on-hand modern

If you had a cardboard box...

what would *you* do with it?

(Comments + photos welcome.)

Cooking up (more) birthday fun

Nothing says "party" like pizza at 9:00 in the morning.

Right?

Cookbook-inspired invitations:

 

Appropriate party/cooking attire:

Seven (recycled) dishtowels + 14 yards double-fold bias tape = aprons for each guest.

Making pizzas:

Touring the kitchen:

The giant refrigerator was, of course, a (giant) hit, as was the soda dispenser (4 root beers, 1 lemonade, 3 waters). I was slightly disconcerted by the puddles of water all over the floor, but no one else seemed to mind. And the pizza was...

Tasty:

 

Dessert + party favors to-go:

Done! (Until next year...)

Anatomy of a 6th birthday

It's tough to say who was more excited--the birthday girl or her parents. K made the sign, which, by the way, is how I (most recently) fell in love with him all over again.

Birthday morning surprises...

She asked for a basket first a bike second. Luckily, she got both.

Birthday accessories...

The badge (made by moi) is a tradition we've had for several years, but the felt crown (inspired by Amanda Soule and others) is new. I made it completely out of materials I had on hand (including the tie which I recycled from a retired pair of drawstring pants--woot!). The resulting color combination is something I normally wouldn't have chosen, but I love how it turned out.

Inaugural bike ride...

A little wobbly/unsure, but did you see? No training wheels or anything! (Thank you, beloved balance bike. You have served us well.)

Cake...

Baking a cake together has become a birthday tradition. This year Liv looked through my cookbooks and selected "Orange Juice and Olive Oil Cake with Pine Nuts" from this book. Ooo-kay.

As birthday girl, she also got to select the rest of the day's menu...

Breakfast:
Bagel with peanut butter and strawberry jam
Cottage cheese
Pears

Lunch:
Turkey and cheese sandwich
Watermelon

Dinner:
Pasta with homemade alfredo sauce
Broccoli

Birthday wishes...

Loved ones near and far made the day extra special with their phone calls, cards, emails...

and, of course, gifts. Nothing like some raging consumerism to make my kid look like this:

Six sparkler candles...

Happy birthday, sweet, sweet girl. We love you.

Recycle: make a bookmark from scrap fabric and garbage

 

Olivia likes to read. And make stuff. This makes her mother very happy.

So does this grin:

Want to make a bookmark too? Here's how...

Cereal box: before

Cereal box: after (approximately 2" x 7" strips)

Now make a fabric "sleeve" to cover each cardboard strip. Cut 2 strips of fabric (per bookmark) to a length/width that is 3/8" wider/longer than your cereal box strips.

Sew a 1/4-inch hem on the short side of each piece of fabric:

Then with right sides together, line up the hemmed edges and sew around the remaining 3 edges using a 1/4-inch seam allowance:

Clip corners and turn right side out:

Slide cardboard inserts into fabric sleeves:

Finished! (The bookmark + the book...more on the book later.)

Hooray for talking mice and first sewing projects!

Back-to-school sewing therapy (or one curtain three ways)

Sigh. Where does the time go? The kids and I were out for a walk the other day and noticed that the leaves are already beginning to change colors. Another summer drawing to an end--much too quickly I might add.  And yet there is much to look forward to in the coming weeks--cooler weather (read: smaller hair/fewer mosquitoes), fall foods (I make a mean French onion soup), and the start of a new school year (crayons on sale for $.19 a box--oh, how I love a bargain).

A friend of mine sent me some pictures of her daughter all dressed up for her first day of kindergarten in a plaid, pleated jumper and black Mary Janes. (Swoon!) I must admit briefly toying with the idea of abandoning homeschooling, if only for the adorable uniforms. Instead, I stayed up late and indulged myself in a wild and crazy night of back-to-school sewing:

Recognize that fabric? I used it to make Asher's critter keeper too. All from a curtain panel I got on clearance at Target ($10). Rather Maria Von Trapp-esque, don't you think?

