Friends Make the World Go ‘Round

I have a very fabulous friend whom I credit with re-energizing my creative spirit. She hosts wonderful little art parties that I always look forward to immensely, has a great blog that I check daily and is simply a wonderful person to have lunch with. Recently she gave me a gift of this collage she made. I don’t really like to eat mushrooms but something about them appeals to me. Maybe it’s some kind of 70s flashback to my childhood. I remember a set of tumblers with a mushroom print that I always liked. Maybe it’s the connection to nature or the cycle of life. Whatever it is, it suits me. And I love this simple rendition.

It took me forever to find the right spot for it. At one point I almost went on her etsy shop to purchase two more similarly themed versions to make a lovely little triptych to go over my doorway. As I have a ban on spending money on my kitchen until the renovation is done (going on 4 years now) I had to hold myself back. I finally found the right spot for it next to the waffle iron, above the measuring cups:

Imaginative Sidewalk Chalk

We had a great weekend. I say this mostly because I feel we got a lot accomplished AND I still had fun with the kids. Maybe this was as a result of the warmer temps. We got a bit of spring cleaning in. OK, a lot of spring cleaning. This is amazing for us as we’re not known as tidy or clean people. I also got my hair cut, and I do mean cut. We’re talking instead of halfway down my back, it’s above my shoulders. Even though Seth knew I was getting it cut and came running when he heard my voice at the door he turned tail as soon as he saw me. Pouting with his head down he quickly went back to the kitchen where he told his papa that he was sad because I got too much of my hair cut off. I’ve had long hair since he was born, I guess I should have warned him better. As for Eleanor, she still smiled up at me but when I tried to touch her she would start to scream and move away. It took them a couple hours to warm back up to me. Looking back at this and considering I had to work at the office part of Saturday it’s hard to believe in the end I think it was a good weekend. Maybe it’s just that it started on a good note and ended on a good note, interspersed with some great fun. Kathryn came over Friday evening to watch Emma and work on some projects. Today Seth had a play date, I got to hold a 7 week old and Seth and I spent a lot of quality time together. Mostly we talked, researched and acted out scenes about volcanoes, his new obsession.

Another way we enjoyed ourselves this weekend was with sidewalk chalk. Steve drew (because he’s better than me at it) a rocket ship, a fire truck and a submarine on the front walk with chalk. Each vehicle had one or two seats with a steering wheel and/or control buttons. Incidentally, when we have our annual block party and the street is closed we go even further creating a large house with rooms and furniture in the middle of the road. Once these creations were completed to Seth’s specifications his imagination took over, directing us in how to act in each of these vehicles. There are very specific ways you know.

Home with the Kids

Day care was closed today so I stayed home with the kids. It’s always good to have a day off work, but I tell ya I certainly still worked. I just don’t know how stay at home moms and day care providers do it. A big salute to those of you that do just that. You’re amazing! For me, let’s just say it’s a really good thing that I’m a “working mom” as I know I would be a poor “stay at home mom”. Seth played on the internet WAY too much while I tried to get our neglected house under some sort of control and do a little baby proofing. I served microwaved veggie corndogs for lunch with absolutely no sides. Eleanor must have eaten a pound of lint off the floor until she discovered her brother’s bowl of goldfish crackers. The house? Can’t tell I did a thing. For that matter I had to vacuum after dinner to pick up the crushed cheerios from the floor and the goldfish cracker dust from the couch. I think it’s best for me to go to an office for a bit and be able to come back re-energized and wanting to spend time with the kids. It helps me focus on them more when I am at home. Don’t get me wrong though, we still got in some quality time doing art, going for walks and watching Maurice Sendak videos (thanks Sarah!).

Click on each photo to find out more .

Rutabaga & Pumpkin

Spent the evening making baby food. Specifically rutabaga and pumpkin. I wanted to mention this for those of you that read my previous post on beets. Just thought you should know I do know my rutabagas now. I peeled, chopped, steamed and pureed that baby up. I have no idea what I was thinking when I bought those beets. Sooooo different. As for the pumpkin, well, I kind of cheated there, what with buying a can of puree and all. But I did spoon it into the ice cube tray myself.

