My bathroom is 8×6: a sink, a toilet, a bathtub, and an obtrusive radiator all fit in the tiny space and accommodate this family of 5. The photo above shows how it looked three years ago when we moved in. It wasn’t great, but it came with the house so we had to work with it. The pedestal sink was nice and skinny and all, but we own things and they need to go somewhere. There wasn’t anything wrong with the sink so there wasn’t any need to replace it, though I did hate it. The toilet topper, or whatever the hell those things are called, went out right away which made the bathroom feel much bigger. A year later, my brother was installing a light in the ceiling and dropped his hammer on the sink. Suddenly we had to replace the sink and super fast because my brother was leaving and he knows something about installing sinks, whereas we know nothing. The sink and faucet came from our local hardware store and the cabinet was a lucky, lucky find at an antique shop. It was 100 bucks, which I thought was crazy expensive, but all that storage space has been worth it.

This is a during shot. It’s hard to tell from the picture but the people who owned the house before us ripped off the tile that was on the wall and then just painted, just painted over the glue that was underneath. The tile was a peach colored plastic tile, but still, you can work with that a little better than painted glue. Why this didn’t tip us off to their halfassedness I don’t know–you are just blind when buying a house for the first time (or at least we were). You think you’ll just fix everything up lickity split. Yeah, that doesn’t happen because the water heater breaks or the basement floods or you build a fence in the backyard or go and have more kids (or all of the above plus some). So I am embarrassed to tell you how long ago I took this during picture.  But it doesn’t matter now because it’s done!

I had to plaster and sand and plaster and sand and plaster and sand over the glue, but that 6 dollar bucket of plaster made a huge difference. I painted it white and painted the top bit peacock blue, which is my new favorite color. The shiny thing attached to the cabinet is a mailbox! I trash picked it a few years ago  (why? I don’t know.  We didn’t need a mailbox, but I can’t resist good trash). It holds books and magazines and has an added bonus of protecting them from all the sink splashing my kids do.  The toilet paper holder is an old warhead box–really it is–that I stole from my high school boyfriend. The owl we got as a wedding present and the picture above it was a thrift store spurge.  I got the metal first aid kit off ebay and we keep all the medicine locked up in it, so the kids don’t get into it.  The paper whites bloomed just for the picture and the hanging plant is called string of pearls, which is a pretty succulent.  All in all I think we spent a little over 300 bucks (and three years) to get it all done.  So there, now you more about my bathroom than you ever thought you wanted to. There are more pictures on flickr if you want to see more!

These despondent little leaves are an example of the beautiful work by Lola Goldstein.  I never thought I’d be in love with leaves that suffer from ennui. Her soft boiled egg set with a little egg shaped salt shaker is pretty cute too.

I’m not much for resolutions mostly because my birthday comes up pretty fast after new years (this friday!) and it’s depressing to take stock and realize you so quickly fell short of all those goals you set just four weeks ago. But this creativity chart by Eerika from rag pets is simple and beautiful and is more about keeping track then MUST SUCCEED! She simply colors in the block if she has been creative that day. You could color code the squares or just go crazy with your box of 64 crayons. Someone in the comments even suggested making a quilt based on the chart when the year is done, which is fantastic and reminds me of Lea Redmond’s idea of knitting a scarf where the color of the row depends on the color of the sky that day (she also does the world’s smallest valentine, which is super awesome and seasonally appropriate).

I have wanted a set of letter cookie cutters for a while, but I am now totally holding out for these helvetica shaped cutters by Beverly Hsu.

and last, but far from least, on the list of things that are awesome on the internet this week is this curiosity cabinet by Suzanne Norris. I think the octopus is my favorite. It’s sold in this amazing shop called the Otherist–in Amsterdam– that I discovered via Kasa at the paperama blog.  It looks like a beautiful shop to visit, but their online shop ain’t too shabby either.

On Friday all my kids’ friends came over for a valentines making party–yes all! have you ever had a party where every person you invited could come and then think holy crap! everyone is coming?  At the last minute a few kids couldn’t make it, so it wasn’t quite as chaotic as I thought it would be, but we are still picking glitter out of our hair (four days later).  The kids are still pretty young, so there weren’t any projects proper, it was a how many different things can you glue to one card sort of deal. My son’s inner glitter lover came out and he used up most of what we had.  Actually after the party was over my kids worked on their valentines almost until dinner time. They would get up from the table every once and a while and help themselves to the leftovers at the buffet. It was a rare day in motherhood where I was aloud to sit back, cuddle with the baby, and crochet as I please.

I got kinda themey with the food. It was supposed to be all heart shaped and red, but ended up rather brown and carby.  I made tomato focaccia from my bakery days and it was pretty good, at least the two dogs who finished it off thought so. These financiers were a total bust: they didn’t taste very good–and financiers are usually super delicious–and the heart effect was fussy as hell and didn’t work in the end.  Everything else was pretty run of the mill: heart shaped pb&js, red vegetables, trail mix. Martha’s raisin heart pockets were my favorite and I squirreled a few away to have with tea later.  I know valentines day is all about chocolateness, but these were nice and wintery, not too sweet and perfect with tea. I used golden raisins in the filling, but I think dried apricots with a little cardamom would be even better.  So go set up a little buffet for your kiddo’s lunch and open the glitter and savor some quiet time, or make some valentines yourself.  Next year we might skip the christmas cards all together and just send out valentines.

This coat has been a long time coming. I started it right after I finished making my son’s coat–high off success I suppose–but it stalled soon after when she tried on the rough draft (umm, what do you call the outer shell of the coat, a mock up?) and said, “ewww, I don’t like it.” So it sat in a pile for a loooong while. Then I started looking around for something to line it with and couldn’t find anything big enough to line the whole coat which bummed me out, so it sat some more. I decided to hell with it I would just patch together different sweaters to line it even if it makes it look extra handmade.

Really I probably shouldn’t have lined it. I wanted to just use fabric from my stash (because seriously the stash has to get smaller) and everything is, but the coat doesn’t hang right at all. The pattern is from Carefree Clothes for Girls, which I was really excited about, but I’m not super happy with this pattern (I combined the short coat shape with the long coat length). It’s raglan sleeve, which I love, but it different from the other raglan sleeve things I’ve done in that it has a seem down the top of the arm. So there are four pieces for the sleeves and they are sewn separately to the front and to the back and then the front and back pieces are joined by sewing down the top of both arms. I think this takes away the ease of raglan sleeves and gives the coat extra bulk it just doesn’t need. Oh and I added in seam pockets, which doesn’t help with the bulk issue either, but they’re handy.

Because I didn’t really like it, but didn’t want to abandon it I slapped on some ruffles a la j.crew so I would like it more. And it worked. My daughter was anxious for me to finish it, but damn if those sew on snaps don’t take forever to sew on.  While I was sewing on all those snaps my daughter danced around excited for it to be done, then she tried it on and hated it. It is a little big and hangs weird, so I don’t really blame her. But still. Maybe next year she’ll like it more. Until then she’ll wear it to church because her mother will make her.

Erika from fox and owl makes beautiful articulated teddy bears (and kitties and dolls too), but it’s this idea that I’m going to steal. Healthy and hilarious!

Another craft project idea on the list to steal (someone has a flickr set called “ideas I have stolen” that I always thought was fantastic) is this painted square set from mer mag.  Part art part toy and super fantastic all over.

From another blog I can’t read comes this project. Perfect for valentine’s day or mother’s day or just to use up the ridiculous amount of random art we have piled up in the house.

have a great weekend!

