Origami Craze

Over the past few years I have noticed our summer housing rarely feels homely, often it has the same attachment one has to their dorm room.  Yes it is home but you don't feel particularly connected to it.  This summer I wanted our apartment to feel homey and I thought decorating it would go a long way toward that homey feeling.  But I hear I have no money so I tried decorating with what I could make do with.

This lead to me learning a bit of origami.  So I have done origami before, the way you do as a kid and your summer camp needs to keep you busy for an hour or two, but it isn't like I remember any of it.  I found this great website Origami Club, they have lots of cuties stuff but I stuck to more traditional shapes.

It's a Box! You might be able to make out some poorly shaped stars inside.

I didn't exactly have any origami paper handy so you might recognize the familiar pattern of writing paper.  There were a few failed attempts at coloring the paper, but nope just looked like and elementary school project.

Box Number 2

I am a currently a box making genius.  No coin jar, no problem make yourself a Origami Candy Box.  This has actually been great and held its shape and our change all summer.

The boxes were nice but were not doing much to decorate.  So I tried the most traditional, or cliché, of origami the Crane.

Crane Farm

Cranes of all sorts and sizes all created out of scrape paper around the apartment... ie.. mail.

I definitely had fun with how small I could fold a crane. This one is made out of the envelope they bank gives you with your cash.

I was liking the idea of using the cranes to decorate but I needed a lot and I didn't want to deplete our only writing paper so I started getting creative with materials.  

Receipt Cranes:

Cutting Action

By folding them in half I was able to get square sheets and could get anywhere from 3 to 5 pieces depending on the size of the receipt.  Some of them even had fun colors on the back.  It also turns out most stores regardless of what they sell tend to have the same width receipts.

I bought some fishing line at Walmart so I could put my cranes into flight and I created a swarm of paper cranes in our three season room.

It very much gives the room a whimsical feel when it is lit up at night.

Crane Closeup

I even decided to embrace the type on the receipts as a fun print detail.  I finally had to start throwing away my receipts as I have a huge back log of pieces waiting to be folded and hung.

Summary      

Cost:

            Fishing Line                 $2.50

   

             

Time:  Hours, it is a on going project so it is hard to tally.

Average : pennies /hr entertainment 

Perks: 

Fills a 15 minutes here and there when you just need something to do.  It also had a little personal feeling to an apartment that is now ours.

Updates

I decided to start the week with an update to some of my pervious posts:

Fish Market: 

I was finally able to get a picture of the inside of my fish market without looking like a complete tourist.  Really I just took the picture when no one was in the room.

Fishiness

Not much, but here it is in all of its fishiness.  It has just enough fisherman paraphernalia on the walls to satisfy my tourist needs.

Farmer's Market:

I stopped by Westport for the Farmer's Market last Thursday and took the time to take a few more pictures that better sum up the old wealthy awesomeness that is Westport.

This adorable shop in this renovated 1800's building is not unique in anyway, it isn't even one of the cuter buildings.  All of the shopping area looks like this.  

I stumbled upon the shopping street full on awesome high end chains such as Kate Spade and Brooks Brothers and Coach, all in adorable historic or at least historic looking buildings.

Swanky looking YMCA, yea I thought so too 

Looks like a Ivy League Library

Continuing on the Westport update a little proof on the adorableness of the Anthropologie in town:

Oh and they sell wallpaper and curtains in this store!!! If this news is not exciting to you, you are obviously not a girl or have yet to discover the best store ever.  OK stepping back crazy girlie girl.

Messenger Bag

This has become my favorite bags and despite not geting to the city yet, I have been carrying it everywhere.  It also fits my laptop which was a great surprise.

Herb Garden

Not so good.  My poor plants have been cursed with lack of sun, sweltering heats, and the misfortune of being flooded by my above neighbors.  They only place I can put my plants happens to be directly under where my neighbor keeps her plants on the balcony and mine catch all the excess water.  In short everything is dead except for the basil which is doing surprisingly well.

