Vanilla Icing

A Change of Craft

I purchased the beads over two years ago--long enough that I can no longer remember what exactly they are.  But in my defense, it took me nearly two years to find the pendant I had in mind for them.

Soap Carving

Tristyn & Maia were entertained for hours all for the price of two 3 packs of soap.   And consequentially, very enthusiastic about bath time!

The playing with knives thing bothered me for about a minute until I saw how careful they were.  Isn't it funny how sometimes we worry and fear that children aren't ready for something but they really are and quietly prove us wrong?

Tristyn picked Irish Spring; the whole first floor smelled of it for days.

We thriftily saved all of the soap shavings for re-melting into new shapes and/or turning into liquid soap as its carver desired.

Smiley One.

Smiley Two.

Corn Husk Dolls

Tristyn & I have been wanting to make Corn Husk Dolls ever since we checked out an old-fashioned crafts book from the library.  Unfortunately we weren't able to renew the book as it had a waiting list of other people who wanted it but with a little look around the Internet and our memories we were sort of able to remember how to do it.

This is a great project if you have been taking advantage of all the late summer corn!!

There are a few preparation steps before you can begin your doll:

1.  Husk (and eat!) corn, being careful to keep the leaves whole.  Lay the husks and the silk in the sun to dry for 1-3 days.  I'm not really sure if this step is necessary since you are going to soak them in the next step but we did it anyway since so many instructions indicate that you should.

2.  Prior to making your doll, soak the husks in water for ten minutes.  Gather up scissors and some sort of string or yarn.  We used brown wool yarn which might not be the best choice as it it a little too dark.

Making the doll

1.  Select 6-7 large leaves and lay them in a stack with the corn silk on top of them. 

2.  Gather the leaves around the corn silk and tie it shut with a bit of yarn or string.  Tie tightly!

3.  Holding the short end of the tied leaves in one hand, carefully peel back the leaves sort of like peeling a banana.  Smooth the leaves out and use another length of string to tie the head at about where my thumb is in the picture.  Tie tightly and set aside.

4.  Take another leaf and cut it into three long strips.  Tie the three strips together and braid them together to make a braid about 6 inches long.  Tie the other end to hold the braid toether.  If you wish to make legs, repeat this two more times for a total of 3 6 inch long braids.

5.  Insert one of the braids under a few of the leaves to form the two arms.  Tie a length of yarn a little below the arms to make the waist.   Trim the excess leaves to make the length of skirt you want or to simply 'straighten the hem.'   If you are making legs, before you tie the waist, place the legs under the leaves as well and then tie the waist.  To neaten up the appearance, tie the long leaves to the front and back of the legs between the legs (think almost like you are diapering the doll) and trim the excess.

6.  If desired, use other pieces of leaves to form clothing.  I made a little apron out of one of the greener pieces and also a little dark green headband to hold back her hair.   You can make pants and shirts as well.

You might want to give the doll a haircut as well.  Tristyn cut most of his doll's hair off.

      Tristyn & Michelle as Corn Husk Dolls

Fun with Sandbox Sand

Sand Play-Doh

1 cup sand
1/2 cup corn starch
3/4 cup water
food coloring of your choice *

Mix food color into water.  Set aside.  Mix sand and cornstarch in a small pot.  Pour colored water into pot.  Cook over medium heat until thickened.  Remove from heat and cool for 5 minutes before playing with it.

This play doh is a little messy--not only will you have trailed through your house as the kids rush from the sandbox to the kitchen but the color also stains hands slightly.  Nothing a little soap and water won't remove!

*We may have overdone the amount needed but we wanted really vibrant colors.

Embroidery

Embroidery is a nice project for long car rides. I was able to finish most of this piece on the way down and back to North Carolina. The next few days I'm supposed to be doing a lot of resting and I'm finding more embroidery and Bollywood movies to be quite a nce mix. =)

Sweet Surprise

There's no such thing as too much tape. I found this squishy little package in the bathroom after Maia was all tucked in and asleep.

Words...spelled out all by herself with no help at all that are readable! Spelling isn't important, right?

What is it? Something handstiched and lovely.....

A Princess Pillow guaranteed to give me sweet dreams after a busy contentment filled weekend. =)

Working Through

Meet Snowflake

She's a bit shy. I know how she feels. Shyness is something I still experience even as an adult that makes a lot of people think I'm unfriendly. <----But I'm really not!

Anyways, I like to keep this blog uplifting and fun but the last few days I've been in a bit of a funk. A midwinter funk perhaps? A three-quarters winter funk? Doesn't matter. I'm working on pulling out of it.

Wee Woodland Folk

The first of the Wee Woodland Folk....

Meet the Leaf Dryad:

now in the shop!

Purple Plaid Pretties

To my delight, yesterday I sold another set of note cards on Etsy!  It was my Woven Hearts Notecards which probably took me longer than all of the others to make due to way they are constructed.  That makes two items so far--which makes me very excited and eager to create more!

It was too early at 6:30 a.m. today to start playing with paper,  but I thought I'd post up a very small set of notecards that I made some time ago.  It's a small set deliberately because sometimes I think there are many people out there that would like to buy handmade things but just can't afford to pay lots of money for them.  Or, it would be good for someone who prefers to buy from a wide variety of people in order to get many different styles.

I'm still figuring out how to best photograph cards so please keep that in mind!

The flowers are raised up slightly.  No boring flat cards here!

I like to dress up the envelope a bit too because who likes a plain envelope????

Crafty Tristyn

Tristyn has been watching me a little bit everyday work on his scarf. On Saturday he asked me if I could teach him to knit, too.

!!!!

I didn't want to deflate his confidence in me by telling him that I hardly know what I'm doing and quickly decided to offer to teach him to crochet first.  I sorta kinda mumbled something about it being a bit easier since there was only one needle involved and he thought I was making perfect sense so away we went.

I let him practicing the hooking motion first while I held the rest of the yarn.  I'm sure my technique is hardly any good but it works.  Technically this picture is Maia giving it a try...her explosion when she couldn't do it was so phenomenal that while I was trying to soothe her and help Tristyn with this step I couldn't manage the camera.

Ahh...here's Tristyn.  In a few minutes he's getting the hang of it.

It wasn't long before he was confident making a chain and then I taught him how to start the next row using single crochets.  He completed 2 before it grew late and it was bedtime.

The next morning Rick was up earlier than I was...but Tristyn beat us all!  He woke up at 5 to 6 (that's A.M. people!) and got to work.  I woke up to a very, very proud 8 year old who showed me this:

A blanket for Keroppi!