Welcome.


  • musicfest 2010.
  • puppet making 1-2-3
  • march one.
  • own the podium.
  • birch tree love.

  • Categories

    • funkylindsay. Get yours at bighugelabs.com/flickr
  • Archives:

    • musicfest 2010.

    Published March 7th, 2010 in general randomness. 0 Comments

    As some of you may or may not know, I play the trumpet. I played all through elementary school and highschool. I played in the city of Guelph Concert Band, and I now currently play in the Port Elgin Community Band (the town in which I work). This weekend, the Community Band went to  Collingwood for Musicfest.

    Although we did get a gold standing yesterday, that wasn’t the excitement for me. My nostalgia kicked in, and I longed to be at MusicFest with my high school band. sigh. The set-up was the exact same as I remember from 15 years ago in Leamington with Miss Hopper (and later in London and Toronto with Mr B…) You put your stuff in the gym, then move to the holding room, then move into the practice room, then onto the backstage, then onto the stage and then the room with the adjudicator. It was surreal. I could picture Mr B yelling “We got a Gold standing!” to all of us in grade 9 – amidst a crowd of people.

    I found this photo during the move into the new house. We were in grade 10 that year (because my sister is in the photo too). It captures the fun we had so perfectly. My one regret – why the heck did I switch instruments with Heidi for this photo??!? I loathe the clarinet.

    (for a zoom-in on the photo, see my facebook or my flickr)

    puppet making 1-2-3

    Published March 2nd, 2010 in tutorials & patterns. 1 Comment

    I have been meaning to make a puppet, and so I did some research online – finding a couple of good tutorials and scrounged the house for supplies. You should totally make one. Instant friend! Follow my simple (?) tutorial below….

    1. First, find some good fabric (old t-shirts work fine!). Fold in half (inside out!) Draw the basic shape of a puppet with a sharpie…. I probably should have ironed first.

    2. Sew along the sharpie line.

    3. After sewing, cut about 1/2 inch away from the sewed part. (don’t follow the black sharpie, because the sew line might not have matched exactly – speaking from experience here….)

    4. Turn the puppet inside out (or outside in). Use a pencil to poke the arms out.

    5. Stuff the arms with fuzzy stuff. Again, a pencil helps.

    6. Find a good spot for a mouth. Cut a straight line in the face area.

    7. Cut an oval shaped piece of cardstock (from a cracker box is good). Glue some black construction paper on top (same shape). Fold the oval in half. Insert the cardstock into the mouth hole.

    8. Glue gun the card stock into the mouth hole. Pull the fabric along the card stock to create a lip.

    9. Cut a heart shaped piece of red craft foam. Add a sharpie line to make it look like a tongue. Glue gun it in the mouth and pose for a silly photo.

    10. Stuff the head with more of that fuzzy white stuff.

    11. Cut a soft styrofoam ball in half – do this carefully, or it will end up like mine. Gun gun to the puppet’s head. Cut little black circles. I used stickers. You could use the little black things you put on the bottom of furniture to protect the floors. Or even a sharpie. The nose is also one half of a styrofoam ball. I covered it with the same t-shirt fabric as the rest of the puppet with a glue gun. Glue gun the nose on the puppet (between the eyes!).

    12. Add hair (some faux fur perhaps?) I have to get to the craft store.

    13. Another thing you might want to do is wrap some wire around the arms so they don’t just hang there limp.  With the wire, you can “control” the arms a bit.

    I’d love to make these with my students, but I think I’ll skip the sewing machine and use socks!

    I think it looks a bit like Grover. Just a bit. Leave a comment – make your own! Post pictures.

    march one.

    Published March 1st, 2010 in general randomness, humorous and meme. 1 Comment

    Shavasana. It gets me every time. For those who are not familiar, it is aka the corpse pose at the end of each yoga class. It sounds so  simple — you just lay there on your back with your eyes shut and relax. The real challenge though, is to still the mind. I sometimes find myself running through my “to-do list” of things I’ll accomplish when I leave yoga. Sometimes I am really good. I listen to K and follow the instructions and my mind becomes still… for a while. Then fragments of thoughts keep messing with my stillness.

