Cart Before the Horse

Tissue Paper Dialogue

2012-02-15T23:09:00.002-06:00

Pretty Paper Posies

The Women’s Retreat at our church is coming up and I am on the planning committee. Our retreat colors are a lovely eggplant-turquoise-lime combo and we are trying to keep everything consistent. We were fortunate enough to have someone donate some very lovely purple and white tissue paper flowers to our decorations, and I thought a great project to do with the girls today would be to make turquoise, blue and lime flowers to mix in.

Wow, were they into this. And chatty about it. From start to finish! I even quit making flowers after a little while and just took dictation.

On a sad note, the poor injured one discovered that rough fiberglass on a cast and delicate tissue paper does not mix. She had to sit this one out. The plus for her was that she got to get up close and personal with some Constitutional Amendments. Nothing brightens your day like some Social Studies homework!

Here is a rundown of this project. First, I laid out the paper and cut it into lots of rectangles.

Then we put them in stacks of 8-12 and accordion-folded them.

Next, we twisted pipe cleaners around the middles for stems. Then rounded the ends.

Then we had to separate the layers of paper and fluff out the flower shapes.

We had an assembly line going for a little while. Then they just sort-of took over and I faded back to listen and laugh.

Middle: “This light blue is a pretty shade of blue. I also like this dark one, its like turquoise.”

Youngest: “Can I sit down to do this now, my back is starting to hurt.” (Clearly I run a sweatshop!)

Middle: “This is fun. Will the ladies know that we made these? Ohhh, I made only three sheets in this one. I think I need to make it again. Are we going to make leaves on these? Can I cut my own?” (Whew! All in one breath!)

Middle: “Wow, that’s actually a lot better flower than that skinny one I made.” (Wow, a sincere compliment!)

Youngest: “These are so thick, it’s hard to pull the sheets apart.”

Middle: “You mean thin?”

Youngest: “Yes.”

Middle: “It’s kind of hard to remember the difference between thick and thin-they both start with ‘thi’.”

Youngest: “You’re right.”

Middle: “I want to make one with all three colors. I wonder how this is going to turn out, do you think it will be pretty?”

Youngest: “I think it will be pretty cool.”

Middle: “Ohhh, yeah, that side looks really cool. I tried the red scissors just for fun and they worked.”

Youngest: “I want to do my own mixed-up multicolored one.”

Middle: “Are you just using me as an experiment to see if yours will work?”

Youngest: “Yes.”

Youngest: “What if someone made a flower with all the colors of the world? They’d have to only use only piece from each color. And it would be one big flower. It would have to go outside their house.”

Middle: “And that’s one big pipe cleaner!”

Youngest: “It would really go outside the whole house.”

Middle: “Wait, lengthwise?”

Youngest: “Yes. And tall-wise.”

Middle: “That’s huge!”

Youngest: “Yep.”

Youngest: “I’m going to watch you make this one.”

Middle: “Well, it is pretty challenging.”

Sometimes it's best to sit back and just listen!

My Seedy Valentine

2012-02-14T17:50:00.000-06:00

First of all, look what I got for Valentine’s Day!

Yep, bragging. Sorry, I have to give my hubby credit. I got two books and a chocolate strawberry, too, but I ate that already!

So, off of bragging and on to blogging. What’s crazier than doing a craft project with three kids 10 and under? Doing one with twelve kids 10 and under! But, intrepid crafter (read crazy) that I am, that’s just what I did.

I am in charge of the Garden Club at the girls’ elementary school. Once a month I meet with a group of girls from kindergarten to fifth grade and we plant bulbs or vegetables or do a garden-related project.

This month, it was raining on Clubs day. It is tough to plant lettuce in rain and cold wind. I admit that I was a bit bummed out, since we were planning to pick and eat some of the broccoli that was finally ready out in the garden. I was also a little excited though, because it meant I would get to try a new twist on a project I have done before.

Once with my three here at the house and once with the oldest child’s third grade class, we have made homemade paper. We took scraps of recyclable paper, soaked them in water and blended them until a pulpy mix resulted. We then poured the mix over window screens and patted it around until we had rectangles. After the mix sat to dry overnight, and flattened down, we had unique, handmade note cards.

That alone sounds pretty ambitious, right? Well, hold on to your hat because it gets better.

Before the pulp had a chance to dry fully, we sprinkled flower seeds on top. Any seeds will work, but if you aren’t using dye-and-chemical-free paper, it’s best not to use herb or veggie seeds.

When our cards had fully dried, we had note cards embedded with seeds that could be written on and then planted by their recipients. Bonus!

Back to the rainy day and 12 Garden Club kids waiting to be wowed.

Clubs only last for about 40 minutes so the note card project was out. I have also made seed bombs before and thought about making those:

Same basic approach as the note cards but instead of finishing with a blender, you just soak shredded paper in water. This results in a chunkier mix. Grab a handful of pulp, squeeze the water out and roll into a ball. Let it dry a little bit and then roll in flower seeds like a truffle in cocoa powder.

After they sit overnight, you have little seed bombs. They are called bombs because you use them in guerrilla-like beautification warfare! Ugly, vacant lot nearby? Toss a few seed bombs in there and wait. They even foil razor-wire topped fences!

Well, as appealing as that project is to me, it probably was not as appropriate to be telling these kids to roam the mean streets of Highland Village, tossing seeds in people’s yards. I combed the Internet for alternatives and found one on one of my favorite blogs. MADE had a tutorial for heart-shaped seed planters made from paper pulp. Perfect since it is Valentine’s Day!

I shredded some paper in red, pink, cream and white and got it presoaking in big Ziploc bags.

Next, I tossed those bags, some colanders, bowls, paper towels and a ton of heart shaped cookie cutters in a bag, added some flower seeds and headed off to school.

We had been assigned a big table in the hallway for our impromptu indoor work. I strained all the pulp through colanders and placed each batch in a big bowl on the table.

I explained the project and started the girls off, breaking them into groups to make it go quickly. One group picked out seeds, one wrote their names on paper towels and one picked out what cookie cutter they wanted and got in line.

We have a pretty together group of girls in Garden Club. I have been very lucky there. They grouped up and got started. The group with the cookie cutters placed the cutter flat on the bottom of the colander, placed over a bowl. They then got to pick clumps of paper pulp in the colors they wanted and smash the clumps into the cookie cutter forms, mashing them well to push out the excess water.

Once they had the desired finished product, I helped remove the cookie cutter slowly and ease the heart out of the colander and onto paper towels. We set these aside to dry a few more minutes.

When all twelve had cycled through, we moved the hearts onto the paper towels with their names and they got to sprinkle the hearts with flower seeds. In the nick of time, too, since Club time was over. I gave them each a piece of candy and promised to get them their hearts once they dried.

The next school day I bagged up their hearts and delivered them to their teachers. I hope we see some beautiful flowers from this project. We are going to take the rest of the paper pulp and make seed bombs at home. I am definitely not above taking my own kids to go flower-up the ugly spots!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Why My House is a Mess

2012-02-12T21:13:00.000-06:00

This week I could claim my house is a mess because of our broken arm situation and the hubby being out of town, but the truth is that I am a pathological creator who would rather be writing or fiddling with fabric, seeds or dough than a mop.

Because I have had some intense quality time with my kids this week, today’s post is about my personal projects. Selfish, selfish me!

Here is what I saw each time I passed the table this week:

Many, many sweaters!

