Hello everyone! Just a quick post to let you know that I’m going to be expanding the content I blog about beyond just my crafting. You may have gotten that idea with my last post, being as it was about our homeschool more than just a craft I made, but as I move forward from here, it will be even more obvious. I hope you enjoy the more varied content, and thanks for your support!
My hugest apologies for the long time with no posts! We moved in December and hubby decided to move his office out of the house. What that means for me is no computer or internet at home… I have access to the computer approximately once every other week (it’s not that strict, that’s just about what it ends up being on average).
Anyway… here’s a peek at what I’ve been up to. Enjoy :).
We recently studied newspapers with my boys. It was a pretty fun unit to have worked on, and I’m pleased to share our experience here with you!
First thing each morning, we read a chapter of Henry and the Paper Route by Beverly Cleary. They kids had attempted a Beverly Cleary book on their own before, and while the writing was fine for them, they were put off by the length of the chapters. So having me read aloud to them helped them notice that even though the chapters are “24 pages!” (emphasis theirs) each, it’s really not so bad. Having done this now, they’re trying again to read their copy of Henry Huggins with much more success :).
We also did a lap book about newspapers. I don’t have ready access to a computer, so everything in the lap book was handmade by me. Except for the covers. I just had them cut a page from one of the local papers to about the right size and glue it to the cover.
Here are each of their covers:
Inside, I included things not just about newspapers, but about paper in general. We learned about how a tree is made into paper:
The life cycle of a newspaper from tree to recycle bin, different parts of a newspaper, the people in the newspaper office, and the importance of ads:
On the final side of our lap book, we drew a comic. Because my husband draws comics, I had to specifically ban the kids from just copying his characters and ideas. Hubby thought that was absolutely hilarious! We also talked about the similarities and differences between newspapers and books.
In addition, we made our paper – but from other paper, not from trees ;). I used this tutorial for that.
This week, the kids are making their own newspapers. Because of that whole “no computer at home” dilemma, those will likely end up looking very similar to the lap books – handmade and rustic!
To top the whole thing off, we went in and got a private tour of the newspaper office in our town today. The publisher was incredibly generous with his time and showed us everything from a detailed going-over of the current issue to meeting the staff and showing us the computer program they use to lay out the paper.
Overall, a huge success!!
Welcome to fall! With fall comes, of course, cooler weather. And with cooler weather comes … colds. We’re only a third of the way through fall, which means at least five more months of cooler weather before spring, and my older boys have each been sick twice already. This does not make a mama happy. So I headed over to my local JoAnn store to get some yarn using my half-price coupons to make stocking hats for them to keep their heads warm during the next 5-6 months – until springtime.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for when I went in, except that I didn’t want a “regular” yarn. I wanted something soft and moderately warm so that it would do its job when turned into a hat. What I found was Sensations brand “Angel Hair” yarn. It’s magnificent. If you knit or crochet, I highly recommend you go to your JoAnn store and buy a skein or two to try out. Even hubby agreed it was wonderful feeling :).
The hats are just a basic beanie. You can find the pattern here. You’ll notice that I didn’t do the stripes in the pattern. That’s because my yarn was already striped, and I loved the way each color looked on its own; I didn’t want to take away from the beauty of the main color by adding those stripes. If the yarn had been a single color, I probably would have given each boy’s hat stripes in the other color. But since it wasn’t, I didn’t, so it’s a moot point :).
My sister-in-law just had a baby on September 19th (a week after his due date). He’s my second nephew, joining the ranks of 5 nieces (none of whom he’s related to, although he does have loads of girl cousins on his mom’s side of the family – he’s the son of my brother and his wife). My first nephew is also the son of my brother and his wife, ironically enough, which means my mom is blessed with 5 grandsons and no granddaughters.
But enough about the family make-up. A new baby means, of course, a baby gift!
Here’s what I started with:
And here’s what I made:
When it came time to start crocheting, none of the patterns I looked at “floated my boat” so to speak, so I just did a basic one row of single crochet, one row of double crochet, repeat. Even with such basic stitches, I thought it turned out pretty :). Let me know what you think of it.
Cheers!
The post title pretty much says it all. gDiapers are awesome. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, they’re a hybrid diapering system. They use a reusable cloth outer, a breathable, waterproof, reusable liner, and your choice of insert: either a cloth one that’s washable (obviously) or a flushable one. That’s right: flushable diapers!
I first learned of the system when there was an ad on the side of my gmail for them. I was still pregnant with Small Fry at the time, and my husband and I were just starting to become more environmentally conscious (if you don’t think recycling matters, take a trip to your local landfill and see how much garbage is produced in your area. I dare you not to become environmental after that!), so the idea of diapers that you could flush away instead of sending to “Junk Mountain” was very intriguing to me. I clicked through and fell in love with the concept. The only hurdle was the price: a starter pack for newborns was about $150. Now, that’s no *so* much when you consider what you get (18 cloth outers in two sizes and 160 flushable inserts), but I was trying to convince a skeptical husband (recycling our cans and paper was one thing; spending over $100 on diapers was completely different!), so it was a pretty major problem for me.
