Got some ornament hangers and kits for a tiny bell and a tiny gift. I also got part of the tree done and just need to add branches. The instructions say:
[hdc,(in same stitch dc,tr,dc),hdc]
I don’t know how to do any of that shit. And I need to do it at three heights all the way around the tree. I scoffed at the video instructions and will now be desperately following them for the next, I dunno, hundred or so stitches. Wish me luck.
I finished the tree and learned double crochet and triple crochet. I do not like them, they hurt my hands. It’s probably because I crochet too tightly, as you can see by my tree. I also made the bell, that was fun. And got ornament hangers.
Then I remembered my distant friends and family were going to be sent cookies and crappy crochet projects and I was so, so far behind. So these will probably get done in January.
Christmas always lightens up after I get my boxes shipped out. I’ll be a bitch until then.
@Kyeh Cute! I have a tiny elf in the pile of 8 kits on my counter. I made a star for my tree, a gift box, and an ornament.
I underestimated the difficulty required but also learned new things, like how to make a circle into a square.
We are doing Lego City this year, a Trader Joe’s chocolate advent that arrives as a gift from grandparents annually for the kiddo, and a new one called “Kiwi Crate” that will be a little wooden village+train set when it’s complete. Lots of little die-cut felt and lasered-out “insert tab A into slot B” pieces of printed cardboard and plywood. It’s great for the 6-year-old and we are keeping up ok so far. A few times we have fallen behind because of other commitments and then caught back up. I needed a place to play/display so I knocked together a “train table” with a trap door and pushed some furniture out of the way. Have been very surprised (again) at how much replay and imaginative play comes out of the Lego minifigs and a space to set them up and leave them out.
@Kyeh Yes, both of them. I just stumbled onto the Mandalorian calendar. But I’ve had my eye on the Wera for a few years. It usually sells out early in the season, so I’ve either missed it, or I wasn’t interested in the tool selection.
@sammydog01 Yeah-- Lego Friends; I have a 2022 from after XMas and a ‘fresh’ 2023; so each kiddo has a one. Price for the Friends one drops a bit after new years; The LEGO City ones were sold out
I sorta cheated on the table. That train is not the one from the Kiwi kit. It’s a Lego holiday train, sometimes we set it up under the Christmas tree. So after a few days of watching the child play with it on the floor, I used the track she assembled as a template to cut the table surface. The idea was she could pop up out of the “lake” in the table to play Lego train engineer where it was out of the way and we were not all stepping over it.
Now that the Kiwi stuff is half built it’s neat to see it all take shape around the track. Table is getting full! We talked about painting the pieces a few times, decided “not this year.” Right now we are actually a day behind. (Big family celebration yesterday.) Also, much to my consternation… she is scheduled for school all next week!! Late holiday break. So @sammydog01 we might tackle painting them after Christmas when there’s no school and “I’m so BORED” has started to settle in. Or maybe next year we can paint and reassemble the village. (Painting seems to always turn into a huge disruption for whatever else we plan to use the kitchen table for… like dinner! But we have outside space we can use if I set up some lights and chairs and a place for things to dry.)
The Kiwi activities have been great fun. My parents fund a monthly kit and she’s built a lot of really cool gizmos. I usually save them for when we have teenagers over because it gives them a project to do together - Charley is a very strong reader for her age but she wants to have an audience for when she’s tinkering, and her cousins (19 and 21, now) live next door so it’s become one of the things they do together. The company has been great to communicate with and all their monthly activities are delightful.
The advent kit was a little repetitive (trees a couple days, etc) but we are having fun. And the scale is not so far off between the Lego minifigs and the little Kiwi “peg people” so they’re all intermingled in the village and get played with. I don’t think she could make the sledding hill this year without a lot of help. But she has surprised me before!
Why are the slightly-morbid tableau always the ones that make me chuckle? One of the Kiwi peg-people was caroling and not watching where she was going so she ran over a minifig… this will all get rearranged later today, maybe a snowball fight or something!
