Wordy Wednesday: Collage Fun

I love to go out into my backyard at this time of year and admire the fall foliage. Jack and I have made fall collages for that past three years now.

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We wandered the gardens picking out our favourite leaves

and brought some inside.

We brought a LOT of leaves inside

(and a couple of flowers).

Then we carefully selected just the right leaves and voila

Jack's minimalist collage:

And mine:

I may have gone a bit overboard.

I think Jack has a better grasp of the concept of blank space than I have.

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Wordy Wednesday: A Gift for 'B'

Glass bead necklace and earrings.

For my sister, B.

We picked out some beads on my last trip to visit her
so I could make her something to go with this fabric:

What do you think?

It's so pretty I had a hard time letting it go.

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Wordless Wednesday: Jack Train

Jack turns four this month, and for his birthday party we (meaning, mostly I) made a train for the kids to ride in, complete with engine, passenger cars, boxcars, and a caboose!

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Toot Toot! All aboard!

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Cleaning House Collage

Today I'm linking up with Mama Kat for her Pretty Much World Famous Writer's Workshop.

The prompt that inspired this post: Share a favorite craft or game that will keep your kids busy for at least 20 minutes.

Cleaning house Collage

Keeping a bouncy preschool boy busy AND out of trouble for more than about five minutes at a time is one of my greatest challenges.

Playtime with friends will occupy my son for long periods of time, but what to do when we’re home alone together and I have work to do or phone calls to make? 

It’s not just me right? You’ve probably experienced this too. You tell your child, "I need to make a few phone calls. I’ll be about 15 minutes.” Two minutes into the first phone call, your child is pulling on your leg (if you’re lucky – stomping on your foot if you’re not) and screaming/singing/making wild animal sounds as loudly as possible.

Sometimes, you just need to occupy your child long enough to get that one thing done without distraction and then you can go back to your usual multitasking supermom ways.

Sure, I could plunk him down in front of the TV, and sometimes that’s a necessity. Too much of that though and I’ll have to give back my Mom of the Year Award. Alright, I don’t really have a Mom of the Year Award, but pretending that I do is a real confidence boost. It makes me a better mom!

So here it is, my gift to you. This recently discovered activity keeps my child busy for long periods of time AND helps clean my house. I'm a piler. That is, I collect magazines and papers of all kinds in piles. Unfortunately, I don't enjoy cluttered spaces. I resolve this internal conflict by purging my piles pretty regularly. 

Jack recently discovered scissors and LOVES to cut things up. When it's time for a pile purge, I rifle through the magazines and papers setting aside any articles that I want to keep and then hand the rest to Jack. He then sits at his table with a large piece of craft paper, the magazines, scissors and a glue stick and collages to his heart's content. Here's his latest work:

Pretty cool, huh? It looked like so much fun that I just had to try it myself:
  

We moms need our creative outlets too!

Part of the reason that this works to keep Jack occupied is its novelty. I fully expect this craft to be utterly boring some day soon, and I will have to come up with a new quiet activity. Until then, I set supplies aside and ration them a bit. I have a little craft box full of goodies that comes out just on special occasions (i.e. when I need a moment of peace).

Here's to our children's creative energy. May it be used for good (fun collage crafts) rather than evil (child-inspired home renovation - aka vandalism).

Easy & quick knitting project: Slippers for the whole family

I've been doing a lot of knitting lately - trying to spread the cozy woolen love. I cleaned out my craft closet and found several incomplete knitting projects - it's just embarrassing to admit how many, so I won't. I spent a bunch of time organizing and undoing old knitting projects that I knew I'd never finish, like that over-sized mohair cardigan I started in the 80s.

My son has been asking me, almost daily for a few months, when I will knit something for him. I knit him a quick bag for his toys... which went over like a lead balloon. There's not a lot of spare time for large knitting projects these days, so I had to find something else that isn't as big of a commitment as a sweater, and isn't winter-wear since it's now spring.

I found this great knit slipper based on an old 1940s pattern, adapted by Bev Qualheim. It knits up fast and true to the pattern. It's not difficult to adjust the size of these slippers as you go. To make them longer just keep knitting until you reach the desired length less 2" for the toe. To make them wider, just cast on a few more stitches, or increase (I increased in the middle, just inside the purled stitches) as you get to the wider part of the foot.

Here are some pictures of Jack's slippers. Of course, I had to complicate things by adding a second colour. I used a strand of green and a strand of multi-coloured wool for the foot and green and blue for the toe. I think they're pretty cute.



I knit some slippers for myself with reclaimed pink and burgundy wool. You may recall that I am not a fan of pink, yet the wool needed to be used and what else was I going to do with it? Combining the two colours made it less 'pinky'. I made mine both longer and wider than the instructions indicate for my size 9-wide feet.



And then I knit two more pair - matching slippers for Jack and his dad - from some funky 80s style chunky wool. I revised the heel on these two. The original pattern leaves a bump on the bottom. I started with fewer stitches in the centre section (1 stitch on Jack's, and 3 stitches on dad's) and then increased by two stitches every second (WS) row to the number of stitches in the original instructions. This allowed the heel to lie flat.

This is my new favourite slipper pattern! What do you think?

Do you have a slipper pattern to share? I'm always looking for ways to do things a little differently.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! The Easter bunny came by some time in the night. That Peter Cottontail is very good at hiding eggs in plain sight. Yellow eggs hidden on yellow toys, a green egg hidden in the jaws of a crocodile... Jack had fun finding the eggs and then hiding them again so we (mom and dad) could have fun finding them too.

Bright and Crafty Easter Eggs

http://www.hostessblog.com/2009/04/bright-crafty-easter-eggs/

It's a beautiful day out there. Time to go out into the garden!

Cookie's Knitted Kindle Cozy

I received my Kindle this past Christmas and started looking for a suitable cover. I needed to protect my new "baby". I couldn't find anything that I really liked that wasn't going to cost a small fortune coming from the US to Canada. So, I found a knitted e-reader cover and adapted it for my Kindle, added a strap and voila: A Kindle cover that is also a cross-body purse. There's enough room in here for a pad of paper and a pen, and the adapter for my Kindle. I can also fit a change purse in it. A slim phone would fit, and I've carried my mp3 player in it also.

If you're interested in making a cover/purse like mine, please click here for the free pattern.