penny carnival

'The rain is like a baptism'

One of my favorite movies in high school (and this might make some of you youngins realize how old I am. 35) was "Say Anything." I was so in love with Lloyd Dobler. Still am, really.

The movie is set in Seattle, which of course is thrilling when you're 16 and you sort of think Seattle belongs to you even though you live in a suburb 86 miles away. That was before Nirvana and Pearl Jam made it big, and then we really thought we had something to brag about--even us sheltered kids from the 'burbs who probably couldn't relate to half of the angst those guys sang about.

My friend Simon, who lives in Seattle, has this for his status update on Facebook this morning: "The drive to work in the rain through tree-lined streets that were shedding their leaves, listening to Classic King FM ... I heart the PNW!" (Translation: Pacific Northwest.)

I'm four hours away, on the "dry" side of the state, and it's pouring down rain here today, too. The rain is like a baptism (a Lloyd Dobler line) on my back patio. (I don't have any profound rebirth to report. That line from the movie has just always stuck in my head.) 

The rain sounds more torrential than it is because we need to clean the pine needles out of the gutter, but I almost want to keep them there because the sound of the water crashing down onto the concrete reminds me so much of home. 

Rain was a constant growing up in northwest Washington. It didn't keep you indoors during recess--you just wore your slicker or played kickball under the "covered area" at Roosevelt Elementary School. It didn't stop you from riding your bike through Whatcom Falls Park. On especially wet days at home, you stayed inside eating grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and doing arts and crafts at the card table with your big sister. When you got older, there were first kisses in the rain and nights out with your girlfriends when the roads always seemed to be wet.

I've got the icks (again!), so I don't much feel like being out there today. But it's a perfect day for hunkering down, getting some work done, and then hopefully finally sewing up the girls' Halloween costumes later tonight.

If it's rainy where you are and you're looking for an arts and crafts project to do with your kids, check out these 3-D pumpkins I wrote a tutorial for for the new About.com site. You can use them as Halloween decorations or save them for Thanksgiving dinner and set them out as place cards.

One other crafty thing to report--the last book sling I'll be making for a while:

 

(Note to self: if someone ever asks me to applique the letter "S" again, just say no! Damn those curves.)

I put my little Etsy shop on vacation for a bit. Just too much other stuff going on. It's not like I had that many orders, but it takes a lot of time and care and I really admire the people who make a living out of doing that. I'll open it back up soon, but I need to get some Christmas and birthday gifts made for my own family first.

Don't forget that you can make your own book sling. Tutorial here.

And speaking of book slings, one that I had the pleasure of making recently is hanging in a home that many of you are probably familiar with, if you're a fan like me. Meg from Sew Liberated did a trade with me--a book sling in exchange for some of her patterns. I was quite honored that a talented person like herself would want something from my humble craft room. You can see it hanging for little Finn here.

Birthday party planning and other tidbits

I'm knee deep in a work project right now. Did I say knee? I meant neck. It's time consuming but fun, and I'll tell y'all about in a few days.

Deadlines aren't what they used to be, though. When I worked full time for newspapers I used to thrive on knowing a story had to be filed by 9 p.m. After being wherever I had to be to cover the news, I'd have half the thing written in my head by the time I got back to my desk. And if I didn't, I was in trouble.

Everything changes with kids, though, especially when you work from home. Except when the girls are at preschool, there's never a guarantee that I'll have time to focus on what I'm doing and get it done by the time my editors need it. That uncertainty is more stressful than any breaking news ever was.

A phrase we seem to keep repeating around here is "It is what it is." In other words, quit complaining. Be grateful for the fascinating careers/assignments/life we have. Get it done. And move on. 

But here's a phrase I came across tonight--on Sarah Jane Studio's blog--that I like much better:

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." -Thomas S. Manson

I wish that had been in my head last night as I was frantically trying to get the dishes done before bedtime while Magpie was crying and tugging on my leg, begging for my attention. Instead of turning off the water, parking my rear on the floor and loving her up, I scrubbed those pots clean like a madwoman ... and eventually let all the noise turn me into, well, a mad woman. 

Ridiculous. I'm not advocating being at kids' beck and call at all times (they need to learn patience, right?) but two minutes of quality time probably would have calmed her down and allowed me to finish the dishes in peace.

I read something once that said even if we do something we regret with our kids--even if it happened just a second ago--we have the option of changing our direction and taking a more positive route. In the next moment. Right then and there. Turn the corner. Don't look back. 

