Dinosaur Lovers Unite!!!

I already have the Craftster Dinosaur Swap to thank for inspiring me to finally get off my butt and create my daughter's dinosaur quilt already, but that's on the giving side of the equation. On the receiving side of the equation (which is a good side of the equation to be on), I have my swap partner to thank for what is likely the most crazy-awesome swap package that I have EVER received.

And the girls? Well, I'll just say that they're beside themselves, and allow you to imagine for yourself the exact strain of hysteria that has swept through our house in the wake of this package.

First, a sweet little note:
"A surprise!" you think. "Why, I LOVE surprises!" And you are so, so correct. Because some of the surprises are this:
And some of the surprises are this:These handmade coloring pages are the coolest thing: The girls have already done several (as you can see). There is one in particular, of brachiosauruses in love, that I'm going to secretly slip to Willow (not Sydney) to color tomorrow, because I dearly want to then frame it and hang it in their room. Not that I don't find Sydney's artwork beautiful, mind you--I'm her mother, I think it's awesome--but...Brachiosauruses in Love seems meant for Willow, I'll just leave it at that.

So that stuff alone is awesome enough, I'm sure you agree, and you can't even count the adorableness of all the other miscellaneous toys and dinosaur paraphernalia also included (excavation kits! volcano eruptions! crayons! sunglasses!), but this blows all that out of the water:

I mean, are you kidding me?!?

This playset is INCREDIBLE!!! It's made up of all these great fabrics, mostly recycled, all with really interesting textures that contrast really well, and there are little dino hiding spots tucked in----and little foam dinos to play with--

--and tons of extra foam so that the girls can make their own little dinos to play with! Sydney is sleeping with this playset right this very minute. She's also, not that you need to know this, insisted on sleeping on the living room hardwood floor, on top of two big pillows, inside her pink flower sleeping bag, with a sock monkey, stuffed whale, and plastic My Little Pony, while listening to on CD. And even then it was after 9:00 pm before she went to sleep, a stark contrast to Willow, who fell asleep in the car at 6:00 pm (on our way to the park, which we then did not get to go to) after shrieking for half an hour about sunscreen that she'd gotten in her eyes while playing with it without permission. Man, kids do NOT like to have their eyes irrigated with water bottles!

But yeah...dinosaurs. The girls are re-inspired, I am re-inspired=another successful swap.

Working on the Dinos

Thank goodness! The SUN was out today! The sun was OUT today! The sun was out TODAY!!! And...wait for it...the temperature hit 55 degrees! Sitting outside for three hours on a park bench while the girls played, pushing the occasional swing, taking a little hike down the creek bed--this was exactly what I needed today. I then had the energy to do a load of dishes, and feed my children lunch, and straighten the study and the kitchen, and make dinner.

We had vegan beans and franks. I ate vegan beans and franks! I am DEFINITELY cured.

The timeline for my Craftster dinosaur swap has just this minute begun to seem very protracted. Um, why am I basically making three quilts at the same time? Well, because I want three dino quilts, and I'm not sure how much dino fabric I have to parcel out. Still, the dino deadline is fast approaching.

Here are the new dinos to add to the collection:

Yeah, that last one is crooked. I'll figure it out later.

Craftster Read to Me Mommy Swap Goodness

I do a lot of swaps on Craftster, but the Read to Me Mommy swap may have just topped the 2008 Christmas in July Stashbuster swap (in which I had not one, but TWO swap angels step in for my flaky partner!) as my favorite swap to date.

The Read to Me Mommy swap was already set up to put me into nerdy heaven, what with the pleasure I took in sending off a copy of the girls' favorite pop-up encyclopedia, , and in making a variety of felt dinosaurs and a travel felt board (AND in finding an excuse to buy ), and in stencilling a parasaurolophus onto a child's T-shirt. But it turned out to be even better to receive my own swap package from my partner:

OCEAN-THEMED!!!

She sent an autographed copy of Seashells by the Seashore, a counting and shell identification book:
She sent shells, and stuff to decorate them with, if we ever get tired of just looking at them and playing with them as-is:She made a sewn matching game with hand-drawn illustrations:She made a beach bag out of beautiful fabric:And she made the most amazing, most elaborate, themed roll-up felt playset that I've ever seen:

If you like crafting for kiddos, especially crafting educational or extension activities, you should totally check out the Read to Me Mommy swap gallery, which is inspirational. There's a Harold and the Purple Crayon package that I possibly must recreate in every way.

