Call Your Mummy!

Another new Halloween fold, this time it's a mummy's head.

And I'm all for equality, so I made some silly girlie mummies as well.

This fold is more 'paper wadding' than true origami, but it's simple and fun!

Living Room DONE!

Dear God, it feels GREAT to have even one room in this house DONE--cleaned, painted and decorated. There is so much to do here that a lot of the time it feels like a 'fish or cut bait' dilemma, we don't know what to do first.

Boring, ugly living room before:

And after!  New wall paint and trim paint, plus the whole 'scrub the fireplace top to bottom and refinish the wood mantle' thing. Also, curtains up and pictures on the walls! The ugly metal blinds are staying for now, since they are mostly covered while raised and will do their job come winter. You can see where I stopped painting, I have to paint one side of the room, then shift all the furniture to the other side before I can paint the opposite walls.

Of course, because of the way this house is constructed, you can't just hang a curtain rod. Oh, no. It is a roaring pain in the ass to hang anything heavier than a very small picture on the walls, you have to find studs, buy special types of hangers, plan for weight distribution...bleah.

But hey, one down!

Except...except for the 'siliconed-shut window' thing courtesy of the previous tenants, may they rot stinking in Hell for all of eternity. Here's why:

By dint of doing some investigating of the realtor's pictures of the house when it was for sale, we realized the reason for the weird silicone thing--the previous owners had a window air conditioner mounted there and had thought it a GREAT idea to silicone the damned thing into place. A closer look at the 1/2 inch-thick layer of silicone they cheerfully filled the window and it's channels with:

It goes around all three sides of the window and is on the window and the channel. It won't peel off but instead most be laboriously picked at, coming loose in tiny bits & pieces. I worked on it for a few minutes before realizing that it was going to take at least one whole day to get this gunk out of there.

I tell you, I laughed and sang the entire time I worked on it.
Really.
Honest.

Mantlepiece Refinishing!

As I was going around the living room, scraping, patching and cussing the previous foks who did the same, I realized that the fireplace mantlepiece, a long hunk of wood, was in dire need of refinishing. It was just lying in place anyway and had to be reattached, and since I'm painting and whatnot all around it, now was the time to get it done. I also went ahead and did warm-season fireplace maintenance while I was at it, cleaning the glass in the door, cleaning the stove & reblacking it and scrubbing the old soot off the fireplace brick. Funny how one job can blossom like a freakin' flower into many more...

So I carted the thing on out to the back yard. Here it is before I started, note the huge burned/waterstained (I don't know how they managed THAT in the same spot) spot, and the glopped-on wall paint along with the overall worn and tired look.

I didn't want to replace it right now, and refinishing is fairly quick and easy for me since I've done many projects like this with wood. So I stripped it down to the wood, filled a few spots and sanded it all smooth.

A better look at the scorched spot, I ended up having to remove some lifted & peeling wood and filled the hole with wood putty.

Next was stain: Minwax Red Oak color, since I wanted to go a bit darker to help hide the burned spot.

After that I put the thing in the garage for two coats of poly varnish...varnishing outdoors would have been a recipe for insanity the way the wind blows around here. Finally, my husband removed three, yes, THREE superfluous 2x4's from inside the mantle (who knows what the Hell these people were thinking, I've given up trying to guess), redesigning the thing so it fits properly in it's spot and actually caps the fireplace brick rather than balancing awkwardly on top.

So here it is, all done and back in place!

Not the greatest picture, granted, but I got all excited about getting it back into place and forgot to take pics before it was reinstalled, so I had to stand on tiptoe and hold the camera up at a weird angle.

Best of all, it is no longer a hazard to walk near for fear of it leaping off the wall and beaning you on the head, which I'm all for.

Two New Folds...

First off, crabs!

With a few changes, the crab model would transform nicely to a monster's head.

Then, just in time for Halloween, some goofy little ghosts.

The ghosts only have a few steps, but are surprisingly fussy to fold and I need more practice with them.

Next will be some bats if I can get the folds down...both models are giving me trouble--and a jack-o-lantern.

It's Dusty!

We'd promised the kid we'd get a dog when we moved...so here is our new family member--and our daughter's 13th birthday present--Dusty!

We found her on Craigslist, her owners (two ladies both named Jennifer) were moving and needed to rehome her. She is perfectly wonderful in every way--quiet, polite, well-mannered and housebroken. Dusty is a Cocker/Schnauzer mix--a 'Schnocker' according to the Jennifers. They were kind enough to leave her with us for a weekend to see how things went--we weren't sure how Dusty would react to the other animals and the chickens--but after an initial curious inspection, she disregarded them. Heck, she doesn't even go after the quail and other wild birds that walk around near her in the yard.

She knows she isn't allowed on the couch though, which prompted this expression when I took this picture:

The kid and dog are inseperable, Dusty has a special pillow to sleep on at night right next to her bed. The other night, after running around playing with the dog the kid flopped down on the living room carpet, dog in arms and sighed, 'Best birthday ever.'

Thanks, Jennifers! :)

Another New Fold...

This time it's worms!

This one is mostly for the newer paper, it demands too much of the older, thicker paper and it tears it too easily. But it's a very simple fold. This one, with the addition of wings, might make a nifty butterfly model.

It also makes....
wait for it...

Bookworms!

*i'm so sorry...*

New Origami Folds, Yay!

Two new folds that I've been working on, the first is a 50's style dress, this one is fun because the top can be altered to make it a sundress, off the shoulder, camp dress, etc. Lots of fun with my older papers and 50's style prints.

The second is more of a party-prom-ballerina dress in two parts, not as versatile a fold but it sure comes out pretty, and is very striking. Plus I finally found a great fold for my glitter paper!

Both were a bit tricky to master in parts, but once I got the fold down and practiced they came along swimmingly! Other new diagrams coming up soon are a worm, octopus and flower.