Linaloo

This year's Christmas cards

We're Ed Emberley fans here and our first introduction to his books was through our local library where we found a copy of his first thumbprint drawing book from 1977.  His website is fun too and includes an excellent holiday activity page here.

His thumbprint art (and an image somewhere on flickr that I can no longer find) was the inspiration for this year's Christmas cards.   A fun little activity with all the family joining in.

 

Done!  I have never been this early with my Christmas cards before.

Hers 'n' hers

 

This weekend I have been reacquainted with my sewing machine, it feels like a while since I've sewn anything and I needed a simple project to get back in the swing of things.  Amy Butler's lounge pants again.  I've made quite a few of these now and I'd been saving this particular sheet with another pair in mind.  They really are super comfy and there was fabric enough left over to whip up a pair for my daughter.

I wasn't sure if she'd go for 'hers 'n' hers' matchiness.  She politely declined. Unfortunately, it seems she has yet to inherit my appreciation of old sheets, although she did say that she might wear them on my birthday (so as not to hurt my feelings)!  Ah well,  on the bright side, they fit her really well, so I will use them as a template for some flannel pjs in time for Christmas perhaps.

More pyjama fun here.

A message to Daddy on his birthday

 

Painting

Finally some children crafting this weekend. With a pirate party to go to requiring a bit of dress up, I figured freezer stencilled tshirts would fit the bill perfectly. I've done stencils like this before, but this is the first time the children have done the painting part. They did a great job. I bought the fabric paint on sale from Michaels on our last visit to Toronto. For some reason there is no Michaels in Quebec and the local alternative is considerably more expensive. I also bought these birdhouses, now decorated and ready to brighten up our garden. Next up: painting the ceilings throughout the main floor of the house. Not quite so exciting.

Flickr fun

While reading this post, Kirsten reminded me that I've passed the 100 mark in the 365 photo a day flickr challenge. I seem to have got a little mixed somewhere along the way and missed out a few days here and there during the last few weeks but I'm soldiering on regardless. It's hard to pick out favourites yet, although I'd love to do a blurb book like Claudia's, so here are my most recent three: Conditions were perfect (30C would you believe?!) for more bubbleology today and we mixed up our first batch of homemade bubble juice which turned out pretty good. We used a basic recipe of 1/4 cup of glycerin, 1/2 cup of washing up liquid and 1 cup of water, mixed gently and left overnight. You can leave out the glycerin or subsitute with corn syrup apparently, but the glycerin gives the bubbles a little more staying power so it's worth the extra effort and expense. At the rate we get through this stuff, it works out at about half the price of store bought mixtures.

Bubbles

Along with the melting of snow and the arrival flowers, sunshine and birdsong there's another important signal hailing the beginning of spring in our house; bubbles. Not to be taken lightly, bubble making is a serious business in our back garden.

First, you must be equipped with the appropriate tools. Then you need the right method. Slow and steady for big bubbles. Wave gently in the breeze for long bubbles. Fast and furious for little bubbles. One musn't forget the correct terminology either. Multiple bubbles like this are referred to as bubble gump, a pinnacle of achievement in the bubble art world. Do they ever lose their magic I wonder?

Stained Glass Hearts

 

Made using this tutorial from Florence, archived in my mind from last spring!  Super messy and gluey, just how my children like to craft!

 

We have spent considerably less time "crafting" here since Ruby started kindergarten last September.  I think she gets her cutting and sticking fix there.  A seriously creative type who could spend hours at the kitchen table with a roll of sellotape, some markers and a toilet roll inventing some gizmo or other, she came home from school one night recently and when questioned how her day was, replied "Oh Mummy, I think I'm crafted out!".

 

Tommy, on the other hand who has up until now only been interested in a 2 second scribble, is turning into quite the little artist and loves to paint...himself mostly!!

Girly time

Once a month or so we split the children up at the weekend and have some special time, one on one. Ruby and I had a girly day on Saturday. (Tommy calls his time with Daddy "boyly" time which doesn't sound so appealing does it?). We went to dance class, out for lunch and then we had a little sewing time.

She's been asking to use my machine for a while so we started with something simple. She wanted a bag for her treasures just like mummy's ipod bag (mini artsy clutch from Amy Karol's Bend the Rules).

She chose her fabric and button (why pink of course Mummy!).

She wound the bobbin on the machine, did all the pinning and unpinning and used the pedal all by herself - with a bit of "stop!" and "go!" from me. Great job Ruby!

A useful tip we picked up about the clutch here was to use a hairband for the fastening.

She didn't feed the fabric through this time, I wanted to see how she got on with the foot pedal first. I think next time she'd be fine sitting at the machine with a bit of supervision and with the help of the 1/4 inch foot she'll soon be better than me.

We heart hearts

We might not be experiencing the extreme cold we are used to this time of the year, but we were still housebound today because of freezing rain and high winds. Nearly a month has passed since I last mentioned the weather, (I know this, because I've been trying really hard not to go on about it!) but the winter here is usually pretty extreme. The thing is about those -20C days (of which we've had none so far) is that they are generally gorgeous days, not a cloud in the sky, wonderfully sunny and a crisp, clean feeling in the air. Granted, you may only want to be outside briefly on days such as these, but personally I prefer the cold and sunny combination to a warm and miserable grey one any time.

Anyway the upshot of this is that the weather (and no Daddy around) was making us a little glum. So obviously a bit of kiddywink craft was in order. We made some heart garlands, first by melting wax crayon shavings in between wax paper and then by cutting out hearts and sewing them together using this technique. I've never sewed paper before, but this was pretty straightforward.

And look, you can tell from the pictures, we eventually had a bit of sun!

Snowflakes

A snow day today. No school. A massive clean up operation. We have at least 4 feet of the stuff in our garden. To everyone who thinks snow is magical, in many ways it is, in other ways not so.

Back breaking digging just to get out of your front door, squeezing unwilling legs into snowpants, hands into mittens, walking in crotch-high snow - are you getting the picture yet? Not all romantic and it won't be going anywhere until at least the end of March!

Maybe you detect a bit of cabin fever here...!

In the advent calendar today - a simple snowflake craft using beads and pipecleaners.

Cutting snowflakes using this guide unfortunately proved too ambitious for my children's fine motor skills this year. Instead they spent ages making snowflakes here.

Ruby's 5th birthday is coming up at the end of next month and she really wants a "snow party". How cool is that?!