@OnionSoup Glad she’s not the only slightly-morbid kid. I have fond memories of crashing lots of Hot Wheels cars into each other but I guess we didn’t have enough Lego wheels when we were kids to launch Lego cars off the stairs. My kid brother and I definitely tried floating Lego boats in the ducks’ bathtub when we were kids, though!
Used to have car “fights”. Hold one car in each hand and release them into each other. So they would smash together. Do it until one car is right side up and one flips. Winner is right side up… And they move to next round until one car is overall winner.
All my cars had chipped paint… But they all held up really well. Didn’t dent. One time one fell apart and I was horrified as the top and bottom came separated. I was horrified for a while.
@OnionSoup@sammydog01 THANKS I was captivated. Still love the smashy smashy. I wonder how much convincing I’ll have to do tonight to try “slow motion” on the iPhone and get my daughter to stage a train wreck
I did get the Irish Cream calendar I mentioned on another thread somewhere from Aldi.
Got it before Thanksgiving, and opened door one way back then (I’m only having like 1 every 5 days though, so since it only came with 12, should last me till xmas). I am opening them in order. So far Raspberry Cheesecake Irish Cream has been the best, and Sugar Cookie the least good.
According to my chocolate Advent calendar, Christmas was last week. Hope y’all enjoyed.
@heartny I love when I get one of those early Christmas chocolate advent calendars
A local bar offers an advent beer case…a variety of 12 individually wrapped beers…I look forward to this every year.
@januarymick So festively wrapped!
@januarymick a friend makes up their own advent calendar. They alternate chocolates and miniature bottles of different liquors
I got the Aldi cheese calendar. Today was mature cheddar. And I had to share.
@ironcheftoni Does that look say I like it or it smells funny?
@sammydog01 oh, he loved it. He ate 5 little chunks.
@ironcheftoni @sammydog01 I think that look says, the cheese tax is higher. More cheese please!!
@ironcheftoni I also did the Aldi cheese calendar (tradition!).
Did as in we’re almost through it.
We:
Here’s mine:
It’s a crocheting craft calendar. Day 1:
Stuffing. Kinda disappointing for day 1. Hopefully there’s something to work on tomorrow.
@sammydog01 you need to make something before you can stuff it. that should be like day 7. the bag is cute though
@metaphore I peeked, there’s yarn tomorrow.
@metaphore @sammydog01 they are really building the anticipation
Day 2:
TINY SANTA SACK!
If anyone wants to play at home I can whisper the instructions.
@sammydog01 How cute!
Day 3, tree part A! I’m not done with my sack yet but I expect some accessories soon will give me time to catch up.
Forgot my photo.
Day4: Tree trunk! Plus I finished the santa bag.
@sammydog01 we need updates
Got some ornament hangers and kits for a tiny bell and a tiny gift. I also got part of the tree done and just need to add branches. The instructions say:
[hdc,(in same stitch dc,tr,dc),hdc]
I don’t know how to do any of that shit. And I need to do it at three heights all the way around the tree. I scoffed at the video instructions and will now be desperately following them for the next, I dunno, hundred or so stitches. Wish me luck.
@sammydog01 GOOD LUCK!
I finished the tree and learned double crochet and triple crochet. I do not like them, they hurt my hands. It’s probably because I crochet too tightly, as you can see by my tree. I also made the bell, that was fun. And got ornament hangers.
Then I remembered my distant friends and family were going to be sent cookies and crappy crochet projects and I was so, so far behind. So these will probably get done in January.
Christmas always lightens up after I get my boxes shipped out. I’ll be a bitch until then.
@sammydog01 An online drugstore site had this cute little dude:
@Kyeh Cute! I have a tiny elf in the pile of 8 kits on my counter. I made a star for my tree, a gift box, and an ornament.
I underestimated the difficulty required but also learned new things, like how to make a circle into a square.