The next Craftster swap that I'm currently signed up for is...wait for it...a DINOSAURS swap. My swap partner would like matchy stuff for herself and her sister, so it will be like crafting for my girls in the future! I bet they'll STILL like stuffed dinosaurs and stencilled shirts!

A Set of Dinosaurs with Which to Travel

The baby is fully healed. Her 104-degree fever for much of last night earned her the day that she's having today, which she is spending in bed, watching children's shows on Netflix Watch Instant and being offered tasty delicacies by her mother--blueberry-pomegranate juice, vegan carob brownies from , fresh oranges, frozen pizza. I figure her body needs a day of rest, which it has to if my little hummingbird is content to just lie there and watch TV all day, and, frankly, I could use a day of extra productivity knowing that both girls are justifiably glued to the boob tube.

And that's how I FINALLY got that living room table nice and scrubbed (we've been kneading bread on it, is why) and made vegan carob brownies and wrote the entire About the Author section of my book proposal and finished the large craft for the Read to Me Mommy swap that I'm participating in on Craftster:

It's a travel felt board, made to accompany , a madly awesome book that would normally be far too expensive for me to purchase for a swap, but the girls were given a copy by an extremely generous mom friend, and then a second copy for Christmas by another loved one, so there you go! In my house, regifting is valid and encouraged.

Only Willow, likely, could tell you the names of all the dinosaurs that I included, but the ones in the photo above are, I believe, an apatasaurus, a supersaurus (which is either a baby or very far away!), and a dimetrodon, while an ichthyosaur swims in the sea and a pterosaur conquers the air. And yes, I cheated--using my last paycheck from Crafting a Green World for a while (more beauracracy changes, ick), I ebayed a most coveted copy of . It was a steal, and a bunch of bidders tried to snipe me in the last minute, but I stood triumphant!

The girls are thrilled, especially Willow, who drew an allosaur in honor of the occasion:Notice that she is in the camp of paleontologists who believe that predatory dinosaurs were highly colored.

For the felt dinosaurs, I cut cardboard templates with the Cricut, then hand-cut the felt. For the travel felt board, I hot-glued felt to the front and back of a Scrabble board. That one was a little tricky, so I'll likely post a tutorial for it when I make a second one for the girls. I made them their own dinosaur felt set, and I made a third set for putting into my pumpkinbear etsy shop as soon as I can squeeze in the time.

And now, while the girls watch what seems like an infinity of Caillou, I plan to do a couple of loads of laundry, write the book's table of contents for my book proposal, figure out what dinner I can make with all the pots and pans dirty (loaded baked potatoes?), blog for free at CAGW, change the bed that Sydney has been eating crackers in all day, read the girls another chapter from Bambi and hope that they'll still go to sleep even if they haven't gotten any exercise all day, get a little exercise myself, and maybe, just maybe, sew up a sock monkey baby bag.

Oh, and I didn't get much sleep last night, so there's always that.

ATC Swapped

My first grown-up ATC swap (can you believe that Will did an ATC swap before I did?) was pretty much super-fun, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Here's my X card, entitled "Mac's X-Ray":
This didn't photograph well, but it's an x-ray image of a brain tumor that my Mac (different from my Matt--rumor has it that Papa, who is hard of hearing and before my marriage saw me with my best friend as much as he saw me with my boyfriend, combined with the fact that Mac, my best man, wore a tux that was carelessly identical to Matt's, never was quite sure exactly which guy I was marrying until the actual marriage. Gawd, how I love all three of those dumb guys) battled a few years ago, printed onto transparency film and stitched to Bristol board. The words were printed individually onto adhesive paper and adhered to the front of the transparency (I'm afraid they're going to fall off, though--next time, I should figure out how to attach them from the other side of the transparency?)

Here's the X ATC of one of my swap partners. It's entitled "X-Ray":
It's three ATCs that accordion together using those metal rings, which is awesome cool. The images are x-rays printed onto matte paper and then glued onto the ATC paper.

Here's another X, by a different swap partner. It's entitled "Xenograft:"

The top and bottom of the figure are individually cut out and glued together--the proportions are perfect, which amazes me. The background is stamped with lots of letter x, and the postage stamps carry the letter, too.

