Have I mentioned that my 2 littlest boys are like little tiger cubs– constantly chasing and pouncing and wrestling each other?  Running and squealing and slamming doors?  As happy as I am that they love each other so much, it is exhausting trying to keep them from doing real damage to people and property, and the hugging and kissing of bonked heads, fat lips, and squished fingers is near constant.

We spend lots of time outside.  They wade for hours in their little inflatable pool on our back deck where I can watch them from the comfort of my air conditioned kitchen.  But everyday I’ve tried to have some mom-made activity to keep them calm and absorbed for an hour or so.  Lately that’s been painting.  Usually with watercolors,

but they use them up so fast (it’s all about the process for them, not the finished product) that I decided to try making some paint the other day instead.

I used the recipe found over at Small Things.  It made a lot of paint!  I’ve got four 8 ounce jelly jars of it in my fridge.

It’s at the ready so I can have an hour or so of peace…

until clean up, at least.

A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of Better Homes and Gardens May issue.  On page 78 there was a photo of a child’s playroom with a crazy beautiful tree toy on a shelf.  It looked like a tree that needed to be in our family room, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.  So, I took a photo of the magazine page, posted it to flickr, and asked the internet to help me.

It worked!  It’s called a Totem Tree by Kids On Roof.  I decided to treat myself to one for my birthday and it came today, a day late, but that’s fun because it stretched the celebrating out a bit.

The boys and I put it together tonight while Barry took pictures of us with the new lens he got me for my camera.

Now, doesn’t it look like it should have been there all along?

We ran away to soak up one last summer weekend in the mountains, and since I was wanting rest and relaxation we decided to forgo the tent and sleeping bags and coolers and try something new.

YMCA!!

We hiked in Rocky Mountain National Park,

and the Sweet-pod got some extensive testing.

I must admit, though, that my favorite place on our trip was the Craft and Design Center.

Big windows, open spaces, shelves and shelves of paint, wood, ceramics– everything you could ever want to make, make, make all day long.  Just the kind of place I dream of running myself someday.  Come in, pick your project, take a class, or just have at it.

Some day.

The kids all painted a wooden toy and loved it.  If only we had had more time…

Next time we go I am totally weaving a basket.

Sorry again for the absence.  I know I need to quit apologizing and just get to work.

Do you want to see what I made?  Isn’t that what this blog is all about?  Well, look–

After nearly a year in this house I’m finally getting some favorite photos up on the walls!  The silhouettes were something I’ve wanted to do forever.  After seeing the ones my friend Jodi made and how quick and easy they were to make, I set out to make a set of my own.  In just one afternoon Barry spray painted my wooden ovals white, we snapped a quick side view of each of the kids, I printed them out using Pages (our desktop publishing program) making sure all their heads fit nicely in a 5 x 7 rectangle, set those printouts on some dark grayish-brown-nearly-black cardstock, traced around their sweet heads with an exacto knife, then Mod-Podged those little heads onto the white wooden ovals.  Whew!  Just about as instant gratification as a craft project can get.

I love how they turned out– especially the hair on my boys.  I just can’t get over Hunter’s fluff.  I just want to freeze time.

He certainly doesn’t.  This guy is on the move and in a hurry.  I’m constantly finding him in the corner of the laundry room or wedged under the piano bench.  But I have just one request of that hair that can’t lay flat and those squishy rolls–

Please don’t go away– ever.  Okay?

Sometimes I get obsessed with a project and get it out in whirlwind fashion.  Actually, I think that’s how most things I make get done because with me it’s all or nothin’.  Once in a while, though, the idea has to germinate and get made in my head over and over and over again.  That’s how it’s been with printing fabric.  It was almost three years ago that I found an article in Better Homes and Gardens (while sitting in the orthodontist waiting room, I am SO glad I’m done with the whole braces thing) about Galbraith & Paul.  That’s when I knew that I absolutely needed to make block printed fabric of my own. I’ve been studying fabric designs I love, figuring out how to make design repeats, trying ideas with my gocco on paper, dreaming up the best ways to register prints next to each other.  It’s been a long process.  Lots of dreaming, sketching, and graph paper.

