My Little Loves

An idea....

 

into fruition...

"Fluffy" is well loved...

well...at least for the day...

Candy houses and perry...

It's fall break here so we took advantage of the nice weather and made some Halloween gingerbread (ok, actually graham cracker) houses outside....

this one looks more like a...well.....I'm not exactly sure what they were going for here....

While that was going on Ryan juiced some pears which will be turned into perry....you know, like hard apple cider but with pear juice.  The pears came from a stranger's tree in town....and no we didn't steal them like we did with the crab apples....but those are on public land so it doesn't really count does it.  Anyways, Ryan spotted this particular tree while driving home one day and thought about stopping by to see if the owners wouldn't mind if he picked a few.....there were tons on the tree and lots rotting on the ground.  So he stopped by the other day after he spotted a little old lady outside on a ladder painting.  He walked up to her and started talking and I guess she was so startled she almost fell off the ladder.  Good job boy....bust a granny's hip in the name of alcohol.  Anyways she ran inside to get her husband, a sweet little old man, and he told Ryan he could pick as many as he wanted....and he wasn't shy about it.....

ok, it looks disgusting now but it will be good when it's all done....

Beautiful chairs....

Last Thanksgiving we had some family over and I needed to get some additional chairs and a card table to accommodate....classy, I know.  Anyways, I finally got around to recovering them....

This was a pretty simple job....the black vinyl seat was easily unscrewed and I just stapled the fabric on top of it.  In case you were wondering, the fabric is from Amy Butler's home dec line called Nigella.  If you haven't seen her decorator weight fabric in person, it has such a nice feel to it.  I've used that fabric in the past like when I covered this chair. 

We have spent the last several days working on party favors for the upcoming celebration.  This year's theme is cupcakes and confections.   Here are a few of the things we have made that will be wrapped and placed in some cute little green strawberry baskets.  These are strawberry scented soap covered bath fizzies......

They turned out way better than I thought.  The strawberry scent is kinda strong though.  We haven't tried one out yet so I hope I don't get any complaints of party guests smelling like a strawberry patch for the next two weeks.

We also made some chocolate strawberry lollipops...

I bought the chocolates and molds from Bake it Pretty.  Every birthday I make some kind of chocolate lollipop.  They are so easy to make and super cute.

Fun with hearts...

I think I've mentioned before that my favorite shape is a heart.  Since Valentines day is coming up, and it's cold outside....we needed something to do.  Anyone who knows me knows I love cookies (it's my favorite food) and I really wanted to make some but decided to forgo the real kind in lieu of some play ones.

You too can make these....super simple and no sewing required!  Here is what you do...

Supplies:

Felt (I used wool felt)
Cookie Cutters
Pen
Scissors
Craft Glue
Stuffing
Paper punch (optional for the circle sprinkles)

Trace and cut out two heart shapes with the cookie cutter as a template.  Using craft glue, place a thin line around the entire edge of one of the hearts.  Put a small amount of stuffing in the middle.  Place the other heart on top and hold the edges til they stick together without pressure (this doesn't take very long).  Next decorate!  I made felt hearts, circles and lines for sprinkles.  If you want to spruce these up, you can use your pinking shears to make the edges clean.  Now you are done and that took only 10 minutes or less! 

Gingerbread house....

If you know me, you know I love our local library.  There is always something interesting going on and I usually try to get the kids involved if I can.  On Sunday afternoon, they had a gingerbread house decorating activity.  All we had to do was provide two bags of candy to share.  They provided the gingerbread (actually cinnamon covered cardboard) house and a bag of icing.  Just Nissa and I went and we had a lot of fun together.  I had to lock my inner Martha away so that I didn't take over the decorating and make it look viable for the cover of a magazine.  Nissa told me what to do and I happily agreed and helped.  Here is the finished house...

My favorite is the floating door.  I helped remedy that with some orange slice stairs.  I actually really liked using the cardboard.  We tried making an actual gingerbread house one year that was quite difficult to glue together but I'm sure when you practice, it all comes together easily.  If you are in a hurry though, this could do the job.  Either that or graham cracker mini houses.  Those are fun too!

Halloween crafts and the restaurant ladies....

Nissa is having a no tv/computer week this week....."why mama?" she has asked me....well, because it inhibits your creativity.  That is exactly what I told her...which I of course had to elaborate on.  When you watch tv, you do not color or paint, or want to do crafts or anything of the sort.....and she pretty much got what I meant.  At first she has tried to negotiate some morning tv time but I am trying to keep her busy with fun activities until she see's that tv should be a once in a while thing and not an everyday past-time.  Today I wanted us to do some kind of Halloween crafts and looked on the computer (yes, I am a hypocrite....I needed to print out some pumpkins though!)

Here is what she created.....

 

We had a good time with these.  Nissa is getting really good at coloring and cutting.  She cut out all those leaves by herself and glued them on.  If you are looking for some easy Halloween crafts for your little ones.....you can find these and more here.