Here's the V card from a swap partner--it's entitled "V=Villain":

There are a ton of collage elements to notice here--photos, typing, black-and-white copy images, inked parts, parts shaded in with colored pencil, etc.

Here's my W card, entitled "My Little Willow Tree:"

It's cotton quilting fabric quilted to Bristol board, then embroidered using the free-hand tool on my sewing machine with a willow tree.

And here's my V card, entitled "Aunt Vicki":

Again, the photo is lousy, because it's really hard to photograph a transparency. This is a photo of my Aunt Vicki printed onto a vintage book page (The Christmas Carol, I believe), lined up exactly with an identical photo printed on an overhead transparency--they're all quilted to Bristol board with a double row of stitching. The words are again printed individually on sticker paper and adhered to the top, and I'm betting they fall off before the year is out.

I think it takes a year to do all the swaps to equal an entire alphabet--how cool would that be?

Oh, no--I am now also obsessed with alphabets.

Heart Handmade: I Made It!

Y'all, I received SEVEN Valentines in the mail today! (And one etsy order). The big news, though, is that I mailed out TWENTY-FOUR Valentines today (and two etsy orders from my pumpkinbear etsy shop).

I glued patterned paper (sheet music or scrapbook paper) to the fronts and backs of 4"x6" pieces of recycled cardboard (cut from pizza boxes or record album covers), except for a few cool-looking record album covers that I cut down to 4"x6" and glued front-and-back. Then I cut and punched hearts of different sizes from more sheet music and scrapbook paper, and punched 1" circles in some of the cardboard Valentines. I glued hearts to the cardboard Valentines in whatever pattern I felt like (a different pattern for each one), glued pages recycled from a tiny little quote book on some, and wire-wrapped beads (some vintage amber beads, some a Christmas present from my mother) to dangle in the 1" circles of some of the cardboard Valentines. I hot-glued tinsel or thrifted bead strands around the edges of most of the Valentines, and cut and glued each Valentine a custom envelope recycled from an old atlas.

The US Valentines cost $1.17 to send, the Canadian ones cost $1.18, and the Australian one only cost $1.40. I have got to start sending more things to Australia.

Here are just a few highlights:Today was the day that Willow also finally got to wear the Salvation Army sweater I bought for her. It's about four sizes too big and has a big pull-mark on the back, so I thought I was buying it as a pillow top for her or perhaps her best little friend, but noooooo...

See? It's a knitted horse. With a real yarn mane. And a blue button eye. Of course she's going to wear it. Every. Single. Day.

And speaking of true love? This Saturday, my dear friend Molly and I are driving up to Indianapolis (By ourselves! Without my babies! Without my husband! Has not happened since before Sydney was born!) to see Old Crow Medicine Show:

If you're jealous (which you are), you should totally come and meet us there. I'll be the 30-something lady in the jeans and T-shirt, acting like she hasn't been out in public by herself since 2006.

I am so freakin' happy.

Holiday Fast-Forward

You'd think I'd be mellowing in the post-Christmas crash--a New Year begun, one babe back in school, my own semester yet to begin...I have magazines to read, a new Waldorf doll-making book from the library (finally!) to think about, and a DanceDanceRevolution resolution to conquer.

But no, my friends, I have not been "mellowing." I do not mellow. Instead, I have been doing this--

Yes, you with that look of horror upon your face, that is what you think it is--I HAVE been prepping for Valentine's Day.

I have an idea for a denim quilt with denim heart applique that I've been working on for my etsy shop, and a plan for another one but with all the heart appliques decorated by our family (ideally each topped with a red or pink vintage button, although I do not actually own any vintage buttons), and I'm doing some cardmaking for my Craftster swap, and the result of all this is...

Y'all, I ran out of stash. I am about two pairs of blue jeans shy of cutting out all the pieces for my second quilt, and I flat-out ran out of vintage songbook or poetry book pages dealing with the concept of love. So obviously I ran by the Recycling Center today, because their free Sidewalk Exchange is continually rife with ripped blue jeans and crazy old books (I found porn there once! Porn!). But the Recycling Center? Closed! With a big sign out front saying they're closed on Mondays now!

Stupid New Year.

