The Buying, It Does Not End

Since I'm still tootling away on my Christmas in July Stashbuster swap (a few minutes ago, while labelling the dinosaurs Willow was drawing on thank-you cards in preparation for the girls' birthday bash this coming weekend--pteranodon, apatosaurus, stegosaurus, and triceratops so far--I had the awesomest idea for what I'm going to make for the littlest member of my swap family. Yay!), I have no actual crafting news to share, other than the fact that hand-sewing is not so much my forte, but I can show you yet more stuff that I've thrifted lately, primarily from our yesterday trip to Indy.

One of the nicest things about our little town, along with the farmer's market, the Recycling Center, Pizza Express, and the fact that it's a liberal hotbed in the middle of Indiana, is its distance--about an hour or so--from Indianapolis. That makes spontaneous trips to the Indianapolis Zoo possible. Thus, while at 9:00 am on Saturday we were sitting around in our filthy living room watching the girls pester the foster kittens, anticipating no more to the day than a little housecleaning and yardwork, by noon we were looking through a lighted window for sea lions

and watching a koala sit on its fat butt and munch eucalyptus leaves (Everyone knows that eucalyptus leaves are notoriously non-nutritive, right, and that's why koalas eat all the time? I suggested to Matt that a better food should be offered to koalas, but somehow, he failed to see the incredible insight in that), and sneaking up on the hundreds of these fluttering around in the giant greenhouse and getting splashed in the Splash Zone at the dolphin show (I'm probably alone in this, but whenever Willow and I sit there I have these frightening fantasies that a dolphin will misjudge its leap and land, spine crushed upon impact, right there on the pavement at our feet. Screaming, rioting, etc. to ensue. Am I alone in that?), and just generally looking like this:

As if that wasn't enough, on the way home we stopped by the most hard-core of thrifting experiences, the Goodwill Outlet Store. Stuff is unsorted here, people. Sold by weight. Stored in big blue bins. It's like community dumpster-diving, basically, complete with old potty chairs with dried pee still in them, and pill bottles, and band-aids. Matt and Sydney sat on a couch and fell asleep, but Will and I were in dumpster heaven. She found a bunch of dinosaur shirts and dinosaur books, and I found an 1890 Bible (beautiful, and now a birthday gift for a treasured little cousin), a pillowcase for a dress that is embroidered, I kid you not, like this

a wool sweater hand-knitted in Ecuadorthat is right this second felting in the washing machine and, most awesomely, this: Hell, yes, Will is jumping on the Master of the Universe himself! There's He-Man, and Skeletor, and Castle Greyskull, and Ram Man, and Teela. Obviously this bedspread visited the sanitary cycle in my washing machine bright and early this morning, and no, I'm not conflicted by my love of 80s crap media versus my refusal to allow my girls to experience commercial media. So they won't have any interest in 20-year-old bedspreads printed with pop culture images when they're 32? Whatever, they can buy space ponies or something instead.

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.

Growing Like a Tall Tree, Big and Bold

Here's my Willow at four days:
Four weeks:

Four Months:

And, as of today, four years:
Happy Birthday, my baby.

Or Maybe One of These?

Today the other one has a fever, so it's another morning of PBS and the Magic for Kids DVD, uprooting my plans to leave the house for cake mix, ice cream, thrift-store pillowcases, and a photo grey printer cartridge. The Letter of the Day, however, is R, and the Number of the Day is 8.

I've fallen back in love with the other two options for my entry into the Color Class of the photo contest at the Monroe County Fair. Here's one option: It's from the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. I like that it's a self-portrait but since the mirrors are all wonky, my camera isn't pointed straight at myself, and I like the angle of the self-portrait. I also like the two images of Willow within the photo.

This one is Sydney just after she finished nursing. I like the dreamy quality, but it's also pretty grainy.

Which do you think is the best of the three?

Just Like in Little House on the Prairie

My entry for the Creative Class!

The big kid stayed in bed with a fever all morning, watching TV and accompanied by her sister, and yet today I still managed to make an egg breakfast nobody ate, fetch juice and "bunny crackers" and juice and peanut butter sandwiches and juice, ineffectively clean the house, work on the computer, curse at the printer, put a child down for a nap, conduct a large-scale craft project with another child, get into a big argument about the clean-up of said craft project, search every freaking where for tap shoes, get children dressed for dance class, continue argument about craft project clean-up, take children to dance class (even the one who had a fever this morning because I NEEDED A BREAK), work on the computer during dance class, take children home from dance class, take the car to the shop because its brakes are being funky, visit Hobby Lobby for party supplies (icing bags and tips, biiiiiiiig cake pan, candles), have serious conversation with tearful child about how we can't afford to buy her every single party supply in the store for her party (This was huge for me. I seriously want my kid to say, "Wow, Mama! A jump house--that must have cost a fortune! A cake shaped just like a dinosaur--no telling how long it took you to make that! I couldn't ask for anything more!" Instead she's all, "I want a cupcake stand to hold the cupcakes I want! And these purple glittery sprinkles! And these whistles shaped like dogs!" Seriously, what gives?), conclude argument about clean-up of craft project at home (not quite a win, but not quite a loss), melt down from low blood sugar, eat dinner, feel better, go on long bike ride continually harangued by husband because I tend to keep bike in first gear, go home, put kids to bed, collapse.

In other news, the big kid and I are currently being worked up into a complete lather because we have decided to enter stuff into our county fair. It's something that only townies do, but I've been here for eight years now, and it's time. 