I think I’ll reward myself by watching a little Psych on hulu and ordering pizza.

Glitter AND Glue vs. Glitter Glue

The Easter Bunny left Seth some little bottles of glitter. You might be thinking that three is a little young to be introducing glitter, and your probably right. My thinking here was a) those little bottles of glitter glue are expensive for how long they last and b) I wanted to expose him to yet another art material. It seemed like a great alternative.

In the end I think glitter glue requires less constant supervision and creates less of a mess, but I won’t be buying anymore of either for another year. We’ll just use up what we have. Seth’s thoughts? It was fun to squeeze the glue out. Pouring the glitter on was ok but he prefers glitter glue. However, he did really like the end result which is much more shimmery than glitter glue.

Live and learn.

Build Your Own Flowers

Since the gardens are still buried in snow, this build your own flower kit will have to provide us with that Spring feeling for now. It accompanies our newly made felt board nicely and was a breeze to put together. I created piles of stems, leaves and pedals out of felt for Seth to arrange as he pleased. Actually, he preferred to direct me on where to put each item but it was still fun and we were still doing something creative together. The addition of a few clouds and a grass base pulled it all together. You might be wondering about the green stripe running from top to bottom on the left side. Well, according to Seth, it’s a beanstalk, as in Jack and the Beanstalk.

Note to self – just because your having fun with the rotary cutter doesn’t mean you have to use it for everything. Circles really mar up the cutting board.

Making a Felt Board

We had quite an Easter weekend. There was egg dying, Easter baskets, an indoor egg hunt, snow forts and snowmen. An odd combination even for here in Minnesota. It just kept snowing and snowing. Even with all of the holiday festivities and snow fun I still managed to make a felt board for Seth. I’m so proud of myself. I’ve been meaning to do this for about a year now and am happy to say – mission accomplished! Here’s the how to if your interested:

Materials

• Large frame, including a back panel – I used one with a roughly 16×20 opening
• Felt for background – a little larger than opening
• Adhesive – I used a spray photo mount
• Rotary cutter
• Cutting board
• Straight edge – optional
• Newspaper

Steps

1. Remove glass from frame – reserve for another project (coasters? a pendant?)
2. Cut background felt a little larger than back panel of frame. I suggest blue felt as it makes a good sky, ocean or just about any other background.
3. Adhere felt to back panel. The spray photo mount worked really well. Lay down a layer of newspaper to protect tables as it’s hard not to get some over the edge. I sprayed two coats on both the felt and the board, one vertically and one horizontally. Let dry a few minutes and lay board onto felt, tacky sides together. Smooth down to avoid wrinkles and puckering. If using other types of adhesive remember that felt absorbs well so stay away from things like craft glue straight out of the bottle.
   
4. Using a rotary cutter trim excess felt along edge of board.
   
5. If one side of the board tucks into a slot on the frame, use a straight edge and the rotary cutter to trim a little back from the edge.
   
6. Slip board back into frame and lock into place. Walla! Now all you need is something to stick on the board.
   

My first batch of items for Seth to play with on the board were inspired by some felt finger puppets that had come with a group of board books his Auntie Ellie gave him a ways back. Some of the books are no more but the puppets are all still in tact. I simply added a grass boarder, a barn and some clouds.

Prefer something a little more open ended? Try simply providing geometric shapes made out of felt. Although Seth thought the farm scene was a hoot, he definitely played more with the shapes.

It took Seth a couple minutes to see how the felt stuck to other felt. There was a little frustration when the first couple pieces he put up fell down. It didn’t take long before he got the hang of applying a little pressure in any direction to make the fibers “lock”. I’m working on a set of build-your-own-flowers and will hopefully be able to post about them later this week. If time cooperates, that is.

