It's Spring! And it's freakin cold!

 Hurray...it's Spring!

  But don't get too excited, it's still really cold

At least we have Easter...

dyeing eggs...

 stickers on our faces...

 eggs in our hands

 I kind of hate all the junk that PAAS puts in their eggs now: stickers, plastic shrink wrap, glitter (which, in theory is cool, but it makes a total mess), glue. We had one brown egg left so we dunked it in purple (then in orange, and green and purple again...remember, these are 3 year olds). But I love how it turned out.

This is a my favorite, the absolute anithesis of an Easter egg, but it looks so organic & natural, like a river rock. Boo did it at preschool in black watercolor. Too bad we have to eat it.

At it Again...

---Boo just called down from her room. (She usually has a litany of requests after I put her to bed: potty, cold feet, a blanket fix.) Now it's, "Mommy, I have a booger". I really, really, really don't want to go up there. I can't believe I just told her to "wipe it on the carpet". Hmmm, probably not the best response....I think I'm getting desperate. OK, ok, I'm going up to get her a Kleenex!

--Back again, both kid and carpet are clean. Now, where was I?

The craft bug is biting me again. Actually, this is a project that I've been working on for a year now, but it was put on the back burner while I played PTA mom. Now that this volunteer project from hell is almost over (notice the word "almost"), I can get back to my own stuff and try to get something done by Christmas.

I'm creating a felt name book for each of the kids, each page will have a letter and a picture from their name.

No letters, yet, but here's sneak peek...I'll post better pictures once it's finished.

A Gal Needs a New Purse Now & Then

OK, I got off the computer, plugged in the glue gun, dug out some felt scraps from my upstairs "room" and got to work. Boo has been carrying around an ugly pink vinyl purse that we've had in the toy bin for years, so I decided a new one was in order. I was able to whip this out while her brother napped. The strap is a little short, but she seems to like it.

It's handy to have your purse when you're playing ball with the dog.

Major Crafterbation

I don't know what is happening to me, I've never really been a crafter but these days I can't peel myself away from the computer. Stuffed animals, felted gnomes, tooth fairy pillows, super cool fabrics, little girl dresses, appliques...the urge to sew and craft little cute things is becoming overwhelming. And just in case you're wondering, I'm not pregnant. Although I'm finding that I'm spending more time on the computer looking at other people's crafts rather than making my own. Hence the term "crafterbation"...I actually stole that wonderful word from another blog, so I won't take credit for it.

A friend loaned me her an old sewing machine that she got from Goodwill for $15, so I can try my hand again at sewing (a class I flunked in tenth grade!). I've been nervous about breaking it out. I have this nagging feeling that once I start fumbling with bobbins and the thread starts getting tight and the swearing starts, then my whole sewing fantasy will be crushed.

But in the meantime I can dream...and use my glue gun. Besides, there's always knitting.

Finally these puppies are done!

I found these wonderful scraps of wool felt at a fabric shop in town that was going out of business and I couldn't resist the call of a project. "Why not make some cute pillows?" Ahem...I started last November. My first attempt at stitching a face and experimenting with "whip stitches". (Turns out my eyes aren't quite as good as they used to be!) Boo's pillow is the second one I did, hers turned out a little nicer since I made all my mistakes on Bear's. I don't think he'll mind much, he held his for about thirty seconds.

It has taken me weeks to post some photos of these, but here they are.

Color is a little off and I don't have Photoshop on this computer, they are a little more vibrant than this.

Boo tries to give Bear his pillow, but he's busy.

Tuesday's Creative Thing

The beginnings of a birthday card I'm making for the kid's cousin, Terron. I wanted to use their art and I love the colors from their painting.

Family Tree

So I didn't exactly do this yesterday, but it's going to count as a creative activity for this month. I've had this family tree idea since we first hung up this wallpaper tree in the kids room (ahem, before they were born!), and I finally got around to starting it a few weeks ago. The kids can see their extended family and it keeps them occupied while I change diapers. Then they have the fun of hanging it back on the wall.



