A side trip into the twitterverse...

Posting regularly on a blog about crafting is tough when it just took me an extra three months to finish my mom's christmas socks... But as soon as I mail them, Mom will actually be able to keep both feet warm! 

In the mean time, I'm giving this other social media thing a try. Can't promise to say anything interesting, but if you are interested in following me, I've started tweeting a little, @botanyboeh! I promise not to post things like, "I'm eating cheerios for breakfast" but there may be too many pictures of the cats... I can't help it they they are cute. ;)

What do you think, is twitter just too weird?

Shoe Shelves

 I, like plenty of others, may have developed a slight shoe problem. It's been exasperated by our addiction to thrift shopping, and hindered by our lack of storage space in this apartment. The layout of our bedroom closet has been bothering me for a while. I knew that there was a lot of wasted space, but wasn't sure how to utilize that high empty wall, without having to spend money. I finally came up with a way to use that wall to store my heels.

I've seen plenty of shoe rail diy ideas around the web, usually they use some kind of molding. I hunted around in my stash of wood, and found these drawer fronts. They were left over from my drawer shelf project. A couple of nails for each, and they hung up really easy on the wall. 

Tada! The project probably took about 15 minutes total, and cost a grand total of zero dollars. Win-win! 

Handmade Christmas

This year we went home-made again for Christmas presents. (Yes, I realize that Christmas was almost a month ago! I get bogged down sorting pictures and trying to edit them together.) This year we gave away six-packs of Henry's home brew (yummy!), cappuccino fudge and butter toffee (yummier!), and hand-knit presents. I love making presents for people I love, I feel like it keeps me more in the spirit of giving, than the typical checking items off the shopping list. My Farmor used to say that when she knit me a sweater that there was love in every stitch. I like to try to do the same. 

Cabled iPad Cover

Owl Cable Socks

Hobo Bag

Cappuccino Fudge

Rattle Them Bones Dance Project

At the end of August, Tory heard about a pretty cool challenge from the band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. They were releasing a new album, and were putting out a call for swing dancers to record themselves dancing to a song from the cd. Henry and Tory ran with the idea, and created some really fun choreography to base their September and November Brew City Hops classes on. They used the choreography to teach basic charleston moves, covering solo, hand to hand, and tandem. The students did a great job, for some of them, it's their first foray into charleston. I recorded during classes on my phone, and a group of dancers went out on the town in November to get some iconic "Milwaukee" shots. I took all of this footage and put it together in iMovie. Its the first time since high school that I've taken on a significant video editing project, iMovie has changed a lot since then! It took me a while to find work-arounds to get the clips to land just on the beat, and it's by no means perfect, but I'm proud of how it turned out. And I'm even more proud of how we can use this to show-off how great the Milwaukee dancers are. What a talented and fun-loving group of people, huh?

Shelves for Sheldon

 Well, we finally managed to pull it off, and I think we did rather well! Buying cat furniture is pretty ridiculous, these cat wall shelves cost over $200!! We made ours for just over $30. (2 48" shelf boards for $3.00 a piece, 6 10" 'over/under shelf brackets for $2.30 a piece, screws, and a 12' x 2' piece of indoor/outdoor carpet for $12.45)

Here is the wall to be donated to Sheldon's jungle gym. I've had a quilt my Oma made me hanging here, but the cats were always trying to sharpen their claws on it, and I am glad they won't be damaging it anymore. 

Once we cut the boards to length (2 2@32", 1 @12"), we wrapped them in carpet. To make our lives easier, we hot-glued the carpet to hold it in place, and then tacked it more securely with staples. 

Once we got the first shelf up, we thought we should give it a test. It passed, although this picture doesn't quite show the enthusiasm on his face... 

It works! Its amazing how quickly he figured it out, and then proceeded to sleep on the high shelf the rest of the afternoon. I guess some cats just need to be up high!

Crazy Cat Lady

My dad once told me, I hope you don’t make the same excuses for your children that you do for your cat. Sheldon is… a handful. If he’s in the mood, he’ll pee on anything soft left on the floor (shoes, bags, boxes, blankets), and gets anxious when we have company over. Instead of leaving the room, he stands his ground, and confronts the invaders. Unfortunately, this means that most of our friends are scared of him. The thing is, Sheldon is such a smart and sweet cat. He’s the best snuggler, and you can see his wheels turning as he tries to work out the solution to a problem. I’ve taught him to sit on command, he can open drawers, and loves to climb. I strongly feel his biggest issue is just that he needs more territory than the small apartment. He loves to explore the basement, and would love to go outside, I just can’t let him do those things when he wants to… that little problem of neighbors. Since giving him up just isn’t an option, he’s too much a beloved member of the family, we are trying to get creative with solutions to enrich his environment. The more entertained he is, the less he drives us crazy. We are in the process of installing “cat shelves” on one wall of our living room. The limiting reagent is free carpet, but once we track some down, I’m excited to see how it works!

Woodland Gnomes Box

Inspired vaguely by Moomin Valley, gnomes, and the arrival of fall, my latest creation is a trinket box covered with flowers and vines.