I want to be consequence free…who doesn’t?

I wanna be consequence free
I wanna be where nothing needs to matter
I wanna be consequence free

— Great Big Sea, Consequence Free

The impact of one’s actions, or consequences, has been a hot topic of conversation at our house this week. Following a major meltdown last week, M lost all his electronic privileges for 6 days – no computer, Wii or (gasp!) iPod. The last one was particularly controversial because, as M has pointed out to me on more than one occasion, “it’s his iPod; he paid for it with his own money, so you can’t take it away.”

Given the public and profanity-laden nature of M’s meltdown, I didn’t spend much time debating whether I had the moral authority to take away his iPod.  As his dad and I have told him repeatedly, at our house, electronics are a privilege, not a right.  M had his iPod with him when he fell asleep that night, but by morning, it had been spirited away to

Unintended consequences (Photo credit: askpang)

a secret hiding place (somewhere in the closet).

M got through the first day with a minimal amount of whining. He complained about being bored a few times, but he dumped a 500 piece puzzle on the floor in the family room and worked on it throughout the day.

The next day, however, the reality of a whole week without any electronic devices, set in. M was very unhappy.  Why couldn’t he go on the computer or listen to music on his iPod, he asked?  I explained to him that losing access to his electronic devices was a consequence of his recent behaviour, which had been particularly awful. “But Mommy,” he said, “Not being able to have electronics is the worst thing ever. I’ll never survive the week. It’s too much.”

I pointed out that he was not the only one who had to face up to the consequences of his or her behaviour – one of his friend’s had gotten into trouble at daycare and had lost his electronic privileges for several weeks.

M – Why is it only kids that have to have consequences?

Me – Adults have consequences too. If I behave badly at work, I may not get to work on a special project or get a promotion. if I spend too much money one month, I won’t be able to pay my bills.

M – That’s not as bad as losing electronics for a whole week. That`s the worst thing ever.

I`m sure there are lots of adults who would disagree. But I guess when you`re an 11 year old boy, losing electronics pretty much seems like the end of the world.  It certainly got his attention. Whether it will serve as a deterrent in the future remains to be seen.

M wasn’t the only one who had to deal with the consequences of his behaviour this week. I forgot my towel one day when I rode to work and I had to use my arm warmers and cycling shirt to dry myself. Fortunately, my shirt was relatively clean so I didn’t feel too gross about wrapping it around my wet hair. Another day, I had to spend almost an hour doing 2-days worth of dishes, including cleaning out both the garbage can and the green waste bin (there’s few household task I dislike more than washing dishes).  Not to mention staying up too late several nights and then being tired in the morning. Plus, eating too many potato chips and feeling bloated the next day. 

Lots of consequences. But I didn’t bother sharing them with M. I didn’t think he’d be very impressed.

Wouldn’t it be great, if the band just never ended
We could stay out late and we would never hear last call
We wouldn’t need to worry about approval or permission,
we could – slip off the edge and never worry about the fall

I wanna be consequence free

June Art Bead Scene challenge – little houses

When I went to check out this month`s inspiration painting for Art Bead Scene challenge, the first thing I noticed was the clouds and the mountains. The colours are subtle, yet full of movement. By the time, I scrolled down on my monitor and looked at the entire image of  Franklin Carmichael’s Jackknife Village (1926), I was totally captivated.

 I also knew I had the perfect focal piece in my stash – a resin and copper house made by Jade Scott. Although it has a bit of green/turquoise on it, the house’s primary colours are off-white and ochre, which are also predominant colours in the painting.

I decided to make a necklace and incorporate a piece of wired ribbon, wrapped with seed beads into the design. As I was rummaging through my various boxes and bags looking for the right piece of ribbon, I came across a string of small round beads in a bluish tone that resemble stones. I decided to hang the focal from a piece of chain with a verdegris finish to pick up the blues in the stones.A ochre coloured hand-forged circle from MissFickleMedia and a package of rectangular etched rectangular  jump rings (a recent Michaels’ sales rack find) and a drilled stone from StoneStuidosToo got thrown into the mix. Another trip to Michaels and a stop at my favourite local bead store yielded a length of large link chain and etched copper circles.

I had a very clear sense of the design from the get-go, so the necklace came together fairly quickly. As I was stringing the round beads, I decided to add a small ceramic bead from Gaea. It’s the same tones as the beads and just adds a bit more visual interest. I didn’t have any jump rings big enough to go through the hole in stone, so I made my own, using a copper eye pin. I snipped off the top and wrapped the eye pin around a pen 2x and then cut it into 2 jump rings. I had a play round with them a little bit to get them to close, but they are just the right size.

