Why I Oughta...

Via Can I Listen to Christmas Music? Yesterday, I flipped the annual switch from "No" to "Yes" on the Can I listen to Christmas music? project .  I've been saying for the past few years that Thanksgiving "needs a better PR agency" because we go straight from October 31st --> zoom --> Christmas.  Billboards, ads, in store displays.  All holidays.  And not Thanksgiving.  The last bastion of Thanksgiving buzz seems to be the grocery store and endcaps.  There are plenty of folks that aren't turkey producers who drive a lot of volume at Thanksgiving. I've chronicled [ Christmas Creep ] here on the blog over the years where I've posted photos of stores and others inching Christmas up in the calendar year.  And, I've consistently said that I'm totally fine with it.  I, for one, welcome our Christmas season overlords.  Bring on the Elf on the Shelf .  Bring on the Advent calendars .  Bring on the Lionel O Gauge Christmas train

This cute little bunny mold arrived in the mail recently.  She's wearing a dress and carrying a basket - as Easter Bunnies are wont to do.   The bunny from 2014 also carried a basket, but he was a bit more formal. This one is a bit smaller than we've done in the past, but I think with the girls helping me, the size is going to work to our advantage. Turns out, we didn't make one of the last year.  Instead, we went to Sea Island instead of having Easter around town.  Ahhh...Sea Island. Back to reality with these molds.  I'll work with the girls to stuff the cavitiy with water putty, then once dry, we'll paint them up, then add a topcoat for shine.  Aiming for four of them to spread the Easter joy around a bit. Here's the mold we used in 2015 . Here's the mold we used in 2014 . Here's the mold we used in 2013 . Here's the mold we used in 2012 . Here's the mold we used in 2011 .

If you pointed your browser in the direction of my Can I Listen to Christmas music? project yesterday morning, you would have noticed that the annual transition has been made from 'no' to 'yes'.   Much rejoicing was had with various Christmas-related memes and gifs . The countdown clock is now counting 'up' since November 1st at 6 am central - which was the time that the committee selected as the official line.  (And, for the record, the committee just included me!) So, go ahead.  Turn on the Christmas classics.  Nobody will be judging you any more. Enjoy this little clip that Aunt Sisi surfaced earlier this week from Buzzfeed.

With the calendar turning to July, it is natural to start thinking about Christmas, right?  Wait...what's that you say?  It's not time to start thinking about Christmas? Well...July is the 7th month of the year, so that means we're officially more than half-way to Christmas.  So...it was time to do a little maintenance on my little Christmas project site that I launched last year. I went ahead and upgraded the countdown clock over on the "Can I Listen to Christmas Music?" project site .  It is now a separate object that I grabbed from this T ickCounter site .  It is a responsive embedded object, so it flows big and small depending on the device you're on. I've pasted it below in this post, but if you want to stay up-to-date on all things Christmas Music and when the time is right to listen, you can go over there and subscribe for email updates.  Seriously...go do that.  This way, you won't be caught with a Bing Crosby-related faux pas come Octob

Earlier this month, I posted the little project I created about listening to Christmas music .  Well...good news for *some* of you:   there's an update .  Thanksgiving week is here, so rejoice fellow Christmas music people:  You no longer have to feel shame. Go ahead.  Play the Bing.  Feel no shame. http://www.canilistentochristmasmusic.com/

Ah....the question as old as time... When, exactly, is it appropriate to put on Christmas music? To try to help solve the dilemma, I've put up a new project:   http://www.canilistentochristmasmusic.com/ . There, you'll discover the answer to the question:  " Can I listen to Christmas music ?"  Trust me...this is *the* official answer to whether it is socially acceptable to have holiday tunes playing on any given day. I'm working on some tweaks, so check in once in a while to make sure you're getting the right advice.

This is the fifth edition of the 'faux chocolate' water putty Easter bunny produced in our house.  He has a basket on his back and is pretty tall.  Took almost a half can of Water Putty for each one. I can't seem to find the photo of last year's version (but I did, indeed, produce one).   Guessing it had something to my lack of posting in March and April of 2014.  I did, however post the mold from last year that you can see here .  We made the typical batch of four of these guys and with the help of the girls, we gave them away a week ago on Easter Sunday. Here's the original how-to post from back in 2011 . There have been five, but with 2014 missing, here's the rest: Here's the 2013 edition . Here's the 2012 edition . Here's the 2011 edition .

Easter may have come and gone, but I find time to get around to posting about this year's bunny mold.  The Babe and I produced a few of these just like we've done in year's past. This year's mold was pretty big and used A LOT of water putty.   This marks the 5th year of doing the bunnies and they're all different.  I'll post some photos of the in-progress bunnies and the fully-finished ones that are all glossy with polycrylic. Here's the mold we used in 2014 . Here's the mold we used in 2013 . Here's the mold we used in 2012 . Here's the mold we used in 2011 .

