Tag: create date

July Create Date

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**The above photo was taken by the super talented Jerri Shafer and all rights belong to her! Thank you JAMS Photography!!

This month’s Create Date was a little different than in the past because we were completely in charge. My husband was playing the part of Concord in Spamalot this summer for Pickerington Community Theatre and he needed an arrow rig so he could appear to be “shot” on stage. We had a very basic idea that we could use a mousetrap as the base of the rig, but everything else was completely made up. And we couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out!

As you can see in the above photo, we ended up attaching a lot to the mousetrap. The first step was to take off the part that would hold the cheese and the part that would hold the trap open. This left us with just the bar that would normally catch the mouse and the springs that “loaded” it. We then attached a one inch section cut from a 1×2 board to stop the action of the bar with the arrow pointing up. We cut off the rest of the mousetrap back that extended beyond this piece of 1×2 and attached it to the bar with small zip ties. This helped give us something to attach the arrow to and it helped keep the bar from pulling out of the wood. We needed the rig to last at least 4 rehearsals and 6 performances, so we had to do all we could to make it more durable.

The whole mousetrap was then attached to a paint stirrer to stabilize it against my husband’s chest more while he wore it. It also provided something to sew lengths of elastic to so that we could add it and remove it under his costume easily. A couple of quick coats of spray paint so the rig was more subtle and we were in business!

I was able to use my seam ripper to make a long slit down the front of his tunic costume. We then disguised the slit with big patches and a panel of fabric that was behind the arrow rig but still attached to the front of the tunic. This made it possible for him to hide the rig better when he first appeared on stage and made it less likely to show his black under-layer and destroy the illusion when he fell. (The fabric panel and spray paint were unfortunately added after the top photo, but we were very much solving problems as they arose at that point.) We added a black binder clip with a cord that ran out a hole in the side of his costume so he could trigger the rig at the appropriate time and it was done! We were so proud and relieved to have been able to make something that lasted the whole run of the show! It is always fun to be part of stage magic. 🙂

April Create Date Do-over Update

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As you may recall, our April Create Date was a frustrating and unsuccessful pottery night. Because of the generosity of the owner of Bareclay Studio, we were able to give it another shot at the end of June.

Keith ended up coming but not working for very long because he wasn’t feeling very well. He still sat with me while I worked even though he could have driven himself home as we had driven separately. I made the interesting discovery that I throw pottery left-handed. I chose the wheel next to Keith, and after I was finished with my first piece, the instructor made some comment about me being left handed. I told her that was not the case, but I am ambidextrous at some tasks. I was able to pretty quickly get two pieces that we liked ready to be glazed and fired in the kiln.

I patiently waited about a month to email and make sure that our bowls were ready to be picked up. I got to pick them up this week, and you guys, I am so glad we revisited this create date! I love how these bowls turned out – they fit right in on our Create mantel display! I am so glad I accidentally found out that I throw pottery left-handed – we may want to try this again sometime! Thank you so much to Bareclay Studio for giving us the second chance to make something we love.

June Create Date

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While our youngest was at camp for a week we got to do a cooking class at Sur La Table at Easton. We did Tuscan Date Night because it was on a night that worked and looked like a menu that both of us would enjoy. My hubby has come a really long way in eating a variety of foods since we’ve been together, but there are still certain things he just doesn’t like. Which is easy for me at our house, but a little more difficult when we go out to a class and have to share our dishes with another couple we don’t know.

Anyway, this cooking class was great! The first thing we all did together was mise en place, a french way of saying getting everything in its place and prepared for cooking. There were just a few things to chop and mix together for the different dishes. Most things were already measured out for us, so it was definitely “cooking for dummies” type of set up. That made it pretty laid back and relaxing, so no complaints here! After everything was chopped and cleaned up, we added sugar to the strawberries to macerate them – basically to bring out some of their natural juices. We also put together the salad and dressing and drained the chicken breasts that had been marinating.

Up next was starting the risotto. We had to stir and stir and slowly add the chicken broth to get the right consistency. We cooked it to just about done and then started on the chicken. It was placed in a cast iron pan and another cast iron pan wrapped in foil was placed on top to flatten and evenly heat the chicken. It was amazing when it was done! After we took the chicken out to rest, the risotto was given a quick finish and we were ready to eat. It was so good!

We built our plates with the chicken, risotto, and salad. The chicken was my favorite – it was perfectly seasoned and really tender. I can definitely see making it again at home. The macerated strawberries were served on a light and frothy custard that the instructor made for us – I forgot to get a photo, but it was phenomenal!

We definitely enjoyed this create date and would recommend it to others. We would like to go back to the sushi class sometime. What kind of cooking class would you like to take? Let us know in the comments!

