penny carnival

12 Days of Crafting, Days 7 and 8: candle crown and countdown blocks

I just posted Day 8's craft for my 12 Days of Crafting project over at Dwell Well.

Today, we made a Santa Lucia crown from felt:

 

You can see the tutorial, more photos and an explanation of what in the world a Santa Lucia crown is right here.

Day 7 was a project from my sister-in-law, Kim: countdown to Christmas blocks.

Cute, huh?

Four more crafts to go.

We are knee deep in Christmas here. Party for J's side of the family was last night. Great fun. His family is very musical, so at one point we were all sitting around the piano singing Christmas songs (and then Beatles songs and then Elton John songs). It was beautiful.

 

Today we went to Spokane's annual Gingerbread House Build-Off, one of my favorite events of the year. Money raised goes to a program that helps women in need get on their feet, get some job skills, etc. Local pastry chefs and architects team up to design a gingerbread house to fit the year's theme. Here were a couple of the works in progress:

Meanwhile, kids can buy a gingerbread (graham cracker, actually) kit made by the women in the program, have a seat at a table and decorate their own little houses.

I hope you're enjoying the holidays, too.

Christmas craft tutorial No. 1 of 12, and surviving the grocery store

My house looks like a Christmas explosion right now. There are baking ingredients dusted all over the kitchen floor, "cherry wink" cookies covering every inch of countertop, glitter-covered crafts on one end of the dining room table and handmade greeting cards on the other. Oh, and millions of little bitty pieces of red yarn under the table because when a 2 year old decides she can entertain herself for 30 minutes by cutting cheap yarn, you don't complain.

Thank you, thank you for all the great feedback on the Santa dilemma. After giving it a lot of thought and talking with Bo's teacher, we decided we're just not going to emphasize the big guy this year. We're not going to sit her down and tell her the truth; we're just going to focus on other holiday traditions more, like the Nutcracker and singing Christmas carols and building gingerbread houses and making cookies and crafts (hence, the mess). I'll put more of my thoughts on that issue in the comments section of my previous post when I get a minute.

Speaking of the Nutcracker, Seattle magazine had a darling idea in its December issue: Throw a Nutcracker-themed party for kids before or after attending the show. Pink tulle tablecloth. Cupcakes that look like toy soldiers. Invitations that look like theater tickets. Squeal! More details on my Kids' Parties site.

And if you're heading over to the Kids' Parties site anyway, here are a few other things I've been working on over there:

-Food to serve at a kids' Christmas party (that one is a work in progress--I plan to add many more pictures and recipes in the coming weeks)

-Theme ideas for a kids' Christmas party

-And this one wasn't my idea, but I love it so: an Advent calendar of books. Every day, a new Christmas themed book to open and read together. Brilliant idea courtesy of Babyccino.

On my other blog (seriously. how did I end up with so many blogs? my computer is like a rabbit), today marks the start of my 12 Days of Crafting. Between now and Dec. 17, you'll see a new tutorial every day for something holiday related. I started with these twig stars today--easy, cheap, earthy:

You can use them as tree ornaments or string them together like garland or make a super big one to hang on your door.

Much more on the 12-Days-of-Crafting front coming soon.

Let's see ... what else? Our first three holiday cards have arrived from the Kids' Craft Weekly card swap. Bo looooves opening these.

Yesterday, we had breakfast at Chaps, one of our favorite Spokane breakfast joints. Hee haw! The Christmas decorations were darling:



(Yes, I took a picture of the bathroom.)
 



Best children's play area ever. Vintage toy kitchen appliances. Pink cowboy hats. Tin tea set. Love it. Love it. Love it. Thanks, Celeste (owner). You're brilliant.

Lastly, a quick tip courtesy of a friend of mine from high school (thank you, Facebook). After swearing that I would never again take my wild-animal children to the grocery store, Rachel suggested I have the kids make their own grocery lists before we go and use them once we get there. The girls cut pictures from the Wednesday newspaper ads (all based on what I actually needed), and glued them to paper. I made dotted letters spelling out the products for Bo to trace.

And, yes, that's turkey food. We didn't host Thanksgiving this year and we're missing the leftovers.

