my toothbrush's home

My toothbrush lives in a tube in my everyday bag, and like most of my stuff is also rainbow.

This is actually the second version of my toothbrush tube. The previous version was wrapped in painted hockey tape. It got really dirty after a while, so it had to go.

Now the tube is covered in acrylic paint and Mod Podge, which is basically white glue, leaving a plastic finish.

Having something looking like this got the attention from greyhound security when they searched my carry on bag.  This is a thing Greyhound does now, they check carry on bags for weapons and stuff, and make everyone empty their pockets, at the occasional terminal.  I got to see quite a look of surprise on the security person's face when they opened the tube and found a toothbrush.

"The nest has fridge poetry"

"The nest has fridge poetry" has been on the wall for several months.

The last person I saw with some on her fridge said that she had made it themselves, I think that was the story.

Today I went to Staples up the hill and picked up a package of magnetic paper, there were four sheets in the pack.  When I got back to the nest a quick Google search found do it yourself magnetic fridge poetry directions.

The parts:
- words
- word processor
- magnetic paper
- injet printer
- sissors

I took the words from the general service list, as the directions suggested.  Put the text of the word list in a text editor, cut the extra bits out of the text leaving only a list of words one per line.  Took that list and joined the lines together separated by three spaces resulting in a long spaced out line. Put that long line in OpenOffice writer, set the font to "Verdana" 12pt and collapsed the margins. Printed the first page. And cut up the magnet with scissors.

I still have two and a bit sheets of magnetic paper, I think I will do an analysis of one of my programming projects and find the most common words and symbols and make a sheet from that.  Programmer fridge poetry, is that a thing yet?  I can find Geek Fridge Poetry, but none for Java. Interesting.

Flour on the counter

I had an empty large container that formerly contained ground coffee, and wanted to put flour on the counter for easier access when making bread.  After cleaning the container out and drying it well it worked well. Later I had an empty flour bag and decided to make a label from it.  Even later I was at a Dollarama with Cassandra and she pointed out some rainbow wrapping paper and mentioned that I can cover things with it. With much gratitude I covered the silver container with Mod Podge and wrapping paper, another layer of Mod Podge and the label, and another over top of the label to seal it all down.

The nest has draft guards

The nest where I live is drafty, and the weather is getting cold again.  Last year I tried foam tape around the doors with the effect of making the door hard to close and still drafty.  The nest didn't get above 15c in the depth of winter, so I set the kitchen temperature to 10c and left the rest off. The power bill was $150/month.

Last spring I went on a mission to get a bunch of my stuff from storage in Halifax, including a big bag of worn out clothes and fabric scraps.

Last week I cut up the toes off some old socks and sewed them end to end making longer socks.  I took these socks and stuffed them with more worn out clothes. Finally I took these stuffed socks and tacked them to the drafty doors of the nest.

The outside door looses a lot of heat on the opening edge, and later I may do the same to the bottom of that door too.  It turns out that the metal front door is wood on the narrow edges.

Also, the bottom room gets below zero in the winter too, and has a big gap at the bottom of the door.

Both doors work as they usually do.

Over the next few months I get to see how effective this is.

Happy's memory card holder

Long ago I made a memory card holder that held three cards.  It traveled with me across the country at least twice, maybe all three times, and worked well to keep my memory cards from getting lost. Recently, after seeing the card holder I made for Ep1c I wanted one that looked like that for myself. So, I took the one I already had, took it apart, cut some more parts, painted it like a rainbow sandwich, and sewed it up into a memory card holder that holds six cards.

This is something I can be commissioned to make, say fifty dollar painted, or twenty unpainted?

Simple and super practical note book

All the notebooks I have kept in my bag so far seemed lacking in little ways: I couldn't easily tuck things into them; sometimes finding the next blank page was a challenge; they consume a lot more space than I feel they need to; taking pages out of them quickly became unsightly.

So I started pondering how to make one where I could freely add and remove pages without having an effect on the feel of the note book.

I made the notebook from plastic canvas, and sewed it with strips of shopping bags.  The shell does not care about getting wet, but the pages inside do.

It is just larger than a quarter sheet of letter sized paper, so it is very easy to make new pages as I need them.

The pages are folded over a strip of plastic, so they can be completely rearranged, and anything thin that can be folded can be tucked between any of the pages.  I did not realize in advance that I can always be writing on the top few pages by just moving blank pages up to the top of the stack.  I had printed driving directions on the left side earlier in the week, and now they have been flipped over to be reused as note pages.

In the future I am going to try some graph paper or lined paper in here, but this is also working very well.

fleece mittens

The mittens I used last winter shrank in the wash, so they did not fit well anymore, so I pondered how to make some out of fleece for a while, made a pattern by tracing another pair of mittens, and made myself some mittens.

