The Felt Mouse

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

2012-01-31T20:44:00.000-08:00

Our celebration of the Lunar New Year took place one week late (but still within the two week celebration allowed for this occasion).

I didn't do too much in terms of decor --just used items I had on hand. I wouldn't be surprised if the dragon cut out below was procured during the last Year of the Dragon 12 years ago, as I was very into Asian ephemera at the time -- and Ebay.

For dinner we had homemade spring rolls and hot & sour soup, and store bought dumplings. We just had ice cream for dessert to celebrate an accomplishment with our backyard -- fully enclosed after 2 years - woot!

I found the fortune puzzles at Dollar Tree, and had to buy one for each of us. Here is Hank's put together. He was very excited to find money in his red envelope!

Hoping for a productive year, and new beginnings :)

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Favorite of the day: Pinterest find when looking for something totally unrelated

Working on: Am I the slowest knitter in the world or what?

Gourmet s'mores cooked in a trashy way

2012-01-28T18:49:00.000-08:00

One of our favorite things right now are s'mores

Since many parts of the country are also experiencing an unexpected heat wave, I don't feel too bad mentioning that right now we are having 80 degree days that stay warm into the evening. We have been making s'mores over a rather unconditional heat source

This is a old washer drum. It doesn't season very attractively (it was bright silver when we got it), but man can this thing put out heat. It's like a jet engine when you light it up, and even damp wood flames up as soon as you light it.

Tonight's version used heart-shaped marshmallows (the pink ones are strawberry flavored!) and gourmet dark chocolate. I thought I was all done taking pics for the evening to sit back and enjoy our white trash fire when I noticed the kid had nibbled his s'more into a heart shape.

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Favorite of the day: Sweetest baby shower ever. bhldn promptly added to shopping resources!

Working on: The scarf

All aboard the crazy train!

2012-01-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

My bestie's daughter turns three this week. In thinking of a gift for Natasha, I recalled how popular a set of Melissa and Doug cookies were for a group of girls her age at a recent party we attended, and thought I would make a felt version for young Natasha.

In December, there were some great small baking items at Dollar Tree, including a quarter size baking sheet. In January, however, it was back to disposable aluminum pans. I headed to the Ross next door and used a handy dandy store credit coupon to buy a mini muffin tin.

Here's where we board crazy train -- woo woo! Making felt cookies is bad enough, but somehow the work load seemed to double when flat cookies turned into round cupcakes. Luckily I found a tutorial, and was on my way to Crazy Town.

12 mini cupcakes later, I determined that maybe being crazy isn't so bad after all. They came out so cute! The gift was completed with a dollar store rubber spatula, some gift boxes bought using the rest of the Ross store credit, a hot pad and mitt from the Target dollar section, plus some paper baking cups I've had just about forever.

But wait -- something was missing. An apron! The train chugs away from the station once again as I make my way to JoAnn to find cupcake fabric. All told, however, this simple apron design took 20 minutes to make -- the express route.

Next stop: a scarf

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Favorite of the day: Strange confession. Despite my home town (San Diego) and my water sign (Pisces), I typically am not inspired by beach weddings and events. A blonde in a mermaid style dress + navy blue and white decor + a starfish motif = yawn. This wedding changed my tune.

Working on: A scarf. Actually not as crazy as it sounds.

Desert Rats

2012-01-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

We were toying with the idea of going desert camping this month. Instead, BT booked a weekend for us at a fabulous vacation rental just outside Joshua Tree National Park.

The rental was so cool. It is just a bungalow (meaning everything - living room, dining area, kitchen and sleeping area - is all in one room), but what the place lacked in square footage it more than made up for in style.

(listening to U2's Joshua Tree)

Almost every feature of the house -- down to the silverware -- was vintage. There were some modern conveniences, like a margarita machine and Keurig style coffee maker, but by and large it looked like a retro consignment store booth was transported to this spot. And that was just the inside.

Outside -- the owner's love for all things old and rusty shows everywhere. One, he built his own bottle house

The bottles are not vintage, but looking at them makes you appreciate how beautiful wine and alcohol bottle are to this day. The tiny bottle house would actually be a place for 2 guests to stay.

There are also tons of old neon signs. Most are not working, but two are functional. Signs you take for granted driving down the highway become novelty when you get to turn them on and off yourself. There are rusty old cars, signs, and dozens of things for old and young alike to explore on the property.

I personally loved the patio table and chairs

Another cool thing was being instructed to feed "the animals" in the morning and at night. The animals consisted of rabbits, quail, and a few other different types of desert birds. At night, kangaroo rats, which are unique little guys that are too cute to be called rats, came to visit.

I have never been to a vacation rental that took care of so many details (like a fully stocked booze cabinet and beer in the fridge!)

Despite the harsh surroundings, you felt pampered and taken care of. It was also a free weekend to visit National Parks, so great time to visit Joshua Tree.

We'll definitely be back, and left a note saying so in the bottle house's "message in a bottle" note center.

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Favorite of the day: I think I'll be able to steer the kid away from character parties during his Cars loving years, but just in case -- will refer to this party for back up.

Working on: Cupcakes

Stitched

2012-01-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, Hank was doing his regular form of artwork -- making a giant scribble on a piece of paper, taking another sheet of paper and making another giant scribble, etc. I asked him to draw me some sea creatures, and this is what he drew

It reminded me of a page from one of our favorite books, Wonder Bear

I labelled the picture and put it on our fridge. With time and exposure to moisture, it became crumpled. I was afraid of losing this picture, as it was the first time he drew something purposefully. I knew I had to do something to make it permanent, so I stitched it

I copied the shapes onto linen and outlined them with a running stitch. I even included the blurb I had written at the bottom of the original. The piece was framed and hung above my sewing table. Hopefully this version will stand the test of time!

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Favorite of the day: Treehaus toys at JCPenney (cheaper in store if you can find them! Look for after Christmas clearance stuff.)

Working on: Birthday present

Thanks, Eyeball

2012-01-04T22:49:00.000-08:00

Eyeball ended up being a more popular guest than I anticipated. I usually had to remind Hank to look for him in the morning, but, once he started looking, was overcome with joy when he found Eyeball hanging from a ceiling fan or caught in some funny activity.

Eyeball was there Christmas morning, and was actually hiding (in plain sight) with the gift Hank asked Santa for. After that, he disappeared. For several days, Hank would say randomly that his missed Eyeball. Little did he know he was packed away in a storage bin mere feet from his bedroom.

To ease his separation anxiety, Eyeball wrote him a very little letter from the North Pole thanking Hank for letting him spend Christmas with our family. This seemed to satisfy the wee one, and he is off pondering new things, like WHY, mama, why does the clock say 5:26. I've been looking forward to the why stage :)

Funny elves
Inappropriate elves

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Favorite of the day: Cute Valentine ideas can be found in this wedding post

Working on: I guess I am still getting my ideas in order and getting back on track from last month. So nothing.

Today I...

2012-01-03T23:17:00.000-08:00

...hovered instead of using a toilet seat cover

...carried a hand towel with me to the bathroom at work instead of using paper ones

...opted not to get a coffee at Starbucks only because I didn't have my reusable mug with me (I've got $40 worth of gift cards burning a hole in my pocket!)

...used a rag to clean something I normally would have used a paper towel for

...used reusable produce bags and shopping bags at the grocery store

Here's to an even less wasteful 2012! My biggest goal is to only allow myself one disposable cup per month. I met somebody at a conference who has a goal to use far fewer disposable cups per year than that even, and I was inspired. Will be adding a collapsible cup from BT's hiking gear (I only get water anyway at fast casual restaurants) to my stash. May sound crazy, but really thinking a lot lately about resource use justified because we are too busy/have other priorities/make enough money that we feel we can afford to throw something away after only one use. I have some more traditional goals as well for 2012, but really want to put some effort into being an even earthier "Earth Muffin" this year :)

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Recent fave: So simple, but chic

Working on: Uhhh...

An ornament a day: Day 6 (the end)

2012-01-01T23:09:00.000-08:00

Well, I got 6 out of the 7 ornaments finished of the ones I had planned to work on during the week between Christmas and New Year's. Pretty good start for next year's tree!

This last one was made using the pinecone picked up from the cabin. I had an idea similar to Sarah's to dip the cone in a white coating (too bad the porcelain didn't work out for her -- that would have been perfect!) I used glossy white paint watered down a bit so it wouldn't clump up too much. I dipped the cone at least 20 times, and couldn't get any better coverage than this. So, neither porcelain or paint appear to be the way to go with a project like this...

On to other topics -- hope everyone had a nice New Year's! I was a baking fool all weekend. Before Christmas, a neighbor across the street brought us a Costco pecan pie. Now, I don't always need to give a gift to somebody who gives me one, but in this case I felt bad for not thinking to put something together for him (there weren't enough cookies here to dole out to the neighbors we interact with more regularly. I only picked up a few dozen cookies at the cookie exchange, so I was short.) He is an older gentleman, and lives with his son (also an older guy). They have lived in their house since the 50s, and knew the family who lived in our house prior to us and who had lived in the house since the same time (plus had an older son who lived at home -- please don't tell me that is some kind of trend for this neighborhood!) There don't appear to be any women that visit the house (girlfriends, daughters, etc.) So who would be more deserving of a little home-baked goodness!

The great part about having New Year's a mere week after Christmas is that you can do many of the activities you missed out on for Christmas (presents, cards) and make it look like you planned it that way all along. I actually love the idea of having New Year's cards instead of Christmas cards -- may have to consider that for next year. In any case, wrapped up a few of Martha's finest (almond horns, chocolate peppermint thumbprints, and gingerbread bells) with noise makers and blowers to give to the bachelors on New Year's Eve. I made a similar package for BT's co-workers (he wouldn't let me make anything before Christmas as they were inundated with treats) , and took the rest to the NYE party we attended.

I am digging these Sunday holidays -- make for nice long weekends :)

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Favorite of the day: Finding out that my Christmas stuff still fit in the same number of bins :)

Working on: Cleaning. Not as intense as I would have wanted, but since it's been a month or so since I did anything more than a wipe down, the house looks much better!

An ornament a day: Day 5

2011-12-30T22:21:00.000-08:00

This is a special ornament of the (hopefully) 7 ornaments I am working on this week. It is kind of my equivalent of a Hallmark keepsake ornament.

The felt balls were salvaged from this wreath. The initial idea was to make either a worm or a caterpillar ornament. Both creatures play into Hank's bedtime. The nights I take the time to lay with him a bit when he is getting settled into bed after reading books (need to make time for more of those nights in 2012!) we play several games that Hank made up. One game is to be caterpillars that go into our "raccoons" (no matter how many times I say cocoon, it comes out this way) to turn into butterflies. Then we flap around and go places like Venus, Hollywood, and other exciting destinations. Another game is to play "Sherman Wormin," which involves similar adventures to those of the caterpillars/butterflies only using our pointer fingers as Baby Sherman Wormin and Mama Sherman Wormin. Actually, come to think of it, Baby and Mama Sherman Wormin usually stick with boring activities like going to the grocery store, driving, etc.

I made a caterpillar using the felt balls, but it was pretty lackluster, and seemed lame to just rest it on a branch of the Christmas tree. So, as I was making it on the way to AZ, I decided to make it into the Very Hungry Caterpillar coming out of a strawberry! So happy with how it turned out, and really want to try and make a significant keepsake ornament* every year.

Fingers crossed that the other two ornaments come together -- I am planning lots of baking and cleaning this weekend!

* There really is a Very Hungry Caterpillar keepsake ornament. A little out of my price range...

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Favorite of the day: We sent my dad a "pupcake" for his birthday :) My parents have graciously agreed to adopt poor old Chuy (now almost 14) who has a chronic skin condition that appears to be caused by the stress of having a human baby come into the house, and just recently began biting any one besides me and BT -- including (and especially) said human baby. My dad never liked dogs until he met our little white puppy.

Working on: Chocolate peppermint thumbprints

An ornament a day: Day 4

2011-12-29T21:32:00.000-08:00

This guy made the blog circuit this year.

In preparing for our trip to Arizona for Christmas, I had sooo many things to remember -- mundane things, like clothes and hygiene items, as well as all our presents, stockings and stuffers for BT's family, etc. In a last minute dash, I threw together a bag of things I thought I would need for these ornaments. Alas, I forgot a pipe cleaner to make a loop for Santa's head, but suppose a felt loop works just as well. I surprisingly did not forget any other components, although tomorrow's ornament was modified during production, and needed a bit of green felt.

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Favorite of the day: I thought I had something, but I lost it

Working on: I suppose I should go to bed at a decent time for once

An ornament a day: Day 3

2011-12-28T21:33:00.000-08:00

Today's ornament was inspired by this one and our trip to the cabin. I randomly picked up 15 or so acorn caps outside our cabin. That was before I saw the linked ornament, so I didn't grab quite enough.

So I made a flat version of the ornament, but still used glitter on the edges and a sparkly ribbon. It kind of looks like honeycomb, no? I had enough to make one for my parents as well, and included the details about our cabin trip on the back.

Speaking of ornaments, here are the swap ornaments I received

They are so cute! I love the snowman face.

One more nature based ornament on the list, but not sure how long it will take to finish...

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Favorite of the day: Too busy -- I am enjoying my new laptop, though :)

Working on: Deciding on a NYE cookie

An ornament a day: Day 2

2011-12-27T22:55:00.000-08:00

Using the tape roll pictured yesterday, I made a star like shape using folded paper.

I believe Patricia made something similar this year. This was the easiest ornament of the bunch :)

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Favorite of the day: Need to make about 3 dozen of these (via Craft:)

Working on: Taking down our fire hazard of a tree

An ornament a day: Day 1

2011-12-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

So wouldn't it be great to work on filling our traditional tree with ornaments by working on an ornament a day during the week after Christmas?

Would love to make this an annual tradition, but I suppose it depends what the schedule is like to see if this project will extend to future years.

First up: a trash to treasure ornament. I found this plastic piece in the work parking lot. It is the top of a air freshener jar, I believe. I wove different yarns from this blanket around the center -- sorta like a God's Eye. The other plastic piece shown is also a recovered item from a tape dispenser -- more on that project tomorrow!

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Favorite of the day: Gastropub hopping with the honey (if there is any hope of the "brewery with good food" trend lasting for awhile, they are going to need to come up with a different name to describe this type of establishment...)

Working on: Daily ornaments

5 new socks

2011-12-22T15:15:00.000-08:00

Posts about my husband's family stocking, or "sock," tradition are smattered throughout the ol' blog. Here is an old post about them, and here is the tutorial I wrote describing how to make them.

(The name Lauren refers to the Laurel tree, and Lauren's mama requested a stocking reflecting her name. Hmmm...this was the best I could come up with -- a Santa Lucia girl with a crown that could possibly be made from laurel leaves...?)

This was one doozy of a year in the sock making department. I had five socks to make! A new niece, a new nephew, and a cousin's daughter, her husband, and her stepson. All told, we had to prep stockings for 31 people this year. No homemade stocking stuffers this year -- just cheap China crap.

(Cooper's mama didn't have a preference, so he received an owl motif. If I hadn't received any requests, all of this year's stockings would have had a woodland theme.)

This past week was allocated to making socks. If I had had one.more.day. I would have felt on top of things, but as it was I had to pull nearly an all-nighter to get them done. Pardon me if this post gets a bit rambly...

