Frying Pan

I want to make a play kitchen for the kids.  So of course I need to make all the play food and accessories to go with it.  I was looking through Etsy last night and found this!  She also has lots of other neat patterns for food, and a mailbox playset.  I'm trying not to spend any money right now, so I didn't buy the pattern but tried to do it myself.  I'm quite happy with the look of the frying pan, I used cardboard sandwiched between 2 shallow crochet "bowls".  It was really the handle that gave me issues, I didn't think about how it would just hang like a doll's leg off the pan and not support it at all.  I don't have a solution to this problem as a bamboo skewer is not a safe part of a child's toy.  I may in fact just pay my 5 bucks and get the patterns for all the pots and pans.  Let someone else give me the solution. Can't say I didn't try.

One Down...

So I finished the curtain for the kid's playroom.  It's about as basic and easy a curtain as one can make.  One yard of fabric, no cutting, just a bunch of seams and an open casing.  I like it though, the print adds a bit of color to the dreadfully white room...ah the joys of renting!  My son picked out the fabric at Ikea about a month ago, maybe a bit more.  I'm hoping he and his sister will be excited about it when they wake up.  Now I need to make the curtain for my room, and yes the fabric was bought at the same time.  I think it will taunt me all the more since I've already finished the easy curtain. 

Our Afternoons

Have lately been filled with indoor activities.  The heat is too much for me, let alone the kids.  I feel I need a book of ideas to help plan ours days now, as outside play is for the mornings.

Corners of My Home:: Now

The playroom is starting to take shape.  I feel the walls need more color, but I can have the kids draw pictures for that.  I'm really happy to have separate day and night spaces for them. Just need a good solution for art supply storage.

Summer Solstice

Happy longest Day of the year everyone!  I almost forgot about it since I've been on autopilot for a few days.  I need to just slow down and take the moments as they come.  Someday I will have another house/property that I own, and there will be Solstice parties!  Maybe equinox ones too.  Right now I am sipping my coffee and sneaking into my kid's bedroom to smell their sleeping sweetness.

Maple Butter

Is delicious!  Maple Butter for half price is divine.

First Project

Well it's my first project made entirely at this house! I was itching to use my sewing machine, and one of the first things I came across when unpacking was the plain old white bath mat for the kids' bathroom. I decided something had to be done about it. So I remembered a tutorial from Sew Liberated. I wasn't in the mood to do a lot of piecing, so I just did strips.  It's a lovely easy way to use up scraps that are too big to get rid of, and from fabric that one loves so much!  I am also going to give the mat in my bathroom the same treatment, only I'll do a few things differently.  For this one I sewed the fabic piece onto the towel piece with right sides together and then turned it.  I found that to be a bit bulky for my machine on the edges where I wanted to do some edge sewing.  For the next one I will just make the fabric piece larger and iron a bit back and sew with the right sides already facing out, so no turning and no extra bulky edges.  Plus this is the first time I've "stitched in the ditch"  Yes, my strips are not straight, ummm I have issues with straight lines and I have been unable to locate my beloved shears and had to use embroidery scissors.  But I think it looks lovely.

No Fail Lemonade Recipe

Start off with a morning bike ride to the park.  Play until temperature reaches at least 100.  Have at least 1 child have a melt down at park.  Come home with 2 sweaty adults and 2 sweatier children. 

Put 2/3 cup sugar into a pitcher (easiest if scoop in sugar jar just happens to be a 2/3 cup anyway).
Pour warm/hot water into pitcher (I use around 3 pints).
Stir until all sugar is disolved.
Pour lemon juice from handy container in fridge until lemonade looks the right color.
Taste, add more lemon juice/sugar/water until it tastes right to you.
Add beautiful actual cube ice cubes from the Tovolo 80-12007 Perfect Cube Silicone Ice-Cube Trays, Set of 2, Dark Blue that were never used for the homemade organic baby food you meant to actually make.

