Monarch Post

snowfolks

 
Last night we made snowpeople for our grandparent gifts. I spotted this adorable idea at my friend, Traci's beautiful blog. She found the bottle snowmen in a gift shop in Illinois where she lives, but Illinois is a little too far away for my Christmas shopping, so we decided to make our own versions of bottle snowmen.

 
I found the ornament snowman heads in a craft store. Everything else we used was from the old craft stash, button tin, and scrap basket.

 
I know I won't be able to talk this guy into making things with his mom and little sister for much longer... sooo enjoying it while it lasts.

We filled the bottles half full of fake snow and then got busy with the decorating.

 
Aren't they the cutest things ever?! It was dark by the time we finished, so I took another  photo in the morning.

 

 

That's a snowflake hat and earwarmers with earrings on the lady-- very stylish, I'd say :)

 
The kids were having so much fun and the snowfolks were turning out so cute, I decided to join in. No extra tall bottles, but I rummaged around in the kitchen cupboard and found some old thrifted parfait glasses. I turned them upside down and started making a snow lady, and then I couldn't stop.... the kids went to bed and I stayed up too late, playing away in the craft supply pile on the kitchen table. We had three leftover snowman heads, so a threesome it was!

  

 
It was so fun to make them, sitting and playing with all the old craft supplies and kids. I forgot I was a grownup for awhile. 

Thanks for the great inspiration, Trac!

Are you making anything fun for Christmas?

XOKelly

 

 

 

 

rambling birthday and holiday post

 
 
It was my birthday yesterday and I had such a sweet day. General goofing off all morning, a stop at the coffee shop in the afternoon where Corbyn works, followed by dinner out with my family and my Dad.

And then we came home and squished into the living room and opened gifts. I got spoiled this year, reeeally spoiled: Mike bought me a new camera. A heavy-duty serious grown-up Canon with all the bells and whistles-- and Photoshop! Feels kinda like bringing the new baby home... scary wonderfulness :) I don't know how much I'll manage to use it until after Christmas is over, but during the Christmas break I'm planning on getting started with it and hoping to have better blog photos for you! I'm sooo excited to start playing around with it all.

My kids gave me great gifts too. A hair cut and color from Ainsley and Corbyn for tomorrow at the coolest new salon in town, Sophey bought me a lotion and body spray set in "Midnight Pomegranate" from Bath and Bodyworks. (How cute is that?) And Jesse bought me a pair of red fleece jammies with the feet in them (like Carter's kids jammies.) And here's the real kicker-- the feet are sock monkeys... I died laughing. All I could think of when I saw those jammies was the movie, "A Christmas Story" and Ralphie with his pink bunny jammies. 

My sock monkey jammies deserve a post of their own, but I'll spare you the photos of me in them ;)

 
It's busy, busy here and I'm whittling away at Christmas. The trees are up (one kids tree in the family room and this one in the living room) and all the decorating is done, except for a new garland I want to make. Mike put outside lights up on Saturday. The internet shopping is finished and I just need to store shop for a couple of days. 

I love the way the house  looks and feels this time of year, so magical.

 
Remember those vintage doves from the estate sale I was trying to figure out what to do with? Well, they went in the tree. The lady at the estate sale said her Mom always decorated their Christmas tree every year with those doves and it seemed like the place they needed to be now was on someone else's tree. (I hope she's able to peek down from heaven and see her doves are in a happy new home.)

 
As soon as the tree was finished and the lights were turned on last week, Winston was here, sitting and staring. I made sure to put the doves up high enough so he couldn't swipe one...

 
because last year Joseph and baby Jesus (the kids made them about five years ago) were kidnapped by Winston from an end table.

Joseph was discovered last spring in the backyard in a melting pile of dirty snow, but we still don't know what ever became of baby Jesus. How bad is that?  We really need to make a new baby Jesus this week. I'm hoping they'll all be safe on a tall bookcase this year :)

Happy Monday to you! XOXOKelly

( P.S. The beautiful Christmas bouquet is from my in-laws John and Jo.)

 

 

happy 4th of July!

 
Planning on planting it here on the back yard deck this 4th of July. Saturday we have painting projects to tackle, but Sunday... ah, Sunday :)

We may even make boats out of meat trays left over from barbequing like we did last year...
And go float them in the stream in the ravine behind our house...

And make some Lego floating devices (can't call this a boat, can you?) ...
 

And float them in the stream.
 
Meat tray floating devices float better than Lego floating devices. (Just FYI, in case you ever need to know this information :)  

Wishing all of you guys a very happy 4th of July. Enjoy yourselves! xoxoKelly  

bird feeder giveaway winner!

