Vox Publicatag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://332010-03-18T22:57:30ZMovable Type 3.34Listiatag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.100942010-03-18T17:48:42Z2010-03-18T22:57:30ZSomeone on a craigslist forum I frequent mentioned listia.com as a good place to get free craft material (or really, anything). I decided to give it a chance, but quickly realized that the maxim that, unlike with freecycle, you can't...margahttp://www.marga.org/
listia.com as a good place to get free craft material (or really, anything). I decided to give it a chance, but quickly realized that the maxim that, unlike with freecycle, you can't really get anything for free at listia. I'm not really surprised, but a bit disappointed.
Listia works as e-bay, except that you bid with "credits", and you can earn credits by giving away stuff. They do give you a small amount of credits when you sign up and list something, but that's basically a one-time deal. Listia gives you the choice of having the winners of your bids pick up the stuff, you mail it for a price or you provide free shipping. The problem is that listia has a limited membership, specially in smaller cities, so it's not that likely that you'll find bidders that want to pick up your stuff (compare that with freecycle, which has much greater and only local memberships). If you charge for shipping, then chances are people will bid less on what you are offering (and remember, you are only getting credits) - and you have to go through the hassle of mailing it. If you provide free shipping, you have to pay for it.
If you don't have enough credits, listia does allow you to buy them at the outrageous price of 10c each. It's outrageous because listia things do cost a lot of credits. For example, a set of 10 paper cut-outs, with free shipping, is listed at 100 credits - or $10!!!!!.
As for me, I listed 6 items, including books and clothing. They are "pick up in San Leandro" only, and I think it's unlikely anyone will bid on them. After the auction is over (they are open for 7 days), I'll put them up on Freecycle or take them to the thrift store.
I do have 165 credits that I got for signing up and listing stuff, and I'll see if I can get something I want with that. So far it seems unlikely.
AFter that, I think I won't be using it anymore.]]>
Cranium Big Book of Outrageous Fun! - Reviewtag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.100792010-03-17T04:29:43Z2010-03-17T21:41:30ZWe got the Cranium Big Book of Outrageous Fun!: The Write-It, Draw-It, Sculpt-It, Act-It Game-in-a-Book-in-a-Game! at Thriftown (I think) quite a long time ago. I think we paid less than $5 and the book/game was unused and complete. Once again,...margahttp://www.marga.org/We got the Cranium Big Book of Outrageous Fun!: The Write-It, Draw-It, Sculpt-It, Act-It Game-in-a-Book-in-a-Game! at Thriftown (I think) quite a long time ago. I think we paid less than $5 and the book/game was unused and complete. Once again, a great deal.
For one reason or another we hadn't opened it until yesterday, and I was surprised at how fun the book was. It has a bunch of activities for reading-age kids as well as a game than anyone can play. Mika had a great time with a pizza challenge: unscrambling words, putting them in a crossword matrix and then making the objects out of clay. Camila and I played the game, in which we had to act up words, make each other guess or make figures out of clay, and she loved it too. There are many more activities, and you write on the book with an erasable marker, so more than one child can use it.
The only minus, for me, is that the book, game pieces and game board are all attached, which makes it quite a bit clumsy to use. Perhaps for that reason it didn't sell well (it's not available from Amazon.com itself, so I assume that it's out of print). On the plus side, you can get it new fromAmazon.com venderos for just $11 including shipping, and the book is quite worth it.
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SAUDI ARABIA: Blogging about quest to treat comatose brother could land man in jailtag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.100512010-03-16T03:07:26Z2010-03-16T03:10:36Z 15 March 2010 Blogging about quest to treat comatose brother could land man in jail SOURCE: Human Rights Watch (Human Rights Watch/IFEX) - New York, March 9, 2010 - Saudi Arabia's Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecutions should immediately...margahttp://www.marga.org/
http://www.hrw.org
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Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker - Reviewtag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.100262010-03-15T04:25:08Z2010-03-16T21:36:03ZAs I mentioned in my last post, today I bought a Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker at the flea market. It was missing the mixing bowl, spatula and measuring spoon - and it came with only 2 cake mixes and no...margahttp://www.marga.org/
As I mentioned in my last post, today I bought a Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker at the flea market. It was missing the mixing bowl, spatula and measuring spoon - and it came with only 2 cake mixes and no frosting mixes - but it was only $4. The girls could not wait to use the cupcake maker and we did so tonight after dinner. The consensus was that it was fun. ()Here is the review by Mika, my 8 yo).
The concept is pretty easy - you mix cupcake mix with a little bit of water, put it in a lined cupcake mold, put it in the steamer and microwave for 30 seconds - then let cool for one. Meanwhile you fill the frosting tube with frosting, put it in the stand, put the cupcake below it and push the arm: the frosting comes down while the cupcake spins around, making a twirl. The kids thought it was quite fun - though it's messy to fill.
What the kids (in particular Mika) enjoyed the most is being able to 1) do it by themselves (though I was there helping) and 2) have cupcakes in a couple of minutes.