 

 

To make this skirt, I used House on Hill Road's Twirly Skirt tutorial. After an intense period of rigorous experimentation, I think we can safely say it lives up to its name:

 

I think she likes it, don't you? (Yes, that is a giant mosquito bite in the middle of her forehead.)

Loosely following the instructions in this book, I also made Asher a drawstring backpack from the same material.

 

 

He's been asking for a "pack-pack" like Olivia's, so I assumed he would be excited about it. Instead, I got this:

It seems he thought we were fitting him for a straight-jacket, not a backpack (he didn't like his arms restrained). Lesson learned: never assume anything with a two-year-old. Apparently, a tote bag would have been better:

By the way, did you notice Olivia's gold medal in that first picture? She got that from the dentist for her superior teeth-brushing skills. Yeah, that's my kid--Best in Show in Dental Hygiene. (Woot!) I can only imagine what other pinnacles await during the coming school year...

Asher = 1st Place in Play Dough Ingesting? I think so.

There must be a reason...

why my son keeps singing Happy Birthday. To Jesus. I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation. Just as I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for why he's recently picked up the mysterious habit of muttering (okay, let's be honest, SHOUTING--voice modulation isn't his strong suit), "Two weeks...two days...two weeks...two days..." to no one in particular.

Maybe he knows something I don't...?

Or more likely those are just two more examples of what makes Asher, well, Asher. Here's a picture of him dressed (yes, dressed!) for church last Sunday:

I made these high-waisted trousers at Easter time by tracing another pair of his pants and then adding six inches or so to the inseam. Pretty simple process, except that somehow this method didn't account for that insidious phenomenon known as Ginormous Cloth Diaper Bum. Thankfully, he's since decided that Lightning McQueen "unnies" are his undergarment of choice, so the pants fit much better now.

The fabric is a nice upholstery-weight material handed down to me by my sister who used it in her nursery. It has horses on it. Enough said.

Oh, and I almost forgot! How does one sew button holes for suspenders when one does not own a sewing machine with that particular functionality? One gets creative:

Recognize that waistband lining? It's the button placket (did I just make that up?) from the shirt that just keeps on giving...

Behold...he doth wear pants

My sister requested a photo of these pants. It's still unclear whether she wanted to see my handiwork or she was just fishing for evidence that my son does in fact wear pants on occasion. Either way, I did my best. He isn't exactly the most willing model:

For the record, I have officially been banned from using the word "cute" in reference to my son, by his father who hath hereby declared the word Not Very Manly. But how else does one describe the boy in this outfit? (Which in all fairness to K has had no such injunction placed upon it despite its being, at least in part, decidedly pink. Then again, he's color-blind, so maybe he hasn't noticed.)

Regardless, I am left with no choice but to pen some (really bad) poetry:

Father's worn-out shirt
Reborn as Asher's trousers...
Clambakes on the Cape?

I hope he's happy.

P.S. For instructions on how to make these easy pants out of a man's shirt, click here. I had to move the pocket, making my version slightly more complicated than the original, but, as with most of my projects, if I can do it, anyone can. The poetry, on the other hand...now *that* takes years of practice.

P.P.S. There's a reason he's so cute lovable. Mere seconds after I took this picture, he pooped on my pillow. Rest assured, I won't be writing any poetry about *that*...

Rainy Days and Mondays

You know that Carpenters song, don't you? I woke up this morning with it in my head. I thought it was random at first--why was my subconscious channeling Karen Carpenter when, hello, everyone knows my favorite band from that era is Air Supply?--and then I realized it was indeed rainy today. And Monday. Meh.

Nothing strikes cold dread into the heart of a mother quite like the prospect of entertaining children indoors on a rainy day. Especially when those children have been promised a day at the pool. Ah, well, there are worse things in life. Like arriving an hour late to your own wedding. Or having intestinal problems on a class field trip. (Neither of which has actually happened to me. I don't know where you got that idea.)

So to Mother Nature's challenge I say, "Bring it on." After all, to quote another 70s-80s music legend, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going!" (Seriously, you have to click that link. If you don't, you're missing what is either the cast of "The Jewel of the Nile" or 3 uncanny look-alikes singing backup for Billy Ocean. All in white tuxedos. Priceless.)

