Craft Class Week 8: The Monsters Get Thoughtful

3-10-11

This Week's Project: Wet Felted Soap (wrap wool roving around a bar of soap and rub it with soapy hot water until it felts a tight little jacket around the bar.)

I think I'm going to quit forming any preconceptions about any of these projects..they turn out to be the opposite every time.

Walked in the classroom and was immediately bombarded with aggressive demands to smell 12 different kinds of soap (they were instructed to bring their own bar.)  Several minutes of sniffing and dramatic "oooohs" and "ahhhs" for the face numbing gourmet scents later, and me and my now useless nose began setting up a demo station at what is usually the "boys table."  I attempted a wolf whistle to round everybody up for my new and exciting "demo" approach, but naturally (and, as always, I should add) ended up just blowing air and spit about a foot infront of me. nice. (Who was I trying to kid?)  Settled then for a nice, loud and ever effective "Everybody listen up!" 

With everyone gathered around me, I gave a short and simple wet felting demo and was absolutely stunned (and semi-alarmed) to find it greeted with nothing but curious faces and quiet mouths. Yes! completely quiet mouths! Just captivated eyes followed by greedy fingers once I dumped out the bag of roving. 

Everyone dove in right away picking out their colors (Which I've learned to strategically pack based on their individual preferences - I wanted to give myself a high five this week when the 3 boys all went right for the Carolina Hurricane's black and red) then got right to work lathering them in soap and water and felting away!

No soap wars, no popping the bubble wrap felting mats, no major water spills, things went surprisingly smooth!  We had one noise complaint from the teacher downstairs but all in all the kids were doing a nice job of working diligently and sharing with each other.  Or that's at least what it seemed like from my position.  I spent most of my time over at the sink attempting to tighten up the "finished" products that everyone was handing me, so that they wouldn't fall apart after one use.  In doing this,  I failed to notice two things: 1. the mass amount of roving that was being used outside the project to create giant soapy, soggy wet felted balls (which everyone was quite proud of, of course) and 2. the secret "surprise miss lauren" operation that was taking place more covertly on the other side of the classroom. 

The secret operation, was headed up by two little girls who had found a little felted teddy bear in the bag of roving.  They took one of the extra bars of soap that I packed, felted it, then attached the little bear to it with a blankety/string configuration resulting in the following adorable "bear in a sleeping bag" look.  They followed it up 10 minutes later with another finished bar containing "a piece of felt from everyone in the class"  and I about melted there on the spot.  (They like me!) Add in the squeaky and excited "We made this for you Miss Lauren!" delivery, and I was speechless.

From there out I helped everyone finish up their giant felt balls, bagged up the freshly felted wet soap bars for backpack travel, and smiled as some of the kids even attempted to help me clean up our very wet mess. (I'm thinking at this point someone might have drugged their chocolate milks at lunch, but I'm not asking any questions.) I also accepted several felted "accessories" for my new bear soap from several kids (these consisted mostly of useless felt scraps that could be loosely interpreted as a hat, blanket, shoe etc, but the thought was still nice.)


Left with a smile on my face and 2 soggy bars of gifted soap in my pockets, and called it a good day :)

Craft Class Week 7: The Monsters Get Emotional

3/3/11
This week's project: Amazing Magnets (Cut out pictures, put them in a bottle cap, fill with amazing glaze resin, bake, and attach a magnet to the back)

Oyyyyyy where to start....
Well I owe a lot of this week's chaos to my own mistakes, My first mistake: thinking there was such a thing as a simple craft class (hahahahhahahah) My second mistake: a shortage of bottlecaps..

I packed enough bottlecaps and magnets for each (of the 12) kids to make 2 magnets, (this might seem stingy, but this was all the magnets we had available at the store) plus a few extra caps to avoid squabbles over color choices.  Everyone chose their caps quickly and began rummaging through the piles of paper and magazines for their perfect images (cats, princesses, dinosaurs etc.) I broke up a few tug of wars and was surprised to find that everyone had their pictures chosen or drawn within a few minutes.  This would seem like great news, however my brain immediately began to panic at the thought of them finishing early and enduring a repeat of last week's mass escape attempts. Also I had spoken with the school director before class and confirmed my suspicions that the kids are in fact supposed to stay with me for the full hour......damn.

