penny carnival

Gratitude

I was thinking recently about compliments, and some of the more memorable ones I've received over the years. When J and I were young and on our first round of dating (there was an extended break in the late '90s), he once told me I had pretty eyes. 

"They're really big, like a cow's," he said.

What can I say? He tries.

Another memorable compliment came from my Uncle Tommy, who passed away a couple years ago. He was a big-hearted man who I loved dearly. Big, strong football coach on the outside. Warm, tender peacemaker on the inside. 

When I called to tell him I was getting married, he told me my husband was the luckiest guy in the world because he was going to have a wife who would be upbeat and positive every day of the marriage.

Umm ... not so much today, Uncle Tommy. Talk about a grump! I might have actually stomped my feet at one point. Ooh. That's embarrassing to see in print.

There's nothing in particular to blame for my bad attitude. I had just had it. Had it with not being able to go pee without a child wanting to come into the bathroom and be with me. Had it with my coat being at the bottom of several layers of coats on the peg so that all of them fell when I tried to get mine. Had it with another day of cold weather.

It's so hard to talk myself out of that place when I'm there. It took me several hours, but I'm back to my happy place now (disclosure: the kids are sleeping. Could that be part of the reason?).

If anyone has an answer as to how to get out of that mood--or how to avoid it altogether--please chime in. The quickest route for me is to focus on what I'm grateful for, a list that ends up being quite long. I'm not saying that tactic always works, but it never hurts to try.

Last Thanksgiving, I suggested we put a jar on the kitchen shelf with slips of blank paper next to it. On the paper, throughout the year, we could write down the things we're thankful for as we think of them and then read everything during the following year's Thanksgiving dinner. 

I still need to set out that jar, but in the meantime, here's an excerpt from my gratitude list.

Making me smile lately:

-These body tracings of the girls, especially the quirky face Bo (left) drew on Magpie (right). Can you see the two round eyes and the grin?

-The Dixie Chicks' version of "The Rainbow Connection" on the "Mary Had a Little Amp" CD.

-This photo of homemade playdough from Hop Skip Jump and the recipe for it.

-My Friday night date with the girls making our own version of playdough--the edible variety! (Combine peanut butter, powdered milk, honey and flour.)

-Magpie's rump in these pants, which I made from the denim of an old pair of my jeans. The pockets are pieces from Klay's fabric donation. (Thanks again, Klay. It's the gift that keeps on giving.)

-This conversation between Bo and me tonight:

Bo: "I love tea."

Me: "Me, too! I love drinking tea at night. It quiets my body. It's warm so I have to drink it slowly, and that slows me down and gets me ready for bed. How about you?"

Bo: "No. Tea makes fast and it makes me scream!!!!!"

-This granny blanket, which I bought for $2.71 at a thrift shop last weekend.

-The health and happiness of my family and friends, including all of you.

-J's patience and love when dealing with my foot stomping today.

-And a children's music CD called "The Planet Sleeps," a compilation of lullabies in various languages and from various cultures. Incredibly soothing songs that might very well be a nightly routine for us to wind down to from now on.

The producer recorded the songs all over the world to "show the similarities that exist between widely different cultures, regardless of racial boundaries" in hopes that it "might in some small way help challenge the beginnings of prejudice, wherever it may exist." 

He adds, "no matter how old we get, we are all still children, we all need occasional refuge, and, most importantly, we all need each other."

Amen.

Tutorial: hanging book display

Check it out. My tutorial on making a hanging book display for kiddos is up on Ohdeedoh now. 

Again, this is my entry in the Apartment Therapy February Jump-Start contest, which called out for small home projects that can be completed in a weekend or two. The person with the most "thumbs up" in each category (kids, kitchen, general home, office/high tech, and green ... am I missing one?) win a $250 gift certificate to Etsy. Heaven, huh?

You can look at all the other entries here, and if you want to know who I'm up against just look at the projects in the Ohdeedoh column. Even if I don't win, there are some inspiring ideas there worth bookmarking for later.

