That Man, He'll Wow You

After dinner last night (Hmm? Oh--steamed cabbage, kale, and potatoes, with nutritional yeast. What? It's good!), by all rights it should have been bedtime, but the big kid had a hankering that could not be denied.

She had a hankering for watercolor.

So, sucker that I am for an art project, we cleared the table and got out the supplies, and had ourselves a little family watercolor evening:

The little kid painted circles, of course:

The big kid painted a present sitting on top of a couch:

(I'm irritated with myself about that, because I have this rule that I don't draw things for the kids, because I don't want them to model me in their artwork (seriously, read Drawing with Children--it's awesome), but the big kid saw me drawing a cliche little present picture on somebody's etsy package, and lo! here it is)

I remain firmly in the abstract:

But my Matt, goofing around with a child's paintbrush on typing paper, creates this:

I'm the one who's lucky enough to get to stay home all day with my gang and play with art supplies, but my guy, who has to spend all his days in a cube going clickety-click on a computer screen, he's the one with the skills.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, random art, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Paranoid, Anyone?

I am totally paranoid about the mail. I am paranoid that one of my etsy purchasers will fail to receive their record bowls and be mad at me. I am paranoid that the reason this certain cousin of Matt's never thanks me for the handmade gifts I send her child is because she never receives them, because THEY GOT LOST IN THE MAIL.


And then there's this place. I mean, I absolutely want to go to one of those auctions, but who mails something and thinks, "Gee, I hope this gets lost on the way to Aunt Pam's and ends up in an auction of unclaimed merchandise at the dead letter office in Atlanta"? Nobody.

And that's why the packages I mail out look like this:
Yes, y'all, that IS duct tape. And newspaper. Wrapped around a cardboard box. With more newspaper inside. Oh, and the actual stuff? Is wrapped in a plastic bag, in case it gets wet.

I do like to pretty it up, however, especially for this one poor, unsuspecting etsy shopper, who mentioned that this box was going to go straight under the Christmas tree when it got to her:
See? I drew hearts with Sharpie markers in between the duct tape!

But that's nothing...I let the girls decorate the boxes going to family members all by themselves:Do they even let foam stickers go through the mail like that?

P.S. I was sold out of record bowl sets for a while (yay!), but there's one more brand-new Christmas-themed set up in my shop now.

Willow of the Corn

I love it when kids are old enough to create totally creepy, apocalyptic-style artwork:Here is my completely imaginary interpretation of Will's masterpiece:

"That's Sydney and Damian and me and we're standing in the middle of all the fire in the world. The wings of The Bad Man beckon, and Damian made all the grown-ups fall down, even you, Mommy. You all fell down, because you all have ouchies, and now the ground is sticky."

And Matt's been commenting lately that every evening when he leaves work, there are maybe a thousand crows just sitting in the trees around his building. A THOUSAND crows, friends.

Cooincidence?

You Can't Have Your Banana Bread, Eat It, and Photograph It, Too

Since when I asked my dear Matt to photograph me enjoying the banana-blueberry bread I'd just finished baking he did this----and when I said, "Oh, fine, I'll just take a photo of you eating the bread, then," he did this----I finally just had to take a photo myself-- --of myself. My favorite part of myself, too--the coffee part.

I used this recipe, with a scant 1/4 cup of brown sugar and the fancy-schmancy Bob's Red Mill white wheat flour. It's so delicious that I'm going to have to make another loaf if I want to have another slice with my coffee tomorrow.

P.S. Check out my post about Christmas craftivism in Crafting a Green World today, and there's some new stuff in my etsy shop to replace some other stuff that sold--yay, Christmas!

Family is for Failing with

The mighty Horned Frogs fell----but we still got to spend two hours exhuberantly and fruitlessly rooting them on together (in a stadium filled to the max with fans of the opposing HOME team, even):The marble maze fell, but we had lots of wild and wooly times constructing it all together:Hell, even the gingerbread house fell-- --pitiful redneck shanty, but we had an awesome sugar-high time with a dear friend throwing candy all over it, anyway:
Ah, family...even when you suck, you get to suck together.

