New years Project – perpetual family calendar

On day 3 of the new year, I needed to come up with a fun project to do with my girls, because I am sick and it was too cold to stick them on the ski hill. I had spotted this idea on Pinterest last month. We stopped by Staples and bought 400 index cards, a box of colored cards and a date stamper.  While the girls colored a picture for each month of the year, I stamped all 365 dates on the side margin of the index cards. The idea is that everyday, we right 1 thing about that day, and year after year, there will be one line on each card. A combo of diary, timeline, gratitude journal. The girls had a blast and we can’t wait to dill in the first 3 days of the year.

HP Party: the Wand Shop

I have gotten a few emails and FB messages requesting details of the preparations for the upcoming Harry Potter Party. I’m a bit torn, because a few of my readers will be attending and I don’t want to spoil it for them, but then again, they are adults, so if you are reading this and want to keep the surprises, stop reading!

The party is a week from today. So far, the hardest thing has been to pick things NOT to do… I wanted to cover the swing set in fabric and paint it to look like the outside of Hogswart, and make a cardboard chandelier to hang candles on… I also narrowed down the menu from the dozens and dozens of ideas I found online…. I am trying, VERY HARD, to be reasonable!

The craft activity for the party will be for the kids to make their own wands. I just put the finishing touches on my Wand Shop…. here goes:

This is what I’ve got:

• The wands are long bamboo sticks I found in the fake plant section at Winners, 1 bunch for 5$, cut in half with a plant shear
• the bottles are spice containers from the dollar store…. They contain the ‘cores’ for the wands: Phoenix feathers (dollar store white feathers left over from a previous project), Unicorn Tail hair (the white bristles off a paint-brush, cut off), Dargon Heartstring (twine, cut into pieces and the unwined to make is skinny) and Veela’s Hair and Thestral tail hair (both from a set multi-color  clip on hair extensions from the dollar store)
• there is an extra bottle that will contain glue
• 6 rolls of fun printed tape from the art store
• a popsicle mold, each hole filled with different colors of glitter (which amazingly, I had lying around the craft room!)

The kids will pick their core, attach it to the wand bottom by wrapping the ‘handle’ with the tape (the older kids can make a pattern with different tapes if they wish). When they are done, the will dip the tip of the wand in the glue and one of the glitters, which will make the tip sparkle.

I labeled the jars with stickers I had in my old scrapbooking supplies, so it looks like old apothecary jars. And I have a teenager coming over to help out that day, so she can be in charge of making sure every kid that arrives goes to Ollivander’s Wand Shop first, where she will supervise and assist if necessary.

The Nina Dress done, and a few new things

It’s already done! It was a SUPER FAST knit, though a little boring. S

eriously, it’s straight up stockinette with a few ribs and 4 holes.go for it, it’s super easy!

I know she doens’t look happy in the picture, but it’s only because I made her take off her flowy skirt and she was quite mad about that!

And now that the dress is finished, I have cast on the Michael Kors Cape from vogue 2007….  In other news, since while I knit, I watch tv, I’ve decided to blog about that too…. I know, blog overload! You can find that one here:

http://tvinabottle.wordpress.com

enjoy!

Nina Dress

now that the coat is finished and hanging as a display at the knitting store until it’s cold enough for #2 to wear it, I have thrown myself head-first into the Nina Dress, also from the Milla Mia book.

This is for #1, who is as girly as they come and chose hot pink (Lang Merino 150)…. it’s pretty easy, but waaaay slower than the coat since it’s not double stranded.

Luckily, we spent Saturday at a friend’s cottage and I got hours to work on it on the side of the lake, and then a few more hours around the kitchen table because the rain forced us in.

Back is done, half-way up the front, should be done by Tuesday Knit Night, because I have about 4 projects i want to work on for me next!

Ice cream fever

We got a really big BBQ. It came in a really big box, which has now become our backyard ice cream store. It took the girls about 3 days ti demand pretend ice cream to play with. I obliged.

hell is decorated in melting beads

 Who thought that melting/fusing beads should become the craft of choice? Why are they everywhere? Because frankly, they drive me bonkers! First of all, yes, it's sort of fun, if you have dexterity. But my 4 y.o.? She spends an hour at the table and gets about 8 beads on the board. And the 6 y.o. will make 10 hearts during that time, but will then insist that I iron them, IMMEDIATELY, and inevitable, someone will knock one over before I get the iron hot and then stupid beads, everywhere.

