Festive at Clearance Prices

You will never find me out and about at your various retail establishments on the day after Christmas, snapping up wreaths and wrapping paper and little baby Jesuses or whatever, but the week after Halloween? Back off, sister, 'cause I need me some stuff!

On Monday, the girls and I barreled over to Joann's, a coupon for 10% off of my total purchase just burning a hole in my pocket, to find all of the awesome Halloween stuff still left on sale at 70% off. That's 80% off, my friends. 80% off is good.

So now the dress-up corner is richer by two fairy costumes (one pink, one blue), one skeleton costume, one dinosaur and two sequined fairy wands. Willow is sporting four new pairs of Halloween socks (I'm a goth girl at heart, in that I think that you should absolutely wear skulls and bats and ghosties all year round). The craft area now boasts even more face paint(very "Why So Serious?", right?) and a big box of foam stickers (another box is in storage, waiting to be given out as Halloween treats next year). The girls don't often get stickers just handed to them, so their work this morning was quite inspired:Sydney's all about pointing to and naming the stickers--bat, pirate, punkin--and instructed me as to which of the many display boards around the house she wanted her masterpiece pinned to.

I'm pretty impressed by Willow's art in particular today because she used four different media--crayon, markers, watercolor, and stickers--and incorporated it all into one narrative work: There are houses with Jack-o-Lanterns on the porches, and some of the houses have steps that lead up to them, and cats sit in front of all the houses. There's a spiderweb in the middle with a spider coming down, and in the sky, which is dark, are the things that fly and the moon and the big green wind.

In other news, the party for Will's little girlfriend went very well. The coloring pages were a huge hit

but I still feel like a tool because one mom's RSVP didn't get passed on to me and so two little kids didn't have coloring pages of their own (How does this sound? "Here's a very special drawing page, just for you! It doesn't have your name because it's for you to color your very own picture on it! Even better!").

Eh, at least there were cupcakes aplenty.

P.S. Check out my list of autumn-themed nature projects for adults over at Crafting a Green World. And, if you're into rubbernecking, check out the comments for my wool felt rant--I throw a huge hissy because one reader calls me a Very. Bad. Name. Look for it and reassure me--highly inappropriate, right?

Collaborating with my Girls

In honor of the fact that my retirement fund, the one consisting of money I've been working to earn since I was sixteen years old, performing jobs ranging from menial to demeaning, the one I'd planned to borrow from to provide my girls with secondary education, the one that's my cushion to enable me to be a mostly stay-at-home mom, the one that's made up entirely of stocks and bonds and mutual funds and other imaginary creatures, is down $12,000 for the year (freakin' economy), I've been working on updating my etsy shop for the holidays. It had taken a backseat to my teaching and writing for a while, but now that the entire family is steadier within the flow of the school year, I've had more time to devote to crafting with my girls.

Yep, with my girls. I consider all my work collaborative with my two children, sometimes very directly, sometimes very indirectly. For instance, the girls helped at every step in creating our melted and recycled crayon hearts and autumn leaves and their color choices could be quite beautiful, but for the personalized buntings, they rather inspired the idea, chose the colors for their own buntings, and kept me company by playing on the floor at my feet while I sewed: Sometimes my work is guided by a child's passion, such as when I made up a bunch of dinosaur postage stamp soldered glass pendants, and stuffed dinosaurs from new materials or felted wool, and dinosaur doll blankets

all because Willow is obsessed with dinosaurs. She chose the fabric or pattern or stamp for each, and both the girls are dedicated pin-holders when I layer materials. They also like to race around the perimeter of a quilt that I am pinning on the floor, leaving barely enough room to move around it on either side--it's a game to race around and around and around, because they know that whoever ends up falling on the quilt first gets grumped at by Momma, as if I didn't know what was going to happen all along.

Some things are collaborations in honor of my girls. The cross-stitch panels on this little quilt are duplicates from a cross-stitch book that my mother hand-stitched for Willow:And some things are made just because we're big dorks, like this Christmas ornament. We met Darth Maul, y'all, and he is SO NICE!

Some things I make directly for the girls, such as dressesor dolls then make a few extras to sell or give away, and some things I make in honor of my relationship with my girls, such as items to honor or encourage breastfeeding.

