Pretty self-explanatory too. We just used some food coloring type liquids that had come in an art kit...they weren't paint, mixed with water. We did use a lot because I let Gus do all the pouring and mixing. We used old celery. This last picture is after three days of osmosis. Pretty cool!
(Sorry about the quality of the first three pictures; I'm not sure, but I think I was taking them with one hand and holding Abe in the other. These are the best of them, believe it or not.)
That's right: Rubbings! No cemeteries required. We have so much fun taking walks and doing rubbings on just about any surface you can think of. Supplies are minimal, just paper, crayons and stuff out in the world. (Snacks optional.)
You and your child will be rewarded with many cool rubbings. Now I just have to figure out how to display or save them (or both).
Things are finally getting back to normal around here. May was a completely crazy month for me. I made my choice though--I turned down the job in Austin. It was (is) a great job that I'm sure I would have enjoyed, but it is the wrong time for me and my family. Abe is only one and none of us want to be separated from Chris. So I'm very happy with my decision even if it did take some agony to make it. And now I have big plans for summer!!!
I need some time to sit down and write about them, maybe tomorrow. Until then, if you're bored or antsy, get out and do some rubbings!
Sorry I abandoned the blog for a few days there...I've been consumed with a big choice in my life right now and just pretty much unable to think about anything else at all.
When I have a big decision to make I tend to try and categorize all the options, pros & cons, long-term, short-term, that kind of thing. I've done that back and forth and all around on this one and I still am not comfortable.
I thought this was going to be a no-brainer, but it's turned out much more complicated and I guess some things that I thought were the most important to me aren't. I also feel like what is best for me is in conflict with what is best for my family which is too bad because of course I want what is best for my family, but I also want what I need and want too.
I wish I could share more details but right now I can't. It's really springtime here--and it hasn't gotten too hot yet which is nice. On our walk we saw not one but two rabbits!
Which were promptly scared off by our caravan.
And in other extremely exciting news Gus has his first loose tooth!
One trip to the fabric store (where it took Gus about 4.5 seconds to choose the fabric he wanted) plus a little bit of sewing and we have one nontraditional tooth fairy pillow: I admit that I tried to talk him into a more traditional pillow, something smaller, shaped like a tooth, but if I wanted that I should have already made it because his vision was very clear! In an effort to see what kind of expectations his friends may have given him I asked what he thought the tooth fairy would bring him and he replied "Oscar the cat". Hmm, no. So I still don't know what to put in there. What do you give your kids (if you do)?
The other thing about this pillow is that he picked polyester fleece. I didn't feel like making him pick out a different fabric and who knows, maybe this pillow will become a cherished heirloom. I sort of doubt it but you never know. I don't know of any printed cotton fleece. We could have found regular printed cotton fabric but that store is about 30 minutes away and I just wasn't up for the trek. So, a plastic tooth fairy pillow. I want to take Beth's challenge, and record all my plastic for a week, but I am scared. I know she says there is no place for guilt, but that's because she doesn't live over here in my head! What do you think, should I do it?
Our Easter tree--we had so much fun creating our different eggs. And I've tucked them away in an egg carton for next year. I knit the knitted ones. Gus and I felted the two green and pink ones together. I'm not thrilled with how they came out. Felting the roving on the wooden eggs was difficult. I assume it is a matter of lack of experience on our part since people felt roving onto rocks wood should do be doable. Still we had fun dipping them from hot to cold!
Gus sewed the felt egg and we each made a paper egg (via Folding Trees).
I knit this little guy for Gus' Easter basket, by request. I love him so much I plan to make more.