We tried the two mixes we got with the kit. One did not come out but the other one did. They both tasted quite good. We then proceeded to make a few more cupcakes with angel food cake mix. To make them, we mixed well the mix with water. I started with 3 Tbsp. mix to 1 Tbsp. butter but it was too thick so I added more water until it had a thick but runny consistency. Then we microwaved for 35 seconds and, voila, the cupcakes were ready. They came out very well - though we found the angel food cake too sour for our taste. Tomorrow we'll use regular cake mix. The disadvantage of that is that regular cake mix requires eggs and oil, so rather than doing it by the spoon we'll probably have to make 1/3 of the package (given that it calls for 3 eggs). Not too big a deal, though. I'm pretty sure that any cupcake recipe would work, btw.
Our kit didn't come with the frosting, but given the reviews of the frosting at Amazon I wasn't too heartbroken. Instead we got some whipped frosting at the supermarket (I know, the stuff is nasty). I think the consistency was just right, not too runny that it would leak out of the frosting tube, but soft enough that it easily came out, but the hole on the tip is too wide so too much frosting comes out - and you end up with half as much frosting as cupcakes. I probably should make our own frosting instead.
What I would never do is buy their refills. They cost $12 for enough mixes to make and frost 5 cupcakes! That's $2.40 a cupcake (if I can still do math). And these cupcakes are ridiculously small (though really, a good size for a child). By comparison I spent $4.50 for the cake mix, frosting w/ sprinkles and cupcake liners - and I can make tons of cupcakes with that.
Now, would I buy the kit again? Definitely for $4 - even if the kids don't use it again (and Mika says she totally want to), it was worth the fun we had with it tonight. I would not pay $20 for it - but if you could get it for half that it wouldn't be a bad deal (if for no other reason than the price of the refills).
Update: We tried it today with regular yellow cake mix (cake mix + eggs + butter + water), mixed in the mixer and then cooked for 35 - and the results are great! Much better than either the mixtures that came with the set or the angel food cake. The cake rises very nicely and it's fluffy, the kids love it. We did make the whole package of mix, I refrigerated the leftovers in a lidded bowl and they worked just as well the next day.
We have given up on using the froster, however, as fun as it is. It's too much trouble to fill it up each time. Instead the kids are just frosting them with a knife.]]>
Another morning @ the flea markettag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.100162010-03-14T20:30:44Z2010-03-14T21:33:15ZWe just returned from another trip to the flea market, though this one didn't turn out as well as other ones. I bought a Junior Scientist Kit. It retails for $24 + shipping at an Amazon store, and I paid...margahttp://www.marga.org/
Junior Scientist Kit. It retails for $24 + shipping at an Amazon store, and I paid $3. Most of the kit seems to be there, BUT, and this is key, it's missing the instructions (which I didn't notice when I bought it). I found them online but for $5 - but I bought them nonetheless. Still, I'm pissed.
I also got a Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker (retails for $20, got it for $4). In this one I didn't realize it was missing quite a few things ( spoon, water dropper, mixer bowl, cupcake papers, 2 mixes, all four frosting mixes and 1 shortcut card). I would probably not have bought it, but it's my fault for not having looked at it more closely. It does get pretty bad reviews on Amazon, mostly for the taste/texture of the cupcakes and specially the frosting (which I don't have anyway). But I found a posting online about using store-bought cake mix. The idea is to make the batter as usual, pour it in the cupcake cup as per the instructions then microwave 30 seconds at the time until they seem ready. Someone else suggested to use 3 Tbsp cake mix to 1 Tbsp batter and microwave also for 30 seconds. I'll probably try the two mixes that came with the set and then an angel food mix that I have (which does not call for adding eggs). I'll also buy some store frosting (I hope it's not too thick). First I have to get some cupcake liners, though.
I also got three very cheaply made jewelry boxes ($1 each). Two of them already broke - so that was a big waste :-(
On a more positive note, Mike got an Eddie Bauer backpack for $4. It's sturdy, with a leather bottom and in very good condition, though used.
We also got two DS games for Mika, but paid $10 each - not much less than what we can get them new online for.
So really, the only good deal was the backpack. Well, I hope we learn the lesson and we're more careful in the future.]]>
Just Mom and Me book - Reviewtag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.100032010-03-13T21:20:12Z2010-03-13T21:38:05ZAmerican Girl, the makers of those impossibly expensive dolls, has a publishing arm that offers books aimed at girls 7-8 years old and older. In general, they get great reviews at Amazon. I've just discovered them myself and my first...margahttp://www.marga.org/American Girl, the makers of those impossibly expensive dolls, has a publishing arm that offers books aimed at girls 7-8 years old and older. In general, they get great reviews at Amazon. I've just discovered them myself and my first purchase was Just Mom and Me: The Tear-out, Punch-out, Fill-out Book of Fun for Girls and Their Moms. I got for Mika (my soon-to-be 8 yo) for Xmas, and we've both loved it.
The book is full of activities for moms and daughters. It has quizzes that help to get to know each other better and ideas for things to do together (review a restaurant, have a movie night complete with popcorn recipe, make a calendar with pictures of the you together). Nothing is terribly original, but they are not things that either of us would have necessarily thought out on our own. Plus somehow it's more interesting for Mika if she gets an idea for something to do together from the book.
What I most like about the book is that it just encourages me to do things with her.
The main plus and minus of the book is that these are activities for a mom to do alone with her daughter. This is great for one-on-one bonding time, but one-on-one bonding time is not necessarily easy to find when you have another kid around - specially one that is jealous of the book. But the book is really not geared to 5-year-olds. I wish there was one that was.
