Who loves what

When I open the craft closet and ask out loud "what shall we do today?" I always know what craft my 3 year old will chose. She loves to paint, she tries new brushes, sponges, the other day she suggested she try a fork to see what it would look like. She has great ideas and has started mixing colours to see what would happen. She loves to use brown "it looks yummy like chocolate" she said when I asked why everything was brown. I love that she said that! It's a better perspective than what I was thinking :/ . I know I shouldn't have but last week I actually tried to hide the brown just so I could see what can come up with in other colours but of course I got caught and had to pull it out for her.

My older daughter loves to draw, she will spend hours, last week I gave her an art journal with a word or two she had to draw. She loved this challenge, it wasn't meant as a homework assignment but she did not stop until every page and the cover had something on it. She plans to colour this weekend.

The best friend one is supposed to be me, I thought that was so sweet of her to say until she add "see how I drew it bigger in the belly? "that's cause you aren't skinny like me" *giggles*

Bird feeder

There is a park not far from our house where we can lift a hand full of bird feed and the birds will come and eat from our hand . . . or our heads :) other little woodland critters come for some free food too.

Balls to cake balls

We decided to make cake balls yesterday; in a little more than a week my 3 year old will be 4 years old and she has put in a special request for pink cake balls. I have made them before and truthfully, am utterly baffled where I found the patience to make them at the time cause they are tedious!!
The cake supply store only had purple Satin Ice vanilla fondant, I've tried other brands of fondant and yuckario! So I got the blueish looking purple Satin Ice vanilla fondant and after getting the coulour okayed from my birthday to be girl we got to work. . . Together we made the cake and icing let it cool then in my mixer we mixed the two. After the two were blended together it didn't look the best but wow it was delicious!! I sent the kids to play with their friends so I could make the balls. In about 20 or so minutes I produced four very ugly looking blueish-purple cake filled blobs and then logically thought "gawd!! is this something I really want to be doing, now, with all the kids I have in my house" (my own and their friends, 6 total which is the actual number but that count included this one very spirited little girl who is very creative, very loud, very energetic much older and can reach the stuff I've hidden for a reason but doesn't think about why it was hidden she is without any exaggeration the equivalent parental effort to my three children combined so by my count 9 children) the mess I would have made continuing to try to make the balls was one thing but I'm certain there would have been a mess of the distasterouse sort, you know the kind unattended children are capable of making of a house, just so I can make more of these ugly little cake filled blobs? No way! This whole cake ball making idea was with out a doubt something that needed rethinking. I had to come up with an alternative treat to try to make my girl for her birthday. It had to be something that would taste exactly the same that could be popped in the mouth real easy in a bite or two but was much easier and quicker for me to make.

Here is what I came up with;
I rolled out a large rectangle of fondant, I spread a layer of the cake/butter cream icing mixture on top of the fondant. Then, I rolled it all up like a log and popped the log in the freezer over night. Today I took the logs out and slice them into one inch thick pieces but that was too think half inch was a much better size for my little ones. They're perfect . . . Even better it took me 20 minutes or so to do up. Tho, if you try to make them your self they get soft a mushy if they aren't served fresh from the refrigerator. We like ours frozen. :)

March Break

Since discovering computers my son hasn't been interested in crafts with me. When school is on I limit his computer time to and hour a day. Which if you have kids you know is actually a lot of time when you factor in school, homework, meals, tidy up, showers or baths and bed time. His favourite game is Minecraft, he purchased the game with his birthday money last summer. It's very cute. He has a friend over or Facetimes a friend on his iPod and the two "play" together digitally. It being march break I have allowed him the whole day, it is after all his break and he is still playing with a friend and since the weather isn't good I don't mind him spending so much time on the computer other than I miss him and his artistic contributions . . . I'm guessing this is the beginning of my son growing up and my having to learn to let him go a little.


I started the week with restoring a children's rocker my FIL fond in the garbage. It needed a good cleaning, a sanding another cleaning with a damp rag, glued and clamped then oiled. It's a lovely little rocker. There was some discussion on painting it but I like the natural wood.

