handmade christmas: thumb-print cards

We had fun making these cards. My tot and I thumbed out penguins, frogs, mice, rabbits, elephants, and more.

I have been thinking about other animals to try ever since -- ladybugs, hippos, giraffes, hedgehogs, deer... oh my.

handmade christmas: cross stitch

Life in pixels!

My family got pixelated portraits this year for Christmas. This was my first attempt at cross stitch since high school and I am hooked. When I had completed my family, I kept going with one for the in-laws. (Thanks to good ol' Martha Stewart for the idea.)

The stitching is very therapeutic. (Unless of course you are stitching while bouncing on an exercise ball with a sleeping baby strapped to your chest. I can't recommend that too much.)

But actually I had the most fun with the design phase of these. Trying to capture an age and stage in just a few pixels was fun, even though I went through quite a bit of graph paper to get the details right. In some cases I still fell short (that darn baseball cap! glasses look like unibrows!) but I'm happy with the results overall. Hairstyles make a big difference, as does choice of shirt.

But man, you think you know someone until you try to remember the details... what colour are their eyes? what colours do they usually wear? on what side of their head do they usually part their hair?

I have one more in mind to make for another sweet family, but then I'm not sure where to go with this new addiction. I don't really like a lot of the cross stitch patterns I see. I mean, I love the stuff Wee Little Stitches does, but what to do with all of it when you're done? I don't really see myself with lots of cross stitches hanging on my walls. So watch out family and friends, that means I'll be giving it away.

my brother's sweater vest, my favourite detail 

for the love of cardamom

I love cardamom and I like butter so I tried to make these cardamom shortbreads. I must've done something wrong  (not measure out enough butter?) because my dough was a crumbly mess.

I ended up pressing it into ball-like shapes, rolling in powdered sugar and baking that way because the dough just laughed and fell into a million pieces when I took out my rolling pin. Even though the flavour was fantastic, the texture of the final cookie was still disappointingly crumbly and dry. Sad.

Still, I'm excited to try other recipes on that Remedial Eating blog -- lots of beautiful pictures of stuff I want to eat.

My craving for cardamom cookies not yet satisfied, I went for this Martha Stewart recipe. To quote my now-three year old, 'That's what I'm talkin' about!' Now I have a recipe that I can haul out year after year.  Happy. 

the theme is pumpkin

Happy Thanksgiving, to all you fellow Canucks. We kicked off the holiday weekend with pumpkin pancakes. I can recommend these spiced flapjacks, especially to those that have to wait another month for turkey and trimmings.

This recipe was scrawled on a post-it note so I have absolutely no idea where it recipe came from. My apologies.

pumpkin pancakes
serves 4

2 1/2 C flour
4 Tbs sugar
4 teas baking powder
1 teas cinnamon
1 teas ground ginger
1 teas salt
1/4 teas nutmeg
1/8 teas ground clove
1 egg
1 egg white
3/4 C pure pumpkin puree
4 Tbs butter, melted
2 C milk

Whisk together dry ingredients in large bowl. In medium bowl, whisk together egg, egg white, pumpkin puree, melted butter and milk. Fold wet into dry. Cook on buttered skillet.

***

Also on the menu this weekend, standing in for turkey and stuffing are my go-to roast chicken and a new wild rice pilaf. And for dessert, pumpkin ice cream and ginger cookies.

The food is prepped so all that's left to do is sit back, relax, and wait for our company to arrive. The artist among us may also want to put some finishing touches on her table decorations.

pinatas

I think I may have to wait 'til next year to make mini pinatas for Cinco de Mayo.

Super cool, eh? Check out her whole pinata series -- she's also done an alligator and jumbo numbers.

roses are red...

I'm not a big 'hearts and flowers' kind of gal, but I do love an excuse to craft in red.

A few ideas for this year, or next...

make fortune cookies the hard way... or the easy way (I've now tried both)

valentine's crackers (a la Christmas surprise crackers)

order a heart-shaped sparkler 

make soap you want to eat

insta-decorate with heart garland

party bunting

I got on the bunting bandwagon.

We have a small paper-cut banner of sorts that we put up for celebrations, but I wanted something a bit more sturdy and well, bunting-like.

I went after my fabric scraps with pinking shears and now we've got seven yards of bright bunting. Party on.

I know, I know, the silly things have been everywhere. But I don't care. They're cute! Don't they make you want to have a cupcake or a slice of pie?

In case you're interested in all things bunting...
say it with a bunting birthday card
tell guests they're awesome with compliment bunting
or tell them whatever you want with alphabet bunting
icing's out, bunting on cakes is in
paint one on your tablecloth
Easter is coming. make a string of peeps
every nap is worthy of a rainbow bunting baby quilt

a year at our table

Happy New Year!

