Paul the Samurai Shrinking Dinks!

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Warren with his Paul the Samurai shrinky dink!

When my family was visiting for Thanksgiving, I pulled out the shrinky dink project because my 8-year-old nephew loves making them.  This year I taught him that you can trace images and they turn out really cool. 

Brandon showed him all of his Tick comics and Warren devoured them, so needless to say the things he wanted to trace were of The Tick.  He made a shrinky dink of The Tick, however, his shrinky dink of Paul the Samurai was pretty amazing, plus it seemed as though he really like Paul since he seemed to know everything about him and was quoting him while tracing...so cute :)

I got a couple of action shots.  Brandon and myself were preppy the No. 6 plastic so that Warren could keep on making them till his heart was content.

Thanksgiving Centerpiece on the Cheap

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Everyone has been posting their favorite Thanksgiving decor ideas and so I thought I would join in on the fun.  Actually I love to make flower arrangements using Rosemary.  Now rosemary is pretty ubiquitous in Portland, Oregon.  It's hard to walk down a street and not see a hardy rosemary bush growing from which you can more than likely procure a few stalks and be on your way, so it makes for a very cheap resource.
Imagine my delight on Saturday when I came home to find my neighbor was cutting back her plants for the winter and there was tons of rosemary and marigolds and golden oregano and regular oregano and fennel just lying there on the sidewalk waiting to be composted.  I grabbed up an armful of various plants and headed home.
Here's the outcome.

As you all know I have been merrily making terrariums for the past couple of months, so I would like to add that a terrarium perhaps decorated with some fall themed figurines or objects would make the perfect centerpiece as well.
Here's my latest terrariums.  They are not fall themed and I am up to 10 terrariums now.  I bet everyone knows what they are getting for Christmas!

Framed Wallpaper

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I hope everyone had a delightful Thanksgiving spending time with loved ones and sharing delicious food.  I hosted Thanksgiving this year and it turned out great.  My brother picked up my mom and brought my two adorable nephews and stayed at my house.  Brandon's mom and sister flew out from Chicago and stayed in a vacation rental just three blocks away on Hawthorne.

Brandon and myself really went crazy with the cleaning and getting ready the week before and we managed to finish a project that I'd been meaning to do for 6 months; nothing like guests coming to motivate you.

I have always had a love for interesting wallpaper and I didn't realize until we finished up this project how many pieces of framed wallpaper I actually have.

It all started with this piece.  I found this interesting wallpaper sample at SCRAP when I first started volunteering about 6 years ago.  I found the frame in a free box, of course.

 

The wallpaper is called Les Caprices Orientaux.

The next piece I did was I framed a piece of beautiful blue wallpaper inside a wall clock that no longer worked from the '60s or '70s that I happened upon at the bins.

And finally the project that Brandon and myself did a few days before Thanksgiving; I absolutely love velvet wallpaper.  You can just imagine how excited I was when I came across a book of about 8 velvet wallpaper samples at an estate sale for a super cheap price.  You may have seen in other pictures that I have a collection of gold frames.  I think I have found all of them at the bins or perhaps a free box or two.  Yes, you guessed it, I framed the velvet wallpaper with gold frames.  Here's the outcome:

 

I received a lot of compliments from my family and friends over the velvet wallpaper, so I guess it's a success.

Happy Holidays ~