May Create Date

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It’s May – but I prefer to refer to it as May-hem! So much going on all month long! I knew that if we were going to get our dates in, we were going to have to be really organized about it. So, we actually did our create date a couple of weeks ago. I am just now able to take a minute to write about it. Because, May-hem. But I digress…

This month, there was a Mother’s Day Potting Party at Mulch 1st Landscape Supplies in Johnstown. I have wanted a couple of planters for our front landscaping for a few years now, so I jumped at the chance to have a create date and get planters! I love it when I can kill two birds with one stone. So very convenient!

We were given two planters and we got to pick out 6 plants each. The front of our house gets a lot of direct sun, so we had to stick with full-sun varieties. I believe my planter will eventually be purples and whites, while Keith has some red, white, and purple. I love how they look in front of our garage! They will definitely be our create date products that are most seen. Perfect for Mother’s Day month! I would definitely go back to Mulch 1st for other potting parties – they made it a really nice experience!

  • Our planters
  • Lots of plants to choose from
  • My plants ready to be planted
  • Keith filling his planter
  • Our finished products

April Create Date

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I’m not going to lie, this month’s Create Date was hard! And not just the pottery part. You guys, we had so. many. plans. fall. through. this. month. Originally, we were signed up to do a class at the Ohio Herb Center that would let us make beard oil and some skin care things for Keith. It sounded so cool, but apparently they had low enrollment, so it was canceled. Then, we tried a Bonsai event at Franklin Park Conservatory, but it turned out to be less a class and more a club meeting. Bummer! We were going to get up and do an open workshop for My Very Own Blanket, an organization that gives blankets to kids in foster care situations, but it ended up not fitting with everything else we needed to do that day. We tried to go paint pottery, but they didn’t really have the things we were interested in painting in stock and one of us was more comfortable with painting than the other, so it wasn’t a good fit. There was a class we could do over the weekend, but Keith would have been distracted by his upcoming call-back for a play he was auditioning for, so we decided to wait. So, it really all came down to Try It Tuesday at Bareclay studio on April 30th. Talking about squeezing it in at the last minute!

We arrived at Bareclay, and after a brief explanation from our instructor, Sophia, we were set loose with our pottery wheels. This is not easy folks! It is super difficult and I really, really struggled to make a piece that I even wanted to have them fire and glaze. I think a little more instruction might have helped, but it may be that I am just not a potter. We will be giving it another go in June thanks to the owner of the studio taking pity on me, so I will let you all know.

It was not my favorite create date, but I am really glad we tried it. I can’t wait to see if our pieces turn out well. I will add finished photos in a couple weeks when we get our pieces back.

March Create Date

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We knew that March was going to be crazy busy and we were going to have to be creative when we tried to carve out time for dates. So, we scheduled a glass shamrock sculpting class for Sunday morning. At the time, we were not thinking about Daylight Savings Time being that same weekend. So, we ended up getting home late Saturday night and losing an hour before going on our date. We were sleepy, but we were happy to be together and creating!

Read for our instructions

We went to a place called Glass Axis here in Columbus. Our daughter took an ornament blowing class from them in January, so we were already a little familiar with the workshop. We did not get to blow glass, but we got to sculpt it into shamrocks in two different ways. Our instructor, Emma, gave us a quick demo and then it was our turn. In a wonderful turn of events, we were the only two people in the class, so it was super fun and we got great attention.

  • Gathering glass
  • Just gathered glass
  • Coloring the glass with sprinkles

I went first to make my shamrock. I decided to do the more rounded shamrock with color inside between the two glass gathers. I used Dark Green, Light Green, and Yellow to color my piece. Emma gathered the glass for me, but I got to roll it in the color sprinkles and heat them into it. Then I helped with tools while she kept it moving at the right speed and heated to the right temperature. It was fun to sculpt the glass and I was really excited with how it was turning out. And then, in a freak accident, my shamrock was cracked completely in two. I decided to mourn for a bit while Keith made his and then try again.

  • Rolling the glass in sprinkles
  • Heating the glass in the blast oven
  • Shaping the glass
  • Flattening the glass
  • The colors are so different when they are super hot
  • Shamrock before the stem
  • Shamrock ready for the cooling oven
  • Shamrock cracked in half… 😦

Keith made a shamrock with two glass gathers and then the color on top. He used the Dark Green and White sprinkles to color his. He also decided to do some of the shaping with scissors for a more square looking leaf. I thought he did a great job coloring and shaping his shamrock, and his arrived to the cooling oven safely the first time.