March was entirely devoted, craft-wise, to Easter. First the five bunnies, then the mousie, and all the eggs. April is practically half over which I find hard to believe, but it's true. I've got two friends new baby girls that I want to knit for, plus I'm making a pair of socks for myself. But my main focus is Abe's first birthday on May 6! I want to make him a birthday banner and knit him a stuffed animal or something and maybe a little sweater. I'll have to see what I've got time for since I also want to throw him a party. I also have Mother's Day and my mother-in-law's birthday in May/April. Then Father's Day. Then a break! August starts up the birthdays again though, so I feel like I've got lots of crafting to do. And I really want to make this quilt. We'll see. I prefer to be a no-pressure crafter so what gets done, gets done, and what doesn't, doesn't!
And they are finally finished! I have never sewn any toys before and I can't say that it was the most enjoyable project ever--those skinny arms and legs were a bear to turn right side out. I learned a lot though and I am definitely in love with these five bunnies. I only hope the little ones who will get them love them too.
You can see where I used my car fabric for some of the shirts. The heart fabric was a fat quarter I had in my stash and the green pants fabric my sister in law brought from India for me! So these are some pretty special bunnies.
For anyone interested in the details, the patterns for the bunnies, clothes, and sweater all came from Purl Bee. There is a dress pattern too, but I didn't make that one.
After making one sweater exactly as proscribed in the directions I branched out a bit, making some longer, some with thicker yarns, one with stripes. It was fun and the bunnies are not very demanding!
If you decide to make these bunnies I would suggest that you make your seam allowances smaller than 1/4" on the foot and the bottom of the ears otherwise these pieces are extremely difficult to turn. Also, I think these bunnies do better lightly stuffed so they are squishy rather than firm. I also modified the way the arms were attached from the pattern. I attached them in the same way the legs were attached so there is an outside seam on the sides of the body and the bottom of the body.
Finally, the pattern directs you to cut out four torso pieces but you only need two, and the shirt pattern has an error. The shirt pattern has one sleeve about 1/2" shorter than the other! Also, the shirt pattern is designed to wrap and tie but I converted it to a pull-over style with a simple slit in the back to enable the head to fit through.
I also learned a lot about embroidery. When I first started I had knots showing, which you can see on some of the bunny feet. But then I found this wonderful tutorial on how to bury your knot! You can see on the one set of bunny feet that I did almost perfect this technique (if you look closely you can see where I pulled the knot through the fabric as it left a little tiny hole). It is so handy!
I love how intense an eater Abe is. He really focuses on his food. And when he's done, he's very emphatically done too. Kiwi is a favorite fruit right now. And why not, it's so sweet and soft! I'll never forget the first time I fed Gus kiwi it ended up almost giving me a heart attack. I was a very earnest first-time mom keeping track of all kinds of things that did not need to be kept track of (I had special charts for his sleeping, his meals, his poop, yes, his poop). Anyway. The day after that first kiwi? He had BUGS IN HIS POOP! Oh my god! Freakout! Where could they have come from?! They weren't bothering him though...or moving...or bugs. Kiwi seeds. Yes. Deep breath. I knew what to expect with Abe and had no freak-outs. Also, I have no chart of his poops. See, I've grown and matured as a mother.
I knit this adorable little bib for Abe on a whim and now I'm planning to make a whole bunch more of them. They are really easy and fast and the fabric is nice (I used Peaches 'n Cream which is a very cheap cotton yarn found at any craft store) and thick so it catches lots of drips and dribbles. And then I just toss it in the wash where, unlike most purchased bibs, it does not have velcro to stick to everything else and cause a big ugly knot of things in the dryer. And really, could he look any cuter in it?
If you think you'd like to make one, the pattern is free. I don't know if that link will work if you aren't a member of Ravelry, let me know if you have trouble. Of course, if you are a knitter, you really should be a member of Ravelry, so go join!
Gus is hard at work here creating his own Chutes & Ladders game. He had such a good time coming up with stories for the tops of chutes and bottoms of ladders; most of them involved things like "having to give all the money from your piggybank" "breaking a window" "eating all the treats" and "getting an ice cream sandwich." Also, he absolutely loved making the last row an almost impossible mission with three different ways to get sent back to the first row. He also came up with a ladder that lands on the same space as a chute so while you thought you were jumping ahead you actually end up way behind. It was really fun to watch him work on it; he spent quite a bit of time perfecting it too.