FYI--If you're not familiar with Apartment Therapy, it is the umbrella site for several more focused sites, like Re-Nest (green topics),The Kitchen (cooking/kitchen topics) and Ohdeedoh (babies and kids design and parenting issues).

I'd been meaning to make something like this book display for Bo for a while, and the contest truly inspired me to get off my duff. Nothing like a prize to really get me going, I guess. 

So if you like my project, please head on over to Ohdeedoh and click on "thumbs up" to support it. Thanks!

Here are the directions with a few more photos than I was able to submit to Ohdeedoh.

Tools:
-A 47-inch by 42-inch piece of fabric (I used Amy Butler's daisy bouquet).

-Two double curtain rod brackets. I bought mine for about $5 each at Lowes.

-Two, 4-foot long wooden dowels or curtain rods that fit into the brackets. 

Drill and drill bits 

-Level 

-Stud finder 

-Pencil 

-General sewing supplies, like a sewing machine, thread and scissors -Optional: paint, paintbrush and sandpaper (options 1 and 2) and wooden balls or other end caps for the dowels (option 3).

Steps:
We’re bonkers for books at our house, but allowing our 3-year-old daughter to choose her own every night before bedtime can be a lesson in patience. She’s a dilly dallier as it is, but what makes it harder is that her bookcase, like most bookcases, only displays the spines of the books. Since she can’t read the book titles, she pulls every book off the shelf until she recognizes the cover art of the one she wants. 

I made this hanging book display to help solve that problem. It’s modeled after school-grade book display cases that show the fronts of books, and hopefully will make choosing a bedtime book easier (and faster!). 

Instructions: 

-Fold the fabric lengthwise, with right sides facing, so you are working with a double thickness rectangle that is 47 inches by 22 inches. 

-Using a 1/2-inch seam, sew the fabric together around one of the short sides, the long side and about half-way down the other short side. 

-Turn the fabric right side out through the opening, poking out the corners with a turning tool (a pencil will do—just don’t poke all the way through). 

-Sew the opening shut by folding the raw edges toward each other, then top stitching down that short end of the rectangle. 

-Now you’ll need to sew casings for the dowels on the two long ends of the rectangle. You can either do this by measuring the circumference of the dowels and folding that amount of fabric, plus a bit, over or actually laying down the dowel, wrapping the fabric over it, and pinning it along the side of the dowel until you’ve created a tube that holds it. 

-Remove the dowels (if you chose the latter route) and sew the casings. 

-It’s time to hang the hardware on the wall. Locate two studs 47 inches apart on the wall where you want to hang the book holder. (Note: my studs were four feet apart. It’s not a bad idea to find your studs before you start the project and make a book hanger that aligns with your studs. Or just use those little plastic things they sell to hold screws in the wall. The bracket packages I buy come with them.) 

-Using a level, mark the locations where you'll need to drill lightly with a pencil, then drill the holes for the screws. 

-Screw the brackets onto the wall. Hang the fabric on the dowels, then insert the dowels into the brackets. The brackets should come with tiny screws that tighten onto the dowels, holding them in place. 

-Load with books. If you screwed the hardware into studs your book holder should be able to handle a good amount of weight, but don’t go too crazy. 

-Option 1: Before getting started, you could paint the ends of your dowels a color that matches the décor of the room or the fabric. 

-Option 2: If you don’t like the color of the brackets, you could paint that, too, with a paint that adheres to metal. Sand the metal first so the paint has something to grab onto. 

Option 3: In addition to or in place of the tiny screws that hold the dowels in place, you could cap off the ends of the dowels with a cute wooden ball or some clever object. I plan to do this but haven’t found the right thing yet. 

Option 4: The brackets don’t jut out very far at all, but if you’re worried about someone bonking their head, sew slipcovers for them with a little padding inside. 

Option 5: If you have enough wall space, make four or five of these and install them above one another. It could be cute to make a rainbow-like display—red patterned fabric for the top one, orange for the next, then yellow, blue, green, and purple.

Lemonade out of lemons

UPDATE: Leave it to me to totally botch a headline. My bleary-eyed version from last night was such a downer. Instead of "lemons out of lemonade" please enjoy the correct headline above. Thanks for putting up with me, guys.

