MaeLyn's Musings

Something that I have enjoyed doing a lot in the last couple years is using plastic canvas and yarn to make tissue box covers. This is a simple way to be creative and make something that I will use!  I start with 5 pieces of plastic canvas. The top is about 33 holes x 60 holes, two sides are 60x24, and the last two sides are 33x24. The top will have a slot cut in the middle, but the size of the top varies depending on the design. It should at least be large enough to easily feed the tissue through! I usually plan my design before I begin, often drawing it out either on graph paper or sketching it onto the canvas itself with a permanent marker. I like experimenting with different types of stitches and textures to make each one unique in its own way. Once each side is stitched, then I sew them all together. Here are some of my past projects: This is the one I have on my bedside table. The colors aren't good in the photo, but it is navy and pink. The monster box was one of the first o...

 Once upon a time, there was a sheep who loved to jump fences. He loved the satisfying smack he heard when he landed on the far side of the fence, and sometimes he would land so hard that he kind of bounced when he landed. So he would jump up high, and then come down as hard as he could on the other side of the fence. Can you pretend your hand is the sheep? Hold your hand a little way out to the side of your body, lift him up as high as your head and then make him drop straight down right in front of you. The ground is about even with your waist.  The farmer got tired of having to go find this sheep when he jumped over the fence out of the field where he lived, so he built some smaller fences that he could put in a circle inside the field so the sheep could jump these fences and go around and around until he got tired and stopped.  Once again, can you pretend your hand is the sheep? Make him go up and down and up and down as he jumps the little fences in his field. (Re...

 If you were going to compose a piece of music to represent some aspect of fire, what aspect would you choose? Would it be a raging forest fire? A blazing bonfire? A crackling campfire? I admit I was a bit overwhelmed with the idea of composing a fire song. I wanted something that had some image of fire. It had to show fire's energy, complexity and spontaneity, but I also wanted it to be something I could play. So I chose the image of a small flickering candle, with its glowing flame dancing brightly in the dark.  Of the four elements I wrote songs for, this one was the most challenging for me. I came up with a basic melody only after much thought, but even then, figuring out where it would go from there was a challenge. More than once I scrapped everything I had besides that basic melody and started again. Here is what I have now.

Here is the third piece of music that I came up with in the last few months. When I first started working on "I Wish That I Could Fly", I called it my "air" song. "Listen to the River" started out as my "water" song. At about that point, I was asked if I planned to do songs for stone and fire, too. At first the idea seemed overwhelming, but when my first two pieces of music reached a certain point, I started considering what music for one of these other elements would sound like.  Stone is solid and strong. It provides a foundation; it is a support; it can give shelter. With these thoughts in mind, I composed "Tomorrow Will Be Better". A sub-title for this song might be "So Lean Upon the Rock". When the storms of life beat down and seem overwhelming, take shelter on the lee side of the rock when you must, but plant yourself on a firm foundation and you will gain the strength you need to carry on. (See Helaman 5:12 )

Shortly after I started composing "I Wish That I Could Fly", I began another song, which I call "Listen to the River". I found that working on two songs gave me a chance to alternate which I was working on. If I got frustrated with one, I could switch to the other, and when I came back to the first, I had a fresh perspective that helped me to move forward. The two songs had different time signatures, different keys and different moods that helped give me some variety as well. The image in my head for this song was of someone relaxing on the bank of a river watching the light reflect off the ripples. Sometimes the water rushes over waterfalls and rapids, and sometimes it slows down and drifts, but it is always progressing on its journey to the sea. Again, I am posting it here for your enjoyment, but I reserve the right to make changes in the future if I feel so inclined.😉

Some of you may know that I like music. For the last several years, I've been dabbling in music, arranging medleys of various songs, occasionally creating piano/viola duets that Hannah and I can play together, and just having fun. Some of these have included my Pioneer Medley , my Joseph Medley , and  A Londonderry Duet .   A few months ago, I challenged myself to compose some original music. I started with an idea, and then created the music around that idea. It has gone through many stages, growing and refining. I've put it aside for a while and worked on something else, but then I've come back to it and worked on it a bit more. I like where it is now enough to share it, but that doesn't mean that I might not change it in the future! It's called "I Wish That I Could Fly" and that was the idea I started with, imagining that I could soar up into the sky and leave all my trials and problems behind me on the ground. The thought crossed my mind to add words, ...

Dying eggs used to be a fairly simple endeavor. We boiled a bunch of eggs, covered the table with several layers of newspaper, set out cups with hot water, vinegar and food coloring, and let the kids dip their eggs into the colored cups.  As the years go by, however, the tradition has evolved. For one thing, fewer of us desire to participate in the coloring of the eggs. Sadly, it is no longer a family activity. This year, only three of us participated.  Also, the eggs we end up with get more intricately decorated by those who do want to color them. No longer do we get solid colored eggs, dipped in just one color dye. Now the process involves markers, Q-tips, white crayons, and food coloring mixed with small amounts of lemon juice, as well as the usual cups of colored vinegar water for whole-egg dying. Now we get eggs with character! Vanellope von Schweetz, Stitch, Perry the Platypus Cogsworth, Buzz Lightyear Shrek, some random chick in an egg... Ar...

This bottle has a wide, solid base, so it is well balanced, sturdy, dependable, and isn't easily knocked over. The neck tries to break free of that image a little, and reaches out in an attempt to be graceful and artistic, although it falls a bit short of its aspirations. In looks, it is pretty, but not glamorous. It is fine standing on its own when it has to, but is usually more comfortable when something else shares the stage.

Josh chose our activity for Family Home Evening last night. He divided three pieces of paper in half lengthwise, then gave each of us one piece of paper and told us to fold it into sixths. Then we each drew the top of a head (to the eyebrows), then fold down what we drew and pass the paper to the next person, who finished the head down to the neck before passing it on. Next person drew down to the waist, next to the knees, next to the ankles, and the last person drew the feet. It was fun to unfold the drawings and see the creatures that we drew!  Sometimes the lines get lost going from one section to the next, which is what happened to the picture on the left above. As the kids have gotten older, this has happened less frequently. These are fun because each of the six members of our family drew one section of each of the drawings, but it is difficult sometimes to figure out who drew which part!

I mentioned last week that we had checked out the movie "Monsters University" from the library. It inspired last week's Monster Logic puzzle. Since then, I have been having fun drawing the monsters that were referred to in the puzzle. I finished the last one today, so I thought I would share. Warning: if you haven't solved the puzzle and don't want me to give away the answers, don't look at this! These were the sketches I started out with when I created the puzzle to help me remember who was who, and who had what. Art was drawn entirely in Photoshop. Herbert was sketched in pencil, then colored with colored pencil. Ponzi was originally colored in crayon, then scanned and changed a bit in Photoshop. Theodore was drawn entirely in Photoshop. Bonzo was drawn entirely in Photoshop. I'm not the only one who drew monsters this week. I was just having fun with some random monster sketches, and Peter added a picture of the real Art ...