This is what happens when you try and crochet over a paper lantern. I wanted a new light fixture for our bedroom because staring at a cheap paper lantern hanging from a bare bulb starts to looks extra crappy in the wee hours of the morning (when you are nursing and staring at the ceiling, wrecked from nursing all night long) but didn’t have any extra cash to get one, or really even make one. I thought lantern would look nice and cozy with a crocheted cover. I had some extra chunky white yarn from this project, so I quickly got to work. I’ve never really made up a pattern from scratch before and it was a little more frustrating than I thought it would be and it took a lot longer. And then because I was running out of yarn and stretching it just a little too tight literally with the very last stitch I broke the shade. Shit. Yeah yeah, maybe it a good thing, now when I make it again I might be able to write a pattern, but still, shit.

I am working on another crochet project (my sewing machine is gathering dust!) and it has not failed yet.

Hexagons for a bathmat. It’s a japanese pattern and my first project worked from a crochet chart (I found it on ravelry here and here is the original site). I’m warming up because I bought this book and I want to make every single project in it. Speaking of ravelry, it looks like there is a sewing equivalent getting going call The Woven! There are a lot of sewing forums out there that are great (craftster, cut out and keep) but this looks more like ravelry and it’s nicely thought out. It would be a welcome addition I think.

I know christmas is long gone, but I never got to show you all that I made, so just deal with it. It was indeed a very crochet christmas this year. I made earrings for all my crafty bitches (sorry, it’s just too tempting) I mean my friends from craft night. The first earring I made turned out waaaay too big, so I turned it into a necklace instead and liked it so much I made another. The other earrings worked up super quick and I think they are very pretty (and so did they, thankfully).  While I was in the jewelry making mood I crocheted a bow tie choker with some leftover alpaca I had. I thought it’d be a sassy accessory for new year’s eve, but they weren’t buying it, so I think some little boy has a new sunday tie. The alpaca was from another christmas gift I crocheted–that slouchy hat up there–for my brother in law. I think I did every single stitch wrong in the hat, but they are all wrong in the same way so it turned out. The used chunky alpaca for the black cowl (the pattern is called the the black hole cowl) and it’s so awesomely soft. If you don’t knit or crochet you should learn just because of alpaca. The last two scarves up there were for my mother-in-law and father-in-law–I’m sure you can tell which is which. The fancy one is made with the broomstick stitch, which is a super cool stitch that you actually use a broomstick for, or in my case a wrapping paper tube, and it’s made out of 100 percent cashmere (on sale) so it’s crazy soft. The one I’m peeking out from is just a quick, easy, man scarf, one I’m sure I will make again.  All the specs for all these project are on my ravelry page (you need an account to see them) and hey while you are there be my friend! I’m lonely over there on ravelry all by myself. There were two more crocheted presents and I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of either: I made 2 moustache hats for my brother in law and his girlfriend. The moustaches were a little droopy, but otherwise they were well recieved–and worn!  So yeah, I crocheted a lot for christmas. How about you? what did you make?

If I had a spot in my house for this, you bet your ass I’d be making it. via the always awesome brick house.

This beautiful gold necklace is made from squash seeds painted with gold leaf.   Super fancy and yet almost free!

Trula is a pretty new blog that shows off all the awesome kids clothes the mama makes. They are comfy and stylish and (thankgod) not just for girls. She has an etsy shop (and I’ve got my eyes on that bag).

I’m bummed that I was laid up all week with the sick, because I missed out on Lily’s week of shapes, but she mentioned she might host a week exploring line and one for shadow. Maybe if we all pester her enough it will happen soon.

We welcomed the new year with a big pot of fondue, the everyone promptly got the flu (not from the fondue). So I sort of missed  the first few days of this new year. I’m happy it’s here though, flu and all. Last year was a little rough (me and pregnancy don’t really like each other much) still a few things got made and some good ones at that. I put my favorites up there–that baby being the best thing I made by far. I hope to rework this little blog in the new year and maybe even get going on some patterns I’ve been meaning to work on. We’ll see. This little baby just learned to roll over and crawling comes quickly to my boys, so I’m guessing all sewing time will soon be gone.  I have ambitions though, three days in to 2010 and my list is already long.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

We are getting ready for lots of eating and merry making.  I hope you have lovely meals and lots of cookies in the coming days. I’m going to take a little break and I’ll see you all in the new yeat! Merry Christmas!

Download today’s coloring page here
See all the coloring pages so far here

I have one more present left to wrap and then I’m ready for all of them to be ripped open on christmas morn. Are you one of the crazy ones waiting to shop until tomorrow? I secretly wish I was, then all the hurrying would be stuffed into just one day and all of december could be about making and eating cookies and drinking glog. Then again maybe it’s a good thing I work on presents for most of the month, otherwise I’d be round and drunk.

Download today’s coloring page here
Check out all the coloring pages so far here
Buy the whole fancy advent calendar coloring book here
See everyone’s fancy coloring here

Santa’s reindeer are going to have some serious snow to deal with here in the states this year. It’s snowing here again today and there are 8 inches predicted for Christmas day. There will be much sledding and hot chocolate. And cookies!

Download today’s coloring page here
Check out all the coloring pages so far here
Buy the whole fancy advent calendar coloring book here
See everyone’s fancy coloring here

December has flown by and I forgot to tell you all that I have been posting over at habit all month. The lovely ladies there invited all the guests back for a big holiday photography party all month long.  It has been beautiful and is getting even prettier as christmas approaches, so go have a look!

Happy Solstice!

Download today’s coloring page here

See all the pages so far here

Buy the whole coloring book here

Show off your work here

Late again! But my christmas to do list has gotten refreshingly short today. yay! I will try to get these coloring pages up early in the morning for this last week, because with no school my kids need a project right away in the morning or the fighting and/or whining will start (and not stop). I wish you tiny to do list and big glasses of wine.

Download today’s coloring page here

See all the pages so far here

Buy the whole coloring book here

Show off your work here

I think the worst of the christmas crazy is over for me and it’s just wrapping and eating and singing from here on out. But mostly eating. What are you having for Christmas dinner?

Download today’s coloring page here

See all the pages so far here

Buy the whole coloring book here

Show off your work here

The days are getting busier and busier! Today is just a simple sprig of holly, but stay tuned tomorrow will be a beautiful bird!

Download today’s coloring page here

See all the pages so far here

Buy the whole coloring book here

Show off your work here

oh my goodness I thought I posted this morning, but I guess I didn’t! Sorry it’s so late!

The activity in our advent calendar today is “eat christmas cookies.” It looks  I”m all out of ideas for the advent calendar, and out of energy too. But maybe the cookies will help.

Download today’s coloring page here

See all the pages so far here

Buy the whole coloring book here

Show off your work here

Around these parts we drink eggnog and on our hot chocolate is lots of schlag (and mama would like a little brandy  in both).

Download today’s coloring page here

See all the pages so far here

Buy the whole coloring book here

Show off your work here

Do you have all your christmas shopping done? Are you one of the hyper organized summertime christmas shoppers or are you freaking out that there are only 10 days until christmas? I am one of the latter, so off I go to get it done….

Download today’s coloring page here

See all the pages so far here

Buy the whole coloring book here

Show off your work here

The christmas bells are ringing! Download today’s coloring page here! I’m so happy that so many of you (and your littles) are enjoying these pages. And thank you for the lovely compliments on my (very) simple drawings. I’m far from being an artist, but I do like pretending I am, so all those kind words give me hope.

