Advent Calendar

What do you do with too many baby food jars, some really cool tissue paper, and a can of spray paint?

Why, you make an advent calendar, of course!!

I wish I could say that everything I used I already had on hand, and had we unpacked all of my stuff we would have, but because some of it is still packed and stored, I had to buy some modge podge, some ribbon, the glittery stickers, and tissue paper. That made me a little sad, really, since this could’ve been a 100% buy nothing project, but regardless… recycled baby food jars!!!

I would also like to say that all the jars are filled, but alas, my computer crashed three times last week, taking my print file with it, three times in a row. Something about saving my file in Illustrator seemed to make my mac very unhappy, and I haven’t had the heart to try again. For now, we’ll imagine that these little jars are filled with time tickets a la Maya Made, which I thought was a beautiful idea. For a few months I’ve been wondering what to fill the calendar with, since our kids do not need more stuff, and with the baby crawling all around, little trinkets and toys are a disaster in the making. One of my most favorite gifts of all time was the gift certificate my mom made for me for a Mommy and Me dress-up and shopping date. What a beautiful way to turn the focus back to building those precious family moments together…

OK, so I think I’ll get back to work on that time ticket file now.

Is That More Spinning Fiber?

No, in fact it’s four months worth of dryer lint. Pretty, no?

Mom has a new house, with a new fireplace… and every fire needs some method of ignition. Back when we lived in California, most of our friends lit their fires with fancy red buttons beside their fire screens, or a few by remote. But out in God’s country, where Mom will soon be living once the house is complete and her travels wind down, those methods are frowned upon as a tad too frou frou. So we are using leftover cardboard egg cartons, leftover lint, and leftover candle wax melted in a leftover pot to create little firestarters. It’s been fun collecting all the things we need while trying not to buy anything new, although old candles are hard to come by, and the ones we’ve found are quite, uh, fragrant. I thought that maybe we might be able to reuse the glass jars and lids that contained the candles, but I haven’t quite figured out how to remove all the wax residue, and MAN! That wax has some stinky scent to it!! Os into the recycling bin the glass went! And after the wax was melted and poured over the lint, I had to place the egg cartons outside while they cooled and make some pasta with tons of garlic and butter to push the cloying synthetic strawberry scent out of the first floor.

Yes, I know this has nothing to do with knitting… or spinning, or cooking, or sewing, but I’ve been putting together a craft room for the majority of the weekend while the husband was home and able to watch the kids, so I’m afraid that not much else creative has happened. A progress report on the new room will soon be posted as I’m rather excited to have all my “making” materials finally living in one location and the room is coming along nicely.

What a Day!

Geez Louise! I managed to get a lot done today! It definitely helped that I had someone here to help me with the kids while I cleaned up… I never heard of a Mother’s Helper before I moved to this neighborhood, but I have to say, it is an amazing concept!!

Last night I ripped into the dress. After the carnage was complete, I was absolutely covered in little bits and pieces of thread, as was the couch, the floor and the coffee table. It was a bit like unraveling a puzzle, and it wasn’t as monotonous as I expected it to be although it definitely was time consuming.

Today I manged to lay it all out to get a sense of how much fabric there really was.

Think there is enough fabric for a dress for a newborn and a three year old, and one little one year old boy? There are two layers !! of lining, all piled up in the front corner, and since it’s all polyester, maybe I can put some of that to use as well!

The only piece I left was the bodice… can’t really decide if there’s enough fabric to do anything with those little bits, so I’m going to leave it as is for a minute.

I also have these lovely bits of fabric just waiting to be made into some hot weather maternity tops and maybe an outfit or two for the kids.

Not really sure what to do with that striped silk… it’s rather too stiff for clothing, but I love it so much and I’ve wanted to do something with it for quite some time.

And finally, I have two gorgeous thrift finds–never worn with original tags!!–to show. Hoping to tailor them for maternity wear… but, uh, I haven’t really ever tailored anything before. We’ll see how I manage that. Any suggestions would be appreciated, as my searches for modifying for maternity haven’t really come up with anything other than instructions for changing up your favorite jeans!

I’m starting to think that I might have a bit more projects than I have time. Help!!