night tree

Our street, like many others in town, has a tradition around the holidays where the homes display a live tree on the front lawn. Many are lit, but without an outdoor electrical outlet on our home, ours can't have lights.

We started a new tradition this year based on a favorite holiday book, Night Tree by Eve Bunting. In it a family drives to the forest on Christmas Eve to decorate their favorite tree with treats for the animals. We don't have the same diversity of wildlife here in the suburbs, but I'm sure we made the local squirrels, raccoons, skunks and opposums happy.

Trixie demonstrates the proper technique for spreading peanut butter on the pinecones. (I attached lengths of yarn to each before this.)

Glenn rolls them in leftover hamster food. (Sadly, we have no hamster to eat it anymore.)

Ellie's the expert bow tier of the three of them.

I like these better than lights anyday.

happy birthday ellie!

She turned 8 today and (FINALLY - in her words) got a DS. The day has been properly celebrated with a playdate, Hawaiian pizza, and ice cream cake. The cake included an oreo crust, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, whippped cream, m&m's, mini chocolate chips, and a small chocolate chip cookie on top. The only thing that might have made it more to her liking would be if someone sprinkled colored sugar on top.

In even more exciting news and serving as definitive proof to me that she's getting older -

Ellie made her first quilt over the weekend!

She chose the fabrics in her favorite colors - blue and pink. All of them feature kittens in the print. I cut them to size for her (I'm fine with her using my machine, but the rotary cutter in her hands scares the daylights out of me). She did all the piecing and made the decisions about fabric placement. I also layered the "quilt sandwich" for her, but she machine quilted it. She sewed the binding as well, with help from me turning the corners. This is the first craft project that she's actually completed. I'm crossing my fingers that this lengthened attention span continues.

On Tuesday, my quilting group day, I picked her up at lunch and brought her to our group so she could show it off. I have never seen her so proud of herself and those lovely ladies showered her with praise. She ate it up.

It's properly labeled as well.

"My First Quilt, Eleanor _______, September 2009"

Sorry for the extended absence. Life just gets in the way of blogging sometimes. ; )

dan the dog

I promised Glenn I'd post this for him. He's been eyeing the projects in the Softies book for some time now. After seeing all the pieces involved in this one, he asked if he could use my machine to speed up the process (all his previous projects have been accomplished by hand sewing or with glue).

I'd be lying to say I wasn't nervous. I've had several women sew their own fingers in class, so the thought of a trip to the ER with him worried me a bit. Turns out I was completely off base. He had great control over the foot pedal and took the details nice and slow. (Let's hope he handles the gas pedal of the car the same way in 4 or 5 years.)

He edgestitched every bit of the face. (I put an open toe embroidery foot on the machine to give him greater visibility.) Because he was using felt, I thought he'd just edgestitch the body too, but he informed me that he wanted it to look neat and have "all that stuff" on the inside. A lesson in clipping curves followed.

There's even a personalized collar he made with more felt and a button, but that seems to have gone missing somewhere in his bedding.

I've been wanting the tree in that book. I think I might commision it.

mail call

I forgot to post this around Valentine's Day. Around January, the kids got really interested in mail - at least the girls did. Ellie's love of writing isn't limited to signs right now. We get a LOT of handwritten notes, as does her teacher. To encourage her, we put mailboxes on our doors.

They each decorated a shoe box.

Ellie got busy with letters right away.

We pulled out an old toy to serve as the central post office (though that didn't last more than a few days - they preferred to deliver stuff straight to the proper mailbox instead).

The boxes were hung with 3M velcro picture hangers. One sticky side went on the back of the boxes near the center top, the other half on the wall. They sort of lock together when pressed into place. The lids held onto the front of the boxes just fine without any glue or tape which made getting into them to retrieve mail very easy. Slots were cut into the boxes on the top or the side to deliver the letters.

Most lasted about 2 months before getting too banged up. I think I'll consider some fabric pockets I can hang on the doors as a more permanent solution since they enjoyed them so much.

ellie's signs

Signs have been gracing Ellie's door ever since she moved into her new room.

They rotate on an as needed basis.

Writing more signs requires privacy. I like how the pretty flower balances the dire warning.

I'm hoping she's studying spelling in there.

thrifty thursday

ebay score!!

The white book actually came in my Sunshine Family Home, but the others were bought about a week ago off of ebay.

Ellie and I have BIG plans. A patio set is currently in production. Pictures to follow in the coming weeks.

chris' birthday

This

+

=

for a dad who's turned

The CD recorder was purchased as a Christmas gift for Chris. We have an orange crate full of his old albums and no working turntable to play them (never mind that he didn't play them even when we had a working turntable). I had a feeling he wouldn't take it out of the box for some time which worked out great for me. With a birthday just a month after the holidays, I'm often short on ideas for gifts by then. The kids and I got it out and I sat recording his old Joe Jackson lps for a few hours. The kids did the artwork based on the name of the album and viola! Birthday presents for dad. I later found that I'd overlooked Beat Crazy when I went through the crate. Guess what he's getting for Valentine's Day.

crafting with crayons

I started this summer with visions of all sorts of crafty things the kids and I would do together. Then it got kind of hot. And I remembered that I don't like to be outside that much - especially when it's hot. This is my attempt to get one fun crafty thing in before school starts on Tuesday. (If they're lucky, I might whip out some paint on Labor Day.)

