i got me a pen and a paper and i made up my own little sign

done.

almost.

a marathon of signs for customers of my etsy shop.

wanna see?

alex's sign is going outside on his new playset. mom wanted a nautical theme, and the colors of the playset used.

brycen's mommy didn't pick a "set", but had a color theme for the baby's room (brown, blue, red & green). she also wanted something that wasn't too baby-ish and would grow with him.

declan's mommy liked the signs i've already done to match the "willow" bedding sets (i can't blame her--i heart that deer!) too cute!

and little ms. ellanor's moving into a teddy bear themed nursery done in pink, yellow and light green. her bedding set is "tender hearts", which i couldn't find a picture of ANYWHERE, but i did find someone on ebay selling the wall border, so that was my reference!

shipping out today~~i hope they love them!!!

the most wonderful time of the year

i swore it. i would never, NEVER be one of "those" moms.

you know, the ones looking harried and sweaty in late august. muttering under their breath "2 more weeks....just TWO MORE WEEKS".

the ones who admit freely "i can't WAIT until summer is over."
how could they, i wondered? don't we have children so that we can be with our children? don't you miss them? and long for the lazy days of summer to reconnect and bond with them?

uh, yeah.
today, i saw the light.
this light, in particular:

and oh what a lovely light it is.

2010-2011 school year has officially started. and they're off:

some of us weren't quite as happy about the new school year starting as others were...

(although, in his defense, that is a mighty large pile of books to walk in to on your first day. haha)

tiny tim is stoic. calm and collected on her first day of first grade

and no pics of girlfriend girl. she's in 5th grade now. i can't be embarassing her with the camera like that :o)

i think little bear summed it up nicely as we escaped left the school:
FREEDOM!!!!!

these are the days of our lives

day 1: pack every thing but the kitchen sink. literally. bring buckets instead of kitchen sink.

cram it all into and onto van. belatedly realize you must also fit four children and two adults into said van.

rearrange.

shoehorn necessary.

success, after a fashion.

(not pictured: the massive amount of stuff under everyone's feet, between and under the seats, and strapped to the roof. also not pictured: little man, who was buried somewhere) ***

day 1, cont.: unpack, organize campsite. engage in much of this:

making it all worthwhile.

day 2: enjoy yourself so much that momma and children wage campaign to get googiedaddy to stay an extra day.

start to win the battle.

evening of day 2: start to feel a few raindrops before heading into the tent to sleep. throw rain cover and tarp over tent. toss some stuff in back of van, "in case" it rains harder. congratulate selves on pre-planning and forward-thinking.

2 am: wake to sound of massive downpour. the heavens have opened. rearrange tent to make sure nothing is touching the sides.

day 3, 8am: wake to continuing massive downpouring and large puddles inside tent. clothing, blankets, sleeping bags, towels, suitcases~~all soaked.

lament fact that waterproof technology DOES exist, rain covers do exist, yet tent-makers consistently make these rain covers approximately 50% of the size of the tent, conveniently leaving the area where you are sleeping exposed to the elements. why why WHY????

put wet items in dryer and head out to find diner for breakfast. cooking is impossible. spend an hour at wal-mart trying to decide what to do.

1 pm: return to campground, having spent $20 on ponchos, to find the entire place deserted. EVERYONE else has packed up and left.

more rain than you ever thought possible continues to fall from the sky.

decide to cut losses, begin haphazardly throwing all remaining items into and onto van. everything is drenched, including googies and googieparents.

5 pm: arrive home, unpack drenched items. begin washing washing washing drying drying drying.

10 pm: realize tiny tim, who apparently was bitten at some point by ???, is beginning to look less like this:

and more like this:

10:30pm: head to ER, on advice of doctor

2:30 am: stumble in, carrying one heavy dead weight child, knocked out by massive doses of steroid and benadryl.

day 4, 10 am: wake. wash, dry, repeat. begin to plan next year's camping trip :0)


***side point: once we got in the car and i went to take that first shot, i pulled out the camera and realized i left my SD card at home!!! i managed to find an old one buried at the bottom of the camera bag, and when i put it in the camera it had a bunch of this:

which has turned into this:

such a lazy child :o)

but again, what is not pictured here? my uterus, aching. (which would just be a gross picture anyway)

aid for my cool

on the favorites tab of my computer you'll find a folder marked "things to do with kids".

inside said folder you will find links to sundry exciting, messy, educational, cheap, enjoyable, bonding, ingenious activites i marked. i marked these with full intentions of doing one or two of these projects each week through the summer.

my children return to school in less than 2 weeks.

i just did the first craft.

although, in my defense, it was such a rip-roarin' good time, i'm not sure they really need any more crafts to make it through the summer. i think i can pretty much rest on my laurels from this point on.