After Christmas last year, I began compiling recipes and ideas and pictures and came up with the one gift we would give everyone on our list this year: a cookbook of our family's favourite recipes.

It was a project I enjoyed working on all year long. The book ended up with five recipes for each season, lots of pictures of food, and some pics of our kid too.

Thanks to Blurb, it was relatively simple to design what I wanted and the quality of the final book is great. But no thanks to Blurb, the pictures printed a tad dark and I ran into a few bugs in their formatting software. Such is life. I'd still use them again and recommend 'em to anyone looking to do a similar project.

anticipation

Have I told you lately how much I love the month of December? Crafting, sending cards, counting the days...

Dana over at Made has a great idea for Advent: read a special Christmas or wintery book each day. This, my friends, is right up our alley. We've already started our collection and made our book wish list for the Grandparents. It'll be like watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation every year... kind of.

Here's a new book with lots of inspiration: Countdown Calendars. I'm not sure I'd ever make half of them as written (Is it really necessary to 'count down' to Halloween with candy every day?) but they could easily be adapted for Advent.

And here's a good idea for older kids: an activity advent calendar. I love that she uses her kids as motivators for her own to-do list.

Thanks to a generous friend, we are counting down the days this year with good ol' fashioned chocolate.

temporarily festive sweaters

The assignment: Two cheesy Christmas sweaters for the holiday bash at Jeff's office.

Limitations: Didn't want to buy anything. Had less than an hour of naptime to spend on this.

The process: Used bits of felt from my stash and the sewing machine to make appliques. Safety-pinned them to sweaters we already own.

The result:

handmade holidays

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

See you over at Sew Mama Sew this month.

papier-mache surprise eggs

Looking for a solution to silly plastic eggs? How about these beautiful papier-mache eggs!

Catch up with me next year and I'll have some photos to share. It's a little late (and my kid is a little young) to worry about making papier-mache surprise eggs in the next 24 hours -- but I love that we have a solution.

paper pinecone eggs

I don't like styrofoam. But I like this little project.

I need to find some substitute styrofoam eggs before Sunday.

Any ideas?

hand sewing

Finally stitched up some bunny finger puppets. So easy, you could make a bunny army -- a very non-menacing bunny army.

And I've been whipstitching some magnet letters à la this plush alphabet set. I doubt this will ever be a complete alphabet though -- hand sewing may be relaxing, but it takes time.

bunnies galore

Easter is fast approaching and I want to get some serious crafting happening 'round here because, as I've said before, my kid has a thing for bunnies. Imagine her delight with a whole holiday decked with bunny rabbits!

A few projects to get me started...

finger puppets, which I linked to last year, but I still really want to make

bunny bowling!

a sweet dancing margaret (also on scribd)

a recycled mooshy belly bunny (such a great name)

and because I'm gonzo for reversible toys, a knit bunny & duck.

And this peanut butter and jelly game is totally beyond my wee toddler, but it's so stinkin' cute I have to pass it along in case you know someone the right age.

happy holidays!

mrs claus never gets coal

I needed one more stocking to round out our set of three. Here's the one I made last year, and here's the one I made from a hideous sweater at the thrift store. It was just begging to be made into something new...

This one's for me. Doesn't it look like a stocking that Santa would fill for his wifey? Just call me Mrs. Claus.

But now I think the striped one from last year is kind of a weak link in our set, so I've decided it'll just be Jeff's interim stocking until I find the time to make another one. For sure before next Christmas, okay hon?

How could it possibly take a person three years to finish a set of three stockings when one is already store-bought? Ah, but a clue!

ornamental

You don't have to look far in blogland before finding some pretty darn cool handmade ornaments. I especially like this felt bird and this cool felt ogee number. Oh gee, I wish I had some felt.

advent

Anyone who was reading this blog last year (thank you, so glad you're here!), knows I like advent calendars.

I don't have the one of my dreams yet, but that's mainly because my dreams keep changing. Each year, I'm swayed by other beautiful options like these, and well, I just plain can't decide.

But for someone who loves advent calendars to not have any... well, that seems a bit strange to me too. So now we have a calendar to tide us over until the next -- a wee box calendar from a kit found at the art store and bits of paper I had on hand.

Now I can relax, grab a cup of tea, and continue to hem and haw over my creative options.

it's november

I've been eagerly waiting these 30 days of sewing & gifting inspiration over at Sew Mama Sew. They're giving away a lot of stuff this month too. Very cool. See you there...