Douglas at the new project table …I’m a big fan of SAJ and she’s got a gig with Alpha Mom that’s turned out some cool craft projects. If you’re hitting the summer doldrums and need some ideas, take a look!
I’m also addicted to the New Dress a Day blog, which has me scarily inspired to start mucking around with my sewing machine and some old clothes that aren’t quite favorites. I’ve finally gotten the sewing machine OUT which is huge progress, it’s normal home is wedged in our single tiny bedroom closet, to the left of a filing cabinet which fills the entire doorway. I have to deadlift the heavy old thing over the filing cabinet while batting away my husband’s suits (which he wears once every 2 years but that’s another story) and sweaters. Swearing is usually involved. So are pinched fingers. Douglas is sewing madly away as I write, trying to stitch the word Mitten onto a series of tiny silk scraps he’s sewing into some form of a mitten.
The craftiness is partly inspired because … drumroll … I finally have a surface (other than my kitchen table) on which to do projects!! We bought a used table from a neighbor, and made room for it in our bedroom. Along with a big whiteboard being used as an idea board, it’s a place to work on my creative assignments for my SIL’s big wedding which is in less than 2 months. I can’t think about how many things I have to get done before then, but having them all out in one place at least helps me keep track of them. That big box under the table is full of fabric that has to be sewn into panels, for example. Enough about that …
Hangman is a throwback game which I recently introduced to Douglas, and he loves … we just play it with pen/paper when we’re stuck somewhere. Crafty, no, but a good summer boredom-saver nonetheless!
We’ve done a lot of coloring, Fynn and I, and it’s surprisingly entertaining. He gets his dad to custom-draw stuff, but there are loads of cheap coloring books out there at places like the dollar store, and switching up the coloring options helps a lot. Markers, crayons, oil pastels, paints, colored pencils, or whatever you can find. Breaking open some new school supplies a few weeks early might buy you more time!
We’re living at the pool as much as possible, as the heat is back in full force. I’m drenched in sweat as I type this, thanks to the sun pouring in my window and my decision that the breeze outweighs blocking off the sun. Speaking of pool, it’s time to go wake up Fynn and head to the backyard wading pool as it’s in a fresh-rather-than-green-slime state today.
Any dregs-of-summer sanity savers that you want to share?