My I-guy is kinda hard to give gifts too, because he really doesn’t need much. He will very happily play by himself, with whatever he finds, for long periods of time. He is so different from my first guy. I finally decided on felt food which ended up being perfect for him and it goes perfectly with the play dish set that Grandma C gave him. The colorful dish set is Austrian made and fits his cute little hands just right.

To kinda go with the felt food are these little sock puppets made from two odd socks. I had to make these because whenever I-guy would find a stray sock (dirty or clean) he would shove his arm in and play puppet. Now he has two (one to share with his brother) whom he named Roxy and Ruby, complete with eyes nose and mouth. Maybe now, he’ll leave the stray socks alone.

Roxy and Ruby love feasting on salad with carrots and tomatoes, pancakes, mandarin oranges and an assortment of yummy cookies. I already have special requests to make strawberries, cherries and watermelon.

Handmade by me : some of my favorites

My Lovies in all their cuteness!

Holiday Swaps: Postcards

All 8 were received, yeah!!!  From all over the world even!

Ornaments:

Two are either MIA or were never sent. Such a bummer too. I really look forward to getting these.

I am really hopeful that all of mine were received in a timely manner. It is really a sad thing to flake-out on a swap like this (hopefully no one really did this). So much work goes into making and sending off these little bundles of joy.

Over the next few days, I’ll be showing some gifts given and received. Then I am super excited to start the “month of me”. Sounds silly,I know, but I’ll share more about that later.

I made these hats for my guys in only a couple of hours.  I think I may need to make them a little longer so that they fold up.  They are for when we go up the mountain with the snow and cold.  I might be making matching scarfs.  I love the color combos–very much my guys.

We also attempted to do the annual holiday photo for sending out cards (which will probably be very late).    These are some of the outtakes, although they are pretty darn cute too.

Here is what we made with our salt dough.

It was such a great family project. Everyone played, even daddy.

See the little Yoda in there.  It’s a mommy/daddy collaboration.  Daddy did a fine job sculpting and I painted. The force is strong with him, don’t you think?

Here is the recipe in case you want to try this out. Very basic.

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup warm water

Combine all ingredients and knead for 10 minutes (really work those arm muscles). The dough should be soft, elastic and not sticky or too dry. Add more water or flour to get correct consistency. Allow to rest for 30 minutes then roll, press, twist, smash, form, shape– whatever suites your fancy. Place on cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees for a long long time (2-4 hours, depending on how thick your ornaments are).  They are done when they are brown on bottom and very hard.  When cooled, paint, paint, paint.

TOMORROW:  Ornament GIVEAWAY!!!!! 

These ornaments are made from polymer clay and took way more time to craft than I care to admit. They aren’t even for my ornament swaps, which I should have been working on instead. These are gifts for friends and babies of 2007. I had meant to buy clear crystally glitter but accidentally bought this snowy stuff instead.

Tomorrow has been set aside for last minute ornament swap making. I know what I’m making so it shouldn’t be too bad.

Lastly, Chara tagged me with listing 5 random things about myself. So here I go. You can read on and be completely bored to tears or skip right on to the five lucky gals I am tagging (insert evil laugh).

1. I have two tattoos (small–shoulder & ankle) that I got on the same day.

2. I ALWAYS eat breakfast. You don’t want to see me without it.

3. I haven’t put any Christmas decor up yet (slacker). Big plans for that this weekend.

4. When Harry Met Sally is my favorite Christmas movie. I watch it every year around this time.

5. This song is my favorite Jingle Bells version. My grandparents had the record when I was little and my middle sister and I would play it over and over trying to sing just as fast. Then we’d fall on the floor laughing hysterically.

I am tagging Michelle, Rebecca, Karyn, Cindy, Lexi

(post-edit):These are my postcards for Nikki-shell’s Christmas Postcard Swap.  There was one requirement: no buying– the postcards MUST be made from recycled materials or stuff you already have in your stash.  They were also due to be sent out on the 1st. 