We've been saving all the little nubs of crayons that gather at the bottom of the bin, but no one ever uses. Between our house and the neighbor's we had quite a few. You'll have to take off all the paper wrappers that might be left and then chop them into little pieces - the size of peas. This should be done outside if possible, because there will be teeny tiny bits of crayon all over the place. May I recommend using something other than a cutting board from your kitchen. However, if you foolishly grab that one, I found that baking soda and a scrubby will clean it up rather well, though you may still have some technicolor residue left for your carrot sticks at snack time.

After all the crayons have been chopped up, you can throw them in a pile or get all anal and make the kids separate them by color. (I swear it was easier for them to make their color choices when they were organized!) This is also a good time to preheat your oven to 150degrees.

Using a thrifted mini-muffin pan(I did think ahead about this part of the project), let the kids fill each cup with colors of their choice. Then get all anal again and make a little diagram so you know which one belongs to which kid.

Stick them in the oven for 25 minutes or more - til they melt together. Do not get all antsy when you look at them 20 minutes into it and see that they still look like individual nubs and crank up the heat to 175 and go watch the news forgetting about them. If you do this, you will get mini crayon soups. All will not be lost though because most will still turn out pretty cool and you will know that next time, they just need to be in there a lot longer or that the heat should be turned up just slightly.

Color and enjoy!

the kids

Arg, late again with the weekend post.

Look who's got a new set of wheels. (Don't worry, the wheels are locked on one skate and we pad her well.)



Looks like we all like to read before drifting off.

Ellie's fake food prank she made at a local program. (The idea originally came from Family Fun according to the handout we were given.)

New lawn, new mower, new summer job for Glenn.

stitching paper (not foreheads)

It figures that for all the stitching I've posted about on this blog, the stitching that had nothing to do with crafts has garnered the most interest. Time to get back on track.

This book came home with me a few months ago. I've taken some classes at Paper Source in the city, but that was ages ago and I've forgotten many of the techniques we worked on. This looked like a great way to get back to work with a low degree of difficulty.

Today I gave a simple stab stitch binding a try. The kids did some watercolor paintings over spring break and I wanted to put them in a simple book for their uncle(sorry Mike, I just spoiled a surprise - it'll be in the mail soon). For some reason my stitches overlap, but the ones in the book don't. I think I figured out where I went wrong, but doubt I'll redo it. That happened after I punched the holes in the wrong spot and had to trim the paintings a second time. I'm calling it done and considering it part of the learning curve.

One of Glenn's pictures is used as cover art. He titled this one "Tool". Which made me laugh and I couldn't tell him why.

Ellie has an obsession with volcanoes which migh have something to do with her desire to live in Hawaii. She calls this "The Volcano Erupts".

And Trixie - after making two other paintings which she called "Baby Hippo" and "Horsey" - worked on this one. When I asked what this one was called, she looked at me very seriously and said, "I can't speak". After going back and forth a few times in some weird Laurel and Hardy routine, I realized that she wasn't telling me she couldn't talk - she was giving me the name of the painting.

I couldn't speak either. I was laughing too hard.

ellie's tote

Look who's been sewing. Santa brought her a Learn to Sew kit* from Moda. In it were an apron that needed pockets and a tote bag that needed side seams and pockets.

We lined the pockets before putting them on the bag. A great deal of thought went into which pocket would go on each side.

She's ripped out her first seam. (And she didn't like it one bit.) Next week we'll work on squaring the bottom of the tote and adding a lining so it lasts a little bit longer.

*It's a really cute kit that requires just a bit of sewing to finish the projects because they do a lot of it for you. The handles and top edges of the tote were already finished. The apron in the kit is completely finished except for the addition of the pockets. The amount of sewing needed pretty much matches her attention span right now.

Mr. Roboto

Bear with me while I post some crafty blasts from the past over the next few weeks. I'm trying to catch up with documenting stuff I've made from the last couple of years.

Glenn designed this guy when he was in the 4th grade after I showed him a robot that was posted on Wee Wonderfuls(but before she made the pattern available). He spent an afternoon sketching it out and doing a few changes at my request (no, I cannot fashion a working claw hand on the sewing machine). Once we had the basic design agreed upon, Glenn went through my stash and chose his fabrics and other bits. The last step for him was to cut out the actual picture he drew(I did all the sewing on this one). We used the pieces for our pattern adding seam allowances all around.

Decorative and utility stitches helped make up the robot's control panel. The placement of all the buttons was a collaboration (and a negotiation over which ones I was willing to part with).

His favorite part - the hands. I hope never to have to turn something that small and with that many turns right side to every again.

have a heart

Not too appetizing, I know. Sadly, this might be the only thing I cook from scratch this week.

Ellie and I made up a batch of valentine play dough yesterday.

The idea is from Family Fun Magazine (though I can't remember the year and it isn't on the page I saved).

After fixing several hearts that Trixie "helped" with, we finally had 21 of these for tomorrow.

A word of caution: I didn't think ahead about how heavy 21 of these would be, nor did I consider how easily they might be smashed. Looks like I'll be carrying them into class tomorrow.

If you're interested, the recipe is an easy one. I used the one from the magazine that said it would make 25 hearts. Our cookie cutter must have been on the small side because we could have easily made over 30. Soon after we finished I found a nearly identical recipe from Ellie's old "messy business" art class. It cuts the recipe in thirds, so I'm more likely to choose this one in the future(and you can make the play dough smell nice with the kool aid!)

Play Dough

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 cup water

2 tbs veg. oil

food coloring or 1 pkg. of kool-aid

Add all ingredients together in a pan over medium low heat on stovetop. Stir constantly for 5-10 minutes until play dough starts to form. When it becomes too hard to stir, remove it from heat. Let cool and knead into large ball.