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Greetings, Readers!
I have not mentioned recently enough how bizarre your world is to me.
I need to ask. Cow abductions? What on earth? Why would they want cows?
I think that the point is that they’re being abducted by ones who are not from Earth.
Oh…
I still do not understand.
Neither does anyone else.
It’s fun, though!
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Hello, Fluffsters!
I know it’s a bit “late” to be posting things I’m thankful for, but you know what? Who cares! Thankfulness should happen every day, not just on days designated for it.
Today, I’m particularly thankful to be home still, and to be able to flop on my nice bed. As I mentioned, where I am for most of the year this year, I have a top bunk. I’m currently back at home, with my family. I don’t have a top bunk there. That means I get to flop on my bed after a long day standing. It’s really nice.
So, what are you thankful for this Friday?
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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Thanksgiving!
I realized the other day that my timing is coincidentally excellent. You see, as I mentioned previously, I’ve been planning on doing a “catch you up on things a cafeteria tries to call food” post. Today is Thanksgiving. Therefore, I am going to combine the holiday with the promised post, and give you:
1) This substance somewhat related to banana pudding. It tasted weird, and its consistency was definitely odd.
Banana Pudding
If there hadn’t been cake in it, it wouldn’t have been a problem. In fact, it might even have tasted ok. The chocolatey stuff, though, really made it less than wonderful.
2) The Peanut Butter Mousse
The menu listing
A small portion that I got.
You can tell that it actually wasn’t bad because there was a time when there wasn’t much in the container. It was definitely too sweet. But it had a nice, creamy consistency! It’s not pumpkin pie, or turkey and stuffing, though, so your thanksgiving will almost definitely be better.
3) This “bread pudding”. When I showed my picture to my parents, their first thought was that it looked like Egg Foo Young.
I think it had sprinkles in it
Whatever it was (I don’t remember the name…) it was extremely sweet. It tasted a bit like bread pudding with maple syrup and icing. It was also (clearly) disturbingly colored. Not as disturbing as…
5) This odd colored muffin with frosting.
I don’t even know what this is…
At least, I think that’s what it was. On the one hand, it’s multicolored and slightly grainier, thus indicating that it’s a muffin. On the other hand, it’s frosted. Frosting implies cupcake. So is it a mupcake? I have no clue.
6) This brightly colored orange… dish.
The badness of the quality came naturally to me. I’ve got SKILLS!
It tasted like dreamsicle in pie form. Not bad, but, again, weird. And, again, oddly colored. I was very surprised that I actually liked it!
4) Even MORE fluff stuff!
how many kinds of fluff ARE there?
I seriously have no clue how many types of fluff the place I eat can make. It seems like there’s always one more. (I think it’s their fallback dessert option.)
So, yup. Several reasons to be thankful you have your thanksgiving dinner! I hope you have a great one!
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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Wednesday!
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been a bit busy crafting. (It’s been fantastically fun.)
The first thing that I made yesterday was a painted miniature banner.
I really liked the gold paint on the blue.
The really fun part about it? It’s glow in the dark! That means that the sun motif disappears in the dark, and the stars that I painted on come out. This is my first attempt at painting a banner, and I think it worked really well. (If I do say so myself!)
To start with, find any spare piece of fabric. I personally used a dark blue satin that I had. (I made a dress out of the material about two years ago, and never got rid of the scraps. What can I say? They sometimes turn out to be useful!)
A small piece of fabric.
Also, get a needle and some sewing thread. I happened to find some that matched the fabric almost perfectly. I love it when that happens! At the end, you’ll also need some paint that works on Fabric. I used either Martha Stewart All Purpose Paint, or Folk Art Acrylic. (I don’t remember which- sorry!)
So, just to clarify, you’ll need
1) Cut a piece of fabric. I first trimmed it down to approximately a reasonable size. I think it was about 6×8 inches, but I’m not entirely sure. This is really flexible, though, and only depends on how large you want your banner to be. Whatever size you’re making it, don’t forget that you’re going to need to leave room for hemming. Unless you found a fabric that doesn’t fray, like I did with my red banner from yesterday. However, since this is for a sewn and painted banner, I’m going to assume the fabric frays.
That was a bit circuitous…
Oops. Sorry.
2) Shape the fabric. To get the banner shape, first fold the fabric in half length-wise / vertically. (Or “hotdog style” if that helps.) Next, from about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way up on the fold, cut towards the open edge corners. This gets the “splayed” banner effect. (If you want more of a shield shape, cut at an angle from the bottom of the fold up towards about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way up the fabric, at the edge side.)
Cutting the fabric into a banner shape.
It should look something like this when you’re done and unfold it:
unfolded splayed banner shape
Note: I didn’t iron this fabric before cutting. That was a mistake. Take the time and get the wrinkles out! It helps a lot with painting later on.