The best method of registration really had me stumped.  I tried an elaborate set up when I gocco printed my first repeat pattern on paper for journal covers.  Then I found Lena Corwin’s Printing by Hand this summer and she just says to draw the registration lines right on your fabric.  DUH!  So, that’s what I did with these linen curtains destined to be hung up between the front room and my art/ sewing room mess.  That way people will have something pretty to look at when they come to the front door and not just piles of paper and fabric and stuffed animals with holes in them.

I’ve got two panels to do.  I’m printing this design in brown first– which I’m 3/4 of the way done doing– and then I want to do an aqua-ish color in between the browns.  Who knows when I’ll get that done, but I know that I’ll love them!

But, before I could finish big fabric printing project #1, I had to get #2 underway.  This is the block to print the fabric for Brenna’s (after) Easter dress.  This I’m really excited to get to.  I will try to make myself finish the curtains first, though.

(photos by Barry)

I am super tired and was feeling like I hadn’t done anything today– like it was one of those wasted days– but now that I’m sitting down and thinking back over our day I realize it wasn’t half bad.  School didn’t go quite how I had hoped.  Laundry is clean, but not folded.  The kids were bored, so I let them all have extra computer time, but didn’t get around to helping anyone make their first blog entry.  There are dirty dishes in the sink because I couldn’t fit them all in the dishwasher…

But I came downstairs this morning to find this:

a table set with a table cloth and real dishes and spread with hot pancakes and scrambled eggs.  They made them ALL BY THEMSELVES.  There was cheese in the eggs.  The pancakes were made from scratch from a recipe in a cook book.  All the dishes they used were stacked neatly by the sink.  There wasn’t a trace of egg shells on the counters.  Amazing.  (That, and poor Brenna has broken out in an itchy rash from head to toe–a reaction the Amoxacillin she’s taking for strep throat. )

I think they were feeling bad for their poor, humongous mother who couldn’t even walk by the end of the day yesterday.  I ran errands all day and I guess all that being up on my feet helped the baby sink even deeper into my pelvis and pinch a nerve in my left hip.  Even this morning I wasn’t able to put much weight on my left leg without it hurting really bad or just giving out all together.  I need crutches or something.  It’s ridiculous!  There have been stretches of time when it was all just fine, but then I feel the baby move and I’m a cripple again.  Geesh.

So, there was a lot of sitting on the couch for me.  I knit and got a little further on my doll.

Now she’s a head with arms.

So what I hung out in my jammies all day and nearly everything on my list of things to get done went out the window?  I have an 8, 6, and 4 year old self sufficient enough to make a real breakfast.  I got to snuggle and enjoy my little baby, who won’t be a baby much longer, and watch him coo over and hug and kiss and feed his Boy and his Baby (an old doll he found over the weekend that Brenna never played with, but he has grown completely attached to).  I got to sit on the couch and watch my kids draw and play legos while I sewed and knit.

It’s all okay.  It wasn’t a wasted day after all.

So, has it really been since December 11th that I last posted?  Sheesh!  I’ve been so caught up in creating stable scenery for the ward Christmas pageant, a husband with Strep throat, sleepless nights with puking children (and parents), other intestinal problems of which I will spare you the details (they’re not pretty, let me assure you), gestating of course, and last minute holiday preparations and gift making, that it never even crossed my mind to make a blog post.  There have been several days that I didn’t even take a glance at the computer.  So, now I’ll play catch up, posting this week about the handmade gifts we gave this year.

These are my favorite, and the last ones finished.

I have wanted to try my hand at making waldorf dolls for ages and ages, but Brenna has never been much of a doll player and it always seemed frivolous to just make one for myself.  But, this year I decided I’d make some for Brenna and Ian whether they’d really like them or not, just to indulge myself.  I ordered my pattern and supplies, and then got underway.

Good news is, they are some of the favorite gifts this year!  Ian’s Boy has been a constant companion since it was unwrapped.  He snuggles him, sleeps with him, feeds him, and just carries him around.  Brenna has left me little thank you notes all around and on Christmas day she kept telling me, “I just want to keep telling you thank you.  I can’t say thank you enough times.  I love her!”

So, I was up late on Christmas Eve stitching and trimming hair and finally realized that clothes just weren’t going to get made by morning.  Barry had been saying the entire week that I shouldn’t stress myself out and just give the kids naked dolls.  So, that’s what they got Christmas morning.  But– the nakedness didn’t last for long.  Look what I got for Christmas!!

