The handmades

Handmades found their way into all the kids hands this year. And while I was nervous they would make me happier than the kids, I am pleasantly surprised by their positive response to them.

Yoda for Ephram.

Clarice (we may or may not have watched Rudolph A LOT last month) the Deer for Elin. 

And a new little dolly (a la Shelley!) for Wren.

Elin got a new little play kitchen this year as well so I got my hands into the felt food pot and we're hooked, me and her. Even if I didn't really love all the little stitches it takes to make these (and I do!), seeing the play it has produced would be more than enough incentive to keep adding to her grocery bag. 

Food
Deer
Dolly

Everything is coming up blue.

I've kept this little number filed away in my memory, knowing that someday I would have to try it.

After finding a huge bag of lace at the thrifts and with wedding season upon us, the time has come. And the results are pretty pleasing, if I do say so myself.

A simple little skirt was sewn up (out of an old white bed sheet) and then row after row after row of different laces were stitched on. This took a surprisingly long time, but was a good outlet for the evening's frustrations with a certain 65 year old housemate. Side note: Who knew a driveway could be such a contentious issue?

After all that sewing, I was definitely nervous to commit to 1. a colour and 2. the process of dying, but it looked a little too pioneer-ish as it was, so I knew I had to. When consulted, Elin thought blue would be the best color and my insides almost burst with happiness that no where in the conversation were the words 'pink' or 'purple' uttered. Bolstered by this small color victory, a dye bath was drawn and yards of lace plunged in.

Twenty minutes of nervous checks and continuous stirring later, the skirt emerged.
Success!

The kids got an afternoon project out of the deal too, because you can't let a pot of perfectly good dye go to waste without tie dyeing something, can you?
Nope. You can't.

Ephram especially, loves the results of his shirt. He thinks the circle on the front is like Tony Stark's chest piece. The kid loves his comics... 'How does the belly look?' actually came out of his mouth while I was trying to get a shot of the shirts. He's also a stickler for keeping character/costume integrity apparently.

I may have dyed a dress for Wren too.
And I may be fighting back the urge to something crazy with our duvet cover.

I can't help myself.
The kids have taken to calling me and my blue fingers Beast. And I find the added level of character believability* during our superhero fights (as well as their giggles) worth at least one more dip in the dye bath.


*maybe he gets it from me.

A tie.

Made from this pattern (though there were quite afew modifications); a tie. 
A yellow tie. 
Because all true men need a yellow tie. 


Right Stephen?

Finally

It feels good to be sewing again. 

Party Planning

It's April. 
And that means someone is turning 6 very soon. 
He's been counting down the days until his birthday month since January and now it's here! 

I remember thinking time was moving too fast when he reached his two week birthday. 
I didn't think it was possible to go this fast. 

We are in a flurry of vintage baseball themed party plans.

I think Rob is happier about that than any of the rest of us. 

It's pretty sweet to watch the boy and his dad begin to bond over something that holds so much meaning for Rob. If immersing myself in hotdogs and pennants and ball caps and peanuts for a month will make me privy to this private world of theirs, I'm game. 

Easter eggs

With the rate this month is passing by at Easter will be here before I realize it.  This year Rob and I are trying to concentrate our efforts our efforts on celebrating Easter well. We do it up at Christmas and in our Christian calendar this is a huge time of year so why not now as well? This means turning our focus to Lent, which I'll admit has been tough for me and a challenge to think of celebration in terms of prayer, repentance and self-denial. But the feast is coming. 


Hope. 


It's always been our goal, to show our kids the true meaning of the things we celebrate. To filter out the commercial and replace it with the meaningful. But it's a balance and one we're working on and tweaking with each passing holiday. It doesn't mean we're maniacal about it - we don't ban Santa at Christmas and we don't consider chocolate contraband at Easter. 


We'll do an egg hunt Easter weekend and there will be a giant box of white chocolate in the form of some ridiculous cartoon character (that has nothing to do with bunnies, eggs, spring... hello, Captain America? Spongebob?). For me, that is. 


Anyone remember those giant chocolate eggs that they would open at the store and write your name on?? I miss those. 


Anyway, because Easter is on the horizon we tackled dying Easter eggs on the weekend. 


We mostly just went for it, but I did do a quick google search for the best foods to try using as natural dyes. We kept it to red cabbage, raspberry tea, turmeric, and spinach.

I threw a lug of vinegar into each pot and we boiled away a good part of the afternoon. It reminded me of Christmas, the smell of red cabbage bubbling on the stove, and that was nice. 

A few of the eggs we put inside a nylon and tucked some leaves Ephram had collected on his walk home from school in. To be honest, this was kind of a bust as the nylon took all the dye and made us think the egg was too, when really the egg was bare and the leaf barely visible. There was one that worked but it sat long after the other eggs were out of their dye baths. 

It took a LONG time in the pans for the color to soak in so the kids lost interest for a bit but Rob and I checked in on them (the eggs that is) excitedly until it was time for them to emerge.

And there it is. A tradition that works for us, without the commercial. And our tiny little (ceramic) nest of eggs serves as a reminder in the midst of this season of the feast that's to come. Soon.

What do you do to celebrate this season? 

in the clouds

Feeling more than a little inspired by this room I took to cloud-ifying the kids bare walls.
Using this tutorial it came together easy peasy and, even though I think I will add afew more large clouds in the bare spots, I love how it turned out. 

1. Make starch mixture. I halved the recipe in the tutorial and still had way too much.

2. Make cloud (or any other shape you choose) template. You could just cut out the fabric but that proved a little fussy with the fabric shifting and trying to cut rounded shapes. 

3. Cut out fabric. I pinned like crazy to keep the edges as clean as possible. 

4. Soak fabric shape in (cooled) starch mixture.


5. Hang. No pictures here because it was difficult enough getting the clouds on the wall straight by myself. Picture taking would have just been ridiculous at this point. While this is definitely an easy project, if you have a partner for this part, it would cut down on the swearing for sure. 


6. Let dry. (Make a new duvet cover for the room out of a (super score!) thrifted chevron stripe twin sheet that looks brand new and is in a perfect color palate, while you wait. Or don't - that's just what I did.)

7. Admire. 


The room is still in progress so better pictures will follow when I get it finished.

it's someone's birthday

Whose birthday?  I don't know. 
But they got a wicked play dough cake and at least 14 multicolored candles. 

She played with playdough for close to 2.5 hours that day. An event that hasn't been replicated but was sweet (quiet) bliss while it happened. 

robot valentine tags

Ephram's class valentine's are slowly nearing completion. 

Tonight we made some simple tags to tie on the gift boxes. I decided to scrap the idea of putting a 'To:' spot on the tag, because that is just cruel to ask a 5 year old to spell 26 names on 26 2"x2" cards. Depending on how he feels over the coming days, I may or may not get him to sign his name on the backs. We'll see.


I should probably get back to started packing...


*I just noticed these 'cute' little robots look like creepy skulls and cross bones from far away... too late now I guess.