mama urchin

The pillows from my bloggy birthday give-away are headed out today. Finally. Man, I am slow with the sending. These got held up with zipper issues. Why can you never find a zipper that is the right color and the right length? So there is one pillow where the zipper color is the best I could do and another where the zipper is way too long. Still, I think they’re pretty cute. Click through to flickr to see who gets which one and individual photos too. And here is a photo of my prop master — always ready to help me with the photography.

Before we scooted off to mission control — more rocket pics in Papa’s flickr stream — someone in our house turned five. She has been telling us for months about the mermaid swimming party she was going to have. My philosophy on children’s birthday parties is that themes are fun for them, even if I personally find them a little too much. And if you are going to do a theme, I say go for it whole heartedly. So, a mermaid swimming party was had.

The inside says:

We had the party at our local recreation center so we couldn’t really decorate too much. I just got all kinds of shells and some ocean-colored beads to put on the tables.

For food we kept it simple. Papa made an awesome cake — with art direction by Mama — and we had ice cream cups and swedish fish. Let me tell you, I had forgotten how good swedish fish taste. The castle cake was made with a nordic ware pan. We made a sheet cake to be the ocean and decorated it with homemade candies, store bought sugar fishes, and two theme-appropriate playmobils.

The mermaid princess seemed pleased, if not a little overwhelmed. She’s already started planning next year’s party, a fairy teaparty — do you think she’s been reading Daria’s blog?

With delays for illnesses and vacations and all kinds of things we are finally able to call this round of miniswap complete. Katrina and Tristan were paired with Caroline who loves puppies, kittens, playing with dolls, etc. We decided for Katie and Tristan to each direct a project where they could help participate. Tristan’s project was a coloring set. I made the bag and sketchbook and the urchins helped with the crayons.

After looking through The Cute Book Katrina decided we should make a kitty for Caroline. We used the basic shapes included in the book but made some adjustments and made a mama cat too. Then we decided to make some toys and other things a la Lyn and include them in an old wooden box that originally held olive oil and balsamic vinegar. So Mama Kitty and her baby have a fish and a mouse as well as a pillow and some milk bottles in case they get tired or thirsty. Mama’s apron comes off for when she’s not chasing Baby Kitty’s messes.

We also included a rice pillow that matches Katie’s — fabric choices made entirely by her — and some other purchased things that we thought Caroline might enjoy. Caroline and her mama, Amber, spoiled us and you can see what they sent here, here, and here . Thank you Caroline and Amber, and thanks Molly for another great round of miniswap.

Would you like a potato? An Irish Potato? It’s candy….

Bake a potato. Let it cool. Scoop out the flesh into a bowl and mash it up. Add a lot of confectioner’s sugar and shredded coconut. Add a dash of vanilla extract. Keep adding the sugar and coconut until it’s the consistency of stiff dough. Shape into small potatoes. Put a few pieces at a time in a bag with ground cinnamon and shake it around. Enjoy!

For storybook day at preschool. She’s really into matryoshkas. REALLY. INTO. THEM. Santa brought her this book along with this doll for Christmas. It started long before that though when someone brought her a real set from a trip to the ’stans of Central Asia. So here she is, our littlest matryoshka — costume made by Mama in the winging it loosely based on a shirt pattern way. You can’t see the flower on her apron but it’s there, behind the book. All three pieces will end up in the dress-up box. They’re so much better than some of the polyester junk that’s in there.

So these are the gifts Katrina and I gave our Valentines. First, from Katrina, a pillow (about 6″ diameter) for her Daddy. We did the letters on my sewing machine — it has this one basic font — on a piece of red wool felt. We then sewed that to a piece of tool fabric which we then made into a heart. She stuffed it and then we machine sewed it shut.

I gave Papa a rice pillow, a la Blair. He’s been complaining about cold feet in bed so her post was perfectly timed. The outside cover is made of flannel so it’s soft as well as warm.

And for my little valentine I made one of Hillary’s robots from Put-Together Book No. 2. The best part of this guy was making his control panel. Definitely look through the flickr group before you make one for inspiration. The fabric for the body is Robomatic by Jennifer Sampou — such a great little boy print — and the arms/legs and antenna are from Peas & Carrots by Sandy Klop.

Thrifting in my neck of the woods is pretty bad. The stores are mostly bare except for really bad stuff from the 80s. What we do have in abundance though is antique stores. This weekend a store near my mom was having a groundhog day weekend sale. The store is in an old house and different vendors have different rooms in the house. It makes for really fun poking around looking for treasures. Of course this time my mom and I — my best antiquing partner — were poking around while corralling an urchin who wanted to touch everything, especially if it was breakable. Still, I managed to uncover a couple of great things in our quick sweep of the place. My mom went back through more thoroughly after I removed Mister TouchEverything from the premises and called me to tell me she found something else — one of the many reasons she’s my best antiquing partner ever.