As always:

See all the pages so far here

Buy the whole coloring book here

Show off your work here

Happy Saint Lucia day! There is some sweet bread rising in the kitchen and we might make some crowns later today, then a little parade will probably be in order because I have a girl very proud to be the oldest. There are directions for making a lovely Santa Lucia crown here and there are star hats for the boys there as well! Hey, you could even print out mr. smiley star up there and paste him all over the little boy’s  hat.

Download today’s coloring page here

Buy the whole coloring book here

See what everyone else has been coloring here

Sorry today’s coloring page is a little late, but Granny was coming and the house had to be clean!

Download the stockings to color here

See all the pages here

Buy the whole coloring book here

I’ve been getting more and more long winded as these days of advent go by, but today is busy so I’ll skip the pithiness. Download these logs to color here, buy the advent calendar coloring book here, and show the world your art here.

If you’d like to see all the pages so far or just pass the link on you can now find them all in one place: the category for the advent calendar coloring pages.

Cookies! My favorite thing about christmas is always the cookies. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t made a single christmas cookie yet, but these chocolate espresso ones are on deck (or in the freezer, whatever) and I have a gingerbread project in the works. In past years I have made (and loved) these fig pinwheels, these amazing spoon cookies, english toffee, gunpowder balls (but everyone has a different name for them), chocolate gingerbread cookies, surprisingly good earl grey tea cookies, prune rugelach (could a cookie sound more geriatric? don’t let that stop you -they are good), these pain in the ass, but so so awesome chestnut cream cookies, and I guess I could just go on and on, but I’m getting hungry. What cookies are you making this year? Feel free to put it off to tomorrow and just sit down and color with your kids today. Download the cookie page here (and buy the whole book here, if you like).

We are buried under a foot of snow here this morning! So the day’s plan is to bundle the kids up and put them outside to play, thaw them out with hot chocolate and then get out the art box and color color color.  Whatever the weather is like where you are you can download today’s coloring page here.

As always, buy the coloring book here and show off your work here!

We are bracing ourselves for a big storm here in the midwest and I don’t even know if the lakes are frozen over yet. Wasn’t it 60 on Thanksgiving? My system is a little in shock, so I’ll be staying in and coloring today’s picture: download it here. But I’m sure we’ll be able to skate this weekend as the high temperature will be 1 degree fahrenheit, but I’m guessing we won’t even try to go outside.

As always, buy the coloring book here and show off your work here!

December can’t just be all black and white on the ol’ blog–it is christmas time after all. These beautiful colors came from my local thrift store and were absolutely free. I have always like the childcraft series and had my eye out for the “make and do” volume, but never could find it. The other day I was dropping some stuff at the thrift shop and spotted the whole series in the donation bin. I was tempted to swipe it, but the dude working there was right in front of me and besides stealing from charity is just bad mojo. So I asked him and he said the lady who gave it away was still there and I could ask her. She gave me a thumbs up and I threw all that awesomeness in my trunk.

It’s the 1964 edition and the illustrations are fantastic. The make and do volume is of course my favorite: the projects are super simple and make me feel like I could do them with my children, unlike when I look at Martha and feel like a second rate mom because I can’t deal with glitter.

There might even be some christmas presents in there for the kids to make, or if nothing else they have given me some quiet while the kids l0ok at all 15 of them on the couch, which is a huuuge christmas present for their mama.

Growing up we were a very lazy (and cheap) get your christmas tree on christmas eve kind of family. I won’t even go into the time we didn’t have a tree, but instead clothespinned pine branches onto our fig tree (I thought it was because of my whining, but I think it was the laziness, see above). Needless to say, I am now fully in the christmas tree the day after thanksgiving camp. So ours is up and decorated–by my 2 and 4 year old, but decorated nonetheless. Even if you don’t have a tree yet you can download, color and decorate this lovely one just the way you like.

Show off all your pretty trees here and buy a coloring book for under the tree here!

We’re getting out all the christmas boxes today and doing it up! Though with a two and a four year old I think we’ll skip the cool vintage balls this year.  But these ornaments aren’t breakable! Download today’s coloring page here and show it off here.

And purchase the whole coloring book in my etsy shop.

Download this portly little snowman here and color him for the fifth day of advent. Remember to put out your shoes for St. Nicholas day tomorrow! He might just leave you an advent calendar coloring book of your very own!

It’s the fourth day of advent today and there are only 21 days until Christmas (and my list keeps getting longer, not shorter). Today, for your coloring pleasure is one giant snowflake: click here to download. We got lots of little snowflakes here last night and things are finally starting to look a little christmasy. Nothing like a little snow to put you in a holiday mood. Happy Coloring!

As always, you can purchase the whole coloring book here and show off your fancy crayon skillz here.

It’s the third day of advent and from my coloring book today you get a lovely wreath with lots of little leaves to color and a big red? purple? green? blue? bow. Click here and download it, fire up the printer and color something pretty.  As always, you can show off your mad coloring skills in the elsie marley flickr group.

And for more advent calendar lovin, check out the awesome, virtual, all tutorial, crafy advent calendar at Cut Out &Keep!

Every day of advent I will be posting a page from my coloring book for you to download.  On the second day of advent you get a string of lights to color. Do you have lights up yet? Time to get out those crayons and pencils. Click here to download the page!

If you are extra proud of your work  feel free to show it off in the elsie marley flickr page.

happy december! Every day of advent I will be posting a page from my coloring book for you to download.  On the first day of advent you get a fancy dancy pair of knit mittens to color. So get out those crayons and pencils and click here to download the page!

If you are extra proud of your work  feel free to show it off in the elsie marley flickr page.

I am super excited to tell you about this project. After much help from my computer genius of a husband, you can now buy (for the super cheap price of $2.50) and download my Advent Calendar Coloring Book.  Then check “make advent calendar” off your list.  Done and done. All the pictures were drawn by yours truly and I had a fine time doing it. We all should draw more often. And color more often too! Because of course after making a coloring book, I had to break out the crayons and pencils and color!

My daughter, who is my little tester, has colored three whole books already and advent hasn’t even begun. And really, you could print out a coloring book a day for advent, instead of coloring one picture a day.  My kids are coloring fiends, so that much coloring wouldn’t be unheard of. And of course you don’t have to use it as an advent calendar, but just color all the christmasiness to get in a happy holiday mood.

And as a special treat, I am going to have a page to print out and color everyday for advent on my blog. So be sure to stop by tomorrow for the first one!

just a few pictures of what I’ve been working on, before everything I’m working on is for christmas.

I guess this qualifies for braid wednesday as well!

I think it’s pretty easy to go crochet crazy. I had a great aunt who crocheted anything and everything: toilet paper cozies, sombreros for the tabasco sauce, ear cozies–not ear muffs, just two circles that fit around your ears! And now I see how you can go down that road. It’s just so easy to make up shapes as you go with crochet, increasing and decreasing wherever you choose and if you need to rip it out, it’s no big deal because it comes together so fast anyway. Which is why after only a few weeks after learning, I can crochet on the fly. This super ridiculous santa hat is a mash up of two other crocheted hats: the pointy hat I made for my daughter and the mustache hat on instructables. I can write up a pattern if there is enough interest, but really, if you can crochet you can probably just wing it.  Ho! Ho! Ho!

