Closer

On By CarynIn Cats

Thor the gray tabby really wants to be near Sophie the dilute calico cat. I’m not sure if it is adoration, or just fun for him to get in her personal space.

Photo description: Gray tabby on a piano bench looking at the camera, dilute calico sleeping on an office chair behind the piano bench
Photo description: cat tree covered in carpet with a dilute calico in the tube on top and a gray tabby on the level below, looking up, photo credit to my eldest

He sings to her too, plurts and trills. Sophie is remarkably calm about the whole situation, he only gets a bat with a paw when he gets really close.

It amuses me

On By CarynIn Recipe

I made a chicken pot pie and when it came to making the vent holes on the top crust, the necessary pattern seemed obvious.

Photo description: pastry crust on an oval casserole dish with vent holes poked with a four tine fork in the shape of two chicken footprints

This was my first chicken pot pie I’ve made, and I mostly followed the recipe from the Gluten Free Gourmet Comfort Foods book, but used her pie crust instead of the biscuit mix. Next time, I will thicken my favorite chicken soup recipe for the filling.

Coloring sheets

On By CarynIn Craft, Life Hack

My youngest loves coloring books, but it is difficult for her to find uncolored pages in the bound books after a while. I took my heavy duty guillotine paper cutter and cut off the spine of the coloring book, freeing the pages so they could be sorted into colored and uncolored.

Photo description: 400 page capacity guillotine paper cutter with a deconstructed coloring book, with a colored page and uncolored page pulled out of the stack

My youngest was pleasantly surprised with the fresh stack of ready-to-color sheets, and I was pleased with how fast and clean the cutter worked. Tearing sheets out of a book is often messy and frustrating. By cutting a 1/4 inch off the spine, the pages are freed from the glue easily.

Once my concept was proved, my youngest agreed to let me process the rest of the books. Any book that only had one or two colored pages I left alone, but the books that were mostly colored were cut and sorted.

Photo description: hanging organizer with coloring books at the top and individual coloring sheets at the bottom

I now also have a stack of colored sheets that can be displayed and scanned easily for posterity.

Throwback Thursday: doodled fish

On By CarynIn Craft, throwback

In June of 2016 I was experimenting with the 3Doodler, a pen shaped device that extrudes hot plastic, like a 3D printer, but hand driven rather than computer driven. I decided to make a walleye fish, for my Dad, to experiment with construction.

Photo description: getting started, with the 3Doodler pen on the right, doll eyes, sheet of glass for flat components, and a glass drinking glass for curved components, along with a reference illustration
Photo description: body constructed and onto the fins, it worked best for me to make the component, then attach it to the base rather than build up from the base, especially for the fins
Photo description: fish complete, but I wanted a better position than it resting on its pectoral fins
Photo description: translucent blue “waves” doodled flat then added as a base for the fish
Photo description: finished piece titled “Hooked” made from extruded plastic with a 3D doodler pen, red and white lure also doodled with plastic, then melted smooth, and plastic doll eyes

The biggest frustration with the project was the tool. The version of 3D doodler I was using needed more breaks than I did, and I would have to walk away and let it rest, which is not ideal in the middle of a creative storm.