Not to mention how much I love having the hot iron on the table with the kids….

And I haven't actually purchased any of these, not once. Dumpling got a few kits as presents, someone brought a giant bucket as a hostess present (WTF?) and most recently, we inherited 3.5 buckets and about 24 shapes from my SIL who banished them now that her kids are grown. Oh, and I forget the 3D princess castle kit that BB got for her 4th bday. I've been working on the pieces for that since August, we are nowhere near done.

The hat from yesterday is done, but the rest of my day was spend fusing plastic.

glitter glitter everywhere

Another day without a stitch. While i spent the afternoon putting out fires at work, my morning was very very crafty: I supervised a bunch of 6 y.o. girls who had no school today and used my house as the central playdate location. Do you have any idea how much glitter-glue and sparkles was used in my house today?

At some point, from the bathroom, I heard "There is glitter on my bum!". Seriously.

Not exactely the kind of crafting I usually go for, but at least i'm still keeping up with Nablopomo!

valentine’s drop

Today being Valentine's Day, we have big plans: a ski date with my friend Susan from Our Journey To Mei Mei, and their kids, CL and A, and of course her fab husband Gord. I crocheted each of the girls a little heart using a pattern I found online last week. But this morning, it occured to me there would be a Toy Society Valentine's drop. So I grabbed a couple of shriken/felted sweaters and whipped up two little hearts.

We skied all day at their hill, Morin Heights, and right after lunch, we headed to the "bunny" hill, which is decorated with wooden cutouts (they put them on either side of the hill to force the kids to make turns by going to visit the cutouts)

All the girls agreed that Tinkerbells' winges were perfect for our purpose, so we hugn our little package on her wings. The girls acted like super-secret agetn while I took pictures. But the settings on my camera were all off and the pictures are way over exposed, so until I can try to manipulate them, you can't see the drop, just hear aobut it!

We hope they find a good home, and this time, we hope we hear from our finders!

Toy Society Christmas Drop: the Montreal Owls

This morning was absolutely freezing outside, but I convinced my girls to put on an extra layer and accompany me on my super-stealth mission of dropping my 4 owls. They were having a very hard time understanding the concept, peppering me incessently on the drive there with questions like:

• Why are we giving them away?

• Who's going to find them?

• What if nobody finds them?

• Do we have to dig them into the snow?

• Will they be cold?

• Why are we doing this?

• Can we keep them?

• Why mommy, I don't understand!

But once we got to Place Royale in Old Montreal and I told them that we were now super spies and had to make sure nobody caught us, they were very much into it!

Drop 1 was in fact the first owl I made, with it's little scarf made from the belt of a sweater that inadvertently felted in the wash (aka shrunk) We picked a little lit tree near the museum entrance and hung him in the branches.

 

the second drop was actually Owl #3, which we hung on the other side of the staircase, on the fire hydrant. Even in the worst snow conditions, the hydrants are always shoveled and the red really stands out against the snow. I played with taking pics of hydrants last year in my photoclass and this particular one always stands out to me because it's sort of in the middle of the sidewalk and I'm always wondering how many people fall over it.

 

 

The 3rd drop was on the side of the building, the street people would walk by when going from the one museum to the other. We tied him up on a pole and he started flapping about. I double checked to make sure he was secured and we got out of there before we were spotted!

 

 

Finally, for our last drop, we actually left Place Royale just a little bit and crossed the street to leave our last little bird in the phone booth.

  

 

 

Dumpling was absolutely frozen by then, but Beach Ball was still having a ball, this having been one of her two drops.

The pattern I used can be found here. But I didn't even bother printing it, I just opened it and enlarged it on my screen, then totally eyeballed it. I did add a base to mine rather than tighten the bottom, and as I made more, I made the shape more and more elongated, which gave me much nicer long beaks on the thick felted wool.

It’s Drop-Eve!

this weekend being the weekend before christmas, hundreds of handmade toys will be stealthly dropped by crafters around the world. Check out the map at the Toy Society Blog.

My little owls will be dropped tomorrow morning in Place Royale near my store in Old Montreal. It's got nothing to do with my store, but I chose the location for convenience and because it's very popular both with locals and tourists and I'm hoping they find not only good homes, but get found by people who will write in and tell us!

Come back tomorrow for pictures for pictures of the cuties in their  bags and at their drop site.