Advent Calendar Pieces

We finally got the ornaments sewn up for our handmade Advent Calendar.  Here are the felt ornaments to hang on our Advent Calendar next year!  Brace yourself for the picture overload. They are so cute, only 2.5 inches big, and hand and machine-sewn.  They are made with felt and embroidery thread- that's it!

 We created each one of these without a pattern. They are freehand cut,hand and  machine stitched together. Details are hand-embroidered.

 We had so many great ideas for ornaments that we just couldn't stop at 25.

 They are all so adorable.  The children are going to love finding them in our calendar pockets next December!

 Kenna and Quinn's stocking.   I wonder if we'll need more stockings in the future? :)

 Closeup of the Pointsetta, the Star for the top of the tree, some holly, and a mitten.

 Amazing little drum!

 My favorites are the soldier and the fireplace. Look at his tiny belt, and his chin strap!! Also in this picture is a cup of cooca and an ice skate.

 The fireplace has a ton of tiny details. Look at the tiny fire!

 Frosty, reindeer, a "jingle bell" and the drum.

Candle, gingerbread man, cardinal, sugar cookie

With these ornaments finally finished, I feel like our advent calendar has transformed into an instant family heirloom.  Might be planning on making three more- for our cousins, and possibly a few to sell for 2012!

Hanging New Shelves

 Handy Husband is also very hands-on with the kids. He cooks and bakes with Kenna almost every day, and tries to include her in everything from gardening to woodworking. When I requested two new shelves for our supplies, Kenna and Daddy grabbed their tools and got to work.

 Kenna was pleased to use the hammer, but overjoyed to weild the drill. She waited very patiently for Daddy to finish pounding in the, um, screw holdy things.  (He's handy, not me...)

 YAY! Time to use the drill!

 Screwing in the brackets. She did great!

 Daddy coached her on holding it level, applying pressure, and she soaked it all in.

 Tada! New shelves!  (I bought cheap wood at the hardware store, Bill routed the edges to make it look fancy, and I slapped a coat of glossy white paint on. I bought $3 brackets and so my two shelves cost less than ten dollars!

Paperless Christmas

 Felt bags instead of wrapping paper, anyone?

 How about bags mde from old t-shirts, and embellished with felt?

 Not a gift under the tree wrapped in paper! My handy husband Bill sewed up some felt bags, and I tucked in our gifts and tied them up with ribbon. 

 This gift (k-cups for Bill) came in this brown bag, so I just prettied it up with a ribbon.

 Bill and I didn't want to buy anything special for this project, so some of our bags are yellow felt, as opposed to more "christmassy" colors. I didn't mind one bit. :)

 I even grabbed some scraps of fabric for some gifts, and wrapped them up!

 Stockings are filled by Santa at our house, and of course, those gifts are "wrapped" by the stocking, so no need for anything else!

Santa left some gifts unwrapped, like our coffee maker, and Kenna's CitiBlocks. He even played around with them and built a tower!
After gifts were open, I folded all of the bags, tucked them and all the ribbon into one of the largest bags, and, well... that was it! Wrapping with fabric was fun and easy, and so good for the environment. Next year we are going to try and have a completely handmade Christmas (only some items were handmade this year, but they were the favorite gifts!). We did have a plastic-free Christmas, though. I should take pictures of all of the amazing wooden gifts the kids got. No promises...

Aprons

 This apron, and another just like it for Quinn, arrived on my doorstep a couple weeks ago, from Grammie!! I sent her a link to a cool Montessori inspired pattern for an apron.  She is an extraordinary seamstress, so of course she whipped out 5 of these in a week. (Three for my kids, and two Kenna's cousins.)

 What makes an apron "Montessori"? Well, basically kids can DO MYSELF.  (That's what I hear Kenna shouting at me about a million times a day.)  The neck doesn't tie- it's elastic that slips over the head. The waist doesn't tie either, you just velcro it around to the front! Kenna put it on entirely by herself, first try, and was so excited that she didn't need my help! My awesome Mom made it a little large so it will last Kenna a long time.