@sammydog01 Those are nice!
My wife and I made this dragon castle for my daughter. It’s filled with second hand dragon toys.
I left one paperback unsensored for scale.
@fibrs86 This is amazing!
@fibrs86 Wow! Lucky girl!
@fibrs86 Looks like a fun idea done well!
[Also: an enjoyable book. I got to it this year, too.]
@earmstrong probably my favorite book that I read this year.
@fibrs86 woah this is incredible!
@fibrs86 Very creative! And probably fun to make.
I have 7 different ones I’m doing. I think I have a bit of a problem but it’s fun so who cares?! It’s not drugs
@Gamblam I love them too! Want to share which ones?
@sammydog01 in no particular order
@Gamblam I looked up Chubble Gum because it’s a cool name. Sounds like a cool company. What did you get?
@sammydog01 you have to zoom in
@Gamblam
/giphy SO CUTE!
Not an advent calendar, but here’s one for electronics geeks.
https://www.tkd-corp.com/otherpdf/cal2024code.pdf
@blaineg Here’s an image, but the PDF is higher quality.
@blaineg
@Kyeh It’s the resistor color code. BBROYGBVGW = 0-9.
Electronic geeks can sight read it. But you’ll notice the pattern is the same for every month.
@blaineg Ohhh! I did notice that but still didn’t get what the code was. Thanks.
@blaineg love this!!! can’t sight read it but my better half probably can
Thanks for reminding me.
@blaineg That’s friggin’ awesome!
KRULL! A SKULL! BRETT HULL! AWESOME!
@blaineg @caffeineguy Nice bottle opener.
@troy This is why my son doesn’t get an advent calendar any more.
We are doing Lego City this year, a Trader Joe’s chocolate advent that arrives as a gift from grandparents annually for the kiddo, and a new one called “Kiwi Crate” that will be a little wooden village+train set when it’s complete. Lots of little die-cut felt and lasered-out “insert tab A into slot B” pieces of printed cardboard and plywood. It’s great for the 6-year-old and we are keeping up ok so far. A few times we have fallen behind because of other commitments and then caught back up. I needed a place to play/display so I knocked together a “train table” with a trap door and pushed some furniture out of the way. Have been very surprised (again) at how much replay and imaginative play comes out of the Lego minifigs and a space to set them up and leave them out.
@2palms Looks like a lot of fun!
@2palms @Kyeh I should have gotten the train set. Maybe next year. Any plans to paint it?
I just looked at the website- they had a village with a motorized ski slope with skiers going down. So cool.
And this one.
@blaineg Did you get those?
@Kyeh Yes, both of them. I just stumbled onto the Mandalorian calendar. But I’ve had my eye on the Wera for a few years. It usually sells out early in the season, so I’ve either missed it, or I wasn’t interested in the tool selection.
@blaineg Nice! A sewing machine site I shop at offers Wera tools.
@Kyeh Both Wera and Wiha are excellent German toolmakers, Knipex too.
Look, dogs that make little brown cupcakes? Bonus we got two tasty cupcakes! Wait, what’s that shovel for?
@caffeineguy Don’t eat the brown cupcakes. Is this a Lego Friends calendar?
@sammydog01 Yeah-- Lego Friends; I have a 2022 from after XMas and a ‘fresh’ 2023; so each kiddo has a one. Price for the Friends one drops a bit after new years; The LEGO City ones were sold out
@caffeineguy @sammydog01
@caffeineguy @kerryzero @sammydog01
That’s hilarious!
I sorta cheated on the table. That train is not the one from the Kiwi kit. It’s a Lego holiday train, sometimes we set it up under the Christmas tree. So after a few days of watching the child play with it on the floor, I used the track she assembled as a template to cut the table surface. The idea was she could pop up out of the “lake” in the table to play Lego train engineer where it was out of the way and we were not all stepping over it.