I also don’t show it here, but after this, I evened out the top edge slightly, even before stitching.
3) First pass with thread and needle. You don’t have to, but I found it easier to hem the non-angled bits. The way I did this was for each edge, I first did a simple hand stitch over a single fold of fabric. (This is more effective then pinning a hem in place.)
Stitching only a single fold in.
As I’m sure you’re aware, fold towards the wrong side of the fabric, if you have fabric with a right / wrong side. Also, be sure to fold consistently towards one side. Nobody makes a banner to see the folded edges- that’s just silly.
4) Make it into a hem. What I personally did was I got one edge hemmed before moving onto the next edge. Looking back on it, it might make more sense to make a first pass on all the edges, and then convert them all to actual hems. If you try that, let me know how it works?
But anyway. For those who don’t know how to do that, basically just take your edge and fold it over (towards the same side) again. The point is to hide the unfinished edge so that it won’t fray. This is especially important with fabric like the type I was using that frays waaaay too quickly.
An example of what the hemming will look like
As you hem, it should look something like the photo above.
Do this for all of your straight edges.
5) Deal carefully with your angled edges. To get them to work better, you’re going to want to make a slit up the middle of the banner. A small slit will do- this is just to allow you to hem each angle a little more easily, and still have a relatively tight corner there at the bottom. Then, repeat the steps that you did with the straighter edges. (You know. Fold once, stitch down, fold again, stitch again.)
Add the slit to your banner to allow for tighter corners.
6) Trim extra. When you’re done rolling / hemming the angled parts, you’re going to get a few awkward parts hanging off the end.
Awkward corner.
Just trim that part, to make it even with the rest of that part of the banner.
Trimmed corner part
7) You’re done with the stitching! Now, on to painting!
Finished stitching! Paint, and you’re done!
As I mentioned, I just used craft paints of various sorts. I ended up freehanding everything. That’s primarily because I don’t own any decent stencils of any sort. Painting is completely up to you. The key thing to remember is to have fun! This is probably one of the cheapest crafts you can do, since in theory you’re only using leftover scraps. So yes, you’re paying for paint. But you don’t need that much for the motifs. In all, it’s fairly inexpensive.
As always, if you make one, please comment or send me a picture? My email is webmaster [at] totalfluff.com . (Clearly use the “@” instead of [at]. No spaces, either. Those are simply there to prevent spamminess, I hope.)
Happy Wednesday! And happy crafting!
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Hello, Fluffsters!
Happy Tuesday!
I had a lot of fun last night. I spent time actually doing crafts. I haven’t had time to do that in quite a while. (Or the supplies…)
That being said, I owe you some slightly longer posts. In fact, I owe you some specific posts.
First of all, there’s the details on the type of fluff / “food” the cafeteria I go to has served since my last “food” post. (To any grammarians out there, yes, the quotation marks are intentional.)
Second, there’s the post that I was sort of working on and meant to write tonight: A tutorial on painted banners. I don’t even know how many pieces of fabric I’ve painted tonight! A lot. That’s for sure. And it’s been a lot of fun! Here’s an example of one of the ones I painted tonight:
Red Banner with Painted Cross
Hopefully I’ll take the time to give you a tutorial on how to make the sewn banner I made… (not this one.)
I hope your week is going well!
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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Monday!
A couple days ago, I ha the opportunity to take some pictures from the air. The view was stunning, and I’m so glad I got that opportunity.
Basically, I was flying at sunset. With new TSA regulations, I was permitted to use the non cellular features of my phone, which included the camera option. So, here are two of my favorite shots:
Lovely cloud formation, and early sunset
Doesn’t it look like the sun is sinking into a sea of clouds?
My apologies for the graininess. But as with the photo a couple of nights ago, this was just a cellphone picture. Not bad for phone technology, don’t you agree?
Well, have a great week!
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Greetings, readers! Happy Sunday to you!
I recently came across a rather remarkable article and sound. Someone took the sound of cricket chirps, and slowed it down to the same relative speed as if crickets lived to be the same age as humans. I only listened to a part of it, but it was a fascinating sound!
It makes me wonder what other high-pitched noises insects make that would sound surrealistic if we could hear them in the same relative time. It also makes me wonder what crickets think of humans, and the noises they make.
What about you? Does this raise any puzzles for you, readers?
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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Saturday!
I was just looking at my numbers of posts… Apparently, this is number 300. Can you believe it? 300 daily fluffs! That’s a bit less than ten months of daily posting. A lot has happened since then, hasn’t it? In fact, I think that’s what I’m going to do today. I’m going to look back at some of my favorite posts from each month that I’ve been posting!
January’s Post: Well, I was definitely new to this whole Daily Fluff thing. I was, and still am, trying to figure out exactly what to put there. I have to say, Fluffy’s short story about the origin of treasure chests was an interesting post.
