group photo

What is it about kids and cameras?

When they are all by themselves…they take great {albeit serious} photos.

But if you try to get a bunch of them all in the same shot, it just…

…never…

…works…

out.

treat

We still haven’t carved a pumpkin, but we did get around to creating a haunted mansion.  Bob Vila’s website has some fun templates.  I have never had any desire to construct a gingerbread house.  It just seems wrong to spend so much time baking when the end product is practically inedible.  {Which is why our house sits on a lawn of yellow cake, frosting and green coconut.}  One of my son’s favorite books is Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. Whenever we get to the page where the gingerbread baby goes into the gingerbread house, he always asks me if he can make one. So we did.  Halloween style.  Because I just don’t know that I will have it in me when December creeps up on us.

Hope everyone has a fantastic and fun halloween!  We will be out and about with Thomas the Tank Engine and a cute little monkey doing our best to collect gobs of candy and spook the neighbors.

pink and green

Little girls need little bits of pink and green, don’t you think?  This is a scalloped garland I made for a friend who is expecting in February.  I could make different versions of these all day long.  The tutorial is here, though I took shortcuts.  {I pinked, rather than turned under, the edges.}  I think that some of these fabrics will eventually make their way into a twin sized quilt for my baby girl.  They are in rehearsal here and I think they are ready for the big show.

keeping track

I started a journal recently.* The impetus was to keep track of some of the funny things that pour out of the mouth of my almost three year old.

Exhibit A:

Me: “Fireman Frank. Do you have that fire under control?”

Him (in his ‘Big Man’ voice): “Yes, Mom. I have a remote control.”**

I used to keep handwritten journals when I traveled a lot, but have really gotten out of the habit. With work and the kids, life is pretty hectic right now, so the idea of adding one.more.thing to the mix seemed daunting. I knew that if I was going to start to record little snippets of our life, I needed to choose a format that was doable. Enter the 5 Year Diary.***

Each page represents one day across five years, so once you have used the journal for one full year, you will be able to read what you did that same day the previous year as you write your new entry. That alone will motivate me to keep up with my little journaling project. Also, each entry only leaves space for six lines of text. It takes me a minute to figure out which occurrences are worthy of documentation, but the actual writing is accomplished in less than five minutes. The fact that you are forced to distill information is great. Only the most important bits make it in there. One very pleasant surprise has been that my writing has not been exclusively focused on the kids. Some entries record things about my husband, our friends, and random little ideas that I would like to have filed away. I think it is going to provide a great little snapshot of our lives at this particular point in time.

I feel compelled to mention that while I don’t typically like posting on topics that make people feel wanty to buy things, I really do like this journal. If you like the concept but don’t want to purchase it, you could always use a blank notebook and emulate the format.

*Yes, I am fully aware that I maintain a blog. And that a blog, technically, is a journal of sorts. But if I started to post things like– “He cut down all of the dead trees on our property. So happy!” — things may start to get kind of dull around here.

**Um. Watch TV much?

***This blog post has some nice photos of the inside of The 5 Year Journal. As a bonus, its author does some very cool embroidery.

slap bracelet napkin ring tutorial

This is a very quick and easy project. A patchwork version would be great for busting scraps, so I am going to enter this into Sew Mama Sew’s scrap busting contest. If you don’t want to buy inkjet ready fabric sheets, you can stamp the names onto a piece of twill tape instead. And if you don’t want to use actual names because you never know who the heck is coming to dinner, use nicknames instead. The Mr., The Mrs., Wino, Hippie, Rasta, Fashionista, Punk, Artist, Biker, Raconteur, Rock Star, Chatterbox, Wanderer, Chef, Shopaholic, and Frequent Flyer are some that I’ve used before. If you don’t even want to give it that much thought, choose a theme. Do you love The Sound of Music? Then use: Maria, Captain Von Trapp, The Baroness, Rolf, Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa…just don’t forget my favorite, little Gretyl. Throwing a Mad Men party? Then Don, Betty, Pete and Peggy, it is! Just be careful not to offend whoever picks the “Midge” napkin ring. {Joking.} Are you a Brady Bunch fan?

OK. Enough said. You get the idea.

Click here to download the two page pdf tutorial. Click here and here to see them in action. And do let me know if you give it a try. I’d love to see what you come up with (my flickr group is here) and would be glad to be alerted to any errors.

*Note: I bought my slap bracelets here.

some vacation photos and some blather

I’ve had a million little blog posts floating in my head lately, but they never seem to make their way to this spot. Not sure why that is. Hmmm. Not going to try to figure it out either.

