Roses Are Blue...

Love Scopes!

I recently blogged about making these for my kids at Letter B. I thought I'd post a tutorial here for anyone who wants to make some. They are super-easy to put together. Little ones might need a hand with the folding but other than that it's a fun Valentine's Day craft for any age.

Love 'Nocs

Materials: Two toilet paper tubes or one paper-towel roll cut in half
                     Glue and colored paper and/or paint or markers 
                     Stapler
                     Hole punch and yarn or ribbon for strap 
                     Optional: Post-it Lables, silver paint pen 

1. Decorate your tubes however you like. I used glue stick and covered them in construction paper.  I used some Post-it Lables (which are really awesome - basically post-its but the entire back is sticky) to create the lens-like stripe at the end. Then I used a silver Sharpie to outline the stripes. But you could paint them, use markers, or even leave them plain. You will be bending the tubes pretty vigorously so keep that in mind with whatever you choose.

2. Pinch the tube at one end until it's completely closed and then flatten the tube all the way down with your fingers. Then put it on a surface and crease both folds well. Tube should be completely flat.

3. Squeeze tube from flattened shape until it's a pointy oval shape. Push the top crease down until it's inverted and you get a heart shape. This takes a little time, shaping with your fingers and recreasing, but with a little patience you'll get a heart-shaped tube. 

4. Repeat with other tube.

5. Staple tubes together at both ends. If you like, punch holes at one end and tie on some yarn or ribbon for a strap.

6. Start looking for love.

Spyglass Love Scope

Follow Love 'Nocs steps 1-3 using a paper towel tube. And then take your awesome piratey love scope and follow step 6.

Oh thank heaven...

Guess what we have for Christmas this year? Go on, guess! Give up? Ok, I'll tell you. We have not one but TWO little girls! And guess what else? (You don't have to guess, I'll just tell you.) They are each the perfect age! Mary Jane is still a teeny tiny baby which means A.) I get to eat her up and B.) she'll wear whatever I make for her! And my sweet Iron-Willa (Little Miss NO-I-DON'T-YIKE-IT!) is finally three (!!!) which means A.) she has HAIR! and B.) for those of you not in the know, three = teeny tiny toys!  Polly Pockets, Playmobil, tea sets AND barrettes and bows...I can barely contain myself. There are buttons, barrettes, fabric, tulle, and ribbons knee deep in the studio. I'm in heaven...

So the first project was for baby Mary Jane. The tutu ties on so it is a very simple project but I think it's going to look so cute with a pair of ballerina tights...*swoons* I cannot wait to smush her into this and eat her up!

If you'd like to make your own Tie-on Baby Tutu, I have put together a quick tutorial (I hope you all appreciate that I resisted the pun there):

First you want to cut a sash out of some nice wide ribbon. It needs to be long enough to go around the waist with enough left over to tie the tutu around the waist with a big bow. I cut mine 34" long for a 14" waist so my bow would have nice long tails. Then you want to cut a rectangular length of tulle. I cut mine about 12" x 42" but you can adjust this to any length and width depending on the size of your child and how long and/or poufy you want your tutu to be. You will be folding the tulle in half lengthwise so make sure you cut it twice as wide as you want your skirt length (waist to hem) to be (for example, my finished skirt is 6" long so the raw piece was 12" wide). The waist measurement is also variable. I made mine 42" (3x as long as the waist) so it would be super fluffy.

Once you have your tulle cut you need to add a stitch down the center lengthwise. Keep a nice long tail and tighten the tension on your machine as high as it will go and make the stitches as long as you can. You can also hold onto the thread at the spool to add extra tension (but don't hold it too tightly or it will snap which is kind of a pain). The high tension and long stitches will gently gather the tulle. You'll still have to make adjustments but this gives you a nice headstart. The center stitch can be done by hand as well. Just make a nice running stitch down the center with a long piece of thread.

Once you have your stitch in place just grab a thread tail and hold it as you slide the tulle towards the center, gathering it as evenly as possible until it reaches the pre-determined waist measurement (again, mine was 14").

