My 7-year-old, Mika, won this kit at a trivia contest at Borders a couple of months back. She was staying with my mother and the two of them tried to make the friendship bracelets. Apparently it was impossible, they required more skill that either of them could muster.
The kit itself came with regular craft thread, a few plastic beads, a cheapy threader (not even a threading needle) and a few safety pins. Not very much, specially for the $17 that Borders sells it for.
All that said, I’m planning to use the thread and beads for other craft projects.
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Now that the girls and I are so into crafts, we need to find supplies. Someone on Craigslist suggested hitting up the flea market, so that’s what I did this morning. I didn’t find any general craft stuff (I specially want to get things I can glue or saw onto fabric), but I found a lot of jewelry.
I ended up buying a Beads Carousel
As if all those beads were not enough, I also bought a bag of assorted old and broken jewelry for $5. I got that particular bag because it included several shell necklaces, and I’d like to use the little shells for gluing to cloth. There was much more than shells, and I’ve been able to recover quite a few beads in good condition. There are also a few pendants that I think I can clean and use, and lots of single earrings. I’m hoping to turn some into pendants, use others for their beads, and some light ones also as decorations for fabric. I don’t know what I’ll do with the rest. I also don’t know what to do with the non-broken chains that came with the kit. I’ll clean the thinner ones and I can attach pendants to them – but what about the thick ones? I’ll figure something out.
There is at least one necklace that I think Mika could wear -there is nothing wrong with it – and a couple that I wonder if we should keep for dress up. We’ll see.
What is frustrating is that there are a few necklaces that cannot be “debeaded” – the beads just won’t come out. But really, for five bucks I can’t complain.
If you read my blog regularly, you will have noticed that my grammar leaves much to be desired. Though I went to High School in America, I wasn’t really taught grammar at school and I’m not good enough at languages to have figured it out on my own. Needless to say, I often make mistakes both in written and spoken speech (perhaps more in the latter), but, from time to time at least, I find grammar very interesting and want to know what’s the proper way to say something.
As I was writing a restaurant review for my Food Blog, I found myself in the situation of having to say “McDonald’s chicken nuggets”. Now “McDonald’s” is already in the possessive form, with an apostrophe-s following the proper noun. The name of the restaurant is not McDonald but McDonald’s. So I wondered how to make an already possessive word possessive again. Mike wasn’t sure, so I called my friend D. – a former teacher who knows English grammar backwards and forwards. Her answer was that you use only one apostrophe as the noun is actually expressing the possession of the noun that follows it (of course, she said so grammatically). That is to say, when you say “McDonald’s”, the “hamburgers” or, in this case, “chicken nuggets” is already implied. It’s logical, but it hadn’t occurred to me. I will continue with my constant grammar mistakes, but not with this particular one 🙂
As I was writing this posting another grammar question came to my mind. A proper sentence in English, I’ve always been told, has to have an explicit subject and a verb. There are no tacit subjects and no tacit predicates. The lack of tacit subjects is understandable, as English verbs are minimally conjugated. But there is no reason I can think of to explain why you cannot substitute a verb with a comma. For example, in Spanish I can say “The day, beautiful” with the “is” implied. In English, as far as I know, you can’t say that. Mike tells me that you can imply the verb in a sentence such as “Mike is going to the house and Mary to the park”, but I’m not sure if that is, indeed, grammatical.
And how about sentences with what I would call a propositional predicate? Can’t “To the house.” be a grammatical sentence?, one that would logically followed the sentence “Where are you going”?
I’ve also always been told that you cannot have a predicate-less sentence in English. For example, “A beautiful day.” is a proper sentence in Spanish. It’s called an “unimembre” sentence. While such sentences are not common in business or journalistic Spanish, they are often used in colloquial or literary language.
What I wonder is whether there is a “hidden” English grammar; one in which these type of constructions are grammatical, but which is not taught to not confuse students. After all, it’s difficult enough to get children to speak and write even simplified proper English.
I hope some day I meet a linguist or grammarian specializing in English, whom I can ask these questions 🙂
I got this recipe from Crafty Girl Fun & Games and it worked surprisingly well. Note that you need to make the water paints several hours in advance to give them time to dry. You’ll need small non-absorbent containers for the watercolors. I used a mini-muffin pan, as recommended, I’m hoping it will clean out well. Don’t use anything you’ll need anytime soon, as I think these watercolors will last a long time. I used soap coloring to color the watercolors but you can use food coloring instead. I also used green glitter, the only type I had.
- 1 Tbsp. distilled white vinegar
- 2 Tbsp. baking soda
- 1 Tbsp. cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp. glycerin
- 1/2 tsp. glitter (optional)
- soap or food coloring
Mix vinegar and baking soda in a medium bowl. Wait until the mixture stops foaming and add the cornstarch and glycerin. Stir well. Add the glitter, if using and stir.
Transfer a little bit of the mixture into a each small container (you can make 6 or so, depending on how much you want of each color and how many colors you have). Add a few drops of coloring and mix well, add more coloring if you want a more intense color. Repeat until all the watercolors are made. Dry for several hours or overnight. Use as regular watercolors.
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