Celebrating crafts, kids and the everyday through photographs.
I hope you all have a fabulous long (for those in the US) weekend. I will be trying to figure out how to outsmart my crazy moving, waving, almost eight month old.
She can only go backwards, but it turns out you can get into a lot of trouble going that way.
Gotta go, it looks like she slid out into the hallway already!
I love giving gifts. Finding the perfect thing for someone, or especially making the perfect thing is so much fun. But I'm not going to lie; opening packages on my birthday I love too! The first thing I got on my birthday I got myself at that antique/junk store I was talking about earlier:
I love it. Not sure where it's going to go, maybe in my craft room when I revamp it. Because I am going to get back on the weight lose track (I just brushed my teeth so I wouldn't eat another ice cream sandwich… mmmm). After the junk shop Sciarrino had me open my presents from her:
This awesome tray is actually made from pressed board. So cool! I wish some company would bring this idea back, what a cool way to use recycled paper pulp!
Some really old patterns. I guess Tuesday wants me to make them right now! The patterns are kind of intense, pre printed patterns so they have holes as guides. Has anyone used a pattern like this? At first I thought all the printing had faded off. But they've never been used so they do have all the pieces.
Sciarrino and I like to find each other the coolest vintage things and I think she just won! This is a refrigerator for your desk full of useful things like egg erasers, a butter pencil sharpener, the baking soda box has paper clips in it, the pie is a tape measure, the meat a magnet, veggies are tacks, and the leeks are pens! Oh the awesomeness. My Sanrio collecting days are coming back to me.
I came home for our weekend away to a wonderful card from Sarah:
You may know that she makes the most awesome cards and I totally collect them. She also got me two fat quarters of wonderful fabric, so yummy! I also got a big box from Carmen with some seriously yummy fiber:
(my helper strikes again!). She went to a shop I wanted to go in when we were visiting, but it was closed because they were off dying. Well she went there right after they got back and said the whole shop was FULL of fiber, she had a ton of fun picking out this and three other bundles of yumminess for me. Carmen maybe you need to start spinning? 🙂
My mom came by the next day with her gift to me, as if the wonderful soup was not enough. Her and I had been talking about plans, dreams, you know LIFE stuff. That day she found this for me:
You can see the whole thing on the daily shot from yesterday. I love this! I found the perfect place for it so I can see it when I work and create. Telling myself to keep pushing myself creatively. My mom said she didn't know it until she ordered it, but they are made right here in Oregon, so cool!
Then she had to go and give me the most wonderful thing and make me tear up:
This quilt top was hand pieced by my great grandma (my mom's grandma). My grandma has told me stories about how great grandma Stewart would ask her and her sister to go to garage sales and pick up any kind of cotton fabric, never mind the color. She would make it work. I love looking at her fabric choices:
Such a clever way to cut pieces to give them a totally different effect.
I like this block because it has that funny nubbly 70s fabric (the blue stuff).
I just can't imagine. She hand cut, and hand stitched every block! And wonderfully well too. This was a finished top when my mom got it. She then had it quilted and chose a wonderful floral for the binding that she hand sewed on.
She chose a simple creamy white for the back, same as the negative space on the front of the quilt. It's just perfection! I knew my mom was working on this, but I never thought she'd give it to me. She said I would appreciate it the most, and I do! I have it in Tuesday's room so I can snuggle with it while I nurse the seamstresses great great grandchild.
I always hope when I see people with wonderful things or wonderful friends that they know how lucky they are. Well I know how lucky I am. One
super lucky girl that's
for sure. Not only for the wonderful gifts, but to have people in my life who know me so wonderfully well. And not just these things, but all the birthday cards and well wishes… a big thank you and kisses to you all!
Tuesday is either teething and it's the worst thing ever, or she's not teething but it's still the worst thing ever. Nothing seems to make her happy, but her fever is gone. Poor girl. I'm going to back track a bit and catch up on some bits of life I missed telling you all about.
My birthday started out in a hotel room in a king size bed with a little Tutu snuggled in the middle of Bj and I. Besides the fact that I fed her cauliflower the night before (because we had it I just pureed it and oh my goodness did her pee smell something awful), it was a wonderful thing. After a post wedding brunch Sciarrino spotted an antique/junk shop in the neighborhood so we followed her there. But more on my birthday loot later. We got home and rested a bit, had lots of kisses:
My lovely little girl always knows just what mama needs.
