little tag blanket

None of our oldest three were enchanted with tags,

so I thought that those toys/blankets

with little tags sticking out all over were kinda cute

but pretty much useless.

Then Baby Boy came along.

He loves tags.

If a toy has a tag, that's what he goes for.

He feels them, chews on them, sucks on them...

He even discovered the long tags on the bumper in his crib,

pulled them into his bed,

and chewed on them until he gagged.

I felt like such a spoil-sport when I cut them off

that I decided to make a special little tag blanket for him.

It is about 6 1/2 inches square and is bristling with tags!

One side it's soft, blue flannel.

And the other is brown waffle-knit

that I upcycled from an old t-shirt.

It's always gratifying when your handiwork

is just as much of a hit as you hoped it would be.

A quick note about the variety of ribbons I had in my stash to use: Bits of ribbon pop up all over, sometimes in surprising places. Keep your eyes open for them and don't sneeze at small pieces; they can come in handy. To illustrate I numbered the ribbons and will tell you where I got each piece.
1. This used to be a useless drawstring on a pair of my shorts. I pulled it out because it was annoying me and added it to my stash because it is cotton and has a cool texture.
2. Came in a "goodie bag" of notions I picked up for a few cents at a local thrift store. It was only about 8 inches long and was wired. I had plenty of it for this project, though. (And I pulled the wires out.)
3. I think I actually bought this one at Joann's for Sweet Pea's nursery. This project used up the last little bit I had of it.
4. Left over from Ben's coworkers' Christmas gifts.
5. One of the popular baby gifts here in the United States are these little outfits packaged into gift sets by the company that makes them. They often use see-through bags tied with real fabric ribbon with nice prints or textures to finish off the look. I save these ribbons and use them for projects like this.
6. More baby gift set packaging.
7. Partial spool of ribbon I picked up at the thrift store.
8. Found in the bargain section of a local store. ($0.13 for a mini-spool of ribbon? Yes, please!)
9. Huh. There is no #9 on the picture. Ooops. I guess my brain leaped to a nice, round number. :)
10. Very cool train ribbon that came as part of the packaging for scrapbook supplies.

Disclaimer: I AM NOT ADVOCATING HOARDING! Please, don't just compulsively keep random bits of supplies you'll never use. If you cannot honestly project using, say, the ribbons that came on your baby gifts within the next six months don't keep them. However, DO look for supplies and inspiration in unlikely places. You might be surprised at what you find.

summer

I don't really like summer.

Sure, there are aspects of summer that I love,

but the heat just sucks my life out.

Plus I have seasonal allergies,

and I never know what to cook when it's hot.

I'm trying to stay focused on the good things, though,

because life is so much nicer when you're not whining.

Here are some of the fun things we've been up to:

Little Man saved up his money and bought himself a new bike!

We're working on learning to ride without training wheels now.

Their enjoyment of the kiddie pool is infectious!

The sprinkler is great too.

I take my turn running through it,

but there's no photographic evidence. :)

Our popsicle love is still going strong.

left to right:

cherry lemonade

tropical trio (banana, pineapple, and coconut milk)

fruit-salad-sicles (bits of melon and strawberry in pineapple juice)

I'm having so much fun

learning as much as I can as fast as possible

about jewelry making.
Now I just have to figure out how to take better pictures

of the stuff I make.

sweet tea

(Who says mugs have to be reserved for the hot liquids.

I heart my mug collection all year long.)

We're seeing how far we can get through the Little House series

for the summer library reading program.

It was that time again.

Time to upcycle the dirty, broken crayon bits

into bright, fresh heart crayons.

Not pictured:

Planting flowers

Date nights with Ben

(Motorcycle ride and a picnic with a view! Also Star Trek.)

Dairy Queen

Vanquishing organizing projects

and completely rethinking my laundry system.

(Both much more fun after the fact.)

Road trip to Washington with Mum and the kids.

Enrolling Little Man in school

Autumn vacation planning

baby gifts

[Image 4502 in which I perch precariously on the piano bench

in an attempt to get a good quilt photo.]

This week I had the enjoyable task

of making, packaging, and mailing baby gifts

to two different families of friends who are both

eagerly awaiting the arrival of Baby #3.

First I finished this scrappy flannel quilt

featuring all sorts of critters: frogs, bugs, and lizards.

(I already had the quilt top sewn together, so it was a quick finish.)

I also decided to embellish a coordinating pale green onesie

by using fabric paint to free-hand little bugs

that almost perfectly mimic the bugs in one of the prints in the quilt.

I'm pretty tickled with how it turned out.

The second gift began with a simple, two-sided flannel blanket

made with pretty pastel purple and green fabrics.

To round out the gift, I added a coordinating bib and hat

from my collections of already-made bibs and hats.

I love being able to celebrate new little arrivals!

art together

Last week while Sweet Pea and Baby Boy were resting,

 Little Man, Brother, and I

got out the "grown-up paints" (aka acrylic tubes of paint)

gifted to the boys by Grandma and Grandpa

and spent some quality time creating together.

(I love that they're finally old enough that we can do this!)

Even our painty rag looks kind of beautiful.

