A Little Green in the Grey Winter

We just needed a little touch of green the other day, and so we hiked off for a morning at the greenhouse:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
After the greenhouse we were just sitting around on campus, and the girls could not agree on where they wanted to go next. Sydney wanted to walk home and play, but Willow wanted to walk to the library and read. I told the girls to find a compromise and figure it out, and then I sat back and read for a while.

Willow was a champion negotiator, and kept offering all these compromises: "Let's go to the library for two hours, then we'll go home and I'll play anything that you want for two hours;" "Let's go to the library, and the next time that I have money I'll buy you a present;" "Let's go to the library, and when I have candy I'll give it to you."

Sydney was having none of this compromise business, and so eventually I told her that she just plain lost due to her failure to attempt a negotiation. And she threw a fit.

But on our way to the library, hiking through Dunn Woods, Syd still throwing a fit (but silently, since silent public fits is the only rule that I have ever been able to instill in my children, pretty much), she spied something. She stopped in her tracks, squatted down, sifted through the fallen leaves next to the path for a minute, and unearthed a pristine little doll. It's some sort of litle plastic character, with a rubber dress that's practically impossible to put on and take off, just about the size of Sydney's palm.

Sydney ran over to me, doll clutched in her hand, and showed it to me, screaming, "I am SO glad that we're going to the library!"

The way home, you see, is another direction--no doll lying next to that path.

Tutorial: Cornhusk Dolls for Pioneer Girls

I can't tell you how many times I have read the Little House books. I can tell you that I read them several times as a child, always from my Mamma's boxed set. When I was pregnant with my first kid and hyper-emetic, with no relief from constant nausea for a solid month (until my midwife had a miracle cure mixed up for me at a compounding pharmacy, but that's another story), my partner lay next to me, tried not to jostle me, and read me the entire series over again. Little House in the Big Woods was the first novel that I read to my girls chapter by chapter, one chapter every night at bedtime. And when my big kid could first read, REALLY read, she watched me ceremoniously move Mamma's boxed set of Little House books down from my adult bookshelf to her child bookshelf, and soon after she was asking me exactly how Almanzo had grown his pumpkin so big, and if we could try that, too.

Just recently we've again been exploring the Little House. The Little House in the Big Woods audiobook was such a hit (even though I highly disliked the narrator's voice--sorry!) that we're now working our way through all the audiobooks. We've got some good Laura Ingalls Wilder timeline tidbits for our big basement timeline. And we've got a Little House cookbook and a Little House craft book, and we're not afraid to use them!

(Well, I am a little afraid of the cookbook, and don't tell my partner, but as the official homeschool errand man, it will soon be his responsibility to track down a particular cut of meat known as "salt pork", and then he's going to have to cook it with the kids, on account of I get grossed out cooking meat, and I definitely get grossed out cooking meat called "salt pork." Shudder.)

Of course, it wouldn't be a proper homeschool if there weren't a lot of craft projects involved. There's the model of the covered wagon that we're putting together, there's the nine-patch quilt, there's the godawful salt pork, and there are the kids' newest plaything, the cornhusk dolls.

Cornhusk dolls aren't really seasonally appropriate for February, but I pulled the dried cornhusks out from my magic craft closet, and you can either get your own cornhusks from non-local, out-of-season corn at the grocery store, or you can wait until harvest time. Or just live vicariously through me and my project, cause here goes:

If you're using dried cornhusks, soak them for maybe half an hour first.

 If you're using fresh cornhusks, you can skip this step.

Pick out three or four of the longest, best-looking cornhusks and stack them on top of each other. Fold the stack width-wise until you have a width that is a good one for your doll, and then fold the stack in half. The ends of the stack are your doll's skirt, and the folded part is your doll's head. Tie a piece of twine tightly around the cornhusks at your doll's neck.

If you're a rock star and your cornhusks are fresh, you can use a cornhusk to tie the knot, but I just used twine. I'm not a rock star, although I am a craft star.

Pick out two short but good-looking cornhusks and roll them tightly. Poke the roll through the folds in the cornhusks just below your doll's neck, and tie another knot under this roll for your doll's waist. Trim the roll at both ends to a good arm-length.

The little kid needs to trim her arms a little more:

At this point you're basically done. You can now play with your doll, or make her some clothes, or, apparently, just draw some clothes on, because it makes you pretty darn happy to do so: 

Sure beats a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, doesn't it?

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!

Magical Carousel

It used to be the dinosaurs, but these days I think that everyone's favorite part of visiting the Indianapolis Children's Museum is riding the carousel...

over

and over

and over again:

And THEN we go to see the dinosaurs.

