February 9, 2012: Jammin'... well not quite

Last year I had the wonderful idea to learn how to play the guitar. I still REALLY want to learn but I realize that it will take some serious work and dedication... and that means time... which is hard to come by. I asked a very talented young lady, a student, to teach me how to play. She was enthusiastic about it and we got started... we were able to get a couple of lessons in after school but then both of our schedules seemed impossible. Regardless, I truly do thank her for her time and willingness to attempt to help me. I think we will resume again... we shall see...
I made her this bracelet. When I hear the word "jammin'" I think of musicians... so I thought it was a cool word to punch on her bracelet. Check it out :)

This bracelet is made from an old belt (the buckle is still on it - that's what closes the bracelet). Then I punched the word into a pieces of sterling silver. To help the letters stand out more, I used the liver of sulfur again to oxidize the metal. Then I buffed the surface of the metal and the letters stayed oxidized (to learn more about the oxidation and liver of sulfur, click the label's below to jump to previous posts). I used rivets to attach the silver to the leather.

February 8, 2012: It's a bird... It's a plane... Its JERSEY!

(First, let me apologize... I am falling a bit behind with updating you on my creations! Gasp! - Life... what can ya do?) 

I have always been interested in new ways to recycle old magazine pages. They are so colorful and fun but the darn things pile up and up and up! While browsing DIY stuff on YouTube, I came across this neat idea for a recycled magazine necklace. 

I didn't really have a ton of time so I just played around with the idea, rolling and gluing, rolling and gluing. I wrapped some paper around the abstract shape that I came up with and poured some of the resin over it.
When it dried I picked it up and saw... JERSEY!? I did not even mean to make it :)

With Flash

I decided it would make a wonderful key chain so I drilled a hole in the resin. Then I strung a piece of wax linen cord through the hole and attached a key ring. Ta-da! Recycled magazine Jersey key chain!

February 7, 2012: R-R-R-Rams!

Last November, I had the chance to take part in the International Center for Leadership in Education's (ICLE) Leadership Academy in Dallas TX with some of the most awesome educators that I have met. The entire experience was so positive and left me energized and motivated to continue to pursue my passion - Education Reform. Locally, nationally and globally, education needs to better serve our students and their respective communities. ICLE seems to really understand that, and they are doing something about it. Our district sent 8 people to The Leadership Academy. Each school in our district was represented. The funny thing that we later reflected on was that although we were sent by the same district, we might as well have come from different states... we did not even know what faces to look for, many of us had never met. We soon realized that we were not isolated individuals but pieces to a puzzle... that belonged together. We spent the next 2 1/2 days sharing stories of our district, assessing our current status and making plans for the future.
ICLE focuses on three main facets of quality education; Relationships, Relevance and Rigor. (Although, I should be honest and admit that they say them in the order of rigor, relevance and relationships... we believe the order should be switched). Our three days as a district team revealed that positive relationships is absolutely where we must start our growth from who we are to who we want to be. We used our own experience as a group as rationale for the need to focus on establishing relationships within our district.
Since returning from Dallas, we have established a similar group of teachers at the high school to focus on RRR specifically at the high school. This group ALSO, came to the same conclusion, that Relationships truly is our first R. With positive relationships among staff, students, parents, schools and community... everything else becomes possible!
(I should mention that I could literally write about this topic continuously to my 67th birthday... but I'll stop here for now.) I made this out of an Altoids can with the Rs in mind :)

As you can see (actually, maybe you can't - not the best picture) I stamped the words "First thing is first" in the metal lid on the left. On the right side you can see a sort-of R-pyramid, made out of old blocks and game pieces I had - oh - just lying around. (cough cough - my mother hoards game pieces!). The idea is that relevance and rigor, while enormously important to quality education, must be built on a foundation of positive relationships.

OK - wait - hold up! I just looked up the word rigor... and honestly... I'm not sure I like that word anywhere near education... check out the definition. I have been singing songs of RRR and have been thinking all the while that rigor was about stretching people to achieve great things... UMMM!??... I am soliciting your opinion on a replacement R word? Thoughts? It should mean "stretching to be better than you are" or "intense engagement" maybe "extremely high but reachable expectations"...something along those lines. I really do not like the fact that the definition of the word rigor kind of is the opposite of positive relationship? Maybe I am just not comprehending the connotation? More to come at at later date...

February 6, 2012: A-CORDing to Me!

Neck-wear, neck-wear... all about it. My very first creation of this year, and first post on Period Ten is a crochet cord scarf. Well, now I have several of them because I love them so much and always get fantastic compliments. They can be wrapped around to form a bunchy, warm wrap for your neck or they can be worn loosely, acting more like a necklace. I wanted to make some that had a different stitch. So I looked up other ways to make a crochet cord. I found one that was exactly what I was looking for. It would create a lighter (thinner) cord and looked decorative - and looked harder than it actually is - always a plus!