This tart was delicious. That said, I don’t recommend actually making it, unless you have all day to make a tart. I saw the recipe here, thought, “that looks lovely and hey, I have some pears,” but then didn’t really read the directions. If I had I would have discovered that there were three parts that all required separate making, baking, cooling times before you put them all together and bake it again. I made it for a potluck so I fudged a bunch of steps because it had to be done right! now! but it still came out pretty good. And really you can’t loose with almond cream. I could eat it raw for breakfast and be happy.

My half eaten gingerbread man had a nice little shout out from Jess at howaboutorange and tons of people download the pattern because of it. To date, it’s been downloaded over 2500 times! Damn! So I thought it was about time that I started an elsiemarley flickr group. I love seeing the things people have made from my tutorials–you might recognize the string of lights advent calendar above from last year–and I thought there should be a place to share them with everyone.  So go to the group and join and show us all the awesomeness you’ve made.

I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to make every project in the Kid’s Crochet book. And here are 2 more. This little pointy number is pretty fantastic. The super cuteness doesn’t really come across in the photos, not that I didn’t try–my children will. not. be. still! As with all the projects in the book, this hat went very fast and I didn’t have one bit of trouble with it (here are the specs). My daughter picked out the variegated yarn (she called it rainbow yarn) from Joann’s and I wanted to try to get another hat out of it, so I added some stripes.

To mark the back of the hat, I embroidered her name on some wool felt and stitched it in. She picked out the orange thread and damn if that child doesn’t just have some amazing, if sometimes crazy, color sense. What four year old picks out taupe yarn anyway? But she did and it’s beautiful. While we were at the store we got some yarn for a cardigan I want to crochet for her. Stupidly I didn’t bring the pattern and we ended up buying the wrong size yarn, but she chose three gorgeous colors: a purpley raspberry, a magenta and a taupe-y brown. I never would have thought that’s what she would pick.

The skull cap (a variation of the same pattern) went even faster than the first hat. I did run out of yarn, so I added larger stripes of the yarn leftover from his scarf, but the wool at the bottom is curling. I haven’t blocked it, but how do you block a hat? On your head?

Still truckin along with crochet. These little scrubbers work up super quick and they work! I have a problem with sponges and their nastiness (but obviously I have no problem with my sink being nasty and dirty. The anal retentive midwestern in me need to break out the old toothbrush and scrub scrub scrub). I found the pattern in the vast ravelry sea, I think. It’s not worked in a circle, which is good for me because circular crochet still eludes me. You can find the pattern here. I think they will make great stocking stuffers, if not the most exciting ones. The japanese have of course made a cute artform out of the lowly scrubbie–the tawashi–and now that I’ve made one I want to make them all!

It’s been quite a while since I made new pillows and I always hate my couch a little less when I do. So I cut into this awesome Anna Maria Horner huge flower print and slapped some gingham on the back. 15 minutes and you have a pillow. Why do I put these things off for so long? The grey pillow is made from old felted sweaters. After making my bears, the arms of the sweaters are always leftover, so I have a box full of arms (creepy). I cut them apart and sewed them up in strips with the seams exposed. I’m not in love with it, but I’m happy I used them up. And my couch is happy too.

I’m still learning to crochet with the awesome Kid’s Crochet book, which is long overdue at the library. My son picked out the gold yarn at the yarn store to match his coat and I picked out the blue, so it wouldn’t be so matchy matchy. The pattern called for three colors and I think that would have been better, because my scarves turned out kind of school colors-y (or hogwarts-y, hogwarstian?).  But I’m happy with them anyway and the kids love them. The blue and gold one was done with single crochet into the front loop and the purple and blue one done into the back loop, just so I could practice them both.  I haven’t blocked the purple one yet and I don’t know when that is going to happen. I think blocking is to crocheting (or knitting) as hemming is to sewing: that last pain in the ass thing that never gets done, but has to and should because it makes everything look finished.

Well after that last post I went for a little walk to gather leaves. There was one lonely tree left with leaves on it, but they were huge and yellow and perfect. The boy and I snipped off their stems and folded them a bit, then I sewed them together one by one with a simple whip stitch. He picked yellow thread to match the leaves, so you can’t see it. But I have plans to stitch something on them in blue! This was such a simple and beautiful project. I think making these will be part of our fall for years to come.

This leaf crown was part of a “homemade halloween” post on Dos Family. I want to make this before the leaves get too crunchy and crumbly. They are almost all off the trees, so I better work fast. Damn if winter isn’t on it’s way already.

Ringo is a fantastic resource for creative kids projects that I heard about on bkids. It’s in french, but with my handy dandy google translator I can read it all.  It’s a beautiful site with tons of drawing projects, download-able masks, children’s book reviews and lots more. They say,  “ Each publication will be monthly and will include a fortnight of activities.” Awesome! So go check it out.

I can’t remember where I found this, but the Play Box looks like a pretty fantastic christmas present for any kid. A box filled with flip books, word games,  pictures that come to life when you hold them up to the light, a cool Russian kid’s book from 1928? I’m in.

And just so you don’t think everything awesome on the internet is for kids, here is today’s project on design sponge: crocheted hanging plant holders. I need to new crochet project and I think this is just the thing as everything fades and turns brown outside we need some color and life inside. But they would also make cute kid purses.

At the beginning of fall I made a list of the things I wanted to make for my family, but I didn’t want to post it because I was afraid I wouldn’t get any of it done, then I would feel guilty and get crabby and nothing would get done.  But shockingly, I am slowly crossing things off. The purple pants and skirt, a little red riding hood cape (for her birthday), and now this coat. I was very nervous when I wrote “a coat for each” on my list, but this came together relatively simply.  I bought the pattern ages ago at a thrift store for ten cents and it was super easy.  Raglan sleeves, baby. They make everything easier. The only thing that tripped me up was the collar, which I had to rip out three times before I got it right and I’m glad I did. Normally I would just say screw it and push on, but I was feeling extra patient for some reason. Plus it has to stand up to be handed down now that he has a little brother.

The very best part of the coat, though, is the lining. It’s made from a felted cashmere sweater and holy crap does it feel nice. I was lucky enough to find an XL cashmere sweater (for 5 bucks!) right when I was looking for a lining and it was just, just enough. Lining a coat is super simple: right sides facing, sew all around, turn inside out and sew up the opening. The sleeves are a little different, but that shouldn’t deter you. You too can make a coat for your kid! I feel like clothes are getting more and more expensive as they get more and more cheaply made.

Okay one more thing about the coat and then I’ll be done. The buttons. They are beautiful. I was going to use up whatever matched from my button jar, but a friend told me to go to Gayfeather, which if you are local know is a beautiful fabric store, but I bet you never noticed their button cabinet. It’s awesome. I love the burnished look of them and that everyone is different.

After all the swearing and unpicking of seams, it’s just feels ridiculously good to see him always choose this coat to wear. Now I have to figure out how to make the one his sister has been asking for.

I’ve been meaning to write about this little project for a while now.  It wasn’t much work, practically none at all really, but it has been awesome. I got the idea from an old issue of Cookie magazine (well they are all old now– damn you, tanking magazine industry!).  I just slapped some chalkcloth–oil cloth that works like a chalk board–that I got on etsy, cut it to fit, and because I couldn’t be bothered to take it off again I just mitered the corners with some glue.  Done and done.  Now it’s someone’s job to draw the place settings for dinner (sometimes mine) which makes those 15 minutes before dinner enjoyable rather than the low blood sugar hell they usually are.

