Now I Crochet?!

I guess I need another craft to get involved with?!  A gal from work peaked my interest to try crocheting again when she brought in some cute hats she had made her grandkids.  I had done a little bit as a camp counselor about 15 years ago.  Since then, the hooks and 1/2 finished projects have been traveling around in my craft supplies. 

I started with a basic scarf and it turned out "ok" but it is a cheap gray yarn that I would never expect anyone to wear.  I branched out yesterday and bought pink camo yarn.  Searching for a manageable project, I thought my tea mug needed a sweater.  It turned out better than I thought on a first try without a pattern, although it really isn't a complicated project.  

Now I am looking for more things to crochet for practice.  So if you need something small and basic, let me know.... Who else wants a MUG SWEATER?

Lucy's Polka Dot Room

We have been hemming and hawing about what room to put Henry in before he was even born, which means he has been living in our room for over 8 months- much longer than ever intended.  This week we finally bit the bullet and made the decision.  We have moved Lucy to the spare room and Henry will get Lucy's old room.  It has the perfect set-up with a built in changing table and the spare room has a larger closet and we all know girls somehow accumulate more clothes than boys.

The spare room lacked any sort of decoration.  Just boring beige walls.  We are limited on what we can do to the walls because we rent, but I knew we needed to add some color.  After weighing several options, I elected for using adhesive vinyl.

I used my Cricut and cut 3" circles out of four different colors (Navy,Pink, Lilac, and Green), in addition to her name in Lilac.  Once all my stickers were cut, I went to laying it out.  It was really a very quick process and in total, I probably only invested about 3 hours between cutting an applying.


I also bought window sheers to coordinate.  In total, the room make-over only cost about $25 because everything used just happened to be on sale and I already had the cartridge to cut the circles.  And it was money well spent.  Lucy LOVES it!  She especially loves the green sheer.  Every time she goes into the room she points and lights up!  It certainly made transitioning to a new room a little bit easier.

And for our friends and family that frequently use the spare room in our house, don't worry.  The wonderful air mattress still fits in the room great and we will figure out somewhere to put her when you visit!

Up-cycled Dress-up Wardrobe

It must have been about a year ago that I reached a breaking point of dealing with Lucy's 1/2 broken dresser.  The bottoms of the drawers always seemed to know the absolute worst time to crash through.  I had seen so many up-cycled kids furniture projects on Pinterest and showed this one to Rudy.  He embraced the idea and did this project 100% by himself! 

He haggled for the pink drawer knobs a few months earlier at a flea market, bought butterfly fabric for the inside, found butterfly stickers and mirrors for the outside, painted it obnoxious pink, reenforced the "floor" of the closet, fixed the bottom drawer, and added the clothes rod. 

We filled it with dress-up clothes and gave it to Lucy for Christmas.  I'm not sure that as a 2 year old, she can fully appreciate it, but she certainly is enjoying all the dress-up things and I appreciate that it contains them all and that it is so freakin' cute!

Advent Books

I feel like it is still way too early to start thinking about Christmas, but it seems like everywhere I turn, decorations are going up.  So let the preparations begin... 

My parents always got me an Advent calendar each year to count down to Christmas.  Sometimes it had chocolate, sometimes toys, and one time, my favorite- little wooden ornaments.  I knew this was something I wanted to do with my kids but was trying to think of a fun, unique variation.   I realize this year Lucy probably won't grasp the concept of counting down to Christmas and Henry is still way too little, but I thought it would be a fun regardless.

 Well, Lucy LOVES books! This summer I started collecting Christmas books at yard sales, library sales, and thrift stores.  With the help of some friends, I finally found the last few I needed to hit 24. I wrapped each one and labeled it with a number so we open one each day.  Now I just need a basket for them!

On December 1, I will pull them out and let Lucy open the first one.  I don't know what order they are in, so I'll be surprised by each one also!  I hope she has fun with it and I know I'm in store for a lot of bedtime book reading now...

The Queen's Dress

We went to the Long Grove, IL Annual Strawberry Festival a couple weeks ago and on somewhat of a whim, we entered Lucy in the festival's pageant.  Before I get all the side eyes, this was a completely natural pageant with the girls wearing strawberry themed attire.  No "Toddlers and Tiaras" sort of stuff, no flippers, fake hair, tanned infants, $1000 dresses, etc... although we did see some questionable parent behavior, kids downing pixie stix, and other very, very interesting things that kept us entertained during all the waiting, but I digress.  We were heading to see friends and family for the weekend and decided if we had time that we would stop on the way back home to enjoy the festival and enter Lucy in the pageant, but again, only if we had time.  Seeing as we would probably make time, Lucy needed strawberry themed attire.

I had bought a fitted crib sheet with a strawberry print a couple months ago at Goodwill.  Crib sheets are unreasonable expensive and I thought this one was cute and in really good shape.  Well, once we decided we were entering Lucy into the strawberry pageant, it didn't stay a crib sheet for long.  At about 11:30pm night before we left, the sheet to transform into a dress.  I used one of my favorite little dress of Lucy's as a rough guide and cut the crib sheet into two pieces- a back and a front.  Since Lucy was fast asleep when I was doing this and we had no time to spare since we were leaving the next day immediately after work, I decided it needed elastic in the back just in case it didn't fit quite right.  I used the elastic corner of the sheet for the back piece.  After I sewed the two pieces together, I use some red ribbon left over from another project to trim the edges and make the halter top straps.  Luckily, Lucy had a pair of bloomers that would coordinate in color with the dress so I didn't have to make anything special for underneath and we already had cute shoes and a hair bow that would work.