I didn’t end up getting the newborn pack.
We used disposable diapers for the first six weeks, which I hated after having learned about the g’s. But finally, we were able to find out that we could buy the individual pieces at Babies *R* Us, so I was able to talk DH into going there to get a “starter kit”: 2 pairs of the outer pants and a pack of 40 flushables for $45. It was priced at $40 on the gDiapers website, but once you added in shipping, it was a wash.
So, we’ve bought the two pairs of “little gPants” and our first package of flushables now. I started using them to diaper Baby E right away, and after just a small learning curve (these don’t have the little yellow line that turns blue when wet like the Pampers we’d been using), I was convinced that I didn’t want to go back to disposables. The problem now? Two pairs of the pants isn’t enough for full-time gDiapering. And extra pants are between $15 and $22 apiece.
What was a crafty mom to do?
Find out how to make my own covers, of course! I found a couple of tutorials and tried the YouTube one first. The pants came out looking okay, but they just weren’t good enough to use as a diaper. So I tried the written one. I was skeptical at first, mostly because of my experience with the other one, but oh my, these new ones are *nearly* as good as their store bought counterparts. Because I’m not a professional seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, there are obvious flaws, but not so many that I feel the need to buy “official” gPants.
Including all my mistakes, I was able to make 4 of the covers for about $40. That doesn’t sound like much savings, but I’ve got enough fabric left over to make at least two more; I just need to pick up some more Velcro. Once I get those done, that’ll make the homemade ones about half the price of the purchased ones! (They’ve got a 6-pair pack available for $79.99.) Win!
I’m not sure whether or not this counts as a “craft” per se, but I’m going with it :).
My husband and I, after watching the documentary Forks Over Knives, have decided to cut all animal products from our diets. This has been a bit harder than I expected – until today. But more on that in a minute.
We took our sons to a farm last Friday, and because it’s so late in the season, all they had available for u-pick was blueberries, so we picked blueberries. It was a wonderful family experience, even if most of the bushes had already been picked pretty clean. We got at least 2 pints for a meager $1.11. I know, had we purchased those same berries in the store, it would have cost us at least $8. Fun family time + cheaper berries = big win!
The trick with so many blueberries, though, is that I don’t particularly like them, except in baked goods. I know they’re really healthy with all their antioxidants etc., but I’ve never enjoyed raw blueberries, so my mind was immediately trying to think of what we could use them for. The kids like the raw okay, but hubby (after a huge blueberry picking trip as a child where they literally ate nothing but blueberries and blueberry-inspired baked goods for several days) isn’t overly fond of them, either, so unless I cooked something with them, I knew a lot of them would go to waste. Even at a savings of almost $7, I couldn’t let that happen.
Since this was after we adopted the vegan lifestyle, however, I was at a loss as to how to make muffins (the standard blueberry fare :)) without milk or eggs. A simple Google search led me to this recipe, which was so easy I knew I had to try it. It’s made using ingredients commonly found in a standard kitchen; all I had to buy was the margarine (we’ve been butter people for years) and applesauce. These used about half of the berries we had, so I went over to another site and found a wonderful recipe for vegan waffles and added the rest of the berries to that for breakfast one morning (unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of the waffles, though). Yum!
Back to that comment about finally finding our way in this new lifestyle today. I found a documentary on Amazon (I love having a Prime membership!) yesterday morning – while I was nursing Baby E and wishing to be asleep, lol – from one of the guys who did Forks Over Knives called “Forks Over Knives presents The Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue with Rip Esselstyn” and watched it. It was really good; I highly recommend it. In it, he went to two families’ homes and taught them the basics of this lifestyle: they went shopping for a day’s worth of groceries, and then he taught them how to use those whole ingredients to make delicious meals. Believe me when I say the meals were amazing looking! Or better yet, go watch the film yourself :). We’ve committed to taking his 28-day challenge (starting today) and have had two of the meals from his site so far; both are some of the best food I’ve had in ages, especially since going vegan. Head on over to his site if you’re interested in more information on this plant-based, whole foods lifestyle :).
Until next time…
Wow, I didn’t realize it had been so long since I’d made a post! I knew it’d been a while, but I didn’t remember just how long.
So, I recently made this hat. I love the colors, don’t you? 🙂 Funny thing about this one: I stitched a sample for determining gauge, and adjusted my hook size accordingly, but then when the hat was done, it was way too big, so I ended up pulling the whole thing apart and making it again with a smaller hook. But as my hubby said, “At least you got good entertainment value from that skein of yarn!” He’s always looking at the bright side of things :).
