Halloween Bats

I keep seeing bats all over the web and I am loving this idea. So my sister and I got out the Cricut and cut out bats in all sizes using the Wild Card cartridge. Bend the bats wings forward to give them dimension and then tape them to the wall, I used scotch tape on mine. I placed all the bats flying in the same direction and slightly upward. The Happy Halloween sticker is from last years Halloween clearance at Wal-Mart.  I bet they have something similar this year. My sister put her bats going all the way across her living room wall. I know that there are some templates out there for bats if you do not have a Cricut handy. 

You just cant go wrong with these bats!

Happy Halloween Crafting!!

Check out some of my other Halloween projects!!

 

Halloween Banner

Glittered Pumpkins

{ Bat Plates }
http://beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com/2011/10/halloween-bat-plates.html

Halloween Banner

  My very first Halloween project of the year!!

I made this cute banner to go in my living room for Hall0ween. My inspiration was from Tater Tots & Jello. She made a cute banner with chevrons using her silhouette machine. Jealous much, yep. I had wanted to do something with dangling fabric so when I came across hers I was sold.

It was really easy to make and is a great addition to your Halloween decor. In fact I am already contemplating making a Christmas one too!

Here are the supplies you need:

fabric and tulle

Sewing machine & thread

Scissors and/or a rottery cutter and mat

Ribbon

First I cut my fabric into triangle shapes. I used a pattern that I made a while ago when I made a birthday banner for my daughter. Each triangle measures about 7 1/4" tall by 7 1/2" long. You can make it in any size you want. Experiment a little with a piece of paper before you start cutting fabric. Once you figure out what size you want start cutting triangles. I used 7 different fabrics on mine. I think I purchased 1/3 yard of each fabric which was plenty. I went with 1/3 instead of 1/4 because I wanted a little extra fabric to make the strips out of. I only ended up needing 3 triangles from each fabric. My banner is about 20 feet long and I used 16 triangles total. I was so excited to get started that I got right to it and cut out way to many triangles. I guess I might have to make another banner for my dining room because I still have tons of triangles left over.

Next cut out your strips to knot between every triangle. I cut 1" strips of fabric, ribbon and tulle. I used 3 pieces in between every triangle. So you may have to do some math here depending on how many triangles and how long your banner is going to be.

Choose a main ribbon to sew the triangles to. I used a small black with white polka dot ribbon that I had a ton of. I used about 25 feet of it. I would measure the room that you are putting it in and cut your ribbon accordingly. Make sure to add a few extra feet on both side to be able to tie the banner with. Sew your triangles to the ribbon. I chose to sew the ribbon down about 1/2" from the top of the triangle becasue that was the look that I was after. Leave approx. 1 1/2" between each triangle for tying your ribbon knots. Also make sure to sew your ribbon on the front of your fabric triangle.

After you sew all your triangles on tie 3 strips of fabric, ribbon or tulle in between every triangle. I tried to knot them so that the right sides of fabric would be facing up on all the strips. I found it easiest to tie the banner in the middle of the room then tie the fabric strips on.

Last but knot :) least hang your banner in your home and try to not stare at it all day long like I do. I am a total nerd, it's just so cute I cannot help myself.

Check out some of my other Halloween projects!!

 Glittered Pumpkins

{ bat plates }

Halloween Bats

Another Nuclear Freakout

Kate Sheppard writes another “Omigod we almost all died in a nuclear meltdown” story in the Guardian as a result of the East Coast earthquake. What actually happened is that the reactor closest to the earthquake shut down as a result of the quake, the diesel generators kicked in as designed and cooled the reactors, and the reactor in due course came back online. A dozen or so other reactors nearby were inspected by the NRC to be on the safe side, and were found to be okay.



Not exactly within a hairsbreadth of a doomsday scenario.

Tuesday's earthquake was the worst on the east coast of the US since 1944, measuring at 5.8 on the Richter scale. And while we certainly avoided the kind of crisis that Japan has endured, two nuclear reactors near the site, at the North Anna nuclear power plant, were shut down following the quake. The plant temporarily lost power and halted operations until it switched to back-up generators. Twelve other plants around the country were put on alert following the quake.



Though a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told reporters that "as far as we know, everything is safe", the event revived fears about the safety of US nuclear plants. Most of the region's reactors were reportedly designed to withstand a 5.9 to 6.1 magnitude quake – which means Tuesday's quake was, for many, too close for comfort.

