Sick of Snow Days

Books

Magic School Bus and Dinotopia and Biscuit and Boynton and Gilbert, among MANY others

An elaborate lunch

pasta with last night's pizza sauce and shredded Swiss cheese with sliced oranges on the side

Cassette tapes on the stereo

LOTS of snow

LOTS of sledding
one major temper tantrum involving how much it sucks to bike in the snow (I told her so)
Writing
lots done on tablet paper, not so much done on the book proposal

Hallelujah
an early bedtime

The odd snow day is a nice novelty, but there's also something appealing about one's normal schedule, don't you think? I'll be happy when a normal non-snow schedule reappears, just any time it wants to now.

Valentines Made by Artists

The kids are less interested in prepping for Valentine's Day than they are in it just BEING Valentine's Day already, but nevertheless, even children have obligations, and Valentine's Day likely incurs the greatest obligations for the under-12 set than any other holiday.

Y'all, we have GOT to make some valentines.

The kids' school does permit store-bought valentines, although not valentines with media characters, so I'm not sure how you're supposed to work that one, but I'll be damned if I'm going to spend a penny on this Hallmark holiday when we are perfectly capable of constructing our own valentines with stuff we already own, and stuff that is, thus, free.

Therefore the daily sweatshop. Which is also really not that bad because the children are also not asked to bring a valentine for everyone in their class, but just their special friends. To keep even that lesser amount from getting monotonous, I set out a different valentine activity every day, so that there's a little more impetus to keep crafting, and no, they are NOT allowed to make every single valentine be for their mutual friend Ella.

The day before yesterday, the kids made one tray of melted crayon hearts, which is three hearts for each of them to give out. Yesterday was far more productive, with the creation of Artist Trading Card valentines being fun enough for the kids to make about a dozen total:

The big kid did most of hers with colored pencil, but the little kid got really into coloring her ATC, then gluing beads onto it:

I found that fun, too:

I got into the habit last year of giving out Artist Trading Cards instead of business cards at craft fairs (I always prefer performing a labor-intensive task over spending any kind of money whatsoever), so if there are any Valentines left unsent, I will be happy to have them join the Pumpkin+Bear ATC stash.

For today's Valentines, I'm thinking of setting out this huge stash of paint-your-own plastic "stained glass" suncatchers kit that the kids got for Christmas. They can have the fun of painting them, and then they can leave my house and be someone else's chore to hang up and display and surreptitiously get rid of when the kids aren't looking.

P.S. Want to see even more of our fun family activities and adventures? They're over on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

The 36 Hours of a Snowman's Life

It took an unreasonable amount of effort to make this snowman:
The children will claim that I didn't help at all, but the fact is that I rolled that entire head all by myself. And then I went inside, because I'm not really a snow person.

Although I do like to sled.

My Aunt Pam makes snow ice cream both times that it snows in Arkansas each winter, but even though I ate bowls-full myself as a child, I no longer find it sanitary. Isn't snow just basically air pollution on ice, or is that too paranoid?

Fun as it was to make the snowman, after school today Willow asked if she could kick the snowman down and stomp it up.

I said that she should.

And apparently that was pretty fun, too.

Tutorial: Sew a Long Skirt for a Little Girl

Because they're sock monkeys.

And because the little girl likes to wear skirts.

I had thought that I was going to save most of this jersey cotton sock monkeys sheet, which probably cost $1.50 max at Goodwill Outlet, for matching pajamas for the littles. But that's a lot of sewing, and I have a lot of other stuff going on, as well, and the littles already have plenty of jammies, and I keep cutting into the sheet to make more baby bags for Barefoot Kids. But it's sock monkeys! I have to make SOMETHING for the girls out of it!

Hell, the little girl likes skirts. Might as well make a skirt:
To make a skirt of your own for a little person that you happen to know, you'll need a goodly bit of jersey cotton. I'm actually pretty stoked that I figured this project out, because several years ago I bought a few jersey cotton sheet sets, just red and grey and blue and whatever, but we don't tend to use the flat sheets in our house, so...yay, future skirts!

Anyway, measure the little person from waistband to anklebone, and add 1.25 inches, and measure her around her waist (make her suck it in, because for some reason my littles always measure wider than they wear), and multiply by 3, then add your seam allowance--1/4", unless you're going to do a french seam or something crazy like that, but you're welcome to.

Take the time to iron your jersey cotton nice and neat, because jersey cotton can stretch and warp something fierce, although a little careful ironing will true it back.

Starting at the bottom hem of the sheet, which will be the bottom hem of the dress--
--measure the length and cut, then measure the width across and cut.

Hem the side of the skirt, so that you're left with a really, REALLY wide tube.

For the waistband of the skirt, I was inspired by the blog post by Lil Blue Boo about HER T-shirt skirt, so that I folded my waistband down 1.25", too, and top-stitched the top edge to make a casing for the elastic, too. Her tute for that is very clear and has more photos--the only big difference is that I don't use interfacing or starch, and so zig-zag or overcast all my stitches when I sew knits. Anyway, her idea makes for a really neat waistband:As always, the outie is optional.