After our resting we loaded up and headed out to the Oregon State Fair! For those of you new to the blog I go every year. Even last year when I basically just hobbled around and got my picture taken. I have to get the annual portrait. This year:
The first strip was when we first got to the fair, Tutu was asleep in the hawk. Then we went back when she was awake. Oh man her reaction to the flash was so funny. I like the top one on the right where I am dangling her. hehehe These are screaming to be a mini book, right?
I decided to keep Bj's little camera on my wrist and take some actual sight seeing type of pictures:
I think next year we will be entering from the red gate and sticking to the animals and gardens. I'm scared to have a little person who wants to touch all the nastiness. I told my mom this and she said, "I can't believe I took you so young." I asked, "How young was I." "Well you had just been born, so a few days?" OMG Mom! I guess I really have been every year. Once Tutu woke up we checked out flowers.
And animals:
In the big animal barn she was cool looking at everything… until she saw a cow. She started a little crying. It was so funny. Draft horses, cool, goats trying to jump on you, no big deal! But a cow looking at her the wrong way I guess was just too much. I nursed her during a horse show when my dad called to say he was at the fair. I asked where and he said, "Outside the historic horse arena." Well what do you know, we were inside it! So we said hi to him and some family friends. Then off to eat some not so fabulous food (I'm so far away from getting my cabinets. I need to get back on track, 12 pounds is not going to loose itself when I have corndogs and curly fries). Then we headed out through the lights and people on crazy rides:
and a family snap:
The fair has changed a lot during my life, but all of the crazy parts I love are the same. I don't know though, if they get rid of those photo booths I might not come back, it really is my favorite part. So yes, I had a great birthday and I'm excited for my thirtieth year (I turned 29 so I'm in my thirtieth year. This is something tricky Bj and I figured out when I would try to tell him how far we were in the pregnancy, "I'm 28 weeks, but I"m in the 29th week…").
Poor little Tuesday is not feeling so great tonight. So I don't have the entry I planned ready to go. I thought I would do a quick post with lots of pictures of my usually sunny happy girl.
The other night we had dinner out on our front porch. So much fun!
The grownups got to eat some yumminess from Smitten Kitchen filled with lots of summer veggies.
Tuesday got some kind of summer squash. I don't really know what. We found it on a walk, someone had it sitting in the front yard with a free sign :)
Happy girl.
Whoa that first bite, it always seems to take he by surprise, the whole, "Hey I thought I was just getting a spoon to play with" look. Which I finally do give in and let her play with eventually:
Usually this results in a wardrobe change, but that's okay I love her clothes:
Both of these pieces by Chase N' Sky Hawaii, a family friend is the designer, and I heart everything she does so much!
So get better soon little sparkle pants. Mama doesn't want to take you back to the doctor, even if it was super funny to see how they put a urine collection bag on a baby.
Yes, Sciarrino and I survived pickle maddness 2009, just barely!