How can you pass that pile of awesome felted sweaters and not make something!?! I mean, I had already washed and felted them so they were just begging to be worked with. I couldn’t hold out forever so here are a few things I came up with. Yup, a grown up show-and-share.

Sweater-scrap flowers

I am planning to still make plenty more, I was just fiddling around. I think these flowers would be cute on clips or headbands, or even on coffee sleeves for one of those compulsory trips to the coffee mecca (you know where I mean!). The only problem with putting them on sleeves is that it might make a coffee cup tough to fit in a cup holder (time to switch to the taller venti size, I guess!)

All they need is a little embellishing and a few lattes!

These are somewhat charitable projects in that I bought the sweaters from a thrift store. Some of them were felted when I found them. I suppose that is why they wound up living at the thrift store in the first place. Another charitable project I completed today was a teddy-bear fleece cuff for the injured one’s sling strap. Cushy and warm. A twofer!

I have made plenty of coffee sleeves before from recycled sweaters (I call them Greensleeves) with the girls for Christmas gifts, and the girls and I made some cute wreaths with some friends (see the photo below). I cut a bunch of squares to let the girls make some more wreaths. Good to have a starter kit ready for small hands-the youngest is particularly great at this.

Sweater wreath

Future sweater wreath

I decided to find more green uses for the leftover sweater material, and it turns out that it was just in time. These cute striped fingerless gloves (modeled by the injured one on her good hand) are great now that it is finally winter.

So cute, so cozy!

I also am about to start a few wine bottle bags from sweater sleeves. Practical and simple. The dog has asked that I not blog about the dog-sweater-from-recycled-sweater fail. I would have posted a picture of her but I know all of your dogs will just laugh.

A side note for those concerned for the welfare of the newly planted pallet garden. A perk of the pallet: we just picked the thing up and trucked it around to the garage. No frozen veggies!

I plan to keep making up these coffee sleeves. Look out, I may send one your way to keep your fingers and java toasty.

Some of our Christmas sleeves

Fun and functional

Anyway, that’s why my house is a mess. I’m going to run now, the ongoing marathon of make-up schoolwork calls. In the future, we really need to keep our kids in bubble wrap. Less hassle!

How would you use recycled sweaters? Let me know!

Shirts Tie-Dye For

2012-02-08T22:52:00.002-06:00

Houston, we have a cast. Halleluiah! And she is off to school tomorrow. Maybe the world will return to some semblance of order.

Let me now regale you with a tale of two shirts. Two shirt projects, that is. I have been promising details on the fuzzy-heart shirt project, but to keep you reading to the end, I’ll start with the tie-dye project. I know, so crafty of me (no pun intended!)

***Spoiler alert: this will be a long post! But full of beautiful color photographs!

My friend is a tie-dye guru. On Friday, she brought scads of dye, rubber bands and other chemicals, as well as her two boys, to our house for a tie-dying soiree. Does it seem like there were waaaay too many commas in that sentence?

It turns out that there is quite a bit of adult-centric prep that goes into “real” tie dying. What we did is not mix a little water in the pre-stocked little squeeze bottles, oh no. Not our style. We had Soda Ash, Urea and Synthrapol Detergent. Say that three times fast, and no, those aren’t cures for medieval diseases! My friend does not mess around.

While the kids did a creative project (Xbox) we mixed the soda ash with water in a big tub and soaked all the t-shirts in that solution. It was supposed to “fix” the dyes when they were applied.

*Sorry, it should be noted that we already had sketched heart shapes on our shirts in pencil, stitched along those lines with waxed dental floss and then gathered the floss to make little pouches. The pouches were rubber-banded tightly before soaking.

We next mixed the urea with water. That is the chemical that would be mixed with the dyes to help brighten them. We mixed it with the dye powders and moved on to twirling the shirts.

My guru had a method. She wrung out the soda-ashed shirts, held the heart-stitched pouch up and twirled the rest of the shirts like tops. They looked like Cinnabons. She then rubber-banded the whole package in place, leaving little pie-shaped wedges.

Like a Cinnabon, right?

And now the fun. Five kids ages six to eleven and so many bottles of urea-ed-to-permanency-dye.

We started with the disgruntled and downtrodden kids (the ones not “allowed to play this round” on the Xbox) and got their hands nice and gloved. Wow, was that more of an ordeal than I thought! “These gloves are too big,” said the middle child of mine. “I need a rubber band for each wrist,” said the youngest of mine. We quickly complied and commenced dying.

Wearing the shirt we made last time!

“Why do I have to put a separate color in each wedge?” asked the middle one. “I want to make stripes in each wedge. What happens if I make stripes in each wedge?”

The guru truthfully answered, “I don’t know.”

“Ooohhh, I want to make stripes in each wedge, too,” the youngest chimed in.

So we started adding dye, one color at a time. I looked over at the middle child and she was filling each wedge with its own color. “What happened to stripes in each wedge?” I asked. “I changed my mind!” Shocking. The youngest cheerfully striped hers anyway.

Because of the way the shirts were Cinnabon-ed, they had to have a lot of dye applied to get it through the layers. I mentioned this to the middle child. She replied, “I don’t want to add a lot of dye.” More on this later. The oldest child jumped in here, and in true utilitarian-style, cranked out about eight wedges in 1.6 seconds and declared hers done.

Now there is a lot of squirting of dye bottles, splashing colors on other colors unintentionally, dripping, wiping and resuming of Xbox.

The guru has sons, and instead of maroon, pink and purple with hearts, they opted for a more Mardi Gras-inspired palette of green, purple and maroon. The guru calls it “fuchsia-red” and not “maroon” because the guru is not an Aggie like me.

It really was unfair to have an Xbox so close to tie dying, because the kids were weak. In the end, it was the guru and I who did the most. She wound up dying several extra shirts we had, and we both made our own shirts as well.

Much pizza eating, Xbox-ing and talking took place here. Then we parted ways for the night.

12 hours pass…

The Grand Unveiling!

I held each shirt under cold running water, and then under warm running water with the rubber bands and floss removed. The girls danced around the sink on tippy-toes. They were clamoring, “I wanna see, I wanna see!” I must confess that I, too, felt a little “I wanna see!”

I spread each one out and there were many oohs and ahhs. The middle child was very unhappy. Remember when I said that she did not want a lot of dye? Well, she didn’t use enough toward the middle and her heart looks more like a circle. She did bounce back quickly and said, “We can just paint a doily heart in the middle.” Problem solved.

I took them all up to the washing machine (shirts, not kids) and this is where the synthrapol detergent came in. All the shirts were washed on hot with this to further set the dye.

Needed more dye

Whew, It will be a long time before we do this again, but we have added to our collection of really fun Valentine’s Day shirts.

A quick blurb on the gauze-heart shirts: I found this on a great blog icandyhandmade (see in blog list to the right). This went quickly from a mom-and-kids project to a mom-only project. The stretchiness of the t-shirts combined with the curves of the hearts made for a tough go for little hands. Though the middle child tried valiantly, the shirt kept slipping. I’ll give you bulleted steps if you want to do this. It is really simple for an adult to do and came out super-cute.

