Subway Art

There are only so many lifetimes you can spend on pinterest before you start to feel left out that your house has no subway art.  Actually I just really liked the Fourth of July subway art and wanted to embrace the fad. Plus I'm low on Fourth of July crafts/decorations.

Also this year I'm on the Relief Society Activities committee, which means I had to come up with a craft for Freaky Friday.  That is not the name, I can never remember it, they changed it from Super Saturday to Friday night.  I was really quite trilled, I couldn't wait to find a hip new craft, not the same ol' same ol'. By the way I was suppose to come up with multiple ideas.  I thought of a subway art frame, where you can change the pages.  Here is what I made.  As I stayed up finishing this craft the night before the meeting, at 11 o'clock that night I knew they wouldn't pick it.

I think overall it was too hip.  Instead, I am in charge helping ladies of making my wreath. Maybe I was just more bossy when it came to a wreath, pretty much every Mormon who walks into my house, tells me we should make a wreath like that for a RS craft. Funny thing is a wreath is hardly the new hip craft, but they have made a resurgence in the craft community and a widely popular. 
Back to the subway art though, don't you love that summer subway art?!  I think its fabulous! I'm sure my idea is not original but I realized, why.. why why why would you want a different frame for each holiday, who wants one more thing to store even if its only an 8x10 frame, plus why buy 10 or 12 frames?!  That is a waste of money.  So this frame matches with my kitchen, and I can just trade them out from behind, its perfect.  I love the rosette I made for it, it is left over fabric from my kitchen curtains. Plus I decided to add pearls this time.  Here is the tutorial for the rosettes, I don't use fabric glue, I just use glue gun on low, and burn my finger tips.

Although the frame is not that easy to open, so maybe, one day I will change it up.  Its on top of my hutch.  I also spent hours pinning all the most perfect subway art pictures in my opinion.  Slightly a waste, but I didn't realize it was too hip of a craft until the night before, hours after I searched down a unique subway art design for each month. Check out my subway art board.  (I mean unique as in I didn't want the same designer month after month.)

Remember These

Remember these?  I made them for my sisters/sister in laws I that I saw last Christmas.  Well my mom felt real left out she didn't get one.  So we bought frames at goodwill, since I wanted one too, and then I couldn't bare to sand the frames, oh the thought of it sounded so nauseating to me.  Finally a month ago, I just grinned and bared it, outside during nice weather.  Oh course it only took about 5 minutes to sand them, but then a good 15 minutes to clean the glass. The frame color and painting is definitely different then the last set, but that's the way I craft.

This is my mom's, she wanted a big one.  The print is only 8.5x11, but I think the frame is a 11x14.

 Here is mine.  I used a different background then the others, I'm not sure if I like it better. There is a pretty good chance, I just like mine the least amount, maybe I need a mat.

Shower

I'm going to a baby shower tonight.  My friend is having a girl next month, I made a blanket, and two matching burp cloths for her.

The burp clothes are the calico on one side, and striped chenille on the other side.

More projects

Turns out I have more unposted projects.  My daughter went to another birthday party, back in April.  This is the crown I made for it.  Who knows what they thought of a homemade present?  I think it turned out wonderfully.

Two finished

I have a new niece, the only one born this year, we just saw her last week. She was about four weeks old, I think. Here is the blanket I made for her.  For some reason this blanket was my Eleanor.  Normally I whip out these blankets, but for some reason I really struggled with this blanket.  I love it though, because I like purple. Luckily, her mom seems excited to receive it.

 By the way, for the sake of privacy, I use to not post pictures with the names of my nieces and nephews that embroiderer on the back of the blanket but now looking back I can't always remember what blanket went to what baby.  So privacy is going the way of privacy online, sorry.
My daughter absolutely loved her new cousin, and want to be very helpful.

She also adored her new boy cousin who is two month olds.  There are still two more boys to be born both in August.  Its a race to see who wins! (I'm sure I'll lose, I go late, and I'm due a week later.)
Oh no, I just tried to link up the last baby blanket I made, for the two month old, but I couldn't find it, turns out I didn't post it, so here it is.

I have had this green material for so long.  Its been waiting for the right baby boy, a baby boy born to parents who wouldn't mind wrapping their son in beetles, frogs and lizards. I will also say it was hard to find a backing, but I think the orange polka dots are perfect!

Back

I made a back for my baby quilt.  I didn't want just a plain piece of white material.  

 Close up now, I got the circle idea from my this wonky baby quilt, but I did my circles differently then they did.

Now my mother has the quilt, she is quilting it together for me thankfully!

Teacher Gifts-- Cookies

Remember how I'm insane and sewed a million teacher gifts at christmas time?  Well I thought the end of the year also deserved a thanks.  This time I did not hand write thank you notes, like I did at christmas time.
I made homemade chocolate chip cookies for nine teachers, and I do make dang good chocolate chip cookies if I do say so myself.  (Or if I listen to all my friends.) Although I only had time for one batch, so they each only got 5 cookies, but I figured that was actually plenty.