The pageant was a hot mess.  Literally.  The day of the pageant was incredibly hot.  Probably about 90 outside and it had to be nearing 100 degrees in the gym where it was taking place and the stage was even hotter.  So I was very glad that the dress was so light weight to keep Lucy relatively cool.  This was certainly a pageant for girls from all walks of life and experiences.  Most of the kids were crying and running all over the place while others stood perfect.  We were last in line on the stage and with a huge box goodies bags next to us- the ideal distraction for a 19 month old!  She looked everywhere except at the judges during the age division line up.  Between the lineup and Lucy's individual stage time, we realized that Lucy had quite the smelly diaper, but with no time to change her, she was a champ and we went back up for our quick appearance.  

We did the pageant just to see what it was like.  We weren't looking for her to win or anything- just something to try.  We stuck around for the crowning for the same reason- just to see what would happen.  They called the girls off stage one by one- giving them each their "princess" participation  crown.  Lucy was the last number in her age division so assuming that they go in order, I thought nothing about her not being called as others exited the stage, until I looked over and realized there was only one other girl left ... drum roll please... 

Lucy is the 2012 Toddler Miss Strawberry Queen!   

She also tied for Most Beautiful in her age division(18-24 months) and won Best Eyes in the 0-4yr pageant! 

I don't know if we will put Lucy in more pageants.  I suspect we might, but time will tell.  All I know is that you can whip up a dress out of a bed sheet, throw it on a sweaty kid, and win a pageant- no super expensive dresses, hair styles, or drama needed!

Felt Play Food

About a month ago some girls on a discussion forum I participate on started talking about felt food.  They were doing a "Felt Food Exchange".  I didn't join in.  I couldn't figure out what the craze was all about, but after 3 weeks of being on maternity leave, I had to see what it was all about.  Of course, Pinterest was a great resource to investigate this.  Then, a friend gave little Lucy a hand-me-down play kitchen last weekbut we had no play food to stock it with.  I figured I would give felt food production a shot.  After $6 worth of felt, some batting I already had, and one afternoon of sewing, I ended up with the above stock of felt food items and quite a bit of left over felt.  I made two main dishes- breakfast and a sandwich.  Not everything turned out how I expected, which is why there are no bread slices and the waffles aren't exactly how I wanted them to look.  I ran out of some colors so the next day I took a trip to the craft store for more felt.

 

I love how the sandwich turned out- specifically I love the lettuce and the bacon!  Since the original production, I have also created pizza slices, peas, red pepper slices, pickle slices,  a banana, and additional tortillas.  I still plan to make broccoli, bread slices, pancakes, butter, ice cream, chips, pasta, and anything else I can come up with!

If you have a kiddo that needs play food and you have a sewing machine, then felt food is a good time investment!  It is much less expensive than the plastic or wooden store bought stuff and you can make whatever you want!

Taco Chicken Casserole

This isn't the prettiest dish, but it sure was tasty!  I'm sure there is some official recipe out there for this dish, but I just threw together some stuff from the fridge and pantry that sounded good.  I layered in the order listed. 

2 breasts raw chicken- diced
1/2 jar of Salsa
1 can of corn
1 can of black beans
1 cup uncooked rice
1/2 tub of sour cream
1/2 packet of taco seasoning(mixed with sour cream)
1/2 package of shredded taco cheese

The only thing I would have done differently is either put the rice as the second layer after the chicken with a cup of water or precook the rice because some of it was still chewy even though it was bubbling in the oven.

Oreo-Peanut Butter Brownies

I saw this recipe on Pinterest and was compelled to make it last night.  Oreos and peanut butter layered and baked into brownie muffins...

Ridiculous is all I can say.  Ridiculously good!  I don't know when I will ever need to make these again, but it was fun to make them once.  If I do ever make them again, I think I would get mini-oreos and make them in mini-muffin tins.  A whole one is just too intense.   Here is the link to the original poster of this recipe: http://www.foodsnots.com/2011/10/oreo-and-peanut-butter-brownie-cakes.html

Upcycled Wool Mittens

Some of you may be wondering why I had scraps of wool sweaters lying around to make Lucy's Christmas Stocking with . . .  I have been making WOOL MITTENS!  They are so much fun to make and I absolutely love the way they turn out!  I gave a few as Christmas presents this year and some I am still working on.  They are so easy to make and it has let me fulfill my desire to discount shop, as the best place to get a variety of fun colored wool sweaters is yard sales, Goodwill, etc. 

A co-worker was recently talking about how expensive handmade wool mittens were at a local shop and that it couldn't be too hard to make a pair.  So I found a pattern online and adjusted it a bit to what worked for me and voila!  After a couple test pairs of liners to get the sizing right, I started cranking out mittens!  They are wool sweater material on the outside (after it has been washed in hot water/ soap and dried on high heat to shrink up the wool)  and the inside is new polar fleece.  So far I have made solid colored mittens with the exception of this one pair with the grey palms.  Soon I might venture out into mixing and matching sweater colors to be a little more festive.

  

Bring it on, WINTER!