It's because I'm a mostly stay-at-home mom (unless my stocks keep tanking)--together all day, the girls do work and I do work, and their work and my work always reflect, even when we do it alone, our togetherness. Momma is always there to hand a girl a marker, to reach under the couch for the last elusive matchbox car, to read a couple of books, to make a couple of snacks, to wash four hands. In return, the girls are always there for me--goofing around in the cart while I shop for supplies, cutting collages while I cut patterns, sitting on my lap while I try to work the sewing machine around them, playing in the park a few feet behind me while I take pictures of what I made. I collaborate with them simply because they're an inherent part of everything I do.

Just try getting some privacy in the bathroom.

Indianapolis Hearts Children

A happy day at the Indianapolis Children's Museum:

As we pulled into our neighborhood tonight, car both much less full from a big sale to Half-Price Books and a little more full from a few little sales from the Goodwill Outlet Store, bellies happy with cheap noodles, one child sacked out with her head resting on her brand-new-to-her dinosaur toy, the other contentedly mumbling, "Nurse, nurse, milky-nurse" to herself in her carseat, Matt commented, "It seems like we've been gone all weekend."

Isn't that the sign of a good day trip?

Crayon Crayonis

We have just been on a melted crayons kick here today. You know, along with buying discounted Halloween costumes and face paint (both a BIG daily deal around our house), reading a lot of Dr. Seuss, discovering that the College Mall Kroger of all places has bulk nutritional yeast for sale, taking Matt to the doctor to get his pinkeye(!) diagnosed (will we never see the end of gross bodily ailments over here?) having the weekly phone conversation with my mother in which I beg her to PLEASE stop stockpiling plastic toys for the children's next visit (the latest atrocity? My Little Pony), cooking and consuming peanut butter oatmeal with honey, getting flat-out robbed selling gently-used children's clothing to Once Upon a Child, discovering that I do NOT like hazelnut-flavored coffee (barf!)--stuff like that.

I mentioned before that I collect those silicone baking molds when I can catch them on sale, just for making crayon crayonis (Latin for "crayon of crayon"--I have two Master's degrees. Sigh), and so today we made more leaves in autumnal colors:

and two sizes of hearts in Christmas colors: and pumpkins, of course, in very special Willow and Sydney colors:

And just so you know that I'm really a consumer at heart, here are other silicone molds that I covet:

But what do you do with big fat fancy crayons, you ask? Why, we colored:

And we colored:

And we colored, right up until Willow just randomly fell into bed, eyes already closed (I hate you, Daylight Savings Time!!! Freakin' MyManMitch!!!)

What did you color today?

P.S. Check out my rant about wool felt over at Crafting a Green World.

Party Hero, Party Foul

So I'm helping a friend get ready for her kiddo's fifth birthday party, and it's a school holiday for my own kid today. Both things are AWESOME, by the way, because I love love love birthdays, and I love love love having my kid home from school for an afternoon. But yeah, it does change the way things roll around here. Instead of having a non-"productive" morning and then a couple of super-productive hours in the afternoon while the big kid is at school and the baby naps (pleasepleaseplease), I can have, perhaps, a slightly productive day by working all day and including my two little co-collaborators in everything.

First, we make books. I need to fold and sew up 17 blank books for the kiddo gift bags that I'm putting together. During this time, I'm periodically asked to make additional blank books for my own kiddos, who are digging through my cardstock stash and apparently finding gold. The baby dictates a book that goes something like this: "Now a cat. Now a cow. Now a horsie. Now a pig," and the big kid dictates a book about a pony princess who sails the ocean in search of polar bears. Illustration is crucial:

The kids are working so happily that I sneak off into the study to stitch up my 17 blank books, yet something seems awry...

Obviously, what fun is a creative and engrossing activity engaged in on your own at the living room table, when you can run off into the study and squeeze into the three inches of space in between Momma and the wall and run little dinosaurs up and down her arms while she tries to sew?

We did books and blocks and lunch and nap after that. But while the baby (I can still call her a baby, right? She is only two-and-a-half) napped, the big kid and I made some melted crayons with a new mold that I got on big sale--I've been itching to try it out. Although I'm sure it's an enviromental nightmare, I LOOOOVE silicone baking molds. I don't actually bake food in them, but they're terrific for melting crayons:

The mold comes out of the oven and separates from the crayon so easily that it's just pure happiness itself. You can't tell, but this mold is half pumpkins and half leaves. The big kid did all the pumpkins, which came out AWESOME, and I did fall colors, red/orange, orange/yellow, green/brown, with the leaves.

