The Snow Is Here!

Tree Lighting Wrap Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Tree Lighting Wrap Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!I'm trying to win this for Clara. She is always wrinkling up her nose at the dresses in her closet and saying she wants to wear something REALLY pretty.

So Sad

This cute note to the nurse at our pediatrician's office was ALMOST worth the hour of tears that came before it was written. :)

Babyproofing

There's no crawling happening around here yet, but I'm a little concerned that we will return from vacation to let loose a full-fledged-crawler into the House of Miniatures. We had the luxury of being pretty lazy babyproofing with Clara--sewing machine out, cords everywhere, soaps and the occasional cleaning product stored at floor level...she just wasn't attracted to that stuff, and we seemed to be able to rely on close monitoring. Given Ellis' temper when you take things away from her, I think the distract/substitute method is going to be less effective this time around. Add into the mix that Clara is a huge pack rat for fairy-sized items and we may have our work cut out for us. I found these nifty Snapware containers in the Christmas storage section at Target--they aren't on sale yet, but if you are likewise babyproofing for a younger child, keep an eye out for a sale after the holidays! They snap closed on both sides--just perfect for a 3-yr-old to master after a lesson or two, but challenging enough to deter (or at least delay) a baby or toddler, I think. It really helped Clara to use some alliteration for the labels...I could hear her saying "Ssssstickers...S, Sssstamps...S" and noticed her pointing to the label as she put things away today. Hopefully it will also help keep her 'office' organized! Santa is bringing (I hear) a tackle box of craft supplies for her Christmas present, so hopefully that will keep small things contained, too.

Easy Gifts on a Budget V--Using Kids' Art

A friend recently asked me for some tips on transferring kids' art to fabric for gifts. There is pretty much nothing more awesome than little kids' drawings and writing, and there are so many ways to use them to create gifts. Here are a few:
I can't remember where I saw this idea, but so easy! You just need an acrylic frame and some post-its and ta da! Adorable and useful desk accessory!
One suggestion I'd make is to make a little splurge on good supplies. If you only make one art supply purchase, I'd make it Caran d'Ache wax crayons. You get the same vibrant colors on colored papers as you do with regular oil pastels, but without the smearing or mess. This is especially nice if you plan to do any scanning or copying--nothing worse than scanning oil pastels. Okay, maybe laminating small original pieces of kids' artwork is worse. :) But Caran d'Ache are so fantastic and worth their price . Check out Nancy Coffelt's picture books for examples to show kids of how they can use them. I think she uses oil pastels, but Caran d'Ache can produce similar results. Clara's drawing above (this one is called Bandaid Man) was made with Caran d'Ache, though the colors in the original are much brighter (still learning to use our scanner a friend gave us). You can scan or make color copies of the artwork and use spray adhesive to affix them to magnet sheets, use iron on transfers to put them on bags or clothing, or just cut them out and back them with cardboard or a heavy-weight decorative paper--sandwich a ribbon in between and you have a very cute, lightweight ornament. Before the scanner I just took them to the UPS store for printing or copying.

Sometimes I have Clara draw directly onto fabric like with these projects:
(fabric crayon; patch affixed with lightweight double-sided interfacing) (fabric pen)

I prefer projects, though, where I can make a Xerox of the original work and work with that, in case there's an error. For embroidery I tape the copy of the drawing up to a window (you may need to darken some of the lines by tracing over them), tape the fabric up over the top, and trace it with pencil or water-soluble marker. If I can't see through the fabric I use dressmaker's carbon in between my Xerox and the fabric and trace over the copy of the artwork with ballpoint pen. I use split stitch or stem stitch most of the time when I do the embroidery.Our little artist just had her first art show for school--we love all of her creations and can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

Easy Gifts on a Budget IV--Super Fast!

I had just a few free minutes on Tuesday and quickly stitched up some of these blank books to take on our car trip to Seattle for Thanksgiving. Clara loves to write, color and create in little books. It struck me what a great, free, fast gift little blank books would be. They look great even using pages torn from a magazine for covers. Old atlases are perfect, too--they're printed on both sides, have no ads, and often are a perfect paper weight for soft covers. You can get them close to free at thrift stores or library stores for their withdrawn books. You can involve your child by having him or her paint papers for the covers--paste grain paper, bubble prints, salted watercolors, or just painted scraps all look great. The books in the photo took minutes from the time I cut the paper (magazine and atlas scraps and construction paper for the text block) to completion. Here's how they are sewn on the machine (you may need to click on the photo to see it in detail):If you don't have a machine, pamphlet stitch is easy and doesn't take much longer. My first grade students used to sew their own pamphlet stitch books using a pushpin to poke the holes and embroidery floss and a blunt needle to sew the pages to their covers. I'm thinking that it would actually be a great idea to have a few stacks of these around tied with twine or ribbon to give to unexpected visitors or for last-minute gifts. I noticed some colored pencil sets (and sketch pencil sets) in tin boxes for $5 at Michael's recently in their dollar bins; a set of books along with pencils, crayons or stickers would be such a great gift. Or you could get really fancy and use a placemat to make one of these activity kits and fill it using blank books and other fun stuff:Truthfully, I wouldn't mind one myself. Ha.

