Category Archives: crafts

birthday books and a giveaway

~click on the pictures to enlarge them~

I’m starting a new tradition; in addition to birthday sweaters, there will now be birthday books.  Just simple little photo books showing the year that’s past from the child in question’s point of view.  Their baseball games, dance classes, choir performances, horseback riding lessons, school work, hobbies, projects, collections, etc, all bound up together in a little book of snapshots representing that year of their life.  I think they will be well loved.  Above are a couple of pages that I’ve created for Galen, of his 6th birthday celebration, in preparation for his 7th birthday at the end of this month (note: I did leave some of the journaling off these pages as it was of a personal nature).

I’ve used a lot of different scrap booking products over the years.  From the good old-fashioned paper and pen kind to photo book products from many of the major retailers.  When I had an opportunity to review My Memories scrap booking software, I decided to give it a try with this project in mind.  I’m still experimenting and learning all about the program, but I can say there are a lot of options with this software.  So much more then anywhere else I’ve tried.  I know everyone has their own style and preferences, for me I often find the challenge is in being able to create pages that are basic enough to suit my own minimalist, photo-journalistic style.  I don’t like a lot of extras.  I want clear large pictures and not much else.  Not a problem!  As you can see I did play around a bit with a few backgrounds and some other stuff, just to see.  And of course I had to try the ric rac.  I mean, it’s ric rac….  If, however, you happen to like all of the bells and whistles, well, holy cow, feel free to spend a year or two browsing through all of the options, some free and some for a small fee.  Those are all of the add-ons to customize your style.  The basic software comes with many, many options to begin with (enough to last me a lifetime).  And it’s not just about photo books…you can create calendars, cards, all kinds of multimedia stuff that I haven’t even begun to delve into.  I’ve just discovered a whole collection of youtube videos on how to use some of these features and I’m looking forward to creating all kinds of interesting projects.

One of my goals with the birthday books was to capture some of the little details of that particular year.  The things they will look at years from now and say, “Oh yeah!  Do you remember the year I made all kinds of paper dolls?” or “the year I wove like, 40 potholders”.  I want pictures of favorite books and toys, all the small things that change so rapidly as a child grows and are easy to forget, but so much more pleasant to remember.  The pages below are pictures of Galen’s room in our old house, complete with peeks into work and treasure baskets.

These are the kinds of things that I think he will look back fondly on and be happy to remember.

So now, on to the giveaway!  One lucky reader will receive a copy of the full My Memories Suite software package.  To enter please go check out the My Memories site and leave me a comment on this post.  The winner will be announced Monday morning (2/11).

As a special to everyone here, My Memories is offering a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the My Memories store.  To redeem your coupon just enter the code: STMMMS99407

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Books, celebrations and festivals, crafts, Kids, Mothering, Our Little Home, photography, snapshots
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made by little hands

Just a bit of random holiday and birthday crafting.  These were Màiri Rose’s Christmas gifts to Steve and I…

I think mine may be my favorite gift ever.  I gave her burlap in a small embroidery hoop and a yarn needle threaded with yarn and just let her go to town.  When she deemed them done, I used an inch wide strip of fabric wrapped around the outer hoop to make the frame, with a bit more fabric through the top to hang it by.  She’s currently working on a larger version for her bedroom.  I think I better find a good source for wooden embroidery hoops and quick!

And here is the yarn from her dyeing adventures.  The blue/purple/green/white combo is sock yarn for Elijah who will be knitting his first pair of socks this year.  The color combination reminds me so much of a tie-dye shirt that Steve used to own.  The shades of red and purple is another sock yarn, for Iain, who having made very basic socks in the past, wants to try his hand at something fancier.  And the brightly colored bulky is for our newest little knitter, for a project yet to be determined.  All of them are from Knit Picks Dye Your Own Yarns.  The sock yarn is especially soft.  Everything was dyed using a combination of Kool-Aid and food coloring.

And these are the containers that Màiri and Galen both decorated for Iain for his birthday.

We thought he could use a spiffy new way to store his art supplies.

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crafts, Kids, Yarn Crafts
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Making Merry

1 & 2 There are paper snowflakes everywhere

3 why yes, that is a horseflake

4 & 5 gift making

6 & 7 and wrapping

8 late night knitting with coconut sugar cookies

9 sending off their first order

10 the kids had stamps out while I was addressing Christmas cards so I added some sweet little blue birds to the back of the envelopes

11 & 12 Golden Goose and Fairy trees seen while out and about.