Now take your ribbon and fold it in half to find the center (you can also measure but this method is way faster). Add a pin or a mark to the center and then center your gathered tulle on the mark. Pin if you'd like, making sure to adjust the gathers to your liking. I only pinned the ends so I would be able to adjust the gathers as I went along.

Now stitch along the edge of the ribbon making sure to get all the tulle as you go. Move slowly, tulle is squirrely! Once you have it all stitched into place you can go back and cut all of the long thread tails.

And that's it for the skirt! Super easy, right? I had originally planned to fold the ribbon in half to hide the rough edge of the tulle but i liked the look of the wide waistband so I kept it open. You could do either. It's really a very flexible project.

For the onesie, find some matching skinny ribbon, tie a bow, stitch it on and add some Fray Block to the ends of the ribbon. Even easier!

And so cute, holy cow. I'm dying to see it on her!

Ok, moving onto hair accessories now...stay tuned.

Hooah Hoop!

I know how it looks but I promise you that this Christmas was not all about Willa.  I am reasonably sure there were some other people around here that day...but don't ask me to name names or produce photos (I have a bunch more of Willa though if anyone is interested!) 

Anyway.  Moving on.  I think the most fun presents I made this Christmas were the hula hoops.  And the most fun hula hoop was the tiny-sparkling-glittery-pink-and-black hula hoop that I made for Willa.  I have to say her reaction to the little hoop totally made up for her reaction to the pony jacket...

Willa would stand in the middle of her hoop and put her arms up and say "Hoop?  Hooah hoop?  Kahwaa?  Hoop?"  Then she'd stand there laughing and smiling while I spun it around her over and over and over (and over and over...)  As soon as it hit the floor she'd say, "again."  And I'd say, "again, pleeeeease?"  And she'd say, "again, pees."  And on and on it went.  Until one of us got tired of it.

Yeah, ok, until I got tired of it.

While (in another spectacular rookie move) I failed to take photos of the all of the Christmas hoops alone under the tree, I did manage to get a few shots with the hoops in the background.  This shot has some kid in it but you can see a few of the hoops back there shimmering in the tree lights...aren't they pretty?  Oh, I'm kidding.  This adorable elf is my nephew, Lowell, hamming it up for the camera.  All I can say without getting myself in trouble is that he comes by his hamming honestly.  But holy cow, could he be any cuter?

Thank you, Asheville! Good night!

Ok, so if you missed The Big Crafty Holiday Fair in Asheville this Sunday, y'all totally missed out!  And I'm not just saying that because I was there.  It was super cool.  Awesome vendors, amazing stuff, Santa Claus, cupcakes...free beer.  I mean, c'mon.  It doesn't get better than cupcakes and free beer.  Plus it was in Asheville which is such a cool little town.  And it even snowed!  So, plan on it for next year.  Even if you have to drive a little.

I want to say thank you to everyone who stopped by the booth, thank you to all of my customers and thank you to all of the sponsors & planners who made it all happen.  I also must thank my own personal sponsor, my fabulous momma (that's her hiding back there), for coming with me, for feeding me (SO well!) and for putting us up in the nicest B & B in Asheville, the Hill House (without her it would have been sofa city for me...)  Not to mention for schlepping boxes, sitting for hours and helping me and all of the customers all day long...thank you, Mom!  Oh, and I need to thank Terry and Bill, the wonderful innkeepers at Hill House, for such phenomenal breakfasts (omg, crème brûlée french toast...*drools*), cozy accommodations and delightful company (oh, and the bottomless cookie jar (!) and divinely evil treats...) 

I will be listing the items I still have in the shop today so for those of you who couldn't make it to Asheville, you can still shop!  Yay!  And maybe if you are lucky you even have snow where you are.

How could you resist faces like these?

Ok, so nothing like a last minute invitation.  But, good news!  I am going to be a vendor in the super awesome Big Crafty Holiday Show in Asheville, NC Sunday December 6th from 12-6.  Which, yeah, is this Sunday...so if you are in the area I hope you will stop by and say hello.  Not just to me-there are a ton of amazing vendors participating.  And maybe even snow!  Outside, of course, but still very festive.  Perfect weather to get you in the mood for a little holiday shopping.  Hope to see you all there!