This time I borrowed this graphic for the front of the card, and typed a canned message of my appreciation, printed it all out, and then folded up the paper.

Afterward I wondered if I was crazy.  I was talking to my husband about it, and he didn't seem to think it was odd at all I gave gifts to all the specials teachers.  Then I started thinking about it.  A few days ago, I talked to J's librarian for about 5 minutes. Five minutes was all it took to be extremely grateful this woman is in my son's life. She said how fun he was, and how she mentioned in the beginning of the year to the GT teacher he needed to be tested.  She said, "He is something else", smiling, "I'll ask a question, and call him and he will pause and say, well it will take a minute to explain."  I thought I'm so grateful she finds it endearing, because my husband and I struggle with this trait.  Point being, I'm so grateful for great teachers in his life.  As the librarian talked about him, I thought if this was Anne of Green Gables, they would be "kindred spirits". He keeps talking about how excited he is to be a first grader to because he gets to check out two books a week.
P.S.  I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips hoping for something that tastes better than Nestle, and the chips never stopped melting, and reset up.  Hours later, they were still gooey mess.  For some that might be good, for my children they found it annoying.

Summer School

My son is doing school every week day this summer.  Well maybe not everyday, if we have something planned for the morning we'll skip it, and for other reasons. Want to know the main reason he is doing school work all summer, it has nothing to do with the statistic that he will lose 30% of his knowledge over the summer.  It has to do with he drives me crazy when his life is unstructured.  He cries, and whines, and so he is DOING school. He is too precocious for our own good.  This is what I came up with a school jar. 

 Each activity has a clothes pin and he picks two a day.  Once he has done all his clothespins, he puts them back and and we start over.  I thought this would be effective because some of the school activities he does not like, but those are the ones he actually needs to work on over the summer.  This way it is not me assigning it, it is him picking it. If he wants to do more than two work activities a day then, he can earn his quarter to put towards buying new books. His dad decided he could do math worksheet to earn new books.  Yes, we have a reader on our hands, but he also likes to do math too.  Each worksheet is worth a quarter.

I also made a Learning Jar for my daughter.  I don't care if she uses it but I didn't want her to feel left out.  It has more than coloring, things I want her to learn over the summer like counting to 10, recognizing numbers, writing N, learning phonic sounds of some letters.  My husband wondered why I didn't have learn ABCs on one, I said I don't want her to learn the names of the letters until she knows the noises they make.   When I read alphabet books with my toddlers I don't say A is for, I say, ahh (the sound of A) is for. But her jar has fun things too, like stickers, cover the page in stickers, she is only 3.
Would you like to know what my son has to do this summer?

• Writing Page (Describe ___ use at least 4 sentences) He does not like this assignment, hopefully him picking the topics will help.
• Reading what he chooses, and then telling me the summary, and main idea
• Bridge Book (a workbook we bought from school)
• Learn to Tie Shoes
• Debate  my husband came up with this (this is he gives me 5 pro or cons of the a topic, for example why is it good to play outside) (We are working on explanation and comprehension this summer.  We know he is comprehending but his teacher will want evidence he is understanding, so he needs to work on explaining.)
• Dictionary my husband came up with this.  He has a elementary school dictionary, he will have to look up a word, write how to spell the word, and what the word means.  Hopefully as the summer goes on he can summarize the definition instead of copy.
• Math worksheets
• Science, I haven't really planned what this means yet, but he loves science
• Maybe I should add, practice riding a bike.  Especially the two wheeler not the training wheel one.  Then again any pedaling motion he does, I am relieved about. No scooter allowed.

Look What I Did

I finished the top to the baby quilt. The colors are blue, yellow, green and white.

Some of the material came from my sister in law Alisa.  I got the pattern from this book.
Just for the record I have 13 weeks left, probably actually 14!  Ahh! But I'm getting super uncomfortable, so I'm sure I'll be grateful as the weeks disappear.

Birth Stones

I decided before Mother's Day my mother's necklace needed to be updated.
So I picked up some glass looking peridot-- remember I'm having an august baby.  Plus I must be "officially" showing because people come up to me saying, I didn't know you were expecting.

 I guess technically my necklace is backward.
But the first child is Amethyst for February
Second child is Turquoise, so it has two pieces of actual Turquoise.
The third is Peridot like I said, for August, and has three pieces. 
I have no idea what I'll do if I'm still wearing this and have more than four kids, because I don't think I could get more than four beads on a jewelry pin. 

Then I had a million pieces of green glass beads left over from the string I bought, so I thought I would make some bracelets, to herald in my new baby in August.  I felt so motherly in church. HA HA

I loved it, when I showed the necklace to my daughter.  I pointed to the Amethyst and said who is this for?  She said her big brother's name.  (She loves this game and everytime I wear the necklace she tells me who each stone/gem is for.) I pointed to the Turquoise and asked who it was for?  She said "ME!"  I then asked, who is this for?  Pointing to the peridot.  She smiled, and said umm, umm, umm, more smiling.  Then a light bulb went off. "BABY BROTHER?!"  Yup, its baby brother's.  Then she went off, talking gibberish about baby brother, as a pregnant hormonal mother it melted my heart. 

