Mushroom Villagers

I won just about the best give-away ever: Mr Monkeysuit’s mini prize!

As you can see, the prize wasn’t “mini” in any way. Her package came smellin’ luscious and yummy before I opened it. It was filled with all sorts of goodies for face, hair, skin and house most of which aren’t in the photo because they’re gone already. She made a beautiful cosmetic roll and I think it’s even made out of linen.  (Man, she’s generous. I’ve never given away linen.) She also included cute postcards and everything had awesome labels which I wanted to buy immediately.

After trying all her homemade beauty and bath products, I had to have more so I bought this book which she recommended. It’s full of how-to information as well as storing and packaging. Now I need to whip up some of my own batches because I’m just about out of all my free samples. Thank you Josie!

BTW- Check out her newest tutorial on matchbook notepads. How cute are those?!

Okay. Try not to laugh, but these are my people:

I bought these wooden unfinished people with eggs back in March from here. (BTW- I could do some major damage in that store. I’d love to get a ton of these too.) I was all excited when I got these and wanted to try my hand at a new craft- painting. I can’t draw, paint or sculpt, but I wanted to try. How in the heck do people make such fine lines neatly?! I’ve always held artists in high regard because they can look at something and replicate it. It blows my mind.

Anyway. I primed all the eggs and people because the kids will be playing with these for years to come and I didn’t want the paint peeling or chipping off. I painted everything with some non-fancy acrylic paint, but man there were many, many coats involved with alot of drying time in between.

Everything was painted a while ago, but I still need to get the right amount of finish on them. Again, it takes alot! I used the spray-on lacquer, but ran out quickly. My dad just informed me that in order to get that high-gloss, glass-like look you have to spray, sand lightly and spray again. You have to repeat these steps over and over again until you get the finish you like.

Needless to say, I stopped after I used up the can and never sanded between coats. They’ve been sitting in a box for months, but since the weather’s finally turning around here, I think I’ll get ‘er done.

If you want to see some much better ones, check out these and this lady’s who inspired me to try this in the first place.

Edward, my middle one, turned 4 several weeks ago, but we finally had his party today. We had to cancel it twice due to several bouts of different viruses both of which were extremely contagious and ones we didn’t want spread to anyone else.

After many weeks, we finally were able to gather our family and friends together for some:

Cake

Chris made this “Golden Snitch” cake (from Harry Potter) for Eddie by pouring the cake batter into a large pyrex bowl, baking then inverting it onto a foil covered pizza pan. He made a yellow butter cream frosting and covered it with metallic gold sanding sugar. He used black gel icing for the design on the cake and two gold spray-painted cardboard wings to finish it off. Eddie loved it!

And there were wands:

These were carved out of apple, maple and rhododendron branches. They were also sanded down and oiled to keep them from getting brittle. These were a hit for all the little ones that came.

And lastly, some enormous bubbles:

We did something similar for Eddie’s 2nd birthday and wanted to do it again since he still loves bubbles- who doesn’t?!

Chris made the bubble solution using Joy dish washing soap, corn syrup and water. He made gigantic “wands” out of two sticks and some rope with a washer to help give the rope some shape when forming the bubbles. (I have no idea where he retrieved all his info or else I would link some sites. I do know it was all off of the internet so I’m sure you can find great info too if you just google it.)

Some tips when bubble making:

• There can’t be too much wind. The wind pushes the bubbles out too fast and they break before the kids can get to them.
• When forming the bubbles, keep your wands up high away from the kids. Seal off the bubble, by bringing the sticks together THEN let the kids pop them. If the bubble is popped before it is free from the rope, you will have to re-dip your rope in the solution.
• You need ALOT of solution and a bucket or pan to dip all the rope into.
• The colder the weather the better bubbles. Don’t try and do this on a 100 degree day. The bubbles won’t form well and won’t last long enough for the kids to enjoy.

So all in all, Eddie had a great day with lots of friends and family even if it was weeks delayed! Happy 4th my love.

Could it be…

Is that a finished sweater? Is that the one I started over 6 years ago?

Yes, folks- I do knit and on occasion, finish a project as well. It took me a long time to finish this sweater, but I’m happy to say that it’s done… except for one thing:

Does anyone know about blocking?

I’ve never blocked anything so I don’t know what I should do in this case. The sweater is Debblie Bliss’ Shawl-Collared Fair Isle Cardigan from her “Quick Baby Knits” book. (Quick?  Yeah right.)  I used her Rowan Cotton Glace yarn and read that you usually don’t block cotton.  In other places I’ve read that you must block anything that’s fair isle so I’m stuck.

