Oh, Dear

Forget the kids--my own loose morals are starting to rub off on the dolls, now:

Heart Handmade: Paper Edition

It was a freak accident--Matt's carrying Willow out to the car for school, and somehow he manages to bend her arm back and catch it in the screen door. The man is oblivious on account of he has no ovaries, and so he's all, "Willow, let go of the door and come on!" and I'm all, "AHHHHHH!!! You're killing the baby!"


Yeah, she's totally fine, but since her arm was all red and scratched, and since it was already ten minutes past time for school to start, AND since she was totally going to show up with a tear-stained face and red arm and tell everyone that Daddy hurt her because she was acting naughty, I decided to have Will ditch school for the day--juvenile delinquency starts so young, and is an obvious result of parental abuse.


So even though this was my To-Do list for the day--

1. Buy hot glue.
2. Figure out the serger.
3. Blanket binding post for Crafting a Green World.
4. Post to Etsy teams.
5. List record bowl/album cover Valentine on my pumpkinbear etsy shop.
6. Make banana bread.

--instead the day went more like this----and this: I'll write more about that latter photo later, but let me just say--Plaster of Paris? Rules the World.

I'm getting pretty close to finishing my Valentines for the Valentines Classroom Card Exchange swap over at Craftster: I'm a little disappointed in myself in that I had wanted them to be entirely recycled, and they're not--there's obviously some stash scrapbook paper in there, and the tinsel was on Christmas clearance. I'm also having a little trouble finding recycled materials to fit my theme--I started using scrapbook paper because I ran out of sheet music of love songs, and I made a bunch of handmade envelopes for the Valentines, and they look cool and all, but they're from maps. Not so much of the love in a map, maybe. But since I'm a newbie at papercrafting, this is a good start for me. It takes a while to learn to suss out the possibilities of unconventional materials for your craft.

Here are the two beautiful handmade Valentines I've received so far in my exchange: Awesome, right? And I'm still going to get something like 21 more!

I Heart Obama

I just can't get enough of the Obama love--I've been all amped up for this inauguration since the election, and all amped up for the election since the primaries, and I'm so used to the anticipation that, except for a couple of moments in the car (moments in the car are occasionally peaceful, unlike the rest of my life) when I felt such relief at having a sane, intelligent, and compassionate person finally in charge around here, I've been a little twitchy today.

Is that, perhaps, why I've spent the past half hour not grading papers, nor working up tomorrow's lesson plans, nor emailing some very boring emails, but creating a bunch of Obamicons? Um...yeah.

The girls spent the morning out on one last adventure with their grandparents, but they arrived back home in time to witness one small moment in history with me:
Thank goodness for autofocus, because Momma was crying too much for manual.

P.S. Check out my post for other fun DIY Obama stuff over at Crafting a Green World.

Bead It for Love

Matt's parents were here this weekend, playing with the girls, taking us out to eat, and assigning themselves to random and very burdensome tasks around the house, so I had plenty of time to finish my denim quilt with heart appliques for my pumpkinbear etsy shop, to give up utterly on figuring out what material those vintage amber heart beads are made of and just post them, already, and to do a lot of work on my handmade Valentines. I wire-wrapped heart beads to the cards I'd punched holes in, and I think they look really fine:
My mother gave me those multi-colored heart beads for Christmas, and what is that vintage amber heart bead made of?

While I was searching etsy for beads similar to my amber ones (didn't find any), I did manage to fall in love with several other sets of vintage beads and baubles and buttons:

vintage aged brass heart charms by ellielantern

bag 0' red buttons by ric rac and buttons

I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy those brass charms, so don't you get there first.

In other news, even though Willow voted for McCain, we have been getting way amped up around here for the inauguration tomorrow. All weekend I've been blasting this four-CD set of modern reinterpretations of historical Americana songs--pre-Revolution on up--and so now Will's on board. Of course, she hates England now, but what can you do?

My favorite of Syd's photos from yesterday is entitled simply "Uncle Wiggley":

P.S. Check out my post about fun inauguration activities to do with kids over at Eco Child's Play. Except the comments? First this guy posts and chews me out for suggesting an activity that involves a paper plate and another that involves typing paper, so I had to post a pissy reply about how I clearly stated that you're supposed to use recycled cardboard instead of a paper plate and the backsides of used typing paper instead of new typing paper. Then? Some other person comments with a link to another web site that has educational quizzes for children on it, but I had to post another pissy reply that the site also has ads you have to watch before taking the quizzes and it lets you gamble for money.

WTF?

A Half-Birthday Half-Cake

Yesterday was Willow's half-birthday--she is now 4.5 years old. Thank god she's not five yet--five seems so old, like she ought to be smoking cigarettes and stopping by the gas station for lottery tickets.

