Well, I finished my second try of the Needle painted flowers. It looks okay, but I can still see mistakes. But the important thing is, it was fun and relaxing to do.
Below, I've put a crayon next to the finished hoop so that one can see the size of the project.
Now I just have to cover the back, and then hot glue the edges of the fabric to the inside of the hoop.
That's all for now. Until another time have a happy stitching day!
Uh-oh, I feel a new collection is forming in my already crowded house! I've discovered pop bottle caps. I already have a few bottles, and one of those bottles (my Nesbitt's Orange bottle) already has a cap.
But, this past weekend I was able to get out-n-about to a few garage sales. One older gentleman had a snack baggie of vintage bottle caps (about 9 in the bag). For about the same price as a bottle of pop in today's market, I was able to bring these precious little cuties home!
The ones that struck me as the most peculiar were the ones that say 5-Hi on them (see top row of caps). I'd never heard of 5-Hi pop so I looked it up on the internet and had no luck. Most of the caps in the bag say either Williston Bottling Company or Plentywood Montana Bottling on them and most of them have a very small WHS on the band, and I have NO idea what that means.
So on a hunch I looked on Ebay and wouldn't you know...I found a "rare" pop bottle with the 5-Hi label on the front! The bottle says, "bottled by Wildwood Beverage Co. Plentywood, Montana"! For those of you who may not know, Montana is our state's neighbor and I grew up fairly close to Williston and the Montana boarder. As a college student, my crew and I would cross the Montana line and drive to Fairview to buy lottery tickets and eat jalapeno poppers from their local gas station. Ahhh, good times, good times.
But anyway...Here is the Ebay bottle.
Apparently, Wildwood Beverage Co made 5-Hi Root Beer, Lemon Soda, Cream Soda, Concorde Grape, Cherry-Strawberry.
I'm thinking Cherry-Strawberry would've been heavenly. But I like Cream Soda too...and Root Beer, and Grape Soda. Oh it would've been so hard to pick just one! See! Isn't bottle cap collecting a perfect hobby for me!?
So I e-mailed my dad, who is quite a local historian. He was born and raised near Williston and has, for the most part, stayed nearby. If it happened in the vicinity of his hometown, he probably remembers it, and those who were involved.
He remembers 5-Hi being in Plentywood MT and remembers the company being sold to a man who turned it into a Pepsi Bottling Company instead.
I suppose that makes sense in a way, why be Harry's Hamburgers, that no one's ever heard of, when you could be McDonald's. And I do like Pepsi, I mean who doesn't love the Nickel Nickel jingle?
But it's also sad that the "bigger" franchise bought out the smaller, local company and *poof* 5-Hi pop was made no longer. But, you know what they say, "you can't stop progress". Maybe not, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to regress once in awhile? Just to go back for spell to witness a simpler time. A time when grocery stores were owned by folks who lived right down the block. Or a time when kids could stand in line at the local bottling company on "parade day" and watch the glass bottles being washed, dried, filled and inspected, with each child receiving a free bottle of pop at the end? How wonderful I'll bet that was for kids, especially for the kids who were given pop ONLY as a rare treat! (Dad told me that story too).
On that note, here's a neat little video (only 45 seconds long) of a vintage bottling company. Looks like the syrup is put into the bottle first, then the water, then capped.
Well, that's all for today. Until another time, since you can no longer open up a refreshing 5-Hi, "be sociable-have a Pepsi" and have a "fizzy" kind of vintage day!
Went to the Flickertail Museum in Stanley a couple of Sundays ago. What a fun time we had! They are in the process of restoring a couple of their museum buildings, therefore we weren't able to tour two or three of them. But the buildings we saw were wonderful!
One of the things I tend to go a little crazy over are the floor coverings in the different buildings.
One of the buildings, called "The Doll's House", contains many toys and dolls from days of yore. In the upstairs we found this covering the floor.
Isn't it pretty!!? I looked it up online and Internet Archives has a number of Congoleum books. This pattern is called Spring Garden.
The rug (I call it a rug because that's what they called it) still had it's factory seal on it! The rugs look just like linoleum but are a bit thicker and squishier than the "flat" linoleum we put on our kitchen floors today. They are like a rug, not reaching into the corners. There is usually a boarder of hardwood floors around the edges (as you can see in the picture below taken in 2008).
I especially liked how the grayish-blue painted woodwork matched the grayish-blue in the rug.
There were other fun linoleums and Congoleums throughout the different buildings in the museum. Please excuse the toes.
This one is pretty nifty as well!
That's all for today, until another time, have a happy vintage day!
A while ago I started on this needle painted flower. I made so many mistakes! But I kept going and used it for practice.
See how full of holes the flowers are? That's not good.
I went ahead and practiced the fish bone stitch on the leaves and a satin stitch on the stem.
Now, I've started another one (exactly the same) and have corrected a couple of my previous mistakes, but there are still things I wish I had done differently. I didn't realize I was suppose to start with the petal that was furthest away, and most petals are either not defined enough, or too much.
For two evenings I was able to sit outside in my backyard swing, enjoy the peace and quiet and the feel of cool grass under my feet. I stitched until the sun set and I could no longer see. It felt wonderful! Of course because I loafed two evenings in a row, the laundry pile is now huge, the kitchen needs a good scrubbing and the dust has collected, but there will be plenty of time to clean tonight as it's suppose to rain.
