Tip: Use a Coat Rack to Help Young Children Decorate Holiday Wreaths

Not how I would have spaced the ornaments,
but it'll make me smile every time I come home :)

It's December, and since we celebrate the Christmas tradition, that means it's time to decorate!  I love having the kids help, because they have so much fun being involved.

Greg ordered a wreath from the boy scouts, and it recently arrived ready for us to decorate! 

I used a low hanging hook on our coat rack as a stable place to hang the wreath where Will and Andrew could reach it.

I pulled out a small number of decorations, kept it simple, and was sure to supervise while they hung the breakable ornaments on the branches.  They would hook them where they wanted them, and then I made sure each one was secure.

Afterwards, Will eagerly helped to vacuum up all the pine needles while I hung the wreath on the front door.

If you're feeling less brave, or don't have time to clean up a potential mess, you could always use less breakable decorations.  Outgrown mittens on strings make adorable wreath decorations!

I figured that while I had time to supervise them, it would be good to give them the chance to handle delicate decorations.  If one fell and broke, we could talk about how some things are breakable, and what to do if something breaks.  (Stay really still until a grown-up can pick you up so you don't cut your hand or foot, put shoes on before you vacuum, etc.)  I didn't have to have that conversation because they were so careful, but I knew I had time to deal with the mess if it happened, and it's always good to teach kids how to handle breakable things.

Wreaths are such a great thing for kids to decorate, because they're smaller projects than a tree, and with the help of a coat rack they can reach the whole thing! 

He loves helping SO MUCH!

Idea for embellishing a lunch box

I don't like going to the mall.  I don't like being inside, under fluorescent lights, I don't like driving the busy, divided highway to get there, I don't like using my precious babysitting time to be there, I don't like dragging my complaining kids in the stroller who want to get down, run away, and fondle everything over $100 that they can reach.

So, I kind of put off getting Will a lunch box for his first lunch at school.  He'll be staying at his preschool for a little extra time just one day a week, and having lunch there.  That way, since his normal school time is only 2 hours and 15 minutes, I'll have a chance to get more done with Andrew one day a week.

Only, he needs a lunch box.  And all the other kids are probably going to have SUPER CUTE lunch boxes.  Because what parent doesn't want their adorable little preschooler to have the coolest lunch box ever that will make them smile at lunch time?  No parent.  We all want that.

Except I didn't go to Pottery Barn kids, or Hanna Andersson, or even manage to Amazon Prime one from Skip Hop in time for tomorrow.  I didn't even hit up the local toy store, Magic Beans, that I'm sure has lunch boxes.

Epic.

Fail.

So I did what any parent would do in the eleventh hour, after all the stores have closed, the night before their child's first school lunch ever.  (I may have been in denial, because this seems like a big deal, Will actually eating a meal without me...)

I rummaged around the house.

I found a lunch box of Greg's.  (Sorry, honey.)

I found colored duct tape in the basement.  (Huh?  Ok.  Cool.)

I spent over half an hour making the best darn duct tape train I could, and cut out Will's name in bright letters to label his lunch box.

Is it from Pottery Barn?  No.  Did it cost a lot?  No.  Is it, from an artistic perspective, of any merit whatsoever?  No.

Will he love it?  Probably.  Does it have his name on it in big, bright letters for the teachers to see?  Definitely.  Will any other kid there have the same lunch box?  Hell no.

Love you, Will.  Doing the best I can.

Will's Last Day of Playschool! (& A Thank You Note Idea For Teachers)

It's Will's last day of playschool!

As a fun idea for teacher appreciation thank you notes, I took all the craft projects Will did this year at school and laid them out on the floor and snapped a photo.  I printed the photo and put it on card stock to make a custom thank-you-note for his teachers that is a tribute to all the hard work they did this year helping him create so many fun projects that he is so proud of.  Will wrote on half the inside of the card, and I wrote on the other, and we slipped in a gift card and decorated the outside of the envelope with stickers.

You could even lay the projects out a little more neatly and take a photograph to save if you're planning to keep just a few projects from each school year so you have less clutter in your home.  I figure I'll probably ask Will to pick some favorites to keep.

I can hardly believe his first school year is over.  I feel as though I had just settled into the routine of drop offs and pick-ups, of warm cups of coffee in a quiet house while Andrew napped, of the joy I felt each time Will ran towards me, all grins, excited to show me the day's art project.

