With These Hands

My first idea was this:

We hop into the city and head over to the Albert Einstein Memorial to get a family shot. I had just gotten a remote for our D40 and was anxious to see if I could get a good family picture without using the dreaded timer. (I can never get into position in time!) I was excited about the Einstein idea because I kept thinking it was cool and unique. I was envisioning something like E=Merry Christmas²!! I know it’s dorky and nerdy but I thought it was totally cute and appropriate, as Mike (and to a lesser extent I) is in fact geeky and science-loving.

But we went there and it was cold and windy and nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get a shot where the boys are smiling even a little and looking at the camera. I was getting frustrated and we had taken like 50 pictures and still I wasn’t satisfied. Partly because the statue is so big that to get it all in, the camera was kind of far back and you can only see us from a distance and with the many trees behind us, it’s just a lot of for a family photo that’s going to be a card, you know?

Here’s one picture that wasn’t that bad:

But what is up with my leg sticking out? And yeah, the boys are nowhere near looking at the camera. I don’t even know if Noah knows exactly what a camera is. As us yelling, “Look at the camera!” wasn’t doing anything.

So, the idea got scrapped by me. No matter though because as soon I decided to nix that one, another one popped in my head.
This one entailed taking individual pictures of us and collaging them all together in a very warm holiday wishes kind of way. I purchased some white posterboard, cut it in half, printed up some positive words, got out my glue stick and set to work in making two 2-sided message boards, so to speak. (I could have used blank white boards and added text to the picture after the fact, but I do like to cut and paste with actual scissors and glue!)

Some things never change, as the day we set to take the photos outside our building, it was again cold and windy. It was only minimally more manageable as I was taking pictures, Mike was dealing with one or the other of the boys. Noah still didn’t want to smile a lot nor was holding the sign very attractive to him. Matty did fare better, but only slightly. There was mud on the ground and that seemed like more fun. In any event, click, click, click and we were set.

I was so excited by how the whole thing came together! Everyone looks happy and cheery! Okay, well Noah doesn’t but that makes these extra adorable. And mildly ironic that he was the one holding the Joy sign!

I thought they made perfect Happy New Year! cards. See?

I used kodak gallery again this year and was pleased by their quality and turnaround. (We did wind up springing for rush delivery, as I’m a worrywart and even though these were New Year’s cards and not of the Christmas variety, I still wanted people to receive them in a timely manner.)

So there we go.
I wonder what I will come up with next year?
And will it be just as challenging?
Probably!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

December 24th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

Every year I convince myself that I’m going to make as many gifts as possible. Try new ideas. Search for exciting tutorials. Expand my crafty repertoire! And well, every Christmas comes and goes and I’m might eke out a few. Nowhere near the production I conjured in my head. It’s because I’m a blatant procrastinator. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.

And of course, this year was no exception.

A) I was sewing up until the last moment. (Many gifts were being mailed to faraway family.)
B) I had many more ideas that I didn’t have the time/energy to implement.

There were completed items that had to go RIGHT into the box for mailing, so I didn’t even have the where-with-all to photograph them. Which still bums me out. They included various pouches and hairbands (no big deal) to new items like this crayon roll (for Tai) and this pencil and notebook holder (for Ellie). I will make these items again though, so all is not lost.

On Monday night I was yet again closing in on my own personal deadline but still managed to produce these wristlet & tissue pack sets for Matty’s teachers. This was after I completed the cookie bags for his little class. Yep, I was up until 1. Sigh. The wristlets are of course my own tried and true design and the tissue packs were an idea from Skip to my Lou. Not too difficult, but very nice indeed.

But I did get photos this time!

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And lastly, the sweet cookies.

I’m almost positive I did something similar last year. (But who could remember?!) I like to keep it simple for the kids. No chocolate, no nuts, as I really do not know if there are any allergies or such. These are simple, 5-ingredient butter spritz cookies. I adore these cookies. My mom made them for many years when I was growing up and they still bring me Christmas joy. I used the tree plate and added some green food coloring along with red sugar. Easy but cute. My kinda deal. They went into small bags fastened with red ribbon. Attached you will see nametags that I printed from Emily’s offering over at the the black apple. (I just love it when she offers cute tags!)

And that was it for this year.
I would love to say that I will start early for next year and be all done and just breeze through the holiday season.
But we all know the truth.
C’est la vie.