We headed to the grocery store this morning and the lists worked like a charm, as long as you don't mind your kids lying on the floor in the middle of the aisles so they can cross off what they've just put in the cart. 

 Sorry for the crappy cell phone photo blur. 

Thank you, Rachel!  

I better clean up this mess before this guy comes home. Hope all is well, bloggy friends.

The Santa situation, Thanksgiving costumes and more daily life

Oh, you guys who keep coming back to read Penny Carnival after these long breaks between posts are too good to me. Even J has been scolding me. 

I'm sorry for my absence. It's been, well, nuts.

Thanksgiving was lovely, though. How about you? 

We visited my family across the state and had a fun dinner at my sister's. The kids put on a "First Thanksgiving" play, dressed in costumes we made at the 11th hour (me, anyway).

Despite some historical inaccuracies (we're going to let that slide for a few years), it was downright adorable.

The play ended with the kids sharing a Thanksgiving feast of rice crispy treats shaped like corn on the cob and a blessing that led us to the dinner table.

 
You can read more about it on my Kids' Parties site.  

I did find time to make myself a pilgrim apron following Heather Bailey's fantastic Daily Spice pattern. I say pilgrim because it had a black bodice and skirt and a white waistband and ties. No pictures yet. I always seem to be behind the camera instead of in front of it.

The plan was to make four identical aprons--one for me, my mom, my sister and her friend who had dinner with us. But I only had time for one and it turned out a bit wonky (you know how it goes when you're using a pattern for the first time) so it's all mine. Maybe I'll try for a Santa style one for Christmas (red, black, red?) ... or maybe not.

Speaking of Santa, we're in the midst of our annual dilemma. J and I feel so strongly about being truthful with our kids. It's utterly painful for us to carry on with the Santa story. We do it, cheerfully, but this year is more challenging than ever because both girls have developed a phobia of the big guy. 

It seriously goes beyond a normal fear, especially for Bo, who is 4 now. I think Magpie (who is 2) gets scared because she sees her big sister crying. We tried to go to our city's annual tree lighting, but she wouldn't step foot in the building because she knew Santa would be there. The poor kid was hysterical.

We stayed in a hotel near Seattle last night in a city that throws a holiday parade--totally fun. Fake snow falling from the sky. Toy soldiers on stilts giving out candy canes. People dressed up like reindeer and snowmen and penguins. I don't even know if Santa was there because the girls didn't want to have anything to do with it. 

I take that back. Bo was happy to meet the Snow Princess. 

My mom was with us and she tried dancing the jitterbug with Rudolph to help the girls get comfortable with the costumes, but it didn't work (and then Rudolph's helper said to my mom, "OK, lady. Let's not get Rudolph too hot in there." If you know my mom, it was a classic Nancy moment.)

I kind of wonder if Bo is so scared because we're so honest with her about everything else. She's in the heart of those years when she's trying to figure out how the world works, and here are her parents telling her that some old guy is going to park his reindeer on her roof and shimmy down her chimney one night. I think I'd be freaked out, too.

I'm seriously considering telling her the truth and focusing on the historical story of Saint Nick, not to mention all the other wonderful Christmas traditions. But here is how the conversation usually goes when I suggest this:

Megan: I don't like being dishonest with my kids.
Friends and Family: When you were little, didn't you believe in Santa?
Megan: Yes.
Friends and Family: And it was fun, wasn't it?
Megan: Yes.
Friends and Family: Then why rob your children of some of the magic of Christmas?
Megan: Umm ... I don't know.

Plus, what if she told all the kids in preschool the truth about Santa. Would we get expelled??!

Advice please. There are four weeks until Christmas and at some point I'm going to need to go into a mall.

In other news, we made our first snowmen of the year:

But it's these snowmen I'm really craving:

(Photo taken at Madeleine's in Spokane) 

And if you're going to make a snowman, you might as well do it in style, right Magpie?

 

We enjoyed a recent playdate with a friend:

 

which resulted in these cookies:

and this sweet moment in Bo's bedroom:

Bo won her first coloring contest, which bought dinner for four so we're happy to report that she's now earning her keep:

And check out this adorable Princess and the Pea toy my nieces' grandmother made for them after seeing the idea here:


 Squeal! Don't you love the little pocket for the pea?