1. Buy a shirt. (duh, I know)

2. Pre-wash it.

3. Buy and pre-wash natural muslin, gauze (not cheesecloth) or loose-weave linen.

4. Find a heart shape you like and trace it with pencil onto square of fabric.

5. Trim to about an inch around the heart image on the fabric.

6. Pin the fabric to the front of the shirt.

7. Stitch along drawn lines.

8. Carefully trim fabric to within ¼ inch of sewn lines. DO NOT CUT SHIRT!!!!

9. Wash and dry shirt.

10. The fabric should start to ravel up so it looks like chenille lines.

11. Put it on a kid or yourself!

Veggie High-Rise

2012-02-07T12:47:00.001-06:00

We interrupt this blog to bring you a broken arm…

So life has intervened in the blog posting as life is wont to do. The oldest child went flying down a hill on her bike, leaving us with this conversation later:

“You know how you get going so fast that you can’t even pedal?” Yes, I do.

“That’s what I was doing and the bike hit something and stopped. I kept going.”

After nearly five hours in the ER and a reduction of both arm bones, she is in a splint awaiting a real cast. Home from school and bored. To top it off, she is right-handed so everything is tough to do.

Luckily, we finished most of our projects this weekend. I’ll discuss the pallet project today and then the others tomorrow. Remember when we created planting pockets from landscape fabric? If not, start here first.

We had chosen a few different veggies for this project. It happened to be 51 degrees and windy when we were planting so the little seedlings kept blowing over. It was frustrating the youngest child.

“Why won’t the wind just stop?” she asked. “Doesn’t it know we’re trying to work?”

Apparently not, because it kept right on. An interesting thing about the make-up of potting soil-it is remarkably airborne when being moved in small batches by small hands. It also has a cunning habit of making its way into eyes. After a few irritating encounters, we were able to scoop the dirt in without sustaining injuries.

Our next step was to pick out the layout of our pallet garden. The middle child wanted to plant lettuce, so she spread out the oak leaf and romaine starters and got them well-spaced.

“If we put these on the bottom, they can get the extra water that drips down from the plants on top,” she said. Good plan!

The youngest was very into seeds, so she planted the sugar-snap peas and cilantro. We made sure that in lower tiers, nothing was planted where the peas would eventually cover. Our big experiment here (beyond will plants grow in a pallet) is to see if peas will vine down when planted up.

The oldest child opted to plant the remainder of the seedlings in the traditional garden after watching the potting-soil-in-the-eyes debacle.

I handled the onions on top since I am the tallest. We also added some oregano for fun.

I have pictures of the youngest child doing her planting thing, but my hands were caked in potting-soil debris when the others were planting so you’ll have to use your imagination!

I also planted a few pots on the porch when they weren't looking. I put lettuce seeds in the shape of a smiley face, so we'll see what they say when it grows. Shhh!

Here is a picture of the finished garden pallet. All we need now is a little sun. Any day now. Any day.

Ta-Da!

A quick side note, I didn’t discuss this shirt project last time, but we made these really easy shirts this weekend from this FamilyFun magazine plan. We took some liberties and used colors and bling, but the painting part only took paper doilies, t-shirt paint and a glue stick. Five minutes each until the blinging began. If you make some, send us pics so we can see them. They were fun!

Pallets are for Planting

2012-02-02T22:35:00.000-06:00

We got started on the pallet project today. We got started on the pallet project today. We got started on the pallet project today. We got started on the pallet project today.

Okay, my tribute to Groundhog Day is over. Really it’s my tribute to Groundhog Day-the movie, not Groundhog Day-the day.

But we did start our pallet project today in case you didn’t get that earlier. I think I know now why the other pallet garden I found online was made the way it was. The way I wanted to do it was tough. Trying to fit a large staple gun in a 3-½ inch space to staple down landscape fabric does not work.

The reason the planter remains plant free? I have three children who are ten, eight and six. It was like a nursery rhyme in our backyard:

That little piggy had homework, that little piggy had chores, and that little piggy cried “Bam! Bam! Bam!” every time the staple gun stapled. And I mean every time.

Needless to say, we slowly moved through the steps of measuring, cutting landscape fabric and stapling it to the boards to make “planting pockets”. In between homework and chores, the three girls helped with everything but stapling. That gun is not user friendly.

Clearly, somebody got Mommy's camera. Smile, Mommy!

We tweaked the design as we stapled, making it easier to maneuver the gun around the pallet boards. After a few modifications, I think we created a pretty decent vertical planter that should hold 20 plants and only take up a four-inch by three-foot ground space. Because we lost a little garden space when our new fence was built, I think two of these planters should really make a difference.

Not pretty yet, but wait...

After we plant the “pockets” tomorrow, we will see if today’s design will be repeated. We might try the style we found online for the next one. It’s a new experience so we may just keep experimenting.

The girls picked out a few veggies and I have some herbs to put in this one. We may plant all salad greens in the next one. Who knows?

Coming Up Next...

2012-01-31T22:19:00.000-06:00

Howdy! (Yes, I’m an Aggie)

I had to take a few days off of crafting and cooking to tackle a very left-brained project that does not involve kids-income taxes. Now that those are prepared and gone (because being creative on your taxes gets you arrested) we are back to living on right brain time and a new project. Three projects, to be exact, but they all take multiple steps and we will be working on a couple of them with friends. I figured that I would give you a quick taste of “what’s next” so that the blog doesn’t stagnate.

Tomorrow, we will get started on a Valentine’s Day tie-dye project. There is nothing like five kids and a bunch of permanent dye to make an afternoon fly by. The plan is to work with my bud, the tie-dye guru, to make tie-dyed heart shirts the way we tie-dyed Mickey Mouse shirts for our trips to the Merry Ol’ Land of Disney (wayyyy better than Oz, if you ask me, although I’ve never actually been to Oz).

The kids will be designing their patterns and then, as the responsible adults in the group (no snickering) we will stitch the heart patterns with dental floss before the mass dyeing occurs. We have to make sure the patterns are stitched tight enough to keep the patterns intact. Stay tuned…

Also on the Valentine’s Day theme, but sans dental floss and scads of ink, is another shirt project. Ever the glutton for punishment and blog fodder, I am leading my ragtag band of offspring back to the sewing machine. I found a very cool project that makes a design look like it is made of chenille but is really made from gauze. You design a pattern, draw it on a shirt, stitch gauze on over the pattern, cut away the excess around your stitch lines and wash to fray the gauze. Seems simple. Let’s hope the operative word is not seems.

For Thursday, I purchased everything for our gardening project (the one we had rained out last week) and we are ready to get that started with some other friends. We have been discussing gardening for over a year now, sharing tips, knowledge and books, and I have a fun idea to take our gardening to another level. Literally. Like three or four more levels. We are going to make tiered pallet gardens.

I hate to admit that my bright idea dimmed a bit when I Googled it and found that someone else had already thought of gardening vertically in a wooden pallet. Everything is on Google…frustrating. My idea is a little different than the one I found, so we’ll see if we are being original after all. I am putting the pictures of our supplies below. This is the before. I’m excited to see how five kiddos turn this into a garden!

Sorry for no saucy, silly or sweet sayings from the wee ones today. Trust me, they’ll be back tomorrow in full-form I’m sure.

P.S.-We actually have a couple marshmallows left. A good thing, too, because they are really good in coffee!

A Sticky Situation

2012-01-28T14:45:00.000-06:00

It’s incredible what a storm can do.

It was Wednesday at 4:30 a.m. At least I think it was 4:30. It’s a little fuzzy now. At any rate, I heard a sound like a bomb exploding and woke up confused. I had no idea what it was until a flash of light lit up the whole room, followed by a second explosion. I realized it was a storm, not an invasion.

