Final days before college

Helen has a bucket list of things she wants to do before leaving for college. They included going out to a movie with her Dad, eating at her two favorite restaurants, and getting in some mountain time. Last weekend fulfilled one item on her list...

Lots to think about before leaving.

It is now down to the final couple of days. We're packing and packing.

I sewed her a new sleepsack/blanket for her bed. I found in my sewing basket a scrap of the trim I had put on the blanket I sewed her for first grade naptime. 

She has been baking away her anxiety. 

She has baked something every single day ...and sometimes at night.

This is what I smelled at 1 a.m. and found when I got up this morning.

I'm taking them to my interns at work.  We are all tired of cookies.

The mountains, some crafting, a lot of baking...not bad ways to keep busy before such a big moment.

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New Year Projects

I enjoyed the Granny Square Sampler Crochet Along so much that I've been hunting for a 2014 project. I found this Downton Abbey KAL and I have convinced some friends to do it with me. We live about an hour apart so we won't be watching every together but we are all going to do the project.

I was going to do this project, but there's no way I could pass on the Downton Abbey project.

I have also thought it would be fun to do a reading challenge and am pondering this one. I love Historical Fiction.

I am nervous about this coming year. There are lots of decisions to make and changes to come. It helps to have a project to do with friends. Anybody want to join in?

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The Handmade Gifts

This is a rare shot of one of us actually working on the handmade gifts that we exchange on Christmas Eve.  There were projects going in almost every room of the house that included saws, drills, sewing machines, knitting needles, and who knows what else.

Helen made Liz this set of origami box-covered Christmas lights to hang in her room. I think she made around 150 origami boxes.

Liz likes to decorate her room for Christmas and asked for a Christmas blanket. 

She got one --made by me!

Liz decoupaged this box with quotes from Helen's favorite books.

She also photocopied some of Helen's sticky notes (which are everywhere in her room filled with quotes) and included those. Helen loved reading all these and now understands why all her favorite books were missing from her room.

Liz made me this puzzle cheese board.

Liz crocheted Helen this cowl. I also knit her an infinity scarf.

Helen made me these canvas placemats. It took her hours to paint all these stripes.

Nelson made me this Christmas tree. 

I am IN LOVE with it!

Liz had fun with forks. She made these tablet stands.

Liz and Helen got a bottle cutter and made us a set of glasses.

This was a fun project that involved a bottle cutter, candles, and ice water.

Nelson made the girls these journal kits. He made boxes for the books and sewed elastic bandoliers to hold pens, glue, and scissors. The girls have already used them at an art museum!

Each year we get a bit nervous as to whether or not we can pull off handmade gifts, and each year just gets more and more fun.  The girls say that this gift exchange is more fun than Christmas morning gifts. Nelson and I remind new parents to be careful which traditions you begin as they can stick :)

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Spring Crafting

I have some serious catching up to do on my blog.  Each month it becomes harder and harder to blog as my girls really aren't so excited about being featured on it and are off busy doing their own thing.

I spent much of the winter finishing up this afghan.  I taught myself to crochet last summer while following along at Wisecraft.  She published a square each week and I managed to keep up, in fact doubling each square to end up with a bigger blanket.

It took a long time to get it put together as the squares were all different sizes and I kept running out of yarn.  It's heavy, warm, and colorful.  Helen chose the yarn and is determined to take it to college.

Of course...now Liz wants one.  She's picked out yarn and I'm gathering the courage to start another big project.  She wants one with circles like the one below:

Helen took a mini-course at school on graffiti art. She set up her own spray paint studio in the basement and was quite busy.  Here are two self portraits she made:

So, we continue to be crafty when we have time!

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An Orange 14th Birthday!

Elizabeth celebrated her 14th birthday on Monday.  It's a big year for her--she graduates from the Waldorf school and heads off to high school. She spent last week taking placement exams and is waiting anxiously to see where she is placed.

Happily her birthday fell on President's Day so we had the day off to celebrate.  I did some birthday cooking in the morning and then Helen, Liz, and I headed out on the town for her special day.