Stella McCartney for the gap. I can’t get over the how awesome the band jacket is and that leopard dress ain’t too shabby either.

this is an ikea chair. and though I have too much ikea shit in my house and would rather not have more, I love this freakin chair.

my kids would go crazy for these blocks (called playshapes)by Miller Goodman and I would probably play with them a bunch too.

I know this is an old post from the purl bee, but I just learned to crochet so it’s new to me. And isn’t it beautiful?

And these slippers look perfect for slipping on right about now (if you knit she sells the pattern, if you don’t she’ll make them for you).

ok. I think that’s enough, I’m getting all wanty now.

I wanted to make some corduroy pants for my kids this fall and my son picked out this crazy purple called blackberry.  That was weeks ago. And it’s not like the fabric has been sitting around waiting for me to get to it. I have been working on these pants and his sister’s skirt for a good long while now. First it turns out that a yard and a half will no longer get me two pairs of pants like it used to, so the shorter one got the pants and the taller one had to settle for a skirt (luckily the tall one’s a girl). And then when I really looked at the fabric, though it is corduroy, it’s barely thicker than quilting cotton (damn you Joann’s and your cheap ass fabric) so I thought I’d try to line it. Which I’ve never done. And while we’re at it let’s try flat felled seams because hell I’ve never done those before either. Oh and pockets, they need pockets. All of this added up to my sewing machine permanently living on the dining room table, because I only have 10 minutes here and there to work, and now my hand wheel is covered in peanut butter.  Neither piece turned out great, but I was doing lots of things I didn’t really know how to do and made up the patterns as I went along, so really I shouldn’t be surprised.  Lining is hard. We live in Wisconsin and our winters are super cold, so I would love to line all the clothes I make, but I don’t know how. You would think it would be easy. In the vastness of the craft blog world there must be some “how to line clothes” tutorial . Isn’t there? I know I did the lining for the skirt wrong because it can stand up with no one in it and the ruffles aren’t very ruffly. And the pants lining was a little easier, but the hems were a pain in the butt because they were so thick. So they got warm, if a little half ass, purple clothes. All they care about is the purple, so whatever.

The heart pocket was my friend’s brilliant idea and my daughter loves it. And I love the bright blue stitching that I used on both garments and the buttons she chose. So they weren’t complete failures. Luckily I just bought the book “Carefree Clothes for Girl,” which is beautiful–and has patterns, because I learned I can’t just wing it. And to help with that problem I got “Design It Yourself Clothes: Patermaking simplified” from the library, which I just started to read and it’s awesome. My list of things to make get longer with every new craft book that comes out.

image from gourmet.com

There really is no good reason to make this pie, but when I saw it on Gourmet’s website a few weeks ago I really wanted to find a reason. Now that Gourmet is gone it seems some ridiculous pie making might be in order. Because along with the magazine and the website (though I assume epicurious.com will continue) all the web only recipes will disappear–mr. fatty fatty bacon pie being one of them.  My favorite part of this recipe–after the fact that practically every other ingredient is fat–is the little parenthetical after 1 cup peanut butter (not natural). It was obviously very late in the evening when someone decided to throw together a jar of Jif, some chocolate wafers and bacon dipped in sugar. Eating this pie seems like a good way to say goodbye and screw you! how the hell did you %!*&  everything up enough to make this great magazine get axed.

I’ve tried to knit many times, but I get so tense while I’m knitting (is this right?? is it working?) that my stitches get so ridiculously tight I can’t shove  the   damn    needle    under   the      yarn.  And even if I do loosen up, it takes me forever and I just don’t have the patience. I’ve always wanted to learn to crochet because I know it is faster than knitting and I want to be part of the yarn kids click too.  I’m just so nervous when it comes to working with yarn–you can’t really half ass it, like you can with sewing. So I checked out Kids Crochet by Kelli Ronci and Lena Corwin because I figured if they can teach kids they can teach me.

It’s a beautiful book and the projects are awesome, but I still didn’t really get how to crochet.  You tube to the rescue! I watched a 3 minute video on single crochet and a few hours later I had a scarf.  It helped immensely that the yarn was super bulky and the hook super bulky too (a size P).  I was originally going to make the shorter neck wrap on the cover for my daughter, but I enjoyed the actual crocheting so much I just kept going until I used up the whole ball (skein? I know no yarn lingo) and now the scarf is mine. I have plans to make more projects from the book (like all of them) but I need to learn more than just single crochet for that.

Oh, I don’t know why I didn’t mentioned this sooner (October is flying by!) but I was asked by the lovely ladies of Habit to be a contributor for the month. Habit is a photographic collection of the little bits of life from both Emily and Molly and the women they ask to participate. It’s been extremely enjoyable and a good excuse to try to take more–and possibly better–pictures. So go check it out.

If you have kids and don’t know about kids craft weekly, well you should.  I’ve subscribed to their newsletter for quite some time, but I’m embarrassed to say this is the first project we’ve ever done from it.  When we do art my kids are pretty happy with the process and not too interested in the result, but recently that’s changed.  These two projects are both from the 5 minute craft issue. And really with a 2.5 and 4 year old all crafts should be 5 minute crafts. The owls were a great for learning to cut more precisely (for the 4 year old) and to work on getting better with the scissors (for the 2.5 year old). The bean project was awesome (draw something with glue and have the kids put beans on the glue–easy peasy) and my daughter has requested we do it everyday since. They started off just doing letters, but wanted to pictures as well: pumpkins and beans (ha!) and smile faces (as they call them).

I think that is actually my owl. If you want to see the boy’s owl (grandma) it’s here.

1. Untitled, 2. clever drawers, 3. mountain goat, 4. a whale tower, 5. mugs & china cups, 6. Doughnuts and Coffee Cupcakes, 7. aithiopians, 8. banana-antlers, 9. Hope

oops, I almost forgot.

Friday: Plum (like a plum, duh) melissa
jess
oona
freckled hen
katie
jessica
caitlin
annika
andrea
jenny
fiona
kim
stitches and tulips
juniper
ali
stephanie
mrs catbird
nath
melanie o
kelly
kim
anna
carol
mary grace
char
jessie
alexis

ok. pictures of babies is cheating, I know. You would think with the all the brown furniture around here there would be a lovely shade of chestnut, but after all these years (with the same damn couch) it all just looks brown.

Thursday: Chestnut (dark, warm brown)
Friday: Plum (like a plum, duh)

melissa
jess
oona
freckled hen
katie
jessica
caitlin
annika
andrea
jenny
fiona
kim
stitches and tulips
juniper
ali
stephanie
mrs catbird
nath
melanie o
kelly
kim
anna
carol
mary grace
char
jessie
alexis

Wednesday: Goldenrod (warm, deep yellow)
Thursday: Chestnut (dark, warm brown)
Friday: Plum (like a plum, duh)

melissa
jess
oona
freckled hen
katie
jessica
caitlin
annika
andrea
jenny
fiona
kim
stitches and tulips
juniper
ali
stephanie
mrs catbird
nath
melanie o
kelly
kim
anna
carol
mary grace
char
jessie
alexis

Tuesday:Burnt Siena (a reddy orange, like the rooftops of Siena)
Wednesday: Goldenrod (warm, deep yellow)
Thursday: Chesnut (dark, warm brown)
Friday: Plum (like a plum, duh)

melissa
jess
oona
freckled hen
katie
jessica
caitlin
annika
andrea
jenny
fiona
kim
stitches and tulips
juniper
ali
stephanie
mrs catbird
nath
melanie o
kelly
kim
anna
carol
mary grace
char
jessie
alexis

and for more fall color lovliness, look here:

melissa
jess
oona
freckled hen
katie
jessica
caitlin
annika
andrea
jenny
fiona
kim
stitches and tulips
juniper
ali
stephanie
mrs catbird
nath
melanie o
kelly
kim
anna
carol
mary grace
char
jessie
alexis

if there are any problems with the links just drop me a note in the comments and I’ll fix it.