Actually, it was both. Immediately we were set upon by three kids and a cat. The other cat made it through under a bed somewhere, and the dog stayed in her kennel but the rest of our motley crew tried to crowd in the queen-sized bed.

As the storm raged on our situation on the bed deteriorated until beanbags were brought in and thrown on the floor and only three of us (and a cat) were left on the bed. At one point we had a mom, a cat and a kid on the bed with a second kid perpendicular across our feet. On the floor was a dad and a third kid, squished on two beanbags each while the dog whined in the kennel. Good times.

At any rate, by the time school was out and work was through, there was little energy for creative endeavors in our home. The next day, too, our project plan was drowned out by the continued rain. So gears had to be switched and we decided on a sweet, indoor project instead. We decided to make marshmallows.

Who doesn’t think the world needs more homemade marshmallows? I am certain you were just saying to someone the other day, “I wish I had some homemade marshmallows but I’m stuck with this old store-bought bag that only cost $1.50”.

I’m pretty sure Williams Sonoma makes some called artisanal marshmallows, so henceforth, I will refer to ours as very-artisanal. I even pre-read the whole recipe and saw where it said, “chill for three hours” before we started. Ha! Take that cake-pop recipe!

Time to call the kids, who bailed on me! That’s right, two of the three decided to go play with friends!

My darling youngest child, referred to here for the rest of the post as “The Favorite”, declared that she would love to make marshmallows and ran to wash her hands.

We started with the unflavored gelatin. It had to “bloom” while we mixed the rest of the candy. The Favorite added ingredients to the pan and started stirring.

At this point, one of the deserters and her friend ran through the kitchen to check out the progress. They tasted the corn syrup and declared it “ewwwww, too sweet!” Impressive, coming from eight year-olds.

Once we got the sugar boiling I took over the stirring. I didn’t want an ER visit, just marshmallows. I added the candy thermometer and turned up the heat. The Favorite asked how hot it was supposed to get and when she heard 240 degrees, she asked, “is that Fahrenheit?” A kindergartener.

We added the sugar mixture to the gelatin and The Favorite was back to stirring again. I put the bowl on the stand mixer and turned it on. We set the microwave timer to six minutes and started watching the mixer.

“Not long until six minutes is over,” she said.

Then, “It’s turning from yellowish-beigeish to white!”

And, “The timer is in the twos now!”

Also, “Since we have a bag of marshmallows (yes, store-bought) we can eat one of those and then one of these and see how they are different and how they are alike,” she said. “We already know one way they are alike without tasting them,” she giggled. “They are both white!”

We turned up the speed and The Favorite nearly lost her mind. “Let’s kick it up, let’s kick it up!” she danced around. “What happens if you turn it up to 10?” I was thinking, “what happens if we turn it up to 11?” I probably would have gotten a blank stare. I don’t think she’s seen Spinal Tap yet.

The timer beeped and we stopped the mixer. In another bowl (starting to get the picture of how many pans and things we used for this?) we put egg whites and started whipping those. Another amazement ensued: “It’s all fluffy, whoa! Egg whites are fluffy, fluffy white and marshmallows are fluffy, fluffy white,” she said. “But marshmallows are fluffy white cylinders.” Yup.

We added the egg whites to the mixer then poured the mix in a pan right when deserter two and her pal buzzed through again. The Favorite was licking a spatula and said, “This tastes just like a marshmallow, you guys should try it!”

They started to act very friendly and saying nice things to me…yes, I was suspicious. “Oh, now you want to be involved,” I said. I caved. I let the other kids try some. They had such big sweet smiles until I told them it would be three hours until we had full marshmallows. Gone again.

Three hours later…

We actually had marshmallows. Very artisanal, oddly shaped and vanilla-ey marshmallows. The kids all got some (even the deserters and the friend who now may think we are crazy) and they declared that, “They taste like really vanilla-ey marshmallows!”

Now for homemade graham crackers.

Or maybe not!

Finishing the Final Case

2012-01-23T14:55:00.000-06:00

Before I regale you with the events of Pillowcase #3, I wanted to let you in on a little perk of this endeavor. Since we’ve been creating marvelous masterpieces, the girls have had less time to memorize infomercial taglines. Sigh of relief!

There is just so much “They’re happy, Happy Nappers, and they love to play with you!” or “Wuggle Pets, Wuggle Pets, snuggle my, huggle my, Wuggle Pet!” or “Now, get the best of both worlds with Pajama Jeans!” I can take.

My kids are walking ads that spit out taglines at will. I have been informed that the Buxton Leather Organizer could really help me every day, or that the Gyro Bowl would keep the car clean. Thank you, Disney Channel, for your discerning commercial selection process.

Now, though, they aren’t getting much post-homework TV time and my brain is getting a much deserved hiatus from infomercial-theme drivel.

Moving on to the pillowcase process with my middle child. I have said before that nobody needs to be told she is the middle child. Spend five minutes with her and you’ll be pretty confident of her birth order. She is also a very quirky, funny pinball of a child who never stops asking questions. I literally had to stop the process 14 times to jot down what she said.

This child also has a little sewing experience. Last year, in first grade, she worked on a hand-sewn quilt block. Therefore, she declared that she “knows how to sew.” The machine and rotary cutter were new territory, however, so I had to tell her that she did not “know how to sew.”

Here is her first experience sitting in front of the machine (please read the next part at high, high speed for accuracy):

“Are we going to use any of those big quilting feet you showed us yesterday? I was wondering if we can use a cool crisscross stitch on mine. Why does the machine say computer on it? I want two different colors of blue thread, one in the top and one in the bobbin. Why does the machine make that sound when you turn it on? I already moved the pedal so I can reach it. Oh, this machine was made in Sweden!”

And then it was time to take the first stitches.

I had her guide the fabric carefully through the machine, stitch steadily, and she did a decent job of keeping everything together. Then she started veering off course a bit. I had her stop and readjust. Soon she was doing it again and I realized she was staring at the metal gears and arms that move the thread through the machine and not at what she was sewing.

“What are you looking at,” I asked her.

“It’s fun to sew with the machine because you can watch everything work,” she said. “That part is going up and down when I push the pedal. It’s like it’s popping out of the machine to see who is sewing!”

We proceeded.

“Can we decorate the edge using that foot that you have to lower the feed dogs to use,” she asked. “The feed dogs are helpful. Thank you Mr. feed dogs.”

She had to stop to switch fabrics and for me to iron the seams. That gave her ample opportunity to poke around the nooks and crannies of the machine.

“Its cool that you have two places to keep stuff you need for sewing,” she said. “Do you like using the machine better or sewing by hand? I like that you can take a job that might take a month by hand, and do it in an hour with the machine.”

I agreed with her but shared that it was very cathartic (that’s fancy for soothing) to quilt by hand and that I preferred it sometimes. She agreed. “I really liked sewing by hand and making all the stitches on my quilt last year,” she said. “But I poked my fingers a lot.” She then put her finger directly under the foot and needle and said, “Look, my little pinkie does fit under here.”

Sigh.

She got back to sewing, attaching the flange to the main fabric of the case. “I like sewing with you better than sewing alone,” she said. (Go ahead and awwwwww now, if you so choose. I mean, serious case of the warm fuzzies here!) She continued with, “Did you like sewing with my sisters?” I said that I have loved sewing with all three of them.

