On 03 January, 2016, we’ll be celebrating Anya’s third birthday.
Outing: At the Cleveland Botanical Garden Eleanor Armstrong Smith Glasshouse (11030 East Blvd Cleveland, OH 44106) from 1 PM – 3 PM. There is a butterfly release at 2 PM.
Tea and Cake: Angel food cake with lemon curd and blueberries at home around 4 PM
Dinner: Pizza at home around 6 PM
How the Internet has changed business constantly amazes me. I made a cape for Anya over the summer, and we didn’t want something tied around her neck … so I wanted to use a magnet to hold the cape closed. It gets caught in something and the cape breaks free. A single pair of magnets, at the site where I was purchasing the fabric, was 7$. I’m sure they are *REALLY* nice magnets (or, rather, at 7$ for two maybe 1″ diameter magnets they better be really nice magnets), but that price seemed somewhat outlandish.
Enter the Google search for magnet closures (most of which seem to be for purses and have a snap in the centre of them). I happened across Alibaba — where the exact same thing could be had for 2¢ per piece. With a minimum order of 1,000 units. And, yeah, 20$ is a lot more than 7$ … and I wasn’t actually sure if it was 1,000 pairs of magnets or not. But even if I only got 500 pair for 20$ … that’s 4¢ a pair for something retailing for 7$. I could sell half of them on eBay or something, have a lifetime supply of magnetic button closures, and probably have paid less than 7$. Except — I don’t really have any idea how to ship something out of China. A lot of listings on Alibaba (probably because it is more geared toward B2B transactions) require you to sort out the shipping from whatever foreign port.
I wasn’t willing to put the effort into figuring it out — although it looks like being an importer with an online store could be a fairly lucrative endeavor. In poking around the Alibaba site, though, I found AliExpress … same companies offering the same products at a slightly higher price, but in smaller quantities and with someone else sorting the shipping. Ten pairs of magnet buttons for 3.55$ Buying something posted from China means you cannot be in a hurry — estimated delivery is 4-6 weeks out … but jewelry findings (especially clasps) are a quarter the cost, sewing bits, housewares (I got some of the plastic cutters to make ‘animal crackers’ for a tenth the price @ Williams Sonoma).
Maybe I’m not getting the exact same thing — since the 7$ magnet says it is made in China anyway … that’s debatable — but buying something you don’t need for a few months sure saves a lot of money. I can see why Alibaba — basically a broker that connects manufacturers with retailers and end customers — makes so much money Yahoo wants to divest their money losing search engine / e-mail business and just ‘live’ off of their investment in Alibaba.
We have buttons!
And the bottom hem has been finished off:
Just need to get the sleeves sorted (and finish off the bias strip along the collar) and we have a shirt.
I’m getting close! The circle skirt is finished. I still need to finish the sleeves and bottom hem. I didn’t realize buttonholes were such a thing! I am going to try stitching them by hand. I did some research on it the past few days, and I have located a really great site at Williams Clothiers that provides incredibly detailed instructions … so I’m feeling pretty confident in my ability to do it. Need to pick up some beeswax, buttonhole thread, and buttons (I’m going to let Anya pick her buttons at the store … hopefully that works out for me!)
And a close-up of the collar – a 2″ bias-cut of fabric folded to create a 1/2″ collar. It is just basted in along the inside … but it looks really nice.
We finally made the apple monsters. I wanted to make these for Halloween (figured it would be a nice ‘treat’ without being a sugar overload). It’s just an apple cut in thirds with an extra little bit cut out. Smeared peanut butter in the cut, then set a piece of sliced strawberry in there. Dabbed a little bit of peanut butter above the ‘mouth’ and then set a carob chip onto each of the dabs. Voila, a cute little apple monster. Or for a nut-free version, check here.