A No-Sew Barbie Dress, and a Young Fashion Designer

Ever since our fabulous Barbie dress design workshop at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, I have been quietly whiling away my hours attempting to create a similar design from scratch-ish. I knew that I wanted the dress to have that same simplicity and ease of construction, but knowing what you want a garment to look like isn't really enough if you don't actually know much about patternmaking.

Also, Barbie has really skewed dimensions. It took a while.

Although I still have some corrections to make to my pattern before I share it with you (it needs to be 1/4" wider, I do believe, and the hem should curve more, and I might make it a little longer), my latest mock-up was accurate enough that Sydney and I were able to spend a happy afternoon actually, you know, USING it.

Part of my intention with this pattern is to make it simple enough for even a small child to use, but I ended up cutting out and constructing several dresses all by myself anyway, because Sydney remained focused on one thing only:

DESIGN AND EMBELLISHMENT.

Glitter glue:

 A lot more glitter glue:

 It actually took this particular dress over a day to dry, on account of the two entire tubes of glitter glue that it sports.

Buttons and baubles:

 And a generous helping of hot glue to make it all stick:

And then, a fashion show!

 
 
 
I made these out of felt just so that they'd be quick and easy as a spur-of-the-moment project in which Syd walked up to me as I was working on something else and said, "Let's make doll clothes now!", but once the pattern is all settled and she's actually used it a few times, I plan to open up the entire world of my stash fabric to her, and then I think that the young designer will really be in runway heaven.

At the Wonderlab

For Christmas, my Matt gave me a certificate for six months of once-a-month housecleaning. You ought to know by now that my house is really messy--I tidy maybe one room a day, although it's certainly untidy again by evening, and perhaps I'll do some dishes or laundry, but mostly I play Quirkle with the girls, and make Barbie clothes with them, and cook them play dough, and read to them, and build them books out of their artwork, and go to the park and the library and the YMCA and the other park and maybe still another park with them, etc. Seriously, I barely even cook dinner anymore--I feed the girls leftovers of whatever concoction they've asked to make with me during the day (The latest? Mashed potatoes and freshly juiced orange juice), and then later that night Matt gets out the George Foreman and grills us veggie/non veggie burgers.

Matt's scheduled us a housecleaning before on a couple of special occasions, and it's always been this totally retro awesome experience--The whole house! Clean at once! And it smells of pine! And the floors are mopped! And the dishwasher is running! And all the junk is picked up off the floor! And the toilet is SO clean! And I didn't have to do it!--that I have been deeply looking forward to my once-a-month deep cleaning treat, and yet somehow, it's just not working out this year.

The first little company that Matt called just never answered their phone, and never called him back. The next little company scheduled a cleaning and then cancelled because it was snowing, and then re-scheduled, and then cancelled because one of the cleaners woke up with the flu, and then rescheduled. Each time the girls and I are required to evacuate the house, which can be a little annoying depending on our mood for the day, but hey! The whole house is gonna be clean at once!

In our latest evacuation in hopes that the housecleaners actually come and clean our house this time, the girlies and I hit up our regular hang-out spot, the Wonderlab:

Playing with a Parachute

Grapevine Climber

Rocks to Covet in the Gift Shop

Interactive Artwork in the Garden

Shoots!

Kinetic Ball Machine

Wind Tunnels

We had a marvelous time, as usual, and then came home, eagerly anticipating the glory of a clean house. And yet, when I opened the door--Alas! The house is just as filthy as before! The housecleaners did not come! Again they did not come!

Apparently it's a great time to be a housecleaner, with so much business to pick from that you don't even have to show up to a place if you don't want to. And, desperate and all, we've come up with a Plan B that's frankly vastly better than this Plan A, anyhow:

This Sunday, and one Sunday a month thereafter, I will leave the house all by myself. I will leave at my leisure. I will visit establishments of peace and pleasure, such as coffee shops and book stores. While I am gone, Matt and the children will deep-clean the house without me. They will not be paid.

Money-saving AND accomplishes the same goal! And Plan B gets me a soymilk latte, too!

I am sold.

A Colored Pencil Roll with Superpowers

I'm entering a whole new target audience of kid-crafting. Will's attending the sixth birthday party of a little guy friend this weekend, and for a little while, I was stymied about his present.

He's a little too old for play dough, at least as a birthday present.
Same for a superhero cape.
I doubt he'd appreciate a patchwork quilt.
Same for a dress.
How would I go about constructing a Beyblades carrier?