One thing that cracked me up was her little sing-song repetition. Every time she finished a seam she would raise the foot, pull the fabric to the side and sing, “Raise, pull, scissors, open and snip!” Every time.

We took the finished case to the ironing board for a last press and she said, “The kid who gets this pillowcase is going to be lucky because this is my original design that will only happen once.”

If only there was a way to boost her self-esteem…

I am so glad that we took on this project. It really could not have been a better case study in personality and I loved all three experiences. I also love the pride that radiated off of them when we delivered the pillowcases. The lady at the shop asked if they had helped Mommy with the project. All three piped up “WE made them!” and they sure did.

We did it!

Dropping them at Quilt Country

Pillowcase Pitfalls and Perseverance

2012-01-19T15:29:00.000-06:00

Today’s blog will share the experience of making a pillowcase with my oldest child. At the risk of shattering the image you may have of our Hallmark-commercial-like dream world over here, the sewing “got real” yesterday.

Now is a good time to talk about personality differences. Despite the fact that all three of my girls were 100% on board at the start of this project, the detail-oriented phase of sewing has really drawn out the differences in each child-and in myself, I might add. Whereas the six year-old was very attentive and careful, my fifth-grader became distracted and hurried. (I would assert here that she and I are wayyyyyy too much alike for this to have gone swimmingly!)

Initially, she was excited. She sat down, lined up the fabric, asked many of the same questions that her sister asked the day before, but was saved from having to ask more because she had watched some of our session and knew the answers.

She did want to know, “If that shows you all the different stitches that you have to use, why don’t you ever use those stitches when you sew?”

Good question. Why do we care that machines can stitch 25 different flower, crosshatch and heart designs if we don’t use those in our work?

“I don’t know…I guess I never think about it,” was my lame answer.

She was not impressed.

“I usually just use the straight stitch or the zigzag,” I said, and pointed those out.

“Well, if those show you what the stitch is supposed to look like,” she asked next, “why doesn’t that come out looking like a weird-looking, little, upside-down goal post?"

Well-spotted, but I had to explain that it was showing that you could stitch a straight stitch with one needle or run a side-by-side line of straight stitches with two needles.

“Oh…” she said, still not impressed.

I am not trying to color your perception of my kids with these descriptions, but it is well-known that this child would rather be out throwing touchdown passes or catching a softball than sitting indoors doing minutely detailed handwork, so we were on a time-crunch here.

So, she began to stitch. Knowing she craved trust and independence I took a step back and let her run with it for a little while alone. Periodically, I would have to guide her back or she would have to rip out some stitches and start again.

This was a much less-complicated pillowcase due to the fact that this is the most “less-is-more” kid we have. After finishing the flange and turning it right side out, she started giggling about the word “bodkin” which I gave her to point the corners of the flange (she giggled about the word “flange” too, come to think of it).

After she composed herself, she handed the hilarious flange over to be ironed. I guess she shares the same opinion as her sister about kids ironing.

It is at this point that the experience went all pear-shaped. I was standing close behind her as she sewed the flange to the body of the pillowcase. When she had a little trouble with a particular part of the seam, I asked her to take her foot off the pedal as I tried to guide the fabric back into place.

“Stop for a sec.”

“Stop the pedal.”

“Stop.”

“Stop, stop, stop!”

I was a bit distressed at nearly having my finger integrated into the pillowcase, but we re-adjusted and kept on. After another rough patch of stitches, she shoved her rolling chair backwards in frustration. Right. Over. My. Toes. It hurt. Badly. I really wished I had been wearing shoes, but I wasn’t. I should have held it in, but I yelled in pain. She got upset and said, “I can’t do this!”

Pause for ensuing discussion about perseverance, commitment, work ethic, *pithy softball-analogy*, promises, quality time and dedication…

And we’re back!

She decided to finish the pillowcase and see the project through. The biggest selling point was that we were doing this for someone else.

Even with the hiccups, she was very proud that she finished and loves her pillowcase. She pointed in out to her sisters and dad, and she is looking forward to going to drop the pillowcases off at the quilt shop.

My take-away? That not every project is for every kid, and that’s okay. This was my grand scheme and they may not always buy-in. What I loved is that we did spend the time together and that we were both learning some lessons about life and each other along the way.

Six Year-Old Seamstress

2012-01-18T09:15:00.001-06:00

Today’s lesson is as follows: Never underestimate a six year-old. Oh, and this is a long post.

Three days earlier…

The pillowcase project was off to an auspicious start. All the fabric was chosen, all the pieces cut. We were on our way. A whole long weekend stretched before us, full of promise.

As it turns out, it was too much time. The three days provided just enough time to lure us away from our project. The 65-70 degree temperatures didn’t hurt (I mean, it’s January!)

I guess even creative pursuits and blogs need their holiday breaks. We spent our time as we should have on a long weekend: we saw movies and concerts, spent time with family and friends, ate out and tried new dishes at home (shockingly, the braised kale and French onion soup succeeded where split peas did not).

Present day…

This morning arrived with a cold front and a return to our semi-regular schedules. After bustling through the work, school, gymnastics, homework, dinner, angst (I can’t wait for sixth grade if fifth is this fun) of a normal Tuesday, I determined that this project was going to be finished easier if we went one-on-one. The youngest child had the least homework so she was elected the winner of “Finish My Case Today” day.

Giddy may not describe how excited she was to sit down in front of the sewing machine. Our first exchange went something like this:

“I get to actually sit here?”

Yes.

“And do the sewing?”

Yes.

“And push the foot pedal?”

Yes.

“Heeheeeeee!!!” (Or something like that)

I have been naturally nervous about introducing the girls to “the machine” because they have small fingers. Small fingers that look like they would fit really, really well under the needle of a sewing machine. So, I was a little apprehensive today.

“There are so many feet for this machine,” she said. “Why are they called feet?”

“Why is it called a bobbin?”

“What does that button do?

“Can we use all of those feet?”

Whew!

After the fiftieth time saying things like “watch your fingers,” and “don’t push the pedal too fast,” and “watch your fingers,” I got a stare back that was a mix of pity and irritation. I decided we were ready.

She started sewing the long strips of fabric together first. Slowly and methodically, she pushed the pedal. It took her about three tries before she hit her stride. At first, I guided the fabric as she used the pedal. Soon, she started to guide the fabric as well. Impressed. That’s the best word I can use. Even when she started to veer off track a little or push the pedal a bit too fast, she auto-corrected pretty quickly.

You forget how many things are involved with sewing a simple, straight seam. Foot pedal speed, lining up the fabric, watching for pins, feeding the fabric evenly-everything seemed magnified as I tried to show this kindergartener how to do it all at once. I was in control of pins, so every time we came close to one she would yell, “Pin!” and stop the machine so I could pull it out of the fabric.

At the end of the first seam, she faced her next challenge: what fabric to use next. She chose and started sewing again. After she finished sewing the last strip onto he rest, she laid the whole piece out on the table.

“I got it perfect because those two flower fabrics were on my skirt and they are together, and those two have dots and they are together!”

One of her favorite things about this project was using fabric remnants from other projects we have done before.

I had to step in fully at this point to iron all of the seams and square up the fabric. She was very sage, “I had a feeling that you wouldn’t let me do the ironing,” she said. “I mean, who would let their six year-old child iron? If I heard of someone doing that I would just freak out.”