Three days late isn’t horribly bad is it? They are done and have been sent! That is the important factor here, right?

They are made from materials entirely in my crafting stash of supplies. Pages from old books, outdated maps, weird metallic fabric that I’ve had for a while. Even the protective plastic top layer is recycled from my husbands previous job. I stayed up pretty late last night and got up early to finish these and get them off. Phew!

A surprise package came in the mail for me yesterday from Linda. It had the nicest little message with it and I couldn’t be more blown away by her gift! She very generously gave me a zippered rice bag, fabric quilting squares, pretty papers, magnets and some very beautiful earrings (which I wore all day yesterday and am wearing today). I love everything! I am extremely grateful (again) for being able to make connections with people I may never meet in person, yet remain close to my heart. Thank you Linda.

Here is a bony skull vase with paper flowers. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill flower vase that someone was throwing away, decoupaged and painted. Any household jar would work too. I had planned on using an empty Green Goddess dressing bottle, but it made its way into the recycling before I could grab it. (Man, my husband’s good!!) I just used thinned out white glue to stick on the newspaper strips.

Looked kinda cool after each step which makes the possibilites endless. I thought it would be fun to make a set of these to group together with different shapes and sizes. A really fun way to use up household recycled items as well.

Here is a look at the embroidered buttons I made for Michelle’s swap.

Fall colors on brown is so pretty to me right now. I watched THIS tutorial, which had the great idea of using a dab of glue stick to keep everything centered nicely.

Five buttons for the swap, one for Michelle (one is for me) were sent early Saturday morning. Late as per Regina swapping fashion (sorry, Michelle).

Here is my apple cobbler that I made for dinner last night– yes, dinner. The kids call it “apple crunch”, which just happens to be great for breakfast too.

Recipe (vegan):

5 large granny smith apples
1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tbsp cornstach
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup old-fashion dry oatmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2/3 cup Earth Balance buttery sticks,cut into small pieces

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare baking dish by covering the sides and bottom of the dish with a thin layer of earth balance.
2. Peel and cut apples into thinish (1/2 inch), small pieces.
3. In small bowl, mix apple pieces with cornstarch and half of the brown sugar and pour into prepared baking dish.
4. Combine all remaining ingredients, except “butter”, in a large bowl.
5. Add “butter” pieces and combine together with fingers until you get medium (not fine) sized crumbles.
6. Pour crumble mixture on top of apple and press down lightly with fingers.
7. Bake for 45 minutes and enjoy warm with vanilla soy or ice cream.

Tomorrow:
My two year Blogiversay, Blog Action Day, and an environmentally friendly give-away.

I get a whole lotta traffic to my Button Bracelet Tutorial post. Tons! It’s totally crazy how quickly and haphazardly I threw it together over a year ago, not thinking it would be of any interest. It makes me cringe a little at how sloppily I put it together. So, I gave it a face lift. Really it was an excuse to get out my buttons and make more bracelets. Especially this one, with my most favorite red and white buttons. Some are thrift finds, and some were hidden in my grammy’s button collection.

While I was making it, I got the insane idea to document the process photo….by….photo. Most of the photos are totally uneccesary, but if you watch the photostream, it’s not so bad. I always think these little projects won’t take very long, which is completely ridiculous, because it ALWAYS takes waaaaay longer than planned.

Check out:

***Button Bracelet Photo Tutorial

***Button Bracelet Tutorial (also on my side bar)

***Button Jewelry and Accessories Flickr Group (add your button creations to the group!)

Chimp cakes:

From Vegetarian Times October 2007 issue.  Banana, walnuts and chocolate chips.  Vegan and oh so yummy!

Moo Cards:

Came a couple of days ago. LOVE!  There are two of each.

Sinking into a long session of buttons and beading:

More on the buttons and beads later. 

I’m all over the place with my crafting this week.  What can I say?  I have a very short attention span.