The photos are from an early September vacation on Cape Cod. We stay on the same beach every year. I won’t get into a recap, but it was a beautiful week. Best sunsets ever right from the front porch of the cottage.

This weekend was a quiet one at home. Apple picking with Dad; apple pie baking with mom. Playing at home and at the park. Visits with grandparents. Football watching. The usual. {Nice.}

All of my siblings will be home just before Thanksgiving. This means arrivals from Hawaii, Montana and Utah. It also means that I will get to meet my niece, Island Baby, for the first time. Oh, I can’t wait!

The kids are doing great. He’s talking up a storm. A very noisy storm. And she’s finally loving solid foods. It took a good two months before she really took to it. Just watching her shovel it in makes me tremendously happy. She’s sitting up and playing on her own. Every little step toward independence is bittersweet. Though to be honest, for this mom, it’s more sweet than bitter–but really only during the first year or so. I mean, I love my babies to the moon and back, but I am just not a true blue “baby” person. {I’m OK with that.} Both my mom and my mother-in-law are, and just watching them amazes me.

I am cutting out a quilt for the Little Guy using all 2.5 inch squares. Mostly blue and green tones. Some of my most favorite bits of fabric ever, with pieces of old clothing mixed in. I was having trouble settling on a design, but the recipient mentioned wanting to play checkers, so that did it for me. I’m inspired by this lovely number, but with Kona cotton charcoal as the solid. I am hoping to have it finished by his third birthday which is right around Christmas time. It’s the only crafty thing I feel like I need to accomplish this year. Just saying that feels good. Though I know I will likely want to {and will} do more.

I guess that’s a sampling of what’s been swirling around my head. I think I’ll stop blathering now. Thanks for checking in.

P.S. I’ve got a tutorial up next. The napkin rings from my last post. It’s simple but kind of fun. Back soon….

birthday party recap

My husband’s birthday. What to say? It was a lot of fun because a lot of great people were there. And it was a little extra festive, because I spent all of my crafting time for the month of August on silly party ideas. Which was a really good thing because I almost never make stuff for us to keep in our our own home. This was a perfect excuse to do just that. There was no one unifying theme to this party, but I will say that I was inspired by the colors of a pack of tissue paper that I bought at Target. Here is the run-down on the crafty details:

I almost never do this, but I did send out paper invites for this one. I already had the card stock and used that pack of tissue paper to cut out little flags. I sewed the flags onto the cardstock and that was that. Sending out paper invitations really does get people to a party.

{Love the toes in this shot.}

I made a pinata and decorated it with that same tissue paper. I used three layers of paper mache. Two layers would have been better for my audience (two kids under three years old). I had to cut the pinata open with a knife because my little man and his cousin couldn’t make a dent in it with the baseball bat. I also made little loot bags for gathering the candy. Didn’t get a good photo, but they were made with a cute squirrel fabric by Lecien.

Yes, I am a sewing nerd. So yes, I did make personalized napkin rings for each party-goer. I have made these as gifts before and really wanted a set for us. So, the next time any of these people return to our home for a meal, they will have a napkin ring to wrap around their napkin…or their ponytail…or their wrist. That is what happened at the party and it cracked me up. These are made like little slipcovers for slap bracelets. Remember those? I hope to post a tutorial for these soon.

{Most creative use of a napkin ring.}

{Profit drinking.}

I set up a little lemonade stand so that my son and his cousin could sell lemonade at the party. He is mildly obsessed with fattening up his piggy bank, so I was pretty sure this activity would go over well. I wanted to buy a new beverage dispenser like this one, but I knew that my sister had a less fancy grocery store version that I could “dress up.” I printed a vintage looking lemonade graphic that I found via google image, covered it with contact paper, and wrapped it around the dispenser. And because every good crafty blogger needs a fabric banner, I made one to decorate the lemonade stand and other bits of the yard. I am excited that I now have one of these to use over and over at future birthday parties and other events.

The drink marker thingamabobs were very simple. And I think they actually helped some people keep track of their drinks. Using pinking shears, I cut small triangles from the scraps that were created while I was making the banner. I then cut a little slit in each triangle, threaded them with baker’s twine, and tied them onto the glasses. I bought a few mason jars because we didn’t have enough glasses and I didn’t want to use plastic. I’ll reuse the jars for canning.

We played a beer tasting/guessing game. I downloaded a free font called Mom’s Typewriter that I found via iDIY to make these little game cards. Guests brought six packs of beer. My sister and a friend selected a type of beer from the cooler, covered the bottles with small paper bags to conceal identity, poured samples into glasses, and people tried to guess the name of the beer they were drinking.

