Valentine's Day Crafting Extravigana!

So, it's Valentine's Day, and I'm exhausted.  You know how sometimes you have a "simple" idea that sounds so awesome in theory, then it turns out to be not as simple as previously thought?  Yeah, well that happens to me all the time, and this past week was no exception.

I have an adorable design for Valentine's Day lollypop holders in the shape of Conversation Hearts.  It seemed like such a simple plan.  I already had the design, and it would use up scraps of ribbon and fabric, so would cost me nothing to make.  Great, right?  Even better, when I made a couple of test hearts, I found that they would be a fantastic way for me to use up some really crappy embroidery thread.  The thread worked great in the bobbins, and I needed colored bobbins so that the back would look as finished as the front.  The only catch was that I would have to babysit the machine, because the thread twists, knots, and tangles so badly that it won't go through the machine without me manually holding it as it comes off of the spool.  It is time consuming, but very easy to do, so I thought it was no big deal...until after I had been doing it for hours on end.  I had somehow forgotten to take into account that since my daughter has also started school, and they are in the same class, that she would also be needing Valentine's this year, so instead of around 20 hearts, I needed to make 40 (44, to be exact).  Also, I did not start on hers until Tuesday, so I did all 22 of hers, plus the last couple for my son, in just two days.  Never again.  By the end, I had given up on my "using up the crappy thread" plan, and was using my good stuff (so I could leave the machine unattended), with the crappy kind in the bobbin, and just hoped that they matched close enough that no one would notice.

On the other hand, they did turn out really cute.

Dorothy's hearts.  The kids "wrote" little notes that I folded up and slipped through the button holes.  The school has a no sugar policy, so we couldn't send lollypops.  I thought about doing pencils or something else, but decided the notes were good enough.  The kids used stamps and markers to decorate the paper.  I wrote Dorothy's name on hers.

There are ribbons sewn into the top, so they can be used as ornaments or decorations of  some type later.

I tried to make some of Malcolm's more "boyish," but I'm not sure that it matters at all at this age.

They also needed some sort of box to collect their Valentine's in.  I saw this cute suitcase idea online, and stole it.  I used cereal boxes, specifically, Cracklin' Oatmeal boxes.  They were a good size that the kids could handle, but still wide enough to accommodate cards. 

Both boxes together, and full of Valentine's from their friends.  The hardest part was the construction paper hearts I wrote their names on.  I had to redo them three times because I made them too big to fit on the boxes.  The paper is just Christmas wrapping paper that is red and white and the ribbons were left over from when I made Dorothy a bow holder.  The handles were easily my favorite part.  The kids could carry them easily as we walked to and from school.  In the past, the boxes were awkward and difficult to handle.

Just Malcolm's box, a little worse for wear.  It got splashed with a little slush on the way home, and the opening got ripped a little getting cards in and out.

Dorothy's box also had a little trouble before we got to school.  She slipped on some ice and a corner got dented and some tape came undone.  She was fine, but she was worried about her box.  It was fine too.  I wiped off the slush, and pressed the tape back down, and it was all better.





Valentine's Day also happened to be our assigned snack day.  I wanted to something themed, but couldn't send any of the cute ideas I saw that included sugar.  I saw something similar online, but the centers of the apples were not filled with anything.  Dorothy wanted to take apples, so I sliced them into thick-ish rings and used the same cookie cutter to cut out cheese to put in the centers.  Many thanks to the very nice lady at the deli counter who sliced the cheese for me and didn't think I was a crazy person with my odd requests. 

How cute are these?  Both of my kids denied having any snack today though.  Malcolm assured me that lots of other kids had snack though.  OK, but why do you not eat it when it is something I make and that you request? 

Now, I am very tired and am going to nap for the next few days.

School Lunches VI

Another installment of what my son takes for lunch.  He has been slowly expanding his tastes a bit, so some of his lunches are starting to look a bit more traditional and less creative than when he first started eating lunch at school.  He still doesn't like to have a sandwich more than about two days in a row, but I'm making them more often, and more importantly, he seems to be eating them.  Hooray!

1.  Goldfish crackers
2.  mango chunks
3.  chocolate mint stick
4.  blackberries
5.  goat cheese*, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach pinwheels
6.  1/4 of a home made pretzel (thicker than it looks)

*I found a spreadable goat cheese at the store and decided to try it.  These pinwheels came home almost untouched and he said they didn't taste good.  I thought it was odd, since he really likes all of the things I put in them.  Then I tasted the goat cheese.  It had no flavor whatsoever.  I will try these again sometime, but will use real goat cheese to make them.

