what we made today...

don't you love how i said that so optimistically, as though we make something every day? hah!

this evening as i pulled some play dough out of the cabinet for kenna to play with to distract kenna as i cooked supper, i thought about her how i had tried to imprint her tiny little feet in clay when she was just about finn's age. i had bought a little kit from babies 'r' us & was pretty disappointed at how difficult the clay was to work with... not like play dough which is so soft & squishy. [not to mention that little infant hands & feet love to stay all balled up instead of nice & flat for imprinting- very hard to maneuver by just one person!}
then i thought about the little dried up play dough chunklets i had cleaned up from under her craft table where they had dried overnight...

hmmn.

so i hijacked the bright pink & blue & mixed them each 50/50 with some white to make a more baby pink & blue. i rolled it out flat between wax paper & then stepped finn's little foot right into it. after realizing my big grown up girl was too big for either a footprint and a handprint [how is that possible?!?] i ended up doing her thumbprint.
i pulled out some regular old alphabet stamps to do their names [kenna's initials]. i had to stamp the letters nice & deep for them to show, & i actually thought the edges of the stamps made cute little squares in this case, kind of like baby blocks.
ohh teeny feets. love.

now, before you mistakenly think me some domestic maven of craftiness with a 2 year old & 3 month old in tow, i wish i could post a picture of me putting these quickly together all while supper risked burning in the oven, the baby squalking very loudly to be fed & cleaning up the giant dollop of yogurt spilled on the rug.

and we'll have to see if my lovely play dough ornaments are just a crackly dried-out mess by morning!

quickie kitchen craft!

i am the first to admit how horrible i am at meal planning. it's one of those things that seems like it would be simple [chose meals, make list, buy groceries, cook meals] yet i'm classic for coming home with a cart full of groceries and 'nothing to eat' because it feels like all i bought was a couple bags of chips, some yogurt, and a box of trash bags.

so i started trying to write out my weekly menus on a magnetic white board on the fridge. that lasted for all of a week before i was writing out everything i ate weekly in an attempt to start losing baby weight. [fail.]

also? i hated how the cheapo walmart white erase board looked on our black fridge. so boring. so i'd seen this idea all over blogland & thought it would be a lovely little diy alternative.

before:


after:

so, in a quick free crafting minute [in between pretending to clean/organize my studio as i've been needing to do for months!] i pulled out the following:

a white 8x10 picture frame

[clearance from target for something insane like $1.82]

an 8x10 piece of pretty scrapbooking paper

some self-stick magnetic strips

[also purchased from walmart to help the cheapo white board stay on the fridge. they happened to be exactly the perfect width for the edge of the frame. hurrah!]

stick it all together... instant quickie pretty functional kitchen craft that i like SO much better. you just write directly on the glass of the frame & wipe away!

ps. as you can see i gave up with food listing of any kind all together and just went for pretty. and that verse? perfection for a busy momma with a new-ish wee one and a crazy toddler.

not rocket science, but quick fun crafting nonetheless!

papoose.

while i'm getting a little bit of fun stuff done here & there, here's where my little man has been hanging out, snuggled up on the couch behind me [i like to sit & craft on the floor in front of the coffee table most nights]:
i like hearing his little huffy-puffy not-quite-newborn-anymore-almost-an-infant noises while he sleeps.
[he's not as suffocate-y as he looks. just snuggled.]

love him.

eee! excited.

so.

i'm finally getting a bit of a chance to work on some new pretties...

i've been making good friends with the ginormous pile of felt that's been waiting in my studio for the perfect moment... and by perfect moment i mean the 2 hours or so i have between the kids napping at the same time including laundry & all that other non-crafting stuff i need to do]. this is what my studio trash can looks like at the moment... all that color has to mean something good, right?
and i nearly cleared out my paypal account thanks to the lovely offerings at fabric worm and hawthorne threads. i decided i wanted to spring for some new fabric for this new line of products rather than counting on the stash to do everything i needed. i couldn't be happier with this big pile of brightness that arrived on my front porch this week!

& here's a sneaky little sneak peek of what's coming... cryptic, i know. i'm SO excited!