#HandmadeChristmas :: 2013

At the end of the month of July, I bought a sewing machine.  I didn't do a whole lot of research, but I found a pretty awesome deal on amazon, asked Ross if it was okay to make such a big, spur of the moment purchase, and went for it.

I bought the machine because I wanted to make stuff.

Mostly, because I wanted to make my kids this:

Pillows for their lost teeth.  Then, a few pillows, aprons, table runners, skirts and and a manatee later, I got the brilliant idea to make, with my sewing machine, the majority of my Christmas gifts for the holiday season.  So, I came up with a plan and a schedule.  A list of items I wanted to make and set to making them.  After, of course, asking my sewing friends and YouTube lots of questions.

In the end, it took me nearly all of four months to finish my projects.  And, I finished a lot.
The tally:
10 pillows
9 quilts
1 table runner
12 aprons
5 dish towels
4 tote bags
6 make-up clutches
7 drawstring bags (as gifts mostly for birthday parties for little friends)
a couple zippered pouches
a knee length skirt for myself.

That was a lot of sewing - especially considering about 70% of it happened at night, after the kids had gone to bed and I had some time alone.

Late nights.

In the end though, I have a new hobby which I am slightly addicted to and I was able to give a lot of people some gifts which, I hope, they really liked and can put to good use.

Another Griswald Adventure!

We realized that with a possible four day weekend in front of us, and a kid who is off track from school, and that it was the last week of summer, we should probably DO something.  So, my husband planned a nice little "stay cation" for us over Labor Day.

We stayed at a nice little resort near Jordanelle Reservoir called Stillwater.  Our unit was three connected rooms.  A room with a king bed, a room with a kitchen, and a room with bunk beds for the boys.  Even though Quinn was a caged tiger and a super pain in the but getting into everything, emptying cupboards, turning on the gas range, and shoving towels into the bathtubs and turning on the water, we had a lot of fun.

On Saturday, we drove into the nether regions of Pleasant Grove to find the Waffle Love waffle truck.  To get a waffle.  It was absolute heaven.  My was smeared with nutella and strawberries and whip cream and it was worth the drive.  Then, we drove up to Heber City and rode the Heber Creeper through Soldier Hollow, got lost in the mess that was the end of Swiss Days in Midway and had a dinner snafu at a pizza place in Park City.  The pizza was good.  Our children were not.  But, finding a couple of deals at the outlet mall made up for it.

On Sunday,  the big boys rode the chair lift at Sundance while Quinn and I looked for Robert Redford (he wasn't there) and bough a very expensive rice krispie treat and chocolate chip cookie.   We drove from Heber to Sundance to....Lehi for lunch.  There is so little open in Utah County on a Sunday that our options were terribly limited so Culver's it was.  Sunday was by far one of the worst food days in the history of any traveling I've ever done, by the way.  It just wasn't in the cards to eat a good meal.

We took the boys fishing at Vivian Park in Provo Canyon and they had a ton of fun learning how to fish for a real fish instead of casting to the grass in the backyard.  I was really proud of their patience with the whole thing and had a wonderful (15 minute) nap on a blanket in the grass while Quinn slept in his stroller.

On Sunday night, we came back to our condo, watched a little duck dynasty and then headed out for dinner when, low and behold, most stuff in Park City was closed on a Sunday, too.  So, without going into any detail, we ended up at the Arby's in Kimball Junction.  EPIC FOOD FAIL!  And, as has happened every other time we've taken him to Arby's...Wyatt threw up.

And to add salt to the wound, we went into a Wal-Mart in the pouring rain to get some things for breakfast and as all trips to Wal-Mart end up, it was bad.  Really, really bad.

On Monday, it was of course Quinner Quinner Chicken Dinner's birthday so we sang to him a hundred times.   After the celebration was under way we got packed, went to Ross' favorite Mexican food place in all of Utah, El Chubasco and headed home for a long Monday full of lots of grumpiness.  I mean, that's what holiday's are for, right?

Regardless, it was a great little weekend.  I love my boys and they make me laugh.  Quinn totally loved the Heber Creeper and hung his whole body out the window waving to the trees and the grass as we drove by.  Elliott and Wyatt were really good and had so much fun.  My good husband planned a whole weekend just for us, his little family.  He took charge of every detail.  I LOVE it when he does that.  He even talked to me in the car instead of just listening to his headphones.  I love that even more.

