Crafty Mama

I found another unpublished post!  Seriously?  When did I have enough time to actually sit down and type about craft projects???  I am soo looking forward to having time to blog again soon.

I enjoy myself a good craft project now and then.  I'm not necessarily the most patient person when it comes to DIY, though.   An hour on Pinterest can give me some Martha Stewart bravado, though, like no body's business.   I have been known to make a whirlwind trip to Lowes and Hobby Lobby only to come home and after an 45 minutes, drop a glue gun and a swear word or two and throw in the towel.

For instance, I tried to re-screen our screens a month or two ago.  Yeah.  That didn't work out.

Fortunately, a few things I've tried this Spring have worked out and I feel a little proud of them:

First, Casey's second grade class had a Famous American wax museum in which each kid had to pick a famous American and research about that person's life.  Then on the day of the 'wax museum' they had to dress up like their person and give a speech they wrote to an audience of classmates and their family members.  Casey chose Betsy Ross.  (Of course she did.  She couldn't possibly just pick Mia Hamm and wear last year's soccer uniform...)  I figured I could wing most of the outfit but the skirt needed to be a long one.  I had some blue fabric from the toga part Tom and I went to in February (see! I totally told Tom the toga party would be worth it!)  and stitched it to a child's crinoline that was supposed to go under a dress-up Cinderella dress we had here.  I used the crinoline as a form, then just stitched it close and hemmed it.  The ancient (think from the 70's or 80's) sewing machine I have no longer works so I did this all by hand.  The front hem was 3" longer than the back, but I don't think Betsy Ross, Abe Lincoln, Sacajawea, Michael Jordan or anyone else cared :)

 

 

 

A while back I was on Pinterest idea shopping for something with curb appeal for the front porch this for this spring/summer.  Because I was (again) convinced I could whip up something, you know, Pinterest worthy.  And because chevron pattern is on everything this year, I was doubly-convinced it would be easy to do myself.  On a planter.  That is a cylinder.  Right?  Wrong.  But I did it anyhow and, although despite spending a ton of time trying to figure out how to get the pattern and angles even around the planter, I think they turned out kind of cute.  This was a total wing-it job and, thankfully, my anal husband hasn't inspected them close enough to comment on the lack of symmetry.  If he has noticed, he's just smart enough to keep it to himself. 

A $3 vine wreath, some ribbon and fake flowers were easy enough for what I wanted to make for the front door.  A wooden letter and a $2 chevron stencil were all I needed to help coordinate the front door to the porch planters. 

The finished result is a fresh look for the porch this year. 

Each year for the girls' pre-school and kindergarten teachers I try to give a homemade gift along with a gift card as an end-of-the-year thank you.  Even though they have classes that last under 3 hours, I feel like there is far too much nose wiping, tear dabbing and painted fingers to scrub to not acknowledge the effort and patience it takes to teach such young children every day.  A trip to Michael's produced some unfinished wooden picture frames and some cute buttons that were going to work just fine for this year.  I painted them white with paint I had here then had Emily write hers name as well as her teachers' name on the frames.  I traced her work with a sharpie and hot glue gunned the buttons.  Each teacher had asked me for a picture of Emily and they each had damp eyes when they saw them :)

May - part 1

I actually wrote this post 2 weeks ago and haven't even had the time to add pictures and publish it.  I'm adding the photos now and we'll just pretend that I posted this a couple of weeks ago :)


Holy cow!  Time is literally flying by!  The end of the school year is fast approaching.  In fact, Emily has 4 days left next week and then we will be bidding farewell to pre-school.  Casey has 9 days left of second grade and she hasn't once mentioned how sad she's going to be to say goodbye to her classmates for the summer.  Hmmm, wonder what that means? 

 

We've had new neighbors move in and they have boys nearly the same age as the girls.  Casey has been begging us for 6 years to live someplace where there are kids her own age to play with, so she was thrilled when she discovered Jon is as eager to play outdoors as she is.  They've rode and ran around the cul-de-sac non-stop for weeks now and it's so good to see her have a playmate finally.  And, of course, Emily wants to be outside, too.  And that means I have to be outside with her.  This is the main reason I have not been able to blog or get anything done around the house - I'm outside with her constantly because she needs supervision to keep her from going on the street or off to a neighbor's house.  At the age of 5, I hate having to hover over her, but I can only hope that one day she will be aware enough to play outside with the other kids without my watchful eye.  She is old enough to realize she should be doing some of the same things they are doing and gets frustrated when she isn't able or allowed.  So while there are some difficult times trying to get her to understand all of this, there have been some really great results.  In fact, in her motivation to do what the other kids are doing, Emily has managed to check another goal off the list.  Emily learned how to ride her bike last week.

 

Okay, well she knew how to do it mostly, but the experience of riding her bike since she received it for her birthday in March has gone something like this:  Bring bike onto street.  Pedal a few times with much encouragement from mommy.  Then get frustrated because pedaling is hard.  Then get mad at mommy and hit her.  Then mommy gets mad at Emily for hitting.  Emily gets off bike and throws a fit.  Mommy drags Emily and bike back to driveway. 

 

But this week, sister saw the other kids zipping around on their scooters and bikes and decided she wanted to hang, too.  So she started pedaling and hasn't stopped.  And, again, I am in love with her determination and persistence.  She's fallen several times and has managed to rally each time with little fuss; she just gets back on and takes off down the street like she's been riding her little pink bike forever.  Checkin' goals off lists - it's good stuff and I'm glad I'm out hovering to see it all unfold.

 

We've managed to check another big one off our list.  I've been putting off writing about this because I didn't want to set the law of averages into motion and summon some reverse luck on us (me? superstitious? yup.), but this one's been done for almost 2 months.  Emily is potty trained.  Not through the nights yet, but, honestly, that one is so far down on the list, I'm not worried about it.  There was a time not-so-long-ago that I thought she may never be able to be potty trained.  And now she is.  And that is awesomeness.  I can honestly say that even while in potty training boot camp through February and March, she didn't even have that many accidents.  We've been hopeful for this for a long time.  Checkin' more goals of lists - really, really good stuff and sister is happy to rock and roll some big girl undies.

 

Mother's Day was last weekend.  Tom and the girls took me out to breakfast at our usual Mother's Day spot, First Watch.  I love breakfast food, so we go and indulge gorge on french toast and pancakes then everyone is too stuffed to need me to make lunch.  I got to spend the whole stay curled up reading a book and it was beautiful :)  The girls and neighbor kids rode their scooters and bikes and did 'tricks' for the moms, who were parked in lawn chairs.  I use quotations because these tricks were not very elaborate.  At all.  But they practiced them for days to show the moms and they were so proud. 

 

Tom grilled steaks for dinner and I enjoyed a glass of wine.  Except I really mean that the bottle of wine was made out of glass and I had that.  The bottle.

The next part of May will be super busy- Emily's dance recital, the end of school for both girls, a doctor's appointment for Emily that I'm hopeful brings some good changes, a crazy packed Memorial Day weekend and the start of summer!!!  And I'm positive it will all just fly by!