I'm also thinking of getting her Tear Up This Book!: The Sticker, Stencil, Stationery, Games, Crafts, Doodle, And Journal Book For Girls! , but I may wait until we have done more of the activities in the Just Mom and Me book.
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Only in America: 11-yo kid may get life in prison for murdertag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.99572010-03-11T17:56:11Z2010-03-11T18:10:54ZThe brutality and absurdity of the American justice system is well known around the world. The fact that until recently we were executing juveniles earned us the condemnation of the world (and several international human rights bodies). And now, prosecutors...margahttp://www.marga.org/The brutality and absurdity of the American justice system is well known around the world. The fact that until recently we were executing juveniles earned us the condemnation of the world (and several international human rights bodies). And now, prosecutors in Pennsylvania are to decide whether to try a kid for a murder he is accused of having committed when he was 11-years old. If convicted he may get life in prison.
A child. A stupid, immature child - one whose brain has not fully developed, whose concept of right and wrong is still fussy. A normal child.
We, of course, don't know if he was responsible of the crime he is accused of or not. But it doesn't matter. What a child of 11 does is no predictor of what he'll do when he's 22 or 32 or 70. The idea of robbing a child of his whole life because he made a stupid and very, very, very wrong decision as a little kid is beyond absurd, it's unconscionable. Which is not to say that kids like that shouldn't be punished - but it has to be appropriate punishment, psychological counseling and rehabilitation.
Jordan Website, where you can contribute to his legal defense. Please do.]]>
Great kids / family photographer in the SF Bay Areatag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.99462010-03-11T03:24:50Z2010-03-11T03:35:04ZI want to introduce my readers to my friend Alpana Aras-King who runs Storybox Art in the San Francisco Bay Area. Alpana is an amazing photographer, and has taken some of the most beautiful family/children pictures I've ever seen. Alpana...margahttp://www.marga.org/I want to introduce my readers to my friend Alpana Aras-King who runs Storybox Art in the San Francisco Bay Area. Alpana is an amazing photographer, and has taken some of the most beautiful family/children pictures I've ever seen. Alpana is a trained photographer, and her pictures do not just show her artistic vision but her sense of fun and soul. Check out her website.
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Sparkle Floam - Reviewtag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.99452010-03-10T23:47:43Z2010-03-11T02:21:09ZI just got a package of Sparkle Floam at Grocery Outlet for $2 (it sells in Amazon for $4.60) and Mika had a great time playing with it. She made a "cover" for her cell phone and loved how it...margahttp://www.marga.org/
I just got a package of Sparkle Floam at Grocery Outlet for $2 (it sells in Amazon for $4.60) and Mika had a great time playing with it. She made a "cover" for her cell phone and loved how it looked. Of course, this is a non-functioning cell-phone :-)
I'm not sure if the floam is supposed to dry and permanently stick to whatever surface you put it on, I really don't care either way, but it would have been nice if it came with instructions on how to use it.
Mika and her floam phone
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Am I worth $6K?tag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.98972010-03-07T23:10:32Z2010-03-07T23:47:40ZGoogling my name, which I do once in a while when I'm fidgety, I came across website outlook, a site which purports to tell you how much your website is worth. And, according to them, marga.org, my main personal website,...margahttp://www.marga.org/
website outlook, a site which purports to tell you how much your website is worth. And, according to them, marga.org, my main personal website, is worth $6,000. Meanwhile, voxpublica.org, where this blog is kept, is worth a little over $2K. Aha.
It's not clear what they base these values on. The only data they give about the websites are the daily pageviews, which I have no idea how they think they can figure out. Their number for marga.org, a little under 2K, is about 60% less than what I actually get, about 3300 for February 2010. Voxpublica.org, of course, gets many fewer hits, but still more than they give it credit for.
I imagine their valuing of the website is based on its potential ad revenue - but that's a very silly valuation. For one, it forgets the value of the domain name alone. marga.org doesn't have much going for it as a domain name, beyond being my name and it being short and somewhat easy to spell (though not to pronounce in English). voxpublica.org may have a higher value just because there is an online magazine in norway that might want the name and because it's a domain name that could work for many sorts of endeavors in any part of the western world. I got it originally to provide hosting for other human rights organizations - though I never used it for that purpose. I do like the domain name, though, so I'm keeping it.
But also, how much traffic you get depends on what you put on the website. I have to admit that some of my highest traffic pages are old pages. For example, my most visited content page in marga.org is the one for my recipe for yassa, which has been in my website for as long as I've had it. But my blog post on safeway birthday cakes, which I wrote in 2008, gets lots and lots of hits as well. And, personally, I have no idea what things that I post will generate a lot of traffic (or make it to the top of the search engines).
In any case, it's nice to know that I'm worth something ;-)]]>
Magnificent Manicure Kit - Reviewtag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.98862010-03-06T23:59:44Z2010-03-10T06:15:23ZToday I found the Elmer/Scientific Explorers' Magnificent Manicure Kit at Thriftown for $2. New it retails for $17 at Amazon. I had been curious about the kit before, mostly because all in all I've enjoyed other Scientific Explorer kits (Spa...margahttp://www.marga.org/Today I found the Elmer/Scientific Explorers' Magnificent Manicure Kit at Thriftown for $2. New it retails for $17 at Amazon. I had been curious about the kit before, mostly because all in all I've enjoyed other Scientific Explorer kits (Spa Science, Perfumery and its chemistry kits). But I didn't buy it because in my experience these kits are waaaaay overpriced. They usually contain mostly the type of ingredients you have at home, plus a couple of small samples of stuff that would be a bit harder to come by. But for that you spend close to $20!