Depending on how snug you want the skirt's waist to be, you can measure your elastic for anywhere from your child's waist measurement (it'll be snug, since you'll be using some of that length to sew the elastic to itself) to your child's waist measurement + 1/2" seam allowance (that sounds like it would be a comfier fit, but remember that your child has no hips--go for snug).

Hook a safety pin to one end of the elastic, thread it through the waist casing, sew it to itself, and sew the casing shut.

Do you have two girls, too? Then go make another one!

Or just go ahead and have that third glass of sangria. The girls are asleep, after all, and there's a Toddlers and Tiaras marathon on TLC.

Back to the Library

I can't believe we survived the whole three months.

Our bright, expansive, handsome children's department in the public library was closed for THREE ENTIRE MONTHS. Can you believe that? Renovations were apparently necessary  but at times, I seriously wondered if I could last that long. I am addicted to requesting, online, large numbers of library materials as I think of them--say, for instance, the little kid has been talking about death a lot, or we're invited to take a trip to Boston this summer--and having them sent to the drive-up, where I can pick them up at my leisure. For the entirety of the renovation, the majority of the children's collection was unavailable. That means NO copies of Lifetimes, my absolute favorite book about death. No Revolutionary War on Wednesday, the book in which tiny Jack and Annie take their Magic Treehouse to war! I nearly expired.

And the beautiful, large playroom! Don't even get me started about how much I missed the playroom. Or the train table. Or the window seats by the board books. Or spending the entire afternoon sitting in comfy chairs working on stuff while the kids browsed or read or played.

I REALLY missed that last one. The happiness of writing for hours, with the kids, without feeling like I'm neglecting them! And we've also gotten out of the house!

My time of trial is over, however, for as of Monday, the children's room is officially open again. Things are spiffier, there is new carpet, the children's DVDs are in a SHOCKINGLY prominent location, but otherwise, things are back to normal. Story time was followed by activity time, world without end amen, and funnily enough, the activity was the exact food coloring, table salt, and ice experiment that's been on trend on the interwebs lately, so I didn't even have to drag out our crap to do it. Of course, we are very little, so we just watched the salt melt through magnifying glasses:

It was like going back home after a long absence, where even though things may be different, you can manage to settle right back in just fine:

The big kid learned to read while the children's room was closed, so I think this homecoming is going to be extra-sweet for her.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

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.

WIP Wednesday: The Eucalyptus, Vapo-Rub, and Honey Edition

So the actual culling down of this week's WIPs was seriously marred by a certain little sickie, who spent a small part of the day snuggled up in her sleeping bag on the couch with tons of stuffies, listening to Winnie the Pooh on CD--
--and a vastly greater majority of the day and evening snuggled up in a blanket on my lap, glassy-eyed and flushed, dripping popsicles and juice all down my front. I'm a sucker for this kid when she's a sickie, on account of she's the one who's spent her life trying harder to break my heart than the other little bruiser has, but still...when I look with longing across the room and fantasize about getting up to clean off the table and give it a good scrubbing? Momma could use a break.

If I had managed to get anything done today (which I didn't), here is what I would have chosen from:

Current Works-in-Progress

1. book proposal revision: heavily edit, redo one tutorial using a different fabric, redesign, solicit proofreaders, possibly solicit expert contributions
2. Craftster Read to Me Mommy swap: finish travel felt board scene (with monogrammed carrying bag?), think up and create one more small craft to go with it
3. sock monkey baby bag: sew it up and send it off to Barefoot Kids
4. Montessori Parents' Library: prep for my meeting tomorrow (at 7:45 in the freakin' morning!), make signage
5. school Valentines: crayon hearts this year?
6. thank-you note to Aunt Peggy: dear god, she sent the girls a generous present for Christmas, and what have I sent her in return? Bupkiss!
7. Valentine's gifties to little cousins (on account of I ran out of time to send them Christmas gifties): stuffed cousin dolls and something else...hmm, hmm, hmmm...
8. Valentine's giftie to aunt and uncle (same reason): red wine jelly?
9. Valentine's giftie to Matt's brother (crap, this is getting bad): decorated picture frames a la little girls
10. Fair of the Arts application: three pics and some rhetoric

Perhaps the baby will feel well enough tomorrow to lie in bed and watch Land Before Time all day.

Little Painted Dollhouses

There are certain items out there in the world so awesome that probably any crafty parent, happening upon them, would say, "A-ha! I know just what to do with THAT!"

Such it is with a certain mass-marketed unfinished-wood CD holder shaped like a house. It cries out for, it LONGS, to be painted and decorated and turned into a child's little dollhouse. And oh, it has been. Witness the following bloggers, to name just a few:

• Chasing Cheerios
• Angry Chicken
• The Snail's Trail

There's even been some blog-sniping about who had the idea first, which is always fun (not).