When I found myself standing in the study earlier tonight eyeing my 1936 Kittredge Shakespeare, I was all, "Whoah, lady! Calm on down. You can find some real-live trash tomorrow."

P.S. Want to follow along with my unfinished craft projects, books I'm reading, cute photos of the cats, high school chemistry labs, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Christmas in July is FINALLY Over

Well, at least it was a happy ending to possibly the longest Craftster swap in history, on account of I got ditched by my regular swap partner AFTER sending her all the stuff I spent weeks making her (don't worry--she has a myspace page and regularly updates it, so, as the swap organizer said, whatever happened to her, she's at the least alive and with internet access), and my swap organizer hooked me up with not one, but TWO swap angels. You can witness the awesomeness of my first angel package to arrive here, but yesterday even more awesomeness arrived.

I had asked for either stocking stuffers for the girls or non-religious holiday decorations, so when the big padded envelope arrived in our mailbox and the girls began to squeal for it ("It's MY present!" "No, MY!"), I lost my head a little and made the mistake of telling the girls that they could NOT look at Momma's special package because it might be Christmas presents. For Christ's sake, you'd think I'd have learned something about parenting in the past four years. Seriously, it was a rookie move, but in my defense, this will be the first year that we're "really," as in not in a half-assed way, celebrating the holiday.

Obviously, then, after I'd actually opened the package while holding it over their heads and peeping inside, when I announced, "Yay, ornaments! You CAN have these now!", Willow immediately snatched everything she could reach and looked like this--

--and Sydney, of course, retaliated by snatching some sweeties of her own: So you can sort of see in my daughters' avaricious grasps the so-cute crocheted ornaments that JennyBear made for us. I don't know if she knows any kiddos, but she somehow knew dead-on that anthropomorphism=awesome. The ornaments have faces!!!I love the birdie the best. I vaguely remember this pattern--perhaps in ?--and it makes me want to make a thousand more for our tree, but I don't think I can come close to imitating this cool embroidery. Have you ever noticed that I'm full of a lot of embroidery talk--Sublime Stitching patterns I want to buy, how-to books I've already bought, clothing I'm going to embellish--but I haven't yet ever stitched a single stitch of embroidery? I am an embroidery poser! I'm the closest I've ever come, though, having recently used my Hobby Lobby birthday gift card to purchase some tear-away interfacing for embroidering on T-shirts.

Anyway... I spent half an hour trying to get some good shots of all this goodness to post in the Craftster swap gallery; meanwhile, the conflict escalated:

(I love how Will is sneaking the bird out of Sydney's hand while she's looking at something else)"No!!! Bird mine!!!"And Willow's main offense is to pretend to be a dinosaur--"Raawr!!!"--and Sydney's main defense is a good offense, and she lunges forward and bites Willow on the chest. Photo shoot ended, double time-out.

Why Christmas Isn't Really in July

I may possibly have been bailed upon by my partner in Craftster's Christmas in July Stashbuster Swap--either that, or something bad happened to her. Online buddies are probably beyond the last to know when tragedy strikes. I'm very bummed, because my partner was a knitter, and she had a stash of HARRY POTTER HOUSE COLOR YARN!!! Oh, some things are just not fair. I did possibly bring it upon myself, however, due to my intense desire to always be right. You see, I got into a little tiff with the organizer of the swap on account of this rule that when you're involved in a swap, you have to post in the swap forum at least once a week. I suppose it's so the organizer knows you're still alive and crafting, but I think it's a pain to have to have one more weekly chore to remember related to what is supposed to be a fun activity, and, since nobody wants to actually talk in the forum about what they're making, because they want it to be a surprise, the forum conversation tends to be non-crafty, and I really just don't want to be required to post weekly. My counter-argument is that since posting and crafting are two different animals entirely, weekly posting is no sign that you're actually doing your swap work and will send on time. Case in point: I posted maybe once, after I was basically forced to, and I sent early. My partner posted weekly just like she was supposed to, and she's apparently dead in the water. So there.

Anyway, here's what I made for my partner. Her family has six, count 'em six, holiday trees, and I made a set of ornaments for each tree. The littlest kiddo loves to color, so his set is made from crayons melted into heart molds, with an ornament hanger melted into the back of each one:

The little girl's favorite colors are blue, pink, and purple, so I hand-sewed her set out of blue denim, and added pink and purple beads:

I forgot to photograph the other little girl's set, but her favorite color is red, so I made her ornaments all from different red fabrics--faux fur, silk, plaid flannel, felted wool, etc.