This is definitely the case with the Manicure kit. The kit comes with a 3.4oz bottle of lotion base, 4oz bottle of bath salts (aka sodium chloride or table salt), 1.2 oz bottle of crystal mud (aka sodium polyacrylate), 1ml of sodium melon fragrance, 1 ml green dye, 2 foam toe separators, a small plastic soaking tray, a measuring spoon, a mixing spoon, a small pipette, a toy nail buffer (I can't imagine it'll be good for anything) and a foot-shaped pumice stone. There is also an activity guide, which is really what you buy the kit for. My $2 kit did not have the lotion, fragrance, dye or mixing spoon - not a big deal as I have all those things at home. But indeed, I have everything the kit comes with save for the "crystal mud" (and the guide) at home.
My kids enjoyed playing with the "crystal mud" so much, that for me it was a good purchase. But the kit is definitely not worth $20, IMHO.
There isn't very much science to the kit, though the crystal mud section is used to help kids learn about saturation, which was a concept Mika didn't know before. There is also a few "fun facts" in the booklet with helpful information, though Mika was less than interested in this :-(
--
Here are the activities included in the activity guide.
- Making gel with the "crystal mud". The crystal mud is a polymer which starts as granules which can absorb 300 times their weigh in liquid. They basically become a gel when saturated, and you can use them to soak your hands for relaxation purposes. It doesn't do anything for your skin/nails, though. But Mika LOVED making and playing with the stuff and holding it in her hands.
-Adding salt to the gel, supposedly to help rub off death skin from your hands. However, this part irritated Mika's skin.
-Mixing the lotion base with color and fragrance and rubbing it in her skin. We skipped this part, though we've done it before with a previous kit and the lotion we make ourselves, and just used regular lotion.
-Buffing and shining your nails with the included nail buffer.
-Painting your nails with the non-included nail polish.
Then you do a pedicure
-Soak your feet in the gel
-Rubbing your feet with the included pumice stone
-Applying lotion to your feet
-Painting your toe nails using the included toe separators and your own nail polish.]]>
Stories from Ancient Egypt book review (sort of)tag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.98792010-03-05T01:08:14Z2010-03-06T06:49:26ZI got this Stories from Ancient Egypt book at the British Museum a number of years ago, and while we read a couple of the stories a year or two ago, Mika is only now (at almost 8 yo) getting...margahttp://www.marga.org/
I got this Stories from Ancient Egypt book at the British Museum a number of years ago, and while we read a couple of the stories a year or two ago, Mika is only now (at almost 8 yo) getting really into it. She's enjoying the stories, though not immensely. Even though they are not very long, she sort of grows bored with them by the middle.
I think the problem is twofold. The main one is that they are not told in the most interesting manner. The author, Joyce A. Tyldesley, is an Egyptologist - and while she has penned many pop-books on Ancient Egyptian subjects, writing for children requires different skills. The language, in particular, is sort of dry. The other problem is that, IMHO, Ancient Egyptian literature is not particularly compelling. As a student, I particularly enjoyed the Tale of the Two Brothers, in particular for its similarities with the much later story of Joseph from the Bible. I also liked the intriguing harem conspiracy, but looking through my Lichtheim books, I can't find it - so I'm not sure where I read it. But really, most stories are not that great.
That said, I'm glad I have one book of Ancient Egyptian stories to tell my daughter (I'm sure she would not enjoy my reading directly from Lichtheim). One word of warning, while the stories are dumb down for the kids, and sexual contents are cleaned up, there is a still a fair amount of violence to this book. The book includes its version of the book of the heavenly cow (or the "holy cow", as my friend Lola and I liked to call it), in which the goddess Hathor grows bloodthirsty and kills a large part of mankind. That may be a bit too scary for younger kids.
As an aside, I'm planning to get the book Tales of Ancient Egypt by Roger Lancelyn Green (who's written a bunch of children version of ancient stories/myths). The book is just $5 on Amazon and it gets pretty good reviews - plus it has some stories not present in the book I have.]]>
Exploring Ancient Egypt Fun Kit - Reviewtag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.98702010-03-05T00:24:48Z2010-03-05T00:46:24Z I got the Exploring Ancient Egypt Fun Kit for Mika's birthday party, and while I haven't used it yet, I'm pretty happy with the purchase. The kit is a very good value. It comes with two coloring books (King...margahttp://www.marga.org/
I got the Exploring Ancient Egypt Fun Kit for Mika's birthday party, and while I haven't used it yet, I'm pretty happy with the purchase. The kit is a very good value. It comes with two coloring books (King Tut Coloring Book, 32 pages and Life in Ancient Egypt Coloring Book, 48 pages). The books have very complex drawings, with a lot of detail, which may be too challenging for kids aged like mine (5 and 8) - but I think would be great for older kids and adults who like to color. Each scene has an explanation underneath it. Each book retails for $4 - so it'd be $8 for both of them.