Etsy for the Holidays

I'm super-behind on updating my etsy shop for Christmas (grading final papers--what a drag!), but since I made a sale today I figure it can't quite be too late, so I made one very last holiday update tonight:

A set of three Disneyland record bowls

A set of five gift tags featuring freakin' adorable vintage babies
A felted wool ball with a matching ornament
A stripey felted wool stocking
A set of four record bowls from albums of Christmas carols

It seriously is pretty late in the game for a Christmas update, but it was on my to-do list, and now it's checked off.

Yay.

Now if we could finish Will's charity project before the weekend of bloated grading and course grade assignments, I'd be pretty stoked. I came into a small bounty of pencils, so I was thinking about making some blank books for the little children, as well--fun, or perhaps too preachy-educational?

Busy Little Elves

It's been a season of bounty the last couple of days, with everything coming in stacks and piles of multiples.

A stack of papers graded and alphabetized, ready to hand out in my last class tonight:Four dozen chocolate chip cookies, to be awarded to my students in exchange for their final papers:

A long line of tiny little record boxes in the making, to be filled with beads and string for a charity project in Will's preschool classroom:

An orderly arrangement of dinosaur cut-outs, salt dough shapes, and popsicle sticks, drying after an exhuberant acrylic painting session:

Tomorrow will bring more of the same, with stacks of tiny little envelopes to cut out and glue and sheets of homemade temporary tattoos to print and cut out, also for Will's charity project, and a heap of candy to stick with mounds of frosting onto a gingerbread house, while visiting with a good friend.

Tonight, though...tonight, after my final class lets out, we have tickets to the IU basketball game. Who are they playing? Why, my alma mater.

Riff ram!

P.S. Check out my twin tutes--a tutorial for kitschy Christmas record album cover ornaments on Crafting a Green World, and a tutorial for kitschy Christmas record album cover sewing cards on Eco Child's Play.

Dinosaur the Halls with Boughs of Holly

A few months ago Matt dumpster-dived us an AWESOME six-foot artificial tree, but there it stands, barebarebare (aside from a plethora of twinkle lights--in opposition to my Green Crafting Manifesto, I buy these by the crate when they're 75% off after Christmas, and I'm convinced that they're the perfect decorating tool for any room). The girls and I started making some ornaments this morning out of record album covers and scrapbook paper (tutorial forthcoming), but instead of finishing them this afternoon we went hiking:But never fear! I rolled in from class late tonight to find that in the absence of traditional ornaments, the girls had decorated the tree with... Dinosaurs! Hiding in every nook and cranny, perched on every branch and bough, and quite historically correct, since you know that evergreens were a primary food source during the Cretaceous period.

Festive, right?

Well, in our house...yeah, it kinda is.

P.S. There's a new set of Christmas-themed record bowls up in my etsy shop.

Earn Money, Buy Stuff

The Fair and Green Gift Festival was quite the occasion:
Not only did I earn a tidy sum AND get all my papers graded (something I had to do this weekend anyway, so it's like I got double-paid!), but I was just a couple of tables down from a green burial company, so during the slow periods I got to eavesdrop on LOTS of gossip about, well...burial hijinks?

For those of you who were looking for something in particular--I sold out of felted wool dolls and crocheted grocery bag messenger bags, but I'll have two felted wool balls up in my shop tomorrow. I'll also be listing a few sets of Christmas-themed record bowls and two felted wool stockings.

But of course, we can't forget that yesterday was GOODWILL 50%-OFF STOREWIDE SALE DAY!!!

Everybody managed to get something nice and new to them, and the thrifting gods were indeed smiling upon me, because I scored two items that I have been on the lookout for. To help me finally make the soap from the soap-making kit I bought from the Kitchen Girls, I found an immersion blender--something that I was widely warned is rarely found in thrift stores. And, to replace the lousy one that broke TWO YEARS AGO, I found a super-super-nice digital five-compartment electric steamer.

Happy sigh.

Find Me

In case you're one of my *many* stalkers, here's where to find me tomorrow:

10am-3pm: Fair and Green Gift Festival, Alison-Jukebox Community Center, Bloomington, Indiana

This is the first year it's being held here, so the organizer fears that attendance will be light, but it seems to me as if she's been promoting it really well, so we'll see.

In honor of the festivity of the season, I'm just bringing my Christmas-y stuff (and in honor of the tiny little table I'll have), but the girls and I did have a happy morning together making these product signs: All from stash. Festive, right?