As for the “update” part of this post, part of why it’s been so long since I made a post is because Small Fry was born! He arrived via scheduled c-section (which I do not recommend!) on July 12th, 2012 at 8:15 a.m. PST. He weighed in at 6 pounds, 8 ounces, and was 19 3/4 inches long. He was born with a shock of black hair, which was a surprise for all of us considering both of our other sons have red hair! But his facial features are pretty much identical to Munchkin (our 5-year-old) as a baby, so despite the difference in hair color, there’s no doubt that they’re all brothers.
I’ll still continue to add posts of my creations as I’m able, but until Small Fry is a bit older, it’ll probably be longer between them. Having a newborn makes it hard to find time for crafting! But I wouldn’t trade him for anything.
My hubby’s cousin is expecting a baby girl about a month after our Small Fry is scheduled to arrive (4 1/2 weeks and counting!). Her baby shower is coming up in just under 2 weeks, so I made this blanket for her.
I didn’t make up the pattern; I got it from here. But when I was first starting to stitch it, it wasn’t exactly what I expected, so I took a couple of pictures along the way to explain to you guys what to expect so you’re not as surprised-slash-almost-confused as I was. In order to make the additional pictures make sense, I’m going to include the instructions here, but remember, I did not make up this design.
Supplies needed: Crochet hooks (sizes noted in instructions), yarn (1 skein of “Caron International 1 pound” or other brand to equal 16 ounces/454 grams, 812 yards/742 meters), yarn or tapestry needle (for weaving in the ends), time, and love.
With a size K-10.5 (6.5 mm) crochet hook, chain 94.
Row 1: Turn. Skip the first chain. Single crochet (SC) in each additional chain – 93 SC total.
Row 2: Turn. Skip the first SC. Double Crochet (DC) in the next one. DC in the skipped SC. Continue to end of row. Chain 1.
Row 3: Turn. SC in each DC all the way across. Chain 2.
Rows 4-68: Repeat rows 2 and 3.
Edging: SC all the way around the blanket, except for the last row of SCs you did as part of the blanket. When you get to that row, slip stitch to the first SC. Switch to a size J-10 (6.0 mm) crochet hook. In every other SC all the way around, {SC, chain 1, SC}. All three of those stitches happen in the same stitch. When you get back to the beginning point, slip stitch together. Fasten off and cut yarn. Weave in ends.
So that’s it :). I hope you enjoy making this project as much as I did!
We got a Boppy pillow when my second son was born in 2006, and it was so much nicer than just propping up the normal pillows for feeding time (which I did in 2003 when I had my first son). We’ve kept it, and now will be using it when Small Fry arrives next month. However, for a long time, it was Munchkin’s favorite pillow, so it’s a bit stained – that just means it’s been well loved, right? 🙂 In our new quest to not spend money that doesn’t need to be spent, I decided to use some of the Pooh Bear fabric that I got for super-cheap the other week to make a cover for the Boppy. This served the dual duty of refurbishing something we already had rather than buying new as well as making the pillow match the rest of the nursery. Win-win!
I’m the first to admit that I’m not one to make up my own patterns, but I *kind of* did here.
When Munchkin was a baby, we had a receiving blanket from Old Navy (it was a gift) that was much nicer than the “normal” ones from the less expensive stores. It was two-sided for one thing, and made of nicer, thicker material for another. I took that basic idea and put this one together. I also took pictures along the way so I could share with you how to do it should you want to make one.
1. Cut your fabric. You’ll need two pieces each about 35-37 inches square, depending on how big you want your finished blanket to be. You can use the same pattern or a different one for front and back; it’s entirely up to you. I cut mine about 37″ because I just have a gut feeling that Small Fry is going to be bigger than either of his brothers. Time will tell on that account :).
2. Using anything round (you can see that I just used a can of water chestnuts) to round the corners. Mark around the can (or other item) with a marking pencil. Do this on all 4 corners of both pieces of fabric.
3. Cut along the lines of all 8 corners.
4. Pin your front and back to each other, right sides together.
5. Sew a quarter-inch seam all the way around, leaving just enough room to turn it right side out. 4-6 inches should be enough, but if you’re worried about it, you can always leave more.
6. Clip the rounded corners. Turn.
7. Press the edges so they’re nice and crisp. (Yes, my ironing board consists of a towel laid out on my table. We try to only have things in our house that are multipurpose, and an ironing board doesn’t meet that qualification.)
8. Pin the opening (from where you turned the blanket) shut. Make sure to fold the edges under so it matches the rest of the blanket. The last thing you want is raw edges.
9. Top stitch close to the edge all the way around, including the opening.
10. Enjoy your new blanket! I’m sure the baby who receives it will :).