Made By K

Is there a group for this?

2012-02-09T11:17:00.001-06:00

Was talking to a friend yesterday who I haven’t talked to in about a month. I told her about our recent Card Night and she brought up seeing the last post about the little charms I made.

Then she added “I was glad to see that post. I was beginning to wonder if something had happened to you.”

Nope, I just didn’t post anything for almost a month.

But here’s the thing I don’t understand. During that almost month:

I had blog posts ideas swirling around in my head.
I took photos for blog posts.
I jotted down notes for blog posts.
I even WROTE ENTIRE blog posts.

I just didn’t post anything. What’s the deal?

Guess how many drafts I have in Blogger right now…

12.

Three years ago, I started using LiveWriter instead of Blogger for writing posts; guess how many drafts I have there…

16.

Guess how many photos I have for possible blog posts…

45,721.
(Well, maybe not quite that many –
unlike the drafts, I didn’t actually count the photos.)

And those blog post ideas swirling around in my head? Some of them have been in there for YEARS!

“Hi, my name is Karin* and I am a non-posting blogger.”

*pronounced like “CAR in the garage”, not “CARE-en”

Goblets and Glasses and Mugs… Where’s Mine?!?

2012-02-03T20:22:00.001-06:00

While preparing for our neighborhood Court Whist card night last Saturday, I eyed all the the various beverage receptacles we were setting out and wondered how guests would keep them all straight, with all the mingling and moving between tables I knew they’d be doing.

Would Sharpie names written on mugs, goblets and glasses be tacky?

Then an amazing thing happened! We were finished setting up … and there were still THIRTY MINUTES until guests were supposed to arrive! Which left plenty of time for me to grab some supplies from upstairs and get to work.

The wire was hardly thick enough. And Pony beads are only one step up from Sharpie-names-on-goblets tackiness perhaps, but their bright colors offered the only means of differentiation (the whole point of this project) that I could find amongst my supplies. Paired with some crystal-looking beads (same as the ones I used to make the “chandelier” in the light-up dollhouse), they gussied up nice enough.

Goblets got little rings around their stems.

Mugs got little charms attached to their handles. (While attempting these, I was glad I’d spent some time watching how my friend Mo makes her jewelry.)

And glasses got little bands around their bottoms. Lucky for me, they have a nice little groove down there for the beads to nestle in.

Ran out of Pony beads, but found other beads to keep things different.

I raided my button jar too.

And, with about 7 minutes to spare, everything was set up once again.

We had SUCH fun hanging with our neighbors. And as far as I know, nobody lost track of their beverage.

WIP: Grey Circle Scarf

2012-01-09T14:58:00.001-06:00

Here’s one of the things in my Works In Progress bag. I hope it’ll turn out to be a nice circle scarf. I love the design when it’s hanging…

…but perhaps it’ll so much of a jumble when it’s scrunched together?

I guess it could always just be a hang-down scarf, once I crochet it a little longer. : )

Note: pattern is from Encyclopedia of Crochet.

Hello, Eggbert

2012-01-07T19:53:00.001-06:00

or, How To Make A Four-Year-Old Laugh Out Loud With Delight

While making lunch, add assorted food to a hard-boiled egg, e.g. cracker halves for feet, shredded cheese for hair, grape slices for eyes, and a celery slice for a mouth (grapes and celery skewered into place with toothpicks broken in half).
Place plate in front of unsuspecting four-year-old.

In Case You Missed LiEr’s Festival of Lights

2012-01-02T21:08:00.001-06:00

I meant to post about this when it started but instead, I’m posting about it a week after it ended. Is anyone surprised? Nice to know that even with a new year, some things never change. : )

Anyway, LiEr over at ikatbag.com hosted a fun series all about lights and what you can do with them, especially when making kids toys. She had some incredible ideas herself and also rounded up a few guest-posters, including me!

Here are the projects -- click on the photos to go to each post.

Day 1: Light Boxes and Lanterns (made from a storage tub and whipped cream carton, respectively)

Day 2: Space Shuttle with light-up dashboard buttons (guest post by MaryAnne from Mama Smiles; I love the stuff she does with her kids!)