(Gia's mama said baby Gia likes butterflies and purple. Okey dokey.)

In addition, the laptop is getting ready to take a dive. I have been trying to minimize my use of it, but that is easier said than done. Too much good stuff out there!

(Martin loves the Cars movie and stickers. Isn't Lightening McQueen's nickname Stickers? I didn't work on this one in front of my kid, as he would undoubtedly think it was for him, which could cause issues during delivery of the stockings)

A new laptop is on its way courtesy of my live in Santa. So excited!

(Nick is a bike rider. Idea to include mittens hung over the handlebars lifted from this etsy card. Just realized I forgot a fender.)

With this project out of the way, I am officially DONE with Christmas preparations! We didn't get to do all of activities this month that we would have liked, but that was more due to cold weather and sickness than my crazy crafting schedule. Maybe we can catch a few things after the big day.

Wishing you a relaxing and enjoyable holiday week with your families!

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Recent fave: I am dying over this gift. Little pink cans of bubbly with pink straws attached promptly were acquired for my gals.

Working on: Just packing

Christmas Crack

2011-12-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

What?

That's what everybody ends up calling it after they eat it.

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Favorite of the day: Cool recycled gift wrapping ideas (via Crafty Crow)

Working on: Starting embroidery on the socks

Homemade for Hank

2011-12-19T23:34:00.000-08:00

I have three -- count them THREE - homemade gifts ready for Hank this year!!

The key to a successful crafting season this month was to break out all the tasks into week long increments. I didn't assign which days I would be working on individual projects, but knew I had to get the three items shown here, for example, done by this past Sunday in order to stay on track.

The hat pattern was found here. I went with orange and brown to seem less seasonal. I figure I only have a year or two left that I can get away with goofy looking hats before I need to stick with plain old beanies. He's growing up so fast! The library book bag pattern was found here. I have had this cut out for some time, so relatively simple to get it sewed up.

The activity book -- the ACTIVITY BOOK -- omg, this is a major weight lifted. There has been some debate as to how long the book has taken. I think I started in Christmas 2009. The pattern came from my pal Barb as part of this package.

The pattern is from the 90s, but has some sweet designs nonetheless, like the horse

The pattern is written so nonchalantly, assuming you know exactly what they are asking you to do despite not having any detail pictures. Every Easter and Christmas since the time I started this project, I sat down to finish the book only to find that page 6 was going to take several hours just on its own.

Well, I wasn't going to be thwarted this time around. I sat down and just did it. The last two pages were finished, I made a cover out of some vintage fabric (I added a button closure), and put all the little doodads and doohickies onto the pages. It's wonky and some parts are down right hideous, but it is done and sitting under the tree with a "mama made" tag hanging off of it, thankyouverymuch.

This week's agenda -- 5 socks. Lord have mercy.

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Favorite of the day: The party Heidi went to and won a Major Award

Working on: Cutting out socks

Something to...

2011-12-18T15:28:00.001-08:00

For the past couple years, we have been following the adage of giving 4 Christmas gifts to Hank: something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read

This seems to work well for minimizing the "stuff" overload associated with Christmas. In addition, I have been making Hank a hat every year, and in theory there should be a mama made item every year (though that could be one of the aforementioned items). Annnnd, this year we are adding in one gift from Santa. So, the kid could get up to 7 gifts, which may seem excessive to some, but is less than the Christmas either BT (one of 5 kids) or me (an only child) had growing up, so we feel it is conservative.

I made reusable gift tags to represent the different types of gifts. I'm not sure if these will always be useful, as I would suppose as Hank grows older the only gift he would care about is the "something you want." Also, I have made an executive decision that if I can't have a theme tree every year, I will at least have themed gift wrap. The tags go with this year's gifts, but may not always match my paper choice.

But, they work for now. I have a couple more gifts to finish up today, and then moving on to stocking production for the rest of the week.

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Favorite of the day: {yawn}

Working on: A book bag and a rice-filled heating pad

Indoor snowball fight

2011-12-17T14:30:00.001-08:00

I *think* I had posted a link to this gift idea previously -- an indoor snowball fight, which includes fluffy snowballs in a painted bucket.

I totally fell in love with this concept as a gift for nieces and nephews this year for Christmas. But, I was a little concerned that the snowball novelty would wear off quickly (not to mention possible breakage of home decor).

So, I decided to make the snowballs be rolled up socks instead! They may be tossed around a few times, but then end up being something useful for the kids (also a good way to make a practical gift fun!) I included at least 2 pairs of white socks per kid in the buckets. For the two larger families (5 kids), there are two buckets for boys versus girls. The "small" family with 3 kids (one of whom is a small fry less than a year) received a single bucket. I put smiley face stickers on the rolled up socks to reflect the version I saw online, and decorated dollar store buckets with paint pens. The hardest part was figuring out the different shoes sizes kids aged 8 months to 11 years old would wear, and how many packs I needed of each size.

Let the games begin!
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Favorite of the day: No pics, but went to a totally adorable Peter Pan party today. Folded green paper hats with red feathers, crocodile cookies, and packets of pixie dust (sanding sugar) to sprinkle on cupcakes. Everything was so cute!

Working on: Holiday party (bonus time!)

Hi-fi holiday greetings

2011-12-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

This year's Christmas card "gift" was a little pricey, but fortunately the cost was spread out a bit.

You see, I had originally intended to make the blog gals a CD for their New Year's gift (see previous gifts here, here, and here) in 2010 after purchasing our record player. I never got around to that project (so sorry, ladies!), and feel new pangs of regret for not acknowledging my bloggy friends for two years now...

In any case, Past Jen (circa 2010) had purchased CDs that look like records, CD sleeves, and CD shipping envelopes. Present Jen found a cute CD cover printable that looked sorta like a record cover. BT added our faces and a holiday message to make it look more personalized. One of the delays in preparing the New Year's gifts was that I wanted to copy songs from our record collection to capture all the pops and hisses from the record version of the songs that I had selected. The record player is set up to record songs digitally, but they ended up sounding really terrible. This time around, we just copied the playlist from a CD we bought years ago at Old Navy. The only immediate cost was shipping -- $1.71 each. Will be aiming for a little lower price point next year in terms of a Christmas card that serves as a gift ideas...

Previous Christmas card "gifts"

2007: Recipe card

2008: Framed picture

2009: Ornament

2010: Fridge calendar

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Favorite of the day: Great stocking stuffer for somebody you know really well (versus somebody who may think you are giving them a hint about bad breath) via Family Style

Working on: Snowballs

The ornaments I've been blabbing about

2011-12-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

You were probably expecting something super terrific, but instead this is the result of all my ornament making the last few weeks

They are similar to the ornaments I made for the swap, which used vintage curtain rings and cross stitch on Aida cloth. But since I knew the recipients this time around, I decided to make 14 different families an initial ornament.

Packaged as before with the collar stay "skewer"

This project is filled with shoulda coulda wouldas. I shoulda worked harder to find a lime green ribbon to use to modernize the color scheme a bit. I coulda used a "hip" font like Helvetica to modernize them even more. Finally, I woulda made just a couple more to cover everyone on my list, but I am done-zo with these things.

Moving forward with projects I have no regrets over.

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Favorite of the day: Totally cute cut and sew projects

Working on: Christmas cards

Cookie Exchange

2011-12-14T22:39:00.000-08:00

I participated in my first cookie exchange party this year. We needed to bring 6 dozen (!!) cookies, but it was so worth it to get so many different yummy cookies in return.

(only about 5 dozen to go at this point!)

I made chocolate covered Oreos with crushed candy canes on top. I won best decorated :)

We received one fancy box at the party to use for our cookies

I put the rest in plastic buckets from Target

It was also an ugly sweater party. I found your standard grandma snowman vest at the thrift store. Hank won with this little number

(t-shirt version of an ugly Christmas sweater)

Being the only small fry at the party, I think he had an unfair advantage :)

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Favorite of the day: Grinch "pills"

Working on: Soft book

Who's stressed?

2011-12-13T07:11:00.000-08:00

A few of the non-ornament related gifts I put together this past weekend.

(Cookie hostess gift made from re-gifted items. Tin contains package of sugar cookie mix)

I have really over-extended myself this year, but so far I am enjoying it. My hubby, on the other hand, told me (jokingly) that I am making him hate Christmas.

(I put two holes in Grace's ceiling by not pulling the sticky hooks off right after the root beer themed baby shower. I made her a touch up paint kit similar to mine, but added a roll of masking tape, a Sharpie to label the paint containers, and a tube of spackle.)

That is SO unfair, because I have maintained good emotional control thus far. He says I exude anxiety, and he doesn't like that I am always doing something versus being a lazy lump on the couch.

(Hank's teacher is getting a gift card. I put together these little bags for the aides and support staff at the school using items from Target)

We'll see if he changes his tune come Christmas Day and he is enjoying all the compliments he receives as a by-product of all MY preparations.

(One of the cute boxes from Target dollar section -- the ones I want to buy in bulk even if I don't have plans for them -- filled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar purchased at deep discount. This gift only cost about $7!)

hrmpf. I am busy, but in control.

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Favorite of the day: This gal is rockin' the tutorials this month -- love them all!

Working on: The ornaments are done!! Moving on to gifts for the little guy.

A winner!

2011-12-12T20:03:00.000-08:00

The winner of the nostalgic stocking stuffed to the brim with handmade and carefully selected items representing the late 60s/70s is...

lorraine said...

ah! the stocking is lovely..i love the quilty nature of it..and the owl tubey gifty thingy is so cute...i think ill make a few and use them for my xmas gifts!

Congratulations, Lorraine! Hopefully I can get this to you in time to play Santa to a special someone.

Thank you all! And thanks again to my blog pals for putting together the Christmas Sock Hop -- jek, Tara, and Megan.

Invitation ornaments

2011-12-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

Last chance to win stocking giveaway! Go here to enter -- winner will be chosen at 6:00 tonight :)

During a 10-month span, we were part of the preparations for three special events (1, 2, 3)

I spent a lot of energy in preparing for the events. I also put together special gifts for the bridal showers. When it came to the day of the events, I was pretty tapped out in terms of ideas and - well - cash. I wished I had checked out Pinterest earlier -- that way I would have seen the awesome idea to make a glass ornament using each couple's wedding invitation.

The best part about this gift was that I had exactly 3 glass ornaments to use that were taking up valuable space in my Christmas gift wrap bin. I am surprised they have lasted all this time without getting broken, to be honest. Each couple's wedding invitations were cut into strips, and then rolled around a pencil. For this couple, I added a stencil letter hang tag. It reflected the style of their engagement pictures.

(Topper spray painted silver after this pic was taken)

For this couple, I included some moss in the bottom of the ball (recalling the moss covered letters we made for the garden themed event) and a large bow.

Since initials were also key to this event, I purchased a little letter charm representing their last name for the ornament.

Finally, a butterfly themed ornament was developed for this couple.

I also added a little glass glitter to the bottom of the ornament, and attached a pretty saying that was part of their invitation as a hang tag.

Such a simple, inexpensive, and thoughtful idea! This will be my go to gift for similar events in the future. No matter how weary I am by the time we get to the big day...

P.S. My fellow Pinterest lover party planner friend Grace also did some invitation ornaments for Lena's baby shower -- can you find them?

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Last call to win a nostalgic Holly Hobby stocking filled and ready to give to a friend or family member born in the late 60s/70s! Go here to enter -- winner will be chosen at 6:00 tonight :)

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Favorite of the day: (past Jen is posting this -- shhh)

Working on: Neverending ornament project, nanana nanana nanana

Gifts for the littles

2011-12-11T19:06:00.000-08:00

Here are a few things I put together for kidlets this Christmas.

This is actually a birthday gift for a friend from Hank's school, Finn. We picked out a couple items for Finn at our recent visit to Rainforest Cafe, including a snake slap bracelet and a zebra figure.

The memory set we had on hand. It came in the box shown below, which was modified to become Finn's Adventure Box.

We received this game a year or so ago as a gift. I separated the pieces from the box, and stored both to be used as gift ideas (We already had a few memory games, so able to pass this one on. The box was stored as part of the container collection.) I didn't think about how well the game and its previous holder would go together! I made a fabric bag to store the game, and added a few rubber animals, a piece of a geode, and a few stickers to the box. The only thing we needed to buy to complete the adventure box was a dollar store bug catching kit, which contained a pair of tweezers and a net.

For a co-worker's son, a Purl Bee frog to go with a left over Charley Harper shirt we still had on hand in the gift box (it was a duplicate sent by mistake) from when they were sold several years ago at Old Navy.

For my bestie's daughter, I made an art apron. During my Portland visit, Joy and I saw an apron like this, and I promised one in time for Christmas.

I was made using a combo of this pattern plus that one, and a traced apron body from a kid-sized apron Hank received last year.

Don't forget to sign up to win my nostalgia filled stocking on yesterday's post!

Sign ups will be open 6 PM tomorrow :)

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Favorite of the day: Nina's reindeer party

Working on: After the crazy cookie makin' gift creatin' weekend I had, I am actually thankful to get back to my boring ornament project.

Nostalgic stocking & Christmas Sock Hop!

2011-12-10T07:45:00.000-08:00

I am thrilled to be part of a stocking related blog hop, a sock hop, if you will, with three uber talented ladies! In addition to my stocking, I encourage you to check out Tara, Megan, and jek to see the lovely stockings that they put together! Alternate, DIY, and crafty ideas aplenty for your viewing pleasure. Plus, we are all giving the stockings away, so look for instructions on each blog to win a filled stocking that will get to you in time for Christmas! Leave a comment on this post to win a nostalgic stocking representing the late 1960s/1970s!

The inspiration for my stocking came from a deck of cards that I found in a random thrift store "grab bag." The image is a big eyed girl that was probably produced in the late 60s/early 70s. I loved playing card games when I was young, and started thinking about things that I enjoyed as a little girl growing up in the mid to late 70s.

(Stocking includes everything shown here! A lot of items on hand or free. Used $10 off $10 purchase coupon for toe socks. Bulk candy, lip gloss, Kermit pin, and coin purse purchased for $1-$2 each.)

For some reason we tend to generalize past decades down to a single theme. The 50s = poodle skirts. The 60s = peace signs. The 70s = disco. Now, perhaps you or your parents were getting down and funky on the dance floor in the 70s, but by and large people I know that were in their teens and twenties in the 70s visited a disco once or twice, but it wasn't an ongoing interest.

I started thinking about things that were popular with little girls in the 70s. The Muppet Show. Vending machine toys. Candy lipstick.

Puffy stickers. Candy. Toe socks. Plastic barrettes with animals on them. Coin purses (more like this, but I didn't have time to track one down!). Lip gloss (I'm including a natural version versus the yucky paraben filled version of our youth).

I also remember some fun crafts from my youth. Making pot holders on looms. Toilet paper tube crafts (owl seen here via Modern Kiddo). And making ornaments (idea via a vintage McCall's image posted by Cathy).

(Were you a horse girl?)

In putting together a nostalgic stocking for a friend or family member, first identify the year they were born. What was popular during that time? Here are a few resources:

Fads by decade

Candy by decade

Toys by decade

A fad I mistakenly thought was from the 1960s was actually started in my birth year: the pet rock. This guy was laughing all the way to the bank. Can you believe that pet rocks in 1975 cost $3.95? With inflation, that would be nearly $16 in current dollars. Umm -- hello!! It was a ROCK, people. I made my version using a pilfered rock from the neighbor's yard and googly eyes I had on hand. Cost = free.