If I block this, then won’t it simply reshape itself after each wash?  Hmmm…  Any thoughts or suggestions?

My blog is one! Wow. I totally missed my blog anniversary which was March 13th. I can’t believe it’s been a year already. I remember the night I discovered the world of blogs. What an eye-opener this new world has been for me. I have loved every minute of it and know that I will be a part of this for a while yet.

I look back at some of my sewing I was doing then and am sometimes embarrassed. I remember when I bought my first new sewing machine. I remember when all my fabric, batting, notions and patterns actually fit inside my cabinet. I remember when I posted everything I made…

Today, things are different. I’m drooling over a new sewing machine. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to buy one of those beauties, but a girl can dream right? (Really, the Bernina Aurora QE is THE one!) My Janome is great, but it’s a basic machine and has limits- like sewing through layers of fabric. I’m also seriously looking for a serger which I thought I’d never really need. I have so many projects going that I can’t keep my sewing table clean for one day. I’ve tried some embriodery, picked up knitting again and have written tutorials that other’s have actually used. I’ve met many talented people and continue to be inspired daily.

The best is having Chris plan out- on graph paper!- my own sewing/craft room which will eventually be in our unfinished basement. This means I’m sticking around this sewing world for awhile and am getting a wonderful permanent space to do it all in.

So thank you for taking the time to comment, read or just browse. It’s been a great year!

Like I promised, these were whipped up the night before Easter. I made each kid, my 3 plus 5 cousins plus a family friend, 4 books of different sizes and tied some pencils, a pen and a pencil sharpener to each gift “pack”. I of course added some chocolate bunnies and my two boys got their first watches. Eddie keeps informing us that it’s 90:40 and we “gotto go!”

Each pack was opened up pronto and put to great use.

And this is exactly what I like to see, kid writing. I love how they sound out things, how lines are turned into rainbows, and the snakes, lizards and insects crawling here and there.

These are a great way to save those early drawings and writings. And it’s super easy. The idea has been floating around in blog-land for months and I’ve made these several times for my kids as well as for gifts. They really are great and so simple to make just by running them through your sewing machine on the longest stitch or stapling will work as well. All it takes is some card stock, paper (6 pages per book turns out well), and anything you have around to decorate it with- stickers, stamps, punches. You could really go to town with these and make them extravagant or very simple.

These were enjoyed over at Auntie “Mimi’s” yesterday along with ham, cake (it was also Hayden’s birthday), a huge egg hunt, and plenty of sugar to go around. I hope your Easter was a happy day as well!

We dyed these last night:

And the USPS brought these to our door this morning:

We have eggs everywhere! We hid some of our dyed eggs last night each taking turns hiding and searching. Everyone got into it especially Ms O. She loves to *throw* the eggs into her basket and needless to say, we had a few casualties. I was egg-cited (ha!) to see my package from Casey’s arrive this morning- talk about perfect timing! And so the kids got to hide even more eggs today and I didn’t have to constantly yell out “GENTLE!”

This year I’m especially worried about my eggs because for the first time, I actually blew out ten of the eggs. I was thinking that the kids were older so it might be fun to have some lighter-than-air eggs. Have you ever tried to blow out eggs? It was a challenge until I found out that my holes were *way* too small.

So just in case you want to try to blow out some eggs, be sure that you put in two holes at each end almost the size of a hole punch. I found that a thumb tack worked better than a needle to break through shell without too much trouble. You also want to stick a long needle into the egg to pierce the yolk so that it blows out easily. And lastly, rinse out your egg by covering one of the holes with your finger while filing the egg with water through the other hole. Then cover both holes with your fingers, shake and blow out the water. Repeat until the water come out clear.

The bad thing about blown-out eggs is that they float in the dye bath. We still managed to get them all dyed and had fun coming up with new methods.

We always loose one or two eggs in the house each year, but end up finding them eventually. It’ll be nice to finally have some wooden ones that I don’t have to worry about tracking down. We may paint them. Or not.

Either way, we’re all looking forward to a wonderful Easter with plenty of eggs for everyone!

I know that this is mainly a sewing blog, but really I haven’t been doing much of it lately due to my typing work. (The book is almost done. I only have 3 more chapters to type. Woohoo!)

