I could have been a Children's Writer

I am finished for the semester and am working on some homemade books for the nieces and nephews. The ones I made last time were pretty simple so in this version, 2.0, I have to make them more weird. I've found that when trying to rhyme words you can come up with a lot of possibilities. So I write out all of the letters of the alphabet and based the morphology of our words I can go through the letters and see what makes a word. If I pick the filthy option, the sad little kids will never read the book so I have to find something that is innocent and fits the story. After I give them all out I will post some pictures but from 1.0 here's what they were.

Title: What is a ______(kid's name)
 (assuming it's a girl)
Is she a bird?
Is she a bee?
Is she a dog?
Is she a tree?
Is she a flower?
Is she a mouse?
Is she an alligator?
Is she a house?
Is she a ladybug?
Is she a boat?
Is she a doll?
Is she a goat?
I know! ______ is a little girl!
 
And then a picture of the kid.
 
 
Also,  version 1.1 (for Cian's 3rd birthday)
 
Spiderman
 
He likes to climb walls,
And swing across buildings,
And then come eat dinner when his mom calls.
He likes to jump very high,
And run very quick,
Then hurry and take a bath,
So he doesn’t get sick.
And then he goes to his bed,
And his mommy turns out the light
And he dreams about climbing walls,
And mommy kisses him goodnight.
 
This time around I'm doing three versions for three different age levels. So now I have to come up with rhymes that are made of very short words. I have two all finished and need one more.

Books About You

I just got back from a Fall Break vacation and have some time to catch this blog up. Seriously, grad school is sucking my soul away.

I have a few young nieces, nephews and shorties belonging to friends all having birthdays recently. I wrote out some short rhyming stories (not an actual narrative) on cardstock and then colored pictures with crayons.

Cian really likes Spiderman so I made him something different:

Not the whole books but the kids liked them. Cian wanted Spiderman read to him 5 or 6 times in a row when he opened it.

What is it With Zombies These Days?

I saw some of these boxes around crafty sites and though they were awesome. My friend Louis kept talking about seeing Resident Evil 3D so I figured he needed one. This is sort of small but plexiglass is expensive. I used a nerf gun I spray painted black and made a stencil out of cardstock and contact paper. I've made 3 of these boxes so far and my woodworking has been improving over the course of them.

I did open it up and tuck the pamphlet back behind the gun and the white words needed to be scrubbed with steel wool and water to clean up a bit but over all I liked the project.

Warning Pamphlet

Hobbes

I've been seeing a lot of attempts at Hobbes on http://www.craftster.org/ and thought this would be a good time to try it myself. I couldn't find a pattern so I printed out a picture of one of the newer crocheted attempts and just kinda tried to match it. This is attempt #5 or #6 I can't remember. The last one I absolutely hated and gave to some kids that liked it and I saw it again recently and it's really not all that bad. This one I left with my cute niece and nephew in Houston so I'll need to make one more for myself and at least one more for them so they don't kill each other over it.

Painting a Shirt

I sent some onsies to my brother and sister in law and posted an instructable on how to draw on them with permanent marker. Someone commented on it with images painted on and then posted one on that so I had to try it. I've drawn on shirts before, usually a cathedral with a fine tip sharpie but this was different.

My Instructable: How to Decorate a Onsie wWith a Permanent Marker

And my shirt painting:

Shirt Painting Instructable

I lied.

I do have some time and it helps with stress but anyway... I signed up for a swap on www.instructables.com and have been working on this book for the past week. It's due by the end of the month and after agreeing to do this I didn't realize how much time it would take. 

The binding is Ethiopian double needle coptic stitch and scrap leather for the covers. The book block is made from old computer punch cards I got from the work Christmas party last December. I cut the back pieces out of different leather and the watch parts are from my stash.

I am really stressed about my swap partner liking this. He said no pink but he wanted pretty much anything. I brought it to work for opinions and a coworker offered to buy it from me so I guess it'll be ok.

Homework

I really don't have a lot of time these days. I can do birthday gifts mostly and then the rest is all homework. So here's my homework for Ed Psych 6447, Intro to Web Based Tools and Applications. I did the layout in Fireworks and then setup the site in Dreamweaver. Project One sucks compared to this one so we'll just skip it.

Project Two