Day 3: Christmas Tree Nightlights (made by LiEr, with her kids)

Day 4: Carousel with Lights and Sound (guest post by Katie from matsutake; she’s got mad skillz, man! and she’s my kind of hilarious!)

Day 5: Cardboard Dollhouse (guest post by me from here; now you can see the “wallpaper” I was taking a break from in my last post – tee hee)

Day 6: Car and Runway (another guest post by me because we were having so much fun adding lights to anything and everything; I’d wanted to make a runway, as in airport, but designer-wannabe Sophie requested a runway, as in fashion!)

Day 7: Bulb How-Tos, a Starlit Stable, and a Steady Hand Game (again, by the knows-no-bounds LiEr, and her daughter Emily too)

Day 8: LED How-Tos and Traffic Lights (not only does LiEr make stuff, she explains stuff so thoroughly, and entertainingly too)

And finally, Day 9: Trainville (a train, some stations and an amazing tunnel/bridge on a huge expanse of cardboard just waiting to be decorated with tracks and trees and who-knows-what by her kids)

Hope you enjoyed the show! I’m so glad LiEr included me in the line-up. Playing with lights is a LOT of fun!!!

Baby Hats, and Beards

2011-12-11T22:28:00.001-06:00

I’m in the midst of wallpapering – kitchen, family room, three bedrooms (pictures coming soon!) – but when I’m not covered in paste, I’ve been crocheting. Mostly hats. Including baby hats (essentially followed this Jen Spears pattern starting with 8 dcs instead of 12, and smaller hook)…

…with beards attached (made up the beard as I went, then attached this Marion Crick mustache).

My cousin and his wife just had their first baby. They were told they were having a girl. They had a boy!

Now he can wear his beard so there is no confusion. Plus, while the proud papa isn’t currently sporting any shaggy facial hair, all his buddies – the babe’s surrogate uncles – are doing the “mountain man” thing. So now he can fit in with them too.

Not sure if it’ll actually fit my newest little cousin, but it seemed to fit Chocolate the Bunny pretty well.

By the way, if anyone thinks I’ve lost it, attaching a beard to a beanie, at least I have company in my lunacy as a google image search for “beard beanie” quickly proves.

Oh, and my younger brother wants one now too.

Cute Graham Cracker Cottages

2011-12-06T22:43:00.001-06:00

I had grand plans to host a “gingerbread” house decorating party with my neighbors this year like I did with my kids, nieces and nephews last year. And then I saw an article in the recent Family Fun Magazine with the same idea.

Only difference: their party used real gingerbread to construct the houses, baked and assembled by the host ahead of time. At my party, we used graham crackers! 20 rectangular crackers make a large house, like this one I made previously. And four rectangular crackers make a wee little cottage.

I hesitate to even write this post since I did a google image search for “graham cracker gingerbread house” and found loads of examples of houses made from four crackers. BUT…

None had overhanging eaves.

And I love overhanging eaves on my cottages.

So, here’s my little trick. For the side and the roof pieces, instead of the usual break-two-crackers-in-half approach, I saw just a little over one quarter off one side of the cracker. This small piece becomes the side of the house. And the almost-3/4s piece becomes the roof.

For the other two crackers, I saw the corners off to make a nice steeply-pitched gable.

My other trick, to keep them from toppling over when assembling them, is to start them off sideways. This probably only works since the side pieces are so short. I pipe the icing onto the backs of the gabled pieces, set the side pieces in place sticking straight up on one gabled pieces…

…then set the other gabled piece on top and stand it upright to finish drying.

A minute or two later, it’s ready for the roof. Icing goes all along the top edges (unlike photo where it’s only on half the edges)…

…and roof pieces are put in place, with a little more icing right along the top ridge.

Side note: that bit of pastry bag visible in a previous photo is a Wilton’s Disposable Decorating Bags with the tip snipped off and the other end closed off with a twist-tie. Great for little hands.

Now, the question is, once they’re covered in candy, are those lovely overhanging eaves of mine even noticeable any more?