However, I win, because everybody else paid around five bucks for their CD holder houses, and I found mine on clearance at Michael's for $2.49 each. So nyah.

Sometimes when I buy some art materials or a kit for the kids I'll just hold onto it for a while--perhaps they're really into some other thing at the moment so I know they can't concentrate on it, or they've gotten some other presents recently so I know they won't appreciate it, or I just feel like the timing's not right. We have several colors of polymer clay, for instance, that the kids even picked out, that I've just haven't offered them yet, and a couple of wood kits from our local history center's museum store, and even some Christmas presents (gasp!). 

These houses, however...as soon as we got home I got out our hard-core set of artist's acrylics--

--and excitedly to work they did go! The big kid left and came back to painting all evening, but the little kid sat in her chair for over two hours straight and painted:

She didn't even leave to go to the bathroom. Even I left to go to the bathroom. But her hard work really did pay off. What with the large spectrum of color in the acrylic set, and the kid's strategy of leaving one area to dry and then coming back to paint it in a different color (she basically painted the entire dollhouse three times), her entire dollhouse has a lot of depth and an interesting variety of color--it's pretty amazing, and we haven't even whipped out the book of wallpaper samples yet.

I watered down the acrylics a bit so they would flow better, and put each color in the compartment of a plastic tray that had once held miniature quiches (Matt has a weakness for you, you little egg-and-cheese confections!). And while the kids painted away, I worked on my book proposal revision.

I'm glad that we all had that really happy, creative time, since I've been off my game the past couple of days, tearing my way through a recent Steven King novel instead of writing or crafting or parenting or cleaning so much (I finished it tonight, thank god, and life can now continue as normal).

But with two dollhouses like this to play with, the kids have somehow managed to keep themselves entertained while their mama has been indulging in the Victorian sin of novel-reading.

For me, I swear, a good book is like a bad addiction.

Our Version of Alone Time

At least for the near future, this is what it looks like from nine to eleven o'clock most nights, our girls soundly tucked away, the living room table cleared of dinner and evening family activities:
I work on my book proposal revision, and Matt works on his homework.

And believe me, it is work. I need to change the entire perspective through which I'd planned to write my book, keeping my authorial voice undamaged while revising according to the constructive criticism that I received ("Talk less about Willow and Sydney" ?!?). Matt, used to years of art done almost entirely on the computer, is having to get used now to the intensive hand-work of his drawing class, and not just the drawing itself, but the tedious and tiresome process of prepping his work surface according to the various requirements of the professor ("Mark your grid with tape cut to 1/8" width" ?!?).

We're working in the mines, my friends, but for a bigger purpose: one of us wants an MFA degree, and the other one of us wants a book deal.

Neither of these, apparently, simply fall out of the sky into one's laps. So be it.

Tutorial: A Volcano in, I Mean on, Your Pants

I'm really clumsy, and I think I also may be getting old. Before I had kiddos, when Matt and I played adult co-rec softball together (Go, Ballantine Tool and Die!!!), we used to joke that adult recreational sports are so interesting to watch primarily because of the very real possibility of seeing an adult seriously injure themselves. I saw people blow out knees and backs and break feet and ankles, and those were just the non-contact injuries.

I had my own non-softball, non-contact injury last week when, while racing the girls to their school building, I tripped and fell and skinned my knee something fierce. Oh, what did I trip on? Um...nothing.

I'll save you the descriptions of the blood and gore and scabs and general grossness--let's just say it was AWESOME--and turn, now, to the damage done to my third-favorite pair of pants, a comfy pair of cargos bought for two dollars at Goodwill. They were, of course, ripped to all get-out. It was tragic. Heartbreaking. It called, clearly, for a jaunty applique patch. Here's how to make one:

First, you have to seam together the rip in your pants:
See, isn't it huge? Hearbreaking, I tell ya.

Next, you have to cut yourself out a jaunty applique. Use a pre-washed fabric that's the same weight as, or heavier than, your pants fabric. I'm using pre-washed upholstery sample fabric, and I used my Cricut to cut a pattern template from
out of cardstock: my patch is going to be a volcano.

Pin your applique exactly where you want it on your pants. I don't use fusible webbing or any of that heat-set crap for clothing anymore, so use as many pins as you need to feel confident that your patch won't shift. Feel free to add on whatever you want to make your repair job not just functional but super-awesome:
The plume of fire coming out of the volcano? Just there for show.

Now that wide-legged pants are in style, you can satin stitch your applique without having to open up a side seam, although it does require a little fiddling:See, here I've got the fabric fiddled in such a way that I can sew all those roughly parallel spots pretty easily, and when I've done those I'll shift and futz the fabric around to get a new angle and sew the perpendicular spots. If you're getting skipped stiches, it probably means that you need to move to a heavier needle--you're already using a jeans needle, right?

When you're done, you'll have an awesome, sturdy applique that makes your pants look even better than they did originally:
And you'll discover how hard it is to get a good photograph of your own knee.