One child then announced the possibility of finishing early to the class and asked what we would do when we were done. (PANIC!) "We'll find something to do if we have extra time" I said cooly.  Another child promptly responded that he would go play outside because he is in aftercare. (grroooooaannn!) forced by this innocent presumption, I explained the new policy of strict classroom containment for the full hour...anddddd in doing so pulled the tab on the grenade of chaos and emotions.  The aftercare kid immediately broke down into sobs of "I didn't even want to do craft class! My mom made me do it!!!!" tears materialized out of nowhere, the screamer boy set into the deepest pout I've ever seen, One girl looked at me as though I'd just canceled Christmas and asked "but whyyy?"with big gooey eyes, anddd most of the rest of the girls were thankfully indifferent.

After some sympathizing, I managed to somehow get everyone calmed down and refocused on the project.  Apparently though, this refocusing ignited a creative magnet-making fire in everyone and found me apologetically explaining again why each person could only have two caps.

We started baking next (as the requests for a 3rd cap persisted.) I was once again juggling 14 different tasks at once to appease the little chirps of "Miss Lauren!!" and everything was going fairly smoothly.  Then I noticed a crowd forming around the resin table, and more alarmingly, one little girl crying in the middle of the crowd.  Anddd here we go.

So apparently another girl had said that she didn't like this girl's magnet, which I quickly rationalized with "Well, everybody likes different things, that's why everyone's magnet is going to be different" to a full choir of "Yea but she said it in a mean way!" I took this opportunity to glance around the room in search of the accused "meanie," only to find her on the other side of the room, helplessly hunched over in a ball under a desk crying twice as hard as the alleged victim...

...The reality of the completely doomed class set in at this point and I debated crawling under a desk for a while myself.  Instead I crawled up next the cryer and gave my best effort at soothing and coaxing her out from under the desk.  After 10 minutes of comfortingand several offers of other craft projects, I finally lured her out out of there with the promise of a third bottle cap..of all motivators (I was ready to give this kid my right arm to come out form there and she practically bounced out at the mention of an extra bottlecap)..whatever, call it a success Moments later I was bombarded with demands for a third cap for everyone.  "Fine, here whatever but I have no more magents so this cap won't have a magnet."  5 minutes later I began distributing the magnets and listened politely to each of them tell me "I need 3 magnets" while fighting the urge to implode.

Everyone finished baking and I asked them (more as a joke to myself) to start cleaning up (hahahahhahaha) while their caps cooled.  It was then, as I was sprinting around the classroom picking up paper scraps under the feet of dancing children, I realized that I forgot to pack the magnet glue. Ughhhh. Doom Doom Doom.  Lucky for me, magnets naturally stick to the back of metal bottle caps via this thing called a magnetic charge (Thank you Science!) The kids didn't really seem to care that the magnets weren't permanently adhered, and half the girls tried to turn them into necklaces anyway, so I was saved.

After all that, everyone surprisingly left pretty happy.  The cryers made amends and became best friends again (yay sisterhood!), and me and everyone who didn't sprint out the door at exactly 4:30 played "run form the purple monster" with a wad of unraveled purple ribbon until their parents showed up.  Good times.  Will be stocking the fridge with beer for next week.

Craft Class Week 6: The Monsters Plan their Escape

ahhh...back to craft class. One week off for teacher conferences and I almost forgot how my heart sings for those little crazies!  er maybe sings isn't the right word.. hollers? yelps? runs around with its arms in the air screaming..? I'll have to think about it.

This week's project: Decoupaged Treasure Chest (pretty paper glued on a small cardboard box)

Some Highlights:

Opening the box of decoupage paper to the high pitched screams of " I want THAT ONE!!!" Commence aggressive jumping, pushing, indian burns, paper ripping, complete havoc.  Regained control with the help of some tall bookshelves, and empty promises of "paper for everyone!"