Quinn's will fit when she starts walking... in a year!

My Mom even made one for Little Man, out of denim. I'll have to post pics- it is so stinkin' cute! I hung hooks in the kitchen at Kenna's level so that she can access her apron whenever she wants. :) We have used it every single day, between crafting and cooking and just some generic dress up time.

I think I am going to take some pictures and list these on etsy...  I think they will sell great! Especially the boy version, made with denim. 
 
EDITED TO ADD: I was informed by my mom that Kenna had her apron on backwards in these photos- the velcro is supposed to show on the front, and the waist strap is supposed to come around thethe back and fasten in the front. oops.  Kenna made this harder on herself by having to velcro the strap on the inside of the apron. Sorry Grammie!

Advent Calendar

After a bit of a scramble, I finished our family's Advent Calendar late on November 30th! I decided to hand-cut and hand-sew everything, which definately slowed me down! Add to that Thanksgiving craziness, two sick kids, and "finals week" for my husband, and we can officially declare the completion of this project a MIRACLE!

It's completely made out of felt, plus 25 small white buttons. Each pocket will soon contain a small felt ornament- one to hang on each button (thanks, Grammie!)!  In the meantime, I cut up some felt circles and we are buttoning those to the tree each day, and they sorta look like Christmas lights. (that's how I'm selling it to my kids, and they LOVE it!)

The calendar is suspended with a tree branch, and some ribbon. I love it so much! I handcut each number, handsewed everything down, and came up with the tree design on my own.

Kenna is so thrilled with it. Each morning, we button on a "christmas light", read the note telling us about our craft for the day and any special activities we will be doing (Christmas parade, visit Santa, go to train show, take holiday pictures, etc), and I have also put in some stickers, a couple m&ms, and tomorrow there will be a mini candycane.

  Here it is with all of the simple little "lights" I hastily made once I realized making tiny felt ornaments in time was not gonna happen. Wait until you see the ornaments we are sewing up for next year!

Felt Microphone

 After watching several episodes of Little Einstein, Kenna declared she wanted a microphone like Annie.  Watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade sealed the deal, since she saw lots of performers singing into microphones.  Since we are vegetarian, our Thanksgiving turkey was actually a "ToFurkey" and did not require a whole lot of prep work. (it was yummy, thanks for asking!) The lack of prep is why on Thanksgiving morning I sewed up a microphone for Kenna, instead of slaving over the stove (*not that I was the one cooking anyhow, since I DON'T cook.)

It came out adorable, with some felt, polyfil, and a little hand-stitching.  Kenna LOVES it and has been singing into it constantly (even at the dinner table.) She also experimented with holding it up to her ear, "So you can hear me better."  She melts my heart!

Dinosaur Party!

 Our sweet foster child, Little Man, is ONE!! We are so blessed to be able to spend his special day with him! I made this easy pennant banner to hang in the dining room.

 $2.00- scrapbook paper, $.99 spool of ribbon, and boom! So cute, so personalized, and so easy! (There was a third banner with his name, not pictured for privacy)

 Candy melts and a $2 mold made some adorable dinosaur candy favors.  (these were actually our "practice" dinos... I needed to experiment with painting the details on the mold with candy. The final dinos were more masculine- white and brown!)

 Some tips- jostle your mold to get the air bubbles out. 
* I painted my details with a tiny 1ml syringe- it worked great! I was able to squirt the candy out gently and exactly where I needed it.
* the mold cavities take a lot more candy than you think!
* If you are making more than 20 pieces of candy, buy two molds.  This one only made 4 dinos at a time... then you have to wait for the dino candy to harden and start again, by which time the melties have hardened and need to be remelted.  It was a lot of work!

 Since I was playing with melties, I gave Kenna some, too! I gave her a big squeeze bottle and she had fun splurting out the candy all over a piece of wax paper.