December 24th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

It’s taken me a bit to get into the swing of the holiday season. Even now, just over a week away and I’m still dragging my feet on my Christmas-y to-do list. But I have ideas swimming merrily around me head. Now if I can only find the time and energy.

These little trees though, well they were fast and easy and super fun to do.
I wanted just a little something extra around the house to add a bit more joyousness. Since I’m mainly a sewer, I dug through my stash to find some sweet fabric. I like these because they weren’t Christmas fabrics at all. But put together like this, they exude that holiday spirit. I found inspiration for these little guys from The Small Object and seeing these fun fabric conifers over at the black apple. (Scroll down to see hers made of polka dots!)

I set up this little scene this morning to try and get an adorable little photo of all of them together. It’s gray and rainy outside, so these were taken in our bedroom where the natural light is pretty scarce. But I like them, they make me happy just looking at ‘em. Wee wood ornaments are vintage and peppermint candies are Hammond’s handmade pillows. Aw, sweet.

After my little photo shoot here, the trees are back in there respective spots, stuffed trees on the TV, so I can get a glimpse of them whilst watching my favorite The Office and Top Chef and the stacked trees (which I placed on top of mini bud vases for the tree “trunk”) residing in front of our many, many books. Perfect.

And this little tree?
He’s a softie I whipped up just this morning.
Our front door was sans holiday decoration for many weeks now, so I finally swapped out our fall leaf painting (by Matty!) for this starred Christmas tree.
I like it.

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materials used:

wool felt
thread
interfacing
quilt cotton
polyfill
beans (to weight coned trees)

December 16th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

This time, I made a basic sugar cookie, added pecans and dried cherries, then dipped them into some melted chocolate. Mmmmm.

It wasn’t ALL smooth going with this batch though.
It was new and kinda fudged a bit, so I guess that’s expected.
I have sugar cookies down pat, sure, but I wanted something a little more substantial, so to hold up to folding in heavier ingredients like nuts and berries. Also, I didn’t want anything too delicate once baked, as they were going for a swim post-oven.

So here we go:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar (I always use cane, so it’s not exactly white.)
1 egg
1 tablespoon whole milk
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1 cup chopped dried cherries (I basically just run my chef’s knife through them a few times.)
1 bag of preferred chocolate chips, melted. (I used Ghirardelli milk chocolate.)

Preheat oven to 375.
In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg, then milk, then vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Once the dry is incorporated thoroughly, fold in pecans, then cherries.
Spoon onto parchment lined cookie sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden.*

Melt chocolate over double-boiler and dip one side (about 1/4 to 1/3 of the cookie, any more chocolate than that, and really it’s just way too much.)
Place on wax paper to set.
(Mine went in the fridge for a bit, so we could enjoy them sooner!)

*Now, I left these cookies in the oven about a minute or so longer than I normally do, as I didn’t want them too soft for the dipping part.

More notes:

Once the raw dough was complete, I wrapped it and put it in the fridge for about an hour. (I was cooking dinner simultaneously and couldn’t attend to cookies in the oven at that point.) You can certainly drop the cookies immediately onto the cookie sheets, as I don’t think refrigerating them changed their outcome at all.

As with any other cookie, feel free to use whatever nut/dried berry you fancy. I just happen to ADORE cherries and pecans.

Tempering chocolate can be tricky stuff. As it happens, I had to deal with the dreaded chocolate seizing as moisture was introduced into my chocolate. I almost said screw it. But in talking with Mike and a little googling, we were able to save it. We added about 1/3 cup of whole milk and that did the trick. Maybe not as smooth and pure as you’d like tempered chocolate to be, but for this cookie-dipping purpose, I think we pulled it off.

They were chewy and sweet.
I love chocolate and cherries.
I might use even less chocolate next time though, maybe a drizzle instead of a dip.

December 11th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

Oh what a mad scramble leading up to the day of the bazaar. See, I contacted the school REALLY late about my submission and they were nice enough to let me in. Then I procrastinated a day or two. Then it was Thanksgiving. Then I was sick. And like wow, I was chained to my sewing machine for a good two days straight here at the end.
But I got a lot of nice new, very cool and adorable items made and that pleases me.
Know what pleases me even more?
Doing well at a fair.
And I did!
Even though I was still pretty darned sick and foot traffic was kinda slow.
I remember being bummed at the close of the show, thinking I had done poorly.
But Sunday came and I sat down to tally and woo-wee, I did good!
As usual, I met some wonderfully sweet people who were amazingly generous with their compliments and support.

