Book Slings

What are those?  Well, I stumbled upon a website a while back & thought they were a great idea.  They are like hammocks for your books and stuff that you use at your bed.  I just filed those thoughts away & moved on.......only to find the need for them just 3 weeks later!!  All my girls have books, kindles, ipods, journals, etc. that they keep at their beds every night.  These items always end up in a messy pile around their beds.  After hours of cruising the internet I finally found the website.  It was great!  I found 3 sets of double curtain rods on clearance at Fred Meyer for about $10 a piece.  Emma & Kara chose the silver ones, I wanted the black one.  I made Olivia's rods out of wooden dowels.

Kara chose her own material for the project.  She chose a solid color material to make pockets on the outside.  She cut out and sewed her sling completely by herself.  I taught her how to use the surger & sewing machine.  She wanted a pocket for her DS, but was afraid that it would slip out.  So we put a pencil pocket on the bottom half of the pocket.  She stitched it at an angle so her DS wouldn't clonk her on the head:)  She wanted to add iron on's to embellish her sling.   She did an awesome job!

 Emma chose her material...ORANGE of course!  She wanted outside pockets as well so that she could put her kindle in one and her marker/pencil & journal in the other one.  She kept hers more simple looking, and it's totally her!  She, too, cut & sewed hers by her lonesome:)  She wanted her sling above her bed.  She sleeps on the lower bunk of the trundle bed and doesn't have a headboard.  Her sling looks perfect there!  

Olivia hadn't chosen her material yet, so I began making MY book sling.  I wanted it to go next to the grand piano to keep our frequently used music in, instead of tossed all over the top & floor of the piano.  I found fun music note material with black background & bright fun colored notes.   I wanted the sling deeper than Emma's & Kara's.  So I added the loops for the rods to go through.  I'm no seamstress & I struggled A LOT.  But I also learned a lot.  I put that knowledge to the test with Olivia's book sling.  I do have plans for outside pockets, I just ran out of time to get them done before Spring Break came to an end.  Maybe during Summer break:)

 

Olivia chose her own material as well:)  It's her, isn't it?  Her wall is so long that we could make hers longer than everyone else's.  It's a full 4 feet long.  All the others are about 3 feet long.  I bought 2 dowels and the rod anchors at Lowe's.  It cost more for hers than it did for the double curtain rods I got from Fred Meyer!  But it worked for Livvy.  She wanted to paint them violet.  Which she did.  Then she repainted over that with violet glitter paint.  She did a great job:)  I wouldn't let her cut out or do any sewing.  I did let her decide what kind of pockets she wanted and where to place them.  She turned them right side out.  I ironed them:)  She chose her iron on's & where to place them.  

 

FUN BOOK SLINGS!

Precious Primary: Easter Time Songs

Precious Primary: Easter Time Songs: "I know it's the day before Easter & I'm just now posting what I've come up with! But I just have to say that I've been trying to post about..."

Broken?

Emma fell from the "logs" of a flower bed today.  She said it happened so fast that she didn't even have time to catch herself.  (This happened at a friend's house & I wasn't there)  She landed on her whole left side (shoulder, elbow, & a scrape on her belly).  She said that her elbow immediately hurt:(   We could see some swelling at the back & side of her elbow.  I didn't think it looked that bad, actually.  Being a Friday afternoon, I made the decision to take her for an x-ray, just to be safe.  I didn't want her hurting all weekend if it turned out to be broken (which I really didn't think it was).  But with the guidance of the Holy Ghost, I was prompted to call our doctor's office. I knew the doc wasn't in, but I felt compelled to call anyway.  I explained what I needed & the secretary told me about West Sound Orthopedics in Silverdale.  She'd never been there but had heard from many people that their experience was much better than the hospital's urgent care.  She even gave me the phone number.  I called immediately & found that they closed within the next 45 minutes.  Needless to say, I SPED all the way there, hoping that I wouldn't get pulled over.  We made it with 10 minutes to spare & no ticket:)  They got her in quicker than any ER has (within 10 minutes)!  I highly recommend them for any future broken limbs.

They didn't waste any time & did the x-rays.  Within another 5 minutes Dr. Duff came in.  The x-rays were right there on the room's computer screens.  He showed me how her joint looked with fluid all around it.  Not a good thing, he said.  He showed me Emma's 2 growth plates at the joint end of the upper & lower arm bones.  They were open (which just means that she's not finished growing yet).  Pretty cool stuff:)  But then he said that because of the fluid around the joint & the area of the injury being right at the growth plates, any fracture that there could possibly be wouldn't show up on an x-ray for 7-10 after the initial injury occurred.  Even in full grown adults, that area won't show anything for the 7-10 days.  So this means that they treat Emma as if her elbow IS broken by putting her in a "half-cast".  She's not to remove it at all.  She will return in 10 days for another x-ray.  IF it shows it is broken, they'll remove the half-cast & put her in a cool colored hard cast.  If it's not broken, no harm will have been done by putting her in a half cast to immobilize it for healing.  

Emma's pretty sore.  Anything heavier than a piece of paper that she holds in her left hand hurts her elbow.  She has to wear a sling to help support her arm, too.  And to top it off, we got our new trampoline this morning and she says it hurts to jump:(  3 days ago she had an ingrown toe nail removed.  This just hasn't been a very fun Spring Break!  Hopefully she'll be able to sleep tonight.  

Bummer deal Emma!