A Perfect Bow

One of my students gave me a little bag of chocolate kisses for Valentines Day, with this beautiful, charming, perfect bow on top.

I will be conferencing with that Mom for sure. I've got to learn how to do this.

And look how wonderful they looked in my candy dish!

I love red and pink.

Brownie Treats

For Valentines Day, Anna and I made some brownies to play around with. First we cut out some hearts with cookie cutters. That was fun and easy and cute.

Then we took the rest of the brownie bits and rolled them into brownie balls, and then rolled them in powdered sugar. Anna really liked that part, and it was a good way to use up the rest of the brownies in a cute way.

When we were done, Anna pulled up her stool to the sink and washed the cookie cutters. All on her own! What a gem.

Brilliant!

I was so happy with the way this idea turned out.

We had lots of candy canes left over from Christmas-

Re-purposed for Valentines Day!

Five minutes and a glue gun later...

Daycare in Paris

My favorite NPR correspondent is Eleanor Beardsley. I love the Southern Accent mixed with the French. I like to think about how life took her to live in Paris. It's a fun daydream.

Monday morning Matthew pointed me to this story about her son and daycare in Paris.

Hear the Story (click "listen now" right above the picture of Maxime-it's worth it to listen, you won't have as much fun if you just read.)

*pout*

My favorite magazine, that I subscribed to last year with some birthday money, is quitting. Or "going online exclusively".

Goodbye CRAFT:

I do like the blog, but I never go to the website. And I like getting a magazine in the mail and holding it and reading it and looking at the pictures. I like that I can take it with me in the car. None of that will work with a website.

Stupid future.

Sunday Short

Anna watches a video with Grammy Joan called Miss Pattycake. It is strange. She loves it. Here's something she learned.

Happy Sunday.

"copy write" ??

Happy Valentines Day!

Anna and I did a photo shoot for Valentines on Saturday morning. I was thinking it had been awhile since we sat her down and tried to get a lovely photo, and I'm glad we took some time do do it.

The pictures turned out wonderfully! I tried three places-in her room by the window, in her room by the door, and by the front door with the door open. Following the advice in my favorite photography book ever ( How to Photograph Your Baby by Nick Kelsh), I was looking for natural light from the side. I filled the frame with Anna, had a neutral backdrop, and didn't always center her. When I went to pick them up-the envelope had this note on it!



I was so proud. I told the boy I took them myself.

No more feeling bad that Anna's never had professional pictures taken. Here are the four that I'm sending out with her valentines.

Not homemade this year because she wanted some from the bookstore. I'll have to be on my guard next year and start talking up the homemade valentines early.




This one is my favorite. This one is Anna's favorite.

IHOP!

Last weekend when Susan was home, the three Alsop girls decided to try out one of Garden City's new restaurants (6 since Christmas!)

Here are the girls thoughtfully perusing the menu, and tolerating their weird sister, taking pictures in the restaurant. I have very tolerant sisters.
Here I am, choosing carefully my breakfast for dinner. I love breakfast for dinner.

I had buttermilk pancakes with chocolate chips inside. You have to ask for that specially, because the regular choc. chip pancakes are made with chocolate batter-yick!Susan had harvest grain and nut pancakes which were very tasty. Abby stuck with Chicken Strips and fries, and was happy with it as usual. We had a good time. I love my sisters.

DadCraft

Not just for girls and Mamas!

Dad Craft talks about why and what Dads can do to craft with their kids

The larger site, DudeCraft, is just for crafty boys in general.

There, equal opportunity blogging

Flower placemats

This was the last project I did, and the one I am the most excited about. I have so many things I want to try using this idea.

Matthew pointed out that they are very impractical placemats, as you can't wash them.

hmph.

Flower garland

Our second idea for the contest was to make a flower garland or curtain by stitching fake flowers together somehow. I decided to use green rickrack and just stitch over the little plastic stems.

I like how it twists a little. I think this could be fun, if you made bunches of them to make a beaded curtain-y sort of thing. Only took 10 minutes or so.

Doh!

I was so excited about the Singer Sewing with Nature Contest. Abby and Susan and I came up with three lovely ideas to try. I was thinking we'd enter all three, one for each of us, but then as I was making things I started to feel like that was cheating.

Didn't matter...

Contest ended at 11:59 pm ET on the 4th, not the 5th. I was pretty cranky about it for a little while, but Susan reminded me that I had the fun of making them, and Dad said the memories of making things with Anna far outweigh any dress form, and that there would be many contests to enter.

Also I looked at the entries and thought that probably I didn't have a chance anyway. That always helps. :)

Here's our first project, claimed immediately by Anna for her own.

It was my first attempt at using rick rack around the edges, that technique definitely needs some work. Also my first time doing free hand decorative stitching/applique on the machine, and I think that leaf looks SUPER!

Choxie

I saw some chocolates at Target in the Christmas Clearance, and since they were 75% off, decided to try them. I've been intrigued with the "sea salt caramel" since I heard about it a couple of months ago.

I don't know if I got a duddy box, or if I just had high expectations for $10 chocolate, but I was very surprised to open the box. There were 8 chocolates, and they were all much flatter than anticipated. And not shiny and smooth. And the caramel wasn't gooey.

The picture on the top was this:

And the candy inside was this:

(sorry, still working on the macro shots)

See the difference in depth? Suppose they melted? In December?

And they didn't taste spectacular either. Certainly not better than Russell Stover. Is that because they were a month old? They were dry, so I suppose that could be the problem. I sent a box to Sarah, the pastry chef and chocolatier (Is it OK if I call you that? The chocolates you gave us for Christmas were MUCH better) to get her opinion.

Has anyone else tried Choxie? Got an opinion?

Strangeness

When Matthew and I were in Wichita in January, Bath and Body Works was having a Clearance, and so I got a little Bubble Bath. I don't remember it being green then. The dyes on the back clearly list "red" in a couple of varieties... Do you suppose it froze in the trunk, or WHAT?

Reusable Wrapping

I've been wanting to try to make some reusable fabric wrapping since I saw it a year or so ago on Craftster, (I wish I could find it again, but I can't! Sorry about that) but hadn't gotten around to it yet. Finally last week, I was looking through my idea file, and decided to give it a shot. The first one I made out of an old sweater, and it's pretty rough.

For the second I used a placemat, and it looked nice, but I did something wrong with the measuring or figuring or something, because it doesn't come together quite right.

Anyhoo, I wrapped Jeanette's gift in it, since she's all into the earth and stuff now. :)

I'll be trying again, for sure.

Cheater Wrapping

After we made Anna's heart, I thought about those soft sleeves, perfect for more little bags. So I snipped them off and sewed them up and there you go! More reusable wrapping. The cuffs can be more or less depending on the size of the gift. I think they're cute.

Sweater Heart

Wanting desperately to do something quick and crafty last week, Anna and I cut a heart out of an old sweater and sewed it up and stuffed it together. Here it is on her door. Not perfect, but it'll be hers forever, and we did it together.

Per Dad's Request

Anna's weekend

Anna got to go with Daddy and Jonathan and everybody to her favorite place in the world-Margaret's house.

See here for the adorable evidence.

Holiday Specific Craftster

I don't know that I'm going to have time do do anything this year, but there are tons of fun ideas in this article from the newly redesigned Craftster.

Valentines Day Crafts