And so after an entire day, here's the party stuff so far:

We have all 17 blank books in the back, the birthday kid's birthday bunting, TWO birthday crowns in the making (the baby insisting upon her rights as the baby, I suppose), and some little tchochkes from Learning Treasures to fill out gift bags. Coloring pages made from the party attendees' names are still in process at my computer, manilla envelopes for the birthday kid to decorate for gift bags are with the birthday kid, the party music mix is being compiled in my iTunes, and a citywide search is underway for the best price for Crayola 8-packs, on account of I do NOT use RoseArt.

And that's the party hero. Party foul--At 6:30 pm, getting ready for Soup Night at another friend's house, the big kid throws a big screaming fit so I, who am exhausted anyway, lie down on her bed and invite her to lie down with me and snuggle. She lies down, sings the continents song to herself a few times, plays with her fingers a bit, and falls soundly asleep. Apologetic phone call is made.

Curse you, Daylight Savings Time!!! Curse you, MyManMitch!!!

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

To Do with my Kids

I've been making this list of Web craft projects to do with kids, specifically projects that celebrate autumn and the harvest season. But obviously, as I'm looking for five or so activities suitable for this list, I'm finding about five thousand off-topic ones that just look AWESOME! So then I was thinking, I have a projects To Do list for myself; why not one for me and the girls?

To Do (Parent/Kid Edition)

• I'm already starting out unrealistically, because I wouldn't buy new silk (from silkworms, you know), and any vintage silk scarves I came across wouldn't likely be all white and pristine and dye-ready, but I still love this tutorial for dyeing playsilks with Kool-aid over at the Artful Parent. The girls love to dress up and the playsilks look so versatile and light and fun--perhaps I could someday find actual vintage playsilks?
• I love the birthday crown tradition over at SouleMama. I mean, of COURSE you deserve to wear a crown on your birthday. The girls would certainly like to help with this, as only they can come up with the perfect garish/creative color choices. Perhaps I'll have one ready for a certain little birthday friend's birthday party on Monday?
• Over at Strange Folk in September, I bought a bunch of beautiful rainbow-dyed wool roving. Since then, it's been draped over a shelf in my study looking gorgeous, but my intention has always been to fill a couple of sinks with warm, soapy water and make felted balls or felted rocks (like these from elsie marley) with the girls. I wonder what else I could felt around?
• For an fundraising art project at her child's school, Perpetualplum made mosaic tiles out of small squares cut from the students' artwork. I'm as a rule quite against altering my children's artwork in any way, but Willow, I think, would be old enough to create art specifically for this purpose, and it would also fall in line with some projects I have in mind to work with the girls' love of Eric Carle--he does this same kind of thing, you know.
• You know that my Sydney is into babies and cars in a big way. I'm not that excited about the idea of making doll clothes for her--she's not really into dolls in a "dress them up, dress them down" kind of way, anyway--but I do like the idea of making her some cloth doll diapers, like these from Skip to My Lou. Natural parenting, right?

In other news, I have a game for you. It's called Find the Monkey:

P.S. Check out my other list of autumn-themed art projects over at Eco Child's Play.

Busy Little Beaver Gets Her Just Dessert

Most of the time I am a total mess, but sometimes, very rarely, I am so organized and pulled-together and crazy-awesome-perfect that I impress MYSELF, friends. For instance, in the past two days, I have made dryer lint modeling dough with the girlsand then I wrote a tutorial for it on Eco Child's Play. I took the kiddos to the park oncetwiceand thriceand while I was there I took some product photos of the holiday quilt that I then listed on etsy. I answered a billion student emails and taught a class on gender stereotypes, although I did break my own heart by harshly reprimanding my secret favorite student (he deserved it). I completed the birthday buntings for oneand two of Willow's little kid friends

and I did that even though Sydney refused to nap today (curse you, daylight savings! Curse you, MyManMitch!). I fulfilled my civic duty