 

Our June Fair Trade Friday winner is Dianne Wares. Large round of applause here for Diannne.... thank you, thank you!

That's one of our bird feeders hanging from the tree by my kitchen window. We have several hanging from this tree. Mike is always filling the bird feeders on the weekends. It's so lovely to see what kinds of birds are hanging out at our feeders every morning. Lots of sparrows always, but we get our fair share of chickadees, blue jays, and mourning doves too.

Last week, I spent a day "summerizing" the house. It feels good to put away extra stuff, add a few more white things here and there, and of course, to bring out the bird houses the kids made Mike for last Father's Day. They look sweet in the kitchen on our old sideboard.

Jesse made the yellow bird house.  And Sophey made the green one.

The weather is gorgeous here now. I am thrilled beyond belief that it's summer--- Hurrah and Hallelujah! Finally finally finally... And now it's almost the Fourth already, can you believe it?  xoKelly 

inspired by an itsy bitsy teeny weeny polka dot bikini

Sophey wanted a red polka dot bikini for her birthday from the children's Mini Boden catalog this year. This was quite a shock. She has never wanted to wear a bikini ever-- and she never wears red. This child's wardrobe consists of about 94% pink colored clothing. Hot pink,  light pink, peachy pink, lipstick pink, whatever.... just as long as it is some form of pinkishness. One day, as Sophey was walking out of school, a girlfriend I was talking with commented on Sophey's clothing ensemble. She always looks so color coordinated, my friend said. My reply, "How can you NOT be color coordinated when your entire wardrobe is pink ?!"

Anyway, after the red polka dot bikini showed up we realized the pink beach totes just would not be cutting it this summer. So the other day while at the our fav craft store, we stumbled upon red canvas tote bags. Bingo.

So we got busy with the polka dots. (I took a few extra tote bags home and made my own version for the children's shop I sell to.) Sophey's bag is almost finished. She decided her tote will be all red and white fabrics-- checks, red and white florals, and more polka dots. And giant white ric rac. (She calls it rif raf. I like rif raf better than ric rac, don't you? I'm calling it rif raf from here on out :)

But anyway, here's mine.

We stamped the canvas with white acrylic craft paint. I started from the corner and worked diagonally up the bag.

We made our stamps from some small stencil stompers and those felted chair feet pad things. (We did this because the craft store didn't have any of those cirular blue foam pouncing sponge things-- not because we are that hard up to be clever. Personally, I was stumped on how to make polka dots without my favorite blue foamy things.) But Sophey wasn't stumped for long-- she rummaged around a minute and then pulled out the leftover chair pads in the kitchen junk drawer and said, "I think these things would work!" (So see, it's a good thing to have a junky junk drawer-- do you want clue Martha in on this, or should I?  ;)

 
While the polka dots were drying, I ripped up some fabrics. Starting at the top of the bag, I zigzag stitched along until I had a few rows of fabric pieced together.

Then I added some vintage trims. I found a whole bolt of that green pom pom fringe at the thrift shop the other day. And the yellow daisy trim is from the '60s-- love that stuff. 

 
I made a hairclip to match and tucked it onto the bag.

 

I made a second similiar bag too-- this one with a vintage red doily and a daisy cut from an old sweater.

 
We hit the pool for an hour on Memorial day. It was freezing. I hope it gets warm here someday. It's been the coldest spring ever here-- no exaggerating. It snowed on May 28th, and that late date set a new state record.

Now we really need to get one last polka dot beach bag finished to go with that bikini... summer is almost here. Really. We hope. Someday. Soon. 

xoxoKelly   

crafting a little Easter fun

We just finished making our Easter tree last night.

Two packages of leftover papier mache eggs, bits of scrapbook papers, an old foam butterfly stamp, paint, a few tree branches found on the curbside, and one old ceramic urn dug out from the basement.

Zero dollars for a fabulous new kid-inspired Easter decoration for the kitchen:)  

Happy Easter, Happy Spring to you!!   ~Kelly 

a sweet, sweet day

 


Sophey celebrated her 9th birthday with her girlfriends Saturday. She wanted to make a banner from the softies kit she got for Christmas. (I only helped her with pinking the white circles and stringing the letters). I think it turned out very sweet.

 
 
(This was the best shot I could get on such a cloudy day!) 

We started the party by making rainbow cupcakes. I found the recipe on the internet awhile back, and we thought they looked like such a fun idea.

And they were really fun!  And super easy. I followed the recipe at celebrations.com They have a great how-to recipe there for you.