And, of course, nothing is more festive than crafting in the nude: The girls periodically get VERY into our mostly-thrifted rubber stamp collection: It would likely be a greater pleasure to use them if I took more care in keeping the stamps and ink pads clean. Seems like a lot of work, though...

I will have some of my newest stuff at the festival--soldered glass ornaments and felted wool ornaments and stockings and these guys-- --so I'm looking forward to seeing how well they do.

4pm-6:30pm: Cloth Diapering Workshop, Barefoot Herbs Barefoot Kids, Bloomington, Indiana

This is my favorite of the two workshops I do at the store. My guarantee: somebody will ask if you have to dunk diapers in the toilet to wash them, somebody else will doubt that tea tree oil does jack as a wash additive, and a third somebody will refuse to believe that you can use a wool diaper cover for a month without washing it. All of these people will be lectured into total submission.

7:00 pm: Goodwill 50%-off Storewide Sale, Central Indiana

Don't even ask me if I'm freaking that I'm not going to be there at 9:00 am, because you know I am. I'm hard put not to give Matt a list and make him go in my place--immersion blender, wool sweaters, retro sheets to make pajama pants out of, Christmas-themed T-shirts for a quilt, obscure crafting books, little-girl hats and mittens--all will be gone by 7:00 pm, I just know it.

Must get my mind off of it--look what came in the mail today!The provenance of the wood from Maine Wood Company looked pretty good, so I bought some little people, some bigger people, some trees, two snowmen, and some acorns.

They still don't have any furniture, though, so they all just stand around and stare out the windows:

Stalk me!

Nifty Little Gifties

Phew! I managed to catch a cold on top of whatever intestinal flu nastiness I had, so I'm not feeling all better, but my choices are no longer to either lie down or faint so y'all, I'm declaring it--I AM WELL!!!

Mind you, I still did a lot of tricking the girls into lying down with me today, and they've basically run through their screen time for the rest of the month, but I did finish my biggest, most important project this evening--my Craft magazine tutorial submission is ready to roll, as soon as the editor sends me her dpi and size preferences for the photos. For those of you who've been following my photo saga or who know something about photography, I'll just tell you--middle grey matte board, it rocks.

In other news, I'm waaaay behind (obviously) on prepping for the Fair and Green Gift Festival that I'll be vending at this Saturday (along with the Kitchen Girls, among other awesome local celebrities), but while languishing in bed off and on yesterday I did manage to finish up punching out the tiny little holes in these nifty little gifties:
Gift tags! From old greeting cards! I wrote a quick-and-dirty tutorial for them over at Crafting a Green World, but they were a Thanksgiving event unto themselves, I tell you:It seems that my late Mama, before she became too unwell, collected every single greeting card she had ever received--in our back hallway was a huge drawer, crammed to overflowing, with cards dating back from the 1950s. While spending the better part of Thanksgiving weekend sorting through them just to cull out the cards from exes (cards from exes are EXCELLENT for crafting with), I came across so many fabulous treasures that you'd just never find unless your grandma was a packrat, too.

For instance, look at this awesome card: It's freakin' adorable, right? It's from a big stack, held together with a rubber band, that came, apparently, from a baby shower held for my Mama when she was pregnant with her baby who was stillborn. The condolence cards for his death were in the same stack--keepsakes of joy and keepsakes of grief, all together.

There were other bittersweet cards from loved ones long gone, cards for graduations and anniversaries and Christmases 30 years ago, and cards from...
me. You betcha, in grade school, I used to dot the "i" in my signature with a CAT HEAD. Sometimes, though, I'd just sign my name like this: It was my trademark, see?

Here's the biggest mystery of the bunch, though:That's to me, when I was a small child, from Aunt Birdie. She sent me a Christmas postcard, and a Christmas sticker, and some Christmas cut-outs from a box top, and just check out this beautiful letter:

"Dec 23 83 (I was seven)

Dearest loving niece and loved one. Wish you was here with me for Christmas. I guess you are looking for Santa Clause to come Christmas. I hope he brings you a lot of nice gifts and nuts and gum and apples, oranges, and all kinds of good things to eat and nice presents. Are you looking for him to bring you a sweet baby doll? I hope he does.