Where's Perry?

My brother is taking a "Humanities" class this semester.  It seems to be pretty dumb with absolutely no rhyme or reason to the curriculum.  The class came with a huge binder and two weeks ago an in class discussion about the appropriateness of breast feeding in public.

Just what a bunch of high school kids want to talk about, right?

Well, as part of the disjointed curriculum, Willie was assigned to make a paper mache mask.  Why you ask?  Maybe because as a humanities theme they would be discussing Greek tragedies, John Paul Sartre and satire or something along those lines?

Nope.  They were just supposed to make a mask.  And the instructions wanted the kids to first build their mask by applying wet duck tape to their faces and then using a paper mache technique to finish them up.

Double dumb.

Being the arts and crafts member of the family, Willie asked me if I would help make his mask, a Perry the Platypus mask.  I was totally up for the challenge, the creative outlet, and the mess so last week on Thursday night, after consuming mass quantities of pizza, we set to work building a platypus out of a milk jug, a cardboard egg, and lots and lots of paper and glue.  We, well I, put the finishing touches on the mask on Sunday night after dinner while Willie splayed his upper body on the kitchen table lamenting calculus and the essay he was supposed to write (for Humanities no less) on marginalized members of society.

Say what?

Anyway, the platypus turned out pretty stinking cool.














And, as a side note, I really like it when my brother comes to chill at my abode.  When I was a little girl, my mom's brothers would come to my house so she could do their homework for them while they tormented my sister and me.  They would mess up our stuffed animals, tease us, pin us to the ground and dangle loogies from their mouths over our faces.  All sorts of good uncle things while my mom wrote all their essays.  Good times they were.  It's really pretty fun, and cool, that while I was up to my elbows in diluted glue, my brother and a very good uncle, was reading books to my boys, playing with googly eyes, and in general, just being pretty awesome with two little boys who adore him.

12.12.12.

Today is a day that can go down in history and won't happen again in my life time.

12.12.12

Pretty cool.

I didn't have anything special planned for the day but it ended up being a pretty good one.

Wyatt had school and Elliott and I had a nice and quiet morning at home with the Quinner and Disney Junior on the computer.

After we picked Wyatt up from school we headed out to Hunter to take our favorite uncle his pre-game lunch of Chick-fil-a.  We were so happy to see the President during the day, especially because we were not going to drive to Logan for the game tonight (They lost by 1 and Wyatt threw up.  Glad we stayed home).  Uncle Willie ate his lunch with us in the car, in the parking lot (the "maneuver" as my husband calls it), and told us about his Sasquatch movie for his art class.  We then drove him from the parking space in the front of the school to the front of the school to drop him off.  I mean, it saved him at least 15 steps and it was cold, so totally worth it.

After that, we headed to my parents to finish our lunch, feed Quinn, and run around for a few minutes.  Then after that, we headed out to my grandpa's house.

One of my aunts organized an advent calendar for my grandpa this year and all of us in the family each took a day or two (I have three...go figure) and on our day we're providing my grandpa with a special treat or surprise.  We've already given him a really great Christmas CD.  He's also received black licorice, a festive wreath, a noisy penguin toy, fruit cake and a lot of other cool stuff.  But today, it was my turn to do something I'd been thinking about for a long time.  There is one wall, in the hall, that minus a drawing of my uncle's that has been hanging at least 30 years has been blank.  So I decided it needed to be gussied up a bit and hung 8 pictures today.  Each photo representing the children and grandchildren of my mom and her siblings.  That's a total of 41 grand and great-grand children (including spouses) whose pictures are now on the wall for my grandpa to look at every time he comes out of the bathroom.

While I hammered, nailed, and hung my photos my sweet boys were so good.  They lined up every single noisy Christmas toy in the living room and with their baby brother on the floor as their audience, turned every single one on, in turn, and danced and sang and giggled the afternoon away.

Can I tell you Internet how awesome it is for me that my boys love my grandparents house as much as I do?  It makes my heart swell with happy. 