When decorated by kids seven and under, not so much.

Hmm, maybe breaking them in half is the way to go after all. As least for a few more years while the emphasis is still on quantity over all else! : )

A Patchwork Purse for a Joy-filled Jen

2011-11-30T21:34:00.001-06:00

Among our dozen houseguests last week was my sister-in-law Jen. Every time I am with her, I grow as a person. This time, she showed me how to roll with the punches, how to keep the important things in perspective.

She and my brother had taken my kids and some of their kids to meet another friend at a local zoo. Two hours later, they came back to their van to find the front passenger window smashed and Jen’s purse gone!

Talking to her later, she essentially cut me off when I started to say what a horrible afternoon she must have had. “Oh no! Our time at the zoo was WONDERFUL!” she said with a big smile. Sure, she was upset about the theft, but she didn’t let it color her whole day. What an inspiration!

Anyway, there wasn’t much cash, the credit cards were locked down, and her driver’s license could be replaced. She seemed most bummed about the loss of her cute little purse – just a small little pouch with all sorts of fabrics sewn on with messy zigzag stitches.

And if you read the title, you know where this is going. I couldn’t reverse time to get her old purse back but I could make her a new one.

Jen prefers the patchwork side but it can be turned inside out to reveal a striped corduroy side instead.

For my pattern, I went back to my old stand-by, the Reversi-Purse, since it was just the right size. Til now, I’d only made it for little girls (e.g. here, here, and here with link to pattern pieces), but there’s more than enough room for a few big girl basics – wallet, phone, checkbook.

It was fun picking out the scraps to add – Jen loves daisies, stripes, nature, quirky surprises, and bold colors.

If I’d had just a bit more time, I would’ve loved to embroider an initial somewhere, but I was in a serious time crunch, getting this done before they left town again. So the daisy is the only thing sewn on by hand.

My only question is, why haven’t I made myself something like this yet?!? My purse this size – a burst of color I bought in Costa Rica – died years ago. And I miss it. High time I holed up in my studio for a few hours and pulled out my scrap bag again. For something for me!

But first, time to fold another laundry basket full of bedding. And be thankful for Jen and joy-filled example she is to me. (And the eleven other amazing people who filled my home last week!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T08:44:00.001-06:00

It’s Thanksgiving here in the US today. I hope your life is overflowing with things to be thankful for. I know mine is.

And isn’t this overflowing fruit centerpiece beautiful? When my mom found out I don’t have a cornucopia basket, Mama MacGuyver got to work with an easter basket (with a handle), some fabric, some tape, and a plastic drinking cup.

Pretty amazing, huh? (The centerpiece AND the woman who made it!)

Guest Tablecloth Update

2011-11-12T22:22:00.000-06:00

It’s been almost three years since the first embroidered name was added to my grandmother’s tablecloth-turned-guestbook.

But I pulled it out again last weekend when we had some neighbors over for coffee on Sunday afternoon.

And I’ve been embroidering the new names in spare moments throughout the week (e.g. while waiting in the preschool pickup line or watching Buck on netflix).

After all, I want it done and washed and ready for Thanksgiving when my family will all be here again. I wonder how much bigger those little hands have gotten.

Some people leave simple marks.

Some get more ornate.

And some add messages along with their name. (Oh, how I was tempted to use Viking purple on this Packers fan’s note!)

Those who come back after their first visit have options. They can sign again elsewhere.

Or they can add something to their original spot. (Note the three different colors?)

Or I can add something to their original spot for them. Either whatever strikes my fancy…

…or something that aligns with their interests.

Once I’m done with the names, using the same color floss, I also add a little note somewhere along the border, recording the date and event.

Hmm, looking at the photo above, I notice two things:

We sure eat raclette a lot when we have friends over. (Makes for an easy peasy dinner party when you don’t have to worry about cooking the food before the guests arrive.)
I need to get better about remembering to pull this out! There are so many times I forgot! Including two other times this week alone!

So if you ever come over to my house for a meal, and you don’t see this on the table under all the dishes, REMIND ME TO GO GET IT! : )

Look what I found…

2011-11-10T09:37:00.001-06:00

…while cleaning up the studio last night with my mom and my husband!

