Crafty Nonsense Signs

So I was looking through my brother's wife's blog Poppies at Play last night. It's pretty amazing, all the craftiness she does (and her blog followers too). One thing that seems to be really popular all around, and to be honest has been popular for years, is the idea of putting vinyl lettering on a painted slab of wood. I call these nonsense signs. Well, I thought I'd get in on the action. So I've analyzed the concepts and would like to offer some better ideas to all those crafty folks out there.

The biggest thing I've noticed is that the words you put on the boards don't have to mean anything - hence the name nonsense sign. I don't mean use gibberish, I mean use any words you like.
Here's an example I found on the internet. It's a pretty cool idea. Make a bunch of oversize scrabble tiles and lay them out on your wall. The only problem with this one is that the words have no connection to one another (other than the physical cross-word connection).


Here's my update to the idea. All of the words have a meaningful connection to one another. In fact the placement to the names relative to each other may have profound meaning and should cause you to ponder.



The next idea is to choose a quote from somewhere. Here's one from the internet.



Duh! Apparently you should find a quote that states the obvious. To make it better, choose a useful quote, like this one from Yogi Berra.




The next idea is to take 2 unrelated words or phrases, put one in big bold letters and the other in small, skinny script, of contrasting color, directly on top of the other. The most common usage of this is a last name in bold and the phrase "families are forever" as the subscript. This is great, but be more creative! Pick words that are interesting to you like this.



Next we have this - and it's really fun. It's simply the last few words from a book. This is a poor example because the ellipses should be in front of the phrase indicating it is the end fragment of a sentence. But the idea is to not use a full sentence, but instead the last half or so. The best part is that the ambiguity of it's meaning is it's appeal.


Here's my version. I took the last words directly from "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"



Three more Ideas to go.

Choose a few random, alliterative nouns, and place a cute symbol between them. Here's one from the internet.


And here's my better version.



Next we have this.


It's a gerund with it's descriptor (the adjective). What the heck is "Country Living" supposed o mean? It doesn't matter! Here's mine.



The last one is the most minimalist. Simply use a single word. The best kind is is an imperative verb - like you are commanding someone. Andy made a big sign that said "Gather". Here is mine.



I hope I've inspired you to go out and buy a vinyl cutter and some wood and start making nonsense signs of your own!

Genetics

One of the fun things about being a parent is when you see how much of yourself (or your family) gets inherited by your kids. Valerie spent the last four days in Michigan, with Zoey, visiting her family. That left me home alone with the other three kids. I was able to observe a couple of cool inheritances in my kids.

First, do you remember back when I was about 13 or 14, Joe was a year younger, and Sarah was about 10? If you are a member of my family, you probably do - unless you are Caleb (who wasn't born yet) or probably Abby (who was really little). If your are not a member of my family, it's ok, remembering it isn't all that important because I'm going to tell you about it anyway - so calm down. Anyway, Mom and Dad would head off on an adventurous weekend where they would save the world in the wilds of Borneo, leaving us kids to fend for ourselves. They knew we would be safe because Sarah would babysit everyone. Well not everyone, me and Joe didn't need babysitting, but we had more important things to do than watch a bunch of kids (like play Super Mario Brothers), so we were there just in case there was an emergency. Sarah took care of everyone else. She fed them, changed diapers, bossed them arround, mediated their arguments, put them to bed, gave them baths, etc.

Well it turns out that CJ has inherited that! I was obviously a carrier of the '10 year old taking care of everyone' gene (which was deactivated in me by the presence of a Y chromosome). These past four days CJ has cooked, cleaned, fed, bathed, played with, taught, mediated, and altogether mothered Mia and Xander while Val has been gone. Me? I had better things to do (like play Playstation and XBox) . She is awesome and I really couldn't have done it (by 'it' I mean get 150 head shots with my AK-47 in Call of Duty 4) without her. All kidding aside, she gets so excited to be the mom and reminds me a ton of Sarah that way.

The next thing I observed is something inherited not from me, but from Valerie.

It was very hot on Friday. It got up to 82 degrees. Hah! you may scoff - you who live in the middle of a desert! Well, you have to understand that becasue the average temperature (with the cool breeze coming off the Bay) is about 65- 70 degrees, no one here has an air conditioner. All you need to do is open the windows and you get a wonderful natural air conditioner. That's great until the temperature reaches 80 degrees. At that point, the wind stops. Now you are in an un-airconditioned house with no breeze at all. To make things worse, we live upstairs, so all the hot air accumulates in our house. While it's 82 degrees outside, its more like 89 degrees inside. Sure we have fans blowing nonstop, but it really is unbearable.