 

The picture of course doesn't do the project justice and i hope my grandpa doesn't care that I poked 8 holes in his wall (well, 9 holes, actually).  But, I thought that when I was finished it ended up looking pretty cool.

 

And if nothing else, it was a great way to spend a little bit of such a unique day.

Cliche

We don't officially celebrate Valentine's Day. We call it "VD" because that is somehow funny.

Even though we don't officially celebrate, there always seems to be a card floating around, some chocolate covered strawberries (the size of my fist and absolutely divine) to be consumed and a small gift, usually including pez, for the boys.

And, this year, I bought myself a new jacket (two actually at 50% off the lowest ticketed price which gave me two for less the price of one...steal) and a box of cherry cordials. Yum!

Oh, and the boys painted ceramic magnet frogs because how else am I going to get them to stop whining at the craft store except with a walk down the dollar aisle?

More freezer paper

I have a confession.  I am totally addicted to freezer paper stenciling.

It was absolutely necessary to make 8 skull and crossbones pirate shirts for the five year olds birthday party last week.

It was also absolutely necessary to make orca whale shirts for our trip to Sea World in a few weeks.

And, it was also absolutely necessary to make a shirt for my brother.  Because he asked me.  Through a tweet.

HOME project

On a small wall in my home hung a giant clock.  A giant clock that had been hanging and not telling time since June, when we moved in.  Though I found it to be embarrassing, displaying a broken clock in its full glory, and stressful for the occasional guest who got confused at the time, the husband insisted that it stay up.  That he would fix it.

Well, when that husband was gone for two weeks I took it upon myself to find something new to hang in the spot where the broken clock loomed over head.

First, I went to the local craft store and found some giant letters - on sale, for about $4 a piece.  Next, I borrowed some old National Geographic and Sierra Club maps from my dad. He gave me one for the Korea's.  I chose to not use that one.  Then, I set about with the modge podge and went to town gluing the maps to the letters.

Now, when I looked at those letters up on the wall, the project felt incomplete.  Like something was missing.  I decided that the wall needed a little bit of "art" along with the letters so I hopped onto my computer to make something.  I found a map of Utah online that I liked, pulled it into photoshop and filled it in with gray.  Then, I had some free digital scrapbook papers that I'd downloaded ages ago that served as a perfect background to the gray Utah.

A quick print, frame (frames I already had from IKEA), and hang and I had myself another homemade installation.  I have to say that I like this much better than the broken clock.

Quite an honor!

Story time. 

Bear with me.

I am a faithful reader of the blog Design Mom.

I find the information on Gabrielle Blair's blog to be well written, beautiful and inspiring.  She finds things on the Internet that are lovely and worth sharing.  She has children who she writes so eloquently and honestly about, and she just seems to be all around cool.

A few months ago when reading her blog through my blog reader she issues a call for DIYers.  She said she was interested in responses from crafty types who have done some interesting projects and are good at photographing their projects.  I stewed on that for a few days.  I occasionally do interesting projects.  I take good photographs of my projects.  I am proud of most of the stuff I end up making so on a whim I decided to send her an e-mail.  I told her a little bit about myself, shared a link to my blog, and provided a short list of 3 projects I'd done since moving to the new house that I thought were sort of cool.

Right before Christmas a form e-mail was received in my inbox, one she probably sent to the thousands of men and women who submitted e-mails to her (I can only imagine how long it takes to go through so many e-mails!) informing me (and all the others) that she was going through all the submissions and would get back to us.

Cool, I thought.  And then thought nothing else of it.

Fast forward to Friday.  Every Friday on the Design Mom website is a short list of links to carry readers into the weekend.  Things that Gabrielle has found to be clever, interesting, beautiful...you get the idea.  On Friday, just like every other Friday I read the post and clicked on a few links and then went about my business of the day.

Then last night, after a busy crazy day of birthday parties for the five year old, Ross told me he'd written a blog post about his work trip to Chile and Argentina.  I opened the blog to read the post and noticed that my "top 5" post feature had a new top two.  My cousin Jodi's wedding had been bumped to third place - it had been in first since May.  But, I didn't think much of it at the time.