The boy is doing such a good job with potty training (this week at least) that I thought I’d make him some special undies. Before the new baby this project would have taken an hour, now it takes a week. You forget just how dramatically the pace changes when you have a tiny baby. But they did get done, amazingly enough, and he likes them–and so do I, but it is hard to watch your work get peed on.

Yay to everyone participating in color week! Don’t worry, you don’t have to take pictures of changing leaves. There aren’t really that many here and we’re way up in Wisconsin. I just thought it would get everyone excited for fall–and hurry it up a bit. For all those in the southern hemisphere: you are of course welcome, even though it’s all pinks and greens in your springtime world now.

All craft and thrift action these days is geared towards occupying two preschoolers without noisy toys or heaps of sugar (okay there is some sugar, but not much). This cute little typewriter showed up on craigslist at just the right time and thankfully it wasn’t 200 bucks, which it seams most (out of date, pretty much useless, but indie rock stylish) typewriters are going for these days. The ribbon was immediately destroyed–thank you, son number one–but they really don’t know how it is supposed to work anyway, so mostly it’s about finding letters and numbers and making it *ding*.  And really it will always just be a toy for them. The other day, my daughter asked me what this toy was. We’ve had it since she was a baby! And she never knew it was a telephone! To her phones are little clam shell things you carry in your pocket. I am from a totally different world than she it, which reminds me of this list: 100 things your kids may never know about. I’m sure every generation has a list like this, ” back in my day…,” but it’s shocking to suddenly be the person saying, “back in my day…”

Okay, I need to stop now before I make myself feel geriatric. Onto happier things.

It’s starting to feel like fall here and though I haven’t been swearing at the heat all summer (the weather has actually been pleasant this summer, especially for a ginormous pregnant lady) fall is too lovely not to be excited about. So I thought I’d host a fall color week: a picture or two a day that captures a color of the coming season.  The color week thing has been done a thousand times, so I thought I’d use Crayola colors this time, mostly because burnt siena was my favorite (second only to cornflower blue) and because it is the color of fall to me (I’ll decode the colors for all those who grew up crayloa-less). Leave a comment if you want to play along and I’ll list a link to your blog (or flickr) when we start on Monday.

Monday: Brick Red (deep red)

Tuesday:Burnt Siena (a reddy orange, like the rooftops of Siena)

Wednesday: Goldenrod (warm, deep yellow)

Thursday: Chesnut (dark, warm brown)

Friday: Plum (like a plum, duh)

See you Monday!

I made oreos this weekend. Now before you go off on the whole “how do you do it all?” rant, let me just say I don’t. My husband has been off work for a few weeks now and he takes the big kids (just like that, they are big kids!) when the baby goes down for a nap. It’s been absolutely amazing to have him around so much. This is how it should be: two parents taking care of the kids, maybe a nanny thrown in to take some of the pressure off. Oh to be ridiculously wealthy….some day. That comes to an abrupt end today and god knows how I’m going to deal with these three whiny, crying, poopy bundles of love all day long. I’ll probably make more oreos, because I bake when I’m stressed.  Mostly because I know I can make whatever recipe you throw at me or if I can’t there will be enough sugar and butter in it to be edible anyway. These cookies were most definitely edible.  I’ve made oreos before and they were kind of a pain in the ass–well it was a martha stewart recipe so what do you expect–but they were really good and crunchy too. These were more to the moon pie end of the scale. The cookies themselves were super easy and super delicious and I would make them on their own again (and again), but  I just wasn’t down with the filing. It is technically correct: crisco and butter and sugar. I assume that’s whats in real oreos (minus the butter) and that’s what martha puts in her oreos, but I just can’t bring myself to eat raw crisco. I’m no natural food freak, I have eaten my fair share of crisco and continue to have a can of it in the cupboard, but I can’t just stick my finger in it and eat it. ugh. So next time I’ll make a thick cream cheese frosting and slap that between the two cookies instead.

And there is a half done project under the cookies, see? ooop, and there’s the baby. So it’ll stay half done for another day.

peach and creme fraiche pie to be exact. It was made and already eaten–pie is just so good for breakfast. Though this pie wasn’t quite as good as I thought it would be. It was pretty damn tasty, don’t get me wrong, but the streusel didn’t really do it for me. There should have been more crunch to it. Next time I’ll add some chopped almonds or something else to give it more dimension. Because as it stands this pie is all creamy and softy peachy goodness, which sure as hell ain’t bad.

It goes without saying that not much is getting made here. What with a newborn baby (and a crabby one at that) and two crazy preschoolers wreaking havoc from the first moment they wake up and a blanky blank holiday–we need all the school time we can get. I have somehow managed to make some pies, mostly because I want to eat them. This one is pretty damn good (and all gone) and this is on the docket for today. But I did get to sneak down to my studio for all of ten minutes to sew up this little curtain for the fireplace. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now and had grand visions of appliqued castles and little pockets for little friends. Finally I just said screw it and cut and hemmed this pretty piece of fabric (a bedspread from urban outfitters that was destined to become something at one point, I just forget what).  I saw the idea in Cookie magazine, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere online. The kids call it their secret room and though the novelty has worn off for them already (two days later) I still like it.

boy!

He was 5 days late, 5 excruciating days, but now he’s here and part of the family. This second son of mine is modeling his “if I make it the baby will come” outfit that I made in that last week of pregnancy. I stole pants and hat idea from Made by Rae, because I literally could have no other thoughts that week besides, “it’s it time yet? now? now is going to happen?”The hat reverses to a pink stripe because we didn’t know if it was a little man or a little lady. The pants are from an old tank top that is  super lightweight because it’s August and should be hot, right? The Midwest has decided what the hell let’s have fall early this year.

The booties I actually started when I was in labor and finished up this past week. They’re from the same pattern I made for a friend’s baby and they are just so stinking cute. And now I have a whole Von Trapp matching family!

No baby yet (two days overdue and counting) but this is pretty damn exciting. I’m in a calendar! and I’m not naked in it! This is a pretty fantastic calendar, one I might even pick up if I wasn’t in it–and I’m pretty cheap, I mean I draw my own calendars monthly. There are so many fantastic projects in here:  two each week. It’s just the right amount because you could actually do two little sewing projects each week.  And there are so many fantastic bloggers in here like Ellen from the long thread, Alicia from the Mayfly, Dawn from UK lass in the US, and the listed of talent just goes on and on.  I’ve got 2 projects in the calendar: the tin can cover (hey look it’s on the cover!) and the post office bag, oh wait I found another in there, the half eaten gingerbread man (all my tutorials are here, if you are interested). I can’t believe I’m thinking about Christmas yet, but I am, and this would make a great gift for a lot of people on my list. I have no idea if it’s in stores yet, or what stores it will be in, but if I see it in one I will surely freak out and tell everyone I know.

There might not be much sewing going on in these parts, but there are little home fix-it things happening every day. Nothing like having a baby to make you fix the damn doorknob already (thank you, dear).  This little, vaguely eames, coat rack is in our bathroom–making it a towel rack really, but whatever. The idea is all Martha and it came from her book “Simple Home Solutions,” which I’m sure your local library has and you should check it out. I canceled my subscription to Living a few years ago because it seemed they just started recycling ideas over and over again. Turns out they picked the good ones and put them in this book and a few more might just show up here.