I'm sure she would want me to tell everyone that she didn't make the doll, but she's an accomplished seamstress so I know she could make any doll she wanted to.   

Now that your computer has crashed from opening all those photos ... come back soon because I'm working behind the scenes on lots of good stuff. Twelve--count 'em! twelve!--tutorials for Christmas crafts. That starts Dec. 6, but hopefully I'll have something worthwhile to say before then (but don't hold your breath). 

   

  

I survived a make-and-take craft booth

As I just wrote on my other blog, I need a T-shirt that says that.

I'm back from 5 fun-filled hours teaching eager crafters (most of whom were darling little kids) how to make stuff out of secondhand materials at the North Idaho Fair. 

Take a look at some of their creations:

The one this kindergarten teacher made was one of my favorites:

How cute is this little monkey?

He sewed a pillow instead of a flower. And charmed my socks off in the meantime.

This is how the booth looked:

I displayed some of my crafty stuff to show folks how they could repurpose old objects.

And, yes, that's Amanda Soule's new book Handmade Home sitting in that wire basket. I bought it two days ago but haven't had a second to look inside yet.  

You can see more crafty photos from the booth here.

My only regret about the fair is that it fell on the night before the first day of preschool and I feel like I haven't properly ritualized the whole going-back-to-school thing with Bo. I think we'll have to get up extra early and go out for some pancakes to make up for it.

There's so much I could say right now about how inspired I was by the crafty kiddos at the fair, many of whom had never used a needle and thread before, and their ability to turn old sheets into beautiful objects.

Instead, though, I'm going to bed. G'night.

Ice cream social

Farm girl MaryJaneButters had a blog post the other day about how to organize an old-fashioned ice cream social. You guys know I'm a sucker for anything that builds community, so you know that kind of thing is right up my alley. But what kept lingering in my head after reading the post? Duh. A craving for ice cream.

The girls and I solved that tonight with a trip to The Scoop, a local shop that makes its own cold stuff. We always have to opt for "the kind that doesn't hurt our tummies," as Bo always tells the workers, so our order was 3 grape sorbets on sugar cones. Delish.

Fingers work just as well, apparently:

I knew we needed to linger a while because J was home sleeping (we're working our way through a case of the icks), so I brought along our felt pencil rolls and some paper.

We parked ourselves at a kid-sized wooden picnic table (easier for some of us to maneuver than others) and colored away.

Bo wanted to hang the signs on the shop's bike rack just to remind folks that they sell ice cream inside, but alas we had no tape ...

... She thought maybe curling the paper onto the bike rack would work. When it didn't, she moved on to twirling around in her rainbow dress on the lawn.

By the way, that beauty is NOT my bike. Too bad, huh?

We were there for so long that Bo built up the courage to ask two other sisters if they wanted to play with her. She's not shy, but she gets nervous about that sort of thing. The girls were thrilled and they played for all of 30 seconds until their mom announced it was time to go. I could just tell she wasn't one of those moms who likes to socialize, and that's fine, but I felt bad for Bo. 

The pencil rolls got me thinking about Amanda Soule and how her new book is coming out tomorrow. I should have pre-ordered--I would have had it by now--but the anticipation of going into a bookstore and flipping through the pages for the first time is fun, too.

Not that I have any time to follow her projects quite yet. I'm still swamped with writing deadlines and other responsibilities, including filling a few orders for book slings in my Etsy shop. By the way, I officially have a cottage license to make and sell Emmeline aprons now! I'm going to stock the shop with some once I get a chance, but for now I have a listing there for custom ones.

Are you ever so tired your stomach hurts? Ugh. Can't blame it on the sorbet, so it must be time to sleep.

To grandmother's house we go

We’re wrapping up a simple weekend that included a couple of fun outings: a housewarming party for friends and a polo match. Spokane has one of the oldest polo clubs in the U.S. It’s great fun to pack a picnic and go watch a match, but hardly anyone around here does. Maybe I’ll start a new trend.

Anyone else have the book "10 Apples Up on Top"?

Mostly, though, we’ve been packing for our two-week trip to Bellingham, Wash.--my hometown—to see family.

I took a more-is-more approach to packing this time, sort of throwing everything but the garden hose into the suitcase. I’m sure I’ll regret it in a few days.