Baby Book #1

I only have a million and half projects to do before August.  Nothing like a baby to get my crafting in high gear.  Some of the projects for children who were born years ago.  Like three baby books for my daughter.  What?  Three baby books is over load, I agree but my son has three and I feel obligated to meet the challenge.  He has a baby book, that you fill out and glue the pictures, that I did not finish until after the second baby was born.  He has a baby calendar where you know I recorded important events, and he has a small 3-d 6 page scrapbook that I gave him before his sister was born, so he wouldn't feel TOO slighted by the new baby. Which you can see at that previous link.  Well I'm not that far, I still have to completely fill out my daughter's baby book, and make her small scrapbook (she absolutely LOVES her brother's book). But I at least got the pictures glued in her baby calendar.  The baby calendar is the easiest because I already filled it all out her first year, I just had to glue in pictures.  Tah-dah!  I feel so accomplished.

Don't you hate when as far as you can tell the picture is completely rotated correctly, and then it uploads sideways!

Have no fear I already bought this new baby a baby book and a baby calendar, so I wouldn't give up.  I think I have a sickness. I find it important to over chronicle their first year of life, so I give up on the next five years. Actually I made an important decision years ago, to not do anymore for my son until after his 5th birthday, I've been spending the last 14 months deciding what to do now.  I think I've decided. His generation will never have any printed photographs.  My husband once said their generation will be like our great grandparent's, they'll be happy to have three pictures from their whole life.  I was originally going to make a photobook, from snapfish or shutterfly, or winkflash, but I changed my mind. I'm going to print up a couple hundred photos, or maybe just 50 from the first five years, and put them in an old school photo album.  So in twenty years when he gets married he actually has real live photographs. Plus it will be easy enough to keep up with for all my kids over the years, and more cost effect then photobooks.  We have family photo books for every year.  

Baby Quilt Preview

I'm making a baby quilt aren't you excited?

I'm using my daughter's baby quilt as measurement.  I figured the easiest way to measure was to lay it on top.

My mother made my daughter's baby quilt, and my sister in law made J's baby quilt (the one without a girl on it).. I'm pretty lucky that my sister in law likes her brother (my husband) so much, because back in the days of number one, I had no idea I even cared about baby quilts.  But now I do. Although maybe my sister in law converted me, after giving us the quilt.
Part of me is all giddy that I'm making my baby a quilt, but I'm not sure why, its not my first baby quilt.  I made one for my sister.

Princess Cape

My son's cape has thankfully made a resurgences, and this has fascinated my daughter, so it was high time to make her one of her own.  I have only been planning on it for about two years.  I had material sitting waiting for me, but unfortunately I forgot to bring it to Texas, so we bought new stuff at walmart.  Can I just say I'm jealous my mom's walmart has fabric.  Our does not, plus I live in a small town, its 40 minutes to JoAnns! Crafts, Sams, and my OB, are the only reason I leave my small town.

 I will point that my mom made the majority of this project, while I was busy napping, and feeling generally pregnant.  Maybe she did everything other than cut the interfacing.
I used the crown pattern from the same site as we made J's cape from, but used this pattern for the cape this time.

Never miss an opportunity to look fabulous. By the way one of the tings I love about my daughter is she has great expressions all from her eyes.

A quick story: While my mom and I were working, my husband said, you guys are sure spending a lot of time on this cape.  I said, I spend no more or less time on anything I make for the kids.  This is a completely normal amount of time.  He seems to be genuinely surprised at how much effort I spend on projects for my children.  Sure it was actually my mom's time this time, but nonetheless, the point is true.  I put great care into making lovely things for my children. I would rather spend 3 hours for a nice finished project, then 40 minutes on crap.

Mermaidens

My husband is a stellar man and suggested we visit my parents a few weeks ago, so five days later we were in the car.  While I was at my mom's we of course did a bit of sewing.  One of our projects was these mermaidens: 

It is easy to let my mom do all the creative work when doing a craft with her, but I was determined to pull my share of the weight.  I thought these little girls were intensive to make, my mom said as far as dolls go these were fairly easy.  Phew, good to know, for future reference.  Also I should point out I'm terrible at symmetrical free motion sewing, but I already knew this.  Also one of their fins got terrible messed up and my mom had to finish it for me, after me unpicking it three times, and a attempting it twice.
They are cute fun dolls, I'm glad I made them for my daughter, but even gladder my mom helped me.
And please no one look at my free motion sewing.

We are Crumby

My husband was worried our brooms and mops would rip our drywall, so he suggested putting a board on the wall with screws instead of in the drywall.  I decided I wanted it pretty.  This is what I came up with.  I thought it was perfect, my family is SO crumby!  It actually helps to see the board every time I bring out the broom.  Instead of despising their messiness like I was, I just sweep and think nothing of it. 

 I wish my camera would have focused on the wood instead of the dry wall, but its cheap. I thought we could mass produce them and start selling them on etsy, I haven't ever seen anything like this. By the way I have no cricket or silhouette so I must do it the old fashion way.