There were quite a few steps to make these simple looking hooks. When I bought the hooks at my awesomely helpful Ace hardware I asked them to hack off the tips of both the hooks (if you have a hacksaw you could do this yourself). Then I spray painted them white, because I didn’t know I wanted them white until after I got them home (they sell white ones, so I could have saved myself some inhaled fumes).  My husband helped me drill a hole in each wood ball–Martha doesn’t tell you how big the hole should be, but when you jam the ball on the end of the hook it should just fit. Then I painted and shellacked all the balls, fretted about the arrangement, and hung the suckers up. I have two more lower down for the kids that aren’t quite done yet, but they will get done unless I have this baby sometime soon. Yup, still pregnant over here even though I’m due today (hear that baby?!). Grannyma took the kids for a couple days, so all we are doing here is waiting. Quietly waiting.

Speaking of kids and Martha Stewart. This is project I wanted to do, but I don’t live near a place with lots of beautiful flat rocks and my local craft store didn’t really have that great of a selection. We actually bought our daughter dominoes for that “the new baby is here” present. Dominoes are a fantastic toy for preschoolers and I thought I’d share this project with all of you who live near a rocky shore, unlike us land locked Midwesterners.

This chair has had a blanket casually draped over it–hiding that big ol’ rip–for quite a while now.  It was getting pretty annoying, so I finally formulated a plan to fix it. I saw this fantasticly awesome patch job on flickr a long time ago and have been wanting to do something like it ever since.  You might remember the weird S&M vinyl sewing action here a few weeks ago, well it became a loooong strip of black vinyl hexagons (not paper pieced, I’m not that insane, you can sort of half ass hexagons on your sewing machine–see all those wrinkles? yeah, half ass).

and then using an obscene amount of glue I patched the hole. And it worked!

This chair was a trash pick by someone else and then a gift (to me!) when they moved out of town. It feels good to breath new life into it, for a few more years at least.

And for all of you who have so kindly emailed asking: no, no baby yet. I’ve been slowly loosing my mind the last few weeks and now I’ve just given up. I will be pregnant forever. Granted I’m not due until Monday, but all the signs are there and besides haven’t I been pregnant long enough? shesh.  Oh well, bring on the spicy food and sappy movies!

It’s been quite a while since I posted anything thrift related, so here you go. I found this great matching game at the (smelly) thrift store in my home town. It was pretty much the only good thing in the entire store. I’m sure it’s handmade: just cut paper decoupaged onto little wooden tiles. The box is, I think, made from wood trim.  My super talented friend made a set like this a while ago only it was painted, but they stuck together and got all messed up. I’ve always wanted her to do more (hear that Lily?) because they were so, so beautiful, but I’ll have this little set until she does.  Or rather my kids will.

This is just an ikea lamp, but one I’ve actually wanted for a long time. It’s called Jonisk and shesh! it’s 50 bucks at Ikea (no wonder I never bought it). I got it for 5 at my mom’s thrift store. I didn’t think there was really room for it in my house–these days the word is purge, not hoard–but I made a place for it in the dining room and it works quite nicely, thankyouverymuch. It’s indirect, glowly light and on a dimmer to boot. perfect.

And this is just some awesome faux cross stitch fabric that will be a skirt when I have a waist again.

There has been a lot of weddingness all over the place these days. Craftzine had a handmade weddings series going and well I guess summertime is just a time for weddings. My best friend from high school is getting married this fall, so I’ve been looking at dresses and cakes and cute little wedding things for her. All of which has made me think about my wedding 6 years ago. We tried to be cheap and crafty and we were, but shesh not as crafty as brides and grooms these days. I was on craftster constantly while I was planning it and I remember I could click to see the day’s new post and there would be about 20 of them. Ha! now it’s a crafty behemoth! Anyway, this is all just a ploy to share what I made for my wedding, hoping that it will give others ideas. First the invitations:

I used balsa wood for the main invitation, painting a red/orange/pink stripe across the bottom and gluing the actual invitation to the back. My printer was my best friend for all of this and the map was my baby. We got married in the middle of nowhere (on the farm where my mother grew up!) so the map had to be detailed, but of course stylish as well. I am embarrassed to admit just how many hours I spent on it. And I have a huge mental block when it comes to any image editing software: I learn it for about 10 hours and then forget everything and have to relearn it all again.

A few crafty things we did: my sisters tied red ribbons on all the trees on the path that led up to the hill where we got married–it’s hard to decorate the woods, but this worked really well. My mom made jam for all the guests (thanks mom!) and I made a tag for each that then served as the place card. There are so many little things to do for a wedding, anything that can do double duty should. I don’t know if any one used these (the photo says, “tissues, just in case”) but it was a Martha idea that was easy and useful (I think I was still making them on the way to the wedding). And the last picture isn’t really crafty, but it was an fantastic idea (not mine). Instead of having a guest book, we had a stack of cards and asked the guests to write a little note to us and drop it in a bowl. It was much more personal then just a signature and I still like to read them. There were lots of other little things. I made stickers with numbers on them and printed all the guest’s names out of small pieces of paper, then we could stick the numbers next to the names for escort cards at the last minute because arranged seating is a delicate dance. We strung up a clothesline and clipped photos of ourselves when we were kids onto it–it’s nice to have something for the less social (usually me) to do while avoiding talking to people. And a bunch of other stuff, luminarias, programs, table numbers, candle holders. Weddings are a lot of work.

My dress was made out of my mother’s wedding dress, which was in such poor shape it couldn’t be repaired. I found a seamstress who specialized in vintage fabrics (in Chicago) and she created this amazing dress. I think she had, literally, a small handful of the original lace left when she was done. Not the nicest of women, but damn she could sew.

The piece d’resistance of my cheap and craftiness was this polyester fabric. I ordered 50 yards of it in red and pink from ebay (for like 20 bucks, it was ridiculous) and my brother climbed the tallest ladder we had to staple all of it to a tree branch (if you can’t tell that is at least 25 feet up). The tree was at the beginning of the path to the lake where we had our reception and made a beautiful curtain to walk through to get there. This is the only photo I could find of it and though we had the lengths of material pulled back for the party, when we went to clean up we untied them and someone took this amazing poloroid.

I don’t have any wise words for those planning their wedding now except maybe, become best friends with your printer, exploit all of your family and friend’s talents, and everything can be found second hand.

I bought this froggy chair from a friend of mine a while back. It’s actually hard to find chairs for kids that are in between high chairs and regular seats, well cheap ones at least. We’ve been getting by with dictionaries and just plain old kneeling, but often my daughters legs  fall asleep and then she’ll lie on the ground flailing while we finished dinner. Not really pleasant for anyone. So the chair. I guess I didn’t really mention that I was going to paint it, because everyone in my family was shocked and no one approved. For the few weeks it was at the table, it seems everyone fell in love with this god awful, garish froggy chair.  Well too bad. I just can’t stand that 80’s craft fair, dappled paint, googly eyed animal shit. And I love me some high gloss spray paint. Of course it’s still called the froggy chair. And I need to find another because the kids fight over it at every meal. I guess I better go hit up some old school craft fairs.

Oh and for all of you who subscribe to my blog via email, I’m sorry about that huge email you got with all the past posts in it. We upgraded Wordpress this weekend and I guess that was the side effect. It shouldn’t happen again (and if it does, please tell me).