I was offered a single m&m from several children...very flattered of course.

I was alerted to the presence of newly curled hair, (which earned me quite the disgusted griamce when I asked if it was for a hot date), a very important after school soccer game (go team Harris Teeter!) and one boy's ability to scream at such an unholy octave that I questioned whether I might be part dog... then promply decided it didn't matter because a noise like that surely meant the world was ending. Then it stopped, and it was good.

 I was asked if I had a boyfriend by the soccer player, who also stated that she was the only one brave enough to ask (who knew that this was the burning question on everybody's mind?!) They didn't fall for my subject change, so I said yes, to which another one replied "That makes sense 'cause you're pretty." Fighting back a full blown feminist rally cry, I simplified with "You don't have to be pretty to have a boyfriend, in fact you have to be pretty to do anything." Another girl piped in at this point and said "I think sometime in the near future the word boy will mean the same thing as crazy" (Amen sister!!) I replied that I thought the two words might already be synonyms. I then explained what a synonym was and listened to the botched pronunciations of cinnamon, symonym, syminin... for several minutes.

The Lowlights:

Several kids finished their chests relatively early, (mostly because they just globbed a pile of paper and glue on top and declared themselves done, but I'm all for artistic freedom!) and because they all pretty much have zero attention span and endless energy, they wanted to go outside and play.  While I'm totally on board with this, technically I don't think I have the authority to let them leave the classroom to do it.  I responsible for them for that 1 hour and the adult supervision outside is meant for other kids. I of course tried to diplomatically explain this to them, which naturally earned me the complete opposite response. Tears, pouts, tantrums, and declarations of "I hate craft class!" flew my way, and I'm not softy in this department, but when that little boy lurched into that ear splitting scream of his, it was over...anddd out they went.  I distracted a few others with several rounds of thumb war (which my giant adult thumbs dominated at!) then dedicated the rest of class to shooting down excuses to go outside and raising an eyebrow to pleas of "I just want to go stand on the porch."  Thank goodness for the quiet table of girls in the corner...

My Sibs

Lately I've had an extreme urge to be chasing sandpipers on the beach.  What's that you ask? Have I been longingly panning through photos of myself and Cole at the beach last year, reliving the memories and pining for her little black fuzzy face and that adorable left cleft paw?  Certainly not!  This craving is most definitely unrelated.  But since you brought it up, I do miss that little furball, and here's an adorable (and embarrassing for her) picture from Christmas just so you can see what I'm dealing with.

In other news, Chris called me at 1 am this morning for a chat...yes a chat (If you know my brother at all you will recognize the startling nature of this statement...obviously some foreign substances at work) I was home already from my Friday evening and his was apparently still in full swing.  He called from a party in East Stroudsburg to ask the name of a song, which I repeated for him about 7 times to the response "oh okay....wait what was the name again?" before resorting to a text message.  He then proceeded to gush, and I mean gush (I literally could not get a word in....which ironically made me speechless) about where he was, his plans for the weekend, his trip home on Sunday, why he hates valentines day, the weather, his schedule at school and how much he loves talking. ("I could talk all night Laur!")  At this point I was debating whether or not to hang up and call a medic because my brother was clearly on some form of speed.  I settled instead for asking him directly "Are you on coke right now?!" He assured me he was not, but that he had been drinking Jager and Redbull (among other things, I suspect.) This explanation seemed rational enough, so my mind was set temporarily at ease.

Chris then proceeded to ask me all about the things happening in my life.  "How's work Laur? How was last weekend with Adam in Florida? Did you realize that was Valentines day? That's kinda romantic." (insert jaw-dropping silence here...) Well, this prompted a whole new, significantly elevated wave of suspicion, "Sweet Jesus Chris! What are you on?!"  He assured me again that it was just the caffeine/alcohol mix and general late-night energy (I have a vague memory of this from my life before senior year), and after 5 minutes of third degree big sister questioning he confirmed that no one would be leaving the house, driving a car, or attempting any dangerous acrobatics/knife tricks.  Whhhew.  The call ended with Chris promising to give Cole a wrestle for me on Sunday, which I decided not to question :)  Also he says "Hey," Suzanne.