We're going to get started this weekend with the water putty.  This guy is 'vintage-y' looking, so he'll fit right in with some of the past year's editions. Here's the mold we used in 2013 . Here's the mold we used in 2012 . Here's the mold we used in 2011 .

A few weeks ago, I took the girls to the local "My Favorite Toy Store" in the Elmhurst City Centre where we picked up a few things including a butterfly project.  For twenty-ish bucks, you get a mesh cage and a coupon that you send away for caterpillars.  This was going to be a project for me and the Babe, my oldest daughter. We dutifully filled out the coupon and send it away.  This weekend, the Babe received a box in the mail and when she opened it, she found a sealed cup with five or six tiny caterpillars in it with some peanut-butter-looking stuff at the bottom. Once we opened up the box, the instructions said to set the cup upright in a place that is 68 to 75 degrees out of direct sunlight.  At first, these little guys didn't move at all.  They seemed to be stuck in place.  They must be kept in some setting that keeps in a place close to hibernation which ends after the box arrives, I would think.  A few hours of sitting on our counter, they started to move.

For the first time, we made some 'white chocloate' faux Easter bunnies.  The mold ( here ) was the smallest one I've worked with of the three years.  In the photo above, the white ones almost look matte, but they have the same shine on them that the chocolate ones do. Here's the 2012 edition . Here's the 2011 edition .

Look at what I spotted at the Cracker Barrel?  A pretty tall faux chocolate bunny.  They've painted his eyeball, which is something I haven't done, but other than that they look a lot like the bunnies I've made in the past .  They wanted $19.99 for the large ones.  I have about $20 in the process to make three of them, so these guys have some healthy margins.  Granted....they're not using water putty to mold them as they're made of lightweight plastic, so they're probably even cheaper to produce. Is the faux chocolate bunny going to become a hot Easter-season item?

Here's the first bunny out of the mold.  After some drying and some Dremel-ing, we'll put a prime coat on this guy, then we'll have some fun painting him in a finish coat.  The Babe helped me make this one, so she wants to paint it her favorite color:  pink!

I picked up a new mold from KHL Molds last week and started to make this year's bunnies.  I received a really sweet note from the owner of KHL Molds - and a special surprise - that I'll cover later this week. I've filled the mold already once with water putty and the cavity is a lot smaller than last year's and only requires one blend of material to fill the whole thing.  That means I can likely make *more* than I have in the past...

I've been thinking about DIY'ing a shuffleboard table for the basement for a while and after doing a bit of research on the web, I went looking on Craigslist for something that would make a suitable playing surface.  Well, well, well.   Lookie what I found here .  Some re-usable bowling alley lane wood. Seems like 18 linear feet of that stuff would work just fine, wouldn't it?  Wonder if I can rent a truck that'll hold 18 feet?  And...wonder if I can convince Nat that this is a good idea?

You can't swing a dead cat on a DIY blog/forum/magazine these days without seeing a re-claimed/re-used pallet project.  They are used for outdoor furniture.  Coffee tables.  Headboards.  All sorts of things.  I've had a few pallets laying around in my backyards after doing our paver patio a few years back and I couldn't have tried to get rid of them faster.  They were gnarly, dirty, full of huge nails and usually cracked up in various parts. In this month's copy of This Old House Magazine (above), they call out the steps needed to use said pallets.  They say that bleaching the wood to disinfect the planks is a good piece of the process. I don't want to forclose myself on doing any pallet projects, but the pallets I've seen need a heckuva lot more than some sanding and bleach.  Has anyone actually seen/sat on one of these pallet projects?

Have I told you guys about cheesemaking?  Not yet, you say?  Well... if you know anything about this blog it is that I tend to get 'into' my hobbies and I tend to share those here.  I've been nosing around the edges of artisanal cheesemaking for a while now and have made some soft cheeses in the past. With the help of my brother-in-law, I'm set up with a cheesemaking kit and I intend to make some mozzarella this weekend.   That's the citric acid that came with the kit up there in the photo.   Sounds fun, right? But, what about hard cheeses?  In reading the prep materials on the basics of cheesemaking, I've been engulfed with recipes and press ideas and ingredients for hard cheeses. One of the things that sticks out is that you (apparently) don't want to (if you can help it) use pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized milk.  Good news for us, though!  Turns out, there's a raw milk place right here in DuPage County.   The Golden Guernsey operates out of

Thanks to my brother-in-law Mr. Fox, I've upgraded my primary carving knife to this one in the bottom of the photo.  My old knife (the one on top) came with my kit of chisels.  This one has a thicker, more substantial handle and a one-sided blade.  I still have my gnome carving that I've been working on for a while, but with this new blade (and the stone/strop that I have now), I'm going to try to get serious and get the little guy over the finish line.

I put the snowmaker up on Christmas Eve, but the temperatures were a few degrees too high to get any accumulation.  Maybe for New Years?

With the help of Nat, we made it under the Christmas Eve deadline to get the dollhouse.  We left the top floor walls just primed so the Babe can pick out what the wall coverings look like up there herself.