When it hardened, she enjoyed eating a few pieces of her masterpiece!  (The rest of the blobs are in a tupperware, to be meted out as desert over the next few days.)
More Dinosaur Party fun coming soon!

Front Page of Etsy!

Getting a spot on the front page of Etsy is a coveted and very special event. Last night, from 9-10pm, my felt sandwich set was featured in a treasury, right on the www.Etsy.com homepage!

I almost missed seeing it, as the baby was being fussy and I was trying to enjoy an episode of DesignStar... but my husband was surfing the web with his new Ipad, and found himself staring at my sandwich! At first he was confused and thought it was just his "handpicked items" list... then it dawned on him that this was the homepage and was being seen by EVERYONE!!!

I want to give a big Thank You to the curator of this beautiful treasury, Meliza. What an exciting day!

Birthday Celebration for Quinn

Kenna is two, and everyone has been asking us if Kenna is ready for the baby. "I don't know" is my most honest response. She's two. Does she want a newborn in the house? Not likely. Is she gonna fake it? ha.

Some of the ways we tried to prepare kenna for the new baby was to explain things, like:
*she was going to be a big sister
*baby Quinn was going to come out of mommy's tummy
*Babies cry a lot
...and on and on.

She heard all that, but what did really Kenna care about? Presents. And cake. It is a BIRTHDAY, afterall. "Are you excited about the baby, Kenna?" "YES, we'll get cake. And pwesents." (She announced that the "pwesents" were to be shoes, but that's another subject...)

SOooo, Quinn was born on Father's Day, and Kenna had "pwesents" to open from Quinn, and "pwesents" to give to Quinn. She was pleased about that, but was FURIOUS that a cake hadn't magically appeared alongside the squalling newborn at 6pm. "Quinn needs cake. With her name. I eat it. Can we eat it now??" ( I know, I know. Why didn't I buy a cake and have it lurking in the fridge? Well, I did... but my baby was 8 days late. That cake had long-since disappeared into a preggo lady's belly by time she was actually born.)

The next morning found Bill at Walmart, instructed to fetch a cake that had Quinn's name on it, or else. After 30 minutes of searching for anyone, ANYONE who was "qualified" to write on a sheet cake with icing, Bill concluded that this person did not exist- so, in an act of desperation,he grabbed a sheet cake and a tube of pink icing and headed back home. My only indication that something had gone wrong at Wally World was the near-panicky shout I heard from the kitchen, "How many N's does Quinnlyn have??"

This, my friends, is my handy husband's masterpiece, done out of love for a cranky toddler and her new baby sister. Why yes, it does say,

"Happy Birthday 0th Quinnlyn."

Let me fill you in on this sweet conversation:

Mommy (in her most patient voice): "Look Kenna, it's Quinn's cake. Can you see her name? Isn't that special! Hooray for cake, just like you asked for. Let's help Quinn blow out her candle."

Kenna (in her whiniest voice):"I wanted purple icing. Make Quinn stop crying. I don't want to blow out the candles.I don't like this cake."

Sigh.

Happy 0th birthday, sweet Quinn. Welcome to the world. You were worth the wait.

Dying Pasta

What could be more fun in the texture tub than rainbow pasta?? Helping mommy to dye it, of course!! All you need is some vinegar, some food coloring, butterfly pasta and some ziploc bags.

Kenna plunked some butterflies in a zip loc bag, chose a color, and I squirted 10 drops into a tablespoon of vinegar. We poured that into the bag, zipped it up, and Kenna went to town squishing the pasta around.


Do that five times, and you'll be tired of squishing and out of pasta! I ensured each baggie was thoroughly coated with color, and dumped them out onto wax paper to dry. I hand-stirred them every 15 minutes for a while, so they wouldn't stick together. The colors came out vibrant and really nice. It was easy, non-toxic and now we have gorgeous butterflies for our Texture tub, sorting, and craft projects.

I can't wait to dye some other shapes of pasta. I think we'll probably do some large tubes next- to use for beading/stringing necklaces. :) And then some rice for pouring. And then some wagon wheels... I'm so excited!!