The best thing about half-birthdays, though? On your half-birthday, Momma bakes you a half-cake.
A half-cake, y'all! Half a cake! Here's how:

1. Buy yourself a nice box of cake mix. Will wanted a blueberry cake (when it's your birthday, you get any cake you want--same holds for half-birthday half-cakes), so I bought a nice box of store-brand natural vanilla cake--plenty of sugar, but no preservatives. Also? Damn delicious.
2. Bake your cake in one round cake pan. If your mix makes enough for two cake pans, bake yourself up a bunch of cupcakes, too, and then throw them in the freezer before the kids see them. I threw some extra vanilla extract in and some almond extract, on account of I think almond extract is delicious and should go in everything, and I had Will sprinkle plenty of frozen blueberries over the top of the cake before we stuck it in the oven. And after it was in the oven, I noticed that the directions on the box had all these picky instructions--"Mix with an electric mixer at blah-blah speed for blah-blah minutes, then put it on blah-blah speed for blah-blah minutes." Yeah, Will and I just hand-mixed it until she was bored, and it turned out great.
3. While your cake is cooling, mix yourself up some nice cream cheese frosting. I just beat a bunch of cream cheese (with a mixer!) until it's fluffy, and beat in some almond extract (on account of it's delicious and should go in everything) and just enough powdered sugar to make it a little sweet, but really, I'd be chill with just straight-up cream cheese frosted all over my cake.
4. Okay, here's the trick: Cut your one layer of cake in HALF! Frost one half with your cream cheese frosting (the girls and I also spread out some blueberry pie filling on top of the frosting, which I had mixed feelings about--it came from a can, and I'm sure has lots of preservatives. Next time I'd go for a nice natural blueberry jam, I think). Then, put the other half of the cake ON TOP OF THE FIRST HALF! Frost that baby up, too, and you got yourself a half-birthday half-cake.
5. Eat that puppy up!

After the half-birthday half-cake, during the obligatory dressing up in fancy dresses and running around like maniacs, Will took this photo: My half-birthday is next month--I wonder how much chocolate one can pile on top of half a cake, anyway?

Clothing for Dancing In

Y'all, you will never believe what I found at the Salvation Army today while hunting for red and pink buttons (the Valentine quilts, they are tooling along):
Five dollars each, handmade white satiny poofy lacy elaborate dresses exactly the size of a four-year-old (a tad long-ish on the two-year-old, but she cares not). One dress even has a little tag in the back that reads "Made for you with love by Grandma."

Were they flower girls dresses? Baptism dresses? Easter dresses? I surely hope that Grandma, who made them with love for some little girl just Willow's size, never knew that they got donated to the Salvation Army along with some other junk.

Grandma would be pleased, though, don't you think, to see the reception they're getting in our house:
Before I show you my favorite of Willow's photos from yesterday, I should ask you: You do know the whole purpose of photography, don't you? It isn't just to look, or to capture--it is to see. Seeing is something much different than merely looking, and it is why unobservant people generally take very poor photographs. To see something so truly that you can take a true and beautiful photograph of it--to do that you have to know what you're looking at, to understand it, to accept it, to love it. When you do that, then, with luck and skill, you can take a photograph that will help other people see this something, too.

I am, and this shouldn't surprise you, my friends, much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. I like to quietly see and capture, but I very rarely trust another person to see me, to know me well enough to capture a true photograph (if you want to hear a funny story about that particular little neurosis of mine, ask Matt to tell you about our wedding photographer--sheesh!).

It's stunned me, then, this week that I've daily put my fragile and expensive camera into the hands of my little girls (the lens still works with a few little scratches, right?). Because my girls, every day with my camera, they've shown me that they see. They've taken photos of their toys, their room, each other, and really captured their subjects, shown them true and beautiful through their young eyes. But most of all, my girls have shocked me by the many photos they've taken of me. Here, for instance, is my favorite of the photos Will took yesterday:

Those girls, they see me.

P.S. Check out my denim quilt tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

Golden-Haired Girls Finally Earn their Keep

Y'all, my girls are finally gonna make me some money!

My sanity nearly cracked during the making of the very large amount of scrappy heart pinback buttons the other day--the girls, with painstaking care, chose combinations of hearts and backgrounds enough to make ample buttons for themselves, for whatever friends they choose to give Valentines to, for birthday parties yet to come...and still we have many buttons.

And that's when I had my inspiration--rather, the next time I had a shower, which is the only time I actually spend alone (usually), is when I had my inspiration, but stories that start "And so I was in the shower..." really only tell well to good friends, which you are, so, the truth for you.

Ahem. Yes, so what do I do when I make too much of something cool, which I do often, because I can't stop pattern-tweaking and such? Why, I sell the extra somethings on my etsy shop!

My girls could sell their extra buttons on my etsy shop!

And thus is born the Made by Golden Haired Girls section of my shop, so far populated by the girls' very own set of six scrappy heart pinback buttons. Here they lie all in a row:
And here's an example of one of my favorite things about the girls' work:
Pink and green! My color combos are much more staid--my girls', much more bold and creative.

Willow, at least, is pretty stoked about her intro to entrepreneurship, and has already suggested that she make some more things for the shop. And so now the search begins for projects a four-year-old can do and have the result not look like a four-year-old did it. Ya know?

Also for your consideration, my favorite of Sydney's photographs from yesterday:

my jeans as I'm wearing them

her sister, upside-down

P.S. Inspired by cake, check out my post about local businesses that teach kids practical skills on Eco Child's Play.