The kit also comes with 3 sticker booklets (Shiny King Tut Treasure Stickers, about 10 stickers, King Tut: With 44 Stickers, which is actually a "dress King Tut" set and Egyptian Life Stickers, which I think also has 10 stickers), one booklet of stencils
(about 10) and one of tattoos
(id). Each of these booklets is a little bit smaller than 4" x 6". They cost $1.50 each - so just the coloring books and the booklets would be $14 together - the kit is $11.50 by itself.
The kit also comes with three colorful Egyptian masks: Nefertiti, Tutankhamon and some animal, a small poster of Tuthankamon and 4 stained glass coloring sheets.
So in all, if you want all this stuff, it's a good deal. The jury is still out on how good the stickers, tattoos and stencils are.]]>
Mika's Ancient Egyptian Party Invitationstag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.98522010-03-04T01:07:37Z2010-03-11T17:30:50Z I got the idea to make these invitations from somewhere on the internet, and I thought the kids would love it. Basically, I printed the invitations on papyrus-printed paper (not my first choice), using hieroglyphs for the top and...margahttp://www.marga.org/
I got the idea to make these invitations from somewhere on the internet, and I thought the kids would love it. Basically, I printed the invitations on papyrus-printed paper (not my first choice), using hieroglyphs for the top and bottom, roll them up and tied them with a string going through an scarab amulet. Mika LOVED the presentation - though Mike complained that it was all my doing and Mika didn't get to participate on making them. What can I say? My major in college was Ancient Egyptian Archaeology, so I'm very much into this party.
Now as to the parts of the invitation:
Papyrus Paper: I'd meant to buy real papyrus for the invitations, but it was surprisingly difficult and expensive to find it online. It's available at Amazon but for the ridiculous price of $4.50 a sheet + super-high shipping. I thought I'd gotten a real good deal on e-bay, where abcislam2000, an Egypt based seller, had listed 10 sheets, about 11 1/2" x 17" each, of plain papyrus with a "buy it now" price of $10 and a "best offer" option. I offered $5 and it was immediately accepted. It's an additional $8 for shipping - so each papyrus sheet ends up costing $1.30. They do combine shipping, so I went ahead and got myself a print of an Ancient Egyptian scene on papyrus (same size) for $3.50, that I can use as decoration.
But the "real papyrus" turned out to be heavy paper printed with a papyrus motif. I e-mailed the seller about it, but he really seems convinced that it's papyrus - that's what his suppliers tell him and he doesn't seem to know better. If it wasn't for the fact that Mika realized it wasn't papyrus right away, it wouldn't be a big deal, the paper looks nice enough and each sheet was large enough for 4 invitations. But she figured it out and was disappointed. Oh well. At least the paper is very good quality, thick and easy to print on.
I'm pretty sure that they sell papyrus printed paper in the US, though I wasn't able to find it through google, so if you go this route you don't have to order it from Egypt.
Lettering / Hieroglyphs
I wanted to use real hieroglyphic writing for Mika's invitation. In particular, I wanted to write "Mika's Birthday" or "Happy Birthday Mika" on the top and "ankh - wdja - snb" (life, prosperty, health) on the bottom. The latter was a very common phrase/wish in Ancient Egypt.
That proved more difficult than expected. While there are several free (and not-free) hieroglyph fonts online, none of the ones I found had all the hieroglyphs I needed. The most complete (and elegant) was Jim Loy's font, available for free, but it did not have the hieroglyph for wdja (the one in the middle, following the ankh, in the picture below). It does have the whole alphabet, plus some other common hieroglyphs including several determinatives (specially for professions/activities) so if you are just looking to spell out a name, this is a very good font to download.
But I was determined to have ankh-wdja-snb so I looked and looked for a another font. Finally I stumbled upon the GlyphBasic fonts, GlyphBasic 4 has the hieroglyph for wdja, but none of the four fonts included in the download had the ankh or the snb. *sigh*. Unfortunately, it was difficult to combine the fonts as the wdja hieroglyph sat taller than the two - so I finally decided to use photoshop to put the hieroglyphs together and just made the whole phrase into a graphic:
I think it ended up looking pretty good.
Given the difficulties with the wdja, and the fact that Jim's font did not have the hieroglyph for nfr (happy), I decided writing "Mika's Birthday" at the top would be enough:
This transliterates to "ra - mswt - Mika". Ra, the sun, means "day" (first hieroglyph + vertical line). "mswt" means "birth" (following three hieroglyphs) and "Mika" (starting with the owl hieroglyph) was spelled out with the female determinative at the end. Note that in Ancient Egyptian you do not leave spaces between words.
There are several ways to spell this phrase and I went with the one that was easiest and most "artistically" pleasant. The font I used did not permit me (or at least I couldn't figure out how) to place the different hieroglyphs one on top of the other, as you would in Ancient Egyptian, so I decided to skip "n" - the wavy line which means "of" and the three little short vertical lines that could have worked as a determinative for "mswt" (no way I was going to search for the "woman giving birth" determinative). That said, after consulting Faulkner, I'm confident that this phrase is perfectly written as such. So feel free to use it (substituting your kids name, of course).
The next header of the invitation uses the Novascript font, which looks sort of ancient despite the name.
I used arial for the rest.
