Iroh Destiny Quote

Two nights ago my husband and I watched the Avatar: The Last Airbender finale, all four episodes. We wanted to watch something, and that sounded good. And it was good. During one of the episodes, Iroh said a quote that I really liked, so I wrote it down on a scrap of paper. My husband suggested I make a design for it. Since I love to save quotes by pinning them, I decided to design and pin the quote.

I had an idea for the border, so I looked for a stock image that I could at least modify to make what I wanted. I didn't find anything that seemed quite right, but they did give me some ideas. After mulling it over some more, I decided to attempt to create the type of border I wanted. I opened up Adobe Illustrator and started trying to create something like what I envisioned. After some trial and error, I created something I felt would work. I designed four intertwining strands in the colors of blue, green, red, and yellow to represent the four nations—Water, Earth, Fire, Air. I then got the idea to put some icon in each corner to represent each nation. I found a stock image that had exactly what I needed.

Once I finished designing the border, I added the background and text. I wasn't completely satisfied with the design, but I liked it alright. I wrote this post and had my husband read the post. He told me not to post it until I really liked my design. So, today, I revised my design and this post. In the end, I have two variations of the design that I like. So, without further ado, here are my designs.

Which do you like best? Tell me in the comments below. 

Making a Dry Erase Menu Board

Have you ever had the following scenario happen to you?

"What should we have for dinner tonight?"

"I don't know. What do you want?"

"I don't know."

Open and close fridge, freezer, and cupboards, and still you have no idea what to eat for dinner. 

That scenario happened all too often in our home. And after seeing numerous menu planning ideas on Pinterest, I decided to make us a dry erase menu board. I read one blog post (which I can no longer find) and used it loosely as my guide. Here's my process. 

Step One: Gather supplies. I picked a frame (from the stack of available frames at my family's house), chose a colored card stock (I chose an off white/light tan that I thought complemented the gold frame), and gathered some gel pens (my husband gave me a huge pack of gel pens as an early Christmas present last year; I chose to use the metallic ones for this project). Oh, and a ruler.

Step Two: Draw the blank menu onto the card stock. I used the ruler to mark off the lines for eight boxes. It took a little math to figure out the right sizing, but once I had it figured out, I easily made my grid, with the ruler ensuring I drew straight lines. I chose to write the names for each day in different colors, and I labeled the extra square, "Notes." 

Step Three: Put the card stock into the frame. And admire.

Step Four: Find a dry erase marker and fill out your menu for the week. 

Simple as that. This is my kind of project. 

Having this menu board has really helped us. Now only once a week do we ask the question "What should we eat for dinner?" It has also reduced our trips to the store. It had gotten to the point where we were going to the store three or four times a week to get something we needed in order to make the dinner we decided on. 

Also, don't be afraid to change your plan any time during the week. For the week shown in the picture above, we were going camping on Friday and had decided that Chicken Caesar Sandwiches (recipe from Two Healthy Kitchens) would work well to take with us for our dinner. We had tried the recipe out for the first time the week before. It was an easy and delicious meal. However, Jason decided to change the meal. He wouldn't tell me what he had changed it to. He did the prep Thursday night (I wasn't allowed in the kitchen), and Friday night he cooked it over the fire he made. We enjoyed a delicious tin foil dinner of roast and veggies.

Finding Joy in Creating

Yesterday, while scrolling through Facebook instead of "being productive," the title of an article caught my eye—"Elder Oaks Provides Surprising Answer to the Question 'Where Do We Find Our Greatest Joy?'" Joy is a concept that has always drawn me in. My favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon is 2 Nephi 2:25—"Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." So, I clicked on the link to LDS Living article, and then followed the link to the full Deseret News article. In it I found the the following quote:

I loved the quote and immediately went to Pinterest to see if I could find it to pin it. To my disappointment, I couldn't find it. Jason suggested I create an image to pin. I initially brushed the idea off. Surely someone would create an image soon and then I could pin it. He then reminded me of what the quote said. After that, the idea dogged my heels.

Tonight I had some time, so I created it. And I did find joy in the creation process, as I generally do. I played with various fonts (thankfully having them restored after yesterday's fiasco of them all disappearing after the computer installed updates). I got to the point where I liked the fonts I had chosen, but it looked boring. So then I played with color, size, and spacing. Now I am happy with how it looks and am sharing it with all of you. Next step—pin it.

P.S. I took the picture in the background. A few weeks ago, Jason and I were driving back from Roanoke where he'd finished up the First Aid Training he needed for being a teacher. The clouds looked so gorgeous from the sunset, and I kept commenting to Jason on how pretty they were. When we stopped by Food Lion to pick a few groceries before going home, I took pictures of the clouds while Jason went in for the food. The colors had begun to fade, but the clouds were still beautiful!

Yo, Tú, Nosotros—A Spanish Handout

My husband, Jason, recently got hired as a high school Spanish teacher, at the high school I graduated from. We are happy about this opportunity (though music is the field he’d rather be in). Since I love designing things, I offered to design posters or whatever he might want or need for his classroom. 