Garden of Death

So that is what I have on the update front I will let you know when more comes up.

Music at the Beach

Norwalk has been offering a Summer Concert Series at the beach Wednesday nights. We finially had a chance to go check it out.  The beach is a public park so the concert is free,  we did have to pay $5 to park.  Residences of Norwalk can get a pass for free, but as we aren't really residences we lacked the necessary paper work to make that happen.  So I like to think of it as our donation to the Norwalk Parks and Rec. Department.

I don't know if it is the theme of the music series or not but most of the bands are 60's & 70's tribute bands. A Buddy Holiday tribute band was playing the night we went, though they seemed not to play much Buddy Holiday.

Pretty good turn out

The concert is played out on the lawn so everyone brought their own chairs and blankets along with picnics.  Nights like these makes Norwalk feel more like home.

This little girl's dance movies would put most of us to shame.  Talk about commitment, the umbrella she is holding doubled as a guitar for most of the songs.  The band was good, she and her friends were better.

Bonus: The night we came was also a classic car contest!

So shinny

Dozens and dozens of beautiful classic cars.  After the 8th row of cars I was starting to doubt these were all local entries.  There were also a few cars I questioned the reason for restoration, if it was an ugly hooptie when it was new it is still an ugly hooptie when it is old.  Oh well beauty in the eye of the beholder.

You have to love a purple roadster

At the end of the first set they announced the winners of various car categories, I would would have picked the roadster. 

Half way through the second set we decided to stroll the beach, which was so pretty in the dusk light.

The moon was much more distinct in the sky, but I am still pretty happy with the picture.

I believe next time I will be joining the picknickers (if that is how you spell it).  We might also ride our bikes and save the 5 bucks.

Summary      

Cost:

             Parking                  $5  

   

             

Time:  2 hours

Average : $2.50 /hr entertainment 

Perks: 

Relaxing night... and a few bug bits. 

Messenger Bag

With all these trips to NYC I have realized I do not have a good bag for my sketchpad and book.  I am cheap and supper picky so I decided to take a stab at making my own bag, not because I have ever, just why not.  Besides Daniel was going to kill me if I never used my sewing machine this summer, since it took up so much space in the car.

DIY Messenger Bag:

Along with the the sewing machine, that took up too much space in the car I also brought a whole box of fabric to entertain myself.  Of couse I did not already own any fabric that would work for my bag, so I went out shopping. To be fair to me, you really need upholstery weight fabric if you want to make a bag and I didn't have any big enough peices.

So a quick run to the fabric store, quick... who am I kidding, an hour long run to the fabric store.  A fabric store is one of my favorite places to be, so pretty, so full of possibility.

Fabric!

I picked this great blue and red but did decided I would use whatever fabric I had at home for liner fabric.  It isn't my first choice but I think it will work.

Now I have patterned my own costumes so I figured I could make my own bag pattern.

Exact isn't it

Pretty simple: one short rectangle in the front, a long rectangle (to include the flap) in the back, and one super long skinny band to give the bag some thickness. Then add straps, it will be a snap right?

My big plan was to make two bags and then stuff the lining "bag" into the exterior bag and then stitch them around the top.

The Stuffing

Pressing action.

Stitching time.  My trusty basic sewing machine.  I really wanted a CD player that Christmas, but in hindsight this was a much better gift. Thanks Mom.

Closing up the top

So in cutting my straps I forgot to include the over lap to stitch down, so just a titch shorter than the originally plan.

I decided to double stitch everything to add some strength so my book doesn't come crashing through, oh and it looks cool.

Must learn to take better sewing pictures.

Mood lighting stitching

It's alive!!!

With Pockets:

 

Looks like I am headed off to the first day of school.

So the flap only goes half way down the front, which was exactly what was planned.  After it was finished it occurred to me normally the flap is the full length of the front pannel, if not even longer.  I may be engineering some sort of button latch to make sure nothing falls out.