A sewing machine and a serger!!  Can you believe it?  I’m still in shock.   I quickly got to work and made some panties, diapers, and clothes.

Brenna even knit a hat, and made a coat and mittens for Julie so she wouldn’t be too cold here in Colorado.

I just can’t even put into words how excited I am at how well they’ve been received.

But, this isn’t all.  We were hard at work on some other hand made gifts as well.

Stay tuned!

Since my blog was occupied for the month of February, I have some catching up to do.

This was Barry’s Valentine’s day present. He loves coming home to a yummy dinner and often comments that I need an apron to go with my domiesticity. When Meg published this pattern I knew it would fit the bill! I tried to work on it as a surprise, but when my best sewing time happens at night, well, he knew it was coming. We still had a fun Valentine’s day. We just had soup and grilled cheese (because I spent the day sewing this apron!!), but the kids made us a restraunt– set the table with a table cloth and fancy napkins, took our orders (for soup and grilled cheese, of course) and served us while they ate at the kid table in the other room.

It is so hard to buy presents for my husband. The things that he wants but doesn’t have are too tricky for me to buy. I just do not have mountain bike part expertise. I have come to accept that fact. Anyway, all he really wants doesn’t really cost me any money. Just being happy and forgetting the sewing machine, book to be read, blogs to surf, etc. etc. after the kids go to bed. Focus on him, and all us right with the world.

Good excuse to make an apron? I think so!

Brenna got a little sewing machine from Santa. Once a week or so she’s been setting it up and working on the little lessons in Winky Cherry’s My First Machine Sewing Book. The genius of this book is that it has kids starting by sewing on paper, just tracing lines. Brenna loved the curvy lessons so much she did them several times. I was pretty surprised at how quickly she really caught on to steering. I had taught her to sew a little bit on my sewing machine just doing double layer flannel baby blankets which just entailed long straight lines, but watching her seam allowance was tricky for her to do. Punching holes on a drawn line with her needle has been much more fun for her. Since she’s mastered pivots and curves I thought we’d break out Amy’s Bend the Rules Sewing. I have several baby gifts to get made, so I thought I’d enlist some help. I made some bibs a while ago and just can’t get over how cool it is to trace the pattern onto a rectangle of fabric, sew on the line, and trim after sewing. I copied the patter on a few pieces of paper first, and once Brenna had perfected the curves she wet at it on fabric. Having a layer of flannel was perfect because it has enough grab that she didn’t have to think about her layers shifting because having them pinned bugged her. I helped a tiny bit with trimming them and turning the right side out. I also lined everything up right for her to hammer the snaps on, but for the most part she did them by herself. She can thread her machine and wind bobbins and everything.

She’s got two done. We’ll keep this polka dot one forever and ever. Hopefully someday her babies will wear it while eating Cheerios.

I just think she is so awesome– just the coolest kid ever!

It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything with my precious metal clay experiments. I made necklaces for my moms for Mother’s Day out of leaves. I got the pmc paste and painted it on the veiny side of little leaves and let it dry. After about a dozen layers of clay paste I added a loop of clay to the top, then fired the leaves in my little hot pot. The real leaves burned away leaving perfect little fine silver leaves. Once I did two leaves I just couldn’t stop. They were so easy and sew delicately beautiful. Well, several of those little leaves have been sitting in a little container up in my art room for a long, long time.

I’ve also had some strings of beads waiting to be combined with my little leaves to make some finished jewelry. The first one I made was for my sister in-law in Idaho– and it got lost in the mail. I haven’t made any for myself because Ian is in the necklace-pulling-off stage, so it just hasn’t seemed worth it, but the other day I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to try hooking some beads together and dangling some little leaves from them.

I really, really like it. The beads are jadeite stones and the wire, chain, and jump rings are all sterling silver.

I’ve been trying to just wear it around, but Ian can’t keep his hands off of it. I guess it’s a date necklace for now.

Oh and I found a photo (from my old camera) of the lost-in-the-mail (which is our fault because we sent it to the wrong address) necklace. I had never seen tulip tree poplars until we moved here to Ohio. Our neighbors have 2 of them, so all spring I was picking the baby leaves off of the branches that hung over to our side of the fence. They are such a pretty shape.

This one has green German glass beads and sterling silver beads on a sterling silver chain. I hope whoever ended up with it opened it and likes it!! Tiffany, a new one will be coming soon!