Bo caught on and decided to remove every single pair of shoes I own from the closet and attempt to cram them into my already-stuff suitcase. Thankfully, I’m not a shoe whore, but there were still some ridiculously inappropriate ones on display tonight (can someone please slap me for buying a pair of platform shoes covered in sequins?).

Speaking of gardens, I'm going to miss our little patch while I'm gone. The sungold tomatoes are just starting to ripen and they are delish. Bo likes them enough to just suck out the juice (and then leave the flesh on the ground), sort of like a vampire. 

Check out the scarecrow she made a few weeks ago (the garden has grown considerably since then):

I managed to sew an Emmeline apron for my sister, who’s letting us crash at her house for one of the two weeks we’ll be there (my parents’ house will be occupied by our Rhode Island relatives, making my headline here somewhat deceptive; we got a smokin’ deal on a nice hotel for the other week).

I think this is the fourth Emmeline I’ve made now, and every time I do there’s always such a strong response to it, as in “I will pay you whatever you want to make me one of those!!!” Kudos to Meg over at Sew Liberated for designing such a successful pattern.

Because of that, I’m thinking of taking part in her cottage license program, which allows you to pay for the right to sell the items you make from her patterns. The cost is $75/year, which seems reasonable to me, and you have to be approved by Meg (understandably, she wants to make sure you know how to sew). What do you guys think? Is it worth pursuing and applying for? I'm always trying to reinvent the wheel, but maybe I should just do this since it's already such a hit with people.

Other thoughts …

Can someone please tell me how I can run 30-40 miles a week and not lose a single pound? I’m trying to burn off these last 10 baby pounds, but apparently my body is on strike. I know you’re not supposed to get on the scale every day, but I swear to you I stepped on yesterday morning, ran seven miles and ate healthfully all day (minus one smallish cupcake), got on the scale today and had gained two pounds. Seriously. 7 miles. Gained 2 pounds. And no, I'm not pregnant. 

I had hoped this was going to be the summer I didn’t have to wear a skirted swimsuit but it’s mid-July and I’m losing hope. Grrr …

A few things I’m loving right now …

-This house tour.

-Amy Butler organic bedding now available here. (Scratch one more project off my sewing to-do list, I guess.)

-The before-and-after gallery on Design Sponge. If I only had 1,392,022 hours to kill:

-Daydreaming of building a modern playhouse for the girls in the backyard. This one is awesome, but it’d pretty much be nicer than our actual house.

This one is adorable, in a different way.

I’m thinking we’ll start collecting supplies from the secondhand building-supply store, come up with a plan over the winter, and attempt carpentry next summer. Stay tuned.

 

Since we’ll be out of town, I’ll probably have a craft hiatus for a couple of weeks (God help me). You never know, though. My sister and I grew up in the same house. She must have a glue gun stashed away somewhere. If nothing else, I’ll have to share photos of her always-incredible cooking. 

Vintage toys, a country wedding and more farm charm

Is this the summer of the hoedown or what? I hope you guys aren't getting sick of my photos of country chic, but I can't seem to help myself. I keep going to these vintage barn bazaars and find myself leaving totally inspired.

This weekend was the Vintage Barn antique show in Rathdrum, Idaho. 51 vendors, home-baked goodness by women from a nearby Mennonite community, and live bluegrass music. This was the scene:

I thought this would make a great lemonade stand for the girls, but for $300+ I decided we'd stick with the card table for now:

Can you imagine the hours that went into this?

More tartan! This time plates:

Bo contemplates the "naughty chair." I'm not sure today's child psychologists would recommend this.

Wee! No buckles! No straps! A handle that can become dislodged and used as a weapon. 

Pretty paper flowers made from pages of vintage books, I assume:

I loved the sea of blues and greens in this booth by Wild Whimsy (photo above, too):

Given that my blog is named Penny Carnival, I couldn't resist bringing home this toy for $5:

Can you see the grumpy look on the Ferris Wheel operator's face? I love it. It's like me at the sewing machine when I need to use the seam ripper. Grrrr ... 

The girls each chose a vintage toy, too--a dog on wheels for Bo and a helicopter on a string for Magpie. Bo named her dog "Flower" and insisted we build her a dog house this morning.