Veggie pizza

We like our pizza in this household, be it delivered sneakily after the kids go to bed or our own homemade version. Once a week Steve and I take it easy by feeding the kids and putting them to bed a little early. Then we order some type of delivery and hunker down to watch a movie. It’s like a mini date night and I love it. Other nights we make our own for the whole family. Here’s the recipe for a no sauce veggie pizza we like to indulge in. It’s based off a pizza our friend Rebecca used to make.

Ingredients:

• Purchased or homemade crust – here we’re using Pillsbury’s pizza crust in a tube, but we’ve made our own and used a number of purchased premade varieties.
• 1 small tomato, chopped (de-seed 1st if your so inclined)
• 1/2 a small zucchini, chopped
• 1/2 a sweet bell pepper, chopped – here I used an orange one, but any color will do
• goat cheese
• mozzarella
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 2 tbsp pine nuts

1. Prepare/make crust
2. Scatter veggies across crust
3. Dollop goat cheese here and there
4. Sprinkle mozzarella across – not too much, just enough to hold the veggies on
5. Sprinkle with oregano and pine nuts
6. Bake according to crust directions – usually about 10 to 15 minutes
7. Enjoy!

While I’m not an advocate of making children a different meal than the adults on a normal basis. This is one case were it’s not too big of a deal. It’s next to impossible to convince Seth to eat large chunks of vegetables interspersed with dollops of goat cheese so we cut a little crust off and made him a more traditional pepperoni pizza.

What did Eleanor eat? Pureed fresh avocado. Yum! If there had been any tortilla chips on hand I’m not sure it would have gotten to her highchair.

Eleanor can crawl!

We’ve had bare hardwood floors since last fall when we had to put our German Shepard to sleep. Before that, our beloved Nikita needed carpeting in order to get enough traction to stand up. Unfortunately she also found it to be a great spot for “accidents”. Often, I might add. Needless to say, soon after she left our lives the rug did as well. I like hardwood floors, but I missed having a little padding to roll around on. With Eleanor starting to become mobile my desire for a rug increased ten fold. The poor little thing would try so hard to crawl only to end up sliding backward on the slick hardwood surface. She would get her legs wedged under the couch or end up underneath a chair and scream out in frustration.

In lieu of exchanging Christmas presents this last year Steve & I decided to get rugs. One for the living room and one for the basement tv area. As shipping a large rug is not cheap, we waited patiently for Flor to have a free shipping period. I am so proud of us for being able to hold out and I’m so happy that we now have a rug. But no-one in the house is more happy than Eleanor who is now the one appreciating the traction that a rug can bring.

We loosely based the coloring off this vintage 1970s Marimekko.

It’s half of a scrap left over from a Marimekko framing store my parents once owned. It measures only about 18″x24″ and my sister has the twin. As was common in the 70s, my parents stretched it onto a wooden frame for me to hang on my wall. Unfortunately, this piece was lacking the name of the print on the selvage. When I saw Flor’s Tonal Vision I thought they would compliment each other well and am very happy with the results. (The colors in my photographs are a little deceiving as the print is not quite as vivid and the rug tiles are more so, but you get the picture.)

Flor rugs come in just under 20″ squares. They ship in boxes and put together with adhesives on the back in a jiff.

As if this all wasn’t enough, Flor’s commitment to eliminate their negative impact on the environment by 2020 is impressive. My favorite part of this? We can call the company at any time to pick up the tiles to be recycled into new rugs. I’ve added enough rolls of carpeting and area rugs to the landfills in my lifetime. (Actually, the wall to wall carpeting we tore out when we moved in 10 years ago is still in the attic. But it will eventually makes it’s way to a landfill as well. Sigh.)

Incidentally – my house never looks that clean. We just had to move all the stuff to put the tiles down. Also, the basement rug is a subtle brown stripe. I think it will look good against the brick red cement floor.

Snow Soup II

Just as I thought, all the snow was gone by the time I got off work. For that matter, it was gone by lunch. Not a spec of white fluffy snow, just the old black frozen solid snow. Pooh! Oh well, at least I took a few photos to remember it by.