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Spoons

So I made some more spoons. I can't recall if I posted photos of the spoons I made at Christmas but here are two more. Spoon making is really more Mr. H's area of expertise but I wanted to try it.

These spoons are far, far from perfect  but they are certainly functional and I like them.

The spoons were a gift for my friend Lauren (who, by the way, has a show at the Pence Gallery in Davis! How cool is that?) We went to the opening for Lauren's show last Friday and it was really fun to get out of town and go to a thing and eat cookies (and drink cheap wine). If there's open studio/art night in your city I'd recommend it.

The handmade

So , Happy New Year. I'm not quite done with Christmas. I tweaked my back so I had a few useless days in there and now I'm back to normal and finally blogging the Christmas gifts.

I really wanted Mr. H and I to make our main gifts for the kids. So, really, that meant I wanted Mr. H to make the main gifts for the kids because 1. he's super talented and 2. the things they wanted were more wood things than fabric things. So, at the 11th hour he pulled a rabbit out of the hat and made some amazing gifts.

Biscuit mostly asked for American Girl Doll stuff. Check out this dresser! Cherry with cedar drawer bottoms. Mr. H spared no expense for the doll :)

The dresser is already arranged in the doll "nursery" with a globe and a tv etch-a-sketch on top.

For Oscar the car track thing that is still a total hit. Any minute now he'll consistently figure out how to put the car on straight.

Biscuit sewed this pillow for her dad (fabric from Ikea) and made him these pencil holders (cans wrapped in wood grain contact paper). Can you tell he likes wood?

I sewed a wonky-but-functional sleeping bag for the American Girl Doll.

For Mr H. I made a leather koozie for a mason jar. It was half joke half useful now that we use mason jars for cups and I gave him a Cuppow to make a jar into a travel mug. The koozie idea is straight from Design*Sponge. I had been planning to make a quilted thing but leather is way manlier.

I also made my mom and dad an apron with fabric I got printed YEARS ago at Spoonflower and never used. Print is a series of paintings of buildings done by a ~4 year old Biscuit. Dad also got a wool blanket I stitched up and failed to photograph (partially since it wasn't done until December 28. Oops)

And I made a wooden spoon. I was very proud of that spoon but gave it to my sister (with a tea towel I sewed/printed) and failed to photograph either. I'm working on another spoon so I've got another chance.

Mr. H also made several iPad holders (blocks of wood with a slot for the iPad). They were very nice and very well received. No photos.

Finally, Oscar received a toy my grandfather made. My grandfather died decades ago but in retirement he made wooden toys he sold at craft shows and my mom has a large collection she's been doling out to my kids. Oscar got the train. Note the $18 (!) price tag. So cheap.

So, there you go some gift highlights from 2013.

Invited

'Tis the season for social events and I do love to mail printed invitations.

Recently:

For Paige's 7th birthday. For some reason she wants a farm party. If you have any ideas for "farm games," holler. I'm thinking pin the tail on the donkey? Plant Melissa's Fall garden?

For the annual Teacher's Dessert. This one was a mess up but shows the stamp we made for the top of the card.

Carving rubber stamps might be my latest, favorite thing. Instant gratification from an x-acto and a piece of rubber.

The barn was for the birthday envelopes. Biscuit drew the image and I carved it.

(it was red on the real thing)

Finally, Crafty Slumberland. My friend Shelley and I hatched a plot to host a crafty overnighter. Dinner, drinks (more drinks), breakfast and lunch and in between a whole boatload of kitchen-themed crafting. I'm sure I'll post more about this later. I'm trying to get invites in the mail now. It's a sort of trial run of our concept so we're just inviting a few close friends and hoping to have some fun and not lose money (or make money for that matter). Hooray for taking the plunge on a random idea!

Printing fabric

To celebrate Labor Day I had a few friends over to try printing on fabric. We mostly used wooden blocks I purchased in India after touring an actual factory where men used the blocks to print textiles you can probably buy at Cost Plus.