So, please don’t tell her if you know of someone who lets their six year-old iron. I do not need the extra drama…unless you have a video camera and get the freak out recorded. That could be useful later.

I digress.

During the dangerous ironing process, she went up to change for bed. She danced downstairs in a nightgown and pajama pants I made her.

“Guess why I’m wearing this?” she asked. “Because you made it with your sewing machine and I am sewing with your sewing machine!”

You can’t argue with that logic.

After the pajamas went on, we started sewing, cutting and ironing like clockwork. She rotary cut (with help) and stitched and I ironed and pinned. I estimate she did about 70% of the sewing. There were some tough spots once the layers got thicker and the machine snagged a bit.

Finally, one last backstitch and we were, “Finished!!!! Daddy, look, I finished my pillowcase!”

She put it on a pillow to make sure it fit and observed “I really hope a girl gets this because of all the flowers and pink.”

One down, two to go. I must confess, though. The time, joy, effort, attention to detail and pride of this six year-old child is inspiring. The time we spent together was priceless. The ability to talk to my child about sewing with my grandmother at that same machine when it belonged to her was amazing. The fact that my child was learning to sew and making something for someone else was rewarding. I will not underestimate her and am just so excited to see what she will come up with each new day!

Split Peas and Rotary Cutters

2012-01-13T14:48:00.000-06:00

I will start today with a non-craft scenario:

I spent two hours cooking split pea soup from scratch (never made it before, in my defense) because it is really cold outside and the kids are home from school. The soup had good flavor and texture (Although I can completely see why this made a good prop in The Exorcist) and we, the adults of the house, happily ate it with crusty bread.

"Yummy, right?"

One child ate more than half of hers but later said, “I just want you to know that I didn’t really care for this and I only ate it because it was my lunch.”

The next child ate the crumbles of bacon on top, and then took a bite with her hand clamped over her nostrils, declaring, “This tastes like vomit!” Precious angel!

The final child dipped bites of the crusty bread into the soup and ate them, but would not have a bite sans bread. She had no words, just a sad look on her face as she shook her head no. Her expression said: “If you loved me, you never would have made this.”

My question is, what would you have done when they all looked up after the table was cleared and said, “Can we have dessert?”

I showed great restraint and just ignored them.

After lunch, we moved into the craft room to start cutting out our pillowcase fabrics. There was some adjustment of fabric choices, scrapping of original designs and re-working of patterns. They had to overcome the hurdle of inexperience, but each fabric cut was straighter than the last.

By no means will any of then be set free with a rotary cutter any time soon, but at least they graduated from waving the blade (opened) in the air for emphasis to opening it only after it was on the cutting mat. They also discovered that it takes more than three steps to make a pillowcase.

There was a lot of discussion over fabric choices once they actually laid the pieces out and mocked up the final pillowcases.

“Oh, that’s what it will look like? I don’t like it,” said the youngest. She decided to make the body of the pillowcase all one fabric instead of giving it a border of quilted squares. Make no mistake, she still LOOOOOOVES the way all the “beautiful” fabrics will look in a checkerboard pattern on the flange. “They will be perfect with the cow print.” Let’s hope her case finds an eclectic owner.

These will all be going on the cow print case!

The middle child decided to save one of her fabrics for her blanket project next month. “I think the owls and monkeys will be better for a blanket,” she said. “I am just using circles and yellow. It's perfect.”

The oldest was able to handle the rotary cutter the best. She has more strength and a bigger hand (Have I mentioned that she wears a size 8 ½ women’s shoe at age 10?), which really helped her control. She did wonder “why are we making these pillowcases so big?” A great chance to explain seam allowances and how things shrink as you sew each seam.

We were ready for a break right around the time we finished cutting out the last bit for the project. (Really, really ready for a break!) Now it’s movie time. Love this lazy day!

Piles of pillowcase fabrics, ready to sew!

A Case of Charitable Crafting

2012-01-12T08:19:00.001-06:00

We had a very nice Christmas, full of many blessings. Very few people should have been disappointed in our house. True, the kids did ask Santa for those traditional, early elementary school gifts: iPhone 4S and iPads, etc. Santa laughed.

Despite their lack of connectivity, they did score some highly desirable toys, games and experiences. It is tough sometimes to see the value in gifts when your dad works for a toy company, but we have worked hard to ensure that they don’t live like Ricky Schroder in Silver Spoons (yes, I’m that old and yes, I mean Rick Schroder if you aren’t that old). Still, at Christmas, we go a little crazier than normal.

This year, I sensed a dash of post-Christmas malaise, complete with a pinch of ungratefulness. I decided that we needed to focus a bit more on those that are not us. I came across a magazine ad for an organization that makes pillowcases for others. American Patchwork and Quilting is trying to give 1,000,000 handmade pillowcases to others. These can be foster children, cancer patients, victims of domestic violence, etc. I thought it would be a perfect project for us to tackle. The girls can learn sewing skills and soul skills. Crafting and creativity can serve many functions, and this was the chance for us to use those for others.

My plan is to tackle one charitable project each month. This month will be the pillowcase project. After doing a bit of research, I found many more organizations that translate creative endeavors into joy and comfort for those who need them.

The girls were very enthusiastic when I explained the project to them. They immediately agreed that it was the perfect plan for us. The kindergartener determined that we had much more ambition than I think we really do.

“We can make 100,” she told us.

“Maybe less,” I told her.

“Yeah, maybe,” she agreed.

Last night we picked out the fabrics and downloaded the pillowcase patterns from the organization. I wanted everything to be ready for our much-needed, long-awaited four-and-a-half day January break. (Does it sound like I thought one day extra off would have been sufficient?) Anyway, I also downloaded the rules, which were key, because our enthusiasm included statements like, “Once we finish sewing them we can paint a really big, pretty design on the front!”

I explained that the rules don’t include painting the front and that the pillowcase might not feel comfortable to sleep on that way.

Once again, the kindergartener piped up with a suggestion.

“It’s simple to make a pillowcase,” she said, in her infinite wisdom. “Step one, get your fabric, step two, sort it out and step three, make it. Three easy steps!”

She then launched into a little happy dance, singing the little song from Special Agent Oso as she spun around the kitchen.

In a wacky coincidence, when you get on the charity's website, the first thing you see is:

"In 3 easy steps, turn your love of quilting and sewing into messages of comfort, hope and love..." and then they list the three easy steps. Wow, the kid is freaking me out!

Tonight we will experience perhaps a few tiny additional steps, but I think they won’t mind. They certainly didn’t mind ravaging the four boxes of fabric I got out. There was a lot of “Ohhh, look at this one,” and “This is SO going on mine.”

Here is a pile of what we will turn into four pillowcases:

I was contracted by one child to make a preliminary sketch for one of the pillowcases:

I was then told, “I want all those little squares around the cow print to be a different fabric and I don’t want to repeat even one time.”

I said, “I want a vacation.”

I was met with a blank stare. I said, “Never mind. We’ll see about the fabrics tomorrow.”

Stay tuned to see if we can turn a table full of fabrics into four pillowcases. One mom, three kids, one sewing machine. We have four and a half days to make it work!

If you want to make your own pillowcases, go to AllPeopleQuilt.com/millionpillowcases.

Thanks for the Fun

2012-01-08T22:06:00.000-06:00

Pardon the hiatus, but I had a long weekend. I had to proctor a sleepover, (drama, anyone?) and that took a lot of mental energy as well as coffee consumption and refereeing.