You can purchase a vintage stocking from the time period on Ebay or etsy. Another option is to use a dishtowel calendar to make your nostalgic stocking. I considered doing this, but didn't want those signing up for the giveaway to be limited to folks born in 1975 :) If you use a dishtowel calendar to make a stocking, don't forget to mark the recipient's birth date on the calendar using a fabric pen!

I decided instead to make this stocking highlighting the star of my first half decade, Holly Hobby. There were probably some pretty elaborate appliques of Holly Hobby done during time for stockings and other fabric crafts, but I decided to modernize the design a bit (and - er - save hours of frustration) by just including a silhouette of my pal Holly on a piece of vintage pre-quilted fabric. The fabric that comprises the back, lining, and cuff of this stocking is also vintage. Here is the excellent tutorial I followed to create a lined stocking (never knew about making the seam allowances for the lining part bigger to ensure the lining fits in the finished product!)

So how would you like a nostalgic stocking representing the late 60s/ 70s? Leave a comment here and the winner of the stocking and all the contents shown here will be chosen on Monday evening, 6:oo PM PST. Don't forget to visit my blog pals for more great ideas and three more chances to win more great stockings!

Tara

Handmade gift wrapping supplies stocking

A special thanks to my idea think tank who helped remind me what the 70s were really all about: Barb, Shanna, and Mary Ann!

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Favorite of the day: {yawn} too early

Working on: 2 parties in one day!

Gifts for the co-workers

2011-12-09T22:06:00.000-08:00

For this year's gift for 10 office mates, I gave a basket of tree seedlings and honeybees

Not to each person, silly. I purchased one "Earth Basket" through Heifer International in their name. According to HI, one Earth Basket gives a family bees to produce honey and wax for income, as well as tree seedlings for shade, animal fodder, and soil erosion prevention.

I included a packet of seeds in gingerbread envelopes with the honor cards provided by HI and tied the two together with twine.

If I win the lottery, I'm buying everybody a cow!

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Favorite of the day: So simple, but cute! Would be good for a bake sale.

Working on: You're not going to believe this -- it's another ornament.

The Merriest Place on Earth

2011-12-08T22:52:00.000-08:00

I was positive in relaying our enjoyment of our poor folk Disneyland adventure the other evening, but our resident Disney connection (remember the co-worker who gave away a trip as part of a White Elephant game?) felt Hank should have a proper Christmas Disneyland experience.

So another co-worker and I played hooky from work to go see the magic in person. It has been several years since I have been to Disneyland during December. Everything was so magical and wonderful!

(Gingerbread house inside Haunted Mansion)

I read several Disney related blogs, and had the food scene all scoped out. I wanted to try the Hungry Bear restaurant's revised menu

(Fried green tomato sandwich)

We were not disappointed. Loved the sweet potato fries!

Hank and the other little boy had a great time together! The adults had fun looking at all nice decorations.

And there was snow! Disney really knows how to make everyone young and old feel like little kids.

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Favorite of the day: I have an idea re making more ornaments for the tree after Christmas. Will be looking here for inspiration.

Working on: Another ornament (you would think I would be burned out on those by now)

Christmas nachos

2011-12-07T21:36:00.001-08:00

They are a tradition after all.

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Favorite of the day: Yellow is my favorite wedding color.

Working on: A special giveaway for you! See details this Saturday :)

A visit to St. Nick

2011-12-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight was the night allotted on our busy December calendar to visit Santa Claus.

I was kinda bored with our local mall options, as they have had the same decor for the past 3 years. So, I did my usual turn-a-simple-thing-into-something-over-the-top-and-complicated and decided to go see Santa at the Disneyland Hotel.

(Santa was not allowed to touch the kids. Hank spent a good while trying to get into this chair before I realized Santa's hands off policy and went in to help him.)

We didn't make it to Disneyland itself this year, but there are still plenty of opportunities for fun just outside the park (a new tiki bar, for example). Just walking through the area adjacent to Disneyland, Downtown Disney, is a treat for young kids as everything is themey and over the top fabulous.

This year we talked a lot about visiting Santa, how we wouldn't be scared, and that we needed to tell him what we wanted for Christmas. The kid surprised me by being relatively polite and responsive, and told Santa that he wants the train he saw at the ice cream place (This one. Umm...why didn't mama check the price when we were in the store!!)

We ate at Rainforest Cafe. Haven't done that since circa 1993.

Also made the kid's eyes bug out of his head by taking him to the Lego store. Hank was pretty excited as well.

Everything was decorated so nicely, and definitely got us in the holiday spirit. We even sorta had a view of the park's fireworks. It was kind of like the poor folk version of a Disneyland Christmas.

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Favorite of the day: Where is the nearest Safeway!!

Working on: A stocking

Yurting USA

2011-12-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

What is a yurt?

According to some smart ass friends, it is something contagious. In reality, a yurt is a permanent tent, round in shape, that is designed to withstand the weather.

In California, yurts are more common in the northern part of the state (you know, where the hippies live). There are a few options in southern California, however, including the ones we visited this past weekend at Lake Cachuma (Santa Barbara County). Are there any yurts or permanent tents in your area? Find out here.

I discovered the "local" yurts a few months ago, and immediately signed up for the first available weekend, which was the first weekend of December. I thought the weather would either be sunny (if we were lucky) or rainy, but didn't anticipate bitter cold. Temperatures in the evenings have been down in the teens in this area factoring in the wind chill. It was a little frigid in our yurt despite the provided space heater, but we made it through the two nights.

The fact that there was a plug in heater took yurt camping into the glamping category, as there was an outlet for our coffee maker! We enjoyed our usual morning cup of joe versus trying to use a camping percolator.

Despite not bringing a tent and a few other camping items, space was still at a premium in our tiny car. I did however sneak in a few Christmas decorations (and Eyeball!)

It was a relaxing weekend, and we didn't leave our camp site. The boys fished, and I worked on the neverending ornament project.

Will definitely be yurting it again (perhaps when the weather is warmer!)

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Favorite of the day: Love the snowman bottles

Working on: A different type of ornament

The Muppets @ El Capitan

2011-12-04T21:35:00.000-08:00

I think I've mentioned here that we try to get to El Capitan theater every year around Christmas. This was a tradition that we started before Hank was born. Some years are a bust (the newer version of A Christmas Carol), but this year was a must see -- The Muppets movie!

In talking to folks, some people have reservations about seeing the movie since the Muppet movies of the past were by and large a little lame (sorry, Kermie).

(organ always starts the show)

But this, my friends, will pull at your heartstrings as the whole point of the movie is to put together the old TV version of the Muppet show.

(Kermit and Miss Piggy sing along)

SPOILER: This is done in a cheesy but not too overdone way. I was crying from laughing too hard (a scene that involves Jack Black and a barbershop quartet of 4 lovable Muppet characters singing Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit = comedy gold) and then shed a few tears remembering the good old days watching The Muppet Show during prime time with my dad.

(Miss Piggy's wardrobe on display)

The benefit of seeing this movie at El Capitan is that the theater the Muppets renovate is El Capitan, so it's like watching The Muppet Show in the Muppet theater! My only complaint with the whole movie is that they needed more Waldorf and Statler jokes.

Next door at the Disney ice cream parlor you can get a Rainbow Connection sundae. There is also a dinner that allows you to see how the Muppets are operated. I probably would have splurged for the tickets that included the dinner, except that I got tickets on Plum District for 40% off the discounted price they were offered at. All three tickets cost less than one regular admission ticket - score!

Hank was sorta into the movie and learning all the names of the Muppets (Animal was his fave), but this was really an activity planned for the older kids' enjoyment.

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Favorite of the day: Cute addition to an old candy favorite, though not sure I'd have the patience to implement (via Money Saving Mom)

Working on: Too much -- I'm pooped!

Boring Ho Hum Christmas tree

2011-12-03T18:00:00.000-08:00

{sigh}

I didn't know how important my theme trees were to me until I didn't make one. I don't miss the hustle and bustle of getting the tree ready to show on the old blog here, but I was not prepared for my cavalier attitude about doing a traditional tree.

I thought I would feel nostalgic to see ornaments from when were first dating

or ones from trees past

or those from blog friends

or new ones purchased and never hung

But, no, overall, I just have that feeling of -- this is it?

Maybe with time as we build up our ornament supply I will grow to love our traditional tree. Now I feel bad putting that in writing and hurting the tree'e feelings. I'm sorry, tree. In the words of Sir Topham Hat, you are a Really Useful tree.

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Favorite of the day: No time to look

Working on: I'll just tell you when I am working on something different

Pompom wreath

2011-12-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

Call it being thrifty, or being a hoarder, I knew the pompoms from my gifts last year would come in handy again.

They were glued to a wood frame wreath for the front door. Easy peasy. Thanks, Past Jen, for taking care of Present Jen.

Can the rest of my Christmas preparations go this smoothly, please?

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Favorite of the day: What everyone would be getting if we lived in snow country

Working on: What do you think?

Meet Eyeball

2011-12-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

Following the popular Elf on a Shelf trend, I decided to make my own version

(Eyeball with his letter of introduction from Santa)

I should tell you that this has been a goal for a couple of years now. A disembodied elf head from the White Trash tree has been sitting on my craft desk for some time. All year round. Staring down at guests that stay in that room. Well, you know what they say about not wanting visitors to get too comfortable at your place...

I just kinda winged the pattern. If I did it again, I would make his limbs longer. The limbs have pipe cleaners in them to make him flexible.

The elf was named Eyeball by the smallest member of the house. Hank either still is too young to get the concept of being watched by Santa's elf, be excited to look for the elf each morning, etc., or he just doesn't give a crap. I'm thinking it's the latter. There are not many things that get him super excited, so Eyeball will probably just sit on a shelf collecting dust for the month. At least he has a body now so he can sit comfortably.

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Favorite of the day: Another fabulous paper wreath

Working on: The ornaments -- this may have been a mistake!

Small Business Saturday

2011-11-30T00:23:00.000-08:00

Amex offered a deal this past Saturday to register your card and receive a $25 credit for shopping at a small business. In signing up for the offer, I knew where I was going to go, and who I was shopping for (her girls).

(Have you seen these wooden boxes at Michaels? Probably not if you live near me, as I cleaned them out)

Bella Cosa is another favorite local gift store, and it even has a display of items that would appeal to tweens. I bought a newspaper covered journal and a peace sign necklace for each girl (the ornament kit was bought last year with the girls in mind after Christmas at the polar opposite of a small business, Target).

I spent just over the amount I will be credited for their gifts (and *of course* found a few items for other people on my list). I love shopping small!

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Favorite of the day: It's the Rolo that makes it

Working on: More ornaments

Misc. gifts

2011-11-29T21:54:00.000-08:00

Before we get into the thick of Christmas preparations, wanted to post a few gifts we have given recently.

(plus storage bag)

A big hit in a sea of Legos and video games was a boomerang for a nephew who turned 9. Where he will throw it, I don't know, but hopefully not near his house :)

For a 3-year-old girl, a small bag of items from the gift box with a music wand from my favorite local gift store.

For a 5-year old monster loving boy, a few creature and monster related items from the gift box and a monster making kit repackaged from this one.

Now let the Christmas craziness begin!

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Favorite of the day: Love every iota of this party, right down to the sparkly Toms.

Working on: Hostess gifts

Small Fox swap ornaments

2011-11-28T22:07:00.000-08:00

So you may recall that this year's tree will be a ho hum run of the mill one. I decided last year that I would no longer do a unique theme tree for Christmas due to the waste involved in buying new ornaments every year. Of course if I had things down like this gal, I could make a unique tree every year with maximum impact but for little cash. Mary rocks!

I do have a few dozen ornaments on hand to decorate a traditional tree, but will need to add to the supply to fill a whole tree. I knew I wanted to join an ornament swap this year to get a few new homemade ornaments, and was lucky to get a spot in Small Fox's swap. The number of ornaments you sent was up to you, and you would get back as many as you sent in. I was able to complete 5 before the deadline, and am looking forward to receiving 5 in return.

Earlier this year, I saw this post using vintage curtain rings in a few different ways. I had one of those omg -- I need those NOW moments, and hurried over to etsy to buy a bag o' rings. I think the batch I bought had 25 rings. I knew at the time that I would incorporate some of them into Christmas ornaments, and figured the rest will languish in the craft closet for an unspecified amount of time. The snowflake cross stitch motif seemed neutral enough for a swap. I packaged the ornaments in glassine envelopes held shut using the Shim technique of skewering the package closed. For this project, I used collar stays as the "skewers."

Will post the pretties I receive as soon as they arrive!

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Favorite of the day: Another great ornament

Working on: Prep for more ornaments

Thanksgiving in a cozy cabin

2011-11-27T12:20:00.000-08:00

This year for Thanksgiving we rented a cabin in the San Bernardino mountains with my parents. It is a location near where we camped this past summer -- headed up towards the very popular Big Bear, but on the back route, Highway 38. This is the type of cabin that operates more like a motel versus a private home rental. It probably would have been better to rent a house based on how tight our accommodations were, but making do was part of the fun. I mean, check out this kitchen

and stove

Can you imagine making Thanksgiving dinner here? Fortunately we had brought mostly pre-made sides and a Honeybaked ham, so didn't need to fuss over things too much.

My mom and I made the cabin festive with decorations brought from home. I still wanted to have a special table, so I made some paper cones filled with gourmet caramel corn and put the plates on gold chargers (staged shot).

If you want another laugh, here is a pic of our set table

Just a little on the small side, lol.

The randomness of mountain cabin decor always appeals to me. This gem was hiding under my twin size (haha - we slept I Love Lucy style all weekend) bed

and this little guy gave us heat all weekend

(Shown with a gift for my mom -- just set here for the shot)

We thought it might snow on Thanksgiving day, but the low hanging clouds quickly passed through. We did find a bit of snow for the little guy to play in, though.

Most of the weekend was spent working on ornaments for Small Fox's swap. The deadline to ship them out was this past Friday. I got them all done and ready to go, and mailed them out from the cutest post office ever

Delivered by Monday, guaranteed.

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Favorite of the day: Is there time for this?

Working on: Tree decorating

Cheers! It's a root beer baby shower

2011-11-22T14:10:00.000-08:00

The other big party I was working on this month (the day after the Robot Rock party, mind you) was for a friend's baby shower. This was the same friend, Lena, from work who had the Great Pumpkin themed shower.

Lena's husband is in the beer business, so I suggested root beer as a theme for the shower (root beer being the baby version of beer -- get it?) She loved the idea, and another friend, Grace, and I ran with it.

The colors were brown, light pink, hot pink, and white. There were a couple root beer flavored items, and we also thought of decor ideas that would represent bubbles or foam. For example, adding a pompom cluster above the table seemed foamy

and a runner I made for one of the tables had circle appliques (very poorly done -- glad they were mostly covered by food!) to look like bubbles.

Grace and I had a lot of fun decorating the table. We both love Pinterest, and found a picture of a cute root beer themed centerpiece (with brown marbles to look like root beer and white flowers to look like foam). The amazing part and what let us know this shower theme was meant to be was finding out that the mama-to-be already had giant mugs we could use (remember the beer connection) and Grace found brown marbles on sale at a Borders going out of business sale. Who knew Borders even sold something like that -- and only brown was available!