Rolling / Scarab
I rolled the invitations as you would a scroll more for "effect" than authenticity. Ancient Egyptians often folded rather than rolled their papyrus - though the latter was also done. I tied it with some ribbon I had left over (I'll probably use gold for the rest of the invitations), which I passed through a homemade scarab amulet. Camila and I made the amulets using the Fun with Egyptian amulets kit that she got for Xmas. The kit has a mold with different Egyptian amulet forms and you use polymer clay to make them. We made a hole going through them with a toothpick.
And that is that, our party invitations. I hope the kids like them :-)]]>
Consorting with terroriststag:www.voxpublica.org,2010://33.98512010-03-02T16:09:27Z2010-03-03T20:01:29ZA big deal was made during the last presidential campaign about Obama's tenuous connection to a former member of the terrorist organization "Weather Undergound". William Ayers, the man in question, is now a professor of education at the University of...margahttp://www.marga.org/
Tupamaro leader during the early 70's, spent 14 years in prison, and then pursued a less violent political career. The Tupamaros were the main "revolutionary" group in Uruguay, responsible for a number of kidnappings and killings.
As if that was not enough, Hillary continued on to Buenos Aires, where she met with Argentine president Cristina Fernández, herself a former Montonera. The Montoneros were Argentina's main subversive organization during the 1970's. And if that wasn't enough, Hillary went on to Chile, where she met with former Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez member and current Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
Hmmm. Perhaps being associated with a former "terrorist" is not a big deal outside of a campaign.]]>
We got the Cranium Big Book of Outrageous Fun!: The Write-It, Draw-It, Sculpt-It, Act-It Game-in-a-Book-in-a-Game!
at Thriftown (I think) quite a long time ago. I think we paid less than $5 and the book/game was unused and complete. Once again, a great deal.
For one reason or another we hadn't opened it until yesterday, and I was surprised at how fun the book was. It has a bunch of activities for reading-age kids as well as a game than anyone can play. Mika had a great time with a pizza challenge: unscrambling words, putting them in a crossword matrix and then making the objects out of clay. Camila and I played the game, in which we had to act up words, make each other guess or make figures out of clay, and she loved it too. There are many more activities, and you write on the book with an erasable marker, so more than one child can use it.
The only minus, for me, is that the book, game pieces and game board are all attached, which makes it quite a bit clumsy to use. Perhaps for that reason it didn't sell well (it's not available from Amazon.com itself, so I assume that it's out of print). On the plus side, you can get it new fromAmazon.com venderos
for just $11 including shipping, and the book is quite worth it.
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at the flea market. It was missing the mixing bowl, spatula and measuring spoon - and it came with only 2 cake mixes and no frosting mixes - but it was only $4. The girls could not wait to use the cupcake maker and we did so tonight after dinner. The consensus was that it was fun. ()Here is the review by Mika, my 8 yo).
The concept is pretty easy - you mix cupcake mix with a little bit of water, put it in a lined cupcake mold, put it in the steamer and microwave for 30 seconds - then let cool for one. Meanwhile you fill the frosting tube with frosting, put it in the stand, put the cupcake below it and push the arm: the frosting comes down while the cupcake spins around, making a twirl. The kids thought it was quite fun - though it's messy to fill.
What the kids (in particular Mika) enjoyed the most is being able to 1) do it by themselves (though I was there helping) and 2) have cupcakes in a couple of minutes.
We tried the two mixes we got with the kit. One did not come out but the other one did. They both tasted quite good. We then proceeded to make a few more cupcakes with angel food cake mix. To make them, we mixed well the mix with water. I started with 3 Tbsp. mix to 1 Tbsp. butter but it was too thick so I added more water until it had a thick but runny consistency. Then we microwaved for 35 seconds and, voila, the cupcakes were ready. They came out very well - though we found the angel food cake too sour for our taste. Tomorrow we'll use regular cake mix. The disadvantage of that is that regular cake mix requires eggs and oil, so rather than doing it by the spoon we'll probably have to make 1/3 of the package (given that it calls for 3 eggs). Not too big a deal, though. I'm pretty sure that any cupcake recipe would work, btw.
Our kit didn't come with the frosting, but given the reviews of the frosting at Amazon I wasn't too heartbroken. Instead we got some whipped frosting at the supermarket (I know, the stuff is nasty). I think the consistency was just right, not too runny that it would leak out of the frosting tube, but soft enough that it easily came out, but the hole on the tip is too wide so too much frosting comes out - and you end up with half as much frosting as cupcakes. I probably should make our own frosting instead.
What I would never do is buy their refills
. They cost $12 for enough mixes to make and frost 5 cupcakes! That's $2.40 a cupcake (if I can still do math). And these cupcakes are ridiculously small (though really, a good size for a child). By comparison I spent $4.50 for the cake mix, frosting w/ sprinkles and cupcake liners - and I can make tons of cupcakes with that.
Now, would I buy the kit again? Definitely for $4 - even if the kids don't use it again (and Mika says she totally want to), it was worth the fun we had with it tonight. I would not pay $20 for it - but if you could get it for half that it wouldn't be a bad deal (if for no other reason than the price of the refills).