"you're bored? yeah, but remember last week, when i let you guys PAINT? huh, huh? 'member that? yeah. so zip it."

anyway, what we did was Kool-Aid Painting.
basically, you mix the powder with a bit of water to create a thin watercolor paint. and boy does it smell good--even when it's dry. which is the beauty of this project.

it's "scratch and sniff painting".

they had so much fun. and i bought the 'off-brand' fake kool-aid**--it was about 100 packs for somewhere around 17 cents, give or take. whatever, it was a cheap project. that may be the actual beauty of the project.

and by the end of the day we had myriads of lovely paintings drying in the sunlight outside, and my house smelled like a tropical beachside bar.

even the littlest googie got in on the action. nothing toxic about this. you know, except for all the dyes and chemicals and additives. okay, maybe it's not really that much different than actual watercolors.

you like that hair, right? clearly she was going through a violent red period, a la de Kooning. i wasn't about to get between her and her canvas. there's something crazy in those eyes, am i right?

it was a lot of fun. i really should have done it sooner. there's a few more projects i'd like to try and squeeze in before the end of summer, particularly
hot rock painting
Color coded scavenger hunt
corn syrup painting

Kim over at A Girl and A Glue Gun had a great list up at the beginning of summer, check it out for more ideas!

**okay, so what exactly is the "fake" kool-aid? i mean, kool-aid isn't exactly natural right? and you know how when something isn't actually made from what it's supposed to be they just kind of change the spelling? like you're some kind of idiot who can't spell so will fall for their advertising and just buy it, no questions asked? like "jooce" or "cheeze" or "hey, let's get these here 'hot dawgs', they're a LOT cheaper than those other ones" but you know what it actually means is "don't be fooled--this is not actually made from juice or cheese or dogs but some chemicals and glitter and unicorn poo". so Kool-Aid? huh? i guess it's Cool-Aid? Cool Ade? it's supposed to 'cool' you, but not really because it's a 'k' so it just makes you sugared up and hyperactive so you won't notice that now you're sweating bright red because it's oozing out your pores?
umm, yeah.
sheepishly stepping off the soapbox.

uh, hey, Mr. Kool-Aid, if you're looking to sponsor a blog (waving hand like a phone) call me!

hoot hoot

look what i got!



i entered my play kitchen re-do into last week's CSI Project--the theme was "spray paint"--and i made the top 10!

honestly, i think googiedaddy is breathing a sigh of relief that i didn't win #1...the prize was a big pack of KRYLON SPRAY PAINT...
{sorry, just drooled a bit on my keyboard}


anyway, there was some really cool stuff on there--i especially loved the stick chandelier by Jenn @ wanting what i have.


thanks CSI!!!

wordless wednesday~sparkle

model behavior

this weekend Tiny Tim had a friend sleep over.

we'll call her...Bug.

meet Bug.

the girls had a "tea party", which required proper dress.

this is what Bug dug (ha!) out of the massive pile of dress up clothes.

it looked much cuter before spending a few months balled up in a drawer

before she took it off, i decided to take a few shots to share.

i made this dress at the last minute for a "princess party" i had for Tiny Tim & her friends quite a few months ago. I had a couple yards of this beautiful hot pink velvet. it's very heavy upholstery fabric. but i couldn't pass it up--it screamed princess gown to me!

i used the flower girl dress Tiny Tim wore in my brother's wedding as the base. it served as slip/underskirt all in one.

a little worse for the wear, no? ick, look at all those stains...

i made a basic bodice shape from the velvet, and stitched a faux lace up design on the front.

you can see from this photo how the velvet dress just slips right over the white flower girl dress

for the back, rather than mess with zippers and sizing, i took a clue from many wedding gowns and made it lace up, with a panel behind the laces. that way i could just tighten it up once she slipped it on, without the trauma of numerous fittings.

for the skirt, i simply took all the fabric i had left after i cut out the bodice portion, made some big box pleats, and sewed it to the bodice--starting from the middle of the front and working my way around the back and to the front again. i left it open so the 'slip' could peek through.

very romantic.

unfortunately, you get no good overall shot of the dress. because, as usual, i was too lazy to change lenses. and we all know where that leads.

i think Bug looks divine.

she is a cutie, isn't she?

thanks for modeling, Bug. because you know i have about 30 pictures of the cake i made for the princess party, but not a single photo of Tiny Tim in the dress i made her.

sigh.

(ignore the dates on these photos. my old camera liked to randomly assign dates/years to my pictures)

which is odd, because i would generally consider myself to be a much better sewer than baker. i'm usually more proud of my sewing accomplishments. yet so much of what i sew i never photograph.

maybe i was inordinately proud of my attempt at an, ahem, "castle" cake? (yeah, that's what that is. stop snickering. i can hear you)

whatever the case, there were some happy little girls that day.

(and apparently, one proud momma)