Rose Rulers

Because it's absolutely essential that rulers print out exactly, the rulers are in PDF format. Both colorways to be printed on one sheet of cardstock in US letter and A4 format. The rulers are 3 inches wide and 10 inches long marked in both cms and inches. I suggest either laminating or spraying with clear acrylic. 

Right click and save the US Letter format rulers HERE.

Right click to save the A4 format HERE.

I also posted a memory wire charm bracelet project at BellaOnline.

Manga science and math geek happiness

Now that school is getting ready to start again, I'd like to bring your attention to No Starch Press's wonderful Manga science and math series.

These are brilliant. Instead of teaching what's traditionally very dry and boring material in normal text book fashion, they are illustrated in manga style, with stories that explain how the math and science work in real world applications that really helps retention of the material. These are not just kid level math and science either. If you're interested in learning more as an adult and only have a passing knowledge of physics for example, these books will help you understand it better.

My son really loved the Electricity book, my personal favorite was the guide to physics which explained Newton's Three Laws of Motion very well. One of the real advantages of the manga style is that movement is easily shown in cartoon format. We know what cartoon movement looks like and can apply it to real life movement. The wrap stories and characters are super cute and the chapters have more information in them once you understand the basics.

You can get the books from Amazon, but  No Starch has a deal for getting all the books for 75.00, or you can just buy them one at a time and get a free e-book with the purchase of a print book. So, the Amazon.com link is an affiliate link, the No Starch link is not. The best deal is to get them from No Starch if you're interested.

I'm really looking forward to reading the Manga Guide to the Universe next! If you've been reading this blog long enough you know my family loves planetariums!

Circus inspired printable box

An upcoming contest on Spoonflower is circus themed. I know there will be lots of absolutely brilliant designs and my plain little tessellation will probably fade next to what is sure to be absolute cuteness but I had fun putting together the design. You can see it on my Spoonflower profile by clicking designs.

Because stripe boxes are always popular, I put it on a 2x2 box. Hope you enjoy it. Click on the image for the full-sized version.

In other news, I love my new stapler. In a really big crafty geeky way. It's wonderful, a thing of beauty. I tore 3 sheets of paper into 16ths and made a 48 page mini scratch paper matchbook notebook with my stapler. It went through all the sheets and the card stock so easily. Now I have a bigger project in mind. I want to make myself a cookbook with your recipes. Yep. Do you have a favorite recipe that you wouldn't mind sharing with me? I'll do printable recipe sheets of some recipes but all of them will wind up in my personal cookbook which will be stapled together with my wonderful new stapler. If you have a recipe you'd like to share, I set up a special email account, recipes *at* donteatthepaste (dot) com

I'll be posting some specific projects using my new stapler soon. Because I love my new stapler and I'm making things like little matchbook notebooks with it. 

Rose Coloring Page

Haven't done roses in a while. This one, I visualized as being something that could be colored in with Zentangle type fills, or used as a leather tooling pattern. I hope you enjoy it. Use it however you would like.
Click on the image for the full sized version.

A few years ago, my son made his grandpa a leather mystery braid bracelet. It was brown, with a centered Celtic concho and then mystery braid on either side of the concho. Dad wore that bracelet until it fell off this weekend. He called me to say his bracelet had broken and he would really like a replacement. That it was one of his favorite bracelets and people complimented it all the time. So off to Tandy Leather we went. After looking over their supplies, we decided to check my leather stash before buying more leather. So for the time being, we picked up some basic veg tan leather blank bracelets and Turnip Girl and William picked out conchos for themselves, for their grandpa and for their dad, and picked out leather dye. Turnip Girl decided she wanted to learn how to tool leather. So Michael will be teaching her. He hasn't tooled leather in *ages* but this could be just the thing to get him started again and hey! New barrettes! I need new stick barrettes which make great practice pieces. They picked an eagle head for their grandpa, and for Michael, they picked a Texas star concho because it looks like a police badge and he used to be in law enforcement. For Dad's bracelet, they chose mahogany dye, for their own, they picked a lovely shade of blue.

I'm currently cross stitching a police box. When it's done I'll post it and the pattern.