Kate stresses that “two nuclear reactors” were shut down, even though they were at a single site and then she is careful to include the infamous “as far as we know” when quoting the inspector saying that everything is okay. What doesn’t he know? There may be hidden damage that is already killing millions and he just doesn’t know about it yet. I suspect that Kate Sheppard hopes so because she needs a better story than she has.



As for the twelve other plants that were “put on alert” well, yes, they were checked as a routine precaution but operation was continued as normal.

The North Anna plant is located about 15 miles from the epicenter of the quake in Mineral, Virginia. It was designed to withstand a 6.2-magnitude quake, according to its owner, Dominion Resources. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission lists the plant as one of the 10 US plants most at risk of damage in a seismic event. So, it seems like we got lucky in this case.

I’m not sure one should call it luck. You design a plant to withstand a certain size earthquake and the biggest quake to hit in 67 years, at magnitude 5.8, is half the size that you based the design upon, and you call that luck? I call it pretty good design work. And if this is one of the riskiest plants in the US then I’d say we are doing pretty well.



She goes on to say that, “We need to seriously consider the potential for a combination of events like those in Japan earlier this year,” apparently unaware that tsunamis are seriously unlikely in the mountainous interior of Virginia and New York, and then has a mild case of the vapors about evacuation plans after having (inadvertently) illustrated that no such things are actually likely to be used.



As a scare story it manages to be a fairly successful comedy.

Republican Primaries

Why are liberal blogs, and the liberal media, so fascinated with the Republican presidential race? Hardball and The Last Word spend 50% or more of their time on the subject, and some liberal blogs write about almost nothing else. You may notice that I virtually never do, but...



I would suggest their interest is based on them wanting Barack Obama reelected, and the only way that can happen is for him to run against an absolute fruitcake from the Republican Party.

Grocery Health Care

Grocery workers voted 90% in favor of strike to protect their existing health care benefits, the free health care agreed to eight years ago. They are rejecting full benefits costing $9/wk for individuals and $17/wk for families.



Meanwhile, AP reports that 10% of medium and large companies are planning to drop health benefits altogether in 2014, and another 20% are considering it. I think these grocery workers need to get back into touch with reality.



Update: As a further reality check for grocery workers, they are upset because the proposed cost for health care, including vision and dental, will be $92/month per family. Retired persons on Social Security, which is a lot less than grocery workers make, pay $96.50/mth individually for Medicare.

Dream Act By Executive Order

The Obama Administration pursued a crackdown on illegal immigrants for the first two years that he was in office, deporting them in far larger numbers than the preceding administration had ever done because, presumably, this administration is less friendly to large businesses which hire them illegally. The practice is, of course, not exactly friendly to immigrants themselves, something which seems to have suddenly occurred to this administration at reelection campaign time.



So, while Congress has still not reformed our immigration policy, The NYT tells us that the administration has “issued a new deportation policy” which will “use powers of prosecutorial discretion in existing law to suspend the deportations of most immigrants who, although they have committed immigration violations (which generally are civil offenses), have not been convicted of crimes.” In other words issue them green cards, making it a policy of “amnesty” under another name.

But White House officials and Congressional Democrats said they expected the measures would lead to relief during the coming year for virtually all young illegal immigrants facing deportation who might have won legal status under a bill called the Dream Act. A proposal to benefit illegal immigrant high school graduates who came to the country before they were 16, it failed in the Senate last year.

Well, not to get all constitutionalist on you here, but if Congress rejects something and Obama proceeds to do it by executive order, why do we think that’s a good thing? Because we approve of Obama and we approve of the action. All well and good.



But if a Democratic Congress rejected a corporate tax cut and a Republican president implemented it by means of executive order, how would we feel about that? I suspect we would be screaming about “presidential overreach” and decrying an “imperial president.”



The validity of an action does not depend on who is doing it, nor is it about who likes or dislikes it.

Reading List

Digby had a post yesterday in which she quoted another blogger as saying that he had read eight of the 24 books read by Obama this year and went on to say that she had read eleven of the list. There was some blather about the nature of the 24 books read by Obama, something about the horror of him not reading non-fiction, and that Clinton read 50 books per year.



I don't know how many of Obama's books I've read because I haven't seen the list and, further, I don't care what Obama reads. I do care what he does that affects the people of this nation. If anything justifies the image of bloggers as "some nerd sitting in his pyjamas using his mother's computer" it would be bloviating about what damned books the president is reading.