PVC Silk Painting Frame

Making a silk banner painting frame from PVC is easy and economical!  I used 1/4" pvc pipe and fittings, rubber bands, binder clips and straight pins to make a knock-down frame that I can store in the attic in a tub when I'm not using it.

This is everything I need to paint a 14"x74" banner!

Start by cutting the pvc.  You should make sure that your pieces are not less than 4" longer than your piece is wide.  If you have a really long dimension, you will want to break it up into shorter lengths, and join them together with connecters.

Here you can see my corners, and the connectors (which I use for longer banners).

You will want to make sure that you cut your pvc pieces in pairs, of course!  Join them together.  The "feet" of the connectors will keep your piece slightly off your table.  If you are working outside, you can easily add legs to these connectors so that you can work at waist height.  I am working at the table, so the short height is good - the silk can be easily released so that I can trace my design from a sheet laid out underneath the banner (this is not shown).

You can see that the frame is a bit wider than the silk.  This is necessary!

Take your binder clips now, and put a rubber band in each one.  If you need more length, chain the rubber bands together so that you can loop a band around the pvc pipe, and nearly reach the silk with the clip.

The chained rubber bands, in the binder clip.

Looped around the pvc pipe.

Now take a straight pin, and bend it into an acute angle.  This will go into the hem of the silk, and is used so that the binder clip can "grab" the silk.

Bent pins

A pin, in the silk hem.  The binder clip grabs the head of the pin, the acute angle of the pin keeps the pin from rotating and slipping out of the silk.

 

 

Now stretch the silk, taking care to do so evenly, so that the pins are about equal around the silk and pulling roughly opposite each other. 

Now you are ready to paint!

Wordless Wednesday: Autumn Flower Edition

Easy Superhero Cape

My little girl has been on a superhero kick lately, and she's been taking my nursing cover and tying it around her neck and running around the house, just to let the cover flap behind her as she runs, pretending to be a superhero.  Needless to say, I didn't relish the thought of my precious 2 year-old wrapping long fabric ties around her neck, so I thought I'd make her a superhero cape of her very own!

Review: Alphabet Zoo

Well this is the first children's book that I've like well enough to write a review about.  Alphabet Zoo is a lovely book that has amazing illustrations of all kinds of things that start with each letter!

We love this book for lots of reasons!

• It's a board book, so it's very sturdy!  Also, it's MUCH larger than the other board books that we have, it's about 10 inches tall, making it a good book to share together.
• The illustrations are so very colorful.  There is so much to look at on each page, and so many things that start with each letter!  We can just sit forever asking, "what do you see?", "can you find the ___?"
• The letters themselves are really big.  This is one of my pet peeves about alphabet books - so many of them don't emphasize the individual letters themselves very well, so it's hard for a letter-learner to pick them out.  With this book, there's no confusion about what letter you're talking about!
• Did I mention the pictures???  So colorful!  So varied!  So many silly things to look at!

We got this book at our local thrift store, but you can find it on Amazon, too. The ISBN for it is: 0752598880 and the title and author is Alphabet Zoo by Stephen Holmes.

-The Messy Mommy

Organizing Sheets

Keeping our sheet sets organized and together is a challenge when you have two children in twin beds and the hubs and I in our queen, and no linen closet in the house!  So I devised this way to combat the problem of keeping sheet sets from getting scattered in a kid's room, and as a bonus, my method also prevents the pillowcases from sliding off of the pillow in the night!

Finger Drawing Sensory Pad

Make a Sensory Pad to practice making shapes!

Homeschool Beginnings

"Begin at the beginning,", the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."  -Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

So we are lucky enough to be able to start homeschooling our younger two kids at the beginning of their learning "career".  I can't express to you just how excited I am to have the chance to help my daughters become life-long learners, rather than just a memorizer of information, to pass a standardized test.

Right now, we are learning our letters and numbers.  At 2.5, she "knows" them all, but only by rote.  So in an effort to get her ready for phonics, we will be doing a kind-of relaxed "Alpha-Boot Camp" to get her familiar with each letter and learn to recognize them, and to grasp the concept that the numbers stand for something.

Our Last Foray (for now)

It's the last Space Shuttle launch tomorrow, so I'm posting this video to remind us all of an era of majesty, coming to a close.  I hope that soon, we will return to space.

(A saddened) Messy Mommy

Ginger-Rose Lemonade Concentrate

This is quickly becoming a summer family favorite of ours.  It's spicy and refreshing and different!  I love the subtle floral flavor, it makes me feel like I'm at a spa.  Plus it's easy to make up a head of time, and store until you want to mix some up.  Great for picnics and social functions - we bring our big drink dispenser and mix up a gallon or two at parties for something different than plain old iced tea and soda.

clayirving/Flickr via Creative Commons

I got the inspiration for this drink at a food festival where they were selling Nimbu Paani at an Indian food stall.  Traditionally, ginger and lemon are supposed to be cooling, and good the the digestion.  Here's to your health!

Shopping List:
1 large ginger root
Rosewater (can be found at Middle Eastern groceries or health food stores.  Make sure that it's food grade, rosewater is also used in cosmetics.  I paid $6 for a bottle, but it goes a long way.)



From the Pantry:
sugar
lemon juice


Here's the recipe:

Pretty Jewelry Catch Tray

A pretty place to put your jewelry!