I live in Dallas. I love football. You got it, I'm a diehard Cowboys fan. Having said that, today I will be cheering loud and long for the New Orleans Saints. Go Saints!!!
(Don't you love my little Cricut made Saints sign? I was taking a break from cutting out the pieces for my kids' valentines for school)
Bug has three BFFs at school. They eat together, play together, email each other, and have sleep overs as often as they can talk the parents into it. They call themselves the "mushrooms" and love to make each other little crayon pictures of mushrooms and things like that. They each have a color for their own mushroom persona.
Bug and I decided to make necklaces for each of the mushrooms in their colors. While Bug was stringing beads onto Stretch Magic I was making little mushroom charms out of polymer clay.
The green one is for Bug. I didn't want a head pin to show at the bottom so I used an eye pin stuck almost to the bottom of the mushroom and then added a drop of jewelry glue to hold the pin in after the curing was done.
The beaded cord matches the 'shrooms and is stretchy so it will fit over the kids' heads. This is the first time I have used Stretch Magic and so far it is holding up really well. They have been wearing their mushrooms for a couple of weeks now with no breakage. These are 4th graders; they aren't the most gentle jewelry owners.
I tied the cord in two knots to secure it and applied a drop of jewelry glue between the knots. The place where the cord is tied off is not noticeable at all.
I've been having fun with the polymer clay the last couple of weeks. I got burned out on it when I was working with it every day for my knitting needle business. I guess it has been long enough to get back to enjoying it.
Here's a pic of the 'shrooms in their necklaces.
Here's the Bug in her swim warm-ups at the end of the first day. Doesn't she look like the cutest little athlete?
This is the way the swimmers remember where they need to be and when. The big numbers are the events and the smaller numbers are lane and heat number.
Isn't this costume for Bitty's tap recital cute? Her sassy little personality should pair with this perfectly.
So obviously my kids are involved in lots of stuff. If you've ever come around here before you can't help but notice that I have two little ballet dancers, a couple of tappers, a jazz and lyrical jazz dancer or two, a swimmer, a volleyball player, two girl scouts, and I'm probably forgetting some. Yes, all of that in the form of two tiny little girls.
Today I'll just be showing off my swimmer Bug kid. A couple of weeks ago she had her first big meet and boy was she great.
She swam two mornings in a row, 3 events each day. This was her first time and she was thrown right in. The kids are expected to know where they need to be, when they need to be there. The meet doesn't stop once it has begun. One event (some with many many heats) is run right after another. Also, no parents on the pool deck so us moms can't be helping them get where they need to go, when they need to go there. Bug didn't miss a step though, not even in a room with hundreds of swimmers all moving and talking and swimming at once.
Here's Bug swimming her 100scy (short course yards) Freestyle. For a kid who has only really been swimming for a year or so, she has great form. She also did the 50y Free.
Here's the little sweetie Bug dipping her feet in the warm-up pool. She was very patiently waiting to swim her 100y IM (Individual medley).
Bug is pretty slow in the Breast Stroke but she went for it in the 100y IM and the 50y breast anyway. I was a very proud Mommy. She was DQ'd for each but that was to be expected. She hasn't had much time practicing how to get her breast and butterfly rhythm correct or how to turn and touch at the end. On top of that, Bug hadn't ever jumped off the blocks until the warm-ups for this meet. She's a big, brave Bug.
Backstroke is Bug's best stroke and she competed in the 50 and 100y back. It was so much fun to watch. Meets can get pretty boring in between the heats your kid is in but it still made for a great weekend. The next meet is Valentine's Day weekend and we are looking forward to it. There's just one problem...
...Bug was diagnosed last week with anterior tibialis tendinitis.
She is supposed to rest for 2 weeks which means no dance and no swim training that involves her feet. Her coach has her doing dry deck arm and core work and next week she will be swimming with a pull buoy so that she won't be using her legs or feet at all. We'll see how it goes.
My friends at Klutz have another book I think you might like.
My Itty Bitty has been totally into friendship bracelets since learning how to make them for a Girl Scout badge a few weeks ago. She's 8 and has plenty of friends to give bracelets to.
When Klutz offered to send me this book to try out I wondered if they live next door and know my Bitty personally, what great timing. You know what's better than sending me a free book to try out? You guessed it, they will send books to my friends too! Everyone loves a good giveaway.
Here's what Klutz has to say about this book, "New from the Klutz bookshelf!