Commence drinking wonderful lemonade that is so cheap and easy to make you will wonder why you ever bought the stuff in the bottle.  Just remember you will buy more premixed in the bottle and that's okay too.

The New Alabama Skirt

I went to a wedding in Austin this past weekend and saw a bunch of friends.  It was a lovely time.  I stayed up extra late the night before I left to sew the elastic onto my skirt so I could wear it on my trip.  As you can see the one tree isn't done yet.  I had grand plans of each tree being different, I think I will finish the one with yellow apples, but I doubt I'll get around to putting more trees on the back.  It looks a little funky in the pictures, but believe me it looks great on.  I made it from a free tshirt from work, that's why there's a cow on the top.

Time to Get Organized

I received some lovely packages in the mail today.

I love receiving mail!  There is something so nice about having tangible items.  Below you can see my new arrivals, and my reason to get organized.

I also have some wonderful Ikea fabric waiting for me to make curtains.  I am inching forward in my progress to have a studio.  The desk is up (complete with stacks of boxes), the bookshelf is set up, and the new dresser has been assembled.  I just didn't realize that my scrapbooking supplies would take up a whole drawer...when was the last time I even scrapbooked?  I think my wedding album... maybe a birthday card for a friend.
Tune in next time when our hero will muse about where to put the ironing board.

Searching... but to Little Avail

After this post I have been obsessed with making these pants for my son in this exact fabric.  Now I own 2 yards of the orchid colorway of the fabric that I bought to recover a rocking chair in the kids' room.  I have searched all over the internet, and called a few stores, and have found a half yard!  Now I am hot on the trail of the yellow colorway, perhaps my son can have the reverse of these pants.  And if not I can always make him some from Heather Ross' new line.  Perhaps a green snow white main fabric with guitars on the cuff?   Something cute enough so that no one will even blink an eye when my daughter wears them the next year.

Play Day

My children love to wear my shoes.  Actually my son likes to wear my husband's shoes and mine, and my daughter well she just likes shoes in general.  It's one of the few words she actually says.  Having time to sit down and play is lovely, I think I need to make more time for that.

The Dichotomy of Me

There are two parts of myself that I have at different times embraced:

There is the part of me that wants to live simply with the fewest amount of things.  This part shows up every few years when I decide I need to purge my life of something (say plastic when I was pregnant).  I get rid of many, many things.  I've never regretted any of it (except maybe that awesome vanity I gave away in highschool when I decided I wanted to be a minimalist).

Then there is the part of me that believes in thrift.  This part causes me to want to hold onto every item because maybe sometime in the future I will use it.  If I get rid of the item than I will have to buy another later.  I go through my years of hoarding.

These two parts of me are at war right now.  Since this house is smaller than the last, I have been having to gleen my belongings.  Deciding what should be out and what should stay packed has not been easy.  Once I have made the decision the live simply part has been informing me I should just give those items away to charity.  I've already packed them  into a box in the attic for the forseeable future.  Then the thrifty part is screaming at me to keep them because maybe in six months we will have broken the 10 juice glasses I left out and will need the other set.  You know why I own so many sets of juice glasses to begin with?  Well I'm guessing they were really cheap at a lawn sale...

Preparations

I have the diaper bag packed and in the car, the car seats both in my car, my travel coffee mug washed and prefilled with milk and sugar in the fridge, the coffee maker all filled and programed to make coffee all by itself, and now all I have to do is go to bed... Yeah why is that the part I don't feel like doing?  Isn't the point of having all this stuff done so you can go to sleep and not worry?  Yet here I am sure I forgot something.

Magic

I saw a series of photos today that I had a very emotional reaction to, and I'm still trying to process it.  I felt like some part of me was missing, something that I am entitled to.  After thinking about this a lot (I have a job where it's very easy to sit and think without being disturbed), I think I have it partially figured it out.  I need more magical spaces around me.  Little nooks of green, perhaps some fairy lights in the backyard.  My inspiration is missing, I need something that reminds me more of Vermont, my home and a place where magic is indeed a part of everyday life.