It’s the floor that I installed this summer. The one that’s been missing since August! Hooray!

Practical Husband, after some moving and lifting and installing aid, was soon released from helping any further. He’d asked one too many times, “Why are you keeping this?”

But sweet Momma stayed late into the evening, pulling pieces of fabric off the pile, folding them into neat 3”, 6” or 12” widths, and arranging them in colorful columns.

Aaaaah. I can’t wait to dig into them. So many ideas, wanting to get out…

But first, just a little more work to get the room just a little more ready. The floor will be covered in bits of thread and fabrics and scraps soon enough…

A Cake I Didn’t Make

2011-11-07T22:59:00.001-06:00

It was my birthday last weekend. Had a wonderful… I was going to say “day” but really it was a whole weekend of loveliness. Spending time with my family. Going out for a Thai dinner, sans kids! Enjoying visits from old friends and new ones.

And eating cake. Lots of cake! One of which was made by my girls.

Oldest did the lettering.

Middlest did the blue flowers. Hmm, no photo of that step…

Youngest did some of the white dots for the border. And squirted large amounts into her palm, copying her older sister.

Rest of the white dots—and “mmy"—were done by a sweet neighbor, her first time wielding a pastry bag. Way to go, E!

Part of the brainstorming including the idea of sticking on Playmobile figures, which they’d seen me do on Sophie’s Castle cake. Why they stuck on fern-eating goats was never made quite clear to me.

But I sure did love that cake!

P.S. Other cakes (and cake-ish substances) ingested over the weekend included chocolate cake balls, Oma’s raspberry cottage cake, and peach tarts. Yum!

A Halloween First… Or Not

2011-10-31T11:21:00.001-05:00

I was so proud of myself – I finished all the costumes one whole day before leaving for trick-or-treating, instead of the usual one whole minute.

But then I got it in my head this morning that Lucy, the Sugar Plum Fairy (Cat), needed a big plum to cover over the flower on her purple top. And then we found a bigger, better, purplier shirt that did not have a flower in need of covering… but still seemed to want a plum. Or at least I did. So now I’m no longer all finished with costumes.

I was looking up plum images (my sketches were looking too much like a certain body part) while Lucy drew pictures in her little spiral notebook. Suddenly, she handed the notebook over. “Here’s a plum, Mom.”

Clearly, she got her Daddy’s GSD genes. (Get Stuff Done.)

Which reminds me of what Sophie said yesterday. Clearly, she also sees I’m lacking certain GSD genes.

I was working on the mask for her Kaylee The Neighbor’s Golden Lab costume and kept asking her if she wanted it this way or that way, etc.

She finally put her hand on my shoulder, said “No more ideas and no more switching stuff, OK?” and walked out of the room. : )

She does like the finished mask.

But I do have one more idea I want to do with the girls today: little Trick or Treat Thank You Cards, as seen on Filth Wizardy this morning.

A Messy-Studio Epiphany

2011-10-27T22:43:00.001-05:00

Here I’ve been thinking that I haven’t been making anything (‘cept for the skirt) because the studio is still so un-unpacked and disorganized. (Well, that and just a general lack of extra time as I still work on settling into my new groove here.)

But I got it backwards! Now, I’m thinking the studio is still so un-unpacked and disorganized because I haven’t been making anything!

What caused that shift in perspective? A birthday party invitation for my girls and the resulting gift idea for the little lover of rainbows.

I’m making something again (with help from the girls).

And it’s fun – the soul-energizing kind!

And, as I need stuff –

certain fabrics that I KNOW are SOMEWHERE
various colors of threads (where IS that box full?)
fray-check (that box of notions was JUST here!)
fusible Web (could I have put it where it belongs? Oh joy, I did!)
Jewel-It glue (leftover from making birthday crowns last year – sweet, it’s in the box with the paints that I’ll need too!)

– I unpack another box. Unearth another container. Uncover more fabric. And unleash more joy!

There may be hope for our studio yet!

