Welcome to Stained Glass Class

Where to begin? Here's the story first, I guess. I play bunco once a month. Last November I won a handmade stained glass snowflake. The woman who made it is one of my bunco friends and is also the bishop's wife in my ward. She's great. She was also Scott's first babysitter. Well, I thought it would be cool to make a stained glass something of my own. I thought a welcome sign for my door would be cool. So, I asked my stained-glassing friend, Angie, if she would help me learn how to do it and watch Scott while I worked. She thought that would be fun. So, I made a pattern of my own. I printed out the letters on the computer and traced them on to a big piece of paper, and then Angie came over and told me where I should make the cuts so that the glass wouldn't break where I didn't want it to. Then I went to Kinko's to make a copy so I could cut out each individual piece that I would be making out of glass. Then a few weeks later, I bought the glass and went over to Angie's house and got to work. This was in April. And I got almost to the end when we realized I was missing a piece. So, lucky for all of you, I got to take pictures of every step all in one day for that one piece... it was number 17 out of 89, in case you were curious ;) So... the steps are:

Glue each piece to the piece of glass of your desired color.
Score the glass where you want it to break.
Break the glass.
Ta-da. The curve is intentional, so I wouldn't waste glass. You have to be careful about how curvy you get, because glass wants to break in a straight-ish line.
Here's a close up of the glass breakers(?). You line up that little line in the middle of the tool with your score line. The breakers have one flat side and one curved side, so the glass will break. It's pretty cool.
Grind the edges so you won't cut yourself, or the copper foil you'll be putting around it in another step.
Peel off your paper and clean the glue off. And if you have 89 pieces like I did, then you also dry off the piece and write the number that was on the paper on the glass with a Sharpie.
Then you copper foil each piece. The copper is sticky on one side and about double the width of your glass, so you have to center it, and then walk the piece along the copper foil.
Then use a marker to smooth the edges.
Then you fold the side of the copper onto the front and back of the glass piece, and smooth those down.
Then, you put all the pieces back on your pattern--this is where the numbers come in really handy.
Ta-da. Then you square off your corners so when you're done you can put a border on it.
Then you solder it together. This is why you had to copper foil every piece. The solder will stick to the copper, but not to the glass.
You solder the points first, and then flip it over and solder the points on that side, and then back over to fill in the gaps.
Then you put a border on--it's made of aluminum and it kind of looks like a U--so you slide it onto your edges and then solder it on. Then you put hooks on it and voila:
I still haven't decided exactly how I'm going to hang it. We have to slam our front door to close it, so I don't think I should put it directly on the door, so I'm thinking of hanging it from the ceiling of our entryway--but I need Matt to help me decide. I didn't want to postpone doing a blog about it because then I might never have done it.

Yesterday, when I was finishing up, the bishop walked through the garage where I was working and asked me what I thought of stained glass. I told him I probably wouldn't do this again any time soon. It was fun, and I'm happy with the finished product, but it was WORK. It's not easy. There's real muscle involved in some of these steps. I got cuts on my hands when I was cutting glass and my back and hands hurt a lot after working on it. To be fair, this was a complicated first project. 89 pieces is a lot. But, maybe someday when Scott is grown up, I'll pick it up again--if I can find a friend where I'm living who has a glass cutter, a glass breaker, a glass grinder, and edging. :)

Thanks for coming to my class--hope you had a great time!

Homemade Bibs

So, when Scott started eating solid food, I realized that the bibs we had didn't cover enough of his clothing to make it worth it. So, I made this:It served it's purpose pretty well, but it's not very cute--and the ties weren't close enough to his neck size. So, I made this:
I even added a little saying (a play on the phrase "ladies first," which doesn't seem very true now that I have a baby), just to make it fun. Well, I used it so much I decided to make another:
And another:And one for a friend (who calls her daughter "Princesa"):And another for the same friend (who is obsessed with Hello Kitty):And one for a baby whose father is a concert pianist. I will never make one like this again--at least not going from one side all the way to the other. I might just do keys in the middle.

So, my question to you is: would you buy one of these for your kid or as a baby shower gift or as a belated baby present (since usually babies don't start eating solids until 4-6 months after they're born...) and how much would you pay? I like to make them, but it's pricey for me to just give them away. I'd love some input! Thanks!

Standing

It's been a while since I posted anything, so I thought I'd just post a couple of pictures of Scott standing. He pulls himself up on everything now!

