sheesh. that month went quick

I know I've been absent. I got a job. Major upheaval. Not a lot of crafting. Well, some crafting, but no blogging about crafting.

So maybe I'll catch everyone up over the next couple days! Maybe . . .

There was one quick little project I did several weeks ago that I keep wanting to post.

So, I bought this crate of clementines. It was a complete splurge, but good citrus is hard to get here. This time of year I fall off the local food wagon. It's the fruit. Always the fruit. Darn you Iowa winters. Anyways. They were yummy. And we were left with this great box.

I got the idea from somewhere in the blogsphere. I wish I could give credit where it's due, but I cannot remember where I saw it. If you know, please let me know!

We made a doll bed out of it!

I sewed up a simple muslin mattress and pillow and then a couple flannel blankets out of cheap remenants I found at JoAnn's.

It was a hit.

I have no idea how long it will last as it's basically made out of paper and a lot of staples, but for now Elmo, Abby and Marsha all have a nice place to sleep.

what is it with Mondays. . .

and giveaways??
Unraveled (remember, the growth chart inspiration?) is having an awesome giveaway. And a bunch of her yarn stash is for sale.

Come on- - help support her fabric habit!

cozy hooks

I found some of the material I'd been seeing pop up on Etsy as super cute kids' clothes down at JoAnn's the other day. Score! I have a hard time finding cute stuff at JoAnn's sometimes. I think I'm overwhelmed by how many choices there are.

With some of the fabric I made a roll to hold my crochet hooks. This was kind of a test run to see if I could manage it for some pens and possibly help my friend Melissa corral her inherited knitting needle collection. I'm finding that I like these little projects. They're easy to take an hour or two to figure out and create. Which is a good amount of time when you have a two year old; sometimes that hour or two takes eight or nine! I thought it turned out pretty good for having a sort-of pattern. Guthrie picked out the ribbon. I was uncertain, but it appears she has good taste! And my crochet hooks are happy to have a home instead of being strewn about the house. Gus immediately lectured me that these hooks were going nigh-night. Right Now.

Apparently they also snore. Who knew?

february felt board

This past Christmas I made Gus and my two adopted nieces felt boards. I equipped them with some basic stuff to get them started and to acquaint myself with working with felt and cutting out really small pieces! My goal is to send them a packet a month throughout the year ending next Christmas. There will be a lot of seasonal stuff, but also some just basic fun sets. I'm making Gus a set too, but I'm holding off until next year to give them to her. I think she'll get more use out of them then.

For January I included a snowman set in the Christmas presents because I am well aware of the post-Christmas slump in creativity! So, February was my first month to actually make a little kit. It was so much fun!

Here's what I did. First, duh, it was Valentine's Day so there were hearts and little birds and an owl.

And then to mix it up a little I did a tic-tac-toe board. I'm sure Mel and Duffy are loving all that tic-tac-toe right now. You're welcome! :)

I'm excited for next month. I'll post what I sent as soon as I know the girls have recieved it!

Imagine Childhood + The Crafty Crow

It's Monday again and the Crafty Crow has another awesome Giveaway.
She's giving a gift certificate to Imagine Childhood!
Go check it out.

Aren't the treehouses awesome??

The Rainbow Superbowl

Apparently we had a rainbow themed Superbowl party. It was a little light on the "party" as some friends we invited over declined to come once we told them Gus was 30 lbs of virus. I don't blame them. One bit. However, we did still have Uncle Andrew over because arrived the day before the virus.

A few days before, I'd picked up some super cheap wool roving. Super high quality, just super on sale. So, I thought we'd try our hand at felt balls. There are tutorials 'round the blogsphere - just type in 'felt balls, how to' and pray you don't get something vaguely pornographic. Kidding. So, I won't repeat the directions here. It took a bit to get the hang of it and next time we do it we'll be outside and I won't care so much about keeping the water ON THE TRAY GUTHRIE LAINE!!! We will be doing it again because it was really fun and even though we all suffered from pruney hands -- much to Uncle Andrew's horror -- we have some pretty awesome felt balls to show for it.

We also tried our hand at the rainbow cake that's been lurking round the 'sphere. Admittedly, I didn't so much read the ingredients aside from cake mix, blah blah blah, frosting. So I missed out on the fact that we needed some Sprite. We were Spriteless and had to make the cake in the ordinary fashion. C'est la vie. I think the Sprite adds some leavening that the eggs did not.

That said, it was pretty freaking awesome and I'll totally do it again. I was worried that you would be able to taste the food coloring. That it would get all chemically amidst the cakey goodness, but it wasn't.

And the game was good too -- I think. . .

what a mess! a lovely mess!

If you keep up on my other blog you know we've been trapped indoors for several days with a nasty virus. No one has gotten it quite as bad as Gus. She's eaten nothing but yogurt for 3 days. And stew. And smoothies made with aforementioned yogurt, but not the stew. That's gross.

I'm hitting that point in winter where I just can't take it anymore. The snow is almost gone and there are no buds on anything. I hate having to dress in so many dang layers. I know that next month will be worse -- there will be the possibility that it could be warmer than it actually is. And there will be a lot of brown, but also there might be a chance for us to force some budding on our lilac bushes inside. Until then we're letting this feed our soul.

Isn't it the most gorgeous amaryllis you've ever seen? The box said it was going to be red, but it's this bright orange instead. It's so cheerful! John asked, how long will it bloom for? I'm not the only one who is getting some color therapy from it.

So. I know you're dying to know how our valentine's day stuff went. Well, we made a great big mess. Emphasis on great though. I don't mind cleaning up after a big creative day.
I so appreciate having room in our house to do this. After years of small apartments it's so nice to have room to breathe while I make things.

I've been reading maya*made for awhile and pondering her love for newspaper and man oh man she's totally on to something. Newspaper is my new favorite thing. It's forgiving. We have a ton of it thanks to QC Times' inability to cancel my mother's subscription and whatever we don't use can go in the compost bin.

We couldn't stop making newspaper hearts. It was so much fun. Oil pastels on newspaper hearts are cool. As is both watercolor paint and acrylic. And when you get the crossword it's a special treat. Or a map. We have a lot of maps in our paper. I guess people get lost a lot? Hmm.


I can't show you all we did because then that would ruin some Valentine's Day surprises, but I can show you this:
Not the best picture. It's a weird spot for light - especially late in the day.
I love being able to decorate our stairs. Until now I had our scarves lined up, but given my angst towards winter I decided to take them down and put this up instead.

Then we put some hearts in the window and we're going to put more hearts in the doorways.
I'd forgotten how fun it is to sew paper. We sewed our wedding invitations and it was super fun. So, look forward to a lot of sewn paper in the near future I think!

have a great weekend!