Here’s to hoping the gift gets done in time too. The party is Saturday!

Costume Conundrums…

2011-10-24T11:52:00.001-05:00

There are only 6 days to Halloween.

First idea (developed way back in July!):

Heidi = monarch caterpillar. Sophie = monarch chrysalis. Lucy = monarch butterfly. Daddy = milkweed plant. Mommy = monarch migration destinations (sandwich board with Minnesota on one side and Mexico on the other). They were very excited by the whole idea. But after a month of dreading all the work that would be involved to make these (plus, Sophie might look like nothing but a green blob at her school party without her sisters there), I convinced them to go back to the drawing board.

Which they did, literally.

Second ideas (developed in September):

Heidi = superhero, Sophie = princess, Lucy = asian princess

…And then I realized why I usually end up making Halloween costumes 2-3 days before (or 2-3 hours). Because they keep changing their minds!

Most recent ideas:

Heidi = Heidi (as in the little girl in the Swiss story) – she’ll wear her dirndl. No work required, other than perhaps putting her hair into braided buns.

Sophie = Kaylee, the neighbor’s golden retriever. (She is not just any dog, she is Kaylee!) She’d like ears, a mask and a tail – easy enough.

Lucy = purple fairy, because she was wearing a purple shirt today, and found the little purple wings in the dress up box, and the purple tutu. Again, no work required.

Aah, but there are ~~only~~ still 6 days to Halloween. Plenty of time for them to change their minds again…

Crocheting with Company

2011-10-20T14:17:00.001-05:00

It’s so nice to have out-of-town friends visit – I get to hang out with my friend while her four girls play with my three.

Talking late into the night with someone who knows you so well, that is sweet goodness.

The fact that this someone brought her crochet project along and you can hook together as you talk late into the night, that’s just goodness piled on top of goodness.

She’s making a lap blanket for her mama…

I’m making a hat for me probably, thought it’s attempt number two, so we’ll see…

Like how our clothes match our projects? Ha ha.

Rachael’s Soccer Cake

2011-10-17T20:39:00.001-05:00

Has it been a while since I posted a cake? Here’s one that I made for one of our new neighbors recently, in exchange for a night of babysitting.

Rachael was so cute when she came over to ask – “maybe something to do with soccer? and I really like the color blue. want to come see my room? it’s all blue…”

Can you tell how old she was turning? Clue: look at the blue part of the soccer ball.

She plays goalie, so I added a little debossed goalie in the bottom corner.

And also added a fun play on words along the front side: “She’s a keeper!”

She loved the cake, but I think I got the better end of the deal. Not only did I have fun making the cake, but she is great with my kids! How lucky am I to have such super neighbors!

* * *

The “making of” post(s) will follow shortly, if you’d like to try this at home but aren’t sure how… (And to remind myself for any next times…)

* * *

P.S. Can you believe I gouged this cake with my finger too? Not nearly as bad as the last time, but still!

On the Making of Jenny’s Pillow

2011-10-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

So often, I see someone’s finished project and wonder how they made it. No, not a tutorial giving step by step instructions on how I could recreate it, but rather the whys behind it. Where it came from. How they dreamed it up, designed it, decided on each part.

In case you feel the same, here’s the story about how Jenny’s pillow came to look the way it did, including the appearance of a tiny little sticker at just the right moment…

It started when I read Jenny’s post about some wonderfully loving gifts she received, including a beautiful Kettle Grove quilt set from a group of her friends.

Along with the quilt, they gave her a piece of fabric, signed by all of them, intended to be made into a pillow. I told Jenny I’d love to do that for her.

With a sham of hers along for color reference, I headed out to the local fabric store for some additional textiles. In the entire store, I could find only two fabrics that were some combination of black and tan. TWO! But two was all I needed, especially since one was black with tan paisleys and the other was tan with light black swirls. Made my decision on which fabrics to buy VERY easy!