The other day, while looking through some old files for some cards I want to photograph for another blog post, I came across a file of Spanish notes and handouts from high school (I have a tendency to save a lot of things on the off chance that they might one day be useful to me again). I showed some of them to Jason. He commented that he would have liked to use one of them for his class, if only it didn’t have doodles on it. I immediately volunteered to create a new one. I well remember this handout, and I found it helpful as I learned Spanish.

I found another copy of the handout without doodling to photograph.

I decided to start with the image section from the top center, which I figured would be the most difficult and the most fun. I searched through lots of stock vector images of people and hands. I found one I could download with a lot of different people on it, all pointing up. I downloaded it, and after playing with Illustrator for a little, I figured out how to rotate the hand to make it look like the person was pointing at themselves. Hurray! Bit by bit, as I do things, I am learning how to use Illustrator (tutorials help too). 

Once I had the people pointing to themselves, I started creating the chart. I picked various people and put them in the appropriate spots. Then came the hard part, deciding what to do about the hands pointing out. I'd found some stock photos of hands pointing out, but none were in a style similar to the people. I tried playing around with one of the hands from the people to try and make it look like it was pointing out...that didn't turn out too well. I eventually downloaded a vector image and removed some of the shading and highlights.

While I put all of this together, I mulled over what to do about the hand with two fingers pointing out. I couldn't find any stock images with a hand that had two fingers pointing out, and I couldn't think of any way to modify what I had downloaded to create it, at least not with my limited skills. Luckily, inspiration finally struck. Flip the hand and have two hands, each with one finger pointing out—perfect!

I downloaded a bow tie, removed unwanted layers (spots and lines), and placed the bow tie in the usted/ustedes spots. Using lines and circles, I created the gender symbols for the vosotros spot. I even created the arrow with the help of this Adobe tutorial. I moved things around a little to make them right where I wanted them.

I finished right before dinner and called Jason over to see my progress. I told him I’d finished the people part and would work on the words later. To which he replied something like, “I don’t want the word parts. I want them to have those in their head.” I know I appreciated having that “cheat sheet” as a reference, but I do understand wanting the kids to know it. So, I shrugged my shoulders, finalized the file, and declared it done.

And here is the final product. I like it. How about you?

Making Quiet Books

Last fall I became fascinated with quiet books as posts and pins about them crossed my path. As Christmastime drew near, I decided to make a quiet book for one of my toddler nephews. I also wanted to make one for my other toddler nephew but already had a gift picked out for him. So I enlisted the help of my sister Alice. She hadn't decided on a gift for that nephew yet, so she made one for him. So, during December I made one quiet book and helped with another.

Pinterest contained a treasure trove of ideas. My starting point came from a wonderful blog post on Life With My Littles. She made an awesome book for her son, and I liked many of her pages. Scouring Pinterest, I found other ideas I liked. One day Alice and I sat down and decided what pages we wanted to do for our books. We decided to simplify things, forgoing felt, buttons, and other more difficult sewing procedures. 

Then I started gathering supplies. I already had fabric markers from the baby shower I threw for a sister-in-law in October. It took multiple trips to various stores (two Walmarts, a college bookstore, and a Michael's) to find all the necessary supplies, but eventually I found what I needed: felt (a whole rainbow of colors), eyelets, eyelet tool/smasher, and binder rings. (Note: Never go to a college bookstore to buy some small thing at the end of the semester. My husband showed me where the binder rings were and went off to his final. An hour later and a couple dollars poorer, I finally had two sets of binder rings. Luckily the person next to me also had only a small purchase, so I didn't feel like I was in it alone. If only the other register had been working...)

Eyelet tool/smasher and eyelets.

I printed some templates from various blogs (see below for specific links). After searching for tracing paper I had apparently imagined I owned, I borrowed some from my brother. I traced the patterns for me and Alice, cut out the pieces, pinned my pieces to felt, and cut them out. Watching Polar Express and talking with family kept this process from becoming tedious.

Then it was time for more planning—deciding what order to put the pages in, how to create pockets for the pieces, etc. We decided to drop a few pages each. The reality of how much time it would take to make these books was beginning to sink in.

Plan in mind, I packed up my supplies and headed over to my family's house. I used their sewing machine and thread to sew the pieces on. Sewing machines and I tend to have a love-hate relationship (mostly hate since I frequently run into problems while trying to do what I think should be quite simple). This left me quite surprised by how smoothly the sewing went with this project. The only real trouble came while sewing around the leaves on the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom pages. The places where the sewing machine caught left bunches of loose thread, not a good thing for a toddler's book. I'd recently learned about iron-on backing and thought that would be the perfect solution. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any at the store. Luckily, my mom got me some from a family friend. And that fixed the problem of the loose threads. 

Without Backing

With Backing

While tracking down iron-on backing, I tackled the next challenge of the project: creating holes where the eyelets would go. Struck by a hopefully brilliant idea, I went in search of three-ring hole punch I'd used in high school and college. Returning triumphantly with hole punch in hand, I took a page, centered it over the holes, and pushed down, hard. Then I pressed hard on each hole. Removing the felt, I found that it had cut partway through the felt and left a circle indention where it hadn't cut through. It would work. Using cloth scissors, I cut the hole completely out and admired my work. It wasn't perfect, but I was still pleased. Then it was just rinse and repeat, or in this case, line up, push until your fingers hurt, remove felt, cut out holes, repeat.

