Homemade gift #2

One of my most treasured toys when I was little was my Toucan Sam cardboard safari hut. I remember excitedly collecting the necessary box tops with my mom and mailing them off. Not to jump off track, but why don't they have the cereal schwag they used to??? I can't believe I can't find a single link on google where anyone remembers that hut. So I decided B shouldn't have to suffer through childhood without a little fort all her own. First I hunted around and found a tutorial that came as close to my plan as I could at SewMamaSew. Then I headed to Joanns on the day after thanksgiving and spent the next 2 hours questioning my poor judgement to go buy one large piece of felt on the biggest fleece blanket buying day of the year. Seriously, I couldn't even see some of these grannies over the bolts of camo and unicorn printed fleece piled in their shopping carts. Since the tipi is too big to make the trip to Washington for Christmas, it was gifted early. So here it is, more or less finished. There are a few details yet to be added but they can come later. :)

The trick is going to be, keeping a big enough area clean for it to be set up.

Homemade gift number 1

One of my goals when I became a mom was to make at least 1 of B's Christmas gifts each year. Would I love to be the kind of woman who could make every single thing by hand? Hellz yes. But I'd also like to be a full time mom, full time crafter, smokin' hot bod who lives in a cabin along the Washington coast with my family. And so far, I have none of those at hand.... yet. So I take baby steps and am pleasantly surprised when I surpass my goal. The first of my gifts this year for her is a set of alphabet bean bags. Inspired by Chez Beeper Bebe, I picked up some fabric and got to stitching.

Since we are flying to Washington for Christmas, I didn't want to add any extra weight to our suitcases. So I am opting to only fill the letters of her name and then we will fill the rest when we come home. I have high hopes of these getting lots of use. Rob has always talked about building a bean bag toss board, and now we've got a way to sneak that silly old alphabet into it.

my sunday favorites

So, I basicaly haven't left this house in 48 hours. Blizzard Aiden finally nailed Green Bay and we've followed strict orders to stay home. So there's been lots of dancing, crafting, Eclipse watching, and Christmas daydreaming. And my favorite tune of the day is this tune that my frined Caroline, stylest extrordinaire, turned me onto friday. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros - Home

And I am crazy crazy in love with these tiny gingerbread houses for your mugs of cocoa over at Not Martha It makes me think of my mom and the year that she made a gingerbread house for every girl in my class to decorate at my birthday party. My mom, little Juanita, was known far and wide as THE best bday party planner. She always had some great crafting project planned for us all to make. My long time friend Chris told me that they still hang the snowman ornament she made at one of my parties. Anyways, these just made me and my coworker squeal. But the reality is, I will probly never get a chance to make these until we have a year where I plan a big ol' winter party.

Although she will get nothing from these folks this year, I am in love with this catalog for Magic Cabin. Perhaps next year when she's more of a small doll player.

This will be made this year as well. Young House Love. I just absolutely love the flow of their blog. Thank god for diying inspiration. I think this blog actually changed my long time dislike of ranch style houses. Rob will attest to the fact that I'm pretty choosy about the ornaments that we hang up. We were in agreement that we didn't want some huge pink thing to hang every single year. So we went with a quirky Superman thing we found. This year, I'm thinking this is perfect. And perhaps a new tradition.

So I hope you're all safe and sound and home with loved ones tonight. And I hope your morning doesn't have any of this waiting for you....

Waiting for this storm to pass

It is a lovely Saturday afternoon. I am afforded the luxury of writing in the blog... well, only during moments where B isn't grabbing my finger and dragging me out to the floor to dance with her. Rob has run off to the store to get groceries. The dog sleeps soundly on the couch and the fire is roaring in the fireplace. We're waiting for the big snow to fall. As much as I do not enjoy the seemingly endless winters in the Midwest, I do love this quiet storm of snow. The morning coffee is gone and it seems time to get that teapot steaming up. And it be time to finish the Christmas gifts I've been working on. I just wanted to soak in this video of sun and warmth before I don my chunky socks and watch the piles of snow gather around the house. And I pray that mother nature gets it all out of her system before our flight west on the 20Th. I also send up big prayers for 2 particular families that I know where children have been given the diagnosis of cancer. I look at my own little human charge and I try to fathom the gut punch that these families must be reeling from. So, while I sew toys and fret over the fact that B whines and cries for me to go dance with her, I will remain conscious of how lucky I am to have a child that is happy, healthy, and wanting me to be there and present with her. And I will set aside these projects and be there with my miracle child.....

Sunday inspirations

One of my goals for 2011 is to find my blogging groove. I get all inspired and then I forget it exists for a few weeks. So I thought I'd share the blogs that really inspire me lately to just enjoy myself. The photos and emotions of these sites feel so rich and inviting....
I think I love this site because her shop is like something a girls dreams up with her best friend in art class....
a beautiful mess
Anyone who knows my 365 collection on facebook knows I get weak in the knees for well made vintage toys. When I saw the post on this gal's blog about Christmas gifts for her daughter, well, she kinda stole a piece of my heart.
blue bird vintage
I came across Sara on a hippy christian message board a few years back. Though she hardly knows me, I am definetly one of the many people who are inspired by her lifestyle. Oh to share a steamy cup of tea with this mamacita....
walk slowly live wildly

the tiny ghoul

So, we lovvvve costumes around here. Little known fact, my secret desire before college was to attend Cornish school for the arts to study costume design. But a more conservative dad groaned "what kind of work is there for a degree with that???" um, well, costuming. But thats many many years of water under the bridge. SO, we love costumes and little funny gems. That means, we couldn't do just one day of costumes. Especially since we had been hand me downed 3 adorable costumes from her older cousins. The first was from cousin Topher. The Topher man filled that Telletubbie costume out so well in his day. It also inspired me to pull up some Tubbie videos on youtube. There are some royaly twisted mixes on there. So, beware before you youtube them! And note that her unsure face had nothing to do with her views on the costume and were entirely due to her feelings about me snapping pictures.


Next was the bat costume that her oldest cousin Kate sported at the same age. I can at least take some credit on this one as I helped construct the wings and my sister made the ears for the hat. We took her to our favorite bar for dinner and she charmed the pants off of everyone in the place.


But the one that made the final day was her cousin Mary's Evel Kneivel costume that was made by my mom about 4 or 5 years ago. Bridget was hilarious in this get up!!! And I was pleasently surprised that everyone seemed to know what she was. And she really enjoyed the grandiosity of the cape.... or maybe it was that the more she played it up, the more candy she got. Either way, our first year trick or treating as a family was a great one!!! We chose 3 different homes of good friends to drive out to and then just did a few houses around there. So a big thanks goes out to those friends who also treated mom and dad with laughs and some beer and wine.

oh the thrifts you can thrift

I loves me some thrift stores. While Rob was getting his latest tattoo worked on, B and I went to a thrift store that is really hit or miss. This time it was a hit.... minus the fact that its too crowded for shopping carts and I didn't have a stroller so B pitched a level 9 shit fit in the middle of it and instead of understanding "i've been there" looks from the old ladies at the register, I got the "what the hell are you subjecting us to?" glares. But, these little gems for $2 were worth the moment of pain. As soon as I got them home and on her feet, all I could think of was Loretta Lynn's cd VanLear Rose and the track called Little Red Shoes. Even though these are easily 4 sizes too big for the little B girl, she loved them too.

little red shoes from francieclarksen on Vimeo.