It's far from done, there are many more family members to add, but it's a start. These "apples" are made of felt and attach to the wall with self adhesive velcro. I laminated the photos before gluing them inside the 2 layers of felt.

As If I Need More to Do

I'm taking the plunge. I just discovered this on Polliwog's Cakewalk, which referred me to Dabbled. I'm starting a little late into the month, but we'll count the things I'm already working on.

April is Make Something Cool Every Day Month

I think I'm up to the challenge. I may not be able to always do both....it may not be cool, or it may not be every day, but isn't it the process of creating that's important?

So come along for the ride....if you dare. :-)

P.S. To any fellow procrastinators out there: The Cult of Done

Watch Your Back Martha!

I have so many projects going on....of course, there's the dreaded get-all-the-papers-together-for-taxes adventure, but I'd rather discuss crafty stuff right now. Maybe it's a nesting instinct, but I'm filled with the urge to sew, glue and embroider (ya, I said embroider!) things for my kids. I'm also guilty of frequent "crafterbation". (I stole that term from this blog, it's short for vicarious crafting.)

I don't think I'll have any crafterbaters on my blog anytime soon, but for now, my creative urges are satisfied. Sometimes I even crave a ciggie afterwards (just kidding, actually I just fall asleep).
I made a cardboard playhouse Superbowl weekend, after a friend gave us this awesome huge box. I wrote their names on it in fabric paint as an afterthought, then Hubby walked too close and before I could tell him the paint was still wet, his shirt had blue glitter on it. He wasn't too thrilled. Oops! You can just barely see the smear mark.



They love it.

I had these wool felt remnants and am making little pillows for the babies. I'm even attempting to embroider a face on the bunny, still have some filling in to do.

As you can see, I went a little crazy at the only place in town that sells embroidery thread.

We bought this table & chairs for the kids at Ikea. I wanted to get low VOC paint and primer since they'll be eating right off of it...the paint cost as much as the table! If I would have known the primer would be this red, I wouldn't have bought the blue paint. Oh well, I'm sure I'll use it.

And another project brewing in my head right now too. There's so much to do, maybe I could use a nanny for my job!

Scrapbooks. They seem like a good idea at the time.

I sent my husband to the crafts store yesterday. The image of him walking into this estrogen soaked space filled with notions and charms; a place where the word "cute" is uttered dozens of times daily, made me crack up. It was probably worse for him than buying tampons!

This all started with my Christmas idea for our granddaughters: a mini photo album of their summer visit. Nothing elaborate--I've been down the scrapbook road before and I'm savvy to the expensive detours---brads, stickers, corners, charms, pockets. You get sucked in, all in the name of cute. So this time I knew better, I bought a scrapbook kit that contained everything I needed.

This would be a quick project: order the photos, glue'em on the pages, slap on some stickers and "viola!" a cute (there's that word again) souvenir album. I was congratulating myself for being so crafty about it's simplicity, that in my excitement I wrote each girl's name in glitter on her book.

Inevitably, I had more pictures than pages, and since scrapbook makers are evil, to expand your book, you must purchase additional pages from the same manfacturer. Are any of them the same? Of course not! I couldn't even return the kit albums since I'd already decorated the covers. Dammit. My dilemma: drive forty minutes for extra pages, or see what I could scrap (pun intended) together locally. Hence, my husband going to the crafts store, there was no way I could go with two 1 year olds in tow.

So at this late hour I'm hunched over our kitchen table peeling apart teeny tiny corners that I must hold at arm's length to see (when did my vision get so bad?). I stick these teeny tiny sticky squares to teeny tiny photo corners that stick to my fingers, then stick to the photo. I curse, try to carefully peel it off and tear off part of the photo with it. Now I'll have to cover that spot with another photo corner! You get the idea...

One down, one to go. But I must say, it really is cute.