"A Giant Crevasse" by Brother

"A Whale Ship" by Little Man

"Colorful Base for Calligraphy" by me

thank yous

More than a little of my spare time

the first month after Baby Boy arrived

was spent writing thank you notes.

Thankyous for meals and visits,

clothes and toys, diapers and cash,

and first-baby-of-the year gifts

from local businesses.

Though I am truly grateful

for the outpouring of love to our family,

sometimes the consumption of my precious free time

with thank-you-note-writing

grates on me.

I bolster my attitude with the fact that

thankyou writing is

its own sort of art form.

One that (I think) I do fairly well at.

As an artist, this pleases me.

And silly as it may be,

having cute thank you card to use

is also tremendously comforting.

I loved using these adorable cards from Pepper Pot.

The cute graphics and charming details

(the backs of the cards! the delightful tin box they came in!

the coordinating plaid lining the envelopes!)

never failed to make me smile.

I got mine at a charming local shop,

but you could get some from Amazon

if you can't live without them.

This is not a sponsored post.

I just loved these cards so much

that I had to share.

handpainted handprint mugs

In addition to Benjamin's valentine mug,

I used my Pebeo paint set and thrifted cups

to make hand print mugs for my Mum

and my mother-in-law.

I traced my children's hands on paper,

making templates which I then stuck to the cup

and outlined with dots.

Dissatisfied with the uneven nature of the dots I used

to outline the hands,

I decided to fill in the hand prints on this first mug

with freehand swirls, dots, and hearts.

I'm an artist who likes to painstakingly sketch and plan first,

so this was wildly out of my comfort zone.

And the cup did turn out somewhat...wild.

In my newborn-stage haze of sleep deprivation,

I despaired,

fearing that this looked like one of those nightmarish trinkets

you see in the thrift store and pass by,

smirking with a hint of disdain.

I think I might even have shed a few tears.

But

happily,

my mom loves it.

LOVES  it.

Whew.

So the fate

of my painstakingly hand painted mug

will be a happy one:

a long life of use,

not forsaken on a thrift store shelf.

(Can you tell that hormones

and sleep deprivation make me more dramatic

than usual?)

This second

"more normal-looking" mug

(Benjamin's words)

will be either a belated birthday gift

or an early mother's day gift

for his mom.

I expect that she'll like it

just as much as my mum likes hers.

valentine mug

My parents got me a really cool set of Pebeo paints

for Christmas last year.

I have been not-patiently waiting to use them

on some blank thrifted cups I had stashed.

A couple of weeks ago

I  finally decided to just leave the laundry for a day or two

and get some painting play time in.

One of the mugs I decorated

became Benjamin's Valentine's Day gift.

A simple saying plus a cute penguin couple plus little hearts,

and BAM--I had a gift-worthy cup in my hands.

I neglected to get Benjamin a card this year,

but this mug plus some of his favorite teas

put a smile on his face

when I presented it to him last Thursday.

very hungry caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

has been among all three of my older children's favorite books.

So when I saw this adorable idea

for embellishing baby clothes with button caterpillars,

I immediately knew that some day I would adapt the idea

to make a Very Hungry Caterpillar shirt.

 A few days ago I eagerly seized a spare fifteen minutes or so,

collected a white onesie we already owned

along with a few buttons and some embroidery floss,

and whipped out a cute little shirt for my baby boy.

 He doesn't seem to have much of an opinion,

but his big brothers think it's a pretty awesome shirt,

and I think he looks beyond adorable in it.

Of course, I'm just a little bit biased...

Handmade Christmas 2012

Benjamin has about six other people in his department.

We wanted to give them something thoughtful

yet low-cost and relatively fuss-free.

I made a double batch of caramel

(this is my favorite recipe, though I omit the crushed peppermint).

I wrapped them and then packaged them in cute little pillow boxes

made from cardboard upcycled from cereal boxes.

I added some festive ribbon and calligraphy tags

(Believe it or not, while all of this took thought and effort,

it really was relatively fuss-free for me.)

And then the boxes started popping apart

because the paper was too heavy

and the boxes were stuffed too full of caramel

and the adhesive I was able to purchase in town

was simply not strong enough to hold it all together.

I was frustrated and discouraged.

However, after taking a few days to regroup,

I tried again,

making slightly larger vellum (lighter weight) pillow boxes

and repackaged the caramels in them.

The new boxes looked beautiful and did not come apart!

(No pictures, though...)

Ben enjoyed giving them away,

and at the company Christmas party,

some of the recipients told me how much they enjoyed them.

Overall, I'd call it a success.

Handmade Christmas 2012

The pun-loving side of me

gets a smirky giggle out of this particular hand made gift

for my dad.

I purchased a "create-your-own collage tumbler" from Starbucks

and simply embellished the insert with the kids' hand prints

and quotations about their favorite things to do with Grandpa.

I thought that the boys would get a big kick

out of getting their hands messy on the ink pad,

but no, they objected to the requisite hand washing

and actually had to be coaxed to participate.

Oh well, it still turned out pretty cute,

and I know their Grandpa will be delighted to use it.