Also on the table were root beer mugs filled with root beer barrel candy (found at the dollar store). Grace made the little name charms -- aren't they cute?

I made cupcakes and stuck a striped straw in to represent root beer. Yes, they were supposed to be root beer flavored cupcakes, but I did not realize that you needed root beer extract to do that, and wasn't about to go running around town looking for that the night before the party.

Another Pinterest find was to wrap water bottles with fabric to look like a diaper. Very cute and easy detail.

For food, there was initially a stronger root beer focus, but we shifted towards things we actually wanted to eat. There was pulled pork and chicken salad to make sandwiches, caprese bites, fruit skewers, sweet potato fries served in fry sleeves from Webstaurant, and

beautiful root beer floats! I love it when parties and weddings use these tall skinny glasses to serve drinks. The "real" glasses were cost prohibitive. I couldn't believe my luck to find them at 99 Cents Only store -- and they were two for 99 cents! I was thrilled to see this element of the shower come out just like I envisioned. Fortunately I didn't spill them passing them out on a hot pink tray.

There were several games and activities. We had guests fill out their return address on Thank You cards for Lena to use (I went to a shower that did this years ago, and like to do it at showers I am part of. One less thing for the mom to think about.) They also wrote a piece of advice for Lena on a cardstock onesie to put in a memory book. Lena also brought a fingerprint tree that a cousin made for her and was filled in at her family shower.

Our games included a door prize raffle, the "don't say baby" game, a game to identify celebrity baby pics, and a game I created to do a root beer taste test.

Guests were given small cups filled with 4 root beers. They were asked two questions about each brew -- things like describe the color, or at which meal would you drink this root beer. Their responses were then put into a Mad Libs type story about the future dad dealing with a pootastrophe. It was fun to come up with the Mad Libs (used this site for some guidance), and just to say in case you need it that there is an entire website devoted to poop related stories. Why???

The shower was a blast to put together, and everything went off without a hitch. I was worried having two parties back to back, but all told everything went very smoothly!

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Favorite of the day: Too busy for stopping and looking

Working on: Ornament swap

We're three -- bring on the batteries

2011-11-20T21:08:00.000-08:00

You may recall our goal to remain battery free until age 3. We did end up with a few battery powered toys and devices over the last few years (see year 1 and 2), but think we did pretty well keeping toys of this type to a minimum.

In his third year, Hank received two battery powered greeting cards, several used toys (most were donated -- the only one I can think of that stuck around was a GeoTrax set), an R/C car (batteries were removed as the car was too frustrating for him), a Toy Story Woody doll, and a Happy Meal toy or two that lit up.

The third birthday party unleashed the battery power. Almost every gift Hank received has lights, noises, and/or scuttles across the floor. Some are welcome additions, like several Hot Wheels sets. Others, well, may be sneaking out the door to Goodwill before the next barrage of batteries hits us for Christmas.

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Favorite of the day: Cute gift idea

Working on: Thanksgiving prep

Rock...Robot Rock

2011-11-19T00:11:00.000-08:00

Planning for Hank's 3rd birthday party started before his 2nd birthday party even happened. Fingers were crossed that the theme -- Robot Rock -- would still be applicable a full year later.

Around the two-year mark, Hank and BT sang a version of Daft Punk's Robot Rock. They made up their own lyrics -- something like Robot Rock coming to your town. Robot Rock going to party down. There was also this ad from Kenneth Cole cut from a magazine when Hank was just a wee one that served as inspiration.

A cardboard band set -- the possibilities were endless.

(Our version ended up having a drum set, two mics, two guitars with amp, and a keyboard)

I got to work planning using Pinterest as a guide. Some preliminary thoughts were using paper fans to represent gears, having a paper streamer backdrop behind the band set, a prize dispensing robot, glow stick centerpieces, and, of course, the band set itself.

This was all planned taking advantage of our still yet unfinished yard. I figured we could use our extra long driveway for seating, and have a bounce house directly behind the house to prevent kids from wandering out of the yard through the open fence or into the neighborhood cat box. Yeah...hoping to report some progress on the yard front in 2012.

(Homemade cake-- and a random carrot)

Mother Nature had other plans for us, with a prediction of rain and cold weather the night of the party. My sweet husband took the reins and called around town until he found a pizza place that could accommodate us. The "party room" wasn't really a room, and was pretty tightly packed with tables, but we came up with ways to adjust our original plans to fit the new space.

One thing that had to be adjusted was the prize robot. If the party had been at our house, BT was going to be the prize robot, walking around the party and dispensing prizes. But, we figured there wouldn't be enough room to walk around the restaurant in a cardboard robot outfit. Originally the kids were going to use robot bags I found at Walmart to collect the random prizes they received. I had enough prizes to assemble the bags half in a robot theme and half in a rocker theme. Part of the fun was choosing a bag randomly to see if you were a rocker or a robot.

Other adjustments worked out just fine. The cardboard band set (barely) fit in an open spot by the emergency exit.

(Future rock stars)

I spray painted a paper lantern with silver Glitter Blast to serve as a disco ball. The streamer background I had spent too long cutting not to use became a backdrop for the food table.

The glow sticks still worked in the dark space as a table decoration, and pre-lit bracelets were available to the kids in a jar.

There were pictures of robots and rock stars to color on the tables.

My friend, Jenn, even found a small place to put the paper fans that were originally intended to be a backdrop for the food table if the party had been at home.

A fun element several friends helped assemble before the party were these candy kebabs. I found several gummy candies on the Oh Nuts site that seemed to fit with a Robot Rock theme, including gummy stars and these cubes. The twist we added to the stick was a marshmallow robot. We put a small piece of spaghetti through the back of the "head" and forced Jujubes onto the ends. The faces were drawn on with edible ink. Jenn re-painted the box we used at her daughter's party to use as a holder.

(Hank was sad at this point because he thought he was going to be the robot. Not as sad, though, as poor Kylee in the background)

A special treat was having the rock robot come dance to his theme song. Hank was upset at this point in the party, because, you see, all week long when BT was constructing the costume, Hank thought he was going to be the one coming to the party dressed as a robot. BT wished he had had time to make him a mini robot costume as well.

(Kylee recovered from her robot scare and rockin' out)

All told, I was actually glad the party venue was changed. I was a little worried about using our tiny house to host a party of 40+ people. Also, the food was taken care of, and most of the clean up.

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Favorite of the day: Cute stocking stuffer ideas

Working on: Cutting out more Josephs

The Goodie Bags

2011-11-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

Pshew!

That was a whirlwind! This past weekend was proof positive that I am NOT meant to be a party planner. Hosting two parties in one weekend totally expended my mental and physical resources. I can't imagine having additional parties in the works that you would need to concurrently be planning for. I give the ladies in the party planning biz plenty of props!

Before we get to the parties themselves, here are the goodie bags Hank brought to school the day before his birthday. A pirate theme was chosen to use some cute Ziploc type bags I had picked up a few months ago at the Target dollar section. There were two sizes of bags -- a sandwich size and a snack size. I knew I wanted to fill the larger bag with Pirate's Booty, but knew that the school prefers packaged items. During Halloween, I had my eye on a 20 pack of snack sized bags of Pirate's Booty at Target. The box itself was printed for Halloween, but the bags inside were not Halloween themed.

Two days after Halloween, my co-workers and I were on our daily shopping trip when I asked if we could stop at Target (not the Target we normally go to). We found a whole end cap of Halloween Pirate's booty on sale for $3.50. BUT, best of all, there was a representative from the company there passing out dollar off coupons and "booty" like eye patches, tattoos, and stickers. Such a random but welcome coincidence! Between the three of us, we filled a cart with boxes of Pirate's Booty. We must have looked like crazy women, but we felt like we had found a hidden treasure.

I also bought the foam eye patches at Target. I thought they were a little friendlier for the young kids. The goodies bags were completed with a red bead necklace, gold chocolate coins, and a box of raisins. I made a sticker to adorn red lunch bags and tied them off with a piece of ribbon. They were well received by kids and parents alike!

Next up - Hank's Robot Rock birthday party.

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Favorite of the day: Cool clay gift tags

Working on: Cutting out Josephs

A dirty gift

2011-11-07T15:39:00.000-08:00

I consider myself pretty well educated in environmental issues. It's my job, for one, and two it just feels right to implement small lifestyle changes that preserve our resources.

Just recently I realized a mistake I have been making in terms of of reducing plastic bag usage. I have been taking cloth bags to stores for years -- long before there were designer reusable bags and cities adopting bans of plastic bags. But -- when I went on a trip, I took it for granted that there would be a plastic bag available for dirty clothes in the hotel room, or, if we were camping, that I would use a garbage bag.

A reusable laundry bag was in order. I made one for our family, and one each for the women who helped with the Great Pumpkin baby shower. The best part was that one of these women had just given me a large stack of fabric she kept after her mom passed away. She was touched that I used the fabric to make a useful and practical gift.

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Favorite of the day: Fabulous party site

Working on: Managing party planning insanity!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T14:48:00.000-07:00

Still coming down from the sugar high, but here is a look at Halloween 2011.

First, Hank found the perfect pumpkin at the local pumpkin patch (100 degrees that day, hence the shorts). Then, every time the phrase "Jack O' Lantern" was uttered this month, he would pull a stool in the kitchen up to the counter where the pumpkin carving tools were temporarily being stored. We put him off until the Sunday before Halloween, but then that pumpkin had to have a face.

We had to think of a way to involve Hank in the process, but not be subject to his frustration when the tools wouldn't work the way he wanted to (not to mention any injuries). So, we came up with the idea of having him draw a pumpkin face that could be used as inspiration for the carved version. I drew the main circle, and then he filled in face and ears. BT re-created the face on the pumpkin -- the little one was ecstatic to see his drawing come to life!

We also had a visit from the Great Pumpkin.

Although the Peanuts story has the GP coming on Halloween night, I have made an executive decision that he will come the night before Halloween so mine, I mean the Great Pumpkin's, treats can be the first ones of the day.

Next on the agenda was a fun filled parade at school. I "made" Hank's costume using an adult sized sweatshirt. I used this as my inspiration, but a note to fellow crafters interested in making this costume -- the potential for this looking like a Klan costume is high, so beware. I ditched the tutorial's hat for an embellished stocking hat, put felt letters across the chest, and used black for all the under pieces. The ghost mittens were from the dollar store.

Now, I do not even consider this to be a homemade costume -- just a creative use for existing clothing (similar to last year's costume). But, can you believe that this was the only homemade costume in the whole school? Multiple moms came up to give me props for making his outfit. Ok, if you say so, but this is nothing compared to the homemade goodness that comes out on Halloween.

Later we went trick or treating with friends. So fun to see Hank grow up and gain an understanding of things that make childhood fun. Granted, he is still young enough that his whole bag of candy could disappear today, and he would never ask about it. Poor naive little child...

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Favorite of the day: Too busy to look!

Working on: Baby shower prep

Pumpkin Pie Filling adventure

2011-10-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

In buying a few pumpkins to use as decor for this party, I justified the expense by saying to myself that I would later turn the pumpkins into pumpkin pie filling. This past Friday was probably the worst day to try this endeavor, as we were scrambling to put together some last minute costumes and I had promised Hank a ride on the big orange balloon, but still gave it a go.

The pumpkins

After baking

Pureed

and I even made some pepitas

A backed up sink, broken cabinet door, and a sprinkle explosion (the kid was decorating cookies during this time) did not deter me from my goal. Puree is frozen for now in anticipation of the day I feel like taking on a completely made from scratch pumpkin pie.

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Favorite of the day: Remember my black and white Halloween party? Wishing I had seen something like this back then.

Working on: Baby shower decor

Frankenhands

2011-10-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

$1.50 mittens from JoAnn

become

Frankenhands

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Favorite of the day: Cute picnic wedding

Working on: Shower prep

It's the Great Pumpkin baby shower

2011-10-14T23:23:00.000-07:00

In planning the work shower for my co-worker, Lena, another co-worker indicated that Lena liked the Peanuts gang, and that we should have a Peanuts themed shower. I consider Lena one of my good friends, and we had never once talked about the Peanuts (and this is with her knowing about our regular trips to Knott's, so there was ample opportunity for her to throw in an I love Snoopy if that was the case).

So, I discreetly asked Lena if she liked Snoopy and the gang, and received a resounding yes! She adores all the holiday movies in particular, and her love for Charlie Brown is the reason Charlie is a name in the running for the new baby (a girl, btw).

Peanuts it was. But, I didn't want the shower to be too focused on Charles Shultz's lovable characters, as this seemed too obvious and little kiddish. The month we chose for the shower was October despite the baby not being due until January. Since Lena had mentioned that she liked the Peanuts holiday movies, so It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown came to mind. I started an idea board of fall themed food and thought of some decor ideas that would evoke the feel of the movie. Namely this involved painting a backdrop of a dark Halloween-y sky, making clouds out of paper bags, and a cardboard moon with Snoopy's silhouette. Unfortunately these didn't hang too well, but we found a place for them.

Another party planner and I had a selection of Peanuts characters to use as decor.

Other items used were more traditionally harvest themed (scarecrows, hay bales, etc.)

I helped make this cute diaper cake

and we just *had* to have a clothesline hung with cute clothes

We had a lot of fun putting the food together. We had a brunch theme, and served a co-worker's amazing homemade spanakopita and a chicken pot pie from Costco for our main dishes. I made pumpkin shaped sugar cookies,

chocolate chip pumpkin bread, and doughnut hole acorns for sweet treats.

We kept the games simple and just did a nursery rhyme game and a pumpkin trivia game. I wrapped the prizes for the game in fabric Furoshiki style. For favors I made Martha's pumpkin favor pouches. I used the stick of Tootsie Roll Pops as a base for the stem.

Lena liked her gifts, and seemed particularly smitten with the blanket I made for her :)

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Favorite of the day: Oldie but a goodie

Working on: Hank's Halloween costume

Baby Shower Sneak Peek!

2011-10-11T22:16:00.001-07:00

????? :)

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Favorite of the day: It's a jolly Mary Poppins party

Working on: Shower treats

A few recent gifts

2011-10-09T20:57:00.001-07:00

Black Apple dolls for a birthday girl and a dance recital star

A "birthday in a box" surprise gift for a co-worker in our headquarters office

A wee wonderfuls snail for a new wee little one

and a little package for her big sister

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Favorite of the day: Glass globe pumpkins

Working on: Party countdown

Channeling my inner Benita

2011-10-08T19:26:00.000-07:00

Surely you already have Benita's wonderful blog on your list of favorites, but if not, click on over and add her to your blog reader asap.

Since I've been reading her blog, Benita (who lives in Sweden) has kept herself busy working on renovating and styling two houses. A typical post of hers starts with a "before" pic that, to a non-perfectionist like myself, looks quite good enough. Benita then does her magic and then - wow - you suddenly want to run for some sort of scraping device and a paintbrush. I love everything she does -- from refinishing a ledge at the top of her stairs to designing a beautiful custom coffee table.

I'm sure Benita has a similar kit to the one I have assembled in response to our recent room refreshing projects. It is such a pain to haul a whole can of paint in to the house every time you want to do a touch up. Plus, the likelihood of mess (if you are a klutzoid like me) is high. So, I used small Glad snap top containers to hold small amounts of paint. Fortunately we only have 4 paint colors in the whole house (three of those are white), so they fit in a plastic shoe bin along with two mini touch up kits and a couple paintbrushes. The Glad containers fit nicely in my hand when I am using them, and so far have opened without dripping.