I made my sister Mary 6 cloth grocery bags out of some more IKEA fabric. (You can’t beat their price or durability.) Yes, she now owes me big time, but I’m happy knowing that she’ll be using (and reusing!) my bags instead of adding more plastic to places like this.

I did more sewing yesterday trying to make cloth easter eggs and tried this wonderful idea, but stuffed eggs require hand stitching. I can’t do that to save my soul so that project didn’t make it far. I even tried to enlarge an egg pattern to see if a bigger egg would be easier to stitch. I wanted to make my kids and all the cousins one large egg with their name hand embroidered on them, but the first one I made turned into a mushy, squished, lopsided ball. UGLY. I gave it to Eleni anyway and she’s declared that it’s a ball for her doll. Great.

Did you know that you can’t just keep enlarging a pattern to the size you want even if it’s a simple pattern like an egg? Chris warned me about this when I was making all the kids’ slippers for Christmas, but I figured that it’s just an egg and what could go wrong. It turns out that you can’t simply enlarge and if you do, everything must be to proportion or else it turns out wacky.

So I’ve got another idea for Easter, but since it’s only a couple days away and I’ve still got 57 pages to type before Saturday, it’ll be a simple one. I’ll post it soon…

In the meantime, here’s what we’ve been eating:

Starting at the top, we have some chocolate shortbread mushrooms, a favorite Uwajimaya treat around here. (Ms O is sticking just to the chocolate and leaves the nubs for me.)

Next, whole wheat waffles with Daddy’s homemade blackberry syrup. This was last night’s dinner- Yummy!

Thirdly, we have the whole wheat artisan bread I promised to report about. What can I say? It was good, nutty and filling, but man, that white bread still rocks!

And lastly, tonight’s bedtime snack- steamed artichokes with your choice of butter or mayo for dipping. These were meant to go with dinner, of course, but since they take forever to steam, they weren’t done until 8pm. Bedtime snack it was and it was GOOD. (Yes, my kids really love these. Augie saw them while grocery shopping today and begged me to get them. I know I was a bad mom at first not allowing him to buy something that was $2 each, but we’re on a budget. So yes, he did have to beg for them! But really I think it’s the fun of scrapping the flesh from the leaves with your teeth. Even though Ms O and Eddie have trouble, they eat up what Daddy can get off for them.)

There you go, our eats so far this week. Tomorrow I’ll be on my own since I can’t stand duck!

My little boy has become a t-shirt designer:

Augie drew this drawing of Great Grandpa. Chris added the lettering and screen printed the whole image on t-shirts for all 16 great grandchildren.

We gave these away when we had this year’s double-Augie birthday party.

I think they turned out wonderful.

Chris has gotten pretty good at these over the years. He made his own “press” using this book and also makes his own screens. Here he is in our laundry room which he has turned into his shop for this project.

The process seems to be pretty easy and fast, but I really don’t know too much about it. He started it the night before: ironing the shirts, exposing the picture and making the screen. Then the morning of the party, he whipped them all out with plenty of time for drying.

Yes, my man’s got talent.

Hi there.

Did anyone wonder where I went? Probably not. But to the few who did, I’m sorry for the lack of posts lately. I had a serious blog-block. Well, more like blog-lazy or blogged-out. The holidays hit me hard this year and I needed a little down time to rest, play and get some house things done. (Yes Nana, I finally got my ironing caught up.)

I’ve missed it so I’m back AND even with something to share:

Can you guess what it is?
This was one of the Christmas presents I made for my kids as well as all the cousins. It’s what I was writing about here.

The whole thing came out just as I imagined thanks to a little inspiration from here and here. Each set comes with 15 fabric fish and starfish that are lightly stuffed with a magnet sewn into the fish noses or starfish tip.

I sewed the magnets in place to keep them from moving around and getting lost in the fish. The kids can alway rely on the magnet being in the same place therefor it helps with the “catch”.

This was a shared project with the poles and the “bait” made by Chris. The poles are bamboo from our backyard which were sanded down to hopefully lower the risk of serious eye damage. He drilled a hole through the top to string some twine and attached the wooden bugs. Each set came with two poles so Chris had to carve 6 bugs, drill holes for the magnet, glue it in place, then paint and seal each one. (Funny thing is that the boys thought Chris was carving peanuts and with Eddie’s terrible lisp, it came out more like “peeenush”. Yes, you pronounced it right. Chris and I still call them “peenushes” for a cheap laugh.)

These fishing sets were fun to make and I love watching the kids play with something made by both Mom and Dad.