While restoring the chair in between drying and oiling the girls and I embarked on a painting fiasco. A simple paint by numbers . . . with missing numbers which disturbed my 6 year old. She had some very strong opinions on this and suggested we contact the makers of this product because "they should know better than to sell a children's product with the numbers all wrong". Not only were the numbers messed up the paint was dry and crumbly, I tried to water it down but it turned into a gunky mess which encrusted itself to my table and craft cups. So we used crayola paint and it worked out okay.

Once done we added them to the art our new (as of 2013) art wall.

Potters apron

How cute is this apron and not at all girly IMHO. There is a slit down the middle so his pants remain covered while potting. This was so ease to make, it's simply three rectangles. . . Two for his legs and one for around his waist. Sew it all together and done.

I made an apron like this for myself as well and even got to try it out. I wasn't going to post a photo of what I had made cause I was going to surprise a knitter friend of mine (http://spinnerknits.blogspot.ca/) with one but it turns out she has one she got for her mom . . . So I guess I can share it here. Here are some yarn bowls I made, I really enjoy making these, of course I love sitting at my wheel but even the carving and matching the cuts to compliment the shape of the pot is fun. . . I think I did okay. I already have a few folks wanting to buy! Sure hope I don't mess them up when I glaze them lol

Here I am.

I did not think it had been a year since I wrote my last post hahaha well here I am . . . again . . . and I have stuff and time to share!

I'll start with today

I made aprons for my girls, I didn't think it through, I just kind of started with a notion and some fabric that I recycled from an old pappasan chair cover. I didn't follow the traditional order of sewing, honestlty I just layed out the fabric and started cutting. First I cut my fabric into two rectangles, I knew I'd be making two (one for each of my girls). On one end of the shorter sides of the rectangle I cut the corners off, the other end I rounded the corners and had planned on just hemming the whole things, then I cut a bunch of 1.5 inche strips from some pretty pink fabric that I thought would make some great ties and started pinning. While digging through my fabric stash looking for the pink I found a pocket that used to belong to a pair of my husbands jeans; right there and then I decided theses aprons needed a pocket, I used the old jeans pocket as a pattern, pink of course. My mind started to flood with possibilities . . . ruffles . . . Heart . . . Maybe some ribbon. . . My head was spinning! so I had to take a step back and got out my pencil and markers and drew what came to me. I started to sew again and tried the heart pocket you see in the photo but it looked to girly girl with the ruffle and once i cut my rounded corners i was already committed to the ruffles. . . I love green & blue or pink & green so the obvious choice was green for the stitching. I used to try to do perfect stitching but over time I realized how rusticly adorable the haphazard lines look (and were much faster in getting my project done)

While sewing today I broke my Phaff :( not a big break I guess more of an injury which I'm sure for a price can be fixed . . . . The lil itty bitty teeny tiny hook that threads my needle is no longer there in the photo it should be where the tiny pink dot is . . . Ok so I guess it is comparable to a pin prick lol it was still pretty upsetting! I had to do all my threading the old fashioned way! my Phaff is no longer perfect :(

The aprons were a big hit! both girls wore them all evening and served me pretend burgers and soup from their pretend kitchen . . . As you can see from the finished product there's a ribbon flower on it which wasn't well receiver so was instantly removed. Both girls tried to sleep in them tonight but I just wasn't comfortable with the cords around their necks so we stuffed them in their pillow case so they'd stay safe but close enough to be considered sleeping with.


Tomorrow I might try to make a potters apron for both my son and I as he has taken an interest in potting. I'm both excited and proud and a little worried I'll lose my wheel to him lol


I feel like I have to mention this is the first time I'm posting from my iPad, I'm not at all competent with this thing and there's a pain in the butt auto correct . . . Oh and I can't figure out how to add the photos where I want them or to size them and lol it'll be a surprise where they turn up lol

Cheers.