This is the first one I made. It took me about an hour - one episode of House on Fox :)

 Since that only took an hour... I figured, why not bang out another while watching American Idol - wait no... it was Hoarders!

And then I got a little crazy with some RHS Rams themed ones... who will be the lucky recipients?

 How did I learn how to make this cord you ask... well...



Yes this is in some other language... (pause for serious Internet search...) It's Russian!! Haha. Figured it out. Ok, so I am adding YouTube tutorials to my list of things to "make." Stay tuned!

February 5, 2012: Super Bowl OF CHILI!

Ahhh Happy Super Bowl! I thought it would be appropriate if I made a Giants scarf for my Super Bowl fiesta that I was attending. I ended up leaving it with my dear friend, the hostess, after the exhilarating victory (which is fine because I am actually a Jets fan... but happy to see Giants win tonight) Check it out:

My true creation of the day however was a monster pot of chili! You may not know that I love to cook. Cooking is, after all, an art (one of my students said that the other day and she is super smart, funny and creative so I know this is true!). Today my creation was my own chili recipe! I cooked up a huge pot for a Super Bowl party. Disclaimer: This is Paula Dean-on-steroids chili... not for the clean eater. If you are aiming to please with taste, this is the way to go. Yum. Second disclaimer: I do not usually follow recipes... actually I really never follow recipes... hmmm. Furthermore, I am not sure exactly how much I used of each ingredient... but it worked! Have fun and experiment... that's what its all about.

Sorry, I forgot to take a pic before the partaaay...
You get leftovers! :)

Ingredients:

• applewood smoked bacon chopped
• italian sausage
• ground beef
• chick peas
• yellow onion chopped
• green pepper chopped
• red pepper chopped
• yellow pepper chopped
• minced garlic
• tomato paste
• fresh salsa
• mild salsa (Tostitos)
• Tobasco sauce 
• chili powder
• salt 
• pepper

Instructions:

1. First, chop up the bacon and put it in a large frying pan on medium heat.
2. When the bacon is pretty crispy and there are lots of tasty fats in the bottom of the pan, put in your chopped onion, peppers and minced garlic. 
3. Cook on medium heat until the onions and peppers are caramelized.
4. Mix the fresh salsa into the onion, pepper, bacon mixture and let sit on low heat.
5. In a large pot, add the Italian sausage and ground beef. Cook on medium heat until the meat is cooked through. Mix periodically while cooking.
6. When the meat is cooked, add the onion, pepper, bacon mixture from the pan to the meat and mix thoroughly.
7. Add the tomato paste, medium salsa, tobacco sauce and salt and pepper and mix.
8. Add the chick peas and mix.
9. Let simmer on medium-low heat until ready to serve.
10. Optional: You can add some chili flavoring if you want a stronger flavor. 

I know it seems a little scary, my approach to cooking, but it always works out in the end and tastes amazing! Now I just have to actually make notations about what (and how much) is going into the dish. OK fine!

February 4, 2012:

As I may have mentioned, my dad does some amazing upholstery and woodworking for various things such as classic cars, private jets, antique furniture, custom furniture, etc. - you name it. He is truly one of the most talented people that I have ever met. This past summer, two of the cars that he did the interiors for were first in their class at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance - the most prestigious classic car competition in the world! The one car, the 1934 Voisin, won Best In Show! Jay Leno was certainly impressed - Check out this video.

Anyway, the reason I am telling you all of this is that my dad's shop has been a wonderful place to gather materials for my projects over the years :). Among my favorite things to get from his shop are leather sample books! Leather companies send little sample books with various colors of leather. The pieces are small and have so much potential! In this project I cut two strips from different samples out of the book. I braided the two strips together with a piece of chain and connected the ends to some metal rings that I got at Beads World in NYC. At first I thought I was going to make this into a bracelet but suddenly I was struck with the idea of making this asymmetrical necklace, which I am really happy with! I had to make sure that I had heavier chain on the bottom so that the braided part would hang to the side. I attached a lighter weight chain to the top, which will prevent that from moving toward the bottom and shifting the location of the braided part. I used jump rings to connect the chain parts. I used fabric glue to fold the leather parts over and connect them to the metal rings. I think I will get quite a bit of wear out of this one :).

February 3, 2012: Finally Got My Black Belt!

You may or may not know that one of my passions is MMA. Yeahhh... so I have not been training lately... which really bothers me :(. The reason I am not training boils down to 50% living so darn far away from where I train, 25% is the fact that I am obsessed with Period Ten, 15% is lack of TIME and 10% is the need to just get over the other 90% and just DO IT AGAIN ALREADY! (end rant...) So, I jokingly titled this post "Finally got my black belt." Hmmm... NOT. But, I did make a cuff out of an old black leather belt!? Check it out:

I cut the strips with a razor blade, keeping the belt in one piece at either end. I set the snaps fastener (technique in earlier post) on either end and viola! I have seen ones like this on Etsy many times before and always wanted one. What better way to get one than to DIY!!!?