While the cupakes baked and cooled, we made a craft project.

 
I bought little notebooks and the girls covered them in felt art. They all made up their own designs.

 




They all turned out so darling!!

We played a little Bingo--Jesse and his buddy joined in here.

And then we got down to cupcake decorating business.

They turned out awesome:)

Just like this one... How can she be nine already? It's going by way too fast.

Thanks for celebrating with us!

Love, Kelly

  

  

    

elves and more elves

 
The elves have been making elves here. How cute are these guys? I found the pinecone elves project in Martha Stewart's December magazine. Decided they would be just the perfect kid-made Christmas gift to send our Ohio grandparents. Marthas' elves are of course, pinecone perfection, but hey; we have character over here;)

The sled was something I picked up at the craft store a couple years ago, it was just waiting to be painted red and filled with elves:) Looking at the photo now, doesn't it kinda feel like that? Happy, excited, the guys on the left are looking slightly terrified... barreling along, picking up speed, every day flying by faster... Are we going to make it there for Christmas? Hope I don't sled right past!!

Do elf slippers keep shopping feet from getting so tired? I need a pair tonight. But only one or two last minute things to find, and the shopping will be finished. Yippee!

 
School finishes here on Friday for winter break. All the more time for fun. xoxoKelly 

a very nice fixer-upper opportunity

 

Here's a fun project Sophey and I made last spring. I posted about it then, but since my blog was brand new, I'm sure only about two people read that post ;) I thought I'd re-share it for PINK SATURDAY.

We found this house-shaped basket while thrift store hunting. It was seriously tacky when we bought it. But we knew it also had tons of fixer-upper potential. We removed all the wooden bric-a-brac from it. And Sophey (of course) chose to spray paint it pink.

When we lived in Suffolk England I fell in love with Suffolk cottages. Suffolk cottages are the most charming shade of pink with brown thatched roofs, and most have beautiful English cottage flower gardens.

So that's where the rest of the inspiration came from for our house-basket. I cut strips of various shades of felted wool and made a thatched roof. Added a chimney on one side. Sophey painted the shutters lavender and rummaged around a box of old silk flowers; gluing on her favorites.

All in all, lots of fun for about three or four dollars. And the perfect home for the thrift store bunny we found that day too. (Miss Pinkys' ears make the roof pitch).

 

We made Miss Pinky some clothes after we finished her cottage.

 

A very happy home for a very sweet bunny, I'd say... Although it might be hard to find a house-basket like this one, a basket shaped in a similiar way could still make a very nice bunny (dog, cat, etc.) cottage of your own.  (We know with school ending soon, we're all going to be looking for things to keep kids busy). Happy crafting to you!

Love,

xoxo Kelly

Rudolphs' antlers

       Tuesday evening we made Rudolphs' Antlers.  It's the traditional Christmas goodie at our house.  I think we've been making them for about twenty years now.  I found the recipe when Ainsley was a preschooler, so yes, twenty years is about right, I think.  Wow. Time flies. 

Part of the appeal of these cookies is they are so kid friendly and fun to make.  They're also quick and no bake.  Works for me. I melt the chocolate and chow mein noodles and form them into a V-shape and the kids make the faces.  And every Rudolph seems to wind up with his very own personality.  Their little reindeer expressions range from sweet and surprised, to grumpy and annoyed.   

    I think this guy wins Mr. Congeniality.  He looks so perfectly Rudolph pleasant.

Here's the recipe for you:

RUDOLPHS' ANTLERS:

• 1 large package chow mein noodles.
• 1 package milk chocolate chocolate chips.

• 1 package peanut butter chips.

• 1 small jar marschino cherries, each cherry cut in half.

• raisins

• white ready made frosting in a tube.

• wax paper

********************

In a medium size saucepan on medium heat, melt the chocolate and peanut butter chips together on stovetop.  When the chips are completely melted, gradually stir in the package of chow mein noodles.

Using a tablespoon, form the noodle mixture into a V-shape on wax paper.  One tablespoon for each antler.  Add the marschino cherry half noses.  Pipe white frosting "eyes" and add raisin "pupils" on top of white frosting.

Chill the cookies in refrigerator for about a half hour until firm.  I've never tried, but I think these cookies would feeze well.  Makes about two dozen reindeers.

If you really want the full experience of our cookie making tradition, sing the "Batman smells" version of jingle bells while you make the Rudolphs.  We did.  Oh, ya.

It's only one week till Christmas, isn't it?  Yikes.

Keep calm and carry on my friends!!

Love xoxox

Kelly