1.  Mandarin orange
2.  two prunes
3.  Cheerios, freeze dried bananas, and roasted pumpkin seeds
4.  Caesar salad
5.  Croutons
6.  cheese cubes and  mini pepperoni

1.  milk
2.  cream cheese and strawberry blackberry jam on wheat bread
3.  jumbo raisins
4.  baby carrots
5.  Goldfish crackers and roasted pumpkin seeds
6.  mango chunks

1.  yogurt with blueberries
2.  granola
3.  cheese and pepperoni roll-ups
4.  mango chunks
5.  Chex mix
6.  two dried apricots
7.  pumpkin muffin with butter

1.  cottage cheese
2.  fortune cookie
3.  green bell pepper and baby carrots
4.  ham and cheese sandwich on home made wheat beer bread
5.  apple slices
 

1.  cheese, mini pepperoni, and green olives
2.  blueberry banana yogurt
3.  granola
4.  baby carrots
5.  strawberries
6.  fortune cookie

1.  cheese chunks
2.  baby carrots
3.  strawberries
4.  sandwich of cream cheese, sliced strawberries and honey on home made whole wheat beer bread
5.  home made granola bar
6.  mini fruit roll-up

1.  Swiss cheese sandwich with mustard and ketchup on tomato basil bread
2.  apple slices
3.  baby carrots
4.  Goldfish crackers (in pouch)
5.  home made granola bar

 

1.  blueberries

2.  half of a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese

3.  cheese cubes and mini pepperoni

4.  pretzels and roasted pumpkin seeds

5.  half a package of animal crackers

1.  pear slices and pomegranate
2.  cream cheese and blackberry strawberry jam on Goldfish bread
3.  pretzels and Snap Pea Crisps

1.  honeydew, cantaloupe, grapes, and banana
2.  garden herb Triscuit crackers
3.  ham and cheese with ketchup and mustard on Goldfish bread
3.  red and yellow mini bell peppers

1.  raspberry yogurt
2.  apple slices
3.  Cracklin' Oat Bran cereal
4.  Munster cheese
5.  garden herb Triscuit crackers

 We had just gotten home from a trip, late, the night before.  I had not been to the grocery store yet, so I scrounged this up from or extensive snack that we travel with.  I go a little overboard, but if we ever get caught in a snowstorm on the road, our family of four could easily survive for 3-5 days on just the "snacks."

1.  peach apple sauce
2.  cucumber and baby carrot slices
3.  ham and cheese roll-ups
4.  cottage cheese
5.  garden and herb Triscuit crackers
6.  blackberries

1.  cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes
2.  granola with raisins
3.  strawberries and blackberries
4.  blueberry yogurt

Bow Holder

Dorothy's hair bows have been a bit out of control for a while now.  She needs to wear one (or something) to keep her hair out of her face, but finding one that was the right color can be frustrating when digging through a little basket on the way out the door.  I looked at some ribbon bow holders for sale and scoffed at the price.  Seriously, they are not hard to make, so I headed out to the craft store and bought my supplies.  Instead of just hanging it on the wall, I wanted to have some shelves so that I could put other hair things (rubber bands and such) in little boxes or baskets to keep everything in one place.  I found a cute little stair step wall mounted...thing, that had three pegs I could hang the bow holder off of. 

Then, everything sat in my sewing room for about three months before I got irritated enough that I wanted that pile of stuff cleaned up and gone out of my room.  Once I sat down and did it, it took me less than ten minutes.  However, it did take another couple of weeks before it got hung up. *blush* 

It's up now and is mostly great.  There are two minor problems.  It is a little dark where we hung it, so matching colors is sometimes a bit of a challenge.  Also, it is upstairs in her room, and we keep forgetting, and have to run upstairs to retrieve a bow.  This isn't much different than before though, just that we would take a bow out of her hair for nap and leave it up there, then we couldn't find it a couple of days later when we needed it.  At least now, we can hopefully get them all back in one location and can see them all at once to know which one to grab.

Someday, we will get that closet door replaced and it will be white.  Of course it isn't a standard size and ordering a custom one is ridiculously expensive, so we keep putting it off.