The finished necklace is about 24 inches long – it slips easily over my head, so no need to add a clasp. The colours are fairly neutral, so I can see myself wearing it fairly often. I’m really happy with the way it turned out.

Randon acts of craftiness – graduation cards

My lovely and talented nieces are both celebrating big milestones this month. One is graduating from high school and the other, from middle school. I don’t see them very often, but I treasure the times we do spend together.

It seemed appropriate to make a graduation card for each niece. In search of some inspiration, I checked out a few websites and Pinterest.  Apparently, the big theme in graduation cards is owls, often wearing a little square hat (graduating = wise?!). Not to my taste and expect neither recipient would be terribly impressed.

After some hunting, I found a card I really liked 0n Scrapbooksetc, but I don’t have a butterfly punch and I wasn’t going to buy one to make one card. I liked the look of the stitching on the card and decided to do something similar, using materials I had on hand. What really caught my eye was the stitching on the front of the card.

 In the end, I went with stars, which are also a popular theme for graduation cards (makes more sense to me than owls). I decided on the text “reach for the stars” and played around with fonts on my computer until I found one I liked. Once I’d run a couple of tests and decided on the font size and colour, I positioned the text approximately where I wanted it and ran a piece of 8 x 8 white card through my printer (tip: if you’re printer’s like mine and has trouble with odd-sized paper, washi tape works to attach the card stock to a piece of  printer paper, plus it comes off easily).

Once I had the text printed, I cut the paper into a medium-sized square.  Following the example of the butterfly card, I  Then I threaded my sewing machine with bright pink thread and stitched 5  lines coming out from the text.  I went over each line twice so they would stand out and pulled the threads through to the wrong side and tied them off.

If you are a sewer, this would be a snap, If you’re like me and so-so with a sewing machine, I recommend first practicing on a scrap piece of paper.  After a trial run, I was able to sew my lines free-hand. It wasn’t difficult and I like the effect.

I had already selected a bright pink card stock as the background (hence the pink thread on white paper). I found a coordinating paper in my stash and cut out a square that covered about 2/3’s of the front of the card and trimmed the stitched square to fit.

Due to a lack of mastery of my new paper cutter, my edges didn’t come quite clean (the knots on the back probably made the paper a little thicker), so I just tore the excess paper off on all four sides and went for a slightly rustic look.

I rounded the corners and added small self-sticky stars at the top of each stitched line.

Since a couple of my lines weren’t totally straight, I added a couple of extra stars to cover up the imperfections. I also ran the front of the card stock through my Big Shot with an embossing folder to pick up the dot theme (no such thing as too many to dots, plus any excuse to use my Big Shot).

I attached the squares on top of each other to the front of the card. Using self- adhesive numbers, I made a little tag that says “2013” and afixed it to the bottom third of the card. The final touch was adding few tiny sequins after the date.

While I had a clear design in mind for my eldest niece’s card, I had no clear plan for her sister’s. I decided the card itself would be turquoise. Following the example of one of the cards I’d seen, I printed “congradulations,” onto a plain card stock in a complementary colour. I accidentally trimmed one edge quite close to the bottom of the letters, but it looked fine, so I did the same along the other side. I’d rejected the paper with chevrons on it for the other card, but it added some punch to this one. Making a quasi-pennant was another happy accident. I was going to place it across the width of the card, but I liked it better length-wise.I cut a notch  at the bottom to add some visual interest.

I had just bought a pack of cardboard flowers on sale at Micheals. I added a stick-on rhinestone to each flower and scattered them around the front of the card. I ended up adding a few silver stars as well and added a bit of bling to the centre of each one. Of course, I had to decorate the inside of the card.

Two cute cards and nary an owl in sight.

 

 

Links include: Think Pink Sundays at Flamingo Toes ; Monday Link Party at Craft-O-Maniac; Motivate Me Monday at Keeping It Simple; Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T. ; Made by You Mondays at Skip to My Lou ; Market Yourself Monday at Sumo’s Sweet Stuff; Get Your Craft on Tuesday at Today’s Creative Blog; Tuesday To Do Part at The Blackberry Vine: Take-a-Look Tuesdays at Sugar Bee Crafts; Wednesday Wowzers at oopsy daisy; Flaunt It Fridays at Dotted Line Crafts; The Cure for the Common Monday at Lines Across My Face; Six Sisters Stuff – Strut Your Stuff Saturday