I bought two bunches of zinnias at the farmstand. I love these flowers so much and they are always in bloom right around my husband’s birthday. Of course, I knew my husband would enjoy them, but I considered them to be a little hostess gift to myself. Music was provided by The Flashdance. I just clicked on this link and played the mixes. Way better than any playlist I could have come up with and people definitely complimented the music. Three cheers for generous blogging DJs!

I kept the menu simple and whenever I was offered help, the answer was “yes.” {Motherhood has taught me that skill.} I provided some basics: veggie dip, fresh salsa, cheeseburgers, pasta salad, baked beans, homemade lemonade, iced tea, and the cake, while guests filled out the menu with fancier extras such as grilled shrimp, a pesto, cheese and sundried tomato torte appetizer, spring rolls, salad greens with goat cheese, watermelon, seven layer magic bars and mint brownies. Good eats for sure!

{Oh, the big browns on this little one. !Para comersela!}

I took Jen’s advice and put into action as many little projects as I could without making myself crazy. The diy smilebooth did not happen. I had a theme and props and everything. But I couldn’t work out a way to protect my camera, so I let it go. Of course, I was rushing around even minutes before the party started, but once guests arrived, I just let things happen and really enjoyed myself. And mostly, had a lot of fun watching the handsome birthday boy have a great time on his big day.

Update:  Thanks to Sara at Party Perfect for featuring this party.  I drew so much inspiration from her beautiful blog, so be sure to check it out if you are looking to get creative with entertaining.

lemonade stand

The birthday party was a ton of fun.  More on that later. Just wanted my family to see my favorite photo from the day.  And bid a slightly teary-eyed farewell to my sister and my sweet-as-a-lemonade-stand niece. Love you guys.

the archives

I am chipping away at some of my party prep ideas. The stack of larger triangles will become a flag garland. The smaller triangles will serve another purpose. I’ll post photos of that project if the idea that I have in my head plays out as I envision.

It was a lot of fun to cut into some of my favorite pieces of fabric. I’m not one to be afraid to use up beautiful fabric. I understand the sentiment when people say things like “it’s just too pretty to cut into,” but I’ve come to realize that my tastes change fairly often and there is always something new coming out that I love.   It just seems like there are so many good designers out there and they tend to be fairly prolific. When I work on a project that allows me to choose some of my favorites from my modest collection (I don’t really like the word stash), I don’t worry that I am using it all up. Rather, I feel like I am archiving those prints by using them in a project. Even if it is something that I am giving away.  Because I almost always take a photo of the things that I make and post them either here or on flickr. In that sense, I am able to hang on to every last beautiful print.  So, I guess having a blog does help me get over that “it’s too precious to use” mentality.

I do have to work on a strategy for the “Holy crap. That print is gorgeous.  I better buy some of it before it goes out of print” moments in my life.  Evidence of this above.  Joel Dewberry’s Chestnut Hill collection. The top and bottom prints are an all time favorite.  Purchased at Quilt Home. 30% off the whole collection. I’m not sure they are still running that sale but i do have to say that those women at that shop understand the need for instant gratification.  I ordered on-line on Wednesday and it was in my mailbox on Friday before 11 am.  They are based in Washington State and I am in Massachusetts, so honestly I don’t know how they do it.

In other party news, my husband has put in his birthday cake request.  Chocolate cake with caramel seeping through, a thin fudge layer inside, covered in white chocolate whipped cream frosting with butter crunch candy on top. There will be plenty of vanilla ice cream on the side, because you can’t get through a piece of rich cake like that without a small mountain of vanilla to temper it.

nyc

typing with one hand today.  cute baby on my lap.

pillow made entirely by 2.5 in. scraps.  my mom ironed scraps while i cut squares. my mom, if you haven’t gathered, is super nice like that. tutorial is genius. gave this to a very sweet friend who always rolls out the red carpet for us when we visit nyc.  it was well received.  phew.  handmade gifting can be stressful. {xoxo y un gran bezaso, b.  was so great, as always, to see you.}

tote bag made by me. my “pattern,” if you’d call it that.  logo tag is olivia’s.  i think the tag makes the bag look more professional.  and i get to carry around a tiny piece of olivia’s artwork which leads to conversations in which i can tell people how great she is.  schlepped this bag all around new york.  a great size because it fit my normal purse stuff plus my semi-bulky camera.  with room for treasures from shopping excursions.  {muji was my one real shopping treat this time.} print fabric is amy butler august fields.  a gift from city auntie.  linen is from joann’s.  a gift from adventure auntie.  felt so good to make something for me from fabric that was given to me.

boy do i love new york.  we are so lucky to be able to visit that incredible city.