I don't know how that looks when your kids are older, but at 2 and 4, usually that means shifting gears from frustration to total silliness. Usually that comes naturally to me. Other times, the dishes win. Grrr ... moving on. 

I really just meant to pop on here to share a few tidbits:

-I'm getting a lot of hits right now on my pumpkin carving tutorial from last year. Just thought I'd post a link to it here to make it easier for newbies to find.

-Everybody and their brother also seems to want to bake an owl cake right now (based on Google searches that find their way to Penny Carnival). You can read about my adventures with owl cakes here and here.

-At some point, I'm going to have to start planning Magpie's second birthday party. The original idea was to make it a parade-themed party, which was inspired by these invitations I ordered. 

Aren't they adorable? They're even cuter in person, with their sweet little rounded corners and all.

But the weather has become downright frigid here, so I'm not sure I want to subject a bunch of kids to a late-October prance around the neighborhood. I think I'll save the invitations for Bo's July birthday, since she's the one who's been begging for a neighborhood parade anyway. A parade party could be so much fun--tell the kids to bring their bikes/strollers/wagons, have a stash of streamers and flags they can use to decorate their rides, do the parade thing (inviting neighbors to cheer them on), then come back to the house and serve a long, skinny cake that's frosted to look like a street. 

So I'm working on a Plan B now. Little Red Riding Hood birthday party? Three Little Bears? Alice in Wonderland tea party? Vintage circus? Hedgehogs? Mary Had a Little Lamb? OK, I need to have more kids so I can fulfill all my toddler birthday fantasies.
Update: I just want to acknowledge that I realize the birthday theme should be all about what the kid wants, but Magpie is at an age where everything is awesome to her. "Do you like moldy bread?" "I like mo-wee bed." "Do you like Brussel sprouts?" "I like bussybouts." 

Other things I'm loving right now:

-This idea for thank-you cards (just in time!)

-A work-in-progress by Anna Maria Horner. I will never get tired of rainbows.

-A lovely white dress

-and Art Nest Studio's (a.k.a. Susannah, the highly talented portrait artist) fawn softie pattern. Oooh ... another birthday theme possibility. Those could be the favors!

Ponchos for everyone!

More crafty time with the girls over the weekend led to a new Etsy listing. 

I've figured out how to make the poncho (or cape, whatever you want to call it) in sizes 12 months, 18 months, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

This one is an 18 monther, so it's a bit snug around Magpie's face (and keep in mind--she has a GIANT head). She doesn't seem to mind, though, huh?

 

The poncho is fully reversible. This one is made with black 

baby-wale corduroy and pink flannel, so you probably wouldn't 

want to flip it inside out. But the possibilities for fabric are endless--fleece, wool, whatever.

Yea for ponchos!

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.

Back to reality

Good golly. I can't believe more than two weeks have passed since I last posted something here. I think that's a record. Not a Michael Phelps sort of record (as in, yea! good for him!). A Takeru Kobayashi sort of record (as in, UGH!).

We got back to town last night after two weeks of laughing and eating waaaaay too much food with the Italian side of the family across the state. It was a great trip, but we all were happy to sleep in our own beds last night. 

Before I had kids, I had a healthy case of wanderlust. I wasn't a frequent flier by any means, but I've been to Costa Rica and Italy and I tended to move every couple of years. If I wasn't hopping cities (Portland, Ore., Boston, Mass., Spokane), I was moving to a different apartment across town. I loved change.

I still do, but ever since the babies came along I've had little desire to travel far and wide. Now I crave routine and simplicity and it might be to a fault.

The kids do great when we travel. Even on the six-hour drive home yesterday, they were fantastic, with Bo making up stories about princesses and her dead dog Cronkite (r.i.p., sweet doggie) in my car and Magpie reciting every word she knows in J's car (J had to work so he couldn't stay as long as we did).

The first couple of nights in a new bed are always a bit rocky, but any battles at bedtime are usually more my fault than theirs (i.e., trying to get them down at our regular times rather than easing up a bit). 

Going away is always worth it, but our itinerary here at home today reinforced my love of our quiet little lifestyle in Spokane.

On our agenda today:

-Run through the sprinkler (I felt a bit guilty after just visiting a town with watering restrictions, but it's super hot here right now so it was either crank up the A/C and stay inside or hose off the kids on the lawn).