Oh my goodness we did so much canning. Here's what happened. Two Wednesday's ago Sciarrino and I were walking the street fair when we saw canning cucumbers, so we decided to get some and try it out. We were going to get three reasonably sized cartons, but the guys said, "I'll give you this bag for the same price." How could we say no? Turns out it was about eight pounds, and we canned that pretty easy, and learned a few things (those are the classic dill, forth from the left, the ones floating – oops!). So when I went back last Wednesday (wearing Tuesday and pulling an old lady shopping cart I brought from home) I told the same guy that I wanted two more of the bags, "like I got last week." Well when he pulled one bag out from under his whole table came crashing down! So I was just like, "put the bags in the cart, it's okay." And not really paying attention. I had this crazy cart laden down with cucumbers, dill and some green beans and I pulled it back to the car while Tuesday bobbed along in the Baby Hawk. When I loaded it into the car it felt pretty heavy, but I wasn't really paying attention, because I had to drop that off and get more stuff (peppers, cauliflower, beans, garlic) and meet my mom. So imagine my shock when I realized I had just saddled us with FORTY POUNDS of cucumbers. So we tried a lot of recipes and had a lot of things going at once. I think they turned out pretty well though:
Especially considering we stayed up until one am the night before we were to be at a wedding, because we are crazy people. And then Sciarrino got up, made more and finished sewing a skirt to wear to said wedding. Because not only are we crazy, we are multitaskers. Oh wait, that's not all:
And I already traded a jar to my neighbor for chutney, score! We figured since we had to wait at least four weeks for the other pickles we should do some we could dig into sooner and tried these two recipes: mixed veggie pickles and dill slices. We can eat them in two weeks. I will be making a salad with the mixed veggies this Wednesday, nothing bad will happen right? Sciarrino figured the worst that could happen would be not as flavorful veggies, right? Oh and AND we still have four pounds to can (because we can't find a product called "surejel" I guess it's actually "ClearJel" we are looking for locally). Plus I got beans to pickle, and more beets… oh and of the beans I lost two baskets full. I hope I left them on the side of the road and they are not like, rotting in my car. Our fridge now looks like this:
That big jar up top is from my mom who made me my favorite birthday dinner and stuck it in my fridge for me while I was away (we stayed up in Portland for the wedding). Isn't that so sweet? So yes, we made it to the wedding, had a blast, and didn't even smell that much like pickles, at least I don't think we did…
It’s the middle of the night and I’m nursing Tuesday. All I can smell is hot vinegar and pickling spices. The kitchen is a wreck and the dinning room table is full of jars. We might have gotten in over our heads a tiny little bit.
Bj asked as I came home from the farmer's market with another haul of cucumbery goodness:
Well last week at the Wednesday market we (Sciarrino and I) talked about how we had wanted to do pickles last year, but didn't, so we just went ahead and bought a huge bag of pickling cucumbers. Thereby forcing ourselves to make pickles. A couple hundred dollars worth of spices and paraphernalia later (I'm a sucker for the pretty spice jars, such a sucker)…
Mmmm pickling spice.
Ready for hot pickling liquid:
They are just so pretty like that! Of course I don't know (and won't know for weeks) if these turned out well. And I sealed them all up before realizing I didn't get mustard seeds in there, oops! I think we might have done a couple of things wrong, like not making enough pickling liquid at once, waiting too long between the step, etc. We'll see. That is not stopping us (Sciarrino and I) from getting two huge bags and giving it another go. I also got some darling Italian canning jars, so guess what? If you know me, you're getting something canned for Christmas (I'll let you know if it is going to be more decorative than edible).
Bj decided we needed a freezer, so we finally got a stand alone, and I've been busy stocking that as well:
Each cube is two ounces. I'm using these for now, but they seem to be sold out most places, so I got some of these for the next batch. I hope they pop out as easy as the Baby Cubes. So far I've made plum (from our tree), pear (from our neighbor's), yam and apricot. I also froze some of the plum juice into ice cube sized pieces. Plus I have some of my milk back there, not that Tuesday's ever really warmed up to the idea of a bottle, right mom? I got one of these GlassLock containers to put in the fridge with a cube or two in it to defrost. Maybe I'll get another one and do a cube for breakfast and one for dinner. I'm not really sure when she is going to want to eat more. We are trying to have things on our plate she can eat, but I'm not always with it (see below), so I figured it would be good to have some back up food. My mom pointed out I should can a little in case the power ever goes out.
I am having so much fun in the kitchen! And I'm rarely in there. I have been living off of Amy's Cheese Enchilada meals for a while (only 450 calories and mostly organic). But now that I'm making all this stuff for Tutu I'm wanting to make more for myself. My mom and I love the Smitten Kitchen blog, have you seen it? Yummy. I have been using this book for baby stuff, this one for canning (and I just got this one today). I'd love tried and true recipes though, if you have any I'd love it! I'll try pickling just about any thing:
Beets! I don't even eat beets! My mom pointed out that I maybe should have made some smaller jars of these (I used the biggest I had). Hmm. So tips like that would be welcome too. I want to can some fruit too. I can do anything that just takes a water bath, but I have no pressure cooker. Ideas? Tips? Books? Stories?
Congratulations Shaun, Random.org picked you!
"Is there anything you cannot do? That pillow is the cutest thing ever! Tuesday looks like she is really enjoying the different textures and colors. You are so smart to introduce her to these ideas early.