  • Picking up color sprinkles
  • Melting color into the glass
  • Shaping the glass
  • Flattening the glass
  • Cutting the leaves
  • Close up of the hot color
  • Ready for a stem
  • Headed to the cooling oven

It was time for me to redo my shamrock, and I have to tell you, it was actually a blessing to get to try again once I knew a little bit what I was doing. I think my second turned out really well, and it ended up safely in the cooling oven with Keith’s.

  • Waiting for a stem
  • Emma forming the stem

I was able to pick up our cooled and bagged shamrocks today, and let me tell you, I adore them!! We will definitely be displaying these for years to come, and I love that they remind me of our Honeymoon in Ireland. We would definitely like to go back to Glass Axis for more classes in the future, and we will highly recommend them to all of our friends

  • Autumn’s shamrock
  • Keith’s shamrock

February Create Date

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You guys – today is my birthday! I am 43 years old, but I prefer to think of it as starting my 44th year of life because I love the number 4 and I just think even numbers are nicer. You can think that’s weird, I understand. 😉

Last night, Keith and I went on the most fun date!! We did the Valentine’s Maker Date Night at Idea Foundry Columbus. Idea Foundry is one of the largest maker spaces in the world, so we got to try so many new and exciting things. Lots of fire and heat and hammering and danger – the perfect date night for parents of teens. LOL.

The first random thing that happened when we arrived is that Keith recognized a woman that he went to high school with, so we got to catch up with people Keith knew. I also had a friend that was there with her husband, so we kept running into friendly faces. We had a wonderful dinner catered by Lindey’s (yum!!) and then it was on for 2.5 hours of creating! We knew going in that there were some projects we really wanted to participate in and some that weren’t the top of our list, so we had priorities!

Our first stop was the Plasma Cutting and Welding station – jumping right in to the sparks and fire. We made a metal candle holder which turned out pretty good. Keith did the plasma cutting to make the heart, and then we took turns welding. Keith was a much better welder than me, but I think with practice I could get the hang of it. 🙂

  • Ready for plasma cutting
  • Keith plasma cutting the heart
  • Autumn learning to weld
  • Keith learning to weld
  • The finished product!

Our next stop was a station to make a rustic photo holder. We got to beat the heck out of a piece of wood and then blow torch it to bring out all the texture and give it a weathered look. I think Keith *might* have enjoyed the hammering a little too much. It was definitely fun to figure out different ways to distress the wood and make texture. The blowtorch was especially cool – who knew hitting things with fire was so fun?!?

  • Distressing the wood
  • Keith with the blowtorch
  • Autumn with the blowtorch
  • Our finished frame

Since we were already outside, we made our way to the forging area to try our hand at blacksmithing. Once again, Keith was excited to hammer, so I was in charge of holding the red hot hook we were making and making sure it stayed red hot by inserting and removing it from the forge. We had a little trouble staying in sync at this station, but we ended up with a pretty cool finished project. I would definitely do this again!

  • The workshop space
  • Tools of the trade
  • Our heart hook being heated for the first time
  • Heating the metal again
  • Keith hammering while Autumn holds
  • The finished heart hook

After we were done being blacksmiths, we headed back inside and made “Create 2019” metal plates to put on our finished photo holder and candle holder. It was nice to do a relatively quick and easy project in the midst of the larger ones. We then headed upstairs to drop off our coats and have our professional photos taken. We had a fun time posing and really like how he captured our personalities. Plus, who doesn’t love origami birds?

  • One of our metal plaques
  • Look at that bird!
  • All the love

We were excited to get to make a wooden sushi tray at our next station. We had to do some sanding and a little cutting, gluing, and oiling. We also had the option to make our own chopsticks, but we already have some pretty special chopsticks at our house, so we did pass on that project. A sushi night has already been requested, so I see this getting some use in the near future. 🙂

  • Our sushi tray – can’t wait to use it!

The last station we did was a tile art station. We got to use alcohol soluble ink, alcohol, and fire to create some new coasters for our home. We decided to use our wedding colors (ink colors sunshine yellow and cranberry) along with rose gold and gunmetal. It was definitely a station where there was little instruction, so it was not Keith’s favorite. I thought it was pretty cool how long the ink burned, and I could have done a couple more coats on mine if there had been time. I think they turned out pretty cool.

  • Autumn clearly impressed by the fire
  • Still burning
  • Keith setting his ablaze
  • Close up of the work station
  • Our coasters

Overall, this was an awesome experience that I would for sure do again. We are looking forward to using all of our creations and remembering the fun times we had making them. Thanks Idea Foundry for hosting such a creative and adventurous date night!

All of our projects from Idea Foundry’s Valentine’s Maker Date Night