Can you hear that? It's the sound of water running through the drain pipes outside. In other words, it's like angels are whispering in my ear. (I'm pretty sure I stole that line from Tina Fey.) 

Despite last week's shot of enthusiasm for winter, I'm still anxious for the snow to melt away. It's disappearing, slowly but surely, and I'm almost ready to think about the garden again. 

To help speed things along, I finished that sunshiny lemon dress for Bo that I mentioned the other day. 

That picture makes it look like the sleeves are different sizes, but I swear it looks OK in person.

I always get a little nervous showing close ups since I haven't taken a sewing class since Mrs. Scribner's at Whatcom Middle School. (Now where is that surfboard softie I made?)

Simplicity 2711. Great pattern. I'll definitely use it again.

We've been on a crafting spree lately, mostly because I've put the family on a TV diet. Even though Bo wasn't watching a lot (maybe an hour or two every other day--is that a lot? Oh, Lordy. Maybe it is), I checked out the book Living Simply with Children from the library and was reminded of all the research that supports throwing away the TV altogether. Here are the subheads from the book's section on TV, each of which is followed by research:

-TV transforms our kids--and us--into "consumer units"

-TV gives us inferiority complexes

-TV promotes violence and other negative values

-TV induces an addictive, trancelike state (I totally see that in Bo when she watches)

-TV creates couch potatoes

-TV inhibits learning

-TV is a time vampire

Among other things, I notice we have fewer behavior problems with Bo when we haven't watched TV for a while, so I'm re-doubling my efforts to find more valuable ways to fill our time. (I'll post a photo soon of a doll we made the other day at 5 a.m. when she was wide awake asking for Dora.) We're not going TV free (they've watched two movies in the last week) and it's not like I made a grand announcement with pie charts and bell curves. I'm just trying to better organize myself so that I have alternative activities during times when they'd normally ask to watch the boob tube.

I hope this isn't annoying. Please don't think I'm telling anyone else what to do. If there's one phrase that defines me, it's "to each his own." I just think it's a great discussion to have and I whole-heartedly welcome your thoughts on the topic.

Moving on.

Another project I made recently was a hanging book display for the wall next to Bo's bed. She was taking forever to pick books to read at night because she was pulling every single one off the shelf until she found the cover she recognized. Duh! The kid can't read yet so how is she supposed to recognize a book by its spine?

I entered this into that Apartment Therapy/Etsy contest I mentioned a few weeks ago.  I'll share a few photos now and a tutorial later, once (if?) it gets posted on the contest Web site. (at which point I'll be begging you to head over there and vote for me so I can win a $250 Etsy shopping spree).

(YET ANOTHER) UPDATE: Bo actually woke up excited to wear the lemon dress to school, and she even let me take some pictures tonight while we were making dinner. So here it is in action:

By the way, the fabric is by Alexander Henry, the same designer who created the apples-and-pears motif that you've probably seen around.

Flannel Kisses

We are still in the dead of winter here in Spokane. If it's cold and snowy where you are, too, head to the library or bookstore and check out this book:

Flannel Kisses, written by Linda Crotta Brennan and illustrated (oh so sweetly) by Mari Takabayashi.

We stumbled upon it at the library yesterday and now I want to crawl inside it and snuggle up in front of the itty bitty fireplace with my girls. I'm thinking of buying a copy so I can cut it up, frame the pictures and hang them in the house during wintertime. Brennan and Takabayashi have a book about summer, too, so maybe we'd just rotate out the art every six months.

UPDATE: I just discovered that you can see some of the illustrations from the book here.

I'm not saying Flannel Kisses cured my longing for spring, but it inspired a walk in the cold today and a bit of frolicking in the snow. We still have at least a foot of it in the backyard. If you do too (or wish you did), get your hands on this book--and a hot cup of tea.

Speaking of spring, here's a sneak peak at a sunshiny dress I'm sewing for Bo, as modeled by the salt and pepper shakers. 

P.S. Yes, we really, really like bananas here.

