My Only Sunshine

Arts and Craps

We've been doing lots of Arts and Craps (another term coined by my Girlies) at my house this weekend.  We are preparing for both DI Performance and 1st Grade music program.  The most fun part of the Arts and Craps is how Buster participates.

My husband has always said he is not a crafty guy.  He hated that part of elementary school and young life and works hard to avoid it when the girls do artsy craftsy things.  When push comes to shove though, he is the world's best Arts and Craps Dad.  Here's an example.

He helped the girls and I make a geologically correct backdrop designed to look like the rocks of Utah.  It's wonderful.  Our DI presentation is about Dinosaur bones so a good rocky backdrop is a must.

Doesn't Bitty look like she is having so much fun painting the rocks?  Here's another pic, look at the lovely shape of the top of our mountains.

Have you ever tried cutting cardboard precisely?  It's HARD!  I had an inspired moment yesterday when I was trying to figure out how to cut the cardboard.  Want to see?

It's the electric knife I bought years ago to cut turkey and only used once.  It was PERFECT for cutting cardboard just exactly the way I wanted it.  Try it, you'll like it.

Want to play my Tangerine?

Bitty was encouraged to make an instrument for school.  We, the parents, were asked to let the kids do it themselves.  It seems to be becoming a bit of a problem at school with parents doing most of the work for their kids on larger projects.  I don't have that problem because my kids would never allow me to do their work for them.  They love projects too much.

This is what Bitty made...

She sewed it entirely herself and chose to fill it with M&Ms.  Smart huh?  She has an instrument and a snack at the same time.  The funny thing about this instrument isn't that it is made of paperplates or that it has candy inside.  My favorite part is its name.

Those readers of my blog who have kids will probably recognize this phenomenon.  Sometimes when children hear a new word and they don't know it, they change it to some word they already know that is close to the new word.  Bit's little paper plate shaky music maker is a "Tangerine".  When I mentioned that I thought maybe it was a tambourine she disagreed with me, she was pretty sure it was a Tangerine.

Planning to post about her tangerine made me think about all the other things my Girlies say that are special to the two of them.  Buster and I started making a list.

Lose instead of use, "I need to lose the bathroom."
The Lizard of Oz
A buffalo and is Buffaloaf

A museum would be Newseeum
Has instead of as, "This is has good has it gets."
Snow Glove

I love these things.  I hope I can remember them all and get them all written down.

On a totally unrelated note, They are making Starbucks pods for my Tassimo!!!

Another

Am I having too much fun with my doodles? Now if I could just figure out what to do with them.

It's Elemental

How many of you see the wonderful and amazing things people do with Photoshop and wish you could do it too?  Yes, right up until the point that you realize that PS costs a bajillion dollars.  Me too.  Do you have Photoshop Elements?

I have Elements and often find it lacking, but every once in a while it does the things I was wishing for.  Last week I saw this post on Craft Chi and thought I would very much like to give it a try.  This is where the complaints about the cost of buying Photoshop come into play.  Why should I have to spend hundreds of dollars in order to make some scrapbook paper or something out of my own little doodles?

It works in Elements too!  I'm very excited.  This is just a few minutes of goofing with some simple doodles I whipped up just to try out this tutorial and some cursing at my scanner but I think it is pretty fun.  You should go check out Craft Chi.  She's got a good little blog over there.

Have you ever tried to knit a sweater without shoulders?

This is Soft.  I'm not describing her, Soft is her name.  She doesn't have shoulders.  When Bit got Soft for Christmas she didn't have any clothing and Bit wasn't sure that was good because her other rabbits who sit upright all have clothes (we should have stock in Build-a-Bear).  So she got yarn out of the yarn closet and brought it to me.  "You could make Soft a sweater!"  It was really half an idea and half an order.  That's just how Bitty rolls.

I knit a lot but I don't have that much sweater practice.  I have knit myself one sweater and I have knit a couple of shrugs and things like that.  So I turned to a pattern for the sweater for Soft.  I used Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns.  I chose a raglan cardigan pattern because, as you can see by the pictures and the title of this post, Soft doesn't have shoulders.  She also has the skinniest arms EVER.

I think the sweater turned out pretty cute though, don't you?  I mean, even with shoulders on a shoulderless bunny rabbit.  The most important thing is that Bitty likes it and she thinks Soft feels much better now.  Look how cute her little rabbit tail is.

Speaking of rabbits, if you like rabbits as much as we do at our house you should go take a look at Rachael's blog.  She even has a fantastic rabbit filled etsy shop.

Doing Fine

Have you ever had one of those days where you just wanted to tell everyone what a great day you were having?  Like when you make a really great batch of cookies and just want everyone to taste them?  There is a new forum that has just started up, pretty interesting, all about those kinds of days.  It's a place to go to talk about all the good in the world.  If you'd like to take a look you can click on the Doing Fine.Org button in my right  sidebar.  It would even help me out if you clicked it, and then I'd be Doing Fine.

Sure is good COOKIE

Do you like Nestle' Tollhouse Cookies or do you prefer the fancy cookies you get at bakeries and those cookies boutiques at the mall?  Yeah, me too, I like them both.  Over the long weekend I was in the mood for chocolate chip cookies and a little baking with my Girlies.  I wasn't in the mood for thin Tollhouse style this time though, I wanted something thick and rich and gooey.  I may well have found the perfect recipe.

This recipe is from Words To Eat By and she calls them "the best homemade chocolate chip cookies in the entire world".  I'm pretty sure she's right.  She includes some tips on how to keep your cookies from spreading out flat and I used some of them but I also did a few things of my own.  I creamed cold butter with the sugar for the shortest amount of time I could to get things fully mixed but still cold.  I used a cold egg and kept things cold as I worked.  I also used Nestle' Chocolatier Bittersweet Morsels which are 62% cacao.  Yumm.  Once the dough was mixed I used an ice cream scoop to put the dough onto the cookies sheet on a silicon liner and then put it all into the fridge to chill it thoroughly.  This way when I cooked the cookies they didn't spread too fast and stayed thick ad chewy.  With the size of the cookies I made I only got about 14 out of the recipe but that was just right.  One cookie is the perfect size to go into Bitty's backpack for her school snack.  She'll probably come home with chocolate all over her.

Happy Valentine's Day

These are the Valentines the girlies and I put together for their teachers and best friends.

I think the vintage Valentine's cards work perfectly with the felt hearts I made, don't you?  Oh, and I can't forget to post a picture of my Valentines.

Dance Book

Last week Bug started learning her dance for her ballet recital in May.  This year she has moved up two classes and they are doing something different.  Her teacher is having them write down the steps they will be doing.  It's a pretty big step.  Bug is 8 years old and she is having to take French dictation from a slightly scattered ballet teacher in order to learn moves she hasn't done yet. I was pretty excited by all of this so I decided to try a new craft (I know, I didn't exactly need another) and make her a book.

I painted the front coverboard and covered the back in fabric and pasted in flowered end papers.  Bug picked the rub ons for the front.  Suits her doesn't it?

The signatures are a combination of blank pages, lined pages, and some inspirational ballet photos.  I used a coptic binding to hold it all together and I'm afraid I'm not all too good at it yet.  I'm excited to learn more though.  Bitty enjoyed watching me make it so much that she now has one as well.  She designed and painted her own cover and the interior pages feature lots of bunnies.

This next one is my favorite photo.  Bug's notes from class.  It's hard to write in French when you can hardly write in English yet.