Hope you had a wonderful weekend!
Loves and kisses."
Send me an email with your address and I'll send you the kit.
I was trying to come up with a fun pillow for Tuesday's room to go on the glider, and was going to do a pieced block like the bumper, but then I thought, why not make something Tuesday will really love right now? So I came up with this:
An 18 inch pillow cover (envelope back), that she can tug, taste and explore.
So far it's been a big hit. The ribbon is triple attached, because of how I made the pillow, at each end, but the middle is left free for little hands to pick at.
I tacked down some doily things cut from a panel I found at an estate sale, she loves stuff like this.
Then I printed out a big letter t and hand embroidered it on (using all six strands of floss so it was thick). I think my favorite part though might be the edges:
I used a silk piping, and finally came up with a cool "made by mom" label. I am using some new to the ribbon jar twill that is just the perfect size for this (3/4"). I took a date stamp and stamped (with StazOn ink) my birth date on one side,
And Tuesday's on the other. I am totally using this idea for everything! I love having a label, the numbers look fun, like a series, but have a secret meaning. So my number will always be the same, but the other will be different based on who I'm giving it to. And maybe if I don't have anyone in mind I could do the day I made the item. If you want to make cool tab labels check out the twill, it's cheap and I'm already thinking of other things I can stamp. I didn't put this process through the full battery of tests, but I did try to scrub the numbers off and they seem to be on there pretty good.
*edited to add: Dianne emailed to say heat setting the StazOn works great, just use a hot iron, no steam, and paper between the iron and ink if you want.
Now for the giveaway.
I made up a little kit for you to make your own pillow case (you'll need the 18" pillow form, or you can just use the goodies for other projects if you like). Included are all the fabrics, three little doily things, lots of ribbons, including the piping and twill, embroidery floss, warm & natural batting, and I'll even print off a big letter of your choice if you like for the tracing (I made mine in Illustrator, size 1296 font, the biggest the program lets you go). I'm not going to sell these kits on the Ribbon Jar, though all the ribbon and trim is available on my site, I just thought this would be fun for you dear readers. If you'd like it please comment by Tuesday, August 25, noon pacific, and good luck!
I debated posting this, but I've tried to resolve it with the company and I don't want anyone's baby hurting themselves on this clothing. My mom got me this adorable jumper at a local kids shop here called Meringue Boutique, the only cute little boutique in town, unfortunately.
The jumper is still listed on the retailers site (though my mom bought it in the shop, in December I believe, and I brought the snaps to their attention months ago). The brand is Barn Los Angeles by Mad Sky Kids. The problem has to do with the snaps, which if I'm making out the tiny writing on them looks to be a brand called GRIPPER. I don't know if it is the snaps that are too tight, or the fabric that is too flimsy, or the sewing that is bad, but after only a few wears I got this:
The snap is almost completely off of the fabric, with only a little tug it would be, or what I'm afraid of is a little bite by miss Tuesday. These jumpers, or heart footies, go up to size 12 months at least and a 12 month old could definitely manipulate the snaps into their mouth. I looked through to see if I had a picture of Tuesday in the outfit, and I don't, which tells you how many times I put her in it, maybe four times, MAX. This isn't a "cheap" product, but cheaply made, and I see people reselling their Barn stuff on eBay as couture baby clothes. I went to the shop where my mom got this, Meringue Boutique and they would not exchange. They did call Barn, and they would not take it back. The company they sell through: Sandbox Couture says this about their return policy: "Sandbox Couture will not for any reason exchange products that were damaged during wear. Many of our products are not intended for rough play or to be pulled and streched. If damage occurs that looks to have been the result of this, a refund or exchange will not be issued and product will be returned." That is absurd. This is a baby garment, babies move around, and this is a knit material, to say it can't be stretched is well, impossible. I would recommend against buying anything by this brand, the parent company, or the e commerce site. And I will not shop at Meringue any more, not only were they not very helpful but they are still selling this defective product after I brought it to their attention, which is very troubling.
Sorry for the downer of the post, but I hope if people looking up this brand come across it they won't get one of these jumpers. I would feel terrible if a baby choked on one of these snaps and I never said anything.
Fun, project centered post and a give away up next!