Introducing Fancy Friendship Bracelets, the original Friendship Bracelet’s new best friend! Klutz started with super-simple instructions for a flock of all-new bracelet designs. We added five different colors of cord and more than 200 sparkling beads. Then we threw in some stylish charms for good measure. The result is even better than we hoped."
How about a look inside.
Bit and I haven't had time to make all the bracelets in the book yet but the ones we have tried have been fun. Even though they are called "fancy" bracelets, Bit found them pretty easy to put together. The finishing instructions and the beads included were my favorite part.
So here are the details - Comment on this post and on December 30 I will pick two winners. Those two winners will each get a Fancy Friendship Bracelets book from Klutz for themselves and a second book to share with a friend. Don't forget to give me your email address so I can let you know if you won. Good Luck!
I recently posted a review, on Craft Critique, of a product I got at CHA this summer. Now that it is nearly time for CHA winter I thought I should show you what I made.
I made these yoga socks for Bug on my Clover 9" circular needle. Go take a look at my review. As you can see, I love this knitting needle!
I do pretty well with the magic loop method. I'm even relatively good with two circs. I just can't seem to get good at DPNs at all. With just one short needle I can whip up a project so fast that even my short attention span doesn't run out before it is finished. Shocking isn't it?
Can you see Bug's cute little chill bumps up there? What a great foot model I have. She'll roll up her pants and go out in the cold with me for a photo shoot. She is getting a really cool pair of socks out of the deal. At least I think they are.
These are knit with Knit Picks sock yarn that is so old that they don't have anything like it on their website anymore. It's close to this though.
I made up the pattern myself. It's basically just a tube. I knit some 1x1 rib, then switched to 4x1 rib. Then I knit another section of 1x1 rib and I cast off half of the stitches in the middle of the section and cast them back on in the next round. When I switched back to the 4x1 rib I threw in a few K2tog. A little more 1x1 rib and I was ready to cast off.
Aren't they cute on my little dancer Bug? She's most excited to have socks she can wear with her flip flops. She wants to wear new Croc flip flops no matter how cold it is outside. Silly girl.
We got this cute little bag and card delivered to our door last night. It's a BOO. In our neighborhood people leave treats on each others porches at Halloween. The people who receive the "Boo"s then make their own treats and pass the fun on to another family. This is all done in secret and is great fun for all the kids. We will put the ghost that came in our bag on our front door so everyone will know that we have had our treats and somebody else is waiting for a surprise.
The funny thing about getting our Boo last night is that we had nearly finished making Boos of our own to start things off. Now we're ready to pass on the fun. The Girlies and I made chocolate pretzel rods, cookies, and mummymallows. I'll let the fun pictures speak for themselves.
This is the sign our victims will hang up in order to tell others they have already been BOO'd and the poem to explain what is going on.
I used Martha Stewart's new tinsel glitter to "liven" up my ghost and BOO a little.
Orange hot chocolate, can you stand it? So cute!
The Girlies picked out pencils and buttons to include too. They are excited to see the people they Boo'd in secret using their pencils in class. What are the odds they won't give themselves away?
Here it is, all bundled up and ready to be left on someone's front porch. We put all the goodies in a halloween sand bucket. The kids will deliver under the cover of darkness tonight.
Thank you for waiting so patiently to hear who won the KLUTZ books. I was waiting to tell you until I had gotten the delivery of their books all set up with KLUTZ. Now that the books are on the way I can announce that Stacie, Wendi, and Brittany won the fun little books. They should arrive on Monday and I can't wait to hear what they think of them.
Now for a little iPhone Thursday action, today we have Video! This is Bug in Tuesday's "mini-meet". She recently joined the swim team (which is amazing since she was scared to get in the water a year ago) and had her first competition this week. The coaches are amazed at her strength, from all the dancing, so are working hard to teach her the strokes fast so they can get her competing against kids outside her own team. This mini-meet is just for kids on the city wide swim team. In this video Bug is swimming her first ever race. It's the 25meter Freestyle and she is in the middle lane.Did you notice that Bug totally killed the other kids? She's so amazing. She went on to win the 25m Backstroke as well, which she taught herself. Then she placed 3rd in her final race which was the 25m Breaststroke. She had only done a single lap of breaststroke in her life before that competition. I'm a pretty proud Mommy, as you can imagine.
While Bug has been swimming, Bitty has been playing volleyball. She's tiny and sometimes has a hard time serving the ball over the net. At the same time, she is more into the game and practice than any other kid on the team. She LOVES it and you can tell in everything she does. It's amazing.
So my next post will be about my whirlwind week with Provocraft. Right now it's time to head to the school library for a little book shelving.
