Felted Beads for Mother's Day

Made by J at school - I went in last month and did a felting project with six 2-3 year olds, which involved mostly making roving soup at an outside picnic table - fun! We rolled and rolled and rolled our roving until all the roving was gone, Ms. K put the beads out to dry and then a few days later helped the children string them on twine for us Moms. This is my first made present from my children, so it is unbelievably special. If only taking a few weeks to get a photo of it up is any indication.

Poppa and Me Shirts

These were an Xmas gift cut out a year ago and finished this past Xmas, happily the shirt still fits J. They wore them together for the first time today to visit the zoo and they were a big hit, not only with these boys, but Mr. Sycamore got several compliments and one request for where such shirts could be bought. Next time, I'll have to stock him with some Etsy store biz cards .. but first I'd have to stock the store. Just a cotton print from Joann's and modified with white fronts. I'll have to look up the patterns, it was that long ago. I'm not completely happy with Mr. S' collar, it stands out in the back, as if it is too big - the shirt is roomy, but the collar seems generously sized on top of that. Not perfect, but acceptable.. J's shirt was much more successful, and I have enough of the blue print left for an apron for Ms. P. I have to say, usually I'm not about the matchy matchy, but for such a special request from both boys I had to give in.

and what a handsome pair of men in my life. Lucky lucky lucky.

Thrifty Goodness

Killing time in a thrift store, but what treasure! A new sewing box - my mom always had a workbox in the family room for handsewing while we watched tv ... this old picnic basket should do the trick (and is a little hard to open, though I know that will be seen as a challenge for the small people) Now that they are a little bigger they seem to understand a bit better about scissors and the whole "mommy's things" concept. A set of seven linen napkins, and nice black buttons were a steal for 25 cents! The biggest treasure I haven't photographed yet - a reproduction Winslow Homer for a nice boy painting in the kids' bedroom to balance that girly Renoir.

Pie

From this

To this. Is there any combination more genius than strawberries and rhubarb?

Guest Post: Grammy Crafts, Toddler Sweater

Bird Bag

I don't have a great fix-it Friday story - have not finished painting the side of the house where we fixed the leaky pipe. So I'm dipping back a bit to post about this bird bag which J asked for then quickly abandoned, so I scooped it back up for a project bag. I had seen the same type of bird design on Etsy several places, so when I decided the bag front - made from an old pair of cargo pants - was too plain, I knew just what I wanted on it. I used the light t-shirt type transfer paper but instead of printing something on it to iron on, I just cut it out like I wanted. It seems to have held up pretty well (but doesn't get washed as much as an actual t-shirt would). Hopefully J has forgotten it was his and won't ask for it back.

Something Completely Different - Airplane Mobile

(With all apologies to the Pythons) This was a birthday present for J back in March, which I never really got to photograph properly until now. It was based on these book mobiles on Etsy, I bought a couple of french and german language books at the used book store and just played around (late at night) with airplane forms and lots of glue until I got several that I liked. The hardest thing was stringing them on fishing line and hanging them from an embroidery hoop - I ended up hanging the hoop on our dining room light and just left them there for him to discover the next morning with the birthday banner. Very very carefully together we transported them upstairs to the kids' room and hung the mobile. I think J would have preferred to be able to play with them rather than watch them twirl around, but I think they made a good balance for all the play items he did receive. And we blow at them every so often so they will "fly."