There's something about painting 3-dimensional surfaces that thrills my children to no end:

That's why I rarely recycle cardboard boxes and I keep the hot-glue gun handy at all times.

Does anyone else buy their kids secondhand toys? The girls chose these vintage ones on their own, but on birthdays and at Christmastime, I always throw some garage sale finds into the mix. Just today, I heard a funny story about an old friend whose dad always bought his kids stuff from garage sales for gifts. So they'd be putting together a puzzle and get to the end only to discover that four pieces were missing. And one Christmas two of the brothers got bicycles--one bicycle worked and one didn't. That cracked me up, but it caused one of the brothers to vow to always buy new toys for his kids. You can probably guess which brother.

In other news from the weekend, we attended our nephew's absolutely gorgeous wedding in the, you guessed it, country.

I don't know if Bo was more thrilled by the bride and groom's kiss at the altar or the horse-and-carriage rides:

This draping was inside the barn where dinner was served:

Outside the barn looking in:

Inside the barn looking out:

At the risk of sounding completely unappreciative for the lovely wedding J and I had 7 years ago ... um, can I have a do over, please?

I did do some sewing this weekend, but it just involved adding straps to an otherwise revealing strapless dress. I'd show you the before and after, but the before shots would make this an x-rated blog. Not that I actually took before shots like that.

We did manage to hang my hammock in the backyard after it spent, oh, 15 years in storage. Literally. I bought this hammock while studying abroad in Costa Rica in 1994, lugged it all the way home on the plane, and then never hung it. Leave it to my task-master husband to get it swinging. That guy can plow through a to-do list like nobody I know.

It's dreamy to relax in there under the cherry trees, callused feet and all (don't zoom in. you'll regret it. I've been running a lot).

Speaking of cherries, I'm overdosing. I need an intervention. I just filled a small baby bottle with pits while writing this post. 

They're. Just. So. Frickin'. Good. And. Sweet. 

I mostly just eat them as nature intended, but we had J's cousin over for dinner last night so I made this dessert:

Bo took her job of making it snow on the clafouti very seriously.

OK, so she went a little overboard. What can I say? The kid is used to living under 4 feet of the white stuff every winter.

Going bananas for book slings, and randomness

A few random thoughts on this unseasonably crisp (but beautiful and perfect) summer evening.

-I sold another book sling in my Etsy shop! Yea-hoo! The buyer told me she wanted me to use the solid colors of brown and banana (read: yellow) as the main fabrics, and then gave me the creative freedom to add a bit of flair to it. Gotta love that. So this is what I created for her son, Nolan.

It looks a little wobbly there because the books are only on one end.

I made it reversible, so she can use either the lower case or uppercase side, or she can just go with plain brown or banana by flipping the whole thing inside out.

For you newcomers, this is what a whole book sling looks like (Bo's room was a mess today, so I didn't get a good wide shot):

Someone must have a put up a new link to my Etsy shop, because I'm getting a lot of book sling inquiries lately. You never know if a conversation with a potential customer will really pan out, though, so you might see more examples here in the near future. Or you might not. 

Selling on Etsy is way less profitable than my other life as a freelance journalist, but boy is it fun when someone honors you by wanting to buy something you made. 

-For you locals, check out my post on Dwell Well about what looks like another great funky junky fair this weekend near Spokane. It's called the Vintage Barn Antique Show, and it was featured in "Country Living" mag last summer.

-Cherries for sale! Cherries for sale! Organically grown, ripe cherries for sale!

And hopefully you don't get a cup with some of Magpie's half-eaten ones inside. 

Good to see the ballet recital costume is getting good use, especially since it never made it on stage during the actual recital. A repeat of her mom's (lack of) performance back in 1977.

Bo kept telling people a cup of cherries cost $5 instead of 5 cents. 

I'd like to build the girls a sturdy wooden stand like this one.

-My friend Joe alerted me to this. (WARNING! BAD WORDS.) I told him I need something along those lines for my front door warning people not to knock when the girls are napping. It's not quite as neighborly as what I had in mind, but it sure would get the message across, don't you think?

Update: Bo is sitting with me and just shouted "Mr. Obama!" when I clicked on that link. Cute.

-I'm in love with this nursery. Do you think it would translate well into a master bedroom? Hmmm ...

