what this blog is about

This blog is an eclectic one, having a little bit of everything thrown in here. I hope you enjoy it!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Harry Potter Invitations

As many of my blog readers know, Carma and I are hosting a Harry Potter marathon in a couple of weeks. We just finished up the invitations last night. We had a lot of fun coming up with the idea for the invites. We wanted them to look like parchment with a wax seal on the back.
Carma making invitations
While Carma kept herself busy printing, measuring, and cutting out the invitations, I worked on making the wax seals. I carved a stamp to use as the seal design. It took a few tries before I got down how much wax to use for each seal. We used wax seal sticks that you put in a hot glue gun.  When I switched from the red to the gold colored wax, the gold ones ended up with a swirl of red in them. I really like how it made them look.
Hogwarts Wax Seals
We got all the invites folded and used adhesive dots to attach the seals.
Sorry that the photos are a little hard to see. We have horrible lighting in our house. I tried using the flash on my camera, but everything came out so shiny that it was hard to tell what the photo was of.  I just now saw the typo at the end of the invitation. It says to RSVP by owl post of muggle telephone. Should say or muggle telephone. Oops! I guess it's a little late now since we've sealed them all.
Invitation Text
When we finished, we had a nice pile of invitations. Carma and I made ones for ourselves just because they looked really cool and we wanted one to keep.
The finished invitations
We addressed each invite like Harry's Hogwarts letter, listing their name, address, and the cupboard under the stairs.
We've had so much fun making everything for this event. I know that everyone who comes is going to have a great time! I will be glad when this is over, though. We've been putting this together for the last eight months now, and it will be nice to relax. I might go a little stir crazy at home for a while afterwords because every night I come home and work on Harry Potter stuff. What will I do with my time when this is over?

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Making Progress: Week Nine

I've been making the logbooks for all those who attend the Harry Potter Marathon that Carma and I are hosting in a few weeks. The following photos show a few of the steps it takes to put the books together.
First, I had to create my own paper for the covers because I couldn't find any Harry Potter paper that I liked. I used wordle.net to create it. Once I find the link, I will add it on here so it can be used by any who want it. Once I had the paper made, I had to cut it down to the right size, slightly bigger than the chipboard.

Chipboard                  
I then had to cut the chipboard to the correct size, glue my paper to it, and fold over and glue the edges. Next I had to put an inside cover on. I just used some green paper that looked good with the colors on the outside cover.

Finished Covers
The next step was to make the pages. I cut white card stock (8 1/2 x 11) into 1/4 sheets. I put 25 of these sheets with each set of covers. I then had to punch the holes in the covers and all of the pages. Carma has some nifty tools that make this really easy. I cut some binding down to the right size and bound everything together. I made 14 of these logbooks, plus a couple of larger ones for Carma and I.
The Finished Product
Having these logbooks done brings me one step closer to being ready for our marathon! I'm really excited for this event!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Magnatisim: Week Eight

Do you ever stop to think about how the front of your fridge might look to others? Does how you arrange your magnets say something about your personality? Do you even have magnets on your fridge? While I don't know if how the front of your fridge looks can tell you anything about a certain person's personality, I find it interesting to look at what people put on their fridge. Our fridge in our home, pictured at right, has magnets from places we've visited, photos we've taken, phone numbers, recipes, etc. If you look on the very right side towards the middle of the fridge you will even see a small first aid kit.
Our fridge has a little bit of every thing on it. I have seen fridges that are covered in photos of loved ones, hold the family schedule on a magnetic calender, or are completely naked. I would love to find out what this says about us. Ours may look like we are messy people, but I actually like to have things very organized. That's not to say that our house doesn't need a good cleaning, we have 3 dogs and a cat after all, and animal hair and dog toys can be found all throughout the house. Living in the mountains also means that the house tends to get very dusty very fast.
I'm interested in knowing what your take on "Magnet Personality" is. Does it mean anything? What does your fridge look like? Just some odd questions for you to ponder.