I love you so much, wish you was here with me. I so all alone and so lonesome. Tell mother, dad, grandmother, all hello for me. All my love to my sweet thing.

From Aunt Birdie Gann."

Breaks your heart, right? Here's the thing, though--WHO IS AUNT BIRDIE? Never heard of her. Never seen her, never seen a photo of her, don't remember anybody speaking of her, don't know this name At. All.

But wow, she loved me, didn't she? And she was all alone and lonesome on Christmas. But because Mama saved her letter and sticker and postcard and cut-outs for me, after I probably looked at them and thought they were stupid and left them lie, I can remember her now. I feel more loved today, thinking about Aunt Birdie, who wanted me to have gum and apples and oranges for Christmas and wished I was there with her.

And thanks for the Christmas cut-outs, Aunt Birdie. I'll put them on the tree this year, I promise.

Wasting Away

I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!!! (insert lots of whining, kvetching, moaning, and just general unpleasantness of personality here)

I swear to y'all, I have the WORST immune system! I started feeling unwell a couple of hours after Syd did--six hours after that, she's jumping up and down on the bed, and today, I'm still fainting while attempting to microwave the girls a Hot Pocket (guess whose husband did the grocery shopping this week?).

And so why am I sitting here, in my break between evening classes, alternately typing and laying my cheek on the cool, cool surface of my desk (likely teeming with germs), and not laying in my near-permanent at this point fetal position on the bed at home and trying to dream my way to my happy place?

Because I'm just that good of a teacher, my friends.

Is my halo showing?

List Maker

Surely you suspected that I'm a list maker, right? An incorrigible one. And I make lists for other people. Sometimes I'll call Matt up at work, and dictate these really long lists to him of stuff he's supposed to be doing--making a dentist appointment, emailing back the Human Resources lady, finding a cheap flight to Mexico, etc.--and he'll be all, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, okay." It took YEARS before I realized--he's not actually writing it down! He's just pretending!

And that, my friends, is why I have to do everything myself.

Last night in the car, sometime in between bouts of "I'm bored!" and "I have to go bafroom!", the girls and I wrote up these learning maps for them. Basically, you have each kid name four or five things they'd like to learn about, and then together you think of all the things you can do to learn about those subjects. Circles are topics, cloud-shapes are activities, underlines are field trips; interconnections between subjects are highly prized, but challenging, sometimes, to make. Here's Willow's learning map: The fun thing about a map is that it brings up possible activities that I hadn't thought of before--I know, for instance, that Willow likes rocks and fossils and shells, and has innumerable ones, but I hadn't yet thought of helping her make them into an official "collection": organizing, labelling, displaying, etc. A possible trip to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center is a new idea, too.

I think that the topics Sydney suggested for her learning map are pretty cool--Christmas, Baby Beluga, ponies, and cows.

Notice that I tried, for her, to focus mostly on hands-on stuff that wouldn't be totally over her head: taste-testing cheese would be super-fun, for instance, as would be learning to play horseshoes.

And since this coming weekend is the big The Nutcracker production that Willow and I are attending, I sort of zoomed in on The Nutcracker part of her learning map and expanded it to come up with even more things we could focus on this week: Some stuff is ordinary, like the dance class the girls attend every week, but I like how some stuff is for me to do, like possibly sewing their pancake tutus and making them freezer paper stencilled Nutcracker shirts, and some stuff is stuff that we'd need to do anyway, like making ornaments. Ideally, I'd find a way to cover more academic subjects in each learning map--math, science, geography, languages, etc. And of course, these are just ideas, so a lot of this we won't actually find time to do--but if something feels inspirational, there it is.

And here's a list I made for myself this morning, because things are getting a little crazy around here, with my freshman comp classes, an upcoming craft fair and cloth diaper workshop, Christmas prep, as well as the two usual little monkeys:

Can you find the unexpected event that threw all other planned projects into oblivion? Sydney hasn't yet repeated the incident, luckily, but I still have probably another seven hours of laundry before me, and I have just a little touch of a phobia about vomiting (yeah, YOU try being hyper-emetic for two months while pregnant, and tell me if you don't lose your will to live for a little while, too), so I am still FREAKING OUT.

Okay, the blog is about to be a check; on to the Craft Magazine photo shoot!