Next I turned my attention to the white fabric itself. It was WAY too white to blend nicely with the quilt. I’d recently read about dying using tea, so tried it out on an extra piece where someone had tested all the markers out. My sample turned out great, so with fingers crossed – I did NOT want to mess up this special momento – I dyed the piece with the signatures. And it came out so nice! Beautifully tan, just a shade lighter than the tan accent fabric I’d purchased.

Then I wondered if I should add something else – there were some large unsigned areas and I brainstormed what I could put there. Crows? Like on the accent pillow that came with the quilt?

A Google Image search for crows produced nothing that seemed right. One wine label caught my eye – a congress of crows taking flight up across the pillow could’ve been striking. But appliqueing or even embroidering all those crows seemed a bit too labor intensive for the time I had available, plus I didn’t think it would fit with the style of the rest of the bedding.

Changed the search to “country crows” but still wasn’t finding anything until I saw this clipart, which convinced me to forget about crows and do a different object instead, like a tall primitive-syle star.

And I remembered the stock photo I’d seen of the bedding, which had that same tall star on sample pillows.

I was all set to start cutting out stars when I glanced over at my ironing board and saw a small little sticker that had detached itself from a Valentine card one of the girls had given me. A tall primitive-style heart!Of course! Since the quilt was a gift of love! Why didn’t I think of that right away?!?

I cut out hearts of various sizes, appliqued five into the empty spaces, then quilted around them with tan thread and stitched some more free-motion tan heart outlines here and there. (My one regret in this whole process: drawing the heart shapes on with water-soluble blue pen first, and then dunking the whole thing in water to remove all the blue. I think the pen ink reacted with the fabric markers and tea, causing some colors to run and some tea to lighten. –big sigh– I tried to convince myself it made the pillow looked more aged and “country-ish” but I will definitely be more selective when using water soluble pen from now on and wish I hadn’t had to learn that lesson on this pillow!)

Finally it was just a matter of adding a border. I chose to “mat” the signatures with the tan fabric, then “frame” it all with the black.

The black border is actually attached as a really wide binding; the top-stitching on the front catches the edge of the binding on the back.

And since I wanted the pillow to be roughly the same size as the other accent pillow, the width of the tan “mat” border was pretty much determined for me.

So, now you know the rest of the story!

Jenny’s Pillow

2011-10-15T08:52:00.000-05:00

A pillow project from Pre-Move Era, made for my friend Jenny.

It looks a lot better on her bed than my sofa.

Hop on over to her blog to see more photos and read the story behind it, here.

While you’re there, stick around and check out her drool-worthy recipes (she’s the one who introduced me to cake balls!), her inspiring room redos, and her amazing photos of her beautiful family.

Then come back here tomorrow if you want to hear more about how I transformed a stark white autographed piece of fabric into the symbol of love and friendship it was meant to be. Cause right now, I have to go have fun with my own beautiful family.

My New Knitting “And More*” Group

2011-10-13T22:43:00.001-05:00

How fun! I saw a blurb about a knitting group that meets weekly at a church right near my house. So I called the contact person listed.

Me: “I don’t knit (yet), can I bring my crochet instead?”

Her: “Sure!”

Me: “I’m still unpacking and can’t find my crochet (yet), can I bring some mending instead?”

Her: “Sure!”

So I packed up our holey shirts and buttonless pants and, while looking for thread, managed to find my roomy red bag of crochet WIPs too.

What a friendly group of women! I was good and did the mending first. But then I dug into the bag to see what was in there.

Woo hoo, the girls’ scarves! To match their hats I finished last year. Pink one is long enough now – next week I’ll add the white and grey border.

The purple one just had loose ends to weave in. It is DONE now!

By the way, I found the pattern—minus the border—on Ravelry (Check Stitch Scarf), but it’s also available here. I loved the little slits so the scarf doesn’t have to be so long yet will still fit snugly around a little one’s neck.

And the aqua one is at the same stage as the pink one now, just needs a border so it matches the hats better.

I hope we have a few more weeks of “Knitting” meetings before the weather really gets cold so I have time to finish them up for my girls.