Some pics of my booth.

Really, my favorite part of my set-up was my little (real!) Christmas tree I had purchased from Whole Foods that morning. It smelled just like Christmas and looked adorable hanging out with my bags and such. I put felt little red birdies and my business cards in the branches which made me quite giddy. I’m so easy.

December 11th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

I knew back in late August/early September that I was going to create gnome costumes for the boys.
I wanted something that was basically like regular clothes, but also warm, and non-cumbersome.
The only thing I thought they would have issue with was the hat and beard, but they both did super-great and didn’t try to take them off at all!
I was so proud.

In my head, I knew what gnomes looked like. Heck, I watch the Amazing Race which is sponsored by Travelocity, so without fail I see that little gnome mascot every Sunday night!
To get a specific idea though, I just googled my way through many, many images of gnomes on the web.
You would not believe how many variations!
So I kind of settled on doing a hybrid of these two guys:

I liked the colors of the second guy, but the vest type top of the first dude.
Since I was sewing everything, I knew a sleeveless tunic was way more desirable and much faster than trying to add sleeves.
With a belt, I thought it achieved exactly the look I was going for.

The hat was loosely based on the woodland elf hat in Bend The Rules Sewing. (I love that book!)

Once I had the hat down, I tackled the belt and then beard. The belt was easy, I was happy that I had picked up some goldtone buckles from the fabric store, it definitely added to the overall look.

The beard proved to be a bit more challenging, if only because I wanted something that wasn’t going to be too annoying to the boys (like cotton-y strands and threads in the mouth) but still have a look that was full and reminiscent of a fluffy beard.
I thought I was simply going to do graduating layers of white felt.
But as I was starting it, it seemed too flat and two-dimensional for facial hair.
I got inspired at the last moment. I started thinking, loops, loops, loops.
So I started cutting strips and sewing them on in lines and a bit of layering.
I LOVED the way it turned out.
It gave it this interesting, modern, clean look while still looking like a obvious representation of a beard.
The process was quite enjoyable to partake in.
I felt proud!

Trick-or-Treat!

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materials used:

polar fleece for the tunic
wool blend felt
thread
buttons
brass buckles

store bought white turtlenecks and khaki pants from the boys’ own wardrobe

November 3rd, 2008 ★ 1 Comment »

Another yummy dinner courtesy of the very awesome Cooks Illustrated.
Mike first introduced me to CI way back when we first met.
It’s been one of my favorite cooking resources ever since.
Plus their companion television program America’s Test Kitchen is amazing too. Long live PBS!

So, this here soup, or stew really, is delicious and hearty.
Soon after the first time I made it, it became a part of our regular rotating dinner menu.
It makes a HUGE pot, so I always freeze half. (It re-cooks beautifully with about a cup of added broth.)

I modified the recipe only slightly.
Changes such as instead of chicken stock, I used veggie.
And substituting pecorino romano for parmesan.
Since I was making a vegetarian version for us, this also meant omitting the bacon and anchovy paste completely. (They were ingredients in the original)
And honestly, having never eaten it with it, I have no clue what I’m missing!

My modified recipe:

2 T olive oil
1 medium celery rib, diced
1 medium carrot, diced (my addition)
1 small sweet or yellow onion, diced
1 small shallot, minced (my addition)
4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
2 (14 oz) cans petite diced tomatoes, with juice
1 (15 oz) can cannellini (or northern) beans, drained and rinsed
rind/block of romano cheese (approx. 5 in x 1 in)
28 ounces veggie stock/broth
2.5 cups of water
8 ounces small pasta
1/2 cup finely grated romano cheese for topping/garnish
salt
pepper

Everything is done in one pot, bonus!

Heat olive oil in large pot over medium/high.
Add carrots.
Add celery.
Add onion and shallot.
Cook until soft, about 8 minutes.
Add garlic, oregano, and pepper flakes.
Let cook for minute longer.
Add diced tomatoes.
Add rind/block of romano.
Add beans.
Cook for 10 minutes.
Add water and broth.
Bring to boil.
Add 1 tsp salt and pasta.
Let cook for another 10 minutes.
Take off heat, remove cheese rind, top with grated cheese and serve.
DELICIOUS.