I also had to upgrade my operating system to Lion, even though I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard. What’s up next, Apple? We've already reached the most powerful feline in the animal kingdom…maybe Lioness?

Finally, we took down Christmas decorations. Never my favorite, not because of the work, but because of the way the house feels when they're gone. It seems so bare, even though it has plenty going on. Even the six year-old felt the letdown. She started crying and said, “The house is not so pretty now!” All the more reason to get creative and fill the blank spaces, right?

Anyway, not a lot of supreme creativity going on this weekend. I did make red velvet whoopie pies for the party. I attempted to make it a group project but was trumped by Just Dance 3 and the prospect of “staying up until midnight to watch the new Jessie.” Ahhh, the fickle eight year-old.

So I will share with you the Christmas thank you note adventure from last week. I promised I would, once people had received them. We should be good to go now.

If you have one, two or more kids, you know the fun of trying to get them to write thank you notes after holidays and parties. Not the highlight of the day, and littler ones get writer’s cramp after about, oh, two words.

I thought we’d take a different tack on the thank yous this year, and get the kids involved with planning them. They decided to act out their thank yous to show the appreciation for the gifts they received.

They got out their gifts, clothes, tickets and toys. We put everything on the table and started a crazy, frenetic photo shoot. One f the girls would yell out a name: “Uncle Jim!” I would snap a pic and they’d shout the next name. “Mimi!” and off they’d go again, throwing on a shirt and grabbing a ticket.

Yell.

Grab.

Pose.

Snap.

Repeat.

After the frenzy we had a series of poses. I uploaded them all and sent them to a local pharmacy for one hour processing. In the meantime, we cut rectangles from Christmas-print scrapbooking cardstock, wrote notes on the backs and everyone signed them. After the pictures were ready, we glued them to the cardstock and, Voila! Christmas-framed prints of thanks.

Hopefully the cards were received with the same joy as the girls had making them. They put as much, if not more, time, attention and thought into thanking the people who had put time, attention and thought into their gifts. Instead of a chore, the job became a game. Wow did I channel my inner Mary Poppins or what? I didn’t even need the spoonful of sugar!

We Scrubbed This Post

2012-01-06T15:25:00.000-06:00

I have a very fun project to discuss. One that we spent time imagining, planning, creating and finishing. But, I can’t talk about it yet because we made it for someone. Ha, ha! Teaser! I’ll fill in the details soon. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, we revisited an old project that might be best described as an epic fail. The second try was just shy of epic. Let’s call it an impressive fail. I will henceforth refer to this episode as the “Great Mocha-Spice Scrub Debacle of 2012” from now on.

Before Christmas I chatted with my sister-in-law about homemade sugar scrubs. We swapped recipes, discussed ingredients, planned storage containers.

We spotted a mocha-spice recipe, perfect for someone that we will affectionately call Starbucks-affected (I am not an addict). It was a delicious list of coffee grounds, cocoa powder, cinnamon and ginger. All of that goodness was swirled in sugar and “your favorite carrier oil” because, goodness knows, we all have a favorite carrier oil!

I initially chose olive oil because of its healing properties (ok, it was free in my cabinet). I mixed everything and then set out to have a lovely spa experience. This was a shower project, as I came to discover. Every inch of my tub was coated with oil, coffee grounds and a dark powder.

That was the tub. I was coated with what looked like the Exxon Valdez leftovers. The cocoa and cinnamon got stuck in the oil and didn’t wash off, so I now had an odd, filthy quality. And I had reddish scratches on my arms and legs from the coffee grounds. Darn that barista for grinding it too big!

Also, I may have invented a new Olympic sport-bathtub luging. Apply a thick coat of oil to a bathtub and then try to get out of it. Ha!

30 minutes later I was clean, the tub was clean, my skin was soft, albeit streaked with red, but I smelled oddly like coffee and olives. Not a great combination.

That was what I called the epic failure. I hear my sister-in-law had a similar experience.

This week, I tried to start again with the girls and make it a hand scrub instead. I tweaked the recipe, used a smaller grind of coffee and less cocoa. I also determined that I had changed alliances in the carrier oil of choice department. I moved to grapeseed oil which had less olivey odor.

The girls were very interested. Especially when they saw cocoa powder and heard the word spa. Anything related to a spa draws them like bears to honey. Must be innate since they have never been to a spa. Smart girls. Anyway, they made comments like:

“This smells sooooooo good.”

“Are we eating this?”

“Do we have to add coffee?”

After mixing it all together, it looked like sludge.

Not super-appetizing, but not smelling like olives either. Since I was not going to have us eat this concoction, I figured we were good.

I bit the bullet and decided to go first. I scooped out the scrub, rubbed it on my hands and discovered that the change in coffee grounds and oils had made a slight difference. No more red scratches. No more olivey smell. It felt good on my hands-I’m sure they were getting that healthy exfoliation. Then I looked at the girls.

“I am NOT putting that on my hands!” said the youngest.

“Me either!” said the oldest.

“Are you sure that’s for hands?” said the middle.

I think the visual may have put them off. Here is what the sink looked like:

I think going forward, I will stick with a basic sugar-in-grapeseed-oil scrub and keep my coffee in a mug.

Leave me a note if you have ever made a scrub from scratch that didn’t go haywire. Have a great weekend!

An Easy Project to Pin Down

2012-01-05T08:56:00.000-06:00

I would like to start with an award.

It’s not current, but I think being able to fit the lyrics: “Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti,” earns Toto the Creativity-of-the-Week Award. Congratulations, Toto!

Sorry for the sidetrack-the lyrics have just always fascinated me.

I did a little project yesterday with my ten year-old and her church Pioneer Club group. I work with crafts for the 5th grade and we do a project roughly every other week. This is fairly simple but for the fact that we have about 25 minutes to do the whole thing and ten 5^th graders.

Yesterday, they were working to earn either woodworking or music badges. The handbook suggested breaking out saws, hammers, nails, screwdrivers, etc. and making a birdhouse or lap-desk. I saw this less as a chance to earn a woodworking badge and more of a chance to learn basic first-aid.

The last helpful idea from the handbook was to start each child sawing a piece of plywood into small rectangles, sanding them and painting domino details on them. Times ten. In 25 minutes. I am not a miracle worker.

At the other end of the spectrum were the music crafts. The handbook offered maracas made from plastic eggs with beans inside or rain sticks made from cardboard tubes. Try to get those crafts to engage a bunch of 10 and 11 year-olds. I dare you.

I thought a trip to O Hobby! My Lobby! might start the wheels turning, so off I went. Standing in the unfinished-wood-items-of-all-kinds aisle, I had an epiphany.

“We all get an Epiphany this week,” you may be saying. “It’s tomorrow!”

True, but mine was a lower-case epiphany.

I remembered a small, wooden cross I purchased years ago in Buffalo Gap, Texas with the characteristic mindset “I can make that!” At the time, I thought it was the perfect kid-friendly project. I finally could test that theory.

I bought bags of wooden clothespins and bottles of wood glue then set to work “un-pinning” the clothespins. After some numb fingertips and a few great helpers pitched in (shout out to Lisa, Tricia and Eddy) we got the little clips off and we were ready to go.