Little Craft Monsters..

February 10th 2011:

So I’ve been teaching a craft class at a local elementary school on Thursday afternoons.  I started teaching it last fall through Ornamentea and since it was deemed a success by my boss and the school, and I quite enjoy teaching it, it has continued into the spring.

Let me say first of all that these kids are adorable.  They range from 8-12 in age and will shock you with their distinct personalities, strict personal styles and sweet but brutal honesty. 

Let me now say that they are absolutely crazy.  After 6 hours of school and a stuffy classroom, I walk through the door and they are doing back flips and running circles around the “CRAFT LADY!!”

Actually they call me "Miss Lauren," which sounds super sweet, but quickly loses its charm when its being screeched at you from 12 different directions and followed up by a verbal list of demands to be executed immediately (upon punishment of aggressive arm tugging)  

Today, while wrapped in 3 yards of glitter gymp cord, attaching jump-rings to multiple shrink plastic charms and consoling a girl who was sobbing mercilessly over her inability to draw the perfect giraffe’s tail (not an exaggeration) another seemingly sweet 8 year old girl who needed help had the nerve to ask me “Can’t you multi-task?”  3 seconds of jaw dropping shock later, and I was also punching holes in her charms. Don’t ask me where the third arm came from, I was too distracted to tell.

But really I do love those little creatures.  They seem to honestly enjoy our time together and seeing their excitement upon learning something new is quite magical. Today was actually a relatively calm day.. which I attribute completely to the presence of the toaster oven.  We were making Poly-shrink charms (glorified shrinky-dinks) and whenever I slid a batch in the oven, everything got quiet as 12 little bodies crammed their enraptured faces around the glowing glass door of the miniature oven to watch the shrinking magic.  Ah, 2 minute intervals of sweet bliss.

Between these intervals however, I found myself doing mainly two things.  1. burning myself on hot plastic as I shuffled rapidly from child to oven to child and attempted to remove the shrunken plastic from the hot pan in time with their commands anddd 2. marveling at how easily I was able to physically observe the mass transfer of germs from their bodies to mine in mere seconds.  One girl actually sneezed directly into my hands as I was helping cut her plastic.  I'm talking mouth 6 inches away and tangible spray on my palms.  7 minutes of hand washing and 14 pumps of antibacterial later and I was tying a knot in a cord that was handed to me directly from the mouth of another child. As in, she tried to tie it with her teeth...gave up...then handed it to me to finish the job.  "Here you go Miss Lauren" …Mmm thank you sweetie.

I should also mention that these are the same kids that sweetly explained to me the week before that they might be absent for the next class because everyone in school is sick and they will probably get sick too…I'm starting to think I might be lucky to be alive.

There's no craft class this week due to parent teacher conferences. I think I may use the time to devise some sort of  "divide and conquer" technique for next week.  We will be decoupaging treasure chests… which most likely means I'll leave with a lovely assortment of glue and paper stubbornly adhered to half my hair and completely coating my hands.  ...Till then

Hit and Run

So I was hit by a car on Monday morning, while jogging downtown.
I dont have a single scratch or bruise on me, but it was an interesting addition to my Monday nonetheless. As I was running along Peace St. I glanced both ways while crossing a side road and neglected to see the little silver car coming on my left. So I essentially lept unexpectedley in front of this guy's car like a clueless deer, he saw me (probably had a minor heart attack) and braked, the car hit me, sort of knocked me onto it, moved me about 2 feet and the police car conveniently sitting at the light cruised over to see that I was alright. I was, much to the drivers amazement, and after assuring them both that i was perfectly fine, I continued running and proceded to have an otherwise uneventful day.
Weird to think about, especially considering I have probably sustained more injury from walking into doors and tripping over curbs than getting hit by this moving vehicle....

Lauren

preoccupied

This morning I got out of the shower, got dressed, ate breakfast, sat down on the couch to check my email, and as I crossed my legs and readjusted my denim skirt - realized I had only shaved one of my legs in the shower. . . . Wednesday is off to a good start.