*The veteran group members did mention it’s maybe time to change the name of the group – I was not the only non-knitter there. So for now, it’s the “Knitting and More” group… : )

Sophie’s Slit-and-Panel Skirt

2011-10-11T13:39:00.000-05:00

The studio is still the least finished room in the house, but I did manage to work around all the boxes to make one thing – a skirt for Sophie.

Not sure how it started – we were at the local thrift store and next thing I know, Sophie has picked out two skirts and I’ve promised to make them fit her. (She has a thing for full ankle-length skirts right now. And they are practically impossible to find in any store!!!)

Picking the easier, navy one to work on first, I knew I could just fold over the wide waistband to make a casing for some elastic so it would fit Sophie’s waist, not an XS adult’s one. But then Sophie said how excited she was about soon twirling in her new skirt.

Uh oh.

The skirt, as it was, had NO fullness and would NOT twirl well, unless I made some more changes to it…

I let Sophie go through my box of Clothes-To-Be-Used-As-Scraps to find another knit I could work with and she picked this stripey number.

First, I changed the waist to fit my peanut, according to my plan mentioned earlier.

Then I folded the skirt and the shirt in half. One cut up the middle of the folded skirt gave me four tall evenly-spaced slits. And two slanted cuts up the sides of the shirt gave me four tall triangular panels.

Pulling each slit apart (like in the photo above), I put a triangle behind it, with the bottom already-finished hems lining up. Then I top-stitched close to the edge of the slit, catching the triangle underneath. Sort of a messy-edge, reverse applique.

Four easy panels added, and the skirt was done. When she stands still, the striped sections often disappear into the folds and it looks like a plain blue skirt….

…but when she moves and jumps and twirls and twirls and twirls some more, the green and white part peeks out.

So glad you love it, Sophie. Not too long and you’ll be making stuff like this yourself. Seems like every paper I pick up has your fashion sketches on it. Project Runway, Season 59, look out!

New Door, Blue Door

2011-10-10T08:46:00.000-05:00

I don’t know how some bloggers do it – pack up and move to a new home without skipping a blogging beat. Not me. Managed to put up 5 posts during the month we found out we were moving (May), 3 posts during the month we put our old house on the market and bought our new one (June), and NO posts during the months we cleaned and caulked and trimmed and tossed and unpacked and updated and and and (July, August, and September). Now it’s already October!

But I’ve missed this place. And Heidi—madebyk’s biggest fan and most avid reader!— has too. And I’ve got lots to share, stuff from before the move, and during, and after. High time to jump back in.

Let’s start with my door. This was the new door. Or rather, the old, rust-colored door on my new-to-me house. Framed by the faded brown storm door that was hanging too crooked to actually latch. Yuck!

And while I thought we’d paint it white, to match the white framing on the new windows…

…it wanted to be blue. Perhaps to match the amazing blue skies we’ve had every day for the past two weeks. Oh, Indian Summer, please stay!

So this is now my blue door. And I love it so!

How I Transferred Artwork to Cake

2011-06-16T10:54:00.000-05:00

To make Lucy’s birthday cake, I first gave her a piece of paper that was the same size as the top of the cake, then let her fill it up with her artwork. But how to then get that design onto the cake? Here’s what I did…

NOTE: This method will only work on “crusting” buttercream, i.e. frosting that doesn’t stay soft.

1) Put paper on something soft, like a towel.

2) Poke holes into the paper, on the lines. I used a pen tip. A toothpick might work well too.

Now your paper has lots of little tear-outs on the backside, like reverse Braille.

3) Lay the paper on the cake and gently press tear-outs into frosting. Ta da! Lots of dots to guide you!

4) Pipe frosting over the dots.

A few other thoughts:

I was trying this method for the first time and wasn’t sure how well it would work so didn’t want to waste my time doing the whole design right away. And if it did work, I was afraid all the dots from the whole design would be too confusing to follow. Hence, I started with just the “fairy.”

To do the rest of the image, since I knew I wouldn’t be able to perfectly line up the previous tear-outs with the dots already in the cake, I cut away smaller still-smooth sections from the paper, punched them, and pressed them into the cake one by one. (That also allowed me to pipe the dots that were there before adding more dots and confusing myself.)