I got this fabric, well really it’s more like a print, from reprodepot last year. After asking my super talented art major friends how to display this ginormous piece of fabric, I went to the art supply store to get stretcher bars. Stretcher bars, if you don’t know (I didn’t), are used to make a simple wooden frame that you can then stretch your canvas over. Now that I think about it, they are like large square (or rectangle) embroidery hoops. They come in every length, so you can make a frame in whatever size you like. I only say all of this because if you like fabric, sooner or later you are going to want to put some on your wall and stretcher bars will help you out immensely. I was really nervous about this project–mostly I didn’t want to destroy this beautiful fabric. I finally got my nerve up at the last craft night and put a thousand staples in it. It may be a little wonky, but I’m okay with that. It’s in the kid’s room and they love it (I thought it might give them nightmares, I mean it’s pretty large and a little on the creepy side). When all the furniture rearranging (for this little baby) finally is finished I’ll show the whole room.

It’s my little boy’s first day of (pre)school today. Now is where I’m supposed to say they grow up so fast, etc. etc. but really sometimes it goes painfully slow. I feel like we’ve been talking up this day for a long long time. I want him to do silly dances and think I’m hilarious forever, but I also want him to sit on the potty by himself and not wake up all the time at night. It will be nice to have a few hours a week to myself, but I do already miss him. Parenting is ridiculous. Anyway, I made him a school bag (of course) with this fantastic japanese animal print I had squirreled away just for this very occasion. I got it a while back from the etsy shop alittlegoodness, which is now sort of under new ownership. His sister is very jealous of the new bag and pretty pissed that she just has the same old one she’s always had (even though hers was the first kiddy messenger bag!). Oh well, she’s bigger and gets to tell him what to do.

Now I have to go paint the bathroom.

I actually took this picture last wednesday, but found myself picking up this little project again today. They are vinyl hexagons: a little crafty, a little s&m.  That’s how I roll.  No, really, this project isn’t going to make any sense until it’s done and then only if it works. So I guess you’ll just have to wait.

I haven’t even turned my computer on the last couple days. I’ve been reading. Books. Fancy that.  So please if there is crafty awesomeness that I am missing on the internets, shoot me a link in the comments.

trash picking season is in full swing here. I’ve found a few things, including this fantastically huge map (we live in wisconsin, if you didn’t know, so it’s not weird). I’ve had to pass by many things because with another baby on the way we just don’t have room for more stuff, even if it is free for the taking. Speaking of that little baby, he or she will be here soon–seven weeks–so I think I have to be in this space a little less and start to make room for the little one. I will still check in, probably once a week, but if I disappear you will know what I’m up to.

for more awesome trash look here.

sorry. This week just got away from me (for many reasons, but I won’t bore you with them). Kristin over at plush you wrote my blog up in a list of 15 lovely blogs. Thank you kristin! I am supposed to pass on the link love by listing 15 newly discovered blogs that I have found. And what the hell, here goes:

1. beci orpin
2. sparkle power
3. the brick house
4. violetta estacalda
5. quinn
6. on hand modern
7. sweet sweet life
8. this tiny house
9. dolls and things
10. clever girl
11. lea redmond
12. the story girl
13. misako mimoko
14. seed stitching
15. at swim two birds

whew! have a good weekend (and may some of it be spent outside and not on the computer). see you sometime next week.

I whipped up these stripey baby shoes before we left on vacation for a coworker of my husband’s.  I bought the pattern on etsy (here). The directions tried to be incredibly clear, but got a little complicated because they just went on and on. Mostly I just looked at the pictures and copied what I saw. They might be a little small–hopefully she’s a slender ankled baby girl. The plaid shoes in the pattern photo are so flippin cute I think I’ll make some just like it for the little bun in my oven.

We’ve been living it up at Grandma’s house all week, but now we’re heading deep into the woods. I’ll be back sometime next week. Thanks for all your wonderful feedback on my last post. You guys are great.

I’ve been thinking about making this pillowcase for a long while now (a lot of my posts start like that I know, but it takes me a loooong time from coming up with an idea to actually executing it).  It’s wrong in many ways: the size is off, the pocket is a little too small, there are too many pattern pieces, and for some reason my camera refused to focus on it.  But at least the idea is out of my head finally. I wanted to make a small pillowcase with a patchwork pocket–my scraps box is literally overflowing–and a little friend to go in it. I made it in linen because linen pillowcases are awesome and because little heads seem to sweat a lot more then big ones, but if I sell these, which is the plan, they would be too expensive in linen. So maybe I’ll do some simple embroidered linen ones and do the pocket pillowcases in cotton.  The pillow is about 15″ by 7″ (or something like that). I like to use these little ones for my kids. They fit nicely in a crib and my daughter, who is in a bed, likes to have a big one and a little one. Does anyone else use these? Should I not make little ones and just make the standard size? I need your insight here. Go all out and tell me what you think of this. Good or bad, it’s incredibly helpful.

I am still stuck on a name for the bag in the last post. I’m leaning towards “the finder’s keeper,” which 2 people suggested or the much simpler “the little bag.” I’m going to visit my family for 10 days, so while I’m internetless in the woods I’ll think it over. Thank you for all your suggestions: I think I might start calling my purse my “cache stash” because it’s so awesome.

I’ve been thinking about making another kind of bag for my shop and I came up with this one. It’s a little wonky, but it’s just a prototype so whatever. The bag is a lot smaller than my other ones (here a photo for scale) but I’m thinking it could be even smaller. I embroidered some details on the bag that I really like: a running stitch along the whole strap and a hand sewn buttonhole.

The button I wanted to use didn’t fit in my automatic buttonholer, so I had to do it by hand. I was going to do a hand bound buttonhole, but that just looked too complicated and too fancy for a kid bag, so I just used a blanket stitch to go around the buttonhole. Ta da!

I was thinking the bag could be for all those tiny treasures little ones find walking down the street. But “tiny treasures bag” is a little twee, so I need your help. Leave a comment with a better name for the bag and whoever comes up with the best one wins the bag. Sound good? Go.

1. IMG_2696, 2. milk, 3. felt, 4. Mr. Radish, 5. old jersey, 6. boat, 7. log cabin baby blanket (folded), 8. birds for fan, 9. Atari Teenage Rabbit

Obviously, I am still behind with the one quilt project, but after a long afternoon in my studio I think I’m almost caught up! The square above is for Sarah (of the small object fame) and it is my absolute favorite. It’s not so big–probably 8 or 9 inches square–but damn those triangles shrink up when you sew them all together. She said she liked Yoshiko Jinzenji, so I picked one of the quilts from “Simple Quilts” and, well, copied it (hey, anyone know if you can still get this book anywhere?).

This little red and white number is for Amy (aka buraellen). She wanted a bit of woodland embroidery, so I copied this deer pattern from a vintage dishtowel I have. I’ve always like his flower crown. In the original there is whole wreath of flowers around his head, but I thought it looked a little much, so I left them out. This square came together quickly and painlessly.  Quilting (as a whole) looks deceptively easy, but it is very much not easy and I think I need some friendly old ladies to teach me.

This last one was a second attempt and a sad one at that, but the first one, oh you really don’t want to see that one. I was running very low on Chara’s beautiful orange fabrics that second time out–hence all the sashing. I hope she likes it or if not maybe she’ll let me have a do-over.

And January is on my lap right now, waiting for me to finish the embroidery. It was supposed to be sashiko, but it’s looking a lot like arglye at the moment (dammit).