Summery:

Cost:

                       Fabric        $15

                       (I already had all the other supplies)        

Time:  6 hours (shopping and building, I work at a casual pace for myself)   

Average : $2.50/hr entertainment

Perks: 

A custom bag, while I spend the next year searching for my ultimate and inexpensive bag.  It will take me that long.

Statue of Liberty

Shocker another NYC post.  We are leaving CT in 3 weeks so I am definitely trying to maximizes my time and therefor visits to the city.   This time we thought we would do the most touristy thing we could think of which was spend some time with Lady Liberty.

If you are considering this day drip in national pride please, please, please go here and buy your tickets before hand.  We did not plan so well, in fact we decided this would be a fun trip the morning of and then were utterly shocked when we turned up at Battery Park on Saturday afternoon in July to an almost hour long wait in the ticket line!  Once we had obtained our tickets then began the over an hour wait in the security line.  This is not one of those probe a stick in your backpack, think airport security scanners.  Something the obviously none english speaking elderly couple in front of us did not understand.

Amusingly enough they kept announcing at the ticket line that there was no wait in Jersey if we wanted to catch a ferry to the New Jersey ticket and security station.  

Admission to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island is free you pay for your ferry ticket, and there is only one ferry that is allowed to land at the islands.  The $12 ticket isn't too bad when you realize what you are getting for it: three ferry rides and two national landmarks.

At long last, tickets in hand.  We set out on our ferry.

The ferry was surprisingly not that crowded but I didn't try going on the top deck I was getting all the wind through my hair I needed on the second floor deck. 

I am really proud of this picture.

You get some fantastic views of skyline on your ferry ride

Soo tall.

Now we did not opt for the pedestal or crown tours, the crown tours were booked up weeks ago.  I will be honest there isn't much to do if you didn't sign up for a pedestal tour.  Right infront of the statue is slamed with people trying to take pictures with the statute.  Now the area of the island behind the monument is a beautiful park with plenty of trees to hide in the shade.  Lots of people were picnicking or just naping in the park enjoying a fantastic view of the city.  

New York City!

We joined in lounging in the park before catching the next ferry to Ellis Island. 

The Holding Room

 I went here once in high school and either it didn't make a very big impression on me or they have done a tremendous amount of work on the museum since them.

It was a fantastic monument to the past.  We stumbled on to exhibit after exhibit of immigration progress and the history of Ellis Island.  One exhibit took you step by step through the immigration screening process as well as life for those detained on the island, as well as explaining the intention of every step. There was so much to look at we  finally ended up just breezing through rooms as we had other plans to get to.  It almost seemed a shame the ferry didn't stop here first.  It seemed you could spend an entire day reading through exhibits, watching films, partaking in reenactment immigration hearings, and researching your ancestors.  This part of the day by far overshadowed the Statue of Liberty.

If you are interested in this trip I suggest these things so you can spend more time touring and less time in line:

1.  Buy Tickets in advance and print them off at home

2.  Base out of New Jersey if it makes since 

3.  Go in September, or at least a Tuesday... anything but a Saturday in the summer ... how dumb were we to not think there would be a line.

Summary      

Cost:

              Transportation (train & subways)        $13.50 

              Statue of Liberty                                     $13    

             Total                                                         $26.50

                

Time:  7.5 hours

Average : $3.53 /hr entertainment 

Perks: 

A bit of sun and that warm and fuzzy national pride feeling.

   

Shakespeare in the Park

Thursday night we decided to take advantage of our proximity to NYC and went in to see The Public Theatre's production of All's Well That Ends Well.  Besides from having a great reputation the Shakespeare in the Park series is absolutely free!  There is one small catch the only way to get tickets is to pick them up at 1pm at the box office day of performance.  And people start lining up hours before hand to ensure they get tickets.  It is even posted on the website that the earliest you can start lining up is 6 am, as the park is not open until then.

I could not have gotten there at 6 am even if I had wanted to, and I didn't.  My train pass is for "off peak" times which essentially means I travel at times when people commuting to the city would not want to travel, ie... middle of the day.  I was able to get to the park by 11 am, there was a small snafu in the subway, but why dewel.

