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Mother's Day gifts and cuteness

This scene nearly killed me with the cuteness. After a picnic lunch in the shade Biscuit took her nap outside. Of course all the bears were present.

Our tree is dropping hundreds of beautiful flowers so she woke up covered in blossoms. Weather that allows for an outdoor nap and some gardening made for a lovely Mother's Day.

And here's a quick shot of my mom's present. Photo of yours truly and Biscuit and a set of personalized notecards.

These are the six card designs. All are flats with rounded corners and are about 5x7 inches. Such a fun project!

Menagerie

Biscuit has been absolutely hilarious lately.  Really, really charming. And SO opinionated. I pretty much go with the flow when it comes to wardrobe and other non-essential, non-health and safety issues.  And at bedtime I throw up my hands.

You need MORE animals? Sure. AND a ballet skirt? Okay. You want to WEAR your monkey backpack to bed? Whatever.

Which is exactly why I found her sound asleep like this last night. I covered her up and went to bed. In the morning she woke me up with an armload of animals and brought the menagerie to my bed.

So, separate topic. Remind me to blog about how CUTE she is about the garden we planted. The row of beans she planted is a row of 'babies' and she is very, adorably concerned about their growth and well being.

And this little guy is growing well (the zucchini, not the spider). He gets daily visits.

Flour Child

Last Friday Biscuit was in a fashion show.  It was sponsored by the food science department and the fashion had to be made out of "food or food packaging." I had big plans involving corn husks but it was a giant relief when I found two vintage flour sacks at an antique store the weekend before the show.  I immediately knew exactly how I wanted the dress to look. And, amazingly, it worked out.

Even though Biscuit couldn't stop talking about the upcoming fashion show being the center of attention is not something she enjoys (see: hysterical crying over happy birthday singing at her party). I knew I would have to walk the runway with her so I threw together a coordinating skirt.

I was very proud that she walked the runway by herself all the way to the twirl. At which point she realized, hey, there's an audience, and demanded to be carried the rest of the runway.
You can see we were surrounded by greatness.The "orange bag" dress to our right won first and "miss sushi" to our left won second.  That sushi dress was AMAZING in it's detail.  That parasol is made on a frame chopsticks with rice bags as paper. The green fringe on her dress is folded twist ties. Even the shoes are handmade.  Biscuit received an honorable mention, mostly for being cute.

Bad photo of Biscuit but let's examine the details (this project took up all my crafting time last week so we need to focus!). The bag, from a vintage sugar bag (same antique store), cotton batting and red lining fabric from Ikea.  Filled with two mini baguettes we made for the occasion. The necklace(s) are strung bread pieces, Biscuit 'designed' the pendant and cut out the little leaf shapes. She also rolled the "snakes" we baked into bracelets. She ate a bracelet before the show and snacked on the necklace post-show.

See? Necklace, partially eaten. You can also sort of see the cool logo from the flour sack.

Here's the back of the dress.

It was so fun to have a project that I was 'pushed' to do (because I signed up for the show ages ago and couldn't let my friends down) that then came out exactly as I wanted. And now Biscuit has another summer dress to wear--just as soon as the weather warms up again.

Maybe I should just move to Davis

I already drive to Davis (30ish minutes away) every day for work.

Saturday I was there for Picnic Day.

Biscuit loved the parade, especially the bands:

She also enjoyed the (infamous) doxie races; a fuzzy shot of some doxies that don't understand the concept:

I got to milk a cow:

And this was just a funny photo op:

Then, today, I was back in Davis to take advantage of the wonderful Craft Center. I forgot to take photos but Lauren remembered. Her stuff came out way cuter than mine so go look at her images. We were working on screen printing and I was messing around in the clay lab. 

It felt like a jam packed weekend but very little blog worthy content to show for it! Hope your weekend was fun.

Oobleck-y

One part water; Two parts cornstarch; many parts messy fun (add a bit of kool aid for color and scent)

After giving a tupperware full of this to a friend I realized you have to have a high mess tolerance to enjoy this activity. I have a very high mess tolerance--we made this two evenings in a row. I might have even liked the goop more than Biscuit.

And that's saying a lot.

Mr. H, ever the high school science teacher, found this explanation of how it works. Summary: long polymer chains.

Bug hunting and lemon juicing

My camera is periodically eating photos. It's driving me crazy! So if you think, "hey, this photo could have been better," just assume my camera ate the better one.

I've got baby gifts and a long list of other items I need/want to sew. So I spent the weekend bug hunting (aka gardening). I would show you a photo of my garden but the camera ate it. :( But the bug photo is safe and sound.

Do you know this bug?

What about this juicer?

You should (know the juicer that is). Best. Juicer. Ever.

I'm kinda enjoying documenting my fav kitchen tools. Maybe that is weird. But it's fun.

Hope you had a great weekend!

I should have made sure the paint was washable

I swear we started with the cards



Better than a tattoo anyway.

It's been a nutty week. Still, I managed to create a few video tutorials (coming soon) and photograph a few squirrels.

Want more spring animals?
A fawn at Turkey Feathers
Birds at SouleMama
Any more?

Tomorrow I'll draw the winners for the Pay it Forward contest. Good luck!

 

First trip to the snow

I'm pretty sure that watching this video has been more fun for Biscuit than making this video. (and the sledding was pretty fun)

Despite a bloody nose. It barely slowed her down (but did convince her not to ride on her tummy anymore).

Hope your weekend was equally exciting.

Oops (and Japanese craft books)

45 minutes later I just realized I put Biscuit to bed a full hour early. She fell right asleep. I'm thinking we all need more sleep around here.

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On a separate topic, as promised, here are some Japanese craft book images for you:
ISBN: 978-4-391-62449-6 Conveniently called, "Book" (in English anyway)

This book has very detailed instructions for 18 projects in a range of mediums from crochet to wire work to sewing. Mostly sewing:

Images from the inside (sorry all these are so blurry)

And another book, ISBN: 978-4-579-11133-6 "All Your Kids Need"

I like the little rubber stamp ideas:


These are all the categories in the book (not sure if you can read them, click to enlarge):

That's it for tonight. Happy Wednesday to ya!

The more things change, the more they stay the same

A sick day almost exactly 2 years ago after a trip to Portland.

Today.

Other than the use of the big girl bed, everything in that post from February 2006 is about the same. Oh, and I rarely blog about home improvement these days.  Being able to look back like that makes this blog worth it.