over to the camera guy who put a battery in it and the camera turned on. Yay. It needs some sponges replaced, shutter mechanism fixed/lubed and cleaned. Dean said it's a great camera and he should have it ready in a couple of days. Double yay!! He's going to clean the lens and eye cup too. I'm sure Dean will give me a quick tutorial when I pick it up. I have to remember to bring some film to start right away. I'm so excited.

Canon A1 SLR.

It is super heavy so I ordered a camera strap but I think I need to wear my wrist support to hold this thing. :) So stay tuned to future photos.

Steampunk Raygun tutorial: quick and dirty edition

Wonder-Con is fast approaching and I'm still working on the finishing touches on Josh and I's steampunk outfits. Is that wording/grammar correct? Whatever.

Now for the all important raygun tutorial. I'm very sorry that I don't have the step by step photos to show the process from beginning to end but this is super simple.

First, find a squirt/bubble gun at your local discount store. I found these items at Daiso which is a Japanese-based discount store both for $1.50 each that is similar to our 99 cent stores but much more cooler. If you have one near you, go check out Daiso asap because it's awesome. The smaller gun is a bubble gun, your typical cheapie plastic toy. Picture it in its pre-painted state...think bright yellow, orange and green. The bigger gun at the bottom is a squirt gun.

My first raygun testing the paint and polish.

I had to research how to paint plastic and had a vague idea when I went to Home Depot of what I needed but the guy directed my to this spray paint which has primer in it so really a one step process. I used Oiled Bronze.

Paint and Polish.

Go outside and spray away. Dries quickly in a hour or two then spray the other side. Let dry again. Now, I was stumped as to how to paint/color the trim & other areas on the gun. Once again, Daiso came to the rescue...metallic nail polish for $1.50 each. I got a copper and silver polish.

I added the polish to the areas that I wanted to pop and that was lots of fun. Easy to apply, just go light on the small areas then you can reapply another coat if you want.

That's it! There are lots of ways to do your own personal raygun and this is just one of many. Hope that helps you to find the method that works best for you!

Finished raygun.

Close up.

Barrel.

I'm  debating whether or not to paint the bulbous part at the back of the gun copper but I'll leave it as is.

Serious moves

And to get this weekend started....



This man has some serious rhythm and moves. He made me smile. :) Everyone should enjoy life to the fullest.

Here is the link from Buzzfeed.

Video Friday

Whiskey and knitting. :)

Odds and Ends

I finished my little mini hat topper a while ago and finally got around to looking for embellishments. I went to Joanns armed with their latest flyer/coupons and spent lots of time looking at ribbons etc. I finally decided on a black elastic ribbon (?) that is more like a fancy elastic band but it looks nice. I also wanted some feathers or some visual interest and this hair clip is the best I could do. Plus it matched the ribbon/hat.

The hair piece has a alligator jaw style clasp and also a pin fastener so I used both to attach it to the hat which took me several tries to get it just the way I want. I didn't glue anything down so I can always change it later...





I just need to put something underneath so I can pin it to my hair with bobby pins. Pretty happy with it.

Still working on my steampunk outfit along with Joshua's for Wonder Con. :)

Hat Trick

Hockey is such a fickle sport. You never know whats going to happen. The game can be awful with sloppy play and general yuckiness. Your team plays practically the entire first period (20 minutes) before getting their first shot on goal (horrible). Then the second period starts and your team is doing better, skating and scoring chances improve. Bam, your team scores on a weird touch of the puck and then you're thinking, oh please hang on and don't let the other team score!! By the 3rd period, the score is still 1-0 but something exciting happens. The 1st scorer Jeff Carter scores again! 19 seconds later, Carter scores again! A natural hat trick.

We were not at the game this night, I had given our tickets to our niece and her husband so they got to experience something very cool. :) On free hat night too...

It was quite funny because soon after the hat trick, my niece texts me asking what was going on? It was her first hockey game and she had no clue what was going on. In addition, my SIL texted me asking why people are throwing hats. She doesn't think of using Google so I was being a smartass and texted back that throwing babies & beer is frowned upon! ;)

So in conclusion, never turn away or leave a hockey game because great things can happen even when it looks hopeless.







Never LEAVE a hockey game in progress!!!! This night we gave our tickets away (there's a trend I need to stop. lol) and the couple left!!! We didn't know this until the next day when Hector was talking to the guy saying what a great win the Kings had & the guy didn't know about the comeback!!

Friday's video on Monday...

which is Everyday is like Sunday.



In celebration of Morrissey performing in Los Angeles Friday....xoxox

Monday

Monday is here again with more spring/summer weather over the weekend and now we're back to 66* temps.

With the warmer weather, I asked Josh is he'd like to start riding his skateboard again and that answer is, "Yes!"

The sidewalk at the park by the school is nice and wide with grass on either side. Josh is pretty good at stopping if people/children are walking by to let them pass.

trying to get Josh from looking down too much

Much better

Lean

Essentials

Josh likes to try new things. The latest is crouching down to touch the board.

I wanted to get to the beach for sunset on Sunday but was a bit late. Still a pretty view of PV.