Update: We tried it today with regular yellow cake mix (cake mix + eggs + butter + water), mixed in the mixer and then cooked for 35 - and the results are great! Much better than either the mixtures that came with the set or the angel food cake. The cake rises very nicely and it's fluffy, the kids love it. We did make the whole package of mix, I refrigerated the leftovers in a lidded bowl and they worked just as well the next day.
We have given up on using the froster, however, as fun as it is. It's too much trouble to fill it up each time. Instead the kids are just frosting them with a knife.]]>
. It retails for $24 + shipping at an Amazon store, and I paid $3. Most of the kit seems to be there, BUT, and this is key, it's missing the instructions (which I didn't notice when I bought it). I found them online but for $5 - but I bought them nonetheless. Still, I'm pissed.
I also got a Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker
. I got for Mika (my soon-to-be 8 yo) for Xmas, and we've both loved it.
The book is full of activities for moms and daughters. It has quizzes that help to get to know each other better and ideas for things to do together (review a restaurant, have a movie night complete with popcorn recipe, make a calendar with pictures of the you together). Nothing is terribly original, but they are not things that either of us would have necessarily thought out on our own. Plus somehow it's more interesting for Mika if she gets an idea for something to do together from the book.
What I most like about the book is that it just encourages me to do things with her.
The main plus and minus of the book is that these are activities for a mom to do alone with her daughter. This is great for one-on-one bonding time, but one-on-one bonding time is not necessarily easy to find when you have another kid around - specially one that is jealous of the book. But the book is really not geared to 5-year-olds. I wish there was one that was.
I'm also thinking of getting her Tear Up This Book!: The Sticker, Stencil, Stationery, Games, Crafts, Doodle, And Journal Book For Girls! 
, but I may wait until we have done more of the activities in the Just Mom and Me book.
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at Grocery Outlet for $2 (it sells in Amazon for $4.60) and Mika had a great time playing with it. She made a "cover" for her cell phone and loved how it looked. Of course, this is a non-functioning cell-phone :-)
I'm not sure if the floam is supposed to dry and permanently stick to whatever surface you put it on, I really don't care either way, but it would have been nice if it came with instructions on how to use it.
Mika and her floam phone
at Thriftown for $2. New it retails for $17 at Amazon. I had been curious about the kit before, mostly because all in all I've enjoyed other Scientific Explorer kits (Spa Science, Perfumery and its chemistry kits). But I didn't buy it because in my experience these kits are waaaaay overpriced. They usually contain mostly the type of ingredients you have at home, plus a couple of small samples of stuff that would be a bit harder to come by. But for that you spend close to $20!
This is definitely the case with the Manicure kit. The kit comes with a 3.4oz bottle of lotion base, 4oz bottle of bath salts (aka sodium chloride or table salt), 1.2 oz bottle of crystal mud (aka sodium polyacrylate), 1ml of sodium melon fragrance, 1 ml green dye, 2 foam toe separators, a small plastic soaking tray, a measuring spoon, a mixing spoon, a small pipette, a toy nail buffer (I can't imagine it'll be good for anything) and a foot-shaped pumice stone. There is also an activity guide, which is really what you buy the kit for. My $2 kit did not have the lotion, fragrance, dye or mixing spoon - not a big deal as I have all those things at home. But indeed, I have everything the kit comes with save for the "crystal mud" (and the guide) at home.
My kids enjoyed playing with the "crystal mud" so much, that for me it was a good purchase. But the kit is definitely not worth $20, IMHO.
There isn't very much science to the kit, though the crystal mud section is used to help kids learn about saturation, which was a concept Mika didn't know before. There is also a few "fun facts" in the booklet with helpful information, though Mika was less than interested in this :-(
--
Here are the activities included in the activity guide.
- Making gel with the "crystal mud". The crystal mud is a polymer which starts as granules which can absorb 300 times their weigh in liquid. They basically become a gel when saturated, and you can use them to soak your hands for relaxation purposes. It doesn't do anything for your skin/nails, though. But Mika LOVED making and playing with the stuff and holding it in her hands.
-Adding salt to the gel, supposedly to help rub off death skin from your hands. However, this part irritated Mika's skin.
-Mixing the lotion base with color and fragrance and rubbing it in her skin. We skipped this part, though we've done it before with a previous kit and the lotion we make ourselves, and just used regular lotion.
-Buffing and shining your nails with the included nail buffer.
-Painting your nails with the non-included nail polish.
Then you do a pedicure
-Soak your feet in the gel
-Rubbing your feet with the included pumice stone
-Applying lotion to your feet
-Painting your toe nails using the included toe separators and your own nail polish.]]>
book at the British Museum a number of years ago, and while we read a couple of the stories a year or two ago, Mika is only now (at almost 8 yo) getting really into it. She's enjoying the stories, though not immensely. Even though they are not very long, she sort of grows bored with them by the middle.