In which a poncho keeps me sane

A bit of recent history first:

During Magpie's first six months, she pretty much destroyed my chances of ever convincing J that we should have a third child one day. It seemed to take us longer to "figure her out" than it took us to crack Bo's code. 

But eventually (read: once we determined that some babies really just want to eat all the friggin' time) she transformed into "zen baby," as I'm sure I referred to her more than once on this blog. She would chilly chill while the world went on around her, smiling sweetly at strangers and keeping busy with a crate of fabric scraps at my feet while I sewed.

Well, the original Magpie is back. She tries to pull this little tiger action on us now, sort of roaring out orders when she wants something. At 16 months, she's already having tantrums. And if her big sister tries to take away a toy, look out. 

Luckily, I've found the off switch. It's her bellybutton. Or anyone's bellybutton, for that matter. Show her a bellybutton, and she's a happy girl again.

That is difficult to do, though, when we're getting in the car. She's going through that you-just-try-to-strap-me-into-a-car-seat phase, arching her back and straightening her legs as I try to wrestle her in. What makes it more difficult is that we're always so bundled up with clothes, given that our high temperatures most days still aren't above freezing here. So I'm basically trying to stuff the Michelin Man into G-string underwear. It ain't pretty.

This is a long-winded introduction to today's sewing project: a fleece poncho. 

I figure I'll strap her into the car seat wearing her normal clothes (which I think is the safest way to do things anyway, right?), and then throw this poncho on over the top of her. I didn't drive her anywhere today so I haven't tested this out yet, but I'll let you know how it goes.

I used a pattern for this--Simplicity 4434. Like normal, though, I followed it to cut out the pieces (altering the hood a bit) and then sort of improvised from there. In fact, I laughed a few minutes ago when I looked back at the package to get the pattern number for this post because I realized the poncho is supposed to be open in the front, making it a cape, I guess, instead of a poncho.

This is what it was supposed to look like:

And here are more shots of my version:

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope:

This was a super easy project. No more than 30 minutes, start to finish. I wish I had used micro fleece, but I'm trying to use up some old fabric. A jersey-knit version might be in order for spring.

The trim around the hood is a cotton belt that came with an old pair of Gap pants of mine. It would have been nice if I'd had enough to go around the bottom of the poncho, too, because it's looking kind of plain to me. 

Any ideas for giving it a little more personality? My friend Carolyn suggested some pom-pom fringe, which would be totally cute and add entertainment value for Magpie. Or I could applique some little forest friends. 

Hey, what is this? A straightjacket? 

Mega toots list

Just had to share this monster tutorial list I found over at Thuesons. 

Here's a sneak peek at some of the projects she links to:

Looks like she combined several lists that have been floating about and then added more on top of it. Rock on.

Someone please tell me why I still can't resist buying patterns, please.

A HANDy Valentine card tutorial

I'm so naive.

With all the crafting we do around here, I should have known better. I should have known there was no way 3-year-old Bo would have the patience to make the same thing--in this case, Valentines--28 times.

Our score at the crafting table last night--

Bo: 8

Mommy: 20

Ah, well. At least these were simple to put together.

I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw this idea, and I'm so sorry for that. It popped up during my surfing yesterday and I didn't even read the directions, but I imagine we made them in a similar way.

You will need: skin-colored cardstock, red cardstock, scissors, glue sticks, and either computer paper or scraps of white paper and a pen.

Step 1: Have child trace her hand on a piece of lightweight cardboard (like a cereal box). Cut it out. This will be her template.

Step 2: Have child trace the template on skin-colored cardstock.

Step 3: Holding a piece of red cardstock behind the skin-colored one, cut out the hands.

Step 4: Cut or hole punch a heart in the middle of each skin-colored hand. Do not cut hearts out of the red hands.

Step 4: Print out or write messages on small, thin scraps of paper. I simply typed "(heart) Boston" so the kids knew who the card was from.

Step 5: Have the child glue the two hands together, sandwiching the paper message between them so the word part sticks out. Note how the back side is red:

My favorites of the bunch were the eight that Bo made--lots of scrawly tracing marks and a mish-mashing of the hands as she glued them together.