with both children in tow, and I smugly noted to myself, having compared the early voting fervor to the pointless Y2K mass hysteria, that there was absolutely zero line, that the staff was efficient and effective (except for my ballot judge, who was utterly incoherent in her explanation of the voting booth--"And so you...do all this...and when you're done there's some more...and if you write-in you do like that [odd hand-wave]...okay". It turns out that she'd fainted about ten minutes prior but, upon being revived, had insisted upon getting right back to work. Yeah.), and that they gave the girls both stickers and animal crackers. I took the girls to storytime at the public library and then organized their library books

in a new space that Handy Matt created by moving around some bookshelves and hauling a third out into the yard; it will join all the stuff he hauled out of the garage on Labor Day, which he STILL HAS NOT REMOVED!!!!! And, I just finished writing a tutorial for Crafting a Green World on painting vinyl records, a project the girls and I did together this morning before voting and storytime.

Yep, I'm awesome. Except, you know what happens when I'm so studious and multi-tasky and organized and productive? My immune system rebels. And I get a cold. Which is why I'm sitting here at office hours all stuffy and runny and achy, but you know what? I'm still staying up late with Matt tonight to watch election returns and drink champagne.

Go Barack!

Sisters

One minute they're at each other's throats because one child touched the library book that was the OTHER child's choice for Momma to read after breakfast, and while they scream at each other and make "scary faces" (the preferred method of attack, always effective), you think, "What's wrong with them? They're SISTERS. I want for them to love each other more than they love their father and me, to always have each other long after we two are gone, and look at them! They hate each other's guts! They'll fight their whole lives and never be close!"

Then, three hours later, during a picnic lunch at the park, you see this:Sisters.

Handy Matt

Attention, cable TV viewers everywhere! The family and I will soon be appearing on a public access channel near you!

This morning my old friend Christina, one of the friendly neighborhood children's librarians over at the Monroe County Public Library, had us helping to film an informercial about early literacy. I got to be a talking head going on about why I take my girls to storytime and how exposure to books benefits them (being pedagogical helps when being interviewed, although the cameraman at one point did ask the boom operator to move the mike further away from me...ahem. I'm used to projecting to a classroom, people!), and then we all participated in some shots for the "B-roll" to go over disembodied voice footage. Matt read a book to Sydney, Will flipped through some books independently, Syd played with a workbench in the playroom, and Christina forced us to all hold musical instruments and sing together as a family because she needed that particular activity for a shot. Knowing that the footage of us would be soundless (um, right?), I belted out this particular Kimya Dawson household favorite:

After that and bicycling all over town, I retired to finish my slog through my freshman comp student papers, and Handy Matt built a dress-up area in the girls' room, with a rod for hanging dress-up outfits, a big mirror for showing off in front of (to be fronted by a ballet barre at some point in the future), some bins and baskets underneath the hanging stuff for other stuff, and plans for hooks for jewelry.

The man can do anything, right? (...except help the Momma put some clothes on the kids and pose like normal people for a family portrait!)

The idea and basic arrangement of this dress-up area is taken from my favorite blogger, SouleMama, and her awesome book,
I find her really inspirational, y'all.

Festivities, Somewhat

There was a paradeand a whack-o-lanternand trick-or-treatingand tree climbingand more tree climbingand just general awesomeness

and for me, 46 papers to grade, many of which are not at all awesome by any stretch of the imagination.

Here's a little thing I look forward to every weekend, however: the Dover Sampler. I don't remember how long ago I signed up for this, but every Saturday morning in my email in-box I receive a secret link to a site with free pages from Dover books--mostly coloring book pages, which the girls enjoy immensely, but sometimes simple mazes or puzzles or activity pages. Some recent favorites were pages from a birds of America coloring book, a butterfly alphabet coloring book, a famous ballets coloring book, and an activity page on learning to tell time.

To show you how additionally cheap/awesome I am, I'll tell you that whenever one of my print cartridges is almost out of ink, I set it aside and put it in just to print out coloring pages and cutting templates--the kids don't care if their free sample Cats of Siam page is inked in black or pink, don't you know.

Another way in which I'm cheap/awesome? I've never bought my children a coloring book, much less a Dover one.

P.S. Check out my review of earth-friendly children's books over at Eco Child's Play and my tutorial for sewing appliques onto denim buntings over at Crafting a Green World.