When I first looked for a toddler playschool for Will, it was because I needed the break for me.  After seeing him come home singing new songs, super excited about his school projects, and asking every morning if it was a school day, I realized that this was something for HIM.  It meant he had a scheduled time each week where he was guaranteed a chance to play with friends, do a craft project, sing songs, and be active.  I try to do all those things regularly at home, but it's hard sometimes when you've got grocery shopping, meal planning, diaper changing and laundry folding all getting in the way!

Will had a wonderful year at school, with two amazing teachers who were excellent at making him feel safe, comfortable, and happy all while managing to teach him new skills like getting dressed to go outside and doing more and more of each craft project himself.

I'm so grateful, and I look forward to sending Andrew to Miss Hillary when he is two!

Happy end of school year, and welcome, summer!

Will on his first day of school!

Will today.  What a difference a school year makes!

Mum's Birthday Afghan!

photo by Alan

My brother had the wonderful idea of making Mum a birthday afghan where each of her children (including our spouses) knit a panel. The amazing part? My brother learned to knit in order to do this!

My sister in law, sister and I each knit one of the main panels, and my husband and brother knit edge panels for this beautiful five piece afghan.

My sister-in-law found the pattern, chose the yarn, and ordered everything and got us organized! She also taught Alan to knit and helped him and my sister with any mistakes since they live close to each other.

Some things I learned knitting this afghan, that are probably obvious to more advanced knitters:

When cabling, the pearl stitches are ALWAYS going to be held to the back.

If you pay attention, you really can learn what each cable instruction/pattern is doing, and then you can pay slightly less attention to the pattern.

Reading on your kindle isn’t the best idea while you’re trying to establish a cable pattern.

PIN the panels together before you seam the two smaller edge panels on, because even though you can add length if it’s still on the needles, if you seam it without the appropriate tension, it’ll look all wavy and weird and you’ll have to rip the seams back and pin it. (See photo.)

I would err on the side of having the edge panels taper IN rather than OUT as you’re trying to seam them on so that it’s a straight line, because it looks really funny if they flare out and it’s kind of hard to get them exactly straight (see photo, I ripped it back twice)

I used mattress stitch to seam them together, which was a little strange because it was hard at first to figure out where to go in and out since you’re not connecting two like pieces together. But this is clearly the way to seam them together.

If you’re knitting this with other knitters, YES do a gauge swatch, but unless it’s crazy off, I would recommend using the same size needles. My husband and I knit a little tighter than my siblings, so we went up a needle size, and I think it made the drape of my center panel look sloppy in comparison despite the fact that the width and lengths were to measurement. I think I could have compensated for any slight discrepancies by seaming, and then the drape for the whole afghan would have been the same.

Overall, we’re really thrilled that we did this all together and gave it to Mom for her birthday! She’s the most prolific, inspirational, talented and giving knitter I know and it was such a joy for us to pull together and make something for her.

Only 15.5 pattern repeats of 24 rows left to go!

Please don't let your children play with scissors and pins, it's not safe.  Don't try this at home.

She did not do a pattern repeat while she was in there.  Darn cat.

I'm not sure what I would have done without all of Nemo's help.

5:00 p.m., on Mom's birthday, the day before her birthday lunch!  WE DID IT!!! 

photo by Alan

My Favorite New Artist

Andrew's elephant

My sister has opened an Etsy shop with her paintings!  It's called "Roots Awakened" and she already has 12 paintings up for sale on the site.  We've been in love with her work ever since she gave us our first set of her paintings.  Her classic animal portraits with solid backgrounds are perfect for our children's rooms.  (They'd look nice in an office, library or grownup bedroom, too.)

I love the simplicity of the backgrounds for our kids' rooms that are visually busy with toys and books.  I love how well the animals stand out and how recognizable they are for our boys.  I love listening to Will talk about the seahorse, crab, and octopus while I'm getting him into his pajamas in his bathroom, and seeing him offer his monkey a drink of water at night.  He loves them, and he likes to tell me that "Aunt E painted them for me!"

The reason Will can say "octopus".  He likes to tell me which painting is his favorite.  It changes.  Mine is always the crab.  He says Daddy's is the seahorse.  I haven't asked Greg for confirmation on that.

The bird that perfectly complements Andrew's jungle curtains

I'm excited that Elizabeth has decided to make her paintings available for more than just family!  She has three sets of paintings up online available individually or in groups of three as a discount, and I suspect she'd be willing to do custom work again as well.

