Time to Myself?

OK, so Jeff has the week off work and it's his birthday week, so I thought the kids might enjoy spending some time with him, afterall, when the divorce is final they will be spending more time with him and for weeks at a time in the summer. I thought, ahhh, a few days all to myself to do whatever I want, work on projects, not have to hear fighting all day or worry about feeding kids.

So, the kids went to Jeffs on Sunday as usual, on Sunday evening Zoey came by for a couple of hours. On monday Riley came home crying because she missed me (please note she has been gone from me for longer than 24 hours before with no problems), then Zoey came by again for a few hours. On Tuesday Eli came home crying wanting to spend time with me before he and Riley went back to Jeffs that afternoon. First thing this morning, and by first thing let me say I mean first thing when I got out of bed at 9:00 am, Max came rolling in ready to cash his check, buy his phone, pay a couple of bills, (thank you very much Max!) and buy me lunch. (He can be a sweet boy).

So, (again with the 'so'), as you can see I really did not have a full day to myself. Even so, I managed to work on a couple of projects.

I've been working on these buttons. They aren't finished yet, I'm building collages a bit at a time to get it just right.

And I worked on some necklaces. You might notice some of the rusty pieces from my last post. The problem I have with most of the stuff I work on or make is that I end up wanting to keep it myself. I need to be more like Riley, as soon as she finishes a project she tires of it, tosses it out, and starts the new one. I wouldn't 'toss out' my projects, but I wish it was easier to let them go.

Alas, the children will all be home later today. And that, folks, was our major fail attempt at time to 'myself'.!

I'm a little 'rusty' at this...

People probably wonder if anyone ever really uses those pins they save on pinterest. Well,  I do, and so do some other people I know. It's easier than ripping out  an idea from a magazine and trying to keep track of it until I use it.

One thing I had been wanting to try was rusting items, so there was no time like the present.

I gathered all the supplies, which are really very few:

For this recipe you need one 16 oz bottle of hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup white vinegar and 2 Tbsp. salt. You also need a plastic container to 'cook' everything in. I used a milk jug with the top cut off.

Next, you gather everything you want to rust. I wanted to try a little of everything so I gathered safety pins, keys, clothes pins, cow tags, jingle bells, some jewelry bits, and other odds and ends.

Then, you mix the solution and add your items. The solution turns brown or "rust" color and after an hour or so starts to bubble up. That's OK. You want it to do that, it tells you its working.

Leave it for about 16 hours. I started mine in the early evening and took it out following day when I got up at noon. Yep, noon. I was tired.

Remove it from the solution and set it on newspaper to dry. My results weren't too bad. Some things rusted like I had hoped, and other things didn't rust as much as I wanted, like the safety pins...but  everything got some degree of rust, so all in all I count it as success. So easy! Now what to do with all this rusty stuff?!