I think the problem is twofold. The main one is that they are not told in the most interesting manner. The author, Joyce A. Tyldesley, is an Egyptologist - and while she has penned many pop-books on Ancient Egyptian subjects, writing for children requires different skills. The language, in particular, is sort of dry. The other problem is that, IMHO, Ancient Egyptian literature is not particularly compelling. As a student, I particularly enjoyed the Tale of the Two Brothers, in particular for its similarities with the much later story of Joseph from the Bible. I also liked the intriguing harem conspiracy, but looking through my Lichtheim
by Roger Lancelyn Green (who's written a bunch of children version of ancient stories/myths). The book is just $5 on Amazon and it gets pretty good reviews - plus it has some stories not present in the book I have.]]>
for Mika's birthday party, and while I haven't used it yet, I'm pretty happy with the purchase. The kit is a very good value. It comes with two coloring books (King Tut Coloring Book
, 32 pages and Life in Ancient Egypt Coloring Book
, 48 pages). The books have very complex drawings, with a lot of detail, which may be too challenging for kids aged like mine (5 and 8) - but I think would be great for older kids and adults who like to color. Each scene has an explanation underneath it. Each book retails for $4 - so it'd be $8 for both of them.
The kit also comes with 3 sticker booklets (Shiny King Tut Treasure Stickers
, about 10 stickers, King Tut: With 44 Stickers
, which is actually a "dress King Tut" set and Egyptian Life Stickers
, which I think also has 10 stickers), one booklet of stencils
(about 10) and one of tattoos
(id). Each of these booklets is a little bit smaller than 4" x 6". They cost $1.50 each - so just the coloring books and the booklets would be $14 together - the kit is $11.50 by itself.
The kit also comes with three colorful Egyptian masks: Nefertiti, Tutankhamon and some animal, a small poster of Tuthankamon and 4 stained glass coloring sheets.
So in all, if you want all this stuff, it's a good deal. The jury is still out on how good the stickers, tattoos and stencils are.]]>
but for the ridiculous price of $4.50 a sheet + super-high shipping. I thought I'd gotten a real good deal on e-bay, where abcislam2000, an Egypt based seller, had listed 10 sheets, about 11 1/2" x 17" each, of plain papyrus with a "buy it now" price of $10 and a "best offer" option. I offered $5 and it was immediately accepted. It's an additional $8 for shipping - so each papyrus sheet ends up costing $1.30. They do combine shipping, so I went ahead and got myself a print of an Ancient Egyptian scene on papyrus (same size) for $3.50, that I can use as decoration.
But the "real papyrus" turned out to be heavy paper printed with a papyrus motif. I e-mailed the seller about it, but he really seems convinced that it's papyrus - that's what his suppliers tell him and he doesn't seem to know better. If it wasn't for the fact that Mika realized it wasn't papyrus right away, it wouldn't be a big deal, the paper looks nice enough and each sheet was large enough for 4 invitations. But she figured it out and was disappointed. Oh well. At least the paper is very good quality, thick and easy to print on.
I'm pretty sure that they sell papyrus printed paper in the US, though I wasn't able to find it through google, so if you go this route you don't have to order it from Egypt.
Lettering / Hieroglyphs
I wanted to use real hieroglyphic writing for Mika's invitation. In particular, I wanted to write "Mika's Birthday" or "Happy Birthday Mika" on the top and "ankh - wdja - snb" (life, prosperty, health) on the bottom. The latter was a very common phrase/wish in Ancient Egypt.
That proved more difficult than expected. While there are several free (and not-free) hieroglyph fonts online, none of the ones I found had all the hieroglyphs I needed. The most complete (and elegant) was Jim Loy's font, available for free, but it did not have the hieroglyph for wdja (the one in the middle, following the ankh, in the picture below). It does have the whole alphabet, plus some other common hieroglyphs including several determinatives (specially for professions/activities) so if you are just looking to spell out a name, this is a very good font to download.
But I was determined to have ankh-wdja-snb so I looked and looked for a another font. Finally I stumbled upon the GlyphBasic fonts, GlyphBasic 4 has the hieroglyph for wdja, but none of the four fonts included in the download had the ankh or the snb. *sigh*. Unfortunately, it was difficult to combine the fonts as the wdja hieroglyph sat taller than the two - so I finally decided to use photoshop to put the hieroglyphs together and just made the whole phrase into a graphic:
This transliterates to "ra - mswt - Mika". Ra, the sun, means "day" (first hieroglyph + vertical line). "mswt" means "birth" (following three hieroglyphs) and "Mika" (starting with the owl hieroglyph) was spelled out with the female determinative at the end. Note that in Ancient Egyptian you do not leave spaces between words.
There are several ways to spell this phrase and I went with the one that was easiest and most "artistically" pleasant. The font I used did not permit me (or at least I couldn't figure out how) to place the different hieroglyphs one on top of the other, as you would in Ancient Egyptian, so I decided to skip "n" - the wavy line which means "of" and the three little short vertical lines that could have worked as a determinative for "mswt" (no way I was going to search for the "woman giving birth" determinative). That said, after consulting Faulkner
, I'm confident that this phrase is perfectly written as such. So feel free to use it (substituting your kids name, of course).
The next header of the invitation uses the Novascript font, which looks sort of ancient despite the name.
I used arial for the rest.
Rolling / Scarab
I rolled the invitations as you would a scroll more for "effect" than authenticity. Ancient Egyptians often folded rather than rolled their papyrus - though the latter was also done. I tied it with some ribbon I had left over (I'll probably use gold for the rest of the invitations), which I passed through a homemade scarab amulet. Camila and I made the amulets using the Fun with Egyptian amulets kit that she got for Xmas. The kit has a mold with different Egyptian amulet forms and you use polymer clay to make them. We made a hole going through them with a toothpick.
And that is that, our party invitations. I hope the kids like them :-)]]>