Collages

This evening we got even more crafty. We read Lucy's Picture, by Nicola Moon this afternoon. We had gotten it at the library today. Lucy creates a picture during preschool for her grandpa who is visiting, it's a collage with many different textures. At the end we find out Lucy's grandpa is blind so she made the textured picture so he could "see" it. The girls were fascinated with the idea of a collage and given my accumulating pile of unusable scraps we got to work on our own creations. And seriously this held their attention for at least an hour and a half.

I was really impressed with their excitement and ideas. I told them if they wanted any of the fabric cut in certain shapes they could tell me and I'd do the cutting (because safety scissors weren't going to do the trick). Here is the almost final product, pretty cute!

Girls Get Crafty

For Luli's birthday she received several really cool crafty projects. The one we did most recently was the decorate your frame craft. Eliza and Davy gave this to Luli, who graciously allowed Fiona to assist in the decorating. It was a lot of fun, and I really just took a back seat to photograph and enjoy watching. I do have a tendency to try and control...who me?





The first pic is the before and the second is almost at the end, I'll have to get a pic of the finished product (which still needs an actual photo in it!).

Skirt Sewing Craze

For Christmas my parents were very generous and got me all sorts of fun sewing gadgets. After all the sewing I did for Christmas I've been a little lax on the sewing since, and hadn't tried out any of my new toys- until this week! I was checking out my friend's blog the other day and noticed the adorable skirts her daughters were wearing. Well she made them and was kind enough to pass along the "pattern." I put the quotes because it isn't really a pattern, more like directions to making the easiest cutest skirts ever! You can find the pattern here, courtesy of the Oliver and S blog, which has some super adorable patterns for purchase and a couple for free. We hit the fabric store, with my gift card courtesy of my cousin Matt for Christmas, and purchased a variety of fabrics. If it weren't for this store's complete lack of awesome ribbon we would have walked away with A LOT more fabric.

With fabric and ribbon in hand I was ready to try these skirts out, and incredibly pleased with how simple they really were. The first one I made took longer because the elastic was difficult to thread...oh but then I took a gander at the pile o' toys my parents gave me and looky looky, someone got me a BODKIN! Well that would have saved me a good chunk of time! Thanks Mom and Dad! I have now made 3 sets of skirts for the ladies, and have 3 more planned.

The only problem is my obsession with sewing this week is not well timed. I am taking two classes for an add on endorsement to my teaching license and of course had a lot due this week. Perhaps this is just procrastination, I clearly needed to focus more time on the paper that was due and the test that needed to be taken. However, my mind was consumed with sewing these skirts. All in all, the paper is done and handed in, the test is taken and about to be handed in and 3 sets of skirts are sewn...that's a pretty productive week if I say so! Now the real question is, can I make the pink with white polka dots in my size? Is it OK for an adult woman to wear elastic waist bands? And, is it just too over the top to have all three of us matching?

Oh and this blog, just posted this adorable dress...which will get made for this summer for sure!

Oh Yea, Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is not something we generally make a big deal out of, so I was caught a wee bit off guard when Oscar had planned a whole day's worth of activity and meals. He started off the morning with a very New York breakfast, biali's with cream cheese, onions, tomatoes, lox, and capers. It was excellent, and a long time since I'd last had it.

I came home from my dentist appt (my gift to Oscar, if you knew my dental anxiety, you'd know this is a big deal!) to find one of my favs, cheese fondue with bread and apples...oh so good! The girls and I were in heaven, who doesn't love melted cheese with bread and apples?!

For dinner we started with an eggplant parm appetizer. This was really yummy and really

easy (OK for me, the whole day was easy because I didn't cook anything). It was basically, roasted eggplant slices on top of a slice of baguette, topped with marinara and a slice of mozzarella. Super easy and super yum!

The main course was a grilled tuna steak, nicsoisse salad, with a red pepper and tahini dressing. It was so good, and the red pepper tahini dressing was amazing!

For me, Valentine's day is far more about being with the people you love and letting you know how you feel about them, focusing your attention on this, when ordinarily your attention may be focused some place else. The girls were appropriately lovey with each other on Valentine's Day. Showering each other and us with lots of hugs and kisses. Unfortunately we couldn't capture the adorableness of them hugging and kissing as it truly happened, because they just wouldn't angle right for the camera! This is the closest we got to catching it...

Note on "Let's Get Fired Up"

Apparently there is a movie coming out, or out already, called "Fired Up." I guess it is a cheerleader movie? I randomly heard a commercial for it the other day and I think this is where Luli's classmate heard and has learned this lovely phrase. I'm very happy to report that she hasn't repeated this phrase since that one day. Though she cracked me up today by describing her "Welcome Home Daddy" banner as "crazy beautiful."

Girls Weekend

This weekend it was just us girls. We had a lot of fun and kept very active. Oscar has been gone on his Man Trip 2009 to Colorado for adventure and relaxation. While we've been here we had a visit from Aunt Dana. Her visit was also a lifesaver because she babysat the girls for a few hours while I went and did a Home Inspection on a house we're hoping to buy. This is exciting in itself, and will warrant future blog posts dedicated to it. Sunday we went fabric shopping for the skirts I'm making for the girls (photos to follow with a dedicated post soon). We did a lot of playtime and sewing yesterday. Today we went to Jammin Java with our friends Miss Katie and Allison. We enjoyed a concert by Miss Belle. Fiona and Allison REALLY enjoyed the concert. They were both dancing on the dance floor and really having a great time. Katie and I were cracking up. Luli was a little off today, she sat next to me the entire time. She sang a lot of the songs along with Miss Belle but just wouldn't go dance. I think she's growth spurting and maybe that's why she's feeling awkward. This evening I finished 3 more skirts and they came out really nicely. I'm hoping to get some modelling of the skirts in tomorrow so I can post them! In the mean time we're really excited to see Daddy again!