Hole punch I used. 

Once I had the holes cut out, it was time to learn how to use the eyelet tool/smasher. To supplement the tools I'd bought, my youngest sister supplied me with a 2x4" piece of wood and a hammer. With the help of some of my family, I figured out how to use the eyelet tool/smasher. I found it to be reasonably easy once I knew what I was doing.

Tired of all the explanation of the process? I am, so let’s jump to the actual pages.

Cover

To create the covers, we drew on the felt with fabric markers. My awesome husband did most of the drawing on both covers. The sewn border is there because we needed a pocket for the...

Mr. Potato Head Page

I had a lot of fun with this page. I first saw the idea on Life With My Littles, which led me to The Quiet Book Blog's template. However, my quiet book research also led me to Oopsey Daisy's simpler template (I was all about simple with this project).

I did modify the pieces some to suit my tastes and colored on the center of the eyes rather than sewing them on. 

Positioning where to sew on the Mr. Potato Head body was tricky since it had to conceal a pocket on the backside for the...

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Page

I loved reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom as a child, so when I saw the idea on Life With My Littles, I knew I had to do this page. I created the page for both books since it was more complex than Alice wanted to tackle, and I really wanted both nephews to have this page. I downloaded the template from Oopsey Daisy. I didn't like the leaves from the template, so I drew my own, and I think they turned out okay. 

Life With My Littles used the letters from her son's name. I decided to use my nephews' last names so the book can be passed down to younger siblings (if desired), plus it was less letters this way. We used fabric markers to write "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" on the page. Despite the sewing problem mentioned above, I am very happy with how these pages turned out.

At this point, the books Alice and I made took divergent paths. I will alternate between our two books as we go forward.

Wanna Build a Snowman Page

This page caught my fancy from the moment I saw it on Pinterest. I got the template from Imagine Our Life, though I simplified and modified things a little.

My husband and I loved Frozen when it came out, so we bought the CD. We listened to it repeatedly as we drove in our car until we were sick of it. When I made this page, my husband suggested the very appropriate quote from Frozen for the title of this page.

Numbers and Shapes Pages

Alice's next two pages are simple, educational matching games. We got the idea for the matching numbers from Life With My Littles and the idea for the shapes from The Quiet Book Blog.

Alice made her own template for these pieces. She traced the shape patterns onto the background with a fabric marker. If you want patterns for these pages, you can find the numbers pattern on How to Make a Quiet Book and the shapes pattern on Powerful Mothering.

Popcorn Popping Page

I found this idea on Life With My Littles, which led me to the template from Little Miss Stitcher. This page got instantly added to my "must do" list.

In my church, there is a children's song called "Popcorn Popping." It is a song beloved by many children, but it has an extra special place in my heart. As a child I looked out the window at my grandparent's home and realized that the blossoms on their apricot tree did indeed look a little like popcorn.

I liked the idea of having the "popcorn" attach to buttons on the page but found the idea too ambitious for my time frame and sewing skills. My husband suggested I make the pocket look like a flower, which I think adds an extra fun touch to the page.

Ice Cream Page

The idea for Alice's next page came from a pattern from Oopsey Daisy. She chose to keep the page simple, only three flavors to choose from: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. I really liked this page, but it didn't quite make the cut when it came to the point where we needed to reduce the scope of this project. Hopefully I can make this page in the future. 

Music Notes Page

I found this idea on Pinterest and immediately loved it. My husband is a musician (and he helped with this page), and I've always loved music. The blog this idea is on is in another language (my first guess was eastern European, and looking further it appears she is from Poland), but a picture is worth a thousand words. Ours did not turn out as awesome as hers (I believe this is what one would call a Pinterest fail), but it is the same basic idea. It works, and I do like it. But maybe with more practice we can perfect it. 

Gumball Machine Page

The last page Alice did was a gumball machine. We got the template from Oopsey Daisy, but Alice chose to just cut out the main shape in white felt and use fabric markers to color it in rather than sewing various pieces of felt together. I think it looks quite nice. 

Fly Me to the Moon Page

This is the page I am most proud of. I found the idea on Life With My Littles, which lead me to a template from Homemade by Jill. I wanted to add the embellishments to the sky (probably just some stars) but chose not to due to time constraints. However, I couldn't resist the idea to create pocket for the spaceship that looked like earth. Sewing through three layers of felt was a bit difficult (in order to sew the pocket on the page), but it worked out.

And there you have it, the quiet books Alice and I made. My first quiet book, and undoubtedly not my last. I had fun doing it, was grateful for my family's help, and look forward to doing it again someday. 

A Goal

The past several months have been quite busy. I've done a number of crafts during that time but not been able to get blog posts written. Things will probably still be quite busy for at least a couple more months, but I want to make this blog a priority. To help me do so, I am setting a goal to post at least twice a month. So, keep your eye our for more blog posts. I'm excited about many of the blog posts I have planned. I hope you enjoy them!