-Hang wet clothes on the clothesline. The girls can't get enough of this.

-Do "magic" tricks, i.e., put a wine cork under a cup, shuffle the cup around with two other cups, make the kids guess which cup holds the cork. More endless fun.

-Make edible play dough (1 part honey, two parts peanut butter, 3 parts powdered sugar), cut out cookie shapes, bake it at 200 for a long time. This last one is doing nothing for my attempts at weight loss (I'm eyeing the leftover "cookies" across the kitchen right now), but as you can see the girls were captivated:

I didn't get a good shot of this, but is there anything better than seeing your child wearing your Nana's old aprons?

The day wasn't perfect. At one point, I had to put Bo's toys in time out. ALL of her toys. Seriously. But setting boundaries is just part of our routine, too. Besides, it took her all of 30 seconds to turn a washcloth, a baby blanket and her little sister into toys that weren't off limits. I don't know what that says about my attempt at discipline, but by that point I sort of forgot why she was in trouble.

Lots of crafting is on the horizon. I've sold a couple more book slings, so I'll be putting those together this week. And more inquiries are coming in!

Meg McElwee over at Sew Liberated has approved me to make and sell her Emmeline aprons, so I'm going to fill my Etsy shop with those as soon as I get through some other deadlines. Thanks again for everyone's encouragement on that!

And later in August I'm running a "make-and-take" craft booth at a local county fair (it's part of my role with the newspaper's Down to Earth blog). I'll be sure to share the four projects I'm doing with folks here.

Busy, but fun. Simple, but fulfilling.

Hope you all are well, too.

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.

Eek! An etsy listing

I know that everybody and their brother has an Etsy shop now, but it still makes me nervous to list my stuff. I can handle 100,000 people reading what I wrote in the newspaper, but knowing that a few people might happen to click on my sewing projects there makes me both excited and squirmy.

It's the pricing, no doubt. When I came out of the craft room last night and presented J with this dress ...

... he suggested I charge about half of what I had planned to for it.

It's so hard to walk away from a project after putting time and care into it and think, hmmm, I could make more per hour running a lemonade stand outside my house. That is, if the dress even sells. I hope it does, though. It has a really nice weight to it. Substantial enough that I could tell Bo felt kind of special when she put it on. But not so heavy that a kid wouldn't want to wear it to the 4th of July parade.

I'm excited about it, though. Looky here. It's reversible:

It evolved from the McCalls pattern I followed the other day. But I changed the shape of the bodice, changed the sizing, did the bias tape hem thing again, and took a lot of bulk and length out of the skirt. And made it reversible, which was tricky but fun. 

I'm calling it the "Dena Dress" because it reminds me of Newport, Rhode Island, a classic, nautical American city and the hometown of my dear cousin Dena.

I'm estimating the size you see here to be a 5, since it's a bit big on Bo, who is almost 4 and small for her age.

So ... drumroll please ... $37 is what I'm asking. Yikes. Too much? It's more than what J suggested and a little less than what I thought at first. There are a few spots where the stitching is a bit wobbly, as it usually is for me when I'm tackling something new. I explain that in the Etsy description. It's the kind of stuff I would point out to my friends who would then say they would have never even noticed if I hadn't said something. Once I really get this design down I'll feel comfortable asking a bit more for it. Or, maybe I'll get good enough at it that I won't mind charging less.

And if there are no takers at $37, well, I know one little girl who wants it.

Summer art kick start

I'm late in wishing you all a happy summer solstice and Father's Day. Are there any dads out there? I recall getting comments on here once or twice from some men, but I just don't know if we have any regulars. If you're here, xoxo. I hope your yesterday was full of love and joy. 

I was too busy enjoying Father's Day with my dad and my husband yesterday to pour out my heart here, but my feelings about the two dads in my life haven't changed since last year. Thank you both for ... everything.

As for summer ... what summer? It's a stinkin' 60 degrees here today. Please put a reminder on your calendars for six months from now so you can smack me for complaining about 60 degrees. But c'mon. We want to go swimming! Bo keeps asking when it's going to get "hot, hot, hot." I need to remind myself that last June, it snowed. 

Our family has been in such a lovely rhythm lately. I can't explain what or why. Life is just ... nice. And simple. Hardly any TV. Lots of running, being outside, gardening and arts and crafting. 