Entering the county fair is about as awesome as it gets. There are a million categories, even for kids, and I think that everyone gets a ribbon, and first prize? It's a dollar. Awesome, right? 

So the big kid is entering about a million of the Young Child contests, including jewelry (she beaded a frankly half-hearted necklace but a much better crown), quick bread (is it appropriate for a four-year-old to enter beer bread?), photography (Polaroid film is on our shopping list for tomorrow), collections (hello? Dinosaurs!), and paper art (I have the sweetest fingerpainting with foam heart collage that she did last week during a break from painting the playhouse. Seriously, it rocks). I, too, am entering tons, including recycled art (I'm thinking my favorite fatty steg), sewing for children (pillowcase dress?), holiday ornaments (I made these crazy spiderwebby wire things with black beads while the big kid was throwing beads around the room this afternoon), photography, and whatever else I can come up with before Wednesday (I only found the entry information this week, and not being a townie, on account of they just KNOW things, I practically had to hack into somebody's server to find it). 

I'm making Matt enter, too--he's going to enter some of the comic strips we've drawn into the Sketch category, and tomorrow night he's getting out the Legos to show the big kid, because they have a Lego category both for adults and young children. See? Awesome. 

I've even got my dear friend to come over on Wednesday so we can go over to the fairgrounds all together and I can make her enter these messenger bags and purses she crochets out of plastic bags. Crochets, people. Out of plastic bags.

So my photography entries are pretty much ready, except, you know, that I still have to crop the borders off them and matte them and buy a frame and frame them, but yeah, pretty much ready. 

This is my entry for the Black and White Class:

It's the big kid with a sparkler. I like how abstract it is, how you maybe can't even tell that it's a child with a sparkler. It's just chaotic and beautiful and maybe frightening, just like my life.

Do you enter your county fair? You should.

Crazy Cool Creative Toys

Just because I'm a mean mom and don't buy my girls anything new doesn't mean that I don't totally covet really cool kids' toys. I like the girls to have non-media-oriented, non-electronic toys that are ethically produced, made with renewable resources and without harmful chemicals, and are sturdy and inspire creativity and a variety of appropriate uses at a variety of developmental levels. That's not much to ask, right? No wonder I make a lot of the girls' stuff out of cardboard and felted wool, but if I could, I'd buy...Look at this awesome baby. It's apparently called Totem, from Hip from Holland. It's a building toy made from laminated recycled cardboard printed with these cool graphic design-y images, and you put them together with the slots in the sides to make stuff.

I think these dyed wooden arches are another interesting take on the construction toy. It's cool to add dimension to the typical stack-a-block form of construction play.

How minimalist is this scooter?
Name an art supply, and I'm pretty much its biggest fan, but these beeswax crayons sound especially awesome:

They're supposed to have a lot of pigment for their consistency, which means extra-brilliant colors. The girls love to experiment with drawing on colored construction paper--you know, light blue on blue or whatever, so it would be nice to not often have to squint to admire their work.

The girls haven't really done dollhouses yet--they used to have a medieval castle they'd play with sometimes, although they didn't have any teeny people to populate it (how did I not notice that and therefore put the craft wagon into gear?), and they have an old-school garage sale Fisher Price garage that they often use with my childhood Hot Wheels collection, rescued from the family attic one winter--and I'll probably end up making them one out of a cardboard box and some dolls out of felt, but wouldn't this upscale treehouse residence be cool?

I like how it doesn't have rooms, per se, but you can manipulate all the materials to make it however you want.

These metal letters are part of some crazy complicated children's early literacy program (I'm suspicious in that the children's T-shirts this program also sells are touted as an "important reinforcement in the program," but whatever), but don't they totally look fun, too? Willow's way into stringing letters together and having me "read" them, and Sydney's a stacker and sorter and arranger, so they'd both think these were pretty cool.

Know more cool toys? Share!

Well, At Least It's Over Now

At least I can say that I've done it now: I've sold at a craft show in the rain. A deluge, really. I mentioned before, right, that I don't have a tent? My usual practice in case of rain is to buy one of the crap E-Z Up lite tents from Sam's the night before the big event and then return it afterwards on account of it sucks, but it's never actually come out and rained before when I've gone to all that trouble, so I won't tell you whose husband talked her out of doing the same thing yesterday even though there was a 40% chance of rain today, but I will tell you that that husband sucked, because it totally rained. A lot.

I thought I had it made, anyway, because I got the show organizer to let me set up next to my usual spot, in a spot always left empty because it contains a big tree. So I set up under the big tree, and thought that if I kept everything inside the drip line, I'd be so happy and dry. Inside the drip line, people. That sounds like a good plan, right? And at first, when it was just sprinkling, it totally worked. And then, when it was raining a little harder, it kind of worked. But then, when it was pouring and thundering and lightening right over my head and I'm soaked to the skin and the stand holding the pillowcase dresses falls over and the plate holding the cut-out buttons is full of water to the brim, it really didn't work all that well at all.

Really, not much of my stuff got wet because it rained mostly during set-up, but my infrastructure got soaked, which made everything damp anyway, and I got soaked, which made me grumpy, and I couldn't make my set-up look anything like it wasn't all bedraggled and sad after a thunderstorm, and then hardly anybody even came out to the farmer's market, anyway, on account of it was still all gross and humid and probably going to rain again. But now I can say that I've sold at a craft fair in the rain. That makes up for not actually breaking even, right?