I logged in to the blog and saw that I had three comments awaiting moderation.  I turned to Ross and said, "Wow!  You have three comments on your blog post already and you just barely wrote it!"  He was rather proud until I opened the comments and read them.

It was confusing.  The comments were legitimate comments from profiles I did not know for a crafty post I had written at the end of August about the wall art installation that I made and hung in my bedroom.  Huh!  Curious.  Still every the dunce I asked my husband how he thought people found this post and made comments - one even putting a link on HER blog.

I was totally dumbfounded.

Then I went into my stats.

Duh!

There were 3,800 hits on this one blog post in less than 24 hours.  For my little goofy blog that's intense.  3,800 people looked at and read this particular post.  How did they get to my goofy little post?  Well, the numero uno referring link was the Design Mom website.

Still being ever dumb, I clicked on the link and it took me back to the Friday post that I'd already read.  I stared at that post unable to figure out how that post was leading to my blog.  Finally because like I said, I'm a bit dense sometimes, I just decided to click on every single link.

The fourth link down on the post, I hit the jackpot.  The "clever idea for displaying a quote" on the Design Mom post is a link to me.  TO ME!

I grinned from ear to ear.  I was so excited.  After telling Ross the whole story he of course told me I needed to figure out a way to monetize my fame.  What fame I asked.  Then, I called my mom.

To make a very long story short.  This is a very cool thing for me.  My silly little project recognized on such a big blog by such a neat woman.  I am truly honored and very, very surprised.  This totally made my weekend.

Obviously, right?  I just wrote one of the longest blog posts every about it.

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas

It's time to disappear for a few days to celebrate the holidays. Lots of family and food and overwhelmed kiddos and tired mamas and papas.

"Monday, Monday, la la, la la la la" may take on a whole new meaning this year. I cannot really remember the last time Christmas and all it's beautiful chaos was celebrated on a Sunday but I'm pretty sure the hangover we're all going to feel on Monday morning will keep us in bed as long as possible. 

To celebrate the end of the week, the impending end of the year I thought it would be fun to share some videos with all of you out there in the land of Internet. Okay, yes, there are only like 5 of you out there but these are definitely for you.

 A quick description of each.
1 - There is a boy on my brother's basketball team. He hardly plays in the games but he is a good team leader and dancer. The team has worked out a new routine before each game.

2 - We have no snow! No snow on the ground and even though there have been a few little flurries, there's been nothing to play in. The weather has totally screwed up a couple days on our advent calendar. Luckily as one of the boys prizes I gave them some snow to grow.

3 - Yesterday, we gathered with some of our favorite older cousins to build gingerbread houses. It was a fun morning and early afternoon filled with laughter, fun and lots and lots of frosting. Wyatt's contribution to his house was about what I thought it would be.....he consumed a lot of frosting and candy.

 Enjoy!

 and Merry Christmas to all!

 

The first day of advent

In years past, we've always done the cardboard chocolate a day advent calendar.  I love cheap and waxy chocolate as much as the next person but this year I wanted to do something else, something experiential for me and the boys (and our dad and other family members when applicable.).

It's embarrassing to admit, but I started looking for cute advent calendar themes and templates in the middle of October.  I was totally inspired when I got a new Garnet Hill catalog and this gorgeous advent was prominently displayed in it's pages.  But, I wasn't going to pay $100 and I needed something "bigger".

After weeks and weeks of searching for little stockings and socks and gloves and all that sort of thing I walked past the dollar bin at Target and found super cute little felt bags that were perfect for stuffing with treasure, hanging on my stairs railing, and using year after year.

Once the packaging was in place, it was time to figure out our advent experiences.  I used the Internet and my boys interests to guide me, of course, but I think that we are going to have 24 days of awesome fun.  And, for each of the days, I've got a small trinket, toy, or candy to keep the boys interested.