13 nut butter caramel and red raspberry leaf and nettle chai

14 dreidel

15 late night knitting with orange

16 nativity by Iain

17 the enchanting Winter in White by Robert Sabuda

18 making music (why yes, those are more snowflakes on the floor behind him)

19 Crafts Through the Year

20 & 21 we made Swedish straw stars

22 & 23 while she made an empty yarn cone into a Christmas tree

24 We made a whole mobile of ballerina snowflakes.  They twirl and drift about gracefully and it’s like just before intermission at the Nutcracker. template here

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Books, celebrations and festivals, crafts, Food, Holidays, Kids, Life, Our Home, sewing, Yarn Crafts
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Rearranging

Both here and at home.  A new banner, new color scheme, things moving about, still quite a lot of tweaking to be done here.  Furniture is shifting all over the house, yet again, and I’m trying to set up another temporary crafting spot to help me through all of the last minute holiday/birthday crafting.  Elijah’s cacti collection is thriving in it’s new spot on my weaving bench.  Things are still being set up.  There are no less then 3 quilts in progress here right now.  I hung the decorative plates that my Mother-in-law sent.  My kitchen window sill is getting a wee bit crowded.  Every time I turn around someone is setting another something there to root.  Remember our celery from back in October?  Look how big it’s gotten now!  And the one from the following week…and the one from the week after that…

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crafts, Gardens, Our Home, Our Little Home, sewing
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The Enchanted Toy Shop Grand Opening!

As part of their school work this year, Iain and Elijah have been charged with the task of starting their own business.  What better way to learn business math and a multitude of other things as well?  I guess it shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone that children from this house would decide that the best way to go about this would be by making things.

  The two of them have teamed up and their new Etsy shop, The Enchanted Toy Shop, is now open!

They have many (many) more things to go out there, but I am slow at getting the listings together.

Currently available are: wooden swords- some painted and some finished with beeswax polish, a selection of beans for kitchen play, mini-gnomes and some very cute Santa/St. Nicolas ornaments.

They have decided that 20% of their profits will go to charity (proud, proud mama here).  The charity of choice for the month of December is our local food pantry which boasts the amazing statistic of having 97% of every dollar donated going directly towards food for people in need.

Check back often as more listings will be added soon.  And feel free to contact me here or them there with custom requests.

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crafts, Holidays, Homeschooling, Kids, toy making
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9th birthday gifts for a friend

Yet another Mini-Gnomey from me.  And with this only the Papa in this family remains without a hand knitted gift from me.  Mama has a scarf, big brother a Mini-Gnomey of his own and lil’ sis has a headband.  I guess I know who needs to be on my list for the next knittable occasion.

The big boys made him this sword.  They’ve been making a lot of these lately.  There is talk of opening up their own Etsy shop, but we’re still working out the details.

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crafts, toy making, Yarn Crafts
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squash seed necklaces

With all of the squash eating going on around here, we’ve had a surplus of seeds.  Some we roast for eating.  Did you know that all squash seeds are edible, not just pumpkin?  With slight but interesting differences in flavor and texture?  Some have been carefully set aside for the garden for next year.  And some we’ve just been playing with.  A squash seed when squeezed between your forefinger and thumb can really go rocketing across the room!

During our nature study week we took things a bit further and started wearing our seeds.  We decided to make them a bit more interesting with a little dye.  First we washed the seeds and patted them dry.  Using some disposable cups that we had left over from an experiment, we added in a couple drops of food coloring and swirled the seeds around to cover them.  Then we let them sit and soak up the color overnight.

In the morning we laid them out to dry.  I tried to speed the process along by putting them in a warm oven, but they started sticking to the pans so we ended up just letting them air dry on the counter.

Using long needles, we then strung them on hemp string.

We did find that with a whole lot of handling, some of the dye came off.  The younger the crafter, the more likely they were to pop the thin skin of dye off the seed.  All the same, it was still a project enjoyed by everyone.

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crafts, Homeschooling, Kids, tutorials
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October Nature Study

Some scenes from our Nature Study week.  The theme was, “What’s Happening in Autumn”.  This was the main work of the week for the little ones and a side project for the big ones.

During the week we put areas of the garden that are done for the season to bed.  We planted garlic and bulbs.  Galen gathered a bunch of calendula to dry after we read that a bunch of dried calendula in the house was once believed to give strength and comfort to the heart.  We ate a lot of squash, carved pumpkins and made apple sauce nearly everyday, putting up 20-some quarts over the course of the week.  We ate squash with applesauce.  We made a start to our little indoor window sill garden, with the end of a bunch of celery set in a cup of water.  Already there are new stalks shooting up in the middle.  Steve helped Galen to build a little bird feeder, which is now set outside the window of our homeschooling room, attracting all sorts of visitors.  Two field trips were the bookends of the week.  We started off visiting the birds at the rehabilitation center and ended the week at a corn maize.

The big kids are working on family trees, a completely fascinating subject for me.  We’ve been telling a lot of stories.  Getting out old photo albums.  We’ve even got a small stack of copies of “official” documents to work from; birth certificates, baptism certificates, census reports.  I am particularly intrigued by the blank spaces; the lines that have yet to be filled in.

This morning is very winter like.  I’m steeping tea, eating a clementine, roasting chestnuts and reading about when our first real snowstorm of the season with be drifting in, all while flames dance merrily in the wood stove.

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Food, Gardens, Homeschooling, Kids
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