The Gingerbread House & Romeo.

Last week, I bought this pre-fab gingerbread house. The girls were in no mood to wait for the frosting to harden, so there is no way they would have tolerated the waiting time required to bake a gingerbread house from scratch.


And here is Romeo, thinking that the Nativity scene is really quite comfortable, thank you very much.

Clothespin Dolls.

Christmas gifts for my 3yo’s preschool teachers!

Nativity Idea. New Moon.

Earlier today, the girls and I decided to make some clay. The last time we made clay (about a year ago) it was really gritty and coarse from the huge amount of salt, and I wanted something more smooth. After much internetting magic I tracked down this recipe which looked pretty encouraging. As I write this, the clay is drying, and seems to be cracking a bit, but is certainly more smooth. My 3yo made various Christmas shapes from cookie cutters, and my 5yo and I tried our hands at Nativity scenes. My figures are inspired by Russian nesting dolls – I plan to paint them, hopefully in detail, so I’m crossing my fingers that the clay holds up well.

Posting this sketch reminds me... I have the Twelve Dancing Princess mural almost finished. Just 3 more princesses and a little more background...

Oh! And this weekend, we have secured a babysitter!

Wooooooohooooooo!

Canvas Knitting Tote.

After having a bag with a velcro closure that kept grabbing the yarn of my knitting projects, I decided to make a tote bag so that when I run out the door, I know my latest project is in there and ready to rock. I had some leftover canvas from 10 years ago that I had used to make an oil painting that I later sold at a garage sale, which is now hanging in some boutique (and when I say boutique, I mean a totally weird alley store with lots of incense and mood lighting) gallery in Hartford. It took three days of flip-flopping over how to decorate the canvas, and I decided to stamp it with circles using sparkling silver fabric paint. For me the result is a little underwhelming, but c’est la vie. The bag suits it’s purpose!

Oh! And here are the girls from Halloween:

Halloween, Autumn & The Hunger Games.

So here is what I have been up to!

I have finished my 3 year old’s Tinkerbell costume (Simplicity 2872), and I’ll post pictures of it after I take some on Halloween. (My 5 year old is going to be Dorothy, a costume from her Grandma.) So this was a difficult pattern, at least for a beginner like me. There were numerous layers of tulle, sheer organza and other fabric... it became slippery and confusing and at one point I stopped being careful and just put the pedal to the metal and basically sewed without looking. And it showed in the end, but I put a big tulle bow on top of the biggest mistake and it looks just fine!


Here are some beautiful autumn leaves from my neighborhood. I thought that it would be nice to walk home from school with the girls, since it was a stunning fall day, thinking we could admire nature’s bounty and record these precious moments together. Or we could annoy the heck out of each other all the way home. Which is what we did. This photo about sums it up:
Oh well, we tried : )

Today the girls were both home from school, Five was sick and so we just did a ton of crafts. Here is one of many that I found through this awesome site, The Crafty Crow, which pointed me to No Time for Flashcards who originated this neat idea. I love the Crafty Crow because it’s a collective that includes a) super cute & clever ideas for crafts and b) a way to search crafts by kids’ ages. So here is Cardboard Tube Frankenstein, perfect for three & five year olds:


If you want to read an amazing story, try these books (third book in the trilogy not yet released):

The cover designs make them look like spy thrillers, which they are definitely not: here is a review.

Doll Clothes & Renegade Craft Fair.

I finished up two more dresses from another Simplicity Pattern (5785). It’s getting a little easier and I think I’m getting faster. Maybe. And although she has changed her mind a dozen times on her costume, I started my 3 year old’s Tinkerbell dress for Halloween. For my 5 year old, I’ll just be mending a few tears in a Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz dress that was given to us by Grandma.


Today I went to the Renegade Craft Fair, which was really awesome. From the website: “Over 300 artists are traveling from all over the country to participate and sell their handmade goods: from clothing and accessories, to stationery and concert posters, with everything from bath-products, ceramics and housewares in between.” Wow! Organizers handed out a booklet with the names of all the participants and their websites so now I can check out every last one online : ) Pushing a stroller through that crowd was a little challenging, but honestly, it was just fun to be there with all those crafty folks. And the weather was gorgeous. Chicago is the greatest city.

* p.s. I bought a really cute headband with a felt heart from Get Felt Up.

Barbie Dress.

I’m going to squeak this entry in so that the month of August has something to show for itself! I’ve been busy with different projects, but really have been negligent with the picture taking, so tonight I finally put batteries in the camera, and took a photo of the Barbie dress that I made. When I was young, my Grandmother sent me a bunch of hand made clothes for my dolls, which made playing with them so much more fun, and I thought that maybe my girls would enjoy that. So first, I went on Ebay to find some clothes, but they were selling for $25 to $80 per lot, and the clothes looked tired. And some were just not cute. Then a light bulb went on, and I figured I’d give it a go making them myself. At the 99 cent Simplicity sale at Joann’s, I found some patterns for 11.5 inch dolls, and started with a dress from “Sewing Patterns for Dummies” (Simplicity 7073). It was straightforward, but still took me about 5 hours (yikes!) from start to finish. Hopefully I’ll get faster with practice!