For dinner tonight, we had our weekly pita pizza's.  We can top as we please and everyone is happy....that is my kind of meal.  So tonight she decided we would be the  'restaurant ladies'.  She threw on her apron, topped all the pizzas for us and set out the plates.  Before all this though, she had to make us a menu......

What.....can't read this!?!?  Well, it says:

Chicken Patty

Pizza

Soup

Broccoli

We all enjoyed our nice family dinner from Nissa.   One thing that really makes me smile is the fact that she always wants to pray for the meal.  It is so sweet to hear her prayers because they are genuinely from her heart.  Tonight she said "Dear God, I hope Mae Mae is doing good in heaven.  I hope she is having a nice day today.  Amen."  I surely couldn't top that one.

These are my daughter's hands....

I have a place in the closet where I put all the toys that I find throughout the year that are either on clearance or just plain neat.  Toys to be doled out as gifts when I find the perfect match for gift to recipient.  Nissa found my secret spot and eyed this....

I was saving it for her when she was older....thinking she wouldn't be ready to learn to sew yet.  She's only four years old.  The box says ages 8+.  So initially I told her that I was saving it to teach her when she was a bit older....she wasn't too excited to hear that and then I felt bad.  Why shouldn't I teach her when she is showing an interest in learning something?  Do I really need a box to tell me when my child is ready for something?

So last night I told her yes! we could do this together and she was very excited.  She opened up the box and placed all the pins, needle, scissors, and embroidery floss in a bucket.  I cut out all the pieces for her (the scissors it came with were, well, crappy) and we took to looking at the instructions...

Looks fairly simple....

So I pinned the pieces together, showed her how to thread a needle, make a knot, and how to hold the needle as you push it through so you don't get poked.  Next thing I know she goes to scratch an itch near her eye with the needle still in her hand....yikes!!.....so I proceed to tell her how you must put the needle down before attending to any bodily itches.  So onward we proceed.....look at my daughter's hands!  How proud I am!

A four year old mind you!

She did a great job and did about 10 stitches.  I think she figured we'd whip up this pig in no time and she'd be carrying it upstairs to bed with her in the next hour.  Since it was taking a long time, she looked at me and said, ok,  you can finish it now......in which case I told her it's her project and we'll work on it whenever she has  an urge to practice sewing again.  I wonder how long it's going to sit on this table before it gets another look....

Quilt and Rocks....

Since today was a rainy day, we decided to do a few craft projects.  The first thing we worked on was finishing our rock project.  These were the rocks we swiped from the local creek a few weeks ago.  What I wanted to use them for was as markers for our garden plants.  So the first thing we did was to clean them off and then paint them with acrylic paint.  I asked Nissa which rock she wanted to place by each plant and then I wrote the plants name in a permanent marker.  We have a vegetable garden (the husband takes care of that) and a cut flower and herb garden (my project) so we need a lot of rocks!  These are fun to make.....plus you can't miss these brightly colored guys in the garden!

The next craft Nissa wanted to work on was to make a quilt for Boden.  This idea came from Kids Craft Weekly.  It gives me a reason to finally dip into this big basket of scrap fabric that I've been keeping for little projects like this....

So what I did for this was to cut squares and rectangles out of the scraps and have her glue them onto a piece of interfacing.  She determined the size of the quilt (interfacing).....which turned out to be real long and skinny.  She had me wrap the baby in it after it was done.  I think it just fit around his torso.....so cute.

Here is the finished quilt....

Metamorphosis

Instead of the usual toys that don't get used, we gave Nissa 10 caterpillars for her birthday.  Hmmmm, now that sounds pretty cheap when you hear it but it's much cooler than a barbie doll I think.  The larvae came with a butterfly kit from Insect Lore.

This is what you get in the kit........

2 of these jars....

and a butterfly pavilion...

Then in about a week you see them form the chrysalis....

Then in another 7-10 days you see this!

That red stuff is not blood by the way.  It is meconium....the waste product from the pupal stage.  Nissa really enjoyed watching the transformation.  They all hatched yesterday.  We put some flowers in the bottom of the tent and dropped a bit of sugar water on them so they could eat.  We'll be releasing them tomorrow.  Hope they stay around the garden a bit so we can enjoy them some more!

Fairy Garden

Nissa and I are making another fairy garden this year.  We have yet to clear out some of the woods in the back of the house where I want to make a bigger fairy garden.  Then maybe I could fit in a little cottage or two like these.  I put the garden in this rusty old bucket that I've had and it works perfectly!  I just put it amongst my other plants in the garden and it looks wonderful!

A few close-ups....

A cute garden chair and rusty wheel barrow.  I put some moss from the woods in it.

A rusty old watering can and pot.  See the small bleeding hearts on the left side.  Aren't they beautiful!  They are spilling onto the garden...

You can buy a starter kit from The Wee Garden if you are interested in trying something like this yourself.   I've visited their garden last year in Chicago and it gave me such inspiration to start my own!   There is so much children can do with this project that they really want to help and create their own fairy world.