My mother-in-law also used a similar technique for keeping a house full of kids looking fresh and clean. I'd much rather re-paint than scrub a wall :)

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Favorite of the day: Chado

Working on: Baby shower prep

Room for a big boy

2011-10-01T05:09:00.000-07:00

As mentioned, we are in the process of revamping all the rooms in our house. Some rooms (bathroom and kitchen) have always been put aside to wait until we do a total over-haul. The other rooms have been addressed to some degree -- some more than others. Even those that were "finished" three years ago are starting to look a little shabby -- it is so much work to keep up with a house!

Hank's room was the second most finished room after the guest room, so we are starting with the easy projects. His room needed some updating regardless to accommodate his new big boy bed. Other projects included adding baseboards, which were not present in either bedroom, and some touch up paint.

The focus point of the room is the large art print from Ikea (via Ebay -- I swear I saw this online just a month before we went to buy it and then it was nowhere to be found. Thank goodness for re-sellers!) I thought we would have fun looking at some new element of the drawing every night. So far we have talked about "toe jam pizza" and the farting elephant.

The bed is a platform bed with much needed storage, and I found -- after much searching -- a sorta reasonably priced organic mattress. So difficult to find a) natural products for twin-sized and up beds at a reasonable price (if we're sharing sources, I bought these non-vinyl waterproof mattress pads for $38 -- unfortunately looks like they are out of stock now on Amazon) and b) toddler products that are not character focused. I wanted to use items in the room that seemed like they would hold his interest for as many years as possible. Most of the Target non-licensed boy bedding seemed too juvenile, and I wouldn't attempt to buy licensed character comforter even if I wanted to for the one whose interests change on a weekly basis. In the end I went with a plain orange bedspread and a fun set of sheets (plus this set).

To your right: This was a very cool and unexpected solution. Up until this point, the wall with the painted squares held two plastic toy storage bins that were open on top. I didn't mind them too much, but BT said they had to go. I knew I wanted some kind of desk for Hank's room re-do. I found this "bench" at Ikea, which can house a freestanding drawer on casters. The drawer, which surprisingly holds more toys than the two plastic bins, can be rolled out of the way and a chair put in its place

It's the perfect solution for the space!! Speaking of the wall with the painted squares, not sure if I showed you the new decals we used to replace the jungle animals? Well, if not, you can see a few of them in the pics above. They were purchased from this etsy seller.

I have wanted to use this storage solution just about forever. Still debating about leaving the art supplies out all the time. The initial interest in scribbling over every surface of the house has faded (maybe only one clean up per week versus ten per day), but still gets cumbersome. The scissors are definitely off limits if he is not being supervised, as we have lost several articles of clothing to Hank Scissorhands (no hair yet, but I'm sure the dots would be connected on that one soon enough if the scissors were more readily accessible).

Moving to the other side of the room: Due to the location of the bookshelves, we could not push the bed all the way up to the window or we would not be able to open one of the drawers. This left a gap of 5 inches or so at the foot of the bed. Enter another Ikea based solution. These collapsible storage bins are shown on the package with the opening on top. There are also numbers printed on the side, so it would make sense to use them this way. The stylists at our local store, however, made a wall in one of their displays comprised of these bins with the opening facing out. I thought it was so clever! Putting the bins this way fills this weird gap and allows for Hank to store some of his little friends.

In buying this house, we vowed we were going to stay away from Ikea. We look at other alternatives, but more than cost it is design that sends us back to the giant blue box time and time again. Those Swedes really do think of everything! Now we might as well just go with it and go full Ikea catalog mode, lol.

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Favorite of the day: Considering the generous yardage, this is a great value and so so cute. Just need to determine which print I would use for a few projects.

Working on: Making sure my ducks are all in a row

Roasted Pineapple Sorbet

2011-09-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

One of the dishes I made for the tiki party was grilled pineapple. Ever grilled pineapple? Here is how to do it ~

Melt 2 tablespoons butter. Mix in 2 tablespoons honey. Slice 1 pineapple and put slices in a large Ziptop bag. Pour in honey mixture and dash of salt. Seal bag, and shake to coat evenly. marinate for 20 minutes. Heat grill to high. Grill pineapple for 2-3 minutes per side, or until heated through and grill marks appear.

Source: Relish!

The roasted pineapple is good, but not something you can eat too much of in one sitting, so I had a lot left over. I thought it might be good as a sorbet. Using this recipe, I made my leftover roasted pineapple into a sorbet. It was -- ok, but similar to the fresh grilled pineapple, it was something you only needed a few bites of to feel satisfied.

Making this recipe reminds me that I really need to use my ice cream maker more!

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Favorite of the day: Cute Halloween party

Working on: Weekend of fun!

Everyday Luau

2011-09-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

If you do a search for activities that would fall under the umbrella term "everyday romance," you will almost most likely see a suggestion to buy flowers and/or set a romantic mood using flower petals, candles, whathaveyou. I suppose everybody has different takes on the significance of gestures such as these -- let me tell you mine.

A couple of our appetizers. Hank made the confetti for the "tiki party."

1 - We are on a relatively strict budget, so flowers (or anything temporal) seem a little frivolous right now.

2 - We don't have any place to put cut flowers in our house. I know that sounds weird, but I really have no logical place to put flowers where I can enjoy looking at them during their brief sojourn other than the dining room table, and that location is subject to a toddler who will inevitably knock over the vase, a cat who will most definitely eat said flowers and puke them up, etc. Which brings me to --

3 - The anticipation of mess (cleaning up cat puke with flower bits in it, scraping dead bits of flowers out of a vase full of gunky water, cleaning smeared on flower parts from the bedspread if my husband decided to do the most over the top romantic gesture known to man and sprinkle rose petals on our bed) would prevent me from fully enjoying a gift of flowers. He would get more of a Thanks, these are great response versus the Oh honey, I LOVE you (cue wife flying into his arms) response he was hoping for.

I think the key to everyday romance is deciding what is romantic to an individual couple (ok, so most women really do enjoy the flowers) and, if you are creative, how you can still accomplish romance with kids in plain site. Take dinner, for example. What was your favorite restaurant when you were dating? Did you like a sushi place? Why not buy a pack of pre-made California rolls and have everybody try their hand at chopsticks. The kids will think you just exploring a new cultural food, but you and the hubby will be sharing knowing glances all night. If you want to bring a tear to his eye, write the name of the restaurant you used to go to on his paper napkin (or make a paper napkin ring if you use cloth). The prep takes just minutes, but the thought and consideration are priceless.

My tiki guys

For me and BT, the place we are missing most post-kid is this one. Without an extra room, our tiki supplies are currently gathering dust in the garage. Sure, there are *big plans* for a tiki shack in the backyard, but you know how that goes. Every other project will likely take priority over that one.

Next time I'm going to make my own orgeat syrup!

But, I figured, I could bring a little tiki indoors. The decor items shown were mainly from our party supply bins, and rather hastily put up with masking tape. The kid had a ball helping, and couldn't wait for the "tiki party." BT was well on his way to becoming a seasoned mixologist when the tiki room bar was in full swing, but life and laziness (much easier to pop open a can of beer) and all the other "stuff" had made it so he hadn't made one of his well-balanced and delicious mai tais in over a year. I put together the ingredients so he could mix a few drinks to help us remember the good old days (or forget -- the drinks are pretty strong...)

Classic mai tais are really boozy

This look a little more time to put together and implement than most of the ideas on my running "everyday romance" list, but it was very much appreciated.

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Favorite of the day: Any one want to move with me to Finland?

Working on: Laundry. At the laundromat. I miss my dryer...

Gift #3

2011-09-25T21:00:00.001-07:00

Annnnd...here's another gift for my co-worker. You may recall that I am co-hosting a friend shower for her in addition to the work shower? So I needed a gift for that shower as well.

I decided to do a basket of a few of our favorite things. Some are marginally favorites, but rather things I had on hand in my gift box. Others, like the Kushies washable changing pad and the Munchkin Snack Catcher pretty much defined our journey through the first few years.

Here are the items included in the gift basket:

1) Robeez (definitely a fave!)

2) Mesh feeder -- not for food, but rather for ice during teething or stomach bugs

3) Keepsake items (admittedly had these on hand, but do like the handprint we did)

4) Cute socks (also on hand, but the mama-to-be LOVES these socks, and we did enjoy using the boy equivalent of these)

5) Washable vinyl backed changing pads

6) Book for pictures of friends and family

7) Swaddler

8) Stroller hooks (ours was low tech compared to this one, but came in handy often)

9) Snacker (couldn't leave home without it during the second year)

10) Cloth diapers (used for us on top of the changing table -- prevented having to wash the whole changing pad cover if there was an accident)

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Favorite of the day: Looks like a great place to eat

Working on: Sleep!

Gift #2

2011-09-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

This is the group gift from from our office

It includes the mama-to-be's requested bedding from her baby registry, a book, and a cuddle toy in the most perfect basket.

I have a tendency to "loop" at stores if I don't see what I am looking for. I keep going back to the same section in the store, and re-thinking in my head how something could work with the resources available. My mom is guilty of the same thing, and it drives our husbands crazy. I stood in front of the basket section at Michaels for half an hour at least trying to figure out a basket solution that would work for the baby items I had already purchased. I didn't even see this basket in the beginning -- it was only after some digging and re-thinking things that I landed on this one as a solution. Usually looping is a wasted effort, and I leave the store empty-handed. This is probably the first time it has worked, and will probably encourage me to stick it out longer than I should the next time I find myself at a store in the looping mode.

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Favorite of the day: Lots of cute Halloween food ideas here.

Working on: Dollies two

I had to start some place...

2011-09-21T18:21:00.001-07:00

...so I started with gifts!

A co-worker who is also a good friend is having a baby come January. I will be assisting with a work shower and a shower for friends. The work shower is next month, and I had a special gift in mind.

This is a friend with whom I can share all the trials and tribulations of trying to eat healthier. Her own eating habits during pregnancy are enviable. She eats two huge salads every day, minimal carbs, and lean protein. Sure, she has cravings (McDonald's ice cream cones are her downfall), but this kid is going to have a taste for healthy food.

Boy or girl, I knew my homemade gift for her would focus on fruits and veggies. I had a great piece of thrifted fabric in my stash printed with farm animals and apple trees. It served well as the backing for a simple tied square blanket and two burp cloths.

I intended to make three onesies for her using small felt veggie cut-outs, but lo and behold the mama-to-be registered for three similarly styled (though much more professional looking) onesies. The price for all three was only $10 -- how could I resist?

I also made her a nursing cover loosely using this tutorial, but copying the shape of the one Shanna made for us. Finally, I made two bibs using some of the fabric used in the quilt and lined with gingham flannel. They close with Velcro.

Freshly picked for a healthy mama and her baby!

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Favorite of the day: Fun craft party!

Working on: Another new baby gift

Party time!

2011-09-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

We had our little celebration at work today for a special boy who turns one later this month. The theme was "vintage toys."

(Pardon the cords -- despite what you see in this post, we do work here)

I bought a ton of Hank's toys from home to use as decor. My co-worker is an avid thrift shopper, and she also brought a selection of toys and books. Here is the dessert table

I went on baking overload Tuesday night and made the birthday boy's smash cake, the big b-day cake, M&M cookies, brownie bites, and lemon squares.

We were also celebrating the birthdays of two men who have birthdays in September. It's funny -- celebrating events in our office has gone to a whole new level with the passing of our manager. One, he was always pretty reserved about "common" celebrations (birthdays, etc.) I don't think he wanted people to think we were just goofing around all the time. Now, we like to imagine he is looking down on us saying "don't sweat the small stuff." Two, in addition to losing Steve, we have collectively lost 17 friends and family members since October of last year (and we are an office of 10 people, folks). Any little cause for celebration, and we are ready with noise makers, balloons - the works.

The table was decorated with a huge piece of vinyl fabric my co-worker found at the Disney outlet store for $1 (we're thinking it was used to make Buzz Lightyear costumes). She also found 1st birthday cut-outs and vintage games to spread along the length of the conference table.

People were immediately attracted to the games -- this party definitely brought out the kid in us.

The pin the tail on the donkey game was actually used by a few good sports. Also shown are the garland and crown shared earlier this week.

Everybody had a great time, and the birthday boy dug into his cake with both fists without hesitation. The men's cake nearly set the building's fire sprinklers off.

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Favorite of the day: Sometimes it's the simple things

Working on: Debating if I should switch back to a never-ending project or start prep for the next party.

Pin the tail

2011-09-13T21:31:00.001-07:00

In planning the over the top 1st birthday for a co-worker, my partner in crime suggested we really rile folks up and get them to play pin the tail on the donkey. She was kidding, of course, but I said -- wait, that is perfect! It will give me the push I needed to make this

So make it I did. Note if you want to make a version of your own from the website versus the book, please note that the donkey template is not included online. This baby is ~~mangled~~ rendered by my own hand.

This new fabric came in handy, as did having an adequate supply of felt on hand. I also made a little mask to go with the game. I'm sure our co-workers will ~~want to kill us~~ love us for allowing them to recapture their youth. Or tell us to stick these tails up our, well, you know.

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Favorite of the day: New Sweet Paul!

Working on: Birthday treats

Party planning season is here again!

2011-09-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

The party planning is back in full swing! In the next three months, I will be either helping with or planning solo for a 1st birthday party, two baby showers, and a 3rd birthday for our little munchkin.

First up is the 1st birthday party for a co-worker (the little guy celebrated here -- my how time flies!) This was supposed to be a little celebration at work, but a co-worker and I bought two tickets to Crazy Town, and are sure to overdo it. Nothing expensive, mind you. The theme is vintage/classic toys, and we have a lot of those to use as decor between the two of us.

I made the birthday boy a crown from Amanda's The Creative Family book and used Dana's recent tutorial to make a happy day felt garland. Bully for me, most of the shapes I used were pre-cut from a felty craft lot I won on Ebay years ago. The garland will be draped around a booster seat.

Next up: It's fun to make adults do childish activities :)

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Favorite of the day: Such a fun idea for Christmas (sorry - did I say the C word?)

Working on: Fire engine rehab

Ironing board spruce up

2011-08-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

Before

After

Going through the house and sprucing up a room per month (roughly). The guest/craft room didn't need much in terms of repair or decoration, since I did a lot of work on it last year, but did want to address the naked ironing board. I used this tutorial, which allowed me to slip the fabric (a gift from Leslie) over the old cover. A little straightening and a few paint touch ups and now we can say this room is FINISHED!

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Recent favorite: The kid would flip for this

Working on: Activity book

Pet peeves

2011-08-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

There are many, sadly. Just this a.m., I was reminded how much I loathe the gardener who feels it is appropriate to blow the trash -- grocery bags, bottles, and all - from a bar parking lot not just into the gutter, but straight out onto a busy highway.

sheesh

Another pet peeve, these bags

This is the type of bag our bulk foods store uses. There is just one size -- ginormous. I suppose that seems logical on the surface, as you should be buying food from the bins in bulk, not "bits," as is more often the case for us. But, here's the rub. If you did decide to fill these bags with something heavy like flour, for example, you're going on a wing and a prayer that the bag will make it home to a more permanent storage bin without ripping somewhere along the way.