I have to warn the parents out there though that while I was really psyched to see him get into making the game and it was really fun to have him show me the board, the game is just as boring to play as the original. I mean, Gus enjoys it, but I find it mind-deadening. Still I highly recommend this idea for the next time your kid is looking for something to do.
I LOVE these crayons! With a five year old obviously I already have a collection of crayons, but in the years since Gus was born I've learned a lot. Including what regular crayons are made out of (paraffin, usually made from coal or petroleum), which is not something I want Abe taking a test taste out of. So I started looking around for something else.
Crayon Rocks are made out of soy wax and while I still don't want Abe eating them, I wasn't that worried when he snuck a bite out of green today. We tried them out for the first time today and Abe isn't ready for drawing yet...he's still in the "what does that taste like?" phase, but I did some drawing with them and WOW. These are amazing. The soy wax is so soft, the color just comes right off onto the paper. I can tell that these crayons are going to be so much more fun for a kid to color with. And, they aren't going to break. Gus would get really upset when his crayons broke and he hated having to tear the paper when the crayon wore down.
Best of all though, these are going to be so easy for a little kid to grip and draw with. They are really and truly a great product. If you have little kids I hope you'll give them a try. Yes, they are more expensive, but good art supplies always are, and I think they are worth it. My only complaint is that they come packaged in plastic and there is just no reason why they couldn't come in a cotton bag (instead of polyester) or a cardboard box (instead of a cardboard and plastic box). I'm sending the company a message about their packaging and who knows, maybe they'll change it.
I'm so glad I bought these--I can't wait until Abe is ready to start drawing!
Gus really enjoyed creating his Artist Trading Cards--he tried several different designs before he settled on this pastel colored background with truck drawn on top. We mailed them all off today so hopefully our swap partners will get them soon. Gus is very excited to receive his in the mail, and one of his swap partners is in Brazil and he's really excited about that.
Thanks so much to wisecraft and house on hill road for what must have been an amazing amount of work organizing this swap!
In other letter-writing news some of you may remember that I gave Gus a stationary notebook for Christmas complete with stationary (one of my friends gave him Snoopy paper that he loves). Well the other day I saw him get out some of his paper and write a letter to one of his friends in Austin. He asked a few times how to spell a word here or there, but mostly wrote the whole thing himself. He would not let me look at it, but sealed it all up with stamp and name on the envelope and asked me to mail it!
Isn't that adorable? I have a hard time letting some of these things go...I want to save them for myself, but I went ahead and sent it.
Have a great weekend everyone!
You know how your stuff laying around the house isn't clutter, but is a project, or important, or just there for a minute? But your spouse's stuff and your kids' stuff--that stuff is clutter, or a mess, or recycling?
I'm trying to switch my perspective, to see my stuff as clutter and theirs as possibly important, even just where it is. So I challenged myself to clean up some of my piles (got to do that today!) and to see some of their stuff as they might. It helps when I focus in tight!
What do you do to remember that your family's stuff is just as important as your stuff? Or maybe I'm the only one with this particular conceit?
This last picture is a bit of a cheat, since I actually love this little necklace, the very first one Gus ever made (a couple of years ago). It'll never be clutter to me.
I went through all my yarn yesterday and man, do I have too much yarn. I'm going to list a bunch of it on Ravelry under trade/sell so if you think you might be interested please go take a look and make an offer! I want to sell, obviously, since I want to have less yarn sitting around my house. I tend to really accumulate in the "supply" category (yarn, fabric, thread, paper, beads) because these things are to make something making it easy for me to justify them. I really want to get away from that though--start getting what I need when I need it. We don't have the room and even if we did, I don't like the feeling of all that stuff weighing over me with expectations. I'll never get rid of everything of course, that would be crazy!