 

New Phineus and Ferb Christmas CD
Make paper snowflakes to hang on the windows
Make Christmas cards for great grandparents
Build part of the nativity and read scriptures
Shop for Sub-for-Santa
New Christmas book to read
Make a Christmas ornament
Make hot chocolate (deliver sub-for-Santa)
Watch a Christmas movie and eat popcorn
Christmas activity downtown (movie?)
Build part of the nativity and read scriptures
Activity with Petersen's and Binggeli's
Make a treat for primary teachers and Mrs. Stratford
Zoo lights with Grandma and Grandpa Howden
Make felt Christmas trees
Make a snowman or have a snowball fight
Get a Christmas cookie from Schmidts bakery
Build part of the nativity and read scriptures
Buy food for the food bank (buy and leave at smiths)
Play in the snow (paint and blow bubbles)
Go for a drive to look at Christmas lights
Gingerbread houses with Haley, Molly, Willie, Parker and Meranda
Early Christmas w/ Howdens' (make cookies)
Christmas Eve treasure hunt

The bags were hung on the railing with care last night after the boys were asleep.  

The boys got to open the day one activity/gift this morning before their dad left for work. Elliott definitely "gets it" and is excited. Wyatt got mad that he didn't get to open whatever one he wanted. Oh well, I'm sure he will figure it out as we go through the days of the month. And today, the only way to pry them away from Phineus and Ferb on the TV was because I knew I had an equally awesome platypus gift for them to share this morning.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (before Thanksgiving)!

Okay.  It's the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  I've had insomnia for the last 5 nights and my brain hurts, my eyes are puffy, and I have a weird sore on my lip.  My boys started waking up at 5:30 this morning but didn't start fighting until 6:30.  Nothing I love more than getting up before the daylight savings sun on a Sunday morning.

Cue sarcasm........NOW!

The boys are shooting baskets in the kitchen and dad is in the shower.  There is a good inch of snow on the ground and it just started snowing sort of a whippy, swirly mess of tiny flakes.

This morning is the perfect time to show you the goofy Christmas art project I worked on last week.

I bought two blank canvas a while ago and have been trying to figure out what to do with them.  Once I decided Christmas art was in order I painted them my new favorite shade of red (Martha Stewart Maine Lobster) and got to work.












Because I am not very talented, I had to make a stencil(out of freezer paper) for my little painted sign but the stencil worked out great and once I did the touch up work (in red and white) the finished product turned out pretty cute and I've got the perfect place to hang it in my house for the holidays.

And, because I still had another canvas, I went with an idea I had seen online (nothing original here these days) and used the boys to help me with the art project. Want to get your kids all giggly and goofy? Paint their feet!

Painting with bubbles!

In order to keep things sane in our house, I try every single day to have a project for the boys.  A craft, a mission, a fort - something to keep them busy for a while.  My boys really like to do artsy crafty stuff, which is right up my alley so it usually works out that our projects involve paint and paper and stickers and lots and lots of glue.

And a major mess.

And a stressed out mom because boys do not follow instructions.

Last Friday I had the idea to play with some bubbles inside.  I'd seen something similar online and figured we could do something fun at the kitchen table.  And, considering both boys were a smidge sick and we were not going out into the butt cold day, indoor bubble painting was born.

There were a few glitches in the craft - straws didn't work and we needed more food coloring in our bubble mix but....BUT.....BUT - these crazy boys of mine kept themselves busy for almost an hour blowing bubbles onto paper and being clever and awesome.

We tried a couple different types of paper and the watercolor paper worked the best.  I think that we might do this again with some big sheets of nice white paper.  It would be a great homemade gift wrap, stationary, or even a good art project to frame.

The Sewing Summit

My good friend Erin is an amazing "sewist".  She makes capes and quilts and mug rugs (oh my!)  She is also part of a very creative blogging/sewing circle of women around the country (and in Canada) and with that as inspiration she and her friend Amy decided to create a conference - they called it "The Sewing Summit" and it started last night downtown at the Little America Hotel.

I've worked on the back-end of many conferences in my life and know how much work goes into the planning, organizing, and coordinating of such an event.  It's a ton of work.  I'd been bugging Erin to let me volunteer to help out for weeks and weeks and she finally gave in to my nagging and decided that I could run their registration table on opening night.

I spent most of my day yesterday meeting other very talented and creative women who came in from all over the country to be inspired and meet each other.  Most of these women are bloggers, having never met each other in person, but spending a lot of time being friends with each other and chatting online so it was pretty funny to see some of them just downright giddy to finally meet each other.

It was truly a lot of fun and I was so happy to be able to help.  Thanks Erin, for the experience.