We love the custom paintings she's done for us - we requested Andrew's elephant, and later she surprised us with the wonderfully fun painting of a monkey for Will.  The monkey is painted to mimic the facial features of Will's favorite lovey, Mr. Monkey, and looks like the monkeys and background on his favorite dishes.  The painting will be a keepsake long after Mr. Monkey is tucked safely away in a memory box in our closet.

Will's monkey painting, inspired by Mr. Monkey and Will's monkey dishes

While I'm talking about favorite artists - I also have been meaning to make a note on here about my friend Abby's new book called "Stuffed Animals: From Concept to Construction".  It's available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble and it is AWESOME.  Abby has been designing stuffed animals (or "softies") for years, and she's taken all of that experience in design work and poured it into a comprehensive book that takes you through the steps of designing your very own original stuffed animals.  She helps you understand how to draw patterns and sew all the different shapes that become components of stuffed animals.

The book is brilliantly laid out to include lessons and then projects that incorporate the design / sewing lessons so you can read about a design feature and then have an opportunity to use it (or see how it would be used) in a real pattern.

Everything is explained so you understand the importance of different shaping techniques, which parts of the sewing instructions are responsible for making the legs or arms etc. look a certain way.

The book includes great technical guides so that even a beginning sewer could be successful, and it would be a great reference book for anyone who sews.

For anyone who is interested in sewing and stuffed animals, this book is a must have.  It's incredibly well written, comprehensive, and includes such great ideas.  She shows you how to adapt a pattern to make a puppet instead of a stuffed animal, how to take a child's drawing and turn it into a softie, and includes sixteen adorable patterns that you can make while you work up the experience and courage to design your own.  It's great.

I feel privileged to know such talented people!

Toddler Craft Project: Valentine's Day Cards!

Did a fun craft project with Will's playgroup recently - Valentine's Day Cards!  I printed out a picture of each toddler from one of our playgroup dates, and we helped them attach them to the inside of construction paper cards that they decorated with stamps, stickers, crayons and little heart cut-outs.  

I made little cutouts that said "Happy Valentine's Day!" for them to stick on the front of the card, and "Love," for them to stick near their photo making it a photo signature :)

Will decorated the backs of his envelopes with heart and lady bug stamps (which he also used to stamp the hand of just about every mom in the room).

It was simple, but fun to have them use a picture of themselves and get to play with some stickers and stamps!

Probably the ink pad should have been kept more closely in my possession, and probably there were too many things that needed to be stuck on each card (two text items and one photo to make the card a legitimate valentine) but thanks to my hands-on Mommy friends, I saw a lot of cute Valentine's Day cards leaving, and I think the kids had fun!

Happy Valentine's Day, and Happy Crafting! :)

I recommend writing out completely unnecessary directions so that you feel awesome and organized and like planning crafts for toddlers is intelligent work (it is IMPORTANT work, just, well, not that hard.)

Paper heart cutouts made using a paper punch from Paper Source.
(LOVE that store.)

Knitting is Relaxing (aka Kelly vs. the Crocodile)

He's done!!!!

WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!  WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!  WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!  WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!  WILL'S CROCODILE IS DONE!!!

This probably doesn't excite you since you probably didn't know I was knitting Will a crocodile, but let me tell you, Greg and I are both QUITE relieved that this guy is finished.  Even my Mom is happy for me (ok, relieved), and she lives two states away from the endless seaming and finish work chaos that was this crocodile.  She's the one who suggested the cheeky title (Knitting is Relaxing) for this blog post.  Of course, the knitting WAS relaxing, it was the seaming and RE-knitting and re-seaming that wasn't so much fun!

The inspiration for knitting Will's crocodile - he loves pointing out the crocodile on his dinner plate!

The knitting pattern is from Sarah Keen's "Knitted Wild Animals" and it's an amazing pattern - just look at the detailed shaping.  The amount of thought put into designing this is incredible, and it looks fantastic. 

Love this knitting pattern book - the detail and shaping for the toys is fantastic. 