We used techniques from the wonderful book Print Workshop.

I quickly gave up on block printing in favor of nature printing. Those hearts above are (black?) walnut shell halves I found in the backyard.

And I couldn't resist leaf printing. Again. With words. Oscar is our little love bug so I made a shirt for him but once the leaf was cut used it on a few onesies for gifts. FYI, the cut leaves only work well once or twice.

It's hard to photograph a shirt on a one-year-old. Kid may not walk much but he's quick!

He's also pretty good at stacking paints ;)

The travel journal is probably the most critical thing

So we leave in the morning. We're about 50% packed. I'm done with work, Mr. H is still working on a cabinet job. Needless to say I found time to make a quick travel journal.

Biscuit and I chose a boatload of paper scraps and I cut them to 7.5x5.5 inches. We tossed in some envelopes, transparencies with patterns I used to make silk screens, oversize index cards etc.

In my dream world I hand bound this with waxed linen thread. In reality I spent $3.75 for the large spiral binding at Office Depot. This way was much less crazy making and I actually like it!

You couldn't tell by looking at it but this was inspired by Ali Edward's Scrapbook on the Road e-class that I purchased. Can't wait to fill it with ephemera, notes and photos from the road.

PS Thanks to those who were encouraging about the Honda Fit fitting everything. I'm looking at you Dawn and Lisa :)

Lunchbox napkin (and tapioca)

I just finished my second bowl of tapioca pudding in a row. I was going to type this while eating tapioca pudding but Firefox froze. Then iPhoto. That gave me time to finish my pudding and decide on a topic for this post. Right after I finish discussing pudding. I've been making rice pudding for a while now thinking it is as good as tapioca but I was wrong. Rice pudding is a sad, bland excuse for warm, rich, vanilla-y tapioca. I use the recipe on the side of the Minute Tapioca box (it's a red box). Exactly as written but it's even better if it sits for more than 5 minutes in the beginning. Mr. H hates tapioca. Weird, huh?

In related news, I had the tapioca out in the first place to make a strawberry rhubarb pie in celebration of pi (pie) day which is tomorrow (3.14) but we celebrated on Sunday. The pie looked impressive but was not as good as the tapioca pudding.

And 156 words later, the topic of the post--napkins.

This was a totally fun 10 minute project.

I didn't put anything in the paint (like you would to paint a wood chalkboard). The texture of the napkins (both cotton and linen blend) was sufficient for the chalk to write. I used freezer paper for the stencils.

I tried to rub off/erase the chalk and it just smudged (see above) but that was fine with me since cloth napkins get washed a lot and the chalk came right off in the wash while the paint held up just fine.

Biscuit is a big fan of notes in her lunchbox so here's one more way I can do that for her. Fun!

And now I'm considering bowl #3 of tapioca......

 

Hearts + river rocks

Last weekend we collected rocks at the river.

Biscuit painted hearts

Then added initials to the back and we sprayed them with a clear acrylic.

And, in typical Biscuit fashion, she wrote notes on envelopes and enclosed a stone and a package of smarties. All set for Tuesday.

Unrelated to giving folks rocks for Valentine's Day but related to love, we got this Knock Knock brand note pad from a friend for Christmas.

It's really perfect for lunchbox notes. If you like to put notes in lunchboxes I'd recommend it.

Anything but not everything

I saw a poster on Pinterest that said

"You can do anything but you can't do everything."

So true.

Crafting, reading, exercising, keeping up with friends, cooking, working or, you know, parenting. Options abound but there isn't time for all of them. This month seems to be dominated by dishwashing (apparently we failed in our attempt to fix our dishwasher), reading (Blackout and now All Clear by Connie Willis) and planning/thinking without a lot of doing. 

The only exception seemed to be yesterday when I actually got something done (along with the dishes). A good 10 years after my mom gave me an album to keep all our annual holiday cards/letters I finally started using it.

For the 2011 page I took an idea from Ali Edwards and punched squares out of all the cards we received to make a collage.