She came home from preschool with a pouch full of cards from her classmates, some really adorable homemade ones included. What was her favorite of the bunch, though? No, not the hands. Her favorite was a Spiderman that jumps out at you when you tilt it. Fabulous.

Last-minute handmade Valentines

Need some quick ideas for handmade Valentines ... like I do?

I just wrote a roundup of links to some adorable ideas on my other blog. Most of them came from the Crafty Crow, so you could head there, too.

This one from Full Circle is my favorite--a bouquet of poppies, each one containing a Dum Dum sucker inside. Our preschool doesn't allow candy, so I'm trying to think of something else I could use in place of the sucker. A pipe cleaner? A pencil?

Anyone know of other good links to Valentine's fun?

Little Orphan Annie II and another blogger's giveaway

Writing deadlines and crafty projects are piling up, so rather than waiting for me to sew another Annie dress (as I mentioned here), I asked my friend to let me photograph the red one I sewed for her daughter's birthday the other day.

So here's my loose interpretation of what Annie wears to her adoption party with Daddy Warbucks. 

I didn't want to make it exactly like the one from the musical/movie because, well, I kinda think that one is goofy looking. This one is still goofy, but maybe a little bit more comfortable to wear.

The black and white flower was a last-minute trick to cover a last-minute snip I accidentally made along the ruffles.

And allow me to vow to never--NEVER--use 1/4-inch bias tape with jersey knit again. Thank you. It feels good to get that off my chest.

I followed Simplicity 6882, which I think will be even cuter with less a Annie-looking color scheme.

By the way, this might be the only Annie dress ever made from organic fabric. It came from the bountiful stash Klay gave me a few weeks ago. 

My friend tells me her daughter likes her costumes very much. Her daughter is one of those kids with a spunky little spark about her. Apparently she won't change into the red dress unless her mom--in the role of Miss Hannigan--has sufficiently punished her for not scrubbing the floors until they shine like the top of the Chrysler building. Cute, cute.

On a separate note, Jeanne from A Bushel and a Peck, left a comment on my last post about a giveaway she's offering. Check it out--top prize is a $100 gift certificate to her store and $100 to Anthropologie. Um, yeah. I'm all over that one. 

Here's a little sampling of the goods in Jeanne's shop.  

It's a hard knock life

Ever since my days as a teacher, I've believed in the power of attacking subjects from different angles. If a kid develops a natural interest in butterflies, for example, sing songs about them, study the science behind them, draw pictures of them, make up stories about them, etc. In the classroom, you want to provide every opportunity for all different types of learners to engage. I imagine preschoolers can benefit from the same approach at home, so I try to do that with my kids now, too.

Except when Bo gets interested in something like poop. There will be no paintings of poop hanging on the clothesline in the kitchen.

While poop is always a favorite topic of discussion for Bo, the obsession du jour is the musical "Annie." The Broadway production was in town last weekend. We went, she loved it, and now I can't stop singing the songs.

A good friend of hers saw the musical, too, and according to her mom has always wanted to be an orphan. So for the little girl's fifth birthday, I sewed up two costumes--an orphan's work dress and the famous red-and-white number Annie wears at the end of the play.

I cannot believe I let the red dress out of the house today without taking a picture (the birthday party was this afternoon). But here are a few shots of the orphan dress--blurry because it's being worn by Bo while singing "It's a Hard Knock Life" (lots of floor scrubbing going on).

I need to make another version of each dress--for Bo to keep, of course--so I'll post photos of those one day soon. In the meantime, poor Annie is being attacked from all angles--art, acting, music, math ("Annie had one dog, but then she lost the dog ... how many dogs does she have left?" Just kidding. Bo burst out crying during that scene so I won't torture her with that little game.)

I didn't use a pattern here. Just sewed a basic lined jumper with a ruffle on the bottom and added an apron to the front, plus a few patches and pockets made from Klay's recent fabric donation. I meant to make bloomers, but I ran out of time. The dress is a little big on Bo because her friend is a couple of years older. 

Yes, she's wearing lipstick here. C'mon. What orphan doesn't wear bright red lipstick??