I tell you all this so that you will have some sympathy for us. Also, I tell you this so you understand why I left Mia's bedroom window open overnight Friday night. While she slept, a swarm of twenty million mosquitos came into her room and ate her, leaving a dry husk behind. Ok, so that is an exaggeration, there was really probably just one mosqito, and rather than a dry husk, it left a plump, oozing, puss filled princess behind. You see, Mia has inherited Val's alergy to Mosqitos. I didn't even know people could be alergic to mosquitos! Of course, I have inherited my mother's mosquitophobic aura which repels mosquitos. On the rare occasion that I get bit, the mosquito either combusts spontaneously, or imediately flies off in a panic, seconds before exploding with a loud POP! (CJ has inherited this from me). Afterward, there is hardly a mark of their attack.

Poor Mia (and Val) , draws mosquitos to her. They fly from the other side of the world just to taste her blood! After they bite her, rather than the little pimple-like itchy spot most people know, she gets a huge welt or hive that is frighteningly huge. On Friday night, she got bit a total of 10 times; One on her forearm, one on her triceps, one on the tip of her finger, and 7 times across her face, giving her a black eye.





I know! I know! they look like spider bites, but they're not. As miserable as she looks, she is actually still very cheerful - she gets that from Val too. I did, however get scolded by her about leaving her window open overnight. She told me I need to remember to shut it so the mosquitos (she cant say it, so pronounces it either "skamitos" or "posquitos") don't "eat her guts".

Oh, one last thing, we're talking about genetics - we get some of our genes from an egg - i have a picture of eggs at the top of the post! Ha! I tied it in! I really just wanted to show off the smiley that my eggs made by themselves - right before we turned them into lemon bars. The mouth was actually even cooler, but by the time I grabbed the camera to take the picture, it has started to slide to the side.

One more "one last thing":

I got mutton chops!

Also known as the kissable beard, (Val won't kiss me when I have facial hair) or inverted goatee. Check out how much red hair I have!

Señor Vader

Xander just turned three, and since he is a huge Star Wars fan, we threw him a Star Wars themed birthday party. I'll let Val tell you specifics about the party on her blog, but she asked me to make something for the party, so I thought I'd share the step by step process.

The Project: a Darth Vader Piñata.

Step 1. Blow up a balloon. (you can do this your self, or ask someone with more experience to help).

Step 2. Paper-mache the balloon. (If you don't know how to do this, ask a kindergartner) For best results, I mix 1 cup of flour with enough water to make it about the consistency of white glue - then I add about half a bottle of white glue for added rigidity. I cover it with 3 full layers of newspaper. Let it dry for 24 hours - If you cheat and move on before a full day has passed, you are either impatient or terrible at following directions.

Step 3. Pop the balloon and pull it out leaving a nice shell. Now cut a hole in the top big enough to put all the organic, free-range, post-consumer recycled fruit (or whatever goodies you want) into it. I also made a ring from poster board and glued it to the bottom of the shell as a stand (It is also Señor Vader's neck).



Step 4. Add the string. You probably never thought about it before, but a pinata takes a lot of strain right at the point where the rope connects into the pinata. If you just poke some holes and run a string through them, the pinata will just fall out of the tree after a couple of hits while remaining intact. The solution? Run the string around the whole egg shape. That way, the strain is being taken across the whole surface. Tack it down in a few places with hot glue and add a layer or 2 of paper mache. For this one, I will be adding a face and helmet, so I just glued it down without the extra paper mache.



Step5. Sculpt the face and helmet. I used poster board and hot glue. It's ok to leave gaps here and there because I will be covering everything with more paper mache. I'm basically just building a frame to lay the paper mache onto.



Step 6. Cover everything with paper mache and let it dry another 24 hours. Make sure you cover the goodie hole with some posterboard so you don't soak the goodies.




Step 7. Paint it. Black. Glossy. Use spray paint (If you need help here, ask a teenage boy).



Step 8. Beat the Force out of it. Of course there is really only one way to properly break a Señor Vader pinata --- with a lightsaber! Luckily Valerie got some for pretty cheap at Oriental Trading.

My Big Baby

Yes She's Big.

New Stuff I Made

For Father's Day Val got me a 14.5" deep dish pizza pan. I tried it out the other day for the first time. My goal was to make a chicago style pizza. It you don't know what that is, it's like an actual pie without a top crust. In other words, the crust goes along the bottom like normal, but then goes up the sides of a deep dish - making a deep dish pan shape out of crust. Then you fill it to the top with the topping - but upside down. The cheese is on the bottom, followed by veggies and pepperoni, then topped with a very chunky sauce. I throw a couple of pepperonis on top of the sauce so I can tell when it's done cooking (The pepperonis get crispy).


