greetingarts

purple pencil eater

The week before school started my girls were invited to an 8 year old's birthday party.  I had to whip up a last minute gift, appropriately wonderful and stylish.  It didn't take me long to decide what to make.

Kathy's amazing 12-pocket Pencil Roll, of course.  Rebecca helped pick out all the fabrics to match each of the colored pencils, and they were all fabulous choices.  Look at that turquoise!  Perfect.  And the cherries?  So cute.  All the rainbow colors were from my scrap bins.  Actually, every single thing I needed for this project came from my stash. 

The pocket and flap were cut from fat quarters I had, and the exterior started out life as part of a brand new set of restaurant-quality dinner napkins I thrifted over a year ago.  A durable, almost canvas-like material.

Even the Hello Kitty button was one I had on hand, and the ribbon tie (though I sewed it on backwards, oops) was stash, too.  Then I used another napkin for the gift bag, used fusible web and leftover pocket material for the initial, and covered a drawing pad with scrapbooking paper and a sticker.  I tied the notepad and pencil roll together with thin satin ribbon, and tucked them inside the bag with a teeny bit of tissue paper, that was it... almost no wasted gift wrap whatsoever.

I enjoyed every bit of this project, and I think the birthday girl really liked it.  Her favorite colors and her initial, I hope it made her feel special.  I had the foresight to piece together a second rainbow panel to make another pencil roll for Jessie.  When I finally get around to it, half the work will already be done.  I know she'll need one for the second grade, because Rebecca just brought hers to school, and checked that off her classroom materials list.  I sincerely hope it doesn't take me three years to get Jessie's finished.  But with me, you just never know.

bald spots

Mama Baby Beans was just supposed to model this little beanie I made for charity, using this pattern and one of my crocheted flowers, but now I'm thinking it looks pretty good on her. 

Without it, she still looks pretty good from the front.

But this view isn't one of her favorites.  She made me promise to blur it a bit.

Maybe I'll make another little beanie in green, just for her.  To match her eyes.

first day second grade

Rebecca started the second grade today, and I've been feeling ridiculously anxious about it for over a week.  Also, lately, there have been some worries regarding relatives on both sides of the family, so I crafted up a storm to distract myself. 

 

Rebecca  needed a new lunch tote, so after *much* time spent looking at my books,  magazines, internet bookmarks and saved files, I finally settled on the oh-so-awesome Vintage Pillowcase Lunchbox tutorial from Oh, Fransson!  I skipped the iron-on vinyl, and instead of a vintage pillowcase and fusible fleece, I used yardage I had on hand (look familiar?) and some insulated batting from an oven mitt project I never got around to. 

Shoelaces (washed, of course!) from a pair of sneakers I just threw away serve as the drawstrings, and I rubber stamped her name with a fabric inkpad on twill tape, hand tacking it to the interior. 

The lining was also hand sewn into the exterior, while sitting on a quilt under a tree in the park, watching the kids ride bikes and have their scraped knees and elbows tended to by Daddy.  Rebecca loves the bag, and it's quite roomy.  This was just the trial run, actually.  She (and Jessie, too!) has fabric picked out for her "real" one.  Next time, I'll probably add a small pocket just below the name label, a safe place to store the notes I include with her lunches.  She told me she and her friends love reading what I write, so "please keep doing it but nothing too mushy or embarrassing, okay?"

I also wanted to give her another first day mascot, so I sewed up two teeny little softies, one for Jessie, too.

 

 

I used this amazingly adorable fabric I got on clearance at Hancock's of Paducah a while back.  It's by Timeless Treasures, and was unbelievably cheap so I bought like 5 yards.  I cut out two of the same kitties (they aren't mirror images, but pretty close), held them up to the light and lined them up with right sides together, and then just hand sewed them together with a really small running stitch with the occasional backstitch thrown in for good measure.  Left an inch open, turned it right side out, stuffed with the teeniest bit of batting, slip stitched the opening closed, and the softie was born.  You could add a little ribbon loop for hanging, too, if you wanted.  I made both last night watching TV and putting positive thoughts into every stitch.  It did the trick, soothed me... and of course Rebecca had a great day today, as expected.

 

 

Spoonful of sugar?

when you need an extra hand

My kids love Uno, and this summer we've played a lot.  Even took it to the beach with us on vacation, and got the grandparents in on it, too.  But it's hard for Jessie and even Rebecca sometimes, when they get a lot of cards and have trouble holding them.  I've tried making holders out of CDs (not very successful), picking them up and showing each card one by one while keeping my eyes closed (very time-consuming though pretty much guaranteed to crack the kids up), and just letting them spread them out on the floor  face up (no fun knowing what everyone's cards are).

