Under Construction

Happy Easter!

Last time we'll be invited over

We were invited to a neighbor's New Year's Eve party. It was a no kids affair (starting after bedtime) but we asked if we could bring Biscuit, asleep, to their house to slumber in their port-a-crib while we enjoyed food, drink, board games and a dropping ball.

It didn't go according to plan.

Happy New Year!!

Lazy

Since Christmas I have done exactly....nothing. Well, unless you count sleeping in, then napping during Biscuit's nap, then going to the drive in for a double feature. I don't think that counts.

This afternoon Mr. H was starting to feel sick so I tucked him in with Biscuit for a nap in "Daddy's Bed" and now I'm trying to finish a few last Christmas gifts. What's that you say? Christmas was several days ago? Pshaw! I have a very understanding family and several gifts yet to make. Here's one thing I'm working on.

Antique bottles with images/words using water slide decals. Got this idea straight from Martha herself.

I've found the pictures of people don't work too well so I'm trying some more with my dad's flower photography.

I'm glad to see the internets are coming back from vacation. I've missed everyone's posting but couldn't give up on the internet so I read, beginning to current entry, Ree's Black Heels to Tractor Wheels love story. Then I went back to bed.

Hope you are relaxing this holiday season!

PS Anyone else having issues with Typepad lately? When I'm typing a post I can only see the html version, not the version with the photos and links looking like they will online. Is this a Mac thing? Did I mention I got a Mac for Christmas?!!! I'm still getting used to it but so far so good--I love the giant screen!

In the nick of time

Both of us were so excited about our respective projects we sort of failed to notice that oh my gosh this kid is getting waaaay too much for Christmas. It's never gonna be this good again, Biscuit.

From Santa Claus

From Mrs. Claus:

Um, ya, she's spoiled. And if she doesn't like either gift at least we had fun making them!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!   

The elves are getting frantic

This morning (Dec 23) Mr. H and I started our "big" gifts for Biscuit. We've been in the shop nearly all day--it's now 1 a.m. on Christmas Eve and we might just make it.

Merry Christmas to all the procrastinators out there!

Letting go

I had a little panic attack when I realized today that it was one week to Christmas and nothing is done.  Then a few unpleasant surprises cropped up and by evening I was in a generally scroogy mood.

So at 11 pm I decided to focus on getting one thing done rather than 5 things partly done. I'm pleased to report that the package for my best friend's family is wrapped, packed and ready to go to the post office tomorrow (see you there, it's going to be a zoo!). I didn't find the perfect gifts for her or her kids. One present I ordered didn't arrive in time to be included but there are a few little treats and if I'm lucky the boys will have them by Christmas.

I'm also letting go of party favors for the annual holiday party and I think at least one handmade gift will be presented to the recipient in January.

My family and friends are understanding, I just need to go easy on myself and let go a little. Easier said than done.  Hope you are staying relaxed this holiday!

Christmas Shmistmas

I haven't exactly started Christmas shopping in any major way so the logical choice was of course to take the weekend off and head out of town. I highly suggest window shopping at the San Francisco Anthropologie if you're in need of a little inspiration.  Their window displays and decor are AMAZING. The December Martha Stewart Living was also nice over a cup of tea at the bookstore. 

Even though I got nothin' to blog about but didn't want to get too much out of the habit.  Did I mention I won a random prize for NaBloPoMo?  100 mini moo cards.

This is a photo of Biscuit examining a frog sculpture in the children's garden outside the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. Boy howdy does that girl LOVE her cow shirt!

Felt garland tutorial (or why I'll have to pack mothballs in the Christmas box)

Last night, driving home from work, I had a sudden inspiration for a new Christmas tree garland. I'm sure I was inspired by all the knit garlands folks were posting but I haven't seen anything quite like this.  It was super easy to make and looks fantastic (if I do say so myself). As always with my tutorials the photos are awful but I'm sure you can figure it out.

Start with 2 or 3 felted sweaters. I chose a bright red, a gray and white and a brown and mulitcolor. All are 100% wool and from the thrift store. The red one was full of moth holes but that's no problem for this project.  To felt the sweaters toss them in your washing machine on hot with detergent and run an extra cycle. Dry in the dryer. The sweaters should be well shrunk and thick--they should not fray when you cut them.

