"All is worthwhile if the soul is not small"

At 6:00 in the morning everything seems to have a different dimension...

I've been up since 4:00 am.

I still keep waking up to different weird unusual things...

Since J's passing it has been like that.

Please don't misunderstand...

I'm fine, and I do realize that missing him this much

can do that to your subconscious mind.

But somehow it's very comforting to me.

It started that week of August 17th... static...

and static and static on the phones...

...till they died.

Unusual sounds in the house,

smoke detectors will go on for no reason and won't stop

(I had to remove them).

This night it was a phone ringing, just the ringing sound,

the phone was not actually ringing.

And the butterflies.

Everyday I see all these wonderful butterflies

just fluttering around.

After my mom passed,

I kept awaking up to the sound of her voice and the words Lena, get up!

The words of the Portuguese most famous and wonderful poet

Fernando Pessoa

keep popping in my mind

"all is worthwhile if the soul is not small"

(tudo vale a pena quando a alma nao e pequena).

Time is very strange... 

... in one hand it seems like

I'm still inside a long nightmare struggling to wake up,

but on the other hand it seems like everything happened a long time ago...

and it has been only 32 days since it happened.

My niece has been staying with me since Friday night.

Like usual we did lots of things...

... a little sewing,

a little cooking, a little manicure,

a little napping while watching movies on TV...

... projects for Halloween costume

(this year she wants to be a vampire princess,

so we tried some of my dresses, projected a cape out of

a velvet material I had from years and years ago),

and sewn a few small prizes for her future scavenger hunt

she has been planning.

This is the pic of the tiara she sewn for her costume...

Do you remember Mr. Yellow Bunny I had made for my sister-in-law...?,

I had promised I would show you the pic

when she had it on the bench...?, well, here it is.

 The saying is very cute and its purpose

is to function like a time out bench,

but a well pleasant time out...don't you think?

The week has been busy,

I still have so many things to deal with,

and of course I still have to pursue finding a job

until I can (hopefully) go back to my career as a special ed teacher.

I think this may explain the reason of this time distortion to me...

... my days used to be very routine like... taking care of J

was a very methodical and regular task,

everything circled towards his care

and now it seems I have all this time on my hands!

The shop has taken some of all this time out my hands,

setting it up, making things to sell, promoting it,

takes quite a bit of it

but still...

... sometimes the emptiness just kind installs itself without a warning...

Oh well...

I've made 3 more sets of quilted coasters for the shop.

I like them a lot and they look quite good I think.

And about my last post... about what happened

with my floppy disk treasure box tutorial,

 I checked it out yesterday again and of course

she hadn't post my comment but she did rectify it, linking it to my blog,

as you can see by the pic bellow.

Anyhow... at least she did rectify it.

But I also noticed by her last post

she had been somehow punished by Google,

it seems she could not publish graphics and images...

I've also noticed I was not the only one

she was not giving credits or linking to...

... and for sure I should not have been the only one aggravated by that.

And that's it for today.

My niece is still sleeping

and shortly I'll have to go get her up and get her ready for church.

Until my next post, I'll see you then.

Floppy Disk Treasure Box Tutorial

A couple weeks ago

I showed you some pictures of boxes I made using old floppy disks,

and I had promised to come back to it.

Well, this is it.

I'm sorry it took me a little longer then I thought,

but I had to make sure I had all the right pics sequence to show you how to.

I got this idea when I saw a project made with 5 floppy disks to form like an open cube to use as a pencil container.

Each floppy disk had 4 holes drilled on to tie them together using some sort of electrical wire.

So,  I thought instead of drilling holes I'm going to use felt to make pouches for the floppy disks and then I'll sew the pouches together.

And that was treasure box #1.

I add a lid and was quite happy with the result

(don't make the lid and you'll have the open cube/pencil container).

Afterwards,

 I start thinking, I could make a different one, as an hexagon, and I could use fabric instead of felt. 

And that was treasure box #2.

I really like it.

I made the pouches out of coordinating fabrics

and inserted a square of batting in each.

And then I decided I would make another one out of felt,

and take pics for a tute.

Cute, isn't it?

OK, for the tute, here we go.

You'll need:

• 6 old floppy disks

• 6 felt squares for the outside (just a little bit bigger than the floppy disk, mines were 4,5")
• 6 felt squares for the inside (4,5")

• 2 felt hexagons for the outside (side length=4,5" on mines)
• 2 felt hexagons for the inside (same length, 4,5")

• 2 cardboard hexagons (smaller size: side length=4")

• felt for embellishments
• felting mat
• felting tool
• glue
• gallon/ribbon/rhinestones...

Start by choosing your inside and outside felt colours.

Cut six 4,5"squares from each color (12 total).

Cut two hexagons 4,5" side length from each color (4 total).

If you going to embellish yours like I did,

cut 1 big flower on felt for the lid,

like so, 

and six smaller ones, like so.

 Then you have to felt the flower parts together to make a whole flower.

When all the flowers are felted together,

 

you have to felt them on the outside squares and on the outside lid.

 

Now that all the squares and the lid have the flowers felted on,

 

it's time to start sewing together the squares

and inserting the floppy disk on the pouches.

Using the embroidery floss on a coordinate color and a blanket stitch,

sew together the outside and inside felt squares.

When you have 3 sides sewn together,

 

insert the disk in and sew close the last side.

Do the same with the bottom and the lid,

except for those you'll insert the hexagon cardboard

between the felt hexagons.

When everything is sewn together,

it's time to start forming the box,

that is, sewing all the sides together.

Start by sewing one side of each square to one side of the hexagon bottom,

like this.

When it's done,

it will look like this.

Then start sewing one square side to the next square, like so. 

 

And you're almost done!

The last thing to do is to sew the lid to the box:

sew one side of the hexagon lid to one side of the hexagon box.

 Embellish it as you will, and you're done!  

You have a cute treasure box for all your treasured keepsakes!

Enjoy!