So without further ado...our impromptu rainy day entertainment...a play store where apparently our motto is "No Shoes, No Pants--No Problem!":

Nothing like getting creative with ordinary household items--in this case, a cardboard box (serendipitously "L"-shaped, making it ideal as a check stand), kitchen towels, and some packing tape. Oh, and don't forget the all-important play money, available for download here. (Word to the wise, get it laminated.)

Meanwhile, in totally unrelated news, I miss K. We've barely seen him lately as he's on a deadline at work and putting in a lot of extra hours. So. In the spirit of getting creative...I'm off to bake K's favorite cookies in the hopes of summoning him to me with my (barely mediocre) culinary skills. Hey, it worked in college...

Bring on summer!

Today we drew one step closer to summer vacation: Olivia's last day of dance class, which clearly didn't come soon enough based on the state of her tights...

Next week is the end-of-year recital and her first on-stage performance. We're very much looking forward to it. Especially K, who's ever so slowly coming to terms with the painful memories of his past and the torturous hours he spent cross-eyed and comatose at his sisters' recitals when they were kids. (No, dear, you may not bring a GameBoy to your daughter's recital. Yes, I'll pack you plenty of beef jerky and Lemon Heads.) Actually, he's being a really good sport about it, and when Olivia asked him to dance with her in a special father-daughter number, he agreed. I'm told by Olivia he will be attempting to shimmy. To the theme song from "Hawaii 5-0". In board shorts. Possibly with his shirt off. Okay, I'm kidding about that last part, but I'm pretty confident it will be a performance to remember nonetheless.

Olivia wanted to give her teacher, Miss Sharon, something to remember her by this summer. We waited until the last minute, of course, and finally settled on this tiny-cake-in-a-jar idea I've been wanting to try since the holidays. I used a boxed cake mix because time was short and I had one on hand. And old yeast jars I've been saving for just such an occasion. (Sidenote: why didn't anyone tell me you can buy yeast in bulk at Costco? I wasted so much money, and, yeah, I blame you, Mom.) Our first attempt was not-so-good. We overfilled the jars, resulting in a goopy mess all over the bottom of the oven and a less-than-pleasant aroma that continues to linger three hours later. Our second attempt was much better. We filled the jars only about half-way, baked them for about 20 minutes, and then packaged them up with vellum and ribbon:

Meanwhile, it's suddenly 85 degrees outside today (after being in the mid-60s yesterday), and I'm happy to turn off the oven. The exhaust fan on the other hand...yeah, I'll have to get back to you on that.

An "Unforgettable" Memorial Day Weekend

Ah, how I love me a long weekend. Especially one that involves sunshine. And warm weather. And these little munchkins:

I even managed some time to sew. Perhaps that isn't very Memorial Day-ish, but I had to take advantage of the kids' marathon nap this afternoon. (Speaking of which, can someone explain to me why it is that they take their longest naps when K is home? It makes no sense, unless he somehow wears them out better than I do. Or...maybe it's the Benadryl he slips into their smoothies? Come to think of it, he did mention something about being out of allergy medicine. Hmm...)

Then again, today's project did sort of have a "memorial" spin to it. I'm not exactly sure how the idea came about, although something tells me it might have been inspired by the hilariously sitcom-like events that took place during a phone call with my sister (way too) late last night. Long story short...five kids + backyard barbecue + Sunday night = she owes her next-door neighbor a roll of toilet paper. Classy, sis.

Alas, my sister isn't the only super-woman who needs reminding on occasion. Introducing the Note-2-Self bracelet--same materials as the baby-safe felt photo album, much simpler construction:

Button closure (the best part is that because the felt doesn't fray, I didn't have to sew any button holes):

Teal lining with opening for notes-to-self:

Sporting the bracelet:

What do you think? I was planning on christening it with an inspiring haiku or something, but now methinks something like "BYOTP to sister's house" might be in order. (Kidding! Sort of.)