    Tonight is the perfect example. I find myself in corpse pose. For the first 3/4 of shavasana I am still. I watch my breath in my mind’s eye. But then, I find myself comparing the different living rooms of my old favourite sitcoms. Seriously – where does this stuff come from? I was comparing Growing Pains and Who’s the Boss. Both houses you enter the front door at the left of the screen. When you walk in the door, the stairs are immediately to the left for the characters. Move inside a bit and it is the living area, and then (and I am almost certain here) you go through a swinging door into the kitchen which is at the right of the screen. I thought about this for a while. I also remember the Golden Girls and Mr Belvedere having a similar set-up. and I think Out of this World did too. Do you think they reused the sets?

    Coming home, I promptly did a living room search for these sitcoms, but I surprisingly couldn’t find any screen shots. What I did find was something quite rad. Someone on the same wavelength as me perhaps. I love it.

    Go!

    own the podium.

    Published February 28th, 2010 in general randomness. 0 Comments

    8 years ago Canada men’s hockey team won gold at the olympics against the US. I was in my second year of university, living in Mac Hall at Guelph. I had band practice that night, and the buses didn’t run late on Sunday. While the girls in residence were watching the game, I was walking downtown.

    Canada must have won when I made it to the 4 corners at Quebec Street. What seemed like the entire city of Guelph was out in the streets running and screaming and yelling and cheering and singing oh Canada. Flags were being waved and drinks were being clinked. What an amazing feeling to walk through the celebration. In retrospect, I probably should have skipped band and joined the party of strangers. But if anyone knows me at all…..

    I imagine downtown Guelph is full of the same pride again after tonight’s win – eight years later. I am smiling.

    I don’t give a rat’s ass about hockey. I am much more excited about the other Olympic sports and wins – but I will admit that I am quite excited that the canadians won the gold on home soil in the last opportunity of the Olympics. Bittersweet I think.

    14 gold: 7 silver: 5 bronze. What an amazing showing. So many records broken.

    Our home and native land. I will miss you vancouver2010.

    xoxo

    ps. I hope you enjoyed the win in the quinzee, Jake!

    birch tree love.

    Published February 23rd, 2010 in teaching duds. 0 Comments

    one of our latest art projects at school – well, 12 of them at least (I wonder where the others are?). we were talking about foreground, middle ground and background, and how to represent them on paper. these trees were soooo easy to make, but they look so rad.

    We started by doing a cool colour wash with watered down tempera for the sky. Then, we painted a horizon line and painted in the snow white. We drew lines of a variety of thickness coming out of the horizon line. Using a light blue pencil crayon/ twistable/ crayon we lightly traced the outline of the tree. The right side is shaded blue. Using a skinny brush and black acrylic, we painted the “shadow” on the left side of the tree. Ta-da! We took about 5-10 minutes over 3 periods of art to complete the project.

    Next – artist studies!

    anchor!

    Published February 23rd, 2010 in teaching duds. 0 Comments

    As mentioned in a previous post, I was in awe of another teacher’s anchor charts. I have decided to be more aware of my neatness as I make these with my students. Here is a sampling of anchor charts that we made together in the past couple of days/weeks.

    Some mini anchor charts – posing thick & thin questions

    A way to expand thinking about questions asked during reading

    that pesky verb they keep screwing up…

    Some mathématiques. La géométrie.

    For more classroom stuff – visit my flickr.

    puppet.

    Published February 21st, 2010 in general randomness. 0 Comments

    Making puppets and eating PB pretzels. My answer to avoiding writing report cards.

    what a colourful life

    Published February 20th, 2010 in home decor. 4 Comments

    my grandpa does it again with shelves. i spent the afternoon decorating my new little nook. a real arc-en-ciel. (yes meghan, that is the chalkboard paint!)

    habit.

    Published February 14th, 2010 in friends. 3 Comments

    yummy food with friends at the table. bliss. xo.

    valentines….

    Published February 14th, 2010 in general randomness. 7 Comments

    A little valentine’s day goodness.

    I made a selection of little valentine’s for my students inspired by katie. Taking the photos for these were quite hilarious – especially for the boys who thought I was nuts. I think they turned out great. I gave them each a homemade button and mini rubber chicken too. Just because.

    I decorated our home with a little bit of love. A chalkboard message to my husband, a 3-part paper cut garland and some painted hearts.

    Now it is time to watch some of my favourite romantics. Did anyone see the movie Valentine’s Day?

    « Previous Entries

    ...my amazon wishlist

    ...my thisnext wishlist

    artss

    About

    I'm Lindsay and this is my website. I like to blog. I like to use a lot of photos. Check out the links along the top to find out more about me. Enjoy. xoxo