The eldest kiddo likes red with black, so his set is made from felted wool:

The main tree in the house is decorated in blue, silver, and white, so I also made a set of ornaments out of my blue glitter vinyl. I really liked how these turned out, although vinyl doesn't photograph well:

I also really, really like the fangeek set of ornaments I made for the "handmade ornaments" tree. They're all sewn from black denim with black beaded hangers, but each person in the family has a front and back T-shirt transfer of their own, personal fangeek obesssion on their own ornament.

The littlest kid loves Pokemon: Pikachu is on the other side of his ornament, of course.

The little girl likes the Junie B. Jones book series: A cover from another of the books is on the other side of her ornament.

The other girl loves Green Day (awesome kid):

A photo of the entire band is on the other side of her ornament.

The eldest kids loves Magic, the Gathering:

Another player's card is on the other side.

My partner's husband loves Aqua Teen Hunger Force:

Master Shake is on the other side of his:

And my partner loves Harry Potter, especially Slytherin House:

The other half of this battle scene, depicting the good guys, is on the other half of her ornament.

Eh, it was fun to make stuff for other people, even if I don't hear back from my partner's family to see if they liked it. It is good practice for Christmas, anyway, you know--sending lovingly handmade gifts to family members who don't send thank-you notes, or watching them open presents you spent hours on and not totally fawn over them--not that I make gifts for other people in order to be fawned over. Ahem. Yep, happy Handmade Holiday!

Buying and Selling (and Buying)

I try to buy locally, but for all that, I've been indulging a bit in online commerce recently, and of course I quite encourage the online purchase of high-quality handmade fangeek goods from my own online shop, so there you go.

I don't know if you do this, but when I'm preparing to go on vacation with the family, I tend to use that time to buy a bunch of stuff. You know, stuff like the baby wears her really ratty swim trunks that used to be her sister's to the local pool every day, but she certainly can't wear ratty swim trunks on vacation, so let's go shopping! And the girls have tons and tons of art supplies and small toys here at home, but I'd bet they'd behave so much better on an airplane if they had all new art supplies and small toys, so let's go buy some! None of those previous items have yet to be purchased, although they're all on the dream list, but this week I did buy a few extravagances for our upcoming trip.

Although I have successfully made my own mei tai, I found it bulky and awkward. The straps crossed right over my quite substantial breasts, for instance, and although that was nicely supportive, it leaves something to be desired aesthetically, I believe. I just can't get the use out of something if I don't really love it, so I never did wear Sydney in my home-concocted mei tai as much as I would have liked to, and so recently I broke down and bought this awesome mei tai. It's pink with skulls on one side, you see, in case I'm feeling fancy, and plain black on the other side in case I need to blend. The straps are long enough so I can tie them backpack style instead of across or under my breasts, which is comfier on us more ample figures, and it's way trimmer than my bulky old tai. Although mei tais, especially in a back carry, have a learning curve (it takes me a few tries still to get the mei tai pulled up around Syd's back without catching her butt on the top and thus sitting her on it instead of in it, which makes me swear), and although I have a couple of personal preference mods to make on it, such as padding the straps where they sit on my shoulder and the back where it catches Syd's thighs, I love, love, LOVE it. Love it.

This year Willow is old enough to carry her own backpack with her own and Sydney's things inside, toys and snacks and etc., and so I decided to buy the girls and myself some nice, reusable water bottles. I'm not a fan of the whole commercial bottled water concept, nor do I approve of the long-term re-use of an old commercial water bottle for your own water needs. That cheap plastic leaches, which you ought to be able to tell from the way that the really old bottles of really dedicated re-use types look all discolored and yellow-brown. There will be no phthalates in my breastmilk or my kids' bloodstream, I say! That's why, even though I disapprove of the willful misspelling, I bought us some Klean Kanteens. They're food-grade stainless steel, nice and light and non-leaching. The bottle mouths are wide enough to pour ice cubes in, and you can buy sippy spouts for them, but we like sports caps because they're also relatively non-spill. I bought the plain silver 27-ounce for myself, Matt didn't want one, Willow chose the blue 12-ounce for herself, and Sydney chose the pink 12-ounce. Oddly enough, I didn't actually buy these from the Klean Kanteen site, because this Greenfeet site was about twenty dollars cheaper for our order. Weird.