Once your sweaters are ready, start cutting roundish shapes ranging from 1.25 to about 3.5 inches in diameter. No need for a template, egg shape, circle, oval, rounded square, all are fine. This is a perfect tv watching activity.

Once you have a largish pile of round pieces of felt, move off the couch and too your sewing machine.

Use a ball point needle and set your sewing machine to make a long, straight stitch. You may also want to use a heavier thread although I used all purpose thread and it seems okay.  Anyway, shove the first circle under the presser foot and sew through the middle.

As soon as the first circle is through, immediately push the next circle under the presser foot.  Don't overlap them but try not to have any gap between the circles.

This is what the chain of circles should look like coming off the back of your machine. I got into a groove of grabbing the circles with my left hand and guiding them into the machine while guiding the stitch with my right hand. I never had to stop the machine.  Try to vary the color and sizes to achieve a random look.

This is what a good section looks like. Note the approximate sizes of the circles and that they are closely butted together.

This section doesn't look so good--gaps are too big between circles. If this happens when you are sewing, back up the machine onto the previous circle and feed in the next circle more closely and then move on.

That's it! I made 13 YARDS of this in what felt like NO time at all. The sewing probably took 15 minutes total. The cutting perhaps 2 hours of tv time.

Don't forget to pack this with mothballs.

PS--we spent the entire evening decorating the tree so I am way behind on emails and listing on etsy. I plan to get to it all tomorrow :) Thanks for your votes on the holiday photo for the card--ya'll seem to agree with Mr. H.

Highly recommended

Anyone else read SundryBuzz? I check in now and again because Linda and Swistle are pretty much my favorite mommybloggers but I'm just not that into products. Unless we're talking sewing notions (thread?) or fabric I usually couldn't care less.

So I was as surprised as anyone when I realized during my commute this morning that tonight's post was going to be a list of highly recommended items.  Tested by me (or Mr. H).  Enjoy!

Etsy Gift Guides I was looking in between trying to upload an obscene number of photos to Costco.com (I was in the middle of one of my periodic panics about losing my daughter's childhood memories to a hard drive failure. This particular attack brought on by my in-law's computer loss) Um, where was I?

Oh yes,  the Etsy Gift Guide.  So good! I sort of naively thought that Etsy (all handmade stuff) would not be a good place to shop for, say, my brother-in-law but I may have been wrong. The gift guides are a great way to narrow down the vastness that is Etsy.  If you go to my Etsy shop you can click on my list of favorites (it appears at the bottom of my profile page). If you are likely to be someone I am buying a Christmas gift for, do me a favor and don't click on my favorites list. Either way, check out the gift guides.

Enough about that, I'm not as witty a reviewer as Swistle so we will move along to Chai.

Chai tea--See the box there on the right? $3.50ish at Target and oh so yummy.  Half stuff from the box, half milk, perfect warm beverage and way to get calcium. Several cups of yummyness for the price of one Chai tea latte at Starbucks.  This stuff is milder than Starbucks but I still like it.

Bulb tester--And that thing to the left of my yellow mug, that's a Christmas light bulb tester. This may have saved Mr H's sanity when, after he got all the lights on the roof, half a strand on the garage went out. $4 at Target. Totally worth it.

And now that I've given my recommendations, I need yours. I finally took a roll of film for the Christmas card shot. Got a few contenders. I don't have a scanner so click this photo to enlarge

Issues:
-photo on left-you can't really tell it's a Santa hat she's pulling off. Also, tummy hanging out (sort of cute) and random background.
-center photo-fold in shirt obscures year (which is kind of the point). Hat is a bit odd and her smile is so big you can't see her eyes. Also, as with the first photo, the lighting is harsh and shadowy
-right photo-where are her arms?  Also, no smile (but okay expression?). Need to crop book out of background.

What say you? Which should be the card?

P.S. Top photo has nothing to do with this post--more on that tomorrow.

Giving thanks

All in all a lovely Thanksgiving

The napkins got sewn late and the turkey got done early but it all came together by the time everyone was ready to eat.

Here's a place setting before everyone sat down. The rock name cards were a last minute addition--couldn't find any pretty leaves.

Here's what Thanksgiving really looks like with four kids 5 and under.  Biscuit insisted Grammy read her favorite book, Pooh and TIgger during the salad course.

We walked off dinner and came home at dark for dessert.

A few people had too much turkey

And that was it.  Lots of cooking followed by a wonderful day with family.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving (if you're in the US that is).