I Spy


Next Thursday BYU’s Museum of Art is opening an exhibit of the work of the Walter Wick, the photographer behind the popular I Spy series of children’s books and other projects.

The exhibition opens on February 26th with games and activities for kids from 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm and an appearance by Wick himself. Later that night there will be a lecture by Wick at 7 pm.

If you’re local and need a fun (and free!) place to take the kids or yourself, check it out. The exhibition runs through August 1st so you have a while.

Details can be found here.

Queen Bee Creations

Rebecca Pearcy, the creative mind behind Queen Bee Creations, used to be based in my hometown. When I was growing up I would see her bags and wallets in shops downtown and really liked them but they were far outside my meager teenage budget. I love her pieces but even now they still cost more than what I usually spend on a purse.

A couple of years ago N surprised me with one of her bags for a birthday present. I really love it and use it to tote around my stuff with I’m out without E and don’t need a diaper bag. The bag is really durable and because it’s vinyl it’s easy to wipe clean (a must after woodworking class). It’s distinctive without being too cutesy-looking and I get quite a few compliments on it.

A quick search on Etsy turned up some other sellers that work in vinyl but I think I still prefer Rebecca’s designs.

Smiling in his sleep

Sometimes I need to wake up E from a nap in order to get to an appointment on time. I don’t like doing it–waking him on purpose just squanders the increasingly rare gift of toddler-free time. And sometimes he gets confused at being woken up and looks stricken and cries.

So last week when I had to wake him up early I decided to at least get a picture out of it.

Jewelry Boxes: Update 1

Well, I found my memory card. It was sitting on a package of socks I had bought for E (of course).

Anyway, these photos are from the first two weeks of class.

My plans and the raw lumber.

I decided to base the jewelry boxes off of these plans I found in an old copy of Woodsmith magazine. (Yes, I said “boxes.” I am, perhaps very foolishly, planning to make more than one.) The orange boards running vertically in the photo are African lacewood, a kind of pricey exotic, which I’m going to use on the lids. The boards running horizontally are walnut (a big favorite of mine) which the boxes themselves will be made out of.

The first week of class I planed and sanded the walnut down to 5/8″ thick and then cut the fronts and backs and ends to size. If I’m cutting two pieces that need to be the exact same size I like to tape them together and cut them at the same time to ensure they’re uniform.

A side piece and the front of the box in the dovetail jig.

This last Wednesday I cut the dovetails for the box joints. The plans called for another type of joint but I wanted to learn how to cut dovetails so I switched it up. I think dovetails can be very pretty. Because they’re very strong structurally dovetails are considered a sign of quality craftmanship and you’ll see them used in higher end kitchen cabinetry and furniture.

Cutting the dovetails with the router.

The cut dovetailed joint. The jig offsets the two pieces so when they’re flipped around they’ll fit together.

The cut dovetails. The jig I used cuts blind dovetails and so they will only be visable on the sides of the boxes.

When I finished cutting the dovetails for the three boxes without any major mishaps I breathed a big sigh of relief. Next I need to cut the grooves for the bottom of the box and tray supports, sand the insides, and glue the boxes together with the bottoms.

Absentminded Me

So I wanted to post about the progress I’m making on the jewelry boxes…and so I took the memory card out of my camera to download the pictures I took at class…and then I was distracted by my increasingly-active toddler and set the card down somewhere.

That was yesterday and I am still looking for it. *grumble, grumble, sigh.*

So (hopefully) I’ll have a real post up later with pictures.

Goin’ Ape-pricot

Lately, I’ve been into painting my nails. Growing up I was a bit of a tomboy and have still never had a professional manicure. But as the mother of an active toddler there’s something pleasingly decadent about having polished nails. (My clothes may be a bit sloppy, my hair may be in a hurried ponytail, but hey, at least my nails look nice!)

Granted, the polish doesn’t stay nice-looking for that long (especially with woodworking class) but I enjoy it while it lasts. To the left is one of my favorite colors right now. It’s called Goin‘ Ape-pricot and is actually more of a bright coral-ish color rather than straight orange once it’s on.

Anyway, the only free time I have for nail painting is while N and I are watching TV in the evening after E has gone to bed. After being so busy during the day I enjoy having to just sit still and wait for the polish to dry.

It’s a small thing, but I find it relaxing. And after a particularly difficult day with E, I’ll take any relaxation I can find.

Watching: Star Trek V with Rifftrax

Over the weekend we had some friends over for dinner and a movie. We had talked about watching a movie with a Rifftrax and decided on Star Trek V.

Rifftrax are downloadable commentary tracks by Mike from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and company. You download the audio track from the Rifftrax website and play it out of the speakers of your computer or stereo during the movie. And hilarity ensues.

We chose Star Trek V because it’s famous for being a very bad movie. I had never seen it before but was not disappointed by the corniness. William Shatner directed it and it is, well, simply stunning. But the commentary track elevated the awfulness to a whole new level.

Here’s a clip of the Star Trek V Rifftrax.

I would recommend trying Rifftrax, especially if you were a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s $3.99 to download the commentary of feature-length films and they have a pretty good selection of recent and “classic” films including Ironman, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Dirty Dancing, Top Gun, etc… You can look through the catalog here.

With a lot of people trying to save money now days, downloading a Rifftrax for a movie you already own is a good way to watch it in a whole new (and funnier) way.