In other news, it's finally time to say goodbye to my Sandman soldered glass pendant, which hung around on my etsy shop for months even though it had tons upon tons of hearts. It will be happily wending its way to its new forever home tomorrow.

If you're wondering why I haven't been showing off my crafting lately, it's because it's a secret! I'm tootling along on my Christmas in July Stashbuster swap on Craftster, set to send out before we leave on vacation, but hopefully I'll finish tootling this weekend and then I have lots of other wacky crafty ideas to try out and post after that.

A Day That Needed Kittens

It was a day that turned out to need kittens, yet it started out well enough. After breakfast and before our weekly playdate at the library, the girls played with modeling clay together for nearly an hour--they stuck the colors on fondue forks and made caterpillars, smashed them on the table and added birthday candles and Willow sang the tall tree song to Sydney, used them as props for a dinosaur puppet show--long enough for me to sew and turn and topstitch and quilt these babies:

They're hand towels for the downstairs bathroom, the one with a dinosaur theme. The backside is a recycled pool towel from a Marriott that somehow found its way into our luggage, but never made a home for itself in our linen closet, due to its pukey green color, until now. The fronts are remnants from the dino quilt I'm making the girls. The hand towels aren't standard size, of course, but they don't need to be, and I like that the dino fabric gives them a soft side to contrast with the rough terry side. Kiddos tend to have tender skin, don't you know.

The library was terrific, obviously, except for the tornado warning that had us all herded into the Program Room for half an hour, but while we were at the library all morning, two people in a red pickup truck (says an eyewitness) stole my girls' tricycle, ride-in car, and wheelbarrow right out of the middle of our yard. When the police came they tolerantly took our statements, but obviously objects that are precious only to their little girls are unlikely to be recovered. The ride-in car was a hand-me-down from a friend, the wheelbarrow was a yard sale purchase just from Saturday, but the tricycle...the tricycle was Willow's present for toilet-training, and it was beloved by all of us:

Willow is such a sweet and gentle kid that her first idea was that people had wandered into the wrong yard in the rain and would return her toys in a minute, but I couldn't stand to see her standing at the window, waiting, and so I explained that I thought the people had done it on purpose, even though it was very wrong, and that maybe they'd return the toys, but probably they wouldn't. So Willow looked at me, tears running down her face, and asked, "Will the people give my tricycle to their own little girl?"

Fortunately, when the mail came, Willow's world began to look up, because our package from the Craft for My Kids swap arrived! Our partner made a lot of really terrific things for the girls, including a crayon roll, a painted wooden dinosaur, charm necklaces, matching aprons, matching scarves, washcloths, and felt pastry, but my favorite is these matching rompers:

Cute!

An added bonus to the day--I declared myself too emotionally depleted to cook dinner, so Matt ordered our absolute favorite dinner: Pizza Express. Matt always gets pineapple (yuck!) on his half of our multi-grain crust, but I waver between sun-dried tomatoes or broccoli, both of which are delicious. However, when we opened our pizza box, we discovered the wrong pizza! Half cheese and half pepperoni, with nacho cheese dipping sauce! Do you know what that means? Free pizza! Score.

The girls still seemed down, though--I think you have to be a little older to appreciate a free pizza--so Matt and I put into action a plan we've had for a while, and we took a family trip to the Humane Society. We're a foster family, so we sometimes take an animal to come visit us for a few weeks--lots of animals benefit from fostering, including moms with babies, very young animals, animals undergong medical treatment, or animals who are depressed by the Humane Society environment. We had our choice there between two little one-pounder kittens who need to be 2.5 pounds each before they can be spayed and adopted out, or three puppies from a litter of nine border collie mixes. Willow was leaning towards the puppies, of course, but I told her that even though it's her choice, the kittens did need us more, because they were smaller and younger and don't really do well in a Humane Society environment. Willow said, "The kittens need us more?" I said yes. She said, "I want kittens." And so, a day that needed kittens turned into a day that got kittens:

And there will be pizza for breakfast in the morning.