What happened to our tree...

John came out one morning to discover our tree had been seriously roughed up. John said a bison had been through, Grandpa said to watch out for bears, but in all likelihood, we just had a deer get frisky with our tree.

Activity Book

This is the little activity book I made for L. I still have the one someone made for me (neither mom or I can remember who) that zips and snaps and ties. I loved that book somuch as a kid, so I wanted to make one for L. Since she's already playing with mine, I wanted one with a different kind of theme. We're excited to teach L about gardening, so that seemed like a good idea.


The seeds on the first page are in a plastic pouch, so you can push them around. The watering can is really just attached with a snap, but it allows it to swivel, so you can water the garden.



The center page has a small stuffed sun that can be pulled out and tucked behind the cloud. Three of the little sprouts pull up, so that you can help them grow.



Then the harvest! The corn husks fold down to reveal the corn, and you pull the stuffed felt carrot out of the ground through a button hole.



The back page shows a little plate with corn and carrots. There is a napkin, and a small stuffed fork held in place by velcro, so you can remove it to eat the food.

Summer

this year's garden:

L's first sushi:

L's fourth sushi:

swinging:



playing with daddy:

Fiesta colors

Easter Dress

Here's a sneak peak at this little dress I made for L from this simple pattern Whitney sent me from Knitty (it's at the bottom of the page). It turned out really nicely (unlike the sweater vest I made John...), and it came together in just a day. It's the 6 month size, and it's still a little big on her!

Cables!

This Christmas my family played a little game where we all wrote down things we wanted do, people we wanted to be more like, and habits we wanted to break in the new year.

My new thing was learning to cable knit. I've wanted to do it for years, but just hadn't gotten to it. So one day last week I sat down with my book and read about cable knitting. That's it? Really? I put it off all this time, and really that's all.

So cables really aren't very hard. This is going to be a little hat for L (just in time for summer). I just made up a little pattern based on this one, mostly just to give me a project to do cables. I'll show it when it's finished.

Snow Day

The weather was so lovely when we went hiking, and then we had maybe 4 inches of heavenly snow, and then yesterday it was so nice and warm we played out side. Today it's rainy. Whatever - I'm enjoying all of it. Here's our snow day.

Just a quick note to say: Look at this little quilt I made John for Valentine’s Day!

In Like a Lion

Oh, wait. Its still February.

We had a little snow, and lovely icicles last week.
The next day, John brought me some daffodils that were blooming.





And, I put L in the laundry basket while I made dinner.

Wrapping

I've been working hard to get a nice look for my etsy merchandise, and I think some of these ideas have been kind of fun. Here's a look at what I do:

I tie a ribbon around every item. I slide a tag onto the item using a tiny safety pin. Some of my tags have printed logos on them, and others are just plain cardstock with one of my homemade stamps. Then I wrap it all up in tissue paper.



Next, I sew up an envelope, from a paper grocery sack, apply a few stamps, and voila! I'm new to stamping, so I keep getting them crooked or smudgy. Who knew stamps were so tricky?



And, hey, Audrey - you can carve a stamp using lino cutters on a block of rubber, or even a good rubber eraser. You can buy a little kit that comes with all the supplies for pretty cheap at most craft stores.