Next time, I want to try just lightly tracing over the lines, again on something soft, instead of punching holes. Perhaps the indented lines would be enough to transfer the design. Would maybe be quicker and less confusing.

This might be great too for people who have trouble writing on cakes: write it on a piece of paper first—or even print it out! Then it’s just a matter of piping it accurately and neatly. : )

Let’s Roll… (Crayons and Kids)

2011-06-14T12:52:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, my parents rolled out with my kids in the car with them. They’re headed west – grandparents and grandchildren on a Grand Roadtrip. And tucked next to each girl is storage clipboard, filled with a few goodies to make the miles fly by a little faster.

The crayon rolls were an afterthought. I haven’t sat and made anything in weeks—the last three posts all showed things made prior to the strange exchange. I’ve just been too busy.

But the night before they were leaving, I decided the 24 new crayons we put into each girl’s clipboard should not just bang around in there. And fall out when a girl opened it. And get lost and stepped on and ground into the van carpet and ruined and so on.

And I decided I needed to make something!

There are loads of cute crayon rolls all over the internet and I’m assuming there are loads of great tutorials for them too. But it was already late and I had very little time, so figured I’d just make it up as I went along.

I’m glad I remember, for a change, to not use my “good” fabric (the one Middle Child picked out for her rolls) right away. Instead I grabbed one that would be cute enough for Youngest, but not so precious that I’d mind scrapping parts that didn’t work out. Like the 5” I ended up cutting off the top because my idea for a flap to cover up the crayon tips was a really bad one!

All the crayon rolls I’ve seen thus far use a ribbon tie to keep them shut, which I knew would be ridiculously useless in this case since two of my three children can’t tie a bow! Not wanting to fiddle with finding enough elastic at this last hour and then figuring out the best way for it to fit, I went the Hook-and-Loop-Tape route. (A.k.a. Velcro!)

My first attempt was just a plain rectangle, but I didn’t like how the corners flapped out when it was closed, so I made the next one tapered.

While making these, I included extra fabric between the last crayon and the closure. I thought that extra bit of fabric would help the velcro curve around the roll better so it would stick better. Plus the fabric would protect the last crayon a little more. But if I make more, I might experiment with having no extra fabric there…

And speaking of Velcro, clearly I have some things to learn about attaching it so it actually keeps things closed. Exhibit A:

Exhibit B (in which I attempted to streamline my process and ended up causing even more problems – not only was my velcro wrong, I couldn’t even turn the roll completely right side out!):

In the end, I made sets for Youngest and Middlest, whose clipboards are too slim to hold the crayon box, and a set for Oldest (in her favorite color), because by then, I knew what I was doing, and I knew my bit of extra time and effort would go far to make her feel included and loved. So here they are all rolled up…

…and here they are all laid out.

Enjoy your crayons, girls.

And enjoy your “kiddles,” Opa and Oma.

Lucy’s Artwork Birthday Cake

2011-06-10T16:53:00.001-05:00

I LOVE Lucy’s drawings these days. They are just so… happy! But yowsers, is she prolific! At first I was carefully tucking them into her “keep” box. But then I realized I would soon run out of room. The girl just loves to draw.

So when I was thinking about what to put on her birthday cake, wanting something that would capture a piece of her life right now, I decided I should just let her design it herself!

She drew a “throne” (see that backwards L?), a “fairy” (in orange) and a “flying lion.” At 4, she does not yet know how to spell, but she loves letters, so I wrote out a “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” cheat sheet so she knew which letter to write next.

She doesn’t need a cheat sheet for her name – this version was a little more legible than usual though. Often, the four letters all end up looking like Cs, the last one with another tiny tilting C on top…

All limbs drawn by Lucy (whether people or animal, arms or legs) end with dots. And when the people/animals are flying, then the limbs extend off to the side, you know, trailing through the air after the body! They’re just too cute in these mama’s eyes! So that’s what I put all around the sides. Body-less limbs, flying through the air.

After a fun morning of bouncing with her best friends (her sisters)…

…it was finally time for cake. Happy Birthday, sweet Lucy!