They are symmetric so I don't need to figure out which one goes on which hand.

rainbow shoulder bag

One day a month or so ago I decided to make a new rainbow shoulder bag, one with a wider strap that would be more comfortable when I am wearing it for long periods of time. Today I got most of the work done.



The strap is filled with crocheted plastic bags giving it a sturdy padded structure. There are some loops of webbing to hang carabiners for holding things like my water bottle or hanging the bag off my backpack.  This bag is a bit larger than my previous one, I sized it using a mesh bag from the Dollarama.

In the future I will add a waterproof liner to keep the contents dry in the rain, and a zipper for easy closing.

Update: I didn't know at the time, but this bag also works as a backpack, with plenty of space.  I just clip a string across the bag and around the strap to make two spaces to put my arms, and because the strap is so wide it is very comfortable when it is weighted down.

rainbow water bottle

Just before I left to hitchhike across the country to deliver one of my rainbow lighters to a close friend in a campground in BC, I painted myself a rainbow swirl metal water bottle.

The bottle has served me very well and even has a tendency of finding me when I leave it by itself for a while outside of where I am residing at the moment.

Wool lined hammock

I just finished my wool lined hammock for traveling Sunday...

It feels like like a tent on the inside when zipped up, though the similarity ends at there being a dark floor and light walls and ceiling.

The outside is nice and plain, all windbreaker nylon. That is my tarp tucked to the side.

The brown part is the wool, the rest is light nylon.

The hammock does not take up much room in my bag, and I have taken it down to zero with my heavy clothes on for a night, before the zippers were added, I expect I can sleep in this just past zero now.

Dehydrated orange cookies

I dehydrated some oranges, but instead of just slicing them thinly, I peeled them and sliced them in four, making round slices.  They took a long time to dry, but they look like and feel like cookies, but taste like orange.  Two cookies makes half an orange.  I also dried the peeling since it is edible.

So yummy, the oranges don't last long like this.

funky food jar

I had another empty jar taped and ready to paint... This time I decided to put a drop of paint on it, spread it using a brush without overlapping paint that was already on it, change colors, and repeat until it was covered.

updated sunrise jar

I was not feeling pleased with my sunset jar, so I got out the paint and turned it into a nice sunrise jar.

I like this more, but it still feels like something is missing, when I figure out what I will updated it again.

wool sweater coat

I decided it was time to try out a wool layer for my rainbow sweater coat, here is what it looks like.  This has been inside the rainbow fleece layer since it was made yesterday.  The fabric is coating weight 80% wool and 20% polyester.

Also, being barefoot in the winter is getting easier with practice.

painted "Loved" pins

I recently got myself a set of lighter acrylic paints, and had a pack of blank clothespins around, then this happened:

Six colors of paint, many clothespins, and a set of sharpies met up for a party and created something beautiful.

It took me about a day to paint, write on, and re-assemble the clothespins.  The result is so pleasing that I almost don't want to give them away, but the knowledge that I can always make balances that feeling out.

simple yellow back bag

One afternoon I decided to stick a strap on my yellow nylon packing bag, and it turned into a very nice back sling bag.

I have everything I need on the road except for hammocks and food in this bag.  I haven't tried walking with this bag for 5km yet, but I expect it would work fine.

More rainbow lighters

I wanted another rainbow lighter, so I went to the hardware store, got a five pack of BIC lighters, taped them, and painted them over a game of risk.

I used someone else's paint for the upper five colours, and I like the shade that I ended up with more than the shade on my existing lighter.

Long rainbow fleece scarf

Today I decided that I had spent enough time flattening my single layer rainbow fleece scarf out, so I doubled the thickness and made it longer.  Now it is about 2.25m long and about 25cm wide.  I also did not full close up the cross seams connecting the sections of fleece together, giving me the ability to stick small things in the resulting pockets on the ends of the scarf.

The scarf barely shows up on the rainbow sweater, it is interesting how rainbow blends into rainbow so well.

Rainbow fleece sweater jacket

Yesterday I made another rainbow fleece sweater jacket, for wearing under my rainbow fleece jacket, or over it.  This one has ties instead of buttons and I am not going to put any elastics in the sleeves, so they will stay covering my hands when they fall down.

 

I actually have a scarf on in the picture on the left, but it blends into the outfit extremely well.

Blue flower print sweater

A while ago I made another sweater like the rainbow jacket, using the same pattern, but as an under layer to go with the jacket, it is blue flower printed fleece that formerly was dollar store blankets.  The ties on the front are ribbons.