Solution -- some cloth bags specific for bulk foods (not produce). The bags are really simple, and used some of my favorite fabrics. They were finished with a zigzag stitch at the top, and french seams on the sides. I will still use the little plastic clips where you write out the bin number to close them, so no cinching or closures needed (I will bring a few rubber bands). I only made one large bag, a few medium-sized bags, and lots of small bags for the small bits we like to try. The bags will add a little more cost when the items are weighed, but not really concerned about it.

The city we live in recently enacted a plastic bag ban (applies to the check out bags -- not produce or bulk food bags). I know folks were a little grumbly about it at first, but it makes me happy to see folks entering the store carrying their reusable bags. Such a simple change to make, but it will hopefully prevent a wayward bag from littering a parking lot to be blown out into the street (grrr), down a storm drain, and out to the ocean.

Wonder what kind of containers people will bring to this store?

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Favorite of the day: Love the backdrops

Working on: Ironing board spruce up

PDX gifts

2011-08-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

Nothing earth shattering (or even homemade), but always good to share cute, simple gift ideas.

For my bestie, I used an ice cube skewer set I had on hand as a base, and then found two cups and some tea at Target, and voila - ice tea set!

For her daughter, a coloring book and bag of candy was added to a set of colored pencils from the stash.

For her dad, who was also visiting, a set of BBQ themed dish towels and an unopened meat seasoning from - er - the pantry.

Bringing the gifts reserved space for the goodies I brought home!

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Favorite of the day: Love the bright colors!

Working on: Ummm....

I love PDX

2011-08-15T21:12:00.000-07:00

Finally FINALLY made it up to Portland, Oregon!

This is one of those meccas that calls to craft bloggers across the U.S. We see posts from our favorite bloggers and know that Portland is definitely the place to be.

My visit was even easier, as my best friend bought a condo here several years ago. She was a great tour guide, and was up for going back to the same old places she has already visited with all her other guests. Here we are hiking Multnomah Falls with lattes purchased at a stand at the start of the hike -- how Pacific Northwest is that!

The focus of our trip was definitely eating. I was unaware that Portland had such a big emphasis on food trucks, and you see parking lots full of them downtown as well as random trailers set up in shopping centers on the outskirts. Unlike L.A.'s "roach coach" types trucks, the Portland food trucks are mostly housed in trailers. So hard to narrow down what you want to eat, as every food type you can possibly imagine is represented here!

A trip to Voodoo donuts was a must. We also drank many local brews, as well as attended a food festival. So much for that diet plan!

One of my favorite elements about Portland was McMenamins. I can see this is a concept locals either love or hate, as the brand is so pervasive throughout PDX. But, I think many outsiders would appreciate their quirky style and ability to make a historical site useful to the public again -- and somehow be all about drinking! We attended an 80s night at the Crystal Ballroom. We also had dinner at Edgefield, which is basically a resort for drinking, with 10 or so different bars all in one location. This is also the company that runs the popular Kennedy School.

Here are a few spoils from my trip

Beer for BT from McMenamins

Book for Hank from Powell's

Craft supplies from Craft Warehouse (didn't make it to Bolt or Fabric Depot this trip, which was probably a good thing for the trip budget!)

Drink menu from a tiki bar called the Alibi, which claims to be the oldest tiki bar in the U.S.

Guide from Bite of Oregon Food Festival

Apple and rosemary filberts purchased at Saturday Market

My friend could have chosen any place (literally) in the world to buy her condo, which was purchased in anticipation on her husband's upcoming retirement from military service. Sooo glad she chose Portland!

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Favorite of the day: Still catching up on blog reading

Working on: Party plannin'

Beer me

2011-08-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

We went camping this past weekend with two couples. Everything went great in terms of sharing the load, as we split of the meals and the gear.

I thought a little thank you was in order for allowing us to participate in the fun (did I mention that we were the only ones with a kid?) One of the men in the group is very involved with the LA beer scene. During a serendipitous trip to Ross, I found two small loaf pans and boxes of beer bread (it ended up similar to this gift). It was just a coincidence that the beer ended up being called Ranger :)

Just a couple months left of comfortable weather for camping -- hope we can fit in one or two more trips!

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Favorite of the day: Nada mucho

Working on: Packing

Welcome to the 'hood

2011-08-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

A special gift was in order for some new neighbors, as we have not had neighbors on this side (a rental) for quite some time. Using this idea (via Edible Crafts), I made a little sundae kit as a housewarming gift.

The kit includes several toppings, homemade hot fudge syrup (recipe on the page linked to above), and ice cream cones. The topping containers were purchased last year at Cost Plus, and can be used for their intended purpose as ice cream cups once the toppings are used.

I also made a small container of ice cream to include with the gift. The carton was saved from a baking mix from Fresh & Easy. The container holding the sundae toppings was also a reuse project -- it originally contained wooden blocks.

Hope they enjoy this sweet gift (and they are willing to serve as our advocate with the owner of the house to get our mutual fence re-built!)

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Favorite of the day: Such a great idea! (via Craft:)

Working on: Camping preparations

Happy (very belated) Birthday

2011-08-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

to my dear friend, Barb. Barb and I have had an ongoing swap of sorts going on for years now. Whenever we get a box (or envelope) of stuff ready to ship out to each other, we do. These shipments loosely correlate with birthdays or Christmas, but no worries on either end if they are (months) late.

This box started with a set of pig salt and pepper shakers. Barb has a group of friends she refers to as "the pigs," so I am always on the look out for pig items for her.

The rest of the "stuff" in the box was rather light -- some magazines and a book,

(from the 99 Cents Only store!)

a set of Hawaiian candles, a few odds and ends. I had a hard time choosing just one item from Cost Plus's rad new "birthday market," but I ended up going with the birthday pasta. The matchbook came with the calendars used to make my 2010 Christmas cards, and looks like this on the inside

(on the outside I used a sticker sent with a purchase from Elsa Mora)

There also were two containers used -- one, a set of lips, originally held a lip-shaped piece of chocolate. For this gift, it was filled with red hots. A set of bone paper clips was repackaged in a container that once held dice.

The focus of the package was two homemade items. I made Barb a finger pincushion, as the pattern for this idea (to use a plastic bottle cap as the base for a pincushion) came from her.

I also made an apron using fabric she had sent to me previously. I knew I wanted to make her an apron, and just kept coming back to the cat print as I shuffled through my stash.

Always nice to ship out a package to Barb, though I'm sure a new pile for her will start building up soon enough.

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Favorite of the day: So many cute elements here that could be translated to any party

Working on: Housewarming gift for a new neighbor

Dressing area

2011-07-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

The only space I could think of to house a dress up area was in my craft room.

It's nice as it gives him something to do if I am able to work on a project in that room during waking hours (versus my usual burning the midnight oil crafting). An addition to the cowboy clothes is a dino tail. And yes, that led to the mash up costume of Dinosaur Cowboy. Next up: super hero cape.

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Recent favorite: A lot of cool elements here that could be used for any party

Working on: Skirt re-sizing

I wanna be a cowboy

2011-07-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

Lots of pretend play going on around these parts as of late! Hank is really into dress up, and creating stories and alternate uses for mundane things (e.g. yarn can either be a spider web or spaghetti depending on his mood).

I am sooo excited to make some elements to assist in his play adventures! To date we just had a box to stow various hats and accessories, but I see we need some type of rack to store bigger items -- will have to think about an option for something like that in our tiny house...

The vest above was made using this pattern and was made in part to attend an event at a local Western museum. The vest was worn willingly for the entire day, but took second fiddle to that device on the floor -- boys!

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Favorite of the day: Enjoying looking up pictures and movies from the early 1900s that explored things that were unknown at the time -- it is like an early version of sci fi.

Working on: Another fun filled day :)

Since we are gushing about creative friends...

2011-07-22T22:45:00.001-07:00

...I'd be remiss if I did not mention Cristina.

Cristina, giver of the dinosaur sweater shown here (which hopefully will fit Hank this winter!), is well-versed in knitting, crochet, and sewing - an all-around crafty girl. Her sewing projects are more complicated than anything I would ever attempt, and I am way jealous that she can whip out cute Amigurumi in no time flat (it I recall correctly, a child's size tea set was made during a cross-country flight?)

For Hank's birthday, Cristina gave him a copy of Harry by the Sea and a cute crocheted version of Harry the dog. Cute in its own right, but doesn't the swoon factor zoom off the chart when you see that she also made a piece of seaweed to drape on him (in the story, Harry gets wrapped in a piece of seaweed, and people think he is a sea monster)?

As a "just because" gift for Cristina, I made her a finger pincushion.

The pattern was given to me by Barb as part of a recent package. The bottle cap was not from the container bin, but rather the bin that is used to save actual trash (well, recyclables) -- there is a difference.

Warning: These pincushions are totally addicting to make!

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Favorite of the day: A-dorable grill toy

Working on: A gift for Barb (you'll never guess what it is! Oh wait...)

Too hot to cook!!

2011-07-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

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Favorite of the day: I want to move in!

Working on: O to the R to the G - anizing

The Container Project

2011-07-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of cleaning out the craft room (again). With time, the neatly organized bins shown here have become disheveled and stuffed so full that I cannot close them.

I can't deny that I am a hoarder, but I am an organized one. In general, if there is a designated bin for something and a new acquisition fits, in it goes.

One bin has become a little unwieldly, I guess in part because it does not have a top. In this bin are many containers I have collected from a variety of sources -- some came in the mail, some were left over food containers, some were bought for projects that weren't completed. I have about 30 containers here -- what was that about hoarding?

I will refer back to this post as I use the containers -- mostly as gifts so I am rid of them forever. Perhaps my trash will become somebody else's treasure :)

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Favorite of the day: N/A

Working on: Still organizing

WWAB?

2011-07-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

My pal April is one of the most stylish people I have ever met. Actually, her sister and mom are pretty chic as well, so they are collectively some of the most stylish people I know. They have that natural ability to make eclectic decor items look right at home and find new uses for seemingly mundane objects. Don't like a kitchen floor? Cover it from end to end with small, colorful indoor/outdoor rugs. Inherit a tin of buttons after a grandmother's passing? Make a cute jar to display not the buttons themselves (like Captain Obvious here would do), but all the extra bits and bobs that found their way into the tin over the years, and probably all had a story attached to them.

I love going to all of these women's houses, as there is always something new to see - a new furniture arrangement, the largest crewel piece I have ever seen bought for a steal and employed as a stylish cover for an A/C unit, an alley find dresser painted to look like something that would cost hundreds of dollars on Anthro, a new mural painted on one of the walls, etc. If they start blogging some day (hint hint), I hope they share their walnut tree Advent calendar tradition -- truly inspired.

April taught me a lot about thrifting/ garage sales even before I started reading blogs (which introduced a whole other list of "must have" items). The items shown above were all picked out as a little voiced whispered "What would April buy?" as I browsed the the thrift store shelves. Something I always am on the look out for in my thrifting adventures that make me think of April are etched wine glasses (etched designs like flowers or vines -- not cheesy etched wedding favors) and cordial glasses -- she has an eclectic collection of both. It is fun to shop through her eyes.

As a little "just because" gift, I knit April a potholder using the rest of the "yarn" from this project. I am cleaning my craft room boxes (again), and the rest of the shredded sheet was in the use it or lose it pile. It is always good to treat yourself to a brainless nearly foolproof project after having a craft fail, I have found.

BTW, April's mom keeps her sheets in ribbon tied bundles. Seeing her beautiful linen closet makes you do that type of sigh you unwittingly do when you see something that makes your heart sing.

(They are probably super embarrassed I wrote all this -- love you girls!)

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Favorite of the day: So cute!

Working on: An apron

Fail X 2

2011-07-16T22:30:00.001-07:00

There are undeniably two extremes in blogging -- on one end of the spectrum, bloggers who paint a seemingly idyllic portrait of life at home (kids always willing to model clothes mom made for them, mom herself is a stunning bombshell, and nobody in the family ever gets laid off, kicks the bucket, or drops an heirloom earring down the sink). Then there is the OTHER extreme -- bloggers a little too willing to take you on the roller coaster that comprises their daily life. I try to temper the personal stuff and focus on the projects that brought you here in the first place, but real life definitely rears its ugly head here at The Felt Mouse often...

For me, there is no shame in presenting a craft fail. I learned a lot, and still managed to salvage something out of it. I present Exhibit A (or F?)

Let's see -- where should we start? Well, I guess we should start with a positive. This is a Work Basket project - a vest for Hank. It was made from a rad vintage jersey fabric that came as cutting scraps in a bag from the thrift store. I followed this pattern, which was a tutorial for a sweater vest made using a larger sweater for fabric. The pattern is well-written and so sweet, and I thought I could modify it to make a vest from my scraps. I was wrong.

The negatives include being waaay to small. If sewn correctly, this might fit a 12 month old, but not my little boy lovingly called Hank the Tank by his teacher at school. I traced a large vest, but something was lost somewhere -- a few inches in every direction, I'm guessing. Something just ain't right with the armhole on the right. My attempt at creating a waistband out of ribbed jersey was futile. Annnd somebody didn't realize that the print of this fabric is slightly diagonal. In case anybody is wondering, the neck opening was not finished intentionally, as I finally realized this was a fail with a capital F, and saved myself any additional work.

I thought and thought about how I could still use this cute turtle fabric now reduced to scrap bin sized scraps. If it was a cotton print, there would have been a few options to use small scraps, but jersey is kinda limited. So I looked at some of Hank's knit shirts. One had a poncho type pocket on the front -- that could be done with a scrap. One had a hood -- there was, perhaps, just enough to give that a go?

With the promise of a ride in the coin-operated space shuttle at the mall, I grabbed the little one to go shopping here. We bought this shirt in a boy's size 4. Why? We have a lot of 3T and 4T clothes right now, so I thought I would be clever and make something a little bigger. We were supposed to buy these shorts because they have that whole "match, but not really" thing going on, but we did not. Why? We're on a stinking budget.

We get home and I start cutting. Did I learn from exhibit A/F above that I should measure first? No. I just traced that hood from the shirt I found and hoped for the best. Now here's the part that let's you know how brutally honest I am with you guys. I could let you think it worked out just fine like that, but no: the hood was too short to go all the way around the collar. So, being determined and a little bit crazy, I packed the kid up again with another bribe to go on the space shuttle ride at the mall (totally true fact -- we have never had a meltdown at our mall, as bribes of snacks and rides on coin-operated toys and even a little ride on train keep him happily going up one side of the mall and down the other). I bought a shirt three sizes smaller than the first, which was also smaller than Hank normally wears. I got home and hastily sewed up the damn thing. The stitch I used and my execution isn't going to win me any awards at the county fair. And *of course* it is too small, but I kinda knew that would be case. After taking a pic on the floor instead of on the kid, it was thrown into the storage bin to be given to some unsuspecting nephew at a later date.

There you have it, folks. Not just one but two craft fails in one day. I am pretty tuckered out now, so I am taking my sorry butt to veg out on the couch. Tomorrow is another day, and I have some big plans to get reacquainted with things like the measuring tape, stretch stitch, etc.

* For the record, it is a chore I am usually unwilling to take on to get a decent shot of Hank wearing something I made (which assumes I actually made something). I am overweight and have never known what to do with my hair. My husband and I both worry about being laid off, and feel fortunate we have still have our jobs. My co-workers and I have nicknamed 2011 The Year of Death based on how many friends and family members we have collectively lost. The earring just missed the sink, thankfully, but that's where he was aiming. And "heirloom" is probably too strong of word -- more like sentimental.