Next, I want to make or find some cute boxes or baskets to put on each "step" to hold other little hair things.  I love having them sorted by color type.  The first ribbon is "neutrals" (white, ivory, black, brown, grey).  Next is the "warm colors" (reds, orange, yellow, and pink).  Why does she have so many pink bows?  She doesn't even wear that much pink.  The last ribbon are the "cool colors" (greens, blues, and purples).  She wears a lot of blues and greens, but I can't always find the right shade to match.  I might need to experiment with making her some bows.  I made a couple a while back, but I should give it a shot again.  I could probably do it for less then I buy them for, and they would match better.

Bags

I usually do my embroidery on clothing or towels, but I recently tried putting it on bags and they turned out really cute.  Dorothy started school last week and needed a backpack.  I found a really cute polka dot one, but it was really plain looking, so I jazzed it up a bit.  I gave her a couple of options, and she chose to have a panda put on it.  Malcolm likes the panda because it is fuzzy and soft (I used black velveteen).  I debated about putting her name on her back pack for safety reasons, but ultimately decided to do it.  She will only be walking with me to and from school, and will need a new backpack long before she will get to the walking alone stage.  We have also been working with her to start identifying her name (it's not going well) and looking at it each time she grabs her backpack can't hurt.

Here it is, hanging on its hook in the kitchen.  I think it is really adorable and I hope it holds up to her next two years of preschool and one year of kindergarten.

Ready to go on her first day of school.  We accidentally had her wear a polka dot dress too, so she was covered in polka dots that day.


For Christmas, one of my kids' teachers asked if I could add her niece's name to a bag she was planning to give her for Christmas.  Hooping it was the most difficult part, but once that was done, it stitched out really well.

My son is a little jealous and want me to do a backpack for him too, but his current one won't work for a variety of reasons.  He will most likely need a larger backpack when he goes to first grade next year, so I'll let him pick something then.

Gymnastics Leotards

Dorothy has been doing gymnastics for a while and has just been wearing sweats to class.  The problem is that she only has a couple of pairs of sweats and they were often dirty and I was scrambling to get them washed and dried in time for her classes.  I have a bunch of leotard fabric that has been sitting around for several years now, and was never used, so I decided to try my hand at making her a couple of gymnastics leotards.

Here is my first attempt at making a leotard.  I decided to go with the bike shorts style because it offers more coverage (she has no rear end) and it meant I didn't have to add elastic, which I hate doing.  It's a dark navy stretch velvet and is so, so soft.

I appliqued a girl doing a handstand, since it seemed appropriate for a gymnastics leotard.  I used a scrap of lime green lycra with little holographic dots.  Dorothy likes that it is shiny and sparkly.  She wasn't willing to hold still and model for me, but I did manage some quick pictures with my phone.  The quality isn't great, and many were taken through the viewing windows, but hopefully they show the fit.  

For a first try, it came out really well.  I couldn't get the casings right on the arm and neck holes, so I cheated a bit.  They look fine from a distance, but I'm not entirely happy with them.  I did better in later attempts.

Ready to head into class, and the only semi-decent front shot I was able to get.

Warming up.  I like the line of the back of the leotard.

Waiting her turn.

She loves bars and the leotard seemed to move with her very well all through class.

My second attempt did not go nearly so well.  I let Dorothy pick out the fabric she wanted me to use, and she insisted on a hunter green crushed velvet.  It isn't something I ever would have picked for her, but she really fell for it for some reason.  She then wanted an orange fox on it, so I did that too (though when she saw it, she insisted that it was a cat).  This material was only a two-way stretch, instead of four, but I thought I could make it work.  I was wrong.  When I tried it on her, the legs were much too tight and it would not go over her (non-existent) hips.  Yeah, definitely needs to be able to stretch around as well as in length.  Too bad, because it was really cute.

I did, however, do a much better job with the casing around the arms and neck.  I didn't get the stitching quite close enough to the seam, but it got better and looked pretty decent by the next time I made one.

She was a little disappointed it didn't fit, and pulled really hard trying to get it on.

 My last try went much, much better.  Even the casing look pretty good.  Luckily, Dorothy was excited to get to choose more fabric (uh, oh, she might be turning into me a little bit) and a design to put on yet another leotard.  This time, she went with a jade green lycra with glitter sparkles all over, and a hot pink dinosaur.  Rawr! 