"Let's Get Fired Up"

Luli came home from school with a new phrase she learned from a friend. She's been running around saying it with much gusto and if I were attending a high school football game this would perhaps get me excited. As for it coming from my four year old, I feel a wee bit uncomfortable with it, and I'm not really sure why...

Followers!

I just added a new element to the blog, the "follow this blog" gadget. If you read us often, or want an email when I post something, you could sign up to Follow the blog. At least, I *think* you get an email when you become a follower...I'll look into it further.

Museum of Natural History

On Monday we ventured into the city with our friends Katie and Allison. We got an early start with all of our car seats fitting into Miss Katie's car. This was fun for all the kids and nice to not bring both cars into the city. Luckily Mr. Brent, Miss Katie's husband, works right in McPherson Square so we were able to park at his building and take and abbreviated metro trip to the museum. The train ride was lots of fun for the girls, Fiona and Allison's first experience with the Metro, and Luli's first that she could remember. Walking to the museum we held hands in one long line, Luli, Katie, Allison, Me, Fiona...very cute! however difficult to maneuver at points.

We found the museum and locked up our coats. We both decided to make the trip strollerless and that was definitely the right decision, logistically this would have been a nightmare. We found the dinosaurs immediately and looked them all over. Allison was a wee bit scared, and Luli tried to reassure her by explaining they were just bones and they couldn't hurt her, and they were nice dinosaurs. I was really fascinated by the size of a wing for one of the dinosaurs (that was crazy long!) And I know the T-Rex has small arms, but seriously that was just ridiculous how small they were. After exploring the dinosaurs we went to the fossil cafe and had lunch. I packed the girls lunch and enjoyed a highly overpriced cobb salad.

After lunch we headed upstairs to check out the Hope Diamond. The little gals were not nearly as impressed as the big girls! They were much more interested in this sand/quartz formation that looked like the Stay Puffed Marshmallow man.

Then we were onto the butterfly exhibit, we've been wanting to go there since last year and I thought the exhibit had closed already. The tickets were a bit much but I'm really glad we went in. My girlfriend Dana is really afraid of butterflies and she would have totally freaked out in there. They are flying all over the place and land on you and it's pretty cool (if you're not afraid of them). The kids really enjoyed it, but needed to take off some layers because it's a humid 84 degrees in the exhibit.

After the butterflies we thought it best to end our museum trip, the girls had behaved so great that we didn't want to push it. We headed back to Mr. Brent's office to say hi and do some drawing there, then home. I really thought Fiona would conk out because she was basically just walking sleep at Mr. Brent's office, but she rallied and stayed up the whole time. Needless to say it was an early/easy bedtime for my girls and Allison!

Hopscotch

Around Christmas time I had several birthday parties to attend and I was/am on a big making gifts kick. I was trying to brainstorm original ideas and it struck me one day when it was really cold and Luli wanted to go outside and play hopscotch...INDOOR HOPSCOTCH! So I thought it through and made three sets, which turned out to be quite time consuming. Luli received her's (and Fiona's) at her fourth birthday party in January, rather than the intended Christmas gift! I was really pleased with how they came out and I'm happy to share the result with you all.

Necessities

9 vibrant colored felt squares (x2)

Corresponding colored embroidery floss

Water soluble marking instrument

scissors

Flannel material for been bags

Machine washable fabric glue (not necessary but definitely a sanity saver)

Needle

TIME!

I found a font on the computer that I really liked the number looks of, then made the numbers really large so they'd be my pattern. Cut out all the numbers 1-9, then trace them to a felt square. I do recommend you trace them to the side of the square so you can use the other half for another project or another set of hopscotch numbers. Then cut out all the numbers. Set out the 9 uncut felt squares and then play around with color coordination by moving numbers around the squares until you find the set up you like best. I had to stand back several times and enlist Oscar's help in getting the right set up. I recommend you glue each number to the squares because it's so much easier when sewing. Though minimally glue in the center of the number because getting your needle through the glued area is a real pain. I then used the embroidery floss that matched the full square (ie. red square with blue number gets sewn with red floss) and simply sewed all the way around.

Bean Bags: I used this rainbow flannel that I already had laying around and thought it went well with the colorfulness of the project. I cut out a piece that I guesstimated on size, then used that as the pattern for following bags. Folded the fabric in half, sewed up the three sides with an opening to insert beans/rice/whatever. I used rice to fill (because you can also use that as a cold pack from the freezer) then I folded in the opening and edge stitched around all four sides catching the opening. I did this on my machine so it did require some constant rice moving attention.

When giving as a gift I like to include the directions to playing hopscotch, because I had forgotten so I figure maybe other people have too. I found them here. I would also like to note that the felt is crazy slippery on hard surfaces so make sure you use it on a rug or carpet.

NOTE: I went with machine washable glue because I figured jumping on the squares would get them dirty and eventually they'd need to be washed. I'm not really sure how the felt would hold up in the machine, but time will tell.