The above is not my pizza. It's from a place called Zachary's in Berkeley which is delicious! It's my inspiration. Here is my result. It's enormous!




Although it tasted alright, it was too big. One apple thick! That's a third of a Smurf! The problem was that I used my usual dough recipe which tends to rise quite a bit. Confining it to a deep dish pan forces it to rise straight up. Now I am on a quest to find a deep dish crust recipe which will remain thinner (but not cracker-like)while being delicious! I'll keep you posted as I progress toward my goal.

The next thing I made was for my kids. My kids have been wanting their own light sabers. I've see a few nerf-like swords online for $15 or more each. A friend gave us a couple, but the inner stick broke pretty quickly. As I was trying to fix them, It occured to me that I could make way better ones on my own.

So I did.

It cost me $3 to make 4 swords.

I bought a couple of water weenie/noodles from the dollar store. Next I bought a length of 1/2" pvc pipe. (I even cut it down to size right there at the store). Next I slid the pipe down the hole of the noodle. Finished! I taped the handles just to make them look nicer.






I had a couple of feet left over, so I left only a short bit of pipe showing, and plan on connectling them with string (or chain) for nerf Nunchucks.

I made one other thing, but it's not done yet. It should be done by Sunday. I'll let Val show that one.

The Promised Land!

Today, as our June "Discovering California" activity, we visited, probably the most fun place I have ever been too: Adventure Playland in Berkley (or Burpley, according to Mia). There are a TON of pictures here, so sorry if it gets tedious. Be sure to look at each one, because I will plant more text here and there just to keep your attention.

We found this place in a book I bought Val about things to do in the area. The description was pretty vague. It described it as a playground that had tools for the kids to play with. I was imagining some kind of outdoor , hands-on museum or something.

As we got close to it, I got worried. I only caught a glimpse through the trees, but I asked Val if she was sure this place was open. She said it should be, because it was after 10:00. I clarified that I meant open in the "not out of business" sort of way, because, well, It looked condemned.

We parked and started walking toward it and this is what we saw.







Definately condemned.

Except that there were kids playing on the structures.

As we walked in the entrance gate, we were required to sign a waiver for our kids. Imediately after that, there was a little shed with hammers, saws, clamps, and nails. on the other side were small tables built out of scrap wood.

I figured this must be the hands-on part. I guess the kids would have some fun putting nails into some small scrap wood, or cutting a piece with a hand saw. We asked to use some tools and the guy in the shed pointed us to the sign beside us. It said that you have to earn the tools by doing things like finding 10 nails on the ground (they even gave you a huge magnet on the end of a rope that you could just drag around as you played and it would pick up any nails around), or finding 5 large (finger sized)splinters, or trash, etc. I thought, Hey that's a pretty cool way of helping keep the place safe and clean. We got a magnet and set about playing on the various, scrap-wood structures.








There were even several graffiti covered, abandoned boats to play in.



CJ's favorite was the zip wire.





Pretty soon we had found enough nails. We traded them in and each of the kids grabbed a hammer or saw and some scrap wood and took them to the work tables and hammered or cut.




The kid's interest in that lasted about 5 minutes. They were ready to go back and play. Then I had a revelation. I overheard one of the workers explaining to someone that if they wanted to build a roof, they had to make it slanted so nobody would mistake it for a floor and fall through.

A choior of angels began to sing and the brightness of the day became more glorious.

This entire place was built by the kids (and their parents) who played there! The point of earning the tools was so you could then build on to anything you wanted to. You could even demolish walls and rebuild them to your own liking.

These were not cheap, scrap wood, graffiti-covered play structures. They were forts! Clubhouses! Treeless treehouses! Each one painted beautifully by it's occupants.

HEAVEN!

I grabbed the kids and their tools and dragged them to the largest fort. As we went by, I saw they had bins filled with scrap wood of all types and sizes! This is better than any toy or candy store!



We grabbed a few boards and went to work adding a little room to the fort.






Xander was amazing. He would take a nail and get it started all by himself!

We found a junked windsurf board and used it on one of the walls. Here is our finished section of the fort.



We would have finished more, but Xander was ready for a nap, so we had to go. On our way back to the car, we took a look at our work and Val pointed out that someone had given the fort an appropriate name. (It's in red just above the fence on the right side.)

Our wall may not even exist anymore by the end of the day, but that's what make this place so awesome. Everybody gets to change it however they want.

It turned out to be so much fun. I wish some of my Brothers and sisters could come out and visit us so I could have another excuse to go to adventure land.

We could even get a babysitter to watch the kids ;)