greetingarts

bats, ghosts and pumpkins oh my

This Halloween was all about bats, ghosts and pumpkins.

I made these little lovelies (for Jessica to pass out to all her classmates - the candy corn were for Rebecca's class) from Paper-and-String's free pattern.  Instead of using the brads for eyes and cheeks, I just used fabric paint that I've had for... forever.  They weren't all dried out and did the trick nicely.  Seriously, I've had the paint for at least 6 years or more. I don't remember buying any since Jessie was born, that's for sure.

I am the room parent for Jessica's first grade class, and for the Halloween party (oops, I mean Fall Festival) last Friday, we also decorated cookies (bought from the local grocery store - no homemade goodies in our school district) which coincidentally happened to be in the shape of ghosts, pumpkins and bats!  And then the special Fright Bites tortilla chips I served were in the shape of, yep, you guessed it, bats, pumpkins and ghosts.  So funny.  And totally unplanned, I swear.

Everything was a huge hit, although the yarn ball thing was funny because the kids just did *not* get the fact that they had to hold on to the yarn with one hand, while rolling the ball with the other.  They would just toss or roll the ball, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole unraveling thing, you know?  Anyway, they got it eventually, sort of.  Maybe I should have used that one a year or two down the road...

 

i do

I do still craft (a lot, actually), even if I hardly blog anymore.

This little couple was made for Rebecca's 3rd grade teacher (last year - she was so great!), who got married a couple of weeks ago.  I used Jean Greenhowe's Little Gift Dolls book, and it all went together pretty simply.  There are a lot of little parts that need to be sewn on separately and it's not knitted in the round so there is seaming, but all the characters in the book are just too cute not to attempt.  I'm glad I finally found a reason to make two of them.

They were probably about 6" tall, and I used acrylic worsted weight yarn.  I pretty much followed the patterns exactly as written. 

They were very well received, and the newlywed said the dolls would have a special place in their new home.  I hope they bring them good luck and good fortune, and a long life full of happiness together.

at the close

Two weeks ago, Rebecca finished the last page of the Harry Potter series, and I had to make something to mark the occasion.  I used this free pattern and scrap yarn, holding a glittery chain yarn (no ball band) together with a Berroco Smart Cotton (in Butterscotch) for the body of the snitch, and just white Sugar 'n Cream for the wings. 

It was a joint effort, with me reading at least a chapter out loud every night, and Rebecca reading for hours on end at every spare moment.  She absolutely devoured the huge volumes, and now, understandably, feels a little bereft.  Suggestions for a new reading obsession are welcome!

tea time

 
I finished up all 10 teacups and saucers and delivered them to the school's receptionist yesterday.  An improvement over my original, but I think next time (if I get another order for these next year) I may play around with the cup shaping.  Something more flared at the top might be cute, like an upside down bell shape?  Overall, I'm happy with the way these turned out, though, especially those teabag tags.

Jessie was quite dismayed when she saw me packing them up.  "What?!" she proclaimed indignantly, hands on hips.  "All that work and I have... NOTHING?!"

That's right, honey, I'm sorry. 

But Mommy's got a check to take to the bank...

no spam for Easter

I got a great big heaping helping of spam last Friday.  This one was a doozy.  I'm so sorry if you got my "teary-eyed message from a hotel in London." I can assure you I wasn't there and I didn't get mugged.  If I had, I would not send emails to every. single. one. of my contacts asking for money to be wired to me.  Of course, I was irritated when I first heard about the spam, but I figured, oh well, that's okay, I'll just send an email to my contact list telling them sorry and to ignore the previous message.  But when I got home and accessed my account, I found that I had nothing there.  No saved emails that I was going to get back to later, no archived and categorized messages of things I'd been keeping for the past 15+ years, and no contacts.  Not a single solitary one.  Those effing spammers cleaned out my entire account.  I'm trying to get the contacts restored via Yahoo!, but so far no response.  Needless to say, I am through with Yahoo.  I've set up a new gmail account, you can send me an email by clicking on the link in the top left sidebar.  You can now contact me at greetingarts (at) gmail (dot) com.  And please do, that way I'll have your email addresses again.  I lost everything, even my own parents' email info!  Luckily I remember my sister's...