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Favorite of the day: I *think* this will look good in Hank's room

Working on: It's go time. UFOs on the craft table -- watch out!

New obsession

2011-07-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

I'm at a B- level in terms of trying to lose weight and get healthier. I have started exercising more, but still have many food failures on a weekly basis (who keeps bringing the donuts to work??)

Needing some alternative to the unhealthy snack options that litter our office, I was on the look out for a good crunchy snack. Cheese, fruit, and carrot sticks are all fine and good, but sometimes you crave something a little more carby. I admittedly first bought these snacks because of the cuter that cute packaging, but can confirm they are really good. The best part is that they have sunflower seeds as the first ingredient, so are actually quite filling. I wish they might have considered rice flour to wheat in their composition, but must not have achieved the flavor they were looking for. I don't think I could ever be gluten free unless medically required, but I have found recently that cutting out baked goods, at least (those with a leavening agent like baking soda) makes a huuge difference for me -- we're talking 8 pounds a week weight loss IF I can avoid the goodie table at work {ahem}.

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Favorite of the day: Still looking

Working on: I pick things up, and then move on

This works

2011-07-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

Bugs are not uncommon at our house. Nothing gross, mind you, but en masse they can be annoying (ants!)

We have had fruit flies before -- maybe 2 or 3 hovering over a piece of fruit that was past its prime. Throw the fruit away -- flies were gone. Recently, the house was taken over by those little buggers. They were flying in every room, and would set up weird places to rest, like on our guitar. Every day there were more and more of them despite having all the obvious sources of food hidden.

We first discovered their breeding ground (a back door trash can that had not been emptied), and then looked for a solution for the literally hundreds of flies that were inside the house. I recalled seeing something about setting up a trap for them using a glass with apple cider vinegar in the bottom and a paper funnel with a small opening. BT was doubtful, but I set it up, and within minutes we had captured our first victims. Within a couple hours, we had probably caught over 100 flies. Soooo gross! Hope this never occurs again, but if it does, apple cider vinegar has been bought in bulk.

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Favorite of the day: Various Bastille day shots, like this

Working on: Perhaps a vest, perhaps not

Self-proclaimed master dollar store gift giver

2011-07-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

We go to at least two birthday parties a month now it seems (*fortunately* Hank's cousins live out of state, or that number would undoubtedly be much higher).

Although a gift category has (thankfully) been added to our budget, it is not much. So, we have to be creative about the gifts we give. I have a few bins full of bits and pieces "curated" over the years -- items bought on clearance, leftovers from swaps, etc. I check these bins out first to get a starting point and see if any themes jump out at me.

The latest party was for a 4-year-old girl you would swear is Tinkerbell in the flesh - she is so cute and spirited! In the stash, I found the natural watercolor set (clearance purchase from Michaels), a Disney reusable bag (swag from a friend), and bubbles topped with a flower (part of the set purchased for another gift). To these items I added a paper pad, a "yarn by number" set, a set of beads in a flower shaped container, an unfinished birdhouse, and foam stickers to decorate the birdhouse. The pad was purchased at Kmart for $2, and the other items were from the dollar store for a grand total of $6 (in current dollars -- BT is first to remind me that money was spent on my gift bin items at some point). Together the items seemed like an arts and craft kit for a woodland sprite :)

Perhaps the key is starting with some "real" items and then filling in with dollar store items. In any case, I don't feel like the cheap ass I indeed am when I give these gifts.

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Favorite of the day: Planning lots of road trip stops near frequently visited places (via Ohdeedoh)

Working on: Nada mucho

Summertime

2011-07-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

Trying to maximize our summer fun.

After 2.5 years, we finally felt comfortable enough to take Hank camping. S'more fun indeed ;)

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Favorite of the day: Just browsing

Working on: More summer fun

Another wedding!

2011-07-06T22:11:00.000-07:00

We were asked to help out with another wedding last month. The groom is brother to this guy. In similar fashion, we hosted a luncheon for the couple between the ceremony and the reception. The theme -- tiki! I can only imagine why we were asked to participate :)

(A virgin pina colada type drink was served. It was made with vanilla ice cream, and was super yum!)

The luncheon was held inside the church building in a classroom type setting. We had to be creative working in a drab little space. BT drew tikis on the chalkboards, for example, and on this wall

a full size bulletin board was handily removed to allow for a handmade sign to be strung between two swaying palm trees

The food theme was "tiki taco bar." We had a blast putting the food bar together. After finding a piece of mellow tiki fabric in my stash (shown here under the homemade taco salad shells that the bride's aunt made),

we decided to stick with a color palette of orange, green, and yellow. We were able to find many of the serving bowl in my stash and at the dollar store. Wooden serving spoons were purchased at Party City. I convinced BT's aunt to buy the brown vinyl tablecloths shown below from Walmart instead of plain colored ones. They are the Better Homes & Garden brand, which I typically would associate with country decor. In this case, they had a tapa cloth vibe that looked perfect under the chip and dip hats fashioned from dollar store straw hats

(The tip to making the salsa bowl stay in place? Soak the hats in water for half and hour and then let dry with the bowl placed as shown)

For the couple's reception, we were asked to revamp the photo wall and make favors. For the photo wall, the couple wanted to the same paper as we used previously (we had *just* enough - pshew!), and decided to use pictures of them growing up versus the wedding photos. It came out really cute! We used paper props mounted on sticks.

For favors, the bride wanted candy wrapped in little calico fabric squares. I made 200 of these little fabric wrapped bundles!

The bags were tied off with a hand written tag that had a butterfly punch on it. I also made a fabric wrapped word, "Love," to adorn the basket that the favors were presented in.

Finally, some leftover bubbles from this wedding were re-purposed for Sara and Tim.

They left the reception awash in bubbles. So romantic!

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Favorite of the day: Wouldn't a knot tying kit be the perfect gift for a 8ish-year-old boy?

Working on: Prep for a busy weekend

Now showing at a blog near you

2011-07-04T22:13:00.000-07:00

Sure to be making the blog rounds this summer -- umbrella shaped popsicle molds from Dollar Tree

Too cute!

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Favorite of the day: The sneaky spot we found to watch fireworks

Working on: Frosting the rest of the red, white and blue cupcakes I made for the work crew

A beautiful wedding

2011-06-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

The pastor of our church is a woman about my age. I can imagine dating for a woman in this profession would be very difficult. Many men would be intimidated by a woman with theological training, and/or have some lingering issues with their religious upbringing, their faith, etc. Fortunately she found a man who fit the bill, and they were married at our church this past weekend.

BT and I have been married nearly 10 years, but I still read a number of wedding blogs. I don't have any plans for reliving the big day, but do find many good ideas for regular parties or weddings that I help out with.

Admittedly, I become wrapped up in the beauty and pageantry of weddings, and don't necessarily take the time to reflect on the substance of the ceremony itself. This wedding put all that in perspective. You can only imagine that a pastor would know the perfect Bible passages to have read, the perfect hymns for the full (!) church choir and the audience to sing, plus they had communion for all in attendance.

(I thought this piece of fabric was huge when I started. Not enough, though, to make the waistband or the ties the right length. I had a long skinny scrap of the pink accent color that I used to supplement the main fabric, and now can't imagine this apron without it!)

I was flying solo at this event, since BT was home with a sick kid, but I was all misty eyed reflecting on how beautiful it is to find somebody in this great big world and make a commitment to go through this crazy life with them and them alone.

A special gift was in order. I consulted my handy dandy gift box, and found a set of rubber spatulas that I bought at Target on clearance after Valentine's Day to set the theme of the gift. In my fabric stash was a large piece of Heather Bailey fabric that I bought at a local reuse shop. I made an apron that showed off this large print and a pair of oven mitts.

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wifin a dweam...

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Favorite of the day: Still lookin'

Working on: Another apron (they always seem to come in twos, don't they?)

{sob}

2011-06-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

Posted on the tree in front of our house

(he loves tennis balls -- omg -- heartbreaking!)

This has been on my Amazon wishlist for some time.

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Favorite of the day: Lots of cute elements used for this party

Working on: Same thing as yesterday

Little notes

2011-06-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

This is probably old news to most of you, but just in case there is anybody out there who has not discovered the awesomeness that is Pick Your Plum, please don't hate me if you fall in love.

Every morning there is a new deal on a variety of craft/"feel good" items. There is only a set amount of the items, and once they are gone, they are gone. Subscribers then wait until next day's deal is posted. Even seemingly mundane items like ribbon are elevated when they are sold in a carefully chosen color palette. Getting my daily email from Pick Your Plum ranks right up there with finding out what the Groupon deal of the day is.

The tags shown above were a freebie item on Pick Your Plum. They are absolutely perfect for leaving on co-worker's desks as a pick me up or a thank you for a job well done.

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Favorite of the day: Amy's crafty suitcase

Working on: A gift for my pastor

Homesteading

2011-05-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

We had the opportunity this month to visit family in Iowa. I never lived in the Midwest city where both my parents grew up, but trips there always feel like I am going back home.

(Henry and family, circa 1880)

We made this trip mainly to attend a wedding, but were able to fit in a few other activities as well, such as tracking down caramels made by nuns, playing mini golf, and visiting the Henry Vilas Zoo in Madison, Wisconsin.

(Three generations of Henry's descendants, including his great-great-great grandson, John Henry, 2011)

We also made a trip to the family farm. This isn't what most people would think of as a Midwest farm. It isn't a sprawling piece of flatland that can be planted with acres and acres of corn. It is down in a hollow, along a "crick," and set on a slab of eroding limestone. Our relatives, one of whom is the great-great-great grandfather Hank is named after, probably had a very hard time working this land.

What could you do here on a few acres (and sorta make a living)? Well, if we were so inclined to set up our home on this plot of land today, we discussed doing the following:

~ Growing organic hops (hops grow vertically, so you can pack in a lot of vines)
~ Making organic beer (naturally)
~ Chickens!
~ Harvesting morels which grow abundantly in the surrounding forest
~ Growing berries to make jam (homemade jam was being sold in the local tourist stores for $8/jar!)
~ Baking pies and bread for a local restaurant to serve
~ Letting a little boy run free to make leaf boats, look for fossils, and do whatever boys do in an open space dozens of miles from the nearest McDonalds.

BT and I are dreamers, and we had fun playing the "what if" game imagining life on a farm. The farm house itself looks straight out of the Blair Witch Project* at the moment, so that would be a major investment. Oh, and the winters, and all the work, and being subject to the seasons, pests, and the unexpected to determine if you were going to make it by that year.

But, it is fun to pretend :)

* So we made no mention of the family names to Hank as we explored the farm. Inside the house, he asked what something was, and somebody must have said it was Henry's so-and-so. He then pointed and said excitedly - There's Henry! I want to touch him. Then, as we headed down towards the creek, there is an old shed. Hank said he wanted to see "Mama Harry" in there. Now, who knows why he said mama, and he may have meant Henry, but doesn't it give you chills to hear that Henry's wife was named Harriet? I was seriously creeped out.

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Favorite of the day: Cute idea, and cute bag

Working on: Oh, I don't know where I am at with projects.

Up themed party

2011-05-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

It all started with a link...

and before we could second guess ourselves, my friend, her husband, and I were planning an Up themed birthday for 3-year-old Maddie -- in about a week's time!

After a whirlwind shopping trip (7 stores, I think?), we got to work. My parts were easy, like this wreath (tutorial here -- I added painted chipboard letters strung on a piece of baker's twine)

Their tasks were much more difficult, like building and painting a dollhouse kit.

This is the kind of project most dads take years to complete, and gets ditched when the daughter turns 13 and states that she doesn't want a stupid dollhouse anymore (not that I'm talking from experience or anything). Maddie will have a lovely dollhouse to decorate as she grows older, and it was built in record time.

Conversely, BT and I assembled a cardboard dollhouse as a birthday gift and for the kids to color at the party

Maddie's mom was a busy bee as well, making these cute adventure books

They were so lucky to have access to a binding machine! Many elements were borrowed for the party, and you never know what somebody has lurking in a closet or a side yard.

The parents purchased these Ellie badges off etsy, and I packaged them up cute in cello bags adorned with a thank you tag from the birthday girl's professional photo shoot with the same photographer we used, Jen Disney.

Maddie seemed a much more willing participant than Hank to get dozens of cute as can be shots. We used additional pictures from the photo shoot for centerpieces

We borrowed liberally from the linked party, as they did such a wonderful job putting together whimsical elements representing the movie. So, we also had

Chocolate dipped marshmallows adorned with flags

Vintage-looking sodas

and Tootsie Roll Pops displayed like balloons.

One unique element we put together for our party was a photo booth. I used a blue tablecloth as a background and pinned on two felt clouds. I then put together several elements to represent Carl (the old man) and Russell (the Wilderness Explorer) from the movie. Initially I had a sports coat, black frame glasses, bowties, a rainbow-y bird to represent Kevin, a Wilderness Explorer sash, bandana, yellow hat, and pennant. As people came to the party, the prop bin grew to include several old man hats, a vintage boy scout hat (so awesome!), and a boy scout canteen somebody picked up for 50 cents at a rummage sale located near the party.

The photo booth was fun for old and young alike! Oh, and did I mention that we watched the movie alfresco, and had both cotton candy and popcorn for snacks? It was so much fun to help plan this whirlwind party, and the couple is already scoping out ideas for next year's party.

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Favorite of the day: Probably something work related

Working on: Procrastinating

Full of snark

2011-05-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

Once I became a supervisor at my office several years ago, I had to learn how to manage people with different points of view, most of whom are older than me. Admittedly I lost a 25+ year employee, part of the "traditionalist" generation, once I became her boss in part because I did not communicate with her in the way she wanted (She worked off site. I relied on email, and she would have preferred phone calls).

The Happy Hocky Family, by Lane Smith. Written in 1996 - coincidence? It just doesn't get any snarkier than this.

After this event, I am mildly obsessed with understanding the differences between workers from the four different generations (Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials) working in our office. Here is a good synopsis of what each generation represents. For our office family, these are some of our general working principles -- The traditionalists are going to demand respect from those around them, but cannot self-assess when their own behavior is disrespectful. Our Baby Boomers love having access to new technology, but you'd also better give them the phone number to the computer help center. Our Gen-Xers will want to debate the necessity of every new assignment, need productive assignments (no busy work), and don't want to be micromanaged. Our Millennials seem like they are farting around all day with texting, email, etc., but if you give them proper guidance and space, they will produce great things.

Bagel's Lucky Hat, by Hector Mumbly. It's more the illustrations than the text that give this one its edge. It's ok for kids to be a little creeped out -- right?

At work, I have become neutral by necessity. In my personal life, I am a typical Gen-Xer. Stereotypical, I would say. I bawled walking through the Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center, which chronicles the Challenger disaster, and feel this event gave me (if not our generation) my "why bother - everything is going to turn out crap" attitude. I feel deeply moved by the lyrics of 90s grunge bands. And, I am well versed in sarcasm, snark, and wit.

Who Needs Donuts?, by Alan Stamaty. The young ones will be looking for donuts on each page, and the parents will be discussing what kind of drugs the artist was on when he designed human-pigeon hybrids and drew hundreds of thousands of donuts in a warehouse, and how not Kosher many parents would be reading a book with a kid that wanders away from home AND befriends a creepy donut collecting weird-o long after the kids have gone to sleep.