It’s not a short story! It’s a legend!
Fine. Legend. Whatever.
Moving on.
My posts in February: This was the first full month that I blogged. I’m just as glad it wasn’t a leap-year, or I’d have needed to write an extra one! I think my favorite post would definitely have to be Muffin Flavored Shrimp. I’ve used that question as a frequent opener since then!
…You would.
And do!
Favorite March Post: I’m actually going to cheat, and post two of my favorites. The first is one of my favorites because of the YouTube video embedded in it, not because of my commentary. It’s the video of Sheep LED Art. It’s totally worth watching. The second is my “book review” of an instruction manual. That one still gets its value primarily of a secondary source, but I still like it.
April’s Post: My favorite would have to be my Foundation of Rome post. I got a fair number of hits, for like the first time ever, AND it’s an INFOGRAPHIC!
May: Oh, gosh. I’d totally forgotten about May’s “comfort” challenge. That was probably one of my least intelligent decisions with this blog… But I’d have to say that my “breathing” post is fun. I’m often a bit amused when I go back and look at my various numbering systems.
June: I think my instructions for how to make a room messy in seven easy steps mostly qualifies. I also like my post about the random pair of socks. So I’ll just list those both.
July: Again, I’m going to cheat and post more than one. If I had to choose, I’d probably go with my post on how books are like an addictive substance. But my post about the origin of the use of aloe also amuses me. Is it bad that I’m amused by my own work?
August: I think that my post about what to do with freshly baked cookies is one that I really like.
September: Definitely my post about Lemon Dessert. I still think about that one fondly… Maybe some day, I’ll redo the video and add sound effects.
And finally, October: I think my poetry about coffee should qualify as one of my best posts of the month.
Thank you all for reading my 300 posts to date, and here’s to even MORE! Enjoy the rest of your week!
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Greetings, Fluffsters! HAPPY FRIDAY! It’s the weekend. And less than one week until Thanksgiving!
It’s also the time that a lot of things happen. This can be the start, or continuation, of one of the most stressful times of the year. Because of that, I’m going to share four great de-stressers with you. I may have talked about them already, but oh well. They’re worth being repeated.
1) Spinning. This can be any of the forms of spinning you can think of. I personally do the kind with wool, primarily. There is something very soothing about creating yarn from fibers. On the other hand, taking time to just spin around in circles can also be a lot of fun. I also understand that a lot of people find exercise to be anti-stressifying. Whatever the form, spinning can be great for relieving stress.
b) Silly Putty. I haven’t mentioned my glow in the dark silly putty recently enough. It is amazing stuff. Especially if you have enough, putty of that sort can do wonders for reducing stress. Squeeze it, stretch it, snap it, sculpt it- it’s both a creative outlet and a physical calmer.
iii) Listening ears / ranting. Talking about what’s going on in your life that’s stressing you can be very helpful. Especially if the person can give you advice or words of encouragement. Don’t underestimate this option!
Last) Hugs. Hugs are good. I would like to say they can make practically anything better. My advice: Find an excellent hugger. Get to know that person really well. They’re amazing, and if they like giving hugs, that’s the best.
There you go, Fluffsters! I hope this helps if you have a busy time ahead of you.
Happy weekend!
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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Thursday!
Last night was perfect. Not so much the activities, since I was feeling grumpy for a large part of it, but after I finished an activity, I walked outside, and it was amazing.
Ok, how so?
Well, for one the sky was absolutely clear. There were no clouds, minimal dust as far as I could tell, nothing. (Except for light pollution. But you can’t have everything in life.)
And actually, part of the light pollution was part of the perfectness itself. The moon was so bright it outshone some of the lamps! It was stunning.
The stars were out, too, as usual. But this time I could actually see them! Yes, there was light pollution. But it was low enough that I could mostly blot it out by lifting a hand.
The weather was also perfect. It was just above freezing- crisp, cold enough to keep a lot of the less crazy people inside (and therefore keep things quiet), and all in all wonderful. I spent about a half-hour outside just staring at the sky. During that time, I not only saw a flock of migrating geese (at night! SO COOL!) but I also saw TWO shooting stars. One of them was really bright, and lasted for probably three times as long as most of the others I’ve seen in my life! Did I mention it was really bright, too?
Finally, I managed to get this picture:
Creeky reflections. As in, reflections in a creek.
I love reflections. I love night time. I love the interplay of light and dark. And I have decided I really like my phone.
…
That seems fairly non sequitus…
Oh. Right. You see, I got that picture just with my phone. No tripod, no flash, no fancy devices. Just handheld technology.
Ah.
Nice picture.
Really? Thanks!
Well, have a great day, Fluffsters! I hope you have as amazing a day as I did a night.