I was a little nervous about my odds of getting a ticket once I found the line.  I checked the maps app on my phone to realize I was sitting 0.2 miles away from the ticket booth.  What was giving me hope was the line was fairly spread out as people had brought blankets, camps chairs and the such.  I was not this prepared, I found myself a bit envious of the foursome playing the board game they had brought from home.  But I did have a book, and a bag of peanuts.  As the theatre is in the middle of the Central Park, hence Shakespreare in the Park, it is a pretty wait.   I read a few chapters in my book, sketched a few of my fellow line waiters, and visited with the woman beside me.  

A butterfly decide to join me for the wait.

Once the line starts moving it is very quick moving. By 1:20 I had my tickets, second to the last row on the end... glad I didn't show up 30 minutes later.

I still had a little time before Daniel joined me in the city so I decided to visit the, The Museum of Modern Art, MOMA for short. I ended up spending over two hours there.  I never would have guessed modern art was my thing but I find myself very drawn to it.  Used my old student idea to save myself eight dollars.

A few of the pieces I enjoyed:

An exhibit of the napkin doodles by an artist

MOMA kept me busy until Daniel came into the city.  We got some sandwiches from a bodega and enjoyed them in the park while we waited for the show to start.

The theatre is very nice and despite having the end of the line seats, there really wasn't a bad seat in the theatre.  We got lucky and had wonderful weather for the show. While All's Well That Ends Well is not one of my favorite Shakespeare it was a very pretty show.  Well acted, I just don't like the plot.  They even utilized the turtle pond behind the theatre for as a pretty back drop and water explosion.  Unfortunately the theatre is a bit of a haul from the train station so we ended up on the late train home.

Summary      

Cost:

              Transportation (train & subways)        $16.00 

              Food                                                        $15

              MOMA                                                     $12

              Play                                                         $0      

             Total                                                         $43.00

                

Time:  15 hours

Average : $2.87 /hr entertainment 

Perks: 

Lovely day in the city fun of art and theatre.

Fashion House

Some of you may have noticed that I was not blogging much the week before my vacation as well.  I actually didn't have much time to blog as I was WORKING!  Yippie!

I stumbled across the  New England Fashion + Design Association in town that seems to be an space for young designers to work thing as well as runs a kids fashion summer camp.  Now the already had a full staff, but as I am likable, they decided to use me as a fill in teacher.  That is right I am a substitute teacher at a summer camp, ha.

I went in the other week largely just to watch and get a feeling for how the camp runs.  They work with preteens and young teens to create their own designs.  Each week there is a different theme to the project.  The frist week the girls made a dress for themselves out of a man's button down shirt.  This week they are designing their own purses.  It is too much fun,  which keeps threatening to break out into mass chaos as the girls run around designing and building their garments, some have never sewn before.  The kids are also fearless in cutting and stitching, which is such a laugh after teaching a college costume construction class that was nothing but fear.

Friday was the only day I "officially" subbed, but I did spend most of my week there working on a project the woman running the camp thought up on the spot for me.  By the way she is Russian, blunt, and great. They had just converted the men's restroom into an office, I will let you make those jokes yourself, and a bench had been created where the sinks use to be and she needed a cushion for it.  And I was Going to make that cushion.

So for the better part of three days I created a cover for this 74" x 34" cushion as well as getting grabbed by a girl every 10 minutes to help pin or sew.  As it turns out I make a pretty sweet cushion cover.

Whala:

What you want it reversible... Done:

You may or may not be able to tell from the pictures but one side is stripped and one side is hounds tooth.  I thought it turned out quite nice.  

Hopefully I will get to work at the camp some more, even not I might go in and play with their expensive toys anyway, they have a very "just drop on by feeling". 

Summary      

Cost:

              None (I GOT PAID)

Time:  4 Days

Average : $0 /hr entertainment  Yippie!

                        

Perks: 

$250!