My son will be part of his own generation, and doesn't need the baggage of mine. I try to put on a happy face and express optimism first when we are working through an issue (what a novel idea!) His music play list is more on the adult side, admittedly, but it has not felt appropriate to infuse his collection with any songs from Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Alice in Chains (maybe when he is in high school we will introduce him to "real" music). I don't know what he picks up from my husband and I when we are bantering, though these exchanges are probably something we should try to curtail as Hank gets older lest he become a verbal fencer like his parents (side note: sarcasm does not seem to go over well with the younger generations).

Little Fur Family, by Margaret Wise Brown. Many MWB books seem a little bit off. Recall the page in Goodnight Moon that says Goodnight, nobody -- what's up with that?? Little Fur Family is also a little unsettling, perhaps because they look like bears, but apparently are not, plus the fur baby chases a mini version of himself around. Trippy.

Although we don't infuse the kid with Gen-X culture (oh, just a few reproduction toys, and some nostalgic movies and TV shows), we do appreciate when we come across a book that is a little edgy, and is entertaining for the adult reading it as well. Here are a few books that are in heavy rotation at our house, showing their appeal to both old(ish) and young. If you have them or end up checking them out from your local library, let me know what you think!

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Favorite of the day: Next party we go to, this is what the birthday boy/girl is receiving!

Working on: Lists and worrying

Teacher Appreciation Week

2011-05-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. Hank's day care made it easy to know how to show our teachers how much we appreciate them, as they sent home a letter with suggestions as to what to do each day. Today was easy -- it was a teacher enrichment day, so no kids at school. That was probably the best gift of all! On other days, we have been asked to bring a card, a gift, and help with hosting a lunch for the teachers.

For the gifts, I was initially just going to make the little bags shown above. They contain

the little grow pots from the Target dollar section (my mom gave us these for Easter, but not feeling the gardening vibe just yet), some snacks from Cost Plus, and Lindt bug chocolates from Target. The bags were tied with raffia, and the ladybug adorned clothespins are from the Japanese dollar store.

But, on a recent trip to Fresh & Easy, I saw these cute as can be animal crackers in a box designed by Lilly Pulitzer and knew I had to make them into teacher gifts as well! I squealed with delight, and started throwing boxes in the cart (just the boxes are cute - crackers are the regular animal crackers). I don't know how rare a million boxes of a grocery item are, but they are touting these as "rare," and have a "cracker tracker" to aid in finding them in your area. Good luck!

Showing appreciation for teachers is so important -- especially if you have the kid that isn't known for his sunny disposition! for more teacher gift ideas, you can find ideas galore at Skip to My Lou :)

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Favorite of the day: I am digging burlap more than usual as of late. Here is a project that caught my eye.

Working on: A sash

"Extreme" couponing

2011-05-01T18:42:00.000-07:00

Whatever the reason, be it the new show or finding blogs that make it easier than easy to shop using coupons, I have been caught up in clipping coupons and saving money for the past month or so.

Admittedly I rely on several blogs to match up coupons and store deals to determine what I am going to buy. I also limit the stores I will go to for these items to Target, Walmart, CVS, and Ralphs (Kroeger) - stores I go to anyway in any given week. I am suddenly thrilled to receive the random Target mailer with dozens of store coupons, as you can "stack" those coupons with manufacturers coupons from the newspaper and sale prices to get awesome deals. I am seeking items that are free or nearly free, or give a return of reward dollars (like at CVS). The items shown above probably cost about $10 total including tax. Some items were free with coupons, like the dental floss, and others were bought at CVS with reward dollars so that all I paid was tax (and received more dollars to use on my next transaction).

But, the real question is -- what am I doing with all this stuff?? The items that thus far have come up in the "extreme" category (i.e. free or nearly free) are not things we typically use. For hygiene products, we try to use organic or natural products. I am not brand loyal, per se, but I am a kind of a brand snob. When I see somebody on the Extreme Couponing show with shelf full of Kraft salad dressing, I cringe. There are coupons out there for the products we buy, and I am collecting those as well to use for my "real" shopping, but the stuff shown above is not intended for us.

Instead, I will be donating these items to my church, which in turn donates the items to food banks (I didn't encounter any extreme food deals this month - odd), and homeless shelters. In determining our own budget, donations were a little squidgy. It currently is part of our personal "discretionary" category, which essentially mean we have to be altruistic and donate money versus spending it on a latte. This way, I have one donation opportunity covered with little cost. In shopping for these items, I have fun, spend very little money (after a $9 investment at CVS, I have been able to keep buying items there that return reward dollars), get a bag full of stuff each month to donate to a worthy cause, and get that little thrill I suspect all the extreme couponers live for when the register clicks down to zero.

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Recent favorite: So cute!

Working on: A wreath or two

What's on the calendar 9 months before April?

2011-04-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

Wow - I didn't realize we had so many friends and family with April birthdays! In addition to this gift, we attended three other birthday parties this month where gifts were required (plus I still owe a gift to one of my blogging buddies, and another friend)

I am still on a fairly strict budget, so couldn't go all crazy. First up, a gift for a boy from Hank's day care

All items shown were re-gifts, but thought the bright colors looked cute together. I was too lazy to hunt for a piece of ribbon to attach the tag so I used a silly band instead :)

Next, a gift for the girl who received the upside-down apron last year

She had a horse riding party (hence the toy horse) and the color theme was black, white and hot pink with polka dots. Her mom had asked me a question about making candy jars as favors prior to the party, so I took the jar idea and ran with it. I made a large jar gift for the birthday girl using little bits and bobs I thought represented her. I bought a few items for $1 each at Walmart, but otherwise had everything on hand (sad, I know...)

During our trip to Arizona we were able to attend a birthday party for a nephew

I don't think I have mentioned it here, but I have been doing a very scaled down version of extreme couponing. I am totally reliant on blogs like Money Saving Mom and Hip2Save to indicate where the deals are an coupon matchups, etc., and don't have the know how to find all the wonderful deals on my own. I will show my first month's haul and the intended purpose for the items bought shortly. In the mean time, I was able to score a Buzz Lightyear Operation game for just $2! Walmart had the game on sale for $5, and there was a coupon in the paper (also still online) for $3 off an Operation game. You will note that the Amazon price is still over $13 - score!!

Finally, I guess this isn't technically an April birthday, as the baby is due next month, but I made a little monkey themed gift for a baby shower gift for a cousin

This ended up a little more pricey than intended, as I had to re-think the theme when an element ordered online did not show up on time. I scrambled to put the blanket together with mostly fabric on hand, and was pleasantly surprised to find a monkey printed sleep sack and toy during my last minute trip to Target (I had the unused sheet, the same one the mama-to-be registered for, in my gift bin).

May is still pretty heavy in the birthday department, but perhaps we can catch a break come June :)

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Favorite of the day: Seeing downtown LA from the top of Los Angeles City Hall

Working on: May wreath ideas

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T19:55:00.001-07:00

Hope it was a good one!!

Bunny Trail Mix

2011-04-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my mom, I found all of the components to make Nina's bunny trail mix.

As a reminder, here are the components and what they represent:

Ears: Pink & white candy corn

Nose: Jelly beans

Whiskers: Pretzel sticks

Muddy paws: Chocolate covered pretzels

Tail: Mini marshmallows

All packaged up to give out to the cousins at tomorrow's Easter festivities!

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Favorite of the day: Another good restaurant

Working on: Still relaxin'

For the day care set

2011-04-21T07:26:00.001-07:00

I first saw this idea on Dollar Store Crafts to make carrots using disposable icing bags and cheddar crackers. I made a few up for Hank's day care class.

I used the Target brand Chickadees crackers, but Annie's bunnies would have been cute as well.

The bags were presented to the class in an Easter basket from last year. I heard they were a hit!

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Favorite of the day: Queen Creek Olive Mill

Working on: Relaxing

Coloring eggs

2011-04-21T07:12:00.001-07:00

We used White Rabbit dye again (much deeper color this time)

and rubber bands

and they were served in vintage egg cups.

(though I thought the kid would get a kick out of making these, he didn't truly appreciate the eggs until he took his first bite -- I don't think he had had hard boiled eggs as a toddler. Suddenly he was enamored with the colors, the egg cups, everything.)

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Favorite of the day: "The" eggs of the season

Working on: Getting it all done

They are good eggs

2011-04-19T15:35:00.001-07:00

My work family is like a second family to me. We are a small group, and have some very strong personalities amongst us. Despite our quirks, we find ways to come together and support each other.

I like putting together little treats for the folks I spend a majority of my waking hours with for the holidays and special events. For Easter, I filled plastic eggs with flavored Tootsie Rolls. I cut out orange feet from cardstock and mounted the egg on with a glue dot. I was going to draw on an entire face, but was pleasantly surprised to see two "eye holes" left over from when the eggs were made. All I had to do was draw on a beak :)

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Favorite of the day: A "must do" if I can source all the materials!!

Working on: A shower gift

Easter basket: Art basket

2011-04-17T08:55:00.001-07:00

It should come as no surprise that with the focus on art projects as of late that Hank's Easter basket this year would have an art theme

(There is also a Snoopy slant thanks to our recent trips to Knott's)

The "basket" is a caddy we can use to store art supplies in the dining room. I use one of the bins from his closet for storing art supplies, but hate leaving the bin out in the dining room to clutter the space. The caddy will look a little more intentional.

I bought a few higher quality art supplies, including P'kolino pencils and crayons, Clementine paint, and Magic Mud. I found canvases for $3 each at Big Lots. The Snoopy items were found at Big Lots and JoAnn. One more thing I need to pick up this week is a color wheel.

Hope this leads to even more fun art projects!

Previous Easter baskets from the archives:

Vintage sewing basket
Basket for a baby + colorful favors

Nature/Outdoors themed basket

Flat pack care package
Motorcycle themed

Tiki themed
Quick and easy for kids
Kids Gardening Easter baskets plus here

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Recent favorite: These are so simple and cute!

Working on: More gifts

Art Methods: Positive and negative space

2011-04-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

For this art lesson, teaching positive and negative space, I had the project in mind, but admittedly didn't have any great ideas for how to "teach" it to a 2-year-old. Regardless, Hank had fun throughout the project.

First, we started with this library book that Hank picked out. We had not been to the library for quite some time. I felt very bad about this once I saw how excited Hank was to go through the children's section to pick out books, play with the puzzles and games in the children's area, and read his "liberry" books nightly. Regular library visits officially added to the agenda.

In any case, the book is probably meant to share with infants who would appreciate the graphic quality of the black and white works. It is great for any age though, really - even adults - as these are real art pieces done in a unique, graphic style. In looking through the book, I tried to point out how some features are well-defined (positive space), and they stand out from the white background (negative space).

Other times, it is more difficult to tell which part is the dominate aspect of the art piece, and which part is meant to around or behind the main focus of the piece. In this lino cut by Josef Albers, the white spaces formed by the intersecting lines are still very much part of the main focus of the drawing.

To complete our piece studying positive and negative space, we took a white sheet of paper and added stickers. I offered the letter stickers to Hank, but he said he wanted me to spell words (he chose the words).

I then asked him to cover the entire paper in red paint.

I was surprised that he stuck with this part, but he seemed pretty committed to fill in the entire sheet. As we were painting, I would ask him if he saw shapes with either the red he was painting (he painted over the stickers first) or the white that was left as he painted.

We left the sheet to dry overnight, and then I took off the stickers. Again we talked about the spaces that were left by the stickers, and how the white - formerly just the background - now stands out to us.

Hank's assessment - I want yellow!

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Favorite of the day: Seed starters

Working on: Shopping on a budget

Mail call!

2011-04-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

My blog friend of many years, Barb, has sent another one of her famous flat rate boxes!!

She really gets her money's worth -- this box was heav-y! What was inside. Well, there were the mandatory tiki items

including two Maori tea towels from New Zealand!

There were some crafty items

including two pattern sets to make on-the-go art cases, some cute trim, a full bag of stencils, and cute bird-shaped clothespins.

A few mousie items

including ornaments for this year's traditional tree.

And a few miscellaneous fun items

which were by and large confiscated by the kid. The battery powered candle (which you can really blow out!) is the new favorite toy around these parts, and the Japanese sponges are in the bath. Mama did save the candle, and the chocolate, which is dark chocolate with chipotle and -- Pop Rocks! Actually quite delightful.

Thank you so much, dear friend, for your friendship over the years and for sending these lovely boxes. Especially since this is YOUR birthday month, and I owe YOU a similar box :)

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Favorite of the day: Modern tiki house!

Working on: Work treats

Easter egg wreath

2011-04-10T09:18:00.001-07:00

I salvaged the grapevine base from last month's wreath to make a new version for Easter

The idea to wrap eggs in yarn came from this post (via Dollar Store Crafts). I believe the ones used in the post were plastic. I didn't want to risk burned fingers using hot glue to wrap the eggs, so I used paper mache versions from Michaels instead

and white glue. Well -- using white glue left a lot of glue shreds on the eggs, so that is the trade off, I suppose. In any case, I am pretty happy with how the wreath turned out.

I used a mesh ribbon from Cost Plus and twisted raffia for a bow

Happy Easter!

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Favorite of the day: Nothin' yet

Working on: More presents!

One Fish, Two Fish

2011-04-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

A little friend is having a Dr. Seuss themed birthday party this weekend. I thought it would be fun to make him a One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish fishing game. Other than magnets, I had all the other items on hand! First I made the fish out of felt.

Next was a vinyl-sided fishbowl to hold the fish. This was a little tricky to make with the fabric sides, but I think it turned out pretty cute in the end.

Then a fishing pole using a piece of a dowel that I have had just about forever. I painted the pole in a fun red and white stripe.

I then added a little tag with instructions for the game, trying to imitate the Dr. Seuss style.

The yarn pompom and red and white paper (from our Whoville Christmas) were recovered from the Christmas storage box.

Though we have a decent Dr. Seuss collection, we do not have this particular book. I think not being familiar with the story is the only way Hank will be able to give this away tomorrow as a gift, since he is enamored with all of the Seussical stories we do have.

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Favorite of the day: Love the sawhorse game :)

Working on: An Easter wreath

Our friends

2011-04-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

My best friend from high school has lived in Japan for the past 10 years. Whenever Mother Nature strikes Japan, I frantically send Joy an email making sure she is ok. Most times she assured me that they were too far from whatever had taken place to feel any effects.

(A couple of redheads hit San Fran circa 1996)

Such was not the case with the recent earthquake/tsunami/radiation disasters that struck Japan. Fortunately my friend and her family were far from the source, but very much affected by all that was taking place in the country.

My friend and her daughter, Natasha, decided to come back to the States for some time until things get stabilized in Japan.

We met up this past weekend to go to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The weather was perfect for this fun outing. We made a few gifts to give to our friends, including a hat packed in a little purse with bubbles and snacks, some patriotic conversation hearts for Natasha's brave daddy who is still back in Japan providing humanitarian aid, and a coffee cozy for my dear friend.

(The cool kids)

The kids had fun looking at the animals. In pointing out the okapi's zebra legs to Hank, he was astute enough to notice that the okapi also had a zebra butt. Where did we find this kid?

By the end of the day, the two were hugging like (the kids of) old friends.

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Favorite of the day: ta-da!

Working on: Birthday gift