I know this isn't a daycare blog (maybe I should start a daycare blog?) For the last month or so I've been getting my preschool curriculum organized for the upcoming school year. Like I said earlier, I will have four daycare kids ages 3 and up, and would love to set aside some time each day for preschool/ learning time. We have a learning time now, but it's not as structured as I'd like it to be. It's good to be flexible, but sometimes it's good to also have a plan. That's what I've been up to lately....planning.
I want my everyday items to be accessible. At first I thought one of these would be GREAT!
A little background on this...I watched this episode of the TV show The Apprentice YEARS ago when one of the teams developed this product for Staples.
At the time of the show my husband laughed and said that NO ONE would buy such a monstrosity and they were fools for producing them. Weeeelll, I kinda wanted one for my daycare/teaching supplies, but really didn't have the space for one (they are a whopping 16x16x11inches)!
Then I saw one in action in a Kindergarten classroom and wanted one even MORE!
Now I'm seeing them all over Pinterest. Homeschoolers, teachers, and daycare providers are using them to store their "everyday use" materials. This is just what I need!
This summer I have been making all sorts of file folder games, wipe-off marker sheets, and other activities. And what have I been keeping them in?
That's right Ladies and Gents...it's a cereal box.
The cereal box is not my friend. It's flimsy and difficult to hold onto when I'm getting it in and out of the cupboard. So the desk apprentice would be great....but.
There is a problem with the desk apprentice, it won't fit in my daycare cupboard!
Sigh. So in early July I began searching for something similar, just not quite as big.
First, I tried my old purple file box I used during my student teaching time.
It worked okay, but wasn't very convenient, and again, it didn't really fit in my cupboard.
Finally, I found this blue, file holder with handles at Target! I wish I'd bought two or three!
This file holder fits in my cupboard and holds all of my "activity" sheets and file folder games!
One problem solved. Now on to organizing our curriculum.
I have THEME binders that I've used for a very long time and they work great. With the help of page protectors and a 3-hole punch, I can store songs, finger-plays, craft ideas, posters, worksheets and even small books, all in one place. For example ALL of my apple stuff is in the "Apple Binder".
But for reproducing worksheets they are kind of a pain. I have to take the binders to Office Max, fish out the originals and make copies one-by-one. It takes FOREVER.
I kept the theme binders mostly intact, but I took out all of the pintables I want to do with the kids, and organized them by week.
We are going to work week-by-week, instead of theme-to-theme.
Each week will have: an alphabet letter page a cutting page or activity that involves using scissors, a math activity, a couple of coloring pages, a craft project (or two) related to our theme, and a story book with activities linked to the book.
Each week has three page protectors. One for originals, copies, and plans.
A page protector of originals.
A page protector of copies (to be handed out to the children to be colored, cut and what-have-you).
And a page protector for the week's plans with plenty of space at the bottom to make notes, jot down finger-plays, etc. (to be filled in).
All of the page protectors containing "originals" go into the "originals binder"
The page protectors full of copies go into one of two "worksheets/activities binders"
WHY on EARTH did I do all of this? One reason was to separate the originals out and have them all be in one binder. I can make copies at my husband's office for about 1/2 of what it costs at the local copy center, but he says he'd like me to do it all in one shot (as he has to sit there and watch me make the copies), and it can't take all day. (Haha, he knows me so well). It will be SO much easier to grab the originals binder, copy the activities need for all of the weeks and place the originals BACK into the binder.
And if I REALLY feel like getting crazy with the planning, I can sit down some Sunday night and put each day's projects and supplies into their own daily envelope. (I've had these forever...at least 13 years, if not more). I've done that before and it works really well! If we don't get to an activity on Monday, I just move it to the Tuesday folder or to a day when we don't have much else going on. (I keep Friday either open or light with activities and use it as a "catch-up" day.
Well, I've got to run. Whew! That was a lot of organization for one post! I hope it was all understandable.
This is what I worked on last Saturday...pretty much all. day. long. And it still needs some changes.
It's a "bulletin board" of sorts for circle-time.
I will have four children this coming fall who are ages 3 and up, and would like to spend a few minutes each morning doing "preschool" activities while the two babies have their morning naps. I know morning naps won't last forever, but we'll see how well we can squeeze in some preschool time at some point or another during our day. Some days it might only be 10 minutes, sometimes longer.
We will talk about colors and learn our color words by sight. A couple of the kiddos already know them, but could use some practice. We will say the ABCs together, then have fun picking different letters at random.
I used baseball card sleeves that I picked up at the Goodwill for my color flashcards. I will remove the colored cards, leaving the color words. Children will say the color word and I will put the corresponding colored card into the space below it. I would like to do this with learning numbers and number words as well, but that will have to come along later.
I'd like to do something different with the shapes as well, but I really like the look of the turquoise behind all of the pastel colored shapes.
I have different "opposite" cards than the ones shown for the four squares of green below the shapes. The opposite cards I will use are by Carson Dellosa and fit much better than the taller, Sesame Street ones. I may trim the 4 squares down to only 2 squares in order to make room for a different shape poster.
It's a work in progress, but has been keeping me very busy. There are so many things to do this summer to prepare for a good year of daycare preschool! I'm finding that if I have everything ready: worksheets copied, arts-n-crafts supplies ready, and some plans written out ahead of time, it is much easier to stay on track each day and week. Unfortunately, with all my free-time going towards daycare projects, I haven't had much time for quilting and embroidery. But, I suppose that's what the winter months will be good for.
That's all for today! Until another time, have a happy, learning day!
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