Teeth

I had a request from a friend for a pictures of Scott's 6 teeth--so here they are!And I thought I'd tack on a few more shots. Scott woke up puking the other night and we were too afraid to put clean clothes on him in case he puked again. So, he wore this for an hour or so until I felt it was safe to put real clothes on and get him back to bed.
And while Matt was taking these pictures, we noticed Scott anticipating the flash, and I thought it was so funny, I should share them too. Enjoy!

Independence Day Weekend

Matt's not a big sports fan or a big fan of holidays, but I really wanted to celebrate the 4th by going to a baseball game. I found one with fireworks and everything, and we went. I had a good time, and Matt and Scott both survived :)

Here are some pictures taken with Matt's phone because I didn't even think to bring the camera because we were already carrying so much other stuff (sorry, Dad!).

We sat on the grass in the outfield because we figured Scott could move around a lot more and not get so restless--and they were the cheapest "seats." This is our awesome view.
This is what Scott wanted to do the whole game--eat my hat.
The AMAZING sky! We actually got to see an awesome thunderstorm on the way home--we could watch the lightning for a full hour before we caught up with the storm.
And a firework :)

Does anyone else...

make sure the volume on the TV is an even number?

look in their closet and sees nothing they like and then realize most of their clothes are in a laundry basket?

try on something that fits and then buy the next size up so it will still look good after it's washed?

decide what they're going to wear while they're in the shower?

eat dessert before 8:30am?

wish they had a shower that would remember their preferred temperature and pressure?

just wondering :)

The Saga of My Root Canal

On the night of June 12th, I could not sleep because my whole head seemed to be throbbing because of pain in my tooth. Unfortunately, it was a Saturday, so no dentist was open. Luckily, I go to church with a dentist, and he fit me into his schedule on Monday. I went in and found out that one of the roots on my tooth was infected and I would need a root canal. He didn't want to do it because he hates doing root canals on big molars. Another dentist in the office said he would take a whack at it and see if he could save me the hassle and added expense of seeing an endodontist. So, I left with a prescription for penicillin and vicoden and an appointment for the following Monday. Then I went to the pharmacy and found out that the FDA has not approved vicoden for nursing mothers, so I set up a schedule to take ibuprofen and tylenol alternating every three hours. I was in exquisite pain.

Monday, the 21st, I went back to the dentist's office. He tried valiantly to do the root canal. He found two of the three canals, but could not numb my tooth and I wanted to cry out in pain everytime he stuck that tiny file into my canal. So, he gave up and sent me to an endodontist. This was at 5pm. I had a friend in town watching Scott (Thanks, Tammy!) and she picked me up from the dentist and brought me to the endodontist, who was awesome. He talked to me for about 20 minutes about what was going on inside my tooth, and even drew me a little picture. The most important thing I learned was that now that I have all of my teeth, the pulp is worthless. So, since my tooth was infected, the next day, he was going to take out all of my pulp and fill it in with something else. I got another babysitter for Tuesday, the 22nd, who is the wife of my second dentist, who also goes to church with me.

I arrived at the endodontist filled with great fear, which was realized later in my appointment. He numbed my jawbone. He started drilling. I was still in pain. He gave me more anesthetic all around my tooth. He continued drilling. He got to my third canal. He poked it with a file. I was still in pain in two of my canals. He gave me anesthetic IN THE PULP OF MY TOOTH!!!! I yelped and cried. It was the worst pain I have ever felt, and I feel confident it is the worst pain I will ever feel. But, after that I didn't feel anything while he was filing away at my canals. Then, he took an x-ray and decided we better give my tooth a week to get clean. He poured in a tiny amount of alkaline solution to "kill the bugs" and sent me on my "merry" way. I was in less pain, but I couldn't open my mouth very wide for several days. :(

Today, the 28th, I went back to the endodontist. He finished it all up. Not too much pain, but my mouth is still sore. This time, I made jell-o before I left for the appointment so it would be ready for me when I got home. I took pictures for posterity.

This is me looking darling in my rubber dam. I had never had one before, but I have decided it is brilliant! I didn't have to feel flecks of my tooth around my mouth and I didn't have to have an assistant smashing my tongue down to keep it away from my tooth. I loved it.I don't know how well you can see this, but there are three things in my tooth--red, yellow, and green--sitting in my three canals.
Here is the tree I stared at while I was writhing in pain.
Here is the awesome endodontist. He may have inflicted a lot of pain, but he was understanding and told lots of funny stories, and even wiped my tears away when I cried. He has been doing nothing but root canals for the past 56 years and let me tell you, he's a pro.

And there's the filling. You might not be able to tell in this picture, but it's BLUE! He said I could have white or silver, but he thought that the blue would match my shoes :) so I went for it.