-And in other bloggy good news, Sew Mama Sew featured my daily planner today! Remember it? I'm so flattered. 

If you found Penny Carnival through that post, welcome.

This year's 4th of July dress

UPDATE: I'm getting a lot of hits on this post from Google. Just wanted to let everyone know that if you're looking for a 4th of July dress FOR SALE, visit my Etsy shop. If you want to buy the one you see here or something like it, let me know by leaving a comment below and I'll list it in the shop.

The girls and I recently made a rule that I'm somewhat regretting. We decided that every time we see a U.S. flag we have to sing "She's a Grand Old Flag." Unfortunately, I'm the only one who knows the words, so it's always me doing the singing. And, well, Spokane is a pretty patriotic town. I find myself singing the song A LOT.

Anyhow, with the Fourth of July coming up, I figured it was time to sew some patriotic dresses. Here's my first crack at it, which looks remarkably similar to last year's dress. Hmmm ...

And just like last year, I made it too big. I really should have read my old post before embarking on this one. 

The tiny sheep is there just to illustrate that there are pockets.

Gotta love hemming a dress with bias tape. So easy and crisp.

Bodice is lined, but skirt isn't. No zippers or buttons or anything. Just pull it on over the head. The pattern is McCalls 5370, but like always I only roughly followed it. The fabric is from a line called M'Liss at JoAnn's. I (heart) 40 percent off coupons.

Unlike last year, we won't be in Bristol, Rhode Island, next month for the oldest, biggest, best parade in the nation. I hate to miss July in R.I. Like any year when I'm not there for the Fourth, there will be times when I'll catch a whiff of something that reminds me of back east, making me regret that we didn't go. My sister and I went back there almost every summer as kids, so I think my body is trained to expect certain sensations in July, like the smell of salt water and the taste of clams. The need to tackle some house projects beat out our desire to make the trek this year, but hopefully we'll be back in 2010.

On a separate note, if you live here in Spokane, don't forget about this weekend's Two Women Barn Bazaar. I went last fall and really enjoyed it, especially the bluegrass music. Check out that link for more details or read what I wrote about it on my Spokesman-Review blog. You can also see some photos I took at last fall's show here.

Farm Chicks 2009

Too tired to say much right now, but I wanted to share some photos from today's treasure hunting at the Farm Chicks Antique Show here in Spokane.

I'm having a great time with my girlfriends, who drove up from Portland. We all found a few must-have items--I'll show you those later this week, once I have a chance to display them. The day ended with dinner here and then good conversation back home on the couch.

Here's a peek at what some of the vendors had to offer today. 

Vintage phonetic cards from Bella Shabby:

An amazing setup by the guys from the Barn House in SW Washington:

One of the Barn House boys in his burlap apron (love it!!):

I don't think it's actually burlap, because it's softer than you would think. I'll have to go back tomorrow and ask him what the material is.

The Top Stitch fabric and sewing store in Spokane and, an update based on Michelle's comment below, sewn goods by her mom, Elaine, at Fit to be Tied:

Another over-the-top display. I think this is the booth run by All That Glitters, but I'll double check tomorrow.

I was mad for cubbies all day. Cubbies. Lockers. Rows of post-office boxes. Anything with storage potential.

A "piano bar" from Retreat:

Get it?

Lovely tiaras, also from Retreat:

Butterfly mobile by the amazing Queen of Tarte:

The butterflies are made from the pages of vintage books.

More from Tarte:

And more (really, I just wanted to pull up a cot and move into her booth):

From Seabold Vintage Market (next two):

I really wanted this phone:

Yes, that's a hoop skirt playing the part of chandelier (from Luluz):

Adorable party hats from Luluz:

More cubbies:

Mmm ... top this baby with a slab of marble and you have yourself a dandy of a kitchen island:

This was this year's "one that got away":

It was sold (by Chaps) within the first few minutes of the show. Had I been quick enough, it would have been PERFECT in my kitchen.

Vintage child's Fourth of July dress. I want to re-create this, but I know whatever I make would look too new and crisp compared with this timeworn beauty.

Gas-station attendant badges, sold by The Farm Chicks themselves:

My mind is exploding with creative inspiration and good cheer.