Momo Challenge a wake-up call for parents
When I was in my second year of university, I made the mistake of watching The Ring. I’d watched plenty of horror movies before and wasn’t bothered — well, except for that one traumatizing viewing of Candyman when I was eight.
I can’t say what it was about The Ring. Maybe Samara’s twisted, pale face and dark, wet hair kind of reminded me of myself when I get out of the shower, but that movie scared the crap out of me for years.
So, I guess it’s no surprise that when a certain pale, dark-haired, scary-faced girl started popping up in our social media feeds — the dreaded Momo — I was spooked every time. I’d literally shudder and hide the post.
If you managed not to hear about the Momo Challenge, it was supposedly a series of videos encouraging kids to hurt themselves and the videos were said to be slipped into popular YouTube videos kids were already watching, like Peppa Pig and Minecraft.
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column, The Mom Scene …
Pink lace DIY magnetic board
I needed a place in my home office to organize scribbled notes and lists, but none of the store-bought options appealed to me.
I didn’t want a bulletin board — tried it, now use it elsewhere for the kids’ school stuff. I didn’t want a white dry-erase board — they tend to look messy and ugly because the marker never fully wipes away. I also refused to buy one of the magnetic memo boards from the office supply store — they were stark, bland and overpriced.
Naturally, I decided to make my own. I asked my handy husband to pick up a thin piece of sheet metal during one of his runs to the home improvement store. The sheet metal was pricer than I’d imagined (about $45 for a 36×24 inch piece) but it was certainly large — only a couple of dollars for the 1×2 boards to frame it.
Now, I’d probably have just sandwiched the metal between two wooden frames, but my handy husband had the brilliant idea to use our table saw to cut a groove down one side of each piece so the grooves could hold the sheet metal in place …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
… or pin this post and come back to it later!
Super-soft reversible child’s robe
I sewed my first robes back in early December when I was making the kids’ annual Christmas jammies. This year they’d requested “robes and shorts — no shirts!” so … OK, yeah, if you want to look like boxers, I guess that’s cool?
I modified this amazing free robe pattern from FleeceFun.com. (It’s for 3T to 8, but super easy to scale up or down.)
Instead of making a single robe and trimming the edges with bias tape (something I struggle with, even after all these years of sewing!) I made TWO robes — one in fleece, and one in super-soft cuddle fleece — and stitched them together to make one reversible robe.
The kids LOVED their Christmas robes and wore them daily, but I realized pretty soon that I should have made a larger one for C. No problem — I just bought new fabric and made her a larger one at the end of February.
Except this time I made BOTH sides out of the extra-soft (and more expensive) cuddle fleece, thanks to a sale at the fabric store.
Be sure to head over to FleeceFun.com to score the free robe pattern, and here’s a step-by-step look at how I used the pattern to make a fully reversible hooded robe …
1. Cut out all your pieces.
Use one fabric for the “inside” and one fabric for the “outside.” If the pattern says to cut one, cut TWO because you’re making two robes.
I prefer to cut ALL of my pieces out at once, sew one robe, and then sew the second robe — but you could sew both robes
Hey! I’m Heather.
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