Paper Overload

My kids bring home so many papers from school that I'm convinced they use a tree a week. And since our community recycling program has been closed (The guy running it closed it because he wasn't making any money doing it. Don't even get me started.) I've been trying to figure out what we could possibly do with at least some of it rather than just throwing it away. Then I caught the husband cheerfully making a list of game codes on my prettiest stationary. He tried to defend himself by muttering, "But, it was the only paper I could find!" After I realized he was right, there wasn't a notepad in sight and grudgingly admitted it, it hit me, scrap paper notepads! It's so simple I can't believe I didn't come up with it earlier. All I had to do was rip 3 sheets of paper into 1/4 stack them up and blanket stitch them together. Ta-da!!

A Very Knitty Christmas

For the past few years I have attempted to make most of my Christmas presents....and failed. This year however, since the husband has been laid off for over a year, I knew it needed to be a stash-busting kind of Christmas. And so I actually started making presents in October. Here is most of what I made.


Missing are another 7 gift baskets which hold homemade raspberry & apricot jam, canned green beans from our garden, cardamom and sourdough bread. Also another baby hat in pink and two pairs of flip-top mittens that had to be mailed before I thought to take a picture. The only people who got store bought gifts were my kids, because right now legos rule and I can't make those. I did make two knit lego guys that were a big hit. A HUGE thank you to Ani for discovering this awesome pattern, even if the difficulty of actually constructing these guys made me invent new and undiscovered swear words.

Our Christmas came with the boys' "winter concert." Ian had a speaking part. One line which he repeated over and over to himself starting two days after Halloween. I'd find him building legos or drawing while muttering "When I'm feeling sad, I like to think about things that make me feel thankful." But all the practice paid off and he did a fantastic job. I admit it made me a little teary-eyed to see my baby up on that big stage speaking so carefully and clearly in front of a very large audience. Drew made up for not getting the microphone all to himself by singing "We wish you a Merry Christmas" loudly enough to be heard over all the other (100+) kids. Thank God he didn't get his father's singing voice.


For the past 4 years we have gone to the same cut your own tree farm, with my parents, to pick out our Christmas trees. This year Andy, who apparently misses using his power tools at work, decided that his saws-all would be the perfect thing to cut down said trees with. I think my father was a bit surprised, however he made no objection to Andy cutting down his tree for him, instead of using the hand saw he had brought. After the trees were put in/on the trucks we had our anual snowball fight. Then we headed to Mimi and Poppa's house to help put up their tree and have some much needed hot cocoa.

THE SKY IS ON FIRE!!!

After a week of heavy clouds and just enough rain to keep everyone inside forever, the sun finally worked up the ambition to come out for a measly 15 minutes. Husband, attempting to make a joke, remarked, "I think the sky is on fire, there's this weird light outside." Of course, the six year-old crowd heard only, "THE SKY IS ON FIRE!!!!" Which prompted Drew to say, " I need a stick!" Presumably to put on the fire, these boys are nearly as much of a pyromaniac as their father. Ian, who is on yet another Care Bear kick, yelled "I think it's the Care Bears!" in a tone of perfect glee that I haven't heard since Christmas morning. When we finally got them to understand that Daddy was just joking and that the light was only the plain old ordinary sun, the level of disappointment was mind-blowing. I had to promise them we could go to Chris and Nikki's for dinner to get the crying to stop. They love going to Uncle Chris's house because he has a very large collection of Star Wars Lego's that he is kind enough to let them destroy...I mean play with. Aunt Nikki has informed me, privately, that she thinks Chris lets them take apart the ships just because he has such a good time putting them back together after we leave. We all have a guilty pleasure, no?

Getting back to Ian's latest Care Bear obsession, his favorite bear is Laughs-a-lot, aka Orangey, since he's had the bear since the beginning of (his) time and Laughs-a-lot is rather hard to say. Anyway, he's been after me for the past few days to make the bear a bed. So today during nap time he and I made Orangey a bed....and a pillow....and a quilt.... and even a mattress since, apparently, a Kleenex box wrapped in contact paper isn't nearly comfortable enough for a stuffed animal. Oh well, he loves it, we had some quality Mama/son time, it was all made from items I already had, and I got the satisfaction of actually completing a project all in one go. And really, how often does that happen.














Update, 1 hour later: Ian has lost his bed with the bear in it and is sobbing. LOUDLY. Drew has found his favorite Care Bear, Funshine, know around here as Sunny, and is demanding that I make him a bed, too. LOUDLY. Are you sensing a theme here?

Update, 3 hours later: Drew and I have finished his bed and he insists that I share it with you. I would just like to state for the record that I had nothing to do with the fabric choices, the boys picked them out of my scrap basket all on their own. It's rather unfortunate that they seem to have inherited their Daddy's color matching skills. After helping me sew these they are very interested in learning how to use my sewing machine all by themselves (as opposed to sitting on my lap, with their hands on top of mine for the actual sewing and helping by pushing the back-up button) and that makes me more than a little proud.

Disappearing Coasters....

So for my first foray into quilting I made myself a set of 4 coasters from scraps of my favorite fabrics. Unfortunately, my twins have already disappeared half the set, hopefully they'll show up during the next house cleaning. I really want to make a crazy quilt, but I have a feeling that it might be more than I can handle. I'll probably make the attempt anyway, so any hints or tips will be much appreciated. I haven't had much time for crafting lately what with all the baby-sitting I've been doing to make ends meet. (Husband has been laid off since two weeks before Christmas. Being an electrician in Michigan sucks.) The lack of creativity is turning my brain to mush and the lack of progress on projects already in the works is making me crabby. I think I need to go try to finish Drew's tooth pillow before the daycare kids get here, 'cause I'll feel really guilty if I don't have it done when his first tooth falls out and, honestly, that could be any second now.

Happy Birthday to MEEEE!!!!

Look at the pretty my Mama got me for my birthday. I knew if I was patient I'd find something wonderful. I can't wait to see what else I get. If I have to turn 30 there'd better be good presents!

These are a few of my favorite new things...

I finished my mittens. I love the flip top on them. It never fails, I just get my mittens on and a boys will ask, "Mama, will you zip my coat for me?" Never mind that they are perfectly capable of zipping their own coats, I've been told that I "do it better!" And now I don't have to take my mittens off to help them zip or put their gloves back on after they get snow in them. Total SCORE!




I decided that I needed a new knitting bag. I finally used the adorable hedgehog fabric that I bought off etsy months ago. The lining and straps are made from an old shirt of my brothers that he ripped the elbows. I even took off the breast pocket and reattached it inside. When making the straps I discovered that I am out of stabilizer but that cross stitch fabric works very well instead.

The beaded candle holder is KNIT! I think it turned out awesome. I got the pattern for it and also the mittens out of "Handknit Holidays" by Melanie Falick. Of course modifications had to be made to the pattern to make it work with the size glass candle holder that I could find at the dollar store. The designer Annie Modesitt claims "knitting with wire and beads can be a spiritual experience." In the beginning all I could think was " unless my own personal hell counts as a spiritual experience, Annie is not the sharpest tool in the shed." But by the end knitting with wire and beads won me over, mostly, I think, because it's just so pretty.

After photos

Since I showed some "before" photos in my "Treasures!" post I thought I should let you all see some "after" pictures as well. And I must admit that thinking I would have room to increase my stash was just plain silly. Of course that won't stop me from buying new things.....just ask the nice ladies at the local Ben Franklin! I'm thinking of trying needle felting as my next new hobby. Does anybody know how easy/hard/expensive/frustrating this might be?