Easy Gifts on a Budget III--Button Bouquets and Embroidery

Clara and her friend Josefina made these sweet button bouquets this morning (idea from this Kiddley article). The girls (both turned 3 this summer) were a lot more independent than I thought they'd be. They especially enjoyed choosing buttons--I had them each choose two from a dish of buttons, taking turns choosing in pairs until they were all gone to practice mental visualization of quantities greater than one. Then they put them in pairs of 1 larger and 1 smaller button, which they also had an easy time sorting and pairing. Josefina, in particular, was great with threading the buttons onto the wires--I just did the twisting of the wire in between button sets. Our wire was a little stiff (19 gauge, it's what we had)--if I were purchasing supplies I'd go a little lighter, but these worked okay.

And...how precious is this?I was embroidering and Clara wanted to, too. I have let her practice on muslin before, but today she wanted to "sew a picture" for her friend. If I'd known how serious she was about it I'd have gotten her a new piece of fabric and taken more than half a second for the design. She did have help with this, especially keeping track of which side to poke through on each time, but was great at poking the needle on the line and got fairly even stitches, I thought! I just used a disappearing fabric marker to draw the heart. It was nice on light-colored muslin because if you held it up to the light she could see the line on the wrong side, too, to know where to sew. She stitched it and then later I removed the pen with water (she probably would have enjoyed doing that step, actually). What darling pincushions, little bags, scented pillows, etc. these could make. Too bad the hoop isn't smaller, you could just back the whole thing with fabric or a decorative cardboard and hang it on the tree!

Looking for gifts you can make for kids? Try this link for a lot of ideas! And I love this simple advent idea from Maya Made.

Easy Gifts on a Budget II--Kid Presents!

We started the first of the kid-made presents recently, this great heart magnet idea from Flipflops and Applesauce. All you need are some popsicle sticks (we used a larger size than the regular ones), paint and magnet strip (or magnets and heavy-duty glue). Glitter optional unless you live here, of course, where it is sprinkled on everything but toast. You can see that Clara and Sophia were very intent on their work. It was an easy, engaging project and the results are very sweet! Apparently we'll need to make more, as Clara is having a hard time thinking about giving hers away. :)

The Crafty Crow is also doing a feature on Kids' Handmade Holidays, so check in there for great gift ideas for the kiddos to make!

Wrap It Up

I saw this simple but ingenious idea in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living--just one simple fold while you wrap and you have a little pocket for cards or smaller gifts. We tried it out for some birthday gifts this weekend and I'm thinking any Christmas recipients of ours are going to see a lot of the pocket!! I think this would even look great if you wrapped your presents in newspaper and then slipped in a red card or something to contrast like that. Or little photo bookmarks peeking over the edge? Endless possibilities!

Also, check out this recycled paper wallet tutorial from Meg of Sew Liberated for a crafty gift using repurposed materials!

The Hypnotist

This photo made me laugh.
"You WILL stop feeding me icky purees. You WILL give me some milk, and maybe some of that cookie..."

Free is a Really Cheap Gift

I just found out about this offer through someone in my playgroup--click here to get a free custom photobook through Snapfish. It's an offer that was made on the Oprah show; to get it you have to respond by Friday (tomorrow) and make your book by Sunday, and you have to be shipping to the U.S. You pay for shipping and handling, but the book is free instead of it's usual $30. That's pretty great.

Easy Gifts on a Budget

We're on the economy plan for the holidays over here--knowing that many of you are, too, I'm going to try to put up a few posts about gifts that are easy and inexpensive to make, or that children can participate in making and giving. Today I've got some mama-made crafts: in the last 24 hours I stitched up these cute little items, one for a birthday gift and the others for Clara's school auction. I didn't have to buy a single thing to make them! Each can be made with 1/2 yard or less of fabric. This is the free Lazy Days Skirt pattern from the amazing Oliver+S. It is super easy and looks so polished at the end, thanks to using the selvages so you have a finished inside seam and because of the fantastic ribboned-hem method. This skirt will be a stand-alone gift thanks to the budget plan, but wouldn't it be an irresistibly adorable present packaged with a jump rope?!These nifty aprons are designed to allow young children to put them on and take them off independently. They are a Montessori by Hand pattern (now Sew Liberated). I included a recipe card with a recipe for scented play-doh (see below). If it were a gift, I'd help Clara make a batch of play-doh to give with the apron, and maybe package it with some plastic cookie cutters for the dough or a little rolling pin. Or you could have your child make a batch of these easy and delicious treats to accompany the apron gift. So get crafting!

