One week down!

A full week of this crazy Make'n'Tell thing is now complete, and I've gotta say, I'm definitely feeling challenged. I'm feeling more challenged on the picture+blog entry side of things, but I think I'm also feeling challenged because I'm not content to just meet the bare minimum requirements. I want to do a nice long write up everyday. And I want to have actually completed something everyday. And I kind of want every day to have a new and different thing to complete and write up. Which is really just not happening.

I think my favorite thing so far about M'n'T is seeing what everyone else is doing, and how creative everyone is (even and maybe especially those of you who post that everyone else is more creative than you, because that's just not true -- you are differently creative, but not un-creative. And don't look around like I'm not talking to you -- you know who you are. :P). Everyone else's posts really spur me on to keep up with this, so thanks to everyone for participating!

Now on to today's make, in which one make solves two problems*:

If you have children, you are probably familiar with the limited amount of display space available on your standard refrigerator -- the art gallery of choice for countless families. Especially now that we have two young and prolific artists in the family (one of whom is very insistent about her art being put up right-now-please-no-I-absolutely-can't-wait-until-tomorrow-it-has-to-be-nownownownow) we have a ridiculously crowded fridge door. There are also issues with visibility, magnets not holding as well as we'd like, and children grabbing their artwork off the fridge to show/fondle/dispose of it.

In addition to those issues, we have very empty walls in our living room. When we moved into the house, we knew we would be ripping the walls down and replacing them, so we never put anything up, and then after we finally got the downstairs walls done, I think it had just become habit and we never got around to hanging anything up. We've talked about doing it a few times, but never actually got around to it. I had considered framing a few of my favorite pieces from the kids and putting them up, but (and again, if you have kids this will not be news to you) they keep bringing home cool new stuff that they made.

The other day I was cleaning or moving something and realized that the paperclips I have are flat circular coils, which can be put on a piece of paper such that there's a loop at the top.



I suppose you could do the same with a regular paperclip, but these look arty. So today I whacked some nails into the living room walls over by their play area and hung up a bunch of their art. I can change it out any time I like, just by putting a paperclip on the new stuff, and I really like that everything is visible and there's room for lots of pieces. Added bonus: this works just as well on oddly shaped/sized pieces that might not fit well in a frame. Yay! The B&Z Gallery is now open.




Yes, I will still be making and writing up the t-shirt yoga pants, but I spent most of the day today cleaning out an area to move my sewing machine to, which meant that I didn't get any actual sewing done. Maybe tomorrow, but I've got the kids home so no promises. If not tomorrow, then Thursday. It has to be Thursday because I have Things to Do(TM) on Friday and then we're on vacation, which is what I'm making them for (because why go on vacation if you can't schlump around?). Speaking of, I will have very spotty internet access (where "spotty" = "pretty much none") while we're on vacation, which will be the 12th through possibly the 20th. I may come back sooner, or I may be able to post from down there a couple of times, but will almost certainly not be able to post every day. I *will* still be making something every day, and will post about everything at the very latest on the 20th. Oh, and also, I realized today that I completely forgot to do a Weekend Link Roundup this past weekend, but I'll do last week's and this week's links on Friday, which should keep you occupied until I return.

posted by Laura Y. @ 6:05 PM