Anyway.  That was my whole Friday... and Saturday...

But on Sunday we had Easter fun. 

 
I made a few Easter Peeps pins, one was given to Rebecca's teacher on Friday, and some were for the kiddos.  I used the template found here, just reduced it way down so that it was a little less than 2" tall.

 
I attached a miniature one onto a hair tie, so Jessie could wear it as a bracelet.

 
I knit up some tiny baby bunnies (we call them mini dust bunnies) and put them in a few Easter eggs.  The rest had erasers or jellybeans.  We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, invited a bunch of the relatives, had an egg hunt, dyed eggs (32!), decorated cookies, and ate a lot.  Like a lot a lot.  Very nice afternoon. 

Now it's back to dealing with the spam.

happy birthday wishes

...for my mom.

 
We'll keep trying to call, but you're probably out to dinner.  How come the answering machine isn't working?

Love you, hope you had a great day!

black and blue Christmas

I'd planned to post about Mr. Elvis Pigsley here, and the fun Rebecca and I had decorating him for a school contest we had two weeks ago.

 
But now I've got other things on my mind, like my poor baby who was hit with a chunk of concrete right above the eye after school got out.  I'll spare you the details and the photo of her looking like Frankenstein, but the good news is she didn't need stitches, and she's so unbelievably good about taking medicine (she's on antibiotics).  She's a real trooper, but clearly, I need some serious lessons in forgiveness because I can't get over my anger at the two boys who hurt my Jessie.

We have a dance recital on Saturday, which is going to be professionally videotaped.  I think we're going to need a lot of eye shadow.

mini kitty charm

Today is my daughter's third grade teacher's birthday, and she loves Hello Kitty.  So I quickly sewed up this little keychain charm for her last night.  I haven't done anything with felt in a while, that was fun!

found

So after crawling around on my hands and knees for hours, scrutinizing every dried kernel of rice and speck of lint on my carpet (trust me, you never want to look that closely), I finally found the tooth yards away from where I expected or thought it would be.

 
Another tooth pillow was made, almost exactly like her sister's, only a little bit bigger.  And with a purple flower, too.

 
Little pocket on the back for the tooth, and also a pink sequin that Jessie wanted to give the Tooth Fairy as a thank you (she's sweet like that).

 
The Tooth Fairy was three days late, but now everybody's happy.

first day for both

It's the start of a new era. 

 
My two kiddos both started school today.  New principal, new rules, no dawdling to take photos, no walking the girls into their classrooms.  I was okay with it, and it probably made it easier on them and me, but I was a little upset at not being able to catch a meaningful photo.

 
I sent the kids off with the traditional first-day-of-school mascots, knitted pencils this time, tucked into their backpacks so they'd know I was thinking of them all day long.  The moment I laid eyes on them in Anna's  Knitting Mochimochi, I knew I was going to make the mini pencils for the girls' first day.  So fast and easy, and *adorable*!  If you remember, I made Rebecca a crocheted one for the first day of first grade, and was already thinking of doing a knitted version this year.  But now I didn't have to do any of the brainwork.  I used fingering or sport weight stash scrap yarn (pink and yellow- cotton, beige and grey - wool, double strand of embroidery floss - black) and #2 double pointed needles.  Took less than an hour or so each, I'd say.  I wasn't crazy about the way I embroidered the eyes, so I glued on little 5mm half-ball eyes that I had in my stash.  A review of the book should be up on A Crafter's Library within a week.

 
And four teachers got faux apples to celebrate the first day with the students.  I saw the directions here and knew they would make quick, easy, and inexpensive treats.  I didn't spend a fortune on Jelly Bellys though, I got some red candy-coated peanuts (I think they call them Boston Baked Beans?!) in bulk at a grocery store, and it was less than a quarter of the price I would have paid for the Jelly Bellys.  I put the candy in snack-sized baggies, folded the baggie in half and turned it upside down (so the zip part is hidden on the bottom).  I cut up some green bendy straws for the stem, inserted them in the middle (where the fold is) and tied a green ribbon bow. 

I hope it will be a good year.  Nothing like 101 degree weather (and tomorrow is supposed to be 104!) to say "Welcome back to school!"