This was the perfect solution to my inability to throw away received cards but my lack of desire to store  said cards for decades.

It was kind of a kick to look back on old letters (those I could find anyway)

And to rediscover the card I made in 2003 when I decided to try linoleum printing with an overly complicated design.

This should be any easy album to keep up and it's nice to have that easy project checked off the list.

Now I'm going back to my book. Maybe I'll turn some of the ideas into projects in February.

Power to the babies

Not long ago I thought, "hey, I want to make a cast of Oscar's hand." And a few clicks later I found Casting Keepsakes, had enough in Paypal (I think it was less than $12 including shipping), and a few days later the stuff was on my porch. Gotta love the internet (when it's not blacked out of course).

Extreme close up of that wrist fat roll!

The careful observer will notice the flat spots on his knuckes and his surprisingly thin fingertips so a few tips for ya:

• Don't put the molding compound in a vessel that is deeper than your childs arm is long (ie no 44 oz soda cups for 7 month old babies)
• Don't try to do this at bedtime/with a tired or hungry child
• Don't do this while your child is dressed in a brand new long sleeved outfit
• Do really swirl around the plaster when you pour it in

Other than that I'd recommend the product and the project. It's kind of a fun little doodad and in a few years we can go, "awww, can you believe his hand was that tiny (and his fingers were that flat!)"

Crazy (awesome) silhouette art tutorial

Because I'm a week behind on everything, including New Years, I'm still working on my resolutions. But I think one will be to post one tutorial here per month. But then the internet is FULL of AWESOME tutorials whereas mine tend to be a bit more...hmmm... homespun? Novice? Crappy? So I'm also considering a resolution of making one thing per week all year.

Either way, this Crazy (Awesome) Silhouette Art project totally fits the bill.

Supplies:

• a piece of wood or plywood or some other smooth surface (I used a square of 1/4 inch masonite about 14x14 inches)
• photo of your subject in profile
• Contact paper
• Scissors or really, really sharp exacto
• spray primer in black (or some other cool color)
• assorted acrylic paints and brushes
• spray on clear coat (if desired)
• string and glue gun (or some sort of hanger)

Process:

1. Take a photo of your subjects in action. Aim for a neutral(ish) background and faces in profile. Convert to black and white and crop as desired. Print out on regular typing paper the size you want your silhouette to be (I printed the image below on 8.5x11" paper)
2. Spray your wood with primer. This will be the color of your silhouette. You only really need to spray the area where your silhouette will be. see how the wood below has primer on one side? And the photo is printed (ignore the blue stripes--printer issues!)
3. Tape your contact paper sticky side up to a self healing mat. Tape your photo on top and cut out image using exacto. (notes: you might want to outline with a pen first to ensure you know where to cut. If your exacto is anything less than razor sharp use double stick tape or a glue stick to adhere the photo to the back of the contact paper and cut out with scissors)
4.  Peel it all apart and stick your contact paper silhouette to your primered wood. Press down the edges really well.
5. 
6. Here's the trick I learned about on HGTV at some point....spray paint again over the contact paper mask. This should help keep the edges clean as they'll be sealed down with matching paint!
7. Now go to town with the acrylic paints. Choose colors you like and don't worry about it. I recommend employing a child to help--it'll force you to be spontaneous and to not try to do anything too fancy. Or you could just paint it a solid color (if you're booooring....)
8. 
9. That red smear looked vaguely heart shaped so I made it a bit more heart shaped. That was about it as far as trying to do anything planned.
   
   
10. Watch your paint dry. (in our case, force your child to take a bath with the promise of peeling off contact paper when she's done.)
    
11. PEEL! Carefully peel off the contact paper with fingers crossed. Yay! I hope it looks awesome.
12. If desired, spray on a coat of polyurethane or acrylic clear coat. If you're hanging your work attach the fastener. For this light masonite a hot glued a piece of ribbon to the back and it seemed to work fine.
13. Hang and enjoy!