One thing I did to make art happen more spontaneously was to move the girls' easel and paints outside. 

The other day I encouraged them to paint objects they saw in nature, and Bo came up with this:

An airplane, in case you can't tell. Our local airport recently started using its backup runway, so the air space above our backyard is getting lots of low-flying action. I'm sure some neighbors aren't thrilled, but I honestly love it. And Magpie definitely knows how to say "a-pane" now. 

Another nice thing about painting outside is that you don't have to worry about this:

Paint away, Baby. I'll blast you with the hose when you're done.

We took part in a parks and rec art class this morning, where Bo created this beach:

Instructions: paint a paper plate blue. Paint an empty toilet-paper tube brown. Brush glue onto one portion of the blue-covered plate (or the whole dang thing, if you're like Bo). Dust the gluey part with sand and seashells. Glue the brown tube down so it stands up like a tree. Add some green leaves to the tree. Viola! Puerta Vallarta on a plate.

They also made butterflies by painting coffee filters with watercolors then cinching them in the middle with short pipe cleaners, leaving the two ends of the pipe cleaners pointing up like antennae (or "antlers," as my niece Em calls them). They're cute. I'll add a photo later. I think our butterflies are trapped in the car right now.

Lastly today, an Etsy product endorsement. The prize money I won from Ohdeedoh a few months back for my book sling has been burning a hole in my PayPal account. I finally chipped away at it by buying a return-address stamp from a shop called RubberStampPress.

Mine looks just like this, but with my name and address--obviously.

It arrived so quickly, I didn't even have a chance to respond to my last e-mail from Kim, the talent behind the stamp. Isn't it great?! It is inspiring me to write some letters. Real letters. And maybe I should buy a bike, too.

Happy summer, everyone. Despite the chill here, my heart is warm and life is aglow with goodness. I hope yours is too.

P squared

First of all, thank you, Runs With Scissors, for the great book suggestion the other day. We checked out "The Princess and the Pea" by Lauren Child, and I love it as much as Bo does. I want to live in the pages. I want to wear the princess' tiny dresses and attend a miniature ball.

Since then, I've been seeing the Princess and the Pea everywhere. Ohdeedoh featured a princess and the pea set by Manda McGrory of Tree Fall Design that was completely adorable. 

And then Amanda Soule blogged about the P & P, too, and about how her 3-year-old daughter Adelaide apparently loves Child's book, too. Amanda and Adelaide made a princess and mattress set inspired by Tree Fall's set, and Bo caught me looking at it online.

(By the way, Bo has recently discovered the power of the Internet. "Show me crafts, Mommy." "Show me princess cakes." It's cute and scary at the same time.)

So, of course, she wanted to make a princess and the pea set like Adelaide's and Manda's. (FYI--Manda sells her version in her Etsy shop, if you're interested). We whipped up our own version today while Magpie napped, and somewhere along the way Bo decided it would be a gift for her little sister when she woke up (aw sweet, right? That's the yin to the yang that normally happens between these two sisters).

The mattresses were sewn with Bo on my lap. They're a little iffy in spots because of that, but they were a hit with both girls all the same. The pea is a green pom pom, the bed is an empty mandarin orange box, and the princess is a little fairy finger puppet we've had for a while. 

I have to admit it. This princess thing is turning out to be pretty magical. Somebody pass me some crow.

Good night!

Totally random. Totally awesome.

Between computer problems, sick kids and a sick me, I've been M.I.A. for the last few days. I thought we were all on the mend, but I just cleaned up from a barf-o-rama session with Magpie. Poor thing. She's finally sleeping now, so a little Internet vegging out was in order.

No deep thoughts here. Just links to some fabulous stuff.

-Reason No. 983 why I wish I knew how to knit:

Pattern available here.

-Cookie magazine's article about Florida's "Forgotten Coast" and the daydreams I've been having about spending a week in these (surprisingly affordable) cottages:

-This sweet little girl and all the illustrations by Tutti Studio.

Wouldn't that be a lovely gift from the Easter Bunny this year?

-The metal bunny and chick easter baskets I got for the girls at Target today. They're actually much cuter in person.

-This super-cool new slide from Ikea:

-The fact that this book is out now (you can read my review here) and that the Farm Chicks Show is only a few months away. Who needs a place to stay?

-And the fact that I'm seeing jumpsuits all over the place now. I've got my eye on one at Coco in Spokane Valley.