Here’s Anya’s Halloween skirt:
It’s a basic circle skirt — the circle was cut for a 23″ waist. A 4.5″ strip of fabric was then cut to 24″ and made into a 2″ wide waistband and attached to the skirt. I then ran 20″ of 2″ elastic through the band & gathered the fabric. This allows the skirt to be pulled over her head or hips. Plus it means she might be able to wear it next year 🙂
And in a bid to not have a skirt used just once, it is also her official election day skirt — blood-suckers, skeletons in the closet, ghosts/mummies/reanimated corpses (how else would dead people vote?).
Whenever I hear debates about reducing the federal deficit, I think of the saying “penny wise and pound foolish”. It means making efforts to save pennies without watching the larger amounts — someone who drives a H2 fifty miles to work each day but foregoes a cup of coffee to save a buck.
We want to reduce the federal deficit; but we cannot touch military or social security and Medicare spending. And Medicare is 15% of that 28% for “Health And Human Services”. If we start our savings plan by declaring over 50% of our spending off-limits, we are either looking at HUGE cuts in the remaining not-quite 50% or we’re going to fail before we’ve even started.
We could abolish entire departments — say HUD, EPA, NASA, Education, and Labor — and eliminate all foreign aid and only reduce our total federal spending by 9%. Now 9% of 3.4 trillion dollars is still a lot of money (although an interesting academic experiment is to get a group of people together and discuss what you’ll cut in the federal budget. You may find yourself saying, with all seriousness, that we’re only looking at ten million dollars. It isn’t worth the time we’re taking to discuss it.). But we could reduce Health & Human Services, Social Security, and Defense by 3% each and save the same 9%.
Looking at discretionary spending, the picture becomes even sillier. This means we’re ignoring obligatory payments like social security and Medicare. Defense and homeland security is 54% unto itself!
Whenever someone tells me they won’t cut entitlement programs and won’t touch military spending (or will increase it!), but they’re still going to balance the budget without raising taxes … I assume they are outright lying. Wishful thinking that incomes will increase and thus increase government revenue is sound budget planning. I know the Republicans dislike the CBO because they don’t include “revenue increases we think will happen” as income … but until you start to see those returns, I don’t think you can stake your financial solvency on them.
Anya’s Christmas dress is not actually a dress — I’d had a picture in my head of a cream colour shirt in a small metallic print fabric with a green skirt. I found a beautiful small print fabric (Robert Kaufman Winters Grandeur Metallic Small Vines Ivory) that I wanted to use for the skirt. Problem was that I didn’t really have a specific shirt pattern.
Random internet searching didn’t yield anything … and then, voila, Pinterest randomly e-mails me a picture of an almost-perfect pleated shirt. I say almost because it’s winter … so I need some kind of arm covering. I’d first through about making a green velvet jacket … but that is a little more effort than I could put into it. Seems a lot easier to make a long sleeved shirt than making a whole other piece of clothing.
I can order the fabrics!
Anya wants to be a flying fairy for Halloween — figured I would make her a tutu and wings for her costume. Got real tutu net and some satin for the waistband. I don’t remember where I read it, but somewhere in my research I had read that at least one layer of contrasting color should be used to add depth to the finished product. But it seemed reasonable, so I purchased a deep blue purple and a pale pinkish purple.
I found instructions at http://www.cosplayisland.co.uk/tutorials/tutu that were wonderfully detailed. I cut the strips of net, I then cut a 16″ wide strip of the net ~23″ long. Folded it in quarters so I had a 4″ wide very sturdy 23″ strip. The strips of net were gathered along a length of embroidery floss and sewn to the 4″ wide band.
I affixed the satin to the top of the net band, and then folded it over to make a waistband.
A 20″ length of 2″ wide elastic was run through the waistband and the tutu was gathered down to Anya’s waist size. This allows the waist to stretch so it is easily pulled over her hips.
And we have a tutu! Now that I am looking at it … I’m really glad I added the contrasting color layer. It doesn’t really jump out at you, but it definitely adds depth to the finished piece.
(Yes, I did tack the tutu … just not in that photo)