That being said, I did kind of want to tear my hair out by the time I was done.  The four feet were knit in eight pieces, then there were four legs, the body of the crocodile, two eyeballs, and two eyelids not to mention embroidery work.  That's SEVENTEEN pieces to knit for this stuffed animal.  Oh, unless you lose three of the feet pieces a week before Christmas.  Then it's twenty.  Unless you're a little tired one night and you knit one of the legs too short, then it's twenty one pieces.  Of course, if you lose one of the eyelids, then it's twenty two pieces and by now you've knit enough pieces that you're lucky you found those feet you'd lost even though you already knit replacements because now your should-be-sainted husband can unravel one so you can knit a new eyelid for Will's Christmas crocodile that you're finishing late January.  (Because of course, you've run out of yarn knitting all these extra pieces.)

AHHHHH!!!!!!!

Here are some suggestions in case you decide to knit your own crocodile, although many of these can be applied to knitting projects in general:

BAD KNITTER, BAD!

• If it's less than a month before Christmas, you have two small children, and you're knitting several other projects, don't start a knitting project comprised mostly of seed stitch, over a foot long, and knit in seventeen pieces
• If you do knit a project with that many pieces, KEEP TRACK OF YOUR PIECES
• LOOK AT THE PHOTOS CAREFULLY before you start sewing on appendages.  Misplaced legs make for a very funny looking crocodile, and you'll be pulling them off and re-sewing them
• Read all the instructions (I'm done!  Oh wait, I have to do the nostrils.  Greg, are you ok?)
• Read all the instructions (Ohh, wait, it's chain stitch embroidery for the mouth.. I needed twice this amount of yarn... I need to pull the mouth out... Greg, are you ok?)

GOOD KNITTER!

• I found for the leg placement that lining up the gussets with the end of the seed stitch on the body and seaming halfway up towards the top of the leg from there gave me the most realistic looking crocodile
• After seaming the feet, I lined the back of the foot up with the back of the leg (gusset side) just like a heel and whip-stitched around
• Here's a great online tutorial for chain stitch if you're not familiar with it (I wasn't) 

The crocodile books I found to go with Will's crocodile!

"I'm going to eat Andrew's lovey! Arr arr arr arrr."

"Will's crocodile tried to eat my lovey, but I GOT him!  YAY!!!"

Easy Toddler Craft: Star Ornaments

Will's finished star from our playgroup craft!

Will goes to a playschool for a few hours two mornings a week, and he comes home with the cutest craft projects, singing new songs, and generally making me feel so grateful that he has the opportunity to attend and wistful that I don't do more singing and crafting with him at home! 

Of course I'm saving all of these forever.  How else are we going to decorate for his wedding or make sure his college dorm room doesn't have empty walls?  

Recently, he came home with a decorated star to hang on our tree - and was so proud to show it to Greg and I and hang it on the tree himself. 

The inspirational star ornament from playschool.
Thank you Miss Hillary!!!

I liked it so much that I wanted to make more with his playgroup friends when we hosted the week before Christmas.  Here's how we did it!

I went to a craft store and bought adhesive backed glitter foam, two sheets each of four different colors.  I unpeeled the adhesive lining and stuck the sheets of the same color together to make a big sheet that was glittery on both sides.  I then traced a star outline using marker, and cut out the stars with a craft knife.  If you're patient and don't have an exacto or craft knife, scissors would work instead - I used them to clean up the edges if I missed some of the marker, and it cut through fine.

I then hole punched one of the star points (actually Greg did this while I drank coffee.  Thanks Greg) and cut yarn scraps for the toddlers to thread through.  For decorations, I bought some self-adhering white dots, little red pom poms, and sequin stars.  All the craft supplies came to about $10 and I had enough to make at least 12 stars.  The same project could be done for less with plain felt or construction paper.

Using a coffee table tray was helpful - once the craft project was over, one of my friends just picked the whole thing up and dropped it on the counter before our toddlers sprinkled pompoms and glitter stars all over the floor for Andrew to eat.

"Will do it?"

We helped the kids thread the yarn through the hole punch on the star, and then they could peel and stick the little white dots themselves.  For the pom poms and sequin stars, it was easiest when we put dots of glue on their big star and they then pushed a decoration on top of the glue.  The whole craft project took less than ten minutes for them to do, which is about perfect for a two year old's attention span :)

Waiting for the glue to dry :)

Happy crafting!

PS -  I don't plan to keep ALL of Will's school projects forever... I'm keeping them in a box in our office until the end of the year, then we'll pull them all out, take a photograph, and ask him to pick some favorites to save forever.  In the meantime, they're a great resource for ideas for things I can start doing with him now that he's getting older and more interested in arts and crafts!

My mother knit him the adorable Santa vest!
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/PDamon/christmas-vests