My hypothesis that my Thanksgiving cactus blooms due to drops in window temperature that triggers the leaves touching the window was blown away this month. The cactus has bloomed and we haven’t seen any temperatures below 68. Hm.
Photo description: bright pink Thanksgiving cactus bloom in September
Photo description: large gray tabby on the windowsill inside the catio door, and a calico cat laying on the platform outside the catio door flap
I’m fairly certain the the gatekeeper in the photo above is Izzy the calico cat. Although Thor the gray tabby is effectively blocking her from coming in, I think she has the preferred spot, so doesn’t care, giving her the advantage.
In August of 2015 I was assembling cube shelves and kept whacking my fingers with the hammer driving in tiny finish nails. “Necessity is the mother of invention” and I came up with a different way to hold the nails to have less swearing. I felt so strongly about it I made graphics and probably shared it on social media. Here the public service announcement is again today: how not to hold a small nail.
Photo description: how not to hold a small nail showing pinching the nail between finger and thumb and the edges and of the fingers above the head of the nail with a large red circle and slash over the handPhoto description: a better way to hold a small nail, between two fingers with the hand flat on the surface well below the head of the nail
In either case, if you completely miss the nail head, your fingers are going to suffer. Another alternative is to use a needle nose pliers to hold the nail, keeping your fingers completely out of the way.
I took my Cricut cutter to extremes to cut a photo mat. The material is a little thicker than recommended. I used the deep cut blade, a 12×24 inch mat, more pressure, and a setting that traced the pattern twice. It didn’t quite get all the way through the mat board, so I used a safety razor blade to finish the cut.
Photo description: using a safety razor blade to finish cuts in mat board, the matboard cover lifted a bit when removed from the Cricut mat, but it is on the back
The resulting mat has spaces for 16 2×3 inch photos for my youngest’s school photos. All the commercially available mats only had 13 spaces, kindergarten through 12th. I needed spaces for preschool too. I bought mats larger than the frame, which allowed me to trim down the outside with my paper cutter and make sure the Cricut cut rectangles were centered.
Photo description: finished mat over the original 13 space backing to show the new divisions, my paper cutter and my Cricut on the floor because that is the only space that can accommodate a 24 inch cutting mat (not pictured)
My front door grape vine experiment with hot glued glass pebbles and thin draping strands of hot glue caught a spider.
Photo description: Spotted Orb Weaver spider caught on strands of hot glue
I saw the spider as I was leaving the house and thought it odd that it was sitting there exposed. I pulled on some of the glue threads and it moved, so I gently pulled the threads away. It turns out the spider was tangled in the thin strands of plastic. When I pulled away enough of the elastic string, the spider mobilized and moved to a more protected area. I finished taking all the hot glue strands off the sculpture. I had no idea they were capable of entrapment.