SCENTED PLAY-DOH
For children old enough to know not to eat it. ☺

1 C flour
1 TBS vegetable oil
1 pack unsweetened Kool-Aid in desired color/scent
¼ C salt
2 TBS cream of tartar
1 C water

Mix flour, salt, cream of tartar and Kool-Aid in a medium pot. Add water and oil. Stir over medium heat 3-5 min. When mixture forms a ball in the pot, remove, cool slightly, and knead until smooth. Wrap in plastic wrap and store in a ziplock bag.

The Princess

Our local photography studio, Cambell Salgado, held a special Halloween event where they took the kids' photos in their Halloween costumes in exchange for a donation to the Oregon Food Bank. What a great idea! Here's our princess. And it solved my issue of not getting a good photo of her in her costume! :)

Yay for US (read that as you will)

Celebrating with some ice cream. :)
Clara has this odd little way of narrating her day in the third person. "Is Clara putting on her shoes?" "Is Clara making her sister laugh?" "Is Clara being really helpful and gentle?" This morning she said, "Is Clara getting a new president because the old one isn't very good?" I thought of talking about perspective, how everyone has a different opinion, of explaining our election process. But instead I said, "Yep, that's just about right."

Halloween

I took the worst photos ever. But here are some of the 30+ neighborhood 3-yr-olds (or almost 3's) who turned up in our yard for our playgroup's candy-free-trick-or-treat event! Our neighborhood rocks.

Don't Try This at Home...

bike tricks
Originally uploaded by elleryolivia

I almost peed from laughing so much watching Clara do "bike tricks" this weekend. She stopped in the middle of a ride around the block to climb up and kneel on her seat--we made her move to the lawn to do the rest. Her own choreography, of course. Sprockettes, look out.

I Did It!!

It's done! I made the princess dress! It has issues, but it's finished and Clara wore it today to the Farmer's Market for a little costume procession. She has declared it "very princess-y." I'm sure you'll see plenty more photos of it in the next few days. :)I

Decorating

This is Clara's idea of how to make a pumpkin look "more beautiful than you can even imagine." Ack.
The faces on these crack me up. That one on the right is "crying really a lot."
I can't remember where I got the ideas, but know I got there through The Crafty Crow. Have you checked out their Halloween and Day of the Dead craft ideas? Because there are so many awesome ones it's hard to believe.

Finally

at last
Originally uploaded by elleryolivia

Sad, I know, but she can finally do it. Partially because she was inspired by the awesome Emy, one of the assistants at Clara's school. She is in the Sprockettes, making her a superstar. Clara wants to be a "bike dancer" just like Emy. May require a teeny bit more practice. :)

First Food

Yep, it's true. I'm 6 months old.

Apple-Gingerbread Muffins

Clara and I made these for her class--it's our snack week. They are pretty darned tasty for something with no refined sugar (well, I guess they have molasses, which I suppose is a byproduct of refined sugar, but you know what I mean) and just whole wheat flour. I got the gingerbread recipe from Maya Made, but made them in mini-muffin tins to make it easier for the kids. 14 min. bake time to make mini cakes--try it out!

Pumpkin Patch

If only I had a photo of me hoisting our gigantic pumpkin on my shoulder with Ellis in the front carrier and Clara dragging along behind, exhausted. :) Didn't keep us from going to another patch with Ma and the Y. family the next day! More pumpkin patch photos here.

Halloween Read

Need a good Halloween book? We are enjoying this version of Stone Soup from the library--perfect for preschoolers, fulfilling a desire to read about monsters but without anything scary. My favorite excerpt?

He tasted the broth again and sighed. "If only there were some stewed eyeballs. With eyeballs, the soup would be very tasty."
The little werewolf tugged at Finnnigin's cloak.
"The witch has jars of those--I know she does."
All the villagers stared at the witch, and her face turned an even brighter shade of green. "Y-yes, I do," she stammered, "but they're imported..."
The villagers stared at the witch until she finally fetched some from her stash.

You'll love the illustrations--check it out!

Ellis Swings

swings
Originally uploaded by elleryolivia

Ellis and her friend Colette tried out the swings at our neighborhood park today. They loved it! It was a great fall day--crisp and sunny for a walk and the park in the morning, followed by a visit to the new tea shop on our street with Clara and Ellis during the rainy afternoon, where we sipped our tea in cozy warmth and read library books. Very nice.