I served this with our favorite garlic bread.
Not homemade though. (I somehow always get iffy results on garlic bread.)
The brand is Alexia and they make a lot of great organic/natural prepared foods.

And now I have a whole batch of it already made in the freezer!
Yay for instance meals!
I can’t wait to have it again.

October 21st, 2008 ★ No Comments »

So truth be told, I’m not really much of a Halloween person.
I mean, not so much in the way of zombies and death and blood and bats and all that creepy stuff.
About as creepy as I will get is abiding the Jack-O-Lantern, which is to say, really not creepy at all.
I’m a wuss, I will admit it, even when it comes to make-believe-y type things.
I’ve learned to accept this.

But these, these cute little pumpkin luminaries, well they are just the cat’s pajamas!
I used the tutorial found over at Skip To My Lou. She’s got a whole mess of Halloween crafts to partake in.
But this is the one that really tickled my fancy!
(Just how many cliched phrases CAN I use in one post??!)

And all aglow!

The only modifications I did to the original tutorial is using orange tissue paper instead of the mentioned crepe paper. I was indeed looking for orange crepe paper when I was at Target recently. But they had none to be found! Everyone grabbed ‘em to make their own pumpkin lanterns, I can only presume!

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materials used:

mod podge
tissue paper
construction paper
baby food jars
pickle jar (!)

October 20th, 2008 ★ 1 Comment »

18 million years ago (it seems), one of livejournal friends posted a link to a baby pants tutorial.
Well I finally used it!

There was once this happy cow who was placed on a little onesie courtesy of a very cool lady who has a very cool etsy shop.
We loved this onesie and got lots of use of it.
But babies grow, as they are wont to do.
I didn’t want to give up the jovial bovine, however.
So he went into a pile of “SAVE THIS OR I WILL DIE!” clothing and things in the bottom of the boys’ closet.
Yesterday I started to try and do something interesting and fun with some of these items.
Including the cow and the moon.

The before:

And the after:

Wee pants for Noah!

I had an old cut-up sweatshirt from a few years ago that came in handy.
I made the patch by cutting the screenprinted part of the onesie and using steam2seam fusible webbing.
After I ironed the patch onto the pants I did a simple straight-stitch along the edges.
I then took some more of the onesie solid black material and made a waistband through which I fed 3/8 inch elastic and voila!
Baby lounge pants!
They are cozy and adorable.

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I soon took scissors to two more favored onesies.
(This one is another from the aforementioned etsy shop.)

Before:

Truth be told, Mike was never a fan of that puffer fish.
I LOVED it.
You never see baby clothes like that!
I could not give it up.
So I made Matty a hand-me-UP!
Is there such a thing??

After:

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One more.

Before:

Now this dinosaur guy was from Matty, he grew out of it, it went to Noah, then he grew out of it.
These kids and their GROWING!
Well, I liked that dino, so he is now residing here:

I thrifted the green shirt from the Salvy and added the dino using above method.
He looks happy, no?
ROAR!
Matty likes it!

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materials used:

re-purposed tees/onesies
thread
fusible webbing
elastic

October 13th, 2008 ★ No Comments »

I cannot remember where I came across this recipe, but it’s really one of my favorites.
There are so many delicious flavors happening, the cranberries, the oats, the pecans, and coconut!
If I put in chocolate chips, I might keel over.
I can say, with confidence, that pecans are now my number one favorite nut.
Isn’t that exciting?
Yes!

Before the oven:

And after:

And here is the recipe:

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

2 sticks softened butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups old fashioned oats
2 cups cranberries (or any dried fruit)
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1 cup sweetened coconut

Whisk together your dry ingredients, set aside.
Cream butter and sugars together.
After thoroughly combined, slowly add 1 egg/vanilla at a time.
After incorporated, gradually add dry mixture.
Mix.
Add oats to batter.
Add cranberries (or any other dried fruit).
Add pecans.
Add coconut.
Mix until all blended.

Pop into a 350 oven for 18-20 minutes (depending on size), rotating halfway through.

October 13th, 2008 ★ 1 Comment »