The solution was actually very simple.  A simple set of Lego stairs and voila!  Fun times.  She had to extend it quite a bit... but that's the beauty of it, even if you need three rows of stairs, no problem at all. 

I actually won this round.

one small pair

 

Had fun making a very quick little pair of baby booties that I donated along with the fruit hats at the beginning of the month.  Even though it was just a couple of weeks ago, I don't quite remember any of the details, except that it was made with Crochet Me's Simple Baby Booties pattern with a smaller crochet hook (D, maybe?) and 100% wool yarn in a sport weight (leftover from my baby afghan).  Silly of me to make it out of that wool, since I really should have used something machine washable.  I modified the original pattern by making a bobble in the proper spot rather than sewing on a button.  This way they're perfectly safe for little ones and I didn't have to do any sewing or searching for matching buttons in the correct size.  Win-win. 

My little model tried putting them on, but at just about 3" long, they were a tad small, even for her.  So she had to settle for sticking her face in the photo at the last second.

ready, set...

Trying to get a head start on Christmas gifts.

A Snowbaby cloth (scroll down, past the bib) using size 6 needles and Lily Sugar n' Cream 100% cotton yarn in white.

And a Santa Cloth from KrisKnits, knit with size 5 needles.  She's becoming a fast favorite of mine, I actually love all her cloth designs.  They're so simple but striking. 

I bound off until I had one stitch left, then cast on two more and did a short little I-cord, then cast off completely and used the tail to form a loop for the last corner.  I always like to have something to hang my washcloths and dishcloths with.

I'm thinking a cute cloth paired with some decorative soaps should make a nice gift at Christmastime.  So, two down... a couple dozen more to go?

best husband in the world

Am I a lucky lucky girl or what?

It's a Kindle DX!  So awesome, I can't believe it.

road trip i spy

I've had this idea kicking around in my head for years now, and this summer I finally was able to get it together in time for our road trip North.  It's an I Spy game for kids (and adults, too!) to help while away the hours in a car with no built in DVD player.  A few simple and inexpensive materials, and you can change the game from trip to trip to keep it interesting.

You'll need a small, inexpensive photo album, paper, glue stick, removable sticky dots, and clip art or pictures from magazines or whatever.  Almost everything can be found at the dollar store, and that's where I got my photo holder that fits 4x6 photos.  It has about 20 pages, and can easily be covered with fabric or decoupage if the tackiness of the printed design starts bugging me or the girls too much.

I quartered letter-sized sheets of paper, then glued cartoon pictures cut from my daughter's old workbook, images found on the computer, and an alphabet die cut from my Sizzix machine to make an ABC I Spy book.  Once you slip the individual pages into the album, you use the office dots to mark off the objects that are seen as the trip progresses.  I made two different books so that the kids could help each other and switch off, but if your kids have different dispositions than mine (encouraging competitiveness with these two wouldn't be a good thing, trust me), you could make identical books and see who finishes faster.

Of course I had to combine a few letters on one page, since there were only 20 pages.  I had at least one image for each letter, some had two or three.  Depending on where you're going, you can tailor the images to your specific trip (more urban, include more logos, or if you're going to the beach, more seaside things).  Here are the ideas I came up with, I'm sure you'll have plenty! 

A airplane, AAA logo

B Burger King, balloon

C cow, cheeseburger

D dog, deer crossing sign

E exit sign, engine trouble

F fence, freeway entrance sign

G gasoline pump, grocery cart

H horse, helicopter

I Icee, ice cream

J Jack In the Box logo

K Burger King

L lamppost, ladder

M mailbox, motorcycle

N Nevada license plate, no smoking sign

O Oregon license plate, orange tree

P police car, pig (I don't know what I was thinking.  I think the image from my daughter's workbook was so cute, I had to include it... my kids are still scratching their heads at that one)

Q Dairy Queen

R radio tower

S sailboat, sand

T train, tractor

U U-turn sign

V Volkswagen beetle, van

W wagon

X railroad crossing sign (there's a big X in the middle)

Y yield sign

Z sleeping passenger

The whole family got in on the action, it really was a fun and inexpensive way to be entertained.  Made everyone more observant and reminded us that there is an awful lot to look at out there instead of just asphalt and the rear ends of cars passing you by.  I love road trips!