penny carnival

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). 

   

  

The Little Red Riding Hood birthday party

Hooray for another birthday party! Last night was Magpie's Little Red Riding Hood-themed 2nd birthday. These are getting more fun all the time--so many kids running around the house, so much excitement beforehand, so much more time for the grownups to catch up with each other now that the little ones are more self sufficient. 

Something always goes a little wrong, but that's part of the fun, right? Right?! 

Besides, the look on this face makes the mad scramble at the end worth it:

 

You can see more pictures/details on my About.com Kids' Parties site.

You might notice that she's clutching a couple of her birthday gifts there--a stuffed pig and a plastic giraffe. Almost every picture I took last night shows her with those two toys in her hands. I guess she took a liking to them right away.

She's also wearing another gift--this apron I sewed her (modeled by Lulu the lamb the other day so I didn't ruin the surprise):

 

I wish I'd had more time to make her some other handmade gifts. On my to-do list were a Mimi Kirchner doll (dressed as Little Red Riding Hood), a felt cake and a camping blanket, but time ran out. Oh, well. There's always Christmas.

Anyhoo, she was happy to get the apron, especially after having to borrow her big sister's for the last year or so. Magpie is an avid cook--I can't make anything without her "helping" these days--so I'm glad I got that project done for her.

Moving on ... to Christmas. 

I really don't see the point in decorating the house for Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving, but we're not going to be here for it, and why put the effort into decorating for Christmas if it's only up for a few weeks?

So we pulled out the crates labeled "Christmas" today and put a few things out. 

 

The big hit was the nativity set (the one I let them play with). You wouldn't believe the adventures Mary, Joseph and Jesus had today. My goodness. Did you know Mary is a princess? Yep. 

The best part, though, was that every time Bo would say something about "the baby Jesus," Magpie would look up and ask me for a "cheese stick." 

Tutorial: Coloring Book Birthday Party Favor

Have I mentioned here that I used to be a teacher? Eighth grade. Language arts and U.S. history. Three years in the late 1990s. I won't go into the why-I'm-no-longer-a-teacher thing tonight (the kids were great; it's just not what I wanted to do forever), but I will share two things I learned from the experience:

No. 1: Drinking a shandy is a great way to end the week. I'm having one now. Coors Light with about an inch of Sprite at the top. Delicious. I picked that up from an Australian exchange teacher we had with us one year. That may or may not have been the same night that the middle-aged science teacher flashed her boobies in the bar where our staff gathered on Friday nights. It was a small town. I'm not sure what she was thinking. But it was hilarious.

No. 2: Students try harder on writing projects if you tell them you're going to bind their work into a hardback book when they're done. 

The old book-binding trick came to mind the other night when I was trying to think of what favors to give at Magpie's Little Red Riding Hood birthday party this Saturday.

The original plan was to make red hats shaped like hoods (similar to last year's elf hats for the woodland party) and wolf ears for everyone, but time is not on my side this year.

So, instead, I made hardback coloring books that tell the story of Little Red in pictures. The kids will get them along with a small pack of Crayons for their colorin' pleasure. 

 

The faux bois fabric is from Jo-Ann's. 

Wish I could say I had the skillz and the time to do the drawings myself, but I just used some pictures from one of those freebie coloring page sites.

For the photo-illustrated how-to, visit my About.com Kids' Parties site. 

The girls and I also made a pretend forest in our foyer the other day because what Little Red Riding Hood party is complete without some trees made from empty carpet tubes?

 

 

 

That tutorial will be coming soon.

Now we just need some food, a cake, some gifts and a wolf. Stay tuned.

'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.

About ... my new gig. And little red riding hood love

I'm pretty sure I hinted that I was up to something new behind the scenes. Did I say it sometime last week? Last month? Honestly, the days are running together and I'm quite proud of myself for remembering to wear pants today. Sometimes I even brush my teeth (but not if I go to bed after midnight, in which case I wear my pants).

Are you following me?

Anyhow, for the past two months I've been preparing for a new writing/crafting gig that just went live the other day. I'm the new "guide" to kids' birthday parties and other celebrations on About.com.

Here's my new site:

kidsparties.about.com

It's really a writing job, but I'm planning on putting all sorts of birthday- and party-related tutorials on there (hence, the crafts). I'll always alert Penny Carnival readers here when there's a new toot there, but feel free to bookmark that link, too, for your party-planning pleasure. Just some basic stories are up right now and links to existing articles from other guides, but I'll be adding content almost daily so check back often.

Can you believe someone is actually paying me to write about how to throw birthday parties?! This is right up my alley. Really, it is a TON of work, especially as I've had to learn their whole formatting, programming gobbley goop (Hello! HTML coding?! Who has to do that anymore? Why don't they just use Typepad? Oh, because then their site would look as crappy as my blog does right now. I see.)

But besides the late nights, I'm having a blast brainstorming all sorts of birthday themes and crafts and decorations. And with the holidays coming, I've been writing about how to throw Christmas parties for kids (Caroling! Polar Express in Your PJs! Gingerbread House Making!) and what to do for Hanukkah and New Year's Eve and everything. By the way, we're totally going to celebrate Kwanzaa this year. I hate to admit it, but I didn't know a thing about it until I wrote a little article for about.com. What a beautiful holiday!

Rest assured, it is not going to be a site about how to throw over-the-top Super Sweet 16s and how to beat other parents for the best party favors. Good grief! You can read more about my kids' parties philosophy of the bottom of my bio page.

By the way, I also am featuring "real" parties on the site, so please, please, please tell me about any fun ones you've thrown and send me pictures. kidsparties.guide@about.com.

So without further delay, here's one of my first tutorials for the site: How to make birthday invitations by creating a fabric collage, scanning it, and then printing it out. 

 

Step-by-step photo instructions at that link above.

I made those invites today for Magpie's 2nd birthday party (like how I'm multitasking?), which will have a Little Red Riding Hood theme.

Speaking of Little Red, a friend hired me to make matching Red Riding Hood capes for her daughter and her for Halloween. I didn't get a shot of the little one, but here's the mama version:

I'm kind of in love with Little Red Riding Hood right now (as if you can't tell).

OK. An hour until midnight. Maybe I'll make this a pajamas-and-clean-teeth kind of night. Maybe I'll even floss!!!!

G'night.