Anyway, Papa is in love with two of the three things that have made their home with us and he wasted no time in using them in some photographs:

I was looking for a vintage suitcase with Katie in mind — I’m trying to improve the dress-up/play-pretend box in our house — and she and Tristan carried this one around all afternoon. The table and chairs was the real score of the day. Papa has been wanting something like the set for a while and as soon as I saw it I took the tag to buy it. Luckily the price was reasonable because who knows how much I would have paid. As for what I brought home that he didn’t like, I’m hoping it will grow on him.

Blessed — that’s what we are in so many ways. Our family is fortunate to live middle-class lives in an affluent country where we have the freedom to speak, worship, and pretty much go about our lives in a way that pleases us. We have never had to worry about how we would feed our children, how we would afford their medicine, or how to protect them from warfare. We go to our church every week without fear of imprisonment.

The recent winter holidays always reminds me — and many — of how much I have been given and this is something that Papa and I want our children to appreciate. Katrina helps me take food and clothing to our local outreach center, she has sorted through toys to give some to children who have few, but this year we are taking it a little further. This year we gave her a catalog from Heifer International and asked her to flip through and choose an animal — she picked a flock of chicks. Since Thanksgiving she’s been doing jobs around the house to earn the money to buy them for a child who lives half the world away. I cannot get over how excited she’s been about this. She keeps asking us if we have jobs for her. Not once has she asked about keeping the money for herself or buying something she wants. She’s learning that charity isn’t just about cast-offs and leftovers but also about sacrifice — that making the world better requires work.

So if you’ve made it this far you may be wondering why I’m writing all this on my craft blog. I was thinking about how much difference one four-year-old can make and then the difference that ten children could make and I thought what Katrina is doing might inspire you, or your urchins and I felt obliged to share. In addition to the jobs around the house Katrina has started a shop over at cafepress where you can buy items screenprinted with her original designs — we’re hoping to add more designs soon. All proceeds from the sales will go toward chicks. Now tell me, what do you do to foster giving and sacrifice in the hearts of your children?

When I was a little girl my sister and I played school at two of these vintage school desks and chairs. I think we did our homework there too. Actually I’m sure that we did because when I cleaned this one up after getting it out of my parents’ basement I noticed 21 x 5 worked out on the desktop. My parents have the other one in their family room for when Katrina and my niece are there. The girls use it as their coloring station. We have a serious issue in our house with containing Katrina’s artwork/crafting/projects — they’re typically covering the kitchen table and surrounding floor. We’re usually clearing just enough space for dinner and it really gets on my nerves.

I had forgotten that my parents had two of these desks and I mentioned to my mom that I was going to try and find one like the one in their family room. She reminded me about the other and my Dad and I got it out of their basement last weekend. The canvas box has learning activities in it. My desk and computer are right through that door so we can work at the same time — my work is blog surfing, in case you were wondering. One of my goals this year is to have the house more presentable on a daily basis and I’m hoping this desk will help with Katrina’s mess. I’ve tackled Tristan’s mess too but that corner will have to wait until next week.

So, 2007 was a pretty good year on the crafting front. There are 84 photos in my Finished - 2007 set on flickr. Even I’m a little impressed by that. I’m particularly happy with how many new things I learned in 2007. Let’s review, shall we?

First, in knitting, thanks to Larissa I learned to knit socks. All in all I finished six pairs of socks plus two pairs of baby booties this year. Ten sweaters came off the needles and while all but one were child sized I’m still very happy about that. I made my first Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater and my first colorworked yoke sweater both for urchin number two. Katrina didn’t get quite as many sweaters but she was definitely the main beneficiary of my newfound sewing skills…

I think 2007 might just be remembered as the year I learned to sew. Wow, I’m so happy I finally conquered my fear. There have been a lot of pajamas and quite a few dresses. I even made my sister a bag. I also made my first quilt in 2007 and my second, third, fourth, and fifth as well. They were all doll quilts but I have full-sized quilt love for them all.

There was plenty of food in 2007 although not too much of it made it onto the blog. I’m glad that some jam made into some of your homes though. Lots of paper stuff happened as well including garlands, folders, and altered bottles. And let’s not forget the altered tin for Father’s Day — one of my favorite projects from the whole year.

We played games, we gave gifts, we swapped, we had two great birthday parties, and took about a million photos. So 2008 has some big shoes to fill. What do I have planned? Knitting wise I’d like to make more socks using a variety of techniques. I’d like to conquer a lace project and I am going to knit a sweater for Papa. At the sewing machine I want to continue to improve my garment-making skills and conquer my fear of knits. I also want to make a bed-sized quilt top — I’ll probably send it out to be quilted. I want to tell you more about some of the great food we’re eating and I really want to try to compost less of our CSA share each week. Thank you guys for being such a great inspiration to me, and not just when it comes to being crafty. Your talent in knitting, sewing, mommy-ing — making in all regards — inspires me everyday. And that you take the time to tell me you enjoy what I make is really wonderful to me. Ready or not 2008, here we come.