Day 340: Lego Miniman Painted Bag

Today I'm sharing Gabe's bag, which was by far the fastest and easiest of the three painted totes we made. Gabe could not stop giggling when I showed him the freshly painted bag. 

You can see that my ironing skills leave a bit to be desired, since he looked more wrinkly after I ironed him than before. I was worried that I needed to use a pressing cloth (which are who knows where in my boxes) or a layer of packing paper between my iron and the paint, but after a bit of messing about I bit the bullet and just went iron onto the paint directly and it worked just fine. I didn't slide it back and forth, just did a press and hold for a few seconds motion moving bit by bit to ensure I got every bit of the painted area. My iron was just fine, no clean up necessary, and the design didn't smear a bit! Tomorrow I'll share my favorite of the three bags we made.

Day 328: Lego Wall Letters

My second Lego related project for the oldest child is a set of 3-D letters to hang on the wall in his new room in our new house in Oregon. I have already ordered these awesomesauce Harry Potter letters from Etsy for Max, which we will work together to cover with gold chunky glitter! And I found some amazing 2 foot tall metal Star Wars Letters for Ben's wall, but I couldn't find anything Lego related for Gabe that I a) liked, and b) wanted to pay for. So a trip to Hobby Lobby was made...I know, the sacrifices we make for these children...

I got some big chunky chipboard letters and painted them silver. Then I convinced the child in question to GIVE UP A SMALL BAGGIE OF LEGO PIECES PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE, which sounds simple when you know he has literally thousands of Legos, but in actuality was the hardest step of making these letters. I coated the top of each letter in E6000 glue (Phew!) and pressed the hard-won Lego pieces in place. I do have letters for each letter in his name, but Grumpy McFarland didn't want me to photograph his name either, so you get to view the "A". I'll post a pic of them when we get them mounted after our move to my Instagram when he's not looking if y'all promise not to rat me out. All lined up they are exactly what I was wanting, and now I don't have to pack my bottle of E6000, since I've used every last stinky drop. Two birds with one stone and all, because I think that makes this project part of my moving the studio project, am I right? 

Day 327: Lego Crochet Scarf

In the midst of moving, packing, sorting, my oldest son's Lego Robotics team is preparing for state competition this weekend. So in my "spare time" I've been working on a couple of Lego projects for him, including this Lego scarf, as seen on Pinterest. 

Now I am a capable, if slightly indifferent yarn worker. I can crochet fairly competently, and I can knit a bit, but most of the time I'm kind of watching TV or chatting over coffee and not really paying attention. So I was a bit nervous taking on this Lego brick project using the bobble stitch (which I'd never heard of before). Luckily, the instructions and video link on Deb's Blog: FitzBirch Crafts were excellent, and I could whip out little yarn Lego bricks whenever I had a spare few moments. When I presented the finished scarf to my offspring, he was thrilled, which you can totally see in the picture he let me take of him before school today (not). He actually does like it, he just did not want me to take his picture wearing it.  They grow up so fast!