Fortunately, the little dude likes comic books (don't we all?), and I do happen to have this particular thrifted fabric just waiting for me in my stash:

This old fabric is slightly lame, because it's from that period of time when they killed off Superman in the comics (gasp!) and tried to replace him with a couple of dorky alterna-superheroes, but still, Superman's on the fabric, and I love its retro look.

While I sewed this particular colored pencil roll, I took some photos for an upcoming pdf tutorial, because I think that I finally have this pattern ironed out and it's ready for Matt to design and make into a pdf package for my pumpkinbear etsy shop:

 
 
 
 I'm in love with the final product, a retro comic book colored pencil roll with superpowers:

 
 
I've already got a few more cut out and hemmed, which I'll put in my pumpkinbear etsy shop when they're finished, but I still do have some leftover fabric...

I'm thinking this could be my new traveling Sharpie roll.

Crayola Crayon Encaustic Art

This is the one project guaranteed to get my girlies excited again about their old, broken crayons! We've melted and remolded crayons so often that that's not really new anymore, and they both know that if they wheedle enough I'll hand them a brand-new box of crayons for their art activities, so you might guess that our tub of old crayons is a large tub, indeed.

Encaustic art is the art of dripping wax onto canvas. In other words--it uses up crayons! If your canvas is sturdy, if your work area is covered, if your hair isn't hanging in your face and your sleeves aren't drooping over your hands, if your crayons are long-ish and so is your candle, and if your children can follow simple instructions, then seriously, there is no reason on this earth not to hand the kiddos a lit candle and let them go to town.

First, you'll need to unwrap yourselves a goodly number of Crayola crayons:

I'm recommending Crayola crayons not because they pay me to (I wish), but instead because I know that this project works with Crayola crayons, because that's what we use. Wax will catch fire at a certain temperature, and while I am certain, from personal experience, that you can hold a Crayola crayon to a lit candle and it will not catch on fire, I am not prepared to make the same claim about that three-pack of crayons that your kid scored at the steakhouse last night.

Unwrap a large number of crayons, because encaustic wax art uses them up quickly, and it's a drag to stop in the middle of your work and have to unwrap more crayons. Also, a shortage could tempt you to continue using your crayons even as they're growing too short to be used safely, and that would be a mistake.

Lay a canvas on your work table, and make sure that your child is at a comfortable height over the work table. Establish to your own level of comfort that your child will obey your instructions, will work calmly, will stop working if told to do so, and will not jerk away if you lay a guiding hand on her. If you're not sure that this will be the case, I'd suggest that you save encaustic art for another time. Go melt and remold your crayons instead!

Otherwise, tie your child's hair back, put her in short sleeves, and off you go!

Have your child comfortably hold a crayon in her dominant hand, keeping her hand at the very end of the crayon. Light a candle, and give it to the child to hold in her non-dominant hand. Your child should hold the candle and the crayon over her canvas and, keeping the candle and crayon either level or pointed slightly up (not down), should touch them together. The crayon will begin to melt and drip wax onto the canvas, and your child can begin to move the candle and crayon together to create her art:

Supervise to make sure that your child is touching the candle and crayon tip-to-tip, and that the candle is not pointed down (which would put the flame close to your child's fingers), or that the candle and crayon aren't pointed sharply up (which would cause the wax to drip down them onto your child's fingers). If you see your child beginning to do these things, then correct her in a calm voice, or by gently guiding her hands with yours. Don't shout or do anything to startle your child, and end the activity if she begins to get goofy with the materials.

Your child can switch colors whenever she chooses, to add to her artwork:

The more decorated the canvas is, the easier it is to appreciate the beauty of the dropped wax:

Notice how long the crayon is here:

You don't want to let the crayon get too short, or the child's fingers will get too close to the flame.

Sydney is four, and so I hung out at her elbow for the entire two hours that she worked, intently focused on her art. Willow, however, is six, and has excellent form:

 I didn't tell the girls that the majority of encaustic art is really about manipulating that wax once it's on the canvas, but Will nevertheless did some experimentation:

 After a while, we ran out of my cheap-o candles (must remember to add them to the shopping list!), and since the girls were enjoying themselves so heartily, I sighed a what-the-hell sigh and brought out the much nicer beeswax candles for them to use:

 Willow fell in love with the sweet scent of the beeswax candles and covered canvas after canvas only in beeswax candle drippings, calling them her "Smell Paintings":

 And so behold! Encaustic art in all its glory:

It's a little over-exposed because I hate my scanner, but you get the idea. Stay tuned, for I am mounting an exhibition of encaustic art canvases on the wall directly above the stereo cabinet--you'll want to come to the opening reception, I'm sure.