It's hard to capture the glittery-ness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dinosaur is made with a stretch material I had sitting in a box that was bright pink, but nearly sheer.  It wouldn't work for a full leotard, but is fine for appliques.

Waiting for class to start.  The shoulders are set a tiny bit wide, so next time I'll trim them in a bit.  I cut this one a touch larger than the navy one, and it looks like she has a little bit of growing room in it. 

This one seems just a little more comfortable to her.  The legs and girth are a little longer, and she seemed to hardly tug at it at all.

She is pretty strong and can hold this for a good amount of time.  Now, if she would just focus a little, she could actually do some more difficult skills.

This was supposed to be a front kick.  Not quite there yet.

I had a lot of fun making these and learned a lot.  I would love to make some more, but she only has class once a week, so I think two leotards are more than enough.  I certainly wouldn't buy her more than one if I was buying them.  I justify the two because they were "free" since the fabric was just sitting here, but I need to wait and not make more until she outgrows these.

School Lunches V

Well, I have a bunch of lunch photos stockpiled, so I better get this done before the kids go back to school on Monday.

This was the day after Thanksgiving break.

1.  Turkey and cheese sandwich on a Hawaiian roll with ketchup and mustard. (He declared this the best sandwich ever despite not liking the turkey when we had it for Thanksgiving dinner.)
2.  3 grape tomatoes, 3 baby carrots, and one small piece of broccoli with ranch for dipping.
3.  Laffy Taffy
4.  sour cream and onion bunnies
5.  Mandarin orange
6.  raspberries
7.  cranberry sauce

1.  roasted red pepper hummus
2.  apple slices, pomegranate, and raspberries
3.  Wheat thins
4.  green olive, mini pepperoni, cheese, and turkey chunk toothpick skewers
5.  baby carrots and one pea pod

Not lunch, but when it was our turn to supply snack in December, I got creative and made a snowflake out of Jack cheese and filled in the background with fresh blueberries and blackberries.  Yes I know snowflakes are six sided, but this was simple and fit well on the platter.  It was surprisingly easy to put together and I think the kids liked it.  My son said he had two helpings.

1.  Dots
2.  ham and cheese roll-ups
3.  Parmesan garlic pretzel chips
4.  blackberries
5.  roasted pumpkin seeds and freeze dried bananas
6.  Mandarin orange
7.  raspberry granola bar
 

1.  Mandarin orange, raspberries, and apple slices
2.  black cherry Greek yogurt
3.  granola
4.  cinnamon sweet potato crackers
5.  garlic bread

1.  popcorn 
2.  apple pumpkin muffin with cream cheese
3.  prunes and dried apricots
4.  cottage cheese
5.  blackberries

1.  mac & cheese (put in the container in the morning)
2.  blueberries and blackberries
3.  salad of mixed greens with sliced baby carrots, croutons, and poppy-seed dressing

1.  sour cream and onion bunnies
2.  ham and cheese sandwich with ketchup and mustard on half a sesame seed bun
3.  roasted pumpkin seeds and raisins (under the Tootsie Roll)
4.  grapefruit slices
5.  raspberry lemonade fruit twist

1.  pineapple, black olive pizza
2.  cheese roll-ups
3.  baby carrots
4.  blueberries and blackberries
5.  ranch dip
6.  apple cranberry graham-cracker cookies

1.  Caesar salad
2.  Twizzler
3.  Goldfish crackers
4.  vanilla yogurt with blueberries and blackberries

 

 1.  two mini taco shells with shredded cheese, chopped cucumbers, and chopped tomatoes (under the cucumbers)

2.  sesame bread sticks

3.  prunes and dried apricots (under the breadsticks)

4.  apple slices

5.  milk

1.  roasted red pepper hummus and green olives on a tortillas, cut into pinwheels

2.  cheese cubes and mini pepperoni
3.  ranch dip
4.  baby carrots and cucumber slices
5.  prunes and dried apricots
6.  half a banana

1.  roasted pumpkin seeds and freeze dried bananas
2.  cream cheese and home made strawberry blackberry jam sandwich, on whole wheat bread, cut into a gingerbread man with raisin buttons held on with cream cheese (it was the last lunch before Christmas break, so I got a little creative)
3.  three cinnamon marshmallows
4.  Mandarin orange
5.  baby carrots and cucumber slices
6.  buffalo pretzel chips