When I began this blog, back in 2005, a lot of what I wrote about centered around daily life with my kids. We three spent a lot of our days together back then, and found creative ways to fill our time. I truly treasure the snippets of time that I documented on wise craft, writing about those days on this blog felt like it gave it all so much more life than just taking one photograph.READ MORE
I have a confession…
I’ve never liked batiks. Of any kind. I couldn’t really explain it except to say I saw no inspiration in them. I knew I gravitated toward clearer colors in general, so maybe that was the reason.
But whatever the reason, I did not like them. Until I saw Malka’s work that is.READ MORE
So, Emma, myself, and, pretty much every girl that comes into contact with it is freaking out over The Polymer Clay Cookbook. It is so crazy cute. We’ve had it for a couple of weeks and its been by Emma’s bed for nightly reading ever since (she has a so much homework these days, that’s when she gets her leisure reading in, poor girl). The allure of baking clay here at our house is strong. Emma has been playing with it since she was able to hold it in her hands, and over the years, her creations just get more elaborate and detailed. And now this book is taking it all to a whole new level.
We were looking for an easy craft activity for our Girl Scout meeting this week and I was totally inspired by this book. The girls are coming to us straight from classroom Halloween parties and will probably be pretty sugared up, but I am hoping they will love this. We’ll be setting up three tables (there will be about 10 girls). At each table, there will be supplies, directions, and a parent to guide them in making a piece of jewelry. The projects I chose were the candy corn earrings (or rings), a tiny cinnamon bun (scented with cinnamon and a mixture of school glue and white paint to create the icing), and a pink cupcake, both of which can be hung from a thin cord necklace I’ll have for each girl.
And because it is the responsibility of a good Girl Scout leader to be fully prepared, I felt the need to spend an afternoon testing out each craft and making samples before I let the girls try them.
chocolate cupcake with raspberry frosting and a cherry
my cinnamon roll with a head pin that’s ready to be twisted into a loop. And it smells like cinnamon.
Cute????!!!!!
I thought about keeping this book locked away until Emma’s birthday, then giving it to her with all new clay and supplies, but I just couldn’t wait. (I decided to give her this book instead, with a stack of felt and notions.)
I thought I would post more this week but it just didn’t happen that way. I will see you here on Monday though. Till then, happy weekend!
Giving myself a deadline to have this at the quilter was all I needed. Once I started the process of putting this quilt top together, I knew I’d get into it and just keep going. It is really coming together well. This is the Marquee pattern from the book The Modern Quilt Workshop. I’ve had it in my mind that I would make this quilt since that book first arrive on my doorstep, years ago. I love improvisational piecing of any kind (which I also call just making it up as I go along).READ MORE
I’m so happy that Ian’s quilt is coming together, these projects sit on my worktable for far too long these days. All I needed was a reasonable deadline. Not a crazy one, a doable one. I was thinking of this when I was watching Project Runway with Emma today. I mean, how the heck do those designers really know they’ll get it done in time? How much of those garments are actually glued together I wonder?READ MORE
Last day of summer vacation was spent building a Lego city from the ground up. They started in the morning, and did not stop until I made them get in the car to go meet their teachers and find their lockers. When we got home, they gulped down some dinner, then headed upstairs to keep building.READ MORE