Our first stop was a vintage clothing store which is two floors of designer vintage clothing and fabric. She loves fashion so this was a big hit. We stayed for a long time!

We then moved along to lunch at a local Italian restaurant and stopped in the neighboring chocolate shop afterwards. We didn't end up buying anything, but it was fun to look.

Finally, we went to the fabric store. She was getting tired of having her photo taken by this point :). I bought some fabric to make a new table runner for her birthday dinner. We all found little items for crafting.

After we got home it was time to work on the big dinner. I had decided to make a small, tall birthday cakes by baking the batter in cans. I used the tomato cans from the lasagna I had made earlier in the day. After I filled the cans I decided to quick look online to make sure I was doing it right. I found this blog which revealed her...um...struggles with this baking method and realized I had put in twice as much batter as I needed. I removed the batter, put the cans on a pan just in case and crossed my fingers.

Success. Here's what they looked like after about 25 minutes in the oven and the all-important 10 minutes of cooling in the cans.

We took a Downton Abbey break and celebrated/mourned the final episode with two pots of tea and petits fours.  This just about made Liz's birthday perfect.

After Downton Abbey the girls decorated the cakes by slicing them horizontally and filling each layer with whipped cream and fresh raspberries.  Here Liz is also getting candles ready to put in the birthday board made by her Great-Great Grandfather.

Liz's favorite color these days is orange so we also got carnations yesterday and dyed them orange with food coloring in the water. Magic!

Here's her orange birthday table with the fun table runner I whipped up.

We wrapped her gifts in orange as well.

Gifts for a 14 year old are hard--we gave her a kit of Smash Book materials, some fashion/sewing books, and a Vogue poster--perfect.

Here's the cake on the birthday board.

Liz agrees that it was the most perfect birthday ever!

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A Valentines Tale

Getting everyone inspired for making Valentines was a bit of a challenge this year. Liz joined me at the table to make cards for a little while, but Helen wasn't so enthusiastic. It's an ongoing theme/challenge with teens--how to keep up the handmade traditions as they get older and less engaged.

I got inspired to do a little bit of "found poetry" out of the newspaper.  Liz's Valentine poem was made up of words clipped from an article about an Albatross who had recently had a baby and flown across oceans to care for it.  Helen's came from a travel article on vineyards in France! Perfect words in those two articles, I tell you!

Here's the one I made for Nelson.

Helen and Liz finally got inspired and disappeared for an afternoon. They drove into town, had coffees, and bought a large amount of gourmet chocolate. They came back and made Valentine boxes for their purchases.  Yup. My girls are now driving off for afternoons on their own. Here are Helen's designs.

 Liz got inspired by origami and made us these little boxes....filled with chocolate!

The weekend before Valentines day Nelson disappeared into the basement to work on a mysterious project. The girls were mystified. I had an idea since I know that Nelson isn't a big fan of making paper valentines and he hadn't joined in the paper/glue extravaganza either. He presented us each with a wooden box he had made... filled with chocolates. 

No worries about us eating all that chocolate.  Before I could catch him, Odin climbed up on the table and finished it all off foil coverings and all.  Bad doggie. He got put in the crate for a long time!

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Birchbark Houses

Liz and I spent much of New Years day making birchbark houses for our dining table. Last year we made them as a family on Christmas Eve which was a great way to help the time pass until evening.

This year we didn't get to it. Liz and I decided that this year they aren't Christmas decorations but instead "winter" decorations.  We'll re-decorate the table after 12th night with these and some winter birds.

Earlier in the month I gathered birchbark just before snow was due to arrive. I wish I had gathered other bits of moss, lichen, and forest detritus, but I was in a rush. I also saved a number of small butter and tea boxes. First we turned the boxes into house shapes and hot-glued them together. Then we hot-glued on the birchbark and decorations.

Here is Liz covering one of her houses with watered-down glue.

And here she is shaking glitter all over the glue. 

This low-barn building is made from an Annie's Mac & Cheese box!

Here is one I made.

And here they are on the table.
The glittery roofs really make them sparkle at night.

I got the idea for these from Kristen Nichols. Here's her tutorial

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