These things were like puzzles. A little difficult to sort out at first, but once the kids got the hang of how to build them, the crosses started to come together quickly. Tricia (shout out number two) had the genius idea to glue the clothespins together in pairs first, before building the over-all cross. This really helped the kids manage the construction. The biggest obstacle was lack of patience to hold pieces together for the glue to set. Soon, though, we had a set of beautiful wooden crosses.

How interesting to see their individual personalities really jump out as they worked. Frustration, confidence, accomplishment, defeat-then success. All had a finished cross that was beautiful to take home, they just arrived at the end by different methods.

And I now have 144 little metal clips…Looks like another project to figure out! What would you do with them?

Pop Goes the Recipe

2012-01-02T22:29:00.000-06:00

First off: Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner! Here is the winning choice, the framed family name that passed with a majority vote. The cool thing about this project is that we can switch out letters periodically to make the dissenters happy. I knew there were dissenters even before the vote because every few hours someone would swap out letters as the photos lay on the table.

Now on to new business.

Have you ever seen the movie Mr. Mom? You know the scene where the house was a disaster and the repairwoman asked, “You fed your baby chili?”

Have that in mind as you read this account of yesterday’s culinary wizardry. It will help you picture the state of the kitchen. Actually, the picture below will help you picture the state of the kitchen.

This was one of those recipes that you glance at and think “This is a piece of cake!” But then it isn’t. Not even close. The recipe writers sneak little phrases like “chill for 45-60 minutes” into a paragraph near the middle. Three lines after “let cool completely before proceeding.”

I really am talking about some pieces of cake here-cake pops to be precise. Thus my confusion at their complexity. The girls have wanted to make cake pops for two weeks. I finally broke down and bought some cake pop kits from the great, behemoth, coffee-Mecca I frequent.

We did not attempt this from scratch, in case you are asking yourself, “Did they attempt this from scratch?” Hey, the kits were on clearance, I’m not insane!

So yesterday’s plan was to assemble our intrepid crew at the kitchen counter, mix up a batch of cute little confections and have rows of precious petite pops to show for it.

Ha.

Step one: bake the cakes.

The cakes, not the cake pops. I have labored under the delusion for years that the adorable little cake pops were baked as adorable little balls of cake. I was so far off it wasn’t funny. We began this process at 6:00 p.m. 30 minutes later we encountered the “let cool completely” line of doom. I discovered that once the girls scampered off for another task while we waited, they were tough to get back.

Around 7:15 we had cooled cake ready to be crumbled. The girls came back, washed and dried their hands a third time, and dove into the crumbling (actually, I test-crumbled the first batch while I was waiting.) We quickly moved on to adding the frosting and blending into a dough-like mixture. We were cruising-scooping dough, rolling cake balls, putting in the sticks. Then the emergency brake “chill for 45-60 minutes” popped up.

Taking the low end, we were ready for the white chocolate coating and sprinkling by about 8:15. At this point, I was down to one helper and I had to set aside the rest of the pops for Day 2. We finished the rest after school today, proving that it can take nearly 24 hours for relatively competent people to make 24 cake pops.

Lessons learned?

10 year-old, after making one: “I’m done. That’s all I wanted to do.”

7 year-old, after whining that she couldn’t make them all: “We could make 100 of these!”

6 year-old, after making several: “This was fun!”

Me, around 7:15 on Day 1: “I should have read the whole recipe!”

Walk on the Wild Side

2011-12-31T15:17:00.000-06:00

If you have spent any time with me at all, you know I succumb regularly to a malady called “I can make that.” This illness manifests itself whenever I go to First Monday in Canton, any craft show or when I troll the genius that is Pinterest.

“I am not going to pay $50 for that when I can make that.”

I may even go so far as to purchase the supplies or dredge them from my stash. I rarely do “make that.” A notable exception is the penguin jammies I made the girls for Christmas, because they really were that quick, cheap and easy.

I decided yesterday, for our first foray into the creative unknown, we would tackle one of those “I can make that” white whales.

Yesterday we went to the Dallas Zoo. As members and rabid zoo addicts, this is not unusual. We love it, the girls love it. I don’t know that the animals are terribly impressed, but we go anyway. I decided that we would create our own scavenger hunt this time. After ogling those distinct, framed versions of last names, created from photos of “found” letters and arranged to spell things, I declared again, “I can make that.”

Never did.

Until now.

I had the girls keep their eyes peeled for any unique, colorful, and different E, V, A, N and S letters they could find. We scoured the grounds of the zoo for them. Some had too much glare, others were too small. Some were too close to their neighbors or too far away from us. More than once, I got an odd stare for standing right in front of a beautiful, exotic animal and focusing my lens on an “S” on a sign instead. C'est la Vie!

We made it home with about 25 options between the phone and camera. That, apparently, was the easy part. The tough part was getting four individual brains to like the same combination of five letters. I will show them all below and let you know tomorrow which one won. I have my favorite, but I am playing it cool.

When we reach stalemates of this variety, we usually have to make the girls write their votes on individual slips of paper and we read the results aloud. Otherwise, one will vote for something she hates, just to annoy the others. Ahhhh, sisters. I am off to the grand dame herself, Hobby Lobby, to shop for an odd-shaped frame. Regardless of which iteration wins, they are all the same size!

Creating the Blog

2011-12-29T23:12:00.000-06:00

Let me begin by addressing those who found their way to this blog thinking that this is an equine-enthusiast site or a procrastinators paradise… it is neither of those (though I have been known to put off until tomorrow, the day after or indefinitely what should be done yesterday).

I could have named the site “Going off half-cocked” but this sounded decidedly less filthy and more ambiguous.

This is actually a blog devoted to my pursuit of returning to my creative roots. To reclaiming those crafty, artistic, green-thumbed, floured-nosed, ink-stained endeavors that bring me so much joy. I have lost much of my creative self over the past decade as I have been raising my three daughters.

In a time when I was teaching them to embrace their own natural creativity, I was allowing boxes and bins to fill with unfinished projects and half-started ideas. There never seemed to be enough time at the end of the day for the “frivolous” project. On the times I managed to finish one, it was all-consuming as I put important tasks aside to “get it done”. Not a very creative process.

I would also find myself kicking the kids out of the room as I worked. Calling the project my “catharsis” or reward for all the work I did every day. Blah, blah, blah…Basically I hoarded the fun. Squirreled away the experience, knowledge and satisfaction that come from making something from scratch or repurposing discarded items. I should have been bringing the girls in and sharing it with them.

Now that they are all school-aged, independent thinkers, I have decided to make a concerted effort to pursue creativity recklessly. This year will be my own creative revival, so to speak. Starting now, I will begin to take one unfinished project at a time, and complete it. I will find that idea jotted on a scrap of paper and bring it to fruition, that photo of the compost bin made from reclaimed wood and make it from the scraps we have on hand. I will finish the quilt that sits, as blocks, in a bag.

I plan to make my girls my copilots in this journey. I want them to channel their own creativity and feel free to express it. I will teach them to sew, to crochet, and to coax a winter garden out of the frigid ground. We will make soufflés, write plays and craft great messes.

Although I started this blog to chronicle my creative quest (and, lets face it, accountability doesn’t hurt) I do think it will be fun to jot down our adventures-or misadventures-as they come.

Back to the Blog title. I mentioned to a friend that wanted to start a blog about my creative journey with my girls. I told her that I was going to start writing tonight. She asked if I had any idea how to start a blog. I told her, simply, no. She mentioned that I might be putting the cart before the horse…well, lets see if the horse can catch up!