Now that the Kiwi stuff is half built it’s neat to see it all take shape around the track. Table is getting full! We talked about painting the pieces a few times, decided “not this year.” Right now we are actually a day behind. (Big family celebration yesterday.) Also, much to my consternation… she is scheduled for school all next week!! Late holiday break. So @sammydog01 we might tackle painting them after Christmas when there’s no school and “I’m so BORED” has started to settle in. Or maybe next year we can paint and reassemble the village. (Painting seems to always turn into a huge disruption for whatever else we plan to use the kitchen table for… like dinner! But we have outside space we can use if I set up some lights and chairs and a place for things to dry.)
The Kiwi activities have been great fun. My parents fund a monthly kit and she’s built a lot of really cool gizmos. I usually save them for when we have teenagers over because it gives them a project to do together - Charley is a very strong reader for her age but she wants to have an audience for when she’s tinkering, and her cousins (19 and 21, now) live next door so it’s become one of the things they do together. The company has been great to communicate with and all their monthly activities are delightful.
The advent kit was a little repetitive (trees a couple days, etc) but we are having fun. And the scale is not so far off between the Lego minifigs and the little Kiwi “peg people” so they’re all intermingled in the village and get played with. I don’t think she could make the sledding hill this year without a lot of help. But she has surprised me before!
Why are the slightly-morbid tableau always the ones that make me chuckle? One of the Kiwi peg-people was caroling and not watching where she was going so she ran over a minifig… this will all get rearranged later today, maybe a snowball fight or something!
@2palms minifigs often “died” in my household growing up.
Me and my brother would make cars out of Legos. We would then push them down the stairs.
If the mini fig fell out of his seat, or the car broke apart too much, he was tragically “killed”.
There were even more casualties when it was spaceship building time, those got thrown down the stairs instead.
@OnionSoup Glad she’s not the only slightly-morbid kid. I have fond memories of crashing lots of Hot Wheels cars into each other but I guess we didn’t have enough Lego wheels when we were kids to launch Lego cars off the stairs. My kid brother and I definitely tried floating Lego boats in the ducks’ bathtub when we were kids, though!
@2palms @OnionSoup
@2palms lol… I did that with Hot wheels too.
Used to have car “fights”. Hold one car in each hand and release them into each other. So they would smash together. Do it until one car is right side up and one flips. Winner is right side up… And they move to next round until one car is overall winner.
All my cars had chipped paint… But they all held up really well. Didn’t dent. One time one fell apart and I was horrified as the top and bottom came separated. I was horrified for a while.
@OnionSoup @sammydog01 THANKS I was captivated. Still love the smashy smashy. I wonder how much convincing I’ll have to do tonight to try “slow motion” on the iPhone and get my daughter to stage a train wreck
I did get the Irish Cream calendar I mentioned on another thread somewhere from Aldi.
Got it before Thanksgiving, and opened door one way back then (I’m only having like 1 every 5 days though, so since it only came with 12, should last me till xmas). I am opening them in order. So far Raspberry Cheesecake Irish Cream has been the best, and Sugar Cookie the least good.
@OnionSoup yum. I wonder if they’re sold out.
@sammydog01 I don’t know. I don’t do Aldi often. Lidl is closer.
The Flaviar whiskey advent calendar ain’t cheap, but it’s quality. Something to genuinely look forward to every day!
The Mandalorian pin advent calendar is $15 on Woot, 6 days left.
https://home.woot.com/offers/star-wars-mandalorian-advent-calendar-1?ref=w_cnt_wp_0_22
i have a scooby-doo calendar. artwork is from zombie island, but figures are not. seems to be a mix of scooby and other stuff…
anyone know what the hell these are?
@walarney No idea but I love them all. I’m going to go searching.
@walarney Skibidi toilet. No idea what that is. Thank you reddit weirdos.
@sammydog01 i found the skibdi stuff after posting, no luck on the dino/dragon. girl has sims vibe