 

**EDIT: Whoops!  Were you wondering what the faces are for?  They are for the Warm Fuzzies.  They'll be waiting for you at the show!**

Pysanky!

Gesundheit!  Ok, ok, so I know this post is long overdue seeing as Easter was almost last month..but here we go.  Every year around Easter my aunt Jill and uncle Dan host a pysanky party.  And every year around Easter I miss it.  What is pysanky, you ask?  Alana did a great job describing it on her blog a couple of years ago so I will let you read that before we start (and save myself some serious typing).  Let me know when you are ready.

Ready?  Ok, so finally this year I just so happened to be in town for the pysanky party!  My aunt and uncle had everything ready to go when we arrived.  I took my place at the huge newspaper-covered table, picked a nicely shaped egg and then tried desperately not to be intimidated by the professional artists across the table who were doing, among other things, portraits of presidents on their eggs.  In the end, I opted for a simple bunny design.  Which was plenty confusing for me.  But I was so excited by the whole process that I wanted to try it at home with the boys. 

When I got home I showed the boys my egg and told them we probably wouldn't be able to get the supplies in time for Easter but I would order them anyway so we could try it.  Riley and I got online and lo and behold there is an online pysanky retailer here in NC!  What luck!  The folks at All Things Ukrainian were incredibly charming and helpful and we got our supplies in ONE day.  Lucky for us too because we spent the better half of Friday just setting up the table...this is not Paas & crayons, y'all.  The photo below shows a couple of Riley's eggs in the early stages of dying and waxing.

I do have to say that this year was one of the most pleasant Easter mornings that I can recall.  No egg hunts, no bickering, just pysanky until brunch and then again until bedtime.  The boys ended up decorating eggs for three days in a row.  Now there are eggs in the candle holders on the mantle, in dishes on the tables, and apothecary jars on the shelves...three dozen in all.  They are too pretty to put away (that and I still haven't figured out where to put them...)

Happy April Fool's Day!

This day is one of the favorites here in the Garrett household.  We spend a lot of time coming up with tricks to play on one another.  And, it is also special because it's my birthday (yeah, yeah, I know, the joke was on my parents, ha ha ha...)  Now we do have a few basic pranking rules: no water (outside of the bathroom), no baby powder (enacted after the 2008 baby powder fiasco), nothing permanent (eg. sharpie moustaches), and nothing mean.  Most years I have a big prank lined up, like last year when I sealed the boys into their rooms with transparent window plastic.  All I have to do still is picture them running into an invisible force field and I start laughing.  Riley was so confused he ran into it twice. 

Anyway, this year I have no big prank.  Which turns out is really a good prank in itself.  It was funny this morning watching my family cautiously opening cabinets, peering around corners, and looking up before crossing a threshold or moving a door.  I do have several little pranks set up...however, most of them were unwittingly foiled by my husband (one of the drawbacks of birthday sleeping in).  For example, I switched out the inner bag of frosted mini wheats on a new box for a bag of UNfrosted mini wheats (I know it's silly but the confused faces get me every time!)  Unfortunately, Kevin decided to make the boys eggs this morning.  I mean, seriously?  They eat cereal for breakfast EVERY day.  Then I rigged the boys bathroom so that the shower would turn on instead of the faucet and spray my oldest in the head when he went to shower.  But he woke up a little late so my husband told him he could skip it.  Argh!  I did get them with the wadded up socks in their shoes and the koolaid in the sink faucet though.  Mmmmm, grape-mint toothpaste...

The most elaborate prank I have this year was one that Alana actually came up with for her son's Wacky Wednesday day at his preschool: sandwich cupcakes.  It is actually a very simple prank but for my kids it required a pretty elaborate ruse.  They are veterans of April Fool's Day jokes (and they are not in preschool anymore), food gags in particular.  We've done meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting, toasted pound cake grilled cheese sandwiches, banana pudding & marshmallow fluff fried eggs...now they can spot a food gag a mile away.   I knew it wasn't going to be easy to get them.  So yesterday I bought cake mix and butter and told them I was baking cupcakes for my birthday blog entry.  I even let them lick the beaters from the buttercream frosting just so they would know that the cupcakes were the real deal.  Once the cupcakes were baked, frosted and sprinkled I sent the boys to bed and told them I would pack one in their lunches.  I know that baking and decorating 24 cupcakes might seem like a lot of work for a simple prank but the set up is just as important as the trick itself (plus, as you can see, I didn't go all out on the decorating...)  This is a real cupcake:

After the boys were safely tucked away in bed I made the fakies.  Turkey, bread and lots of pink cream cheese.  Only the sprinkles are real.  I do think this prank challenges the nothing mean rule but I am calling it fair since there are 24 real cupcakes waiting for them after school.  Mmm, turkey, cream cheese and whole wheat bread.  Just what they were looking forward to...

Happy Easter! What?

I SAID, "HAPPY EASTER!" 

Ok, just one more interruption before we get back to the simple fixes.  It's spring!  Well, tomorrow will be anyway.  And that means Easter is just around the corner.  If you were with me last year then these perpetual chocolate bunnies will look familiar.  But since last year the boys were, um, less than impressed with my clever faux chocolate, this year I have made them for y'all instead!  Now they are available for you to have your very own!  That is unless you'd rather have a roa-err, palmetto bug for your easter basket? 

Shameless, I know, but if I don't plug myself then who will?

Oh no! I forgot to cover the sugar bowl last night...

Ug.  And now the gnomes are everywhere!  That is just not a good way to start the morning.  Once they find a food source, these guys are impossible to get rid of!

Grrr.  Now I'm going to have to dump all of that sugar and I just filled the bowl!

Looks like it's time to put on my exterminator cap and get busy.  Someone's gotta do it.  May as well be me...

Do you know what happens when you live too close to the South Carolina border?

Wait, I should back up a bit.  Rewind to New Years 1999.  The new millenium.  We were hosting a party (because there was no way we were getting a sitter that night!)  Kevin, my husband, had decided that we needed to have our very own east-coast-west New York-style ball drop.  He bought a large, but reasonable, paper lantern from Cost Plus (World Market), covered it in spray adhesive and tinfoil and spent the greater part of the day fanatically poking tiny white christmas lights through the layers (he was a little Jack Nicolson-esque in his dirty white T-shirt...I won't pretend I wasn't scared of him that day...)  He and my BIL took a double-length pool skimmmer pole and stuck it into a cement patio umbrella stand to serve as the ball stand.  They rigged the ball and cords up through the giant oak tree in the front yard and at midnight we all counted down while they lowered the ball in the front yard.  It was the apex of an already awesome party.  Little did any of us know, though, that this was the beginning of an obsession...since that night the balls have gotten bigger, the heights higher and with our move to The South about 6 years ago, have involved fireworks.

Ok, back to 2008. 

About 3 days before our 8th annual New Year's Eve party (we have skipped a year or two) I woke up to this scene in the backyard...do you see Mario-the-tree-climber up there?  40 feet up into a tall pine?  Well, we've had a few err, premature ball drops in the past so this year Kevin decided on permanent rigging. 

We tried to explain to Mario what the rigging was all about but he didn't really understand.  Until he saw the ball hanging in the garage.  Then he just laughed and said, "Ahhhh, piñata."

Kevin had been planning the 8th annual ball for several weeks before the party and took over the garage with the boys.  The 2008 ball was the biggest yet.  6 feet in diameter, made of paper mache and wrapped in hundreds of tiny white lights.  And, after a quick trip to South Carolina, it was also wrapped in more explosives then would ever be considered...smart.  This is what happens, by the way, when you live too close to the border.  They strapped a coil of 1000 firecrackers, bandolero-style, around the ball and added a four foot long tail of Picolo Petes... and yes, that's a lighter in his hand...

Finally, the 8th Annual Garretts Drop-the-Ball (again) New Years Eve party, a house and yard full of people and several lighters at the ready...it was a spectacular sight for sure.  Once the 3-and-a-half minute explosion was over, we had all digits intact and no fires!  Bonus!  And then Kevin asked me with a big proud smile, "So, did I make your blog yet?"  

Happy New Year to you all!