I’ve made my own playdough before and it is a really easy project. But finger paint seemed so much more difficult! I don’t know why. If you have the patience to stand over a stove for 15-20 minutes stirring, then you can make the stuff. It’s just about time and having corn starch in the cupboard. Sheesh.
Three recipes can be found here. I used the first one, which was basically: combine 1/2 cup cornstarch, 2 cups water, 1/2 tsp salt and 2 tbsp sugar in a pan and stir over medium-low heat for about 15-20 minutes, until it becomes a thick, almost gelatinous substance. Let it cool completely, then divide into jars and add food coloring. We made three colors using 15 drops of yellow, 15 of red, and 10 of blue.
Then we took it outside along with a bunch of brushes and a big piece of cardboard (white on one side!) and tried it out. It was a huge hit! Bonus: it washes right off and seems to clean easily from clothing, too.
I’ve never done a blog giveaway before (I’ve never had a reason to), but I’ve been making so many of these clips in between dissertation edits and starting a new professional blog (more on that later – it’s not ready for public scrutiny yet!), that these things are starting to pile up. They really don’t take very long at all to make, but if you’re not into figuring it out, here’s your chance to have one anyway!
I’m going to give a bunch of these away, one larger clip or 2 smaller clips each to three different commenters. Just comment on this post by midnight Eastern Time, Friday, June 18 and tell me which one(s) you like best, and to what fun summer activity it/they will be worn. If the flowery frufru isn’t your thing, think about a young girl you know who might have fun with one of these. The giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere (that means international commenters, too!), so why not? If more than one winner chooses the same clip design, I’ll just make a duplicate. I have piles of these fabrics and a jar full of buttons. Also, feel free to let me know if there are different color/fabric/button combinations that you’d rather see.
I don’t think I’ll have the time to open up an etsy shop anytime soon, but I am curious to know which ones people like, for hand-made holiday gifts and the like. The ones with two fabrics measure about 8cm wide, and the smaller, single-fabric ones are around 5cm. I may add a bunch more after this weekend, so I’ll verify with the winners which one(s) they prefer, in case they change their minds if the options expand. In the mean time, feel free to comment away!
Sometimes I dream of making a whole blanket out of fabric yo-yos. The technique is so quick and easy and it can make even old scraps of cothing look cute and cheerful. The reality is that it would take hundreds of yo-yos to make such a thing, and knowing myself, I’d lose steam after barely finishing a quarter of them.
These flower clips are a great way to use yo-yos with almost instant gratification. You can make them out of any fabric you can hand-sew a needle through, and it’s a great way to use up scraps and random buttons you have laying around.
The variations are endless: you can layer several yo-yos of varying sizes, or just keep it simple and use only one. Instead of a clip, they could be made into pins or attached to headbands or off-center on the neckline of a boring blouse. I think they would be great gifts for a young girl, especially in the summer.
I’ve photographed the process and tried to create an easy explanation of how to make these. Let me know if you need any further clarification, and do share if you’ve tried it yourself!
DIY Yo-yo Flower Hair Clips
Step 1:Cut out your circles. You’ll need two different sizes for this version. I used a CD and the lid of a food container. I cut out a bunch of each size and play around with the fabric combinations once I have several.
Step 2: Make your yo-yos. Heather Bailey has an excellent tutorial for this.
Psst: you don’t even need to iron the fabric first!
Pull….
Tie a knot to secure shut.
Step 3: Repeat to create a smaller yo-yo. When you pull the smaller one tight, make a knot but do not cut the thread. Using the thread, attach a button to the center of the yo-yo. I used this little strawberry one, which makes it look more sweet and child-like. A much larger button has a more funky effect. After attaching the button, make a knot in the back of the yo-yo, but still do not cut the thread.
Step 4: Attach the smaller yo-yo to the larger one by sewing into the middle of the larger yo-yo.
You now have two needles and to threads coming out of the back of the larger yo-yo.
Step 5: Tie the two threads together several times to secure. Cut one of the threads now (I did this a little out of order in the photos, which is why the second thread still appears in the 2 following photos.)
Step 6: Take a clip and lay it on top of the back of the yo-yo.
Step 6: Attach the clip to the yo-yo in three places on the clip, beginning in the middle. Cut the thread after securing each spot and re-knot it to begin the next. Technique:
First stick the needle into the yo-yo, under the bottom of the clip. Stick it back out just below the top part of the clip (photo above). Pull tight.
Now stick the needle into the top of the top part of the clip and stick it out on the top border of the bottom part of the clip (photo above).
Repeat until you’ve secured both the top and the bottom about three times.
Voila! Wear in a variety of ways, to accent a messy bun (like the photo at the beginning of this post), or just clip to one side to keep whispy hair out of your eyes. You can’t go wrong and you’ll feel instantly accessorized.
For weeks I had my calendar marked on May 30th: Baby Animals Day! I couldn’t let Jax miss the excitement of good ol’ farm-themed fun. Plus, the visit is entirely free and is about 15 minutes away. He and I went with our friend Amanda and her now 4-month-old. While still too young to make all the animal sounds, I think the baby found the surroundings quite stimulating, especially the shady trees and the quite vocal cows!
In addition to a gathering of several historic farm buildings housing many animals, Muscoot Farm is also the site of a Sunday farmer’s market, so we hit that up first while the little ones napped. Then it was on to the stables and fields.
These lambs were only two weeks old.
Still too tired to check out the Jacob sheep.
When Jax woke from his nap he was delighted to discover himself surrounded by cows.
But he was quite apprehensive about petting the chick and kept a safe distance.
He wouldn’t get any closer to the duckling, either.
The chicks were on the left and the ducklings on the right and he stood in this corner looking back and forth, pointing and saying “chicken, duck.”
And then, the mother of all farm birds: a gigantic turkey.
You can never stare at a tractor too long when you’ve only ever seen one in a book.
{Try to spot him pointing at the bottom of the video window.}
We saw cows get milked and remarked upon how the milking machines use the same mechanism as a human breast pump. I guess we’re all mammals.
We went back to look at the sheep and poney, which Jax had missed as he slept.
Jacob sheep, meet Jacob.
We went for a second round at the farmer’s market to pick up some dairy products and raisin bread. Jax tried the milk and bread immediately, but mostly had fun just ripping it apart.
Good-bye for now. We are sure to be back to watch the baby animals as they grow!
We kicked off the long weekend on Saturday with a trip to the Van Cordlandt Manor. This 17th-century manor hosts a couple of big events each year, and the one that celebrates the opening of the summer season is called Animals and Acrobats. It’s an old-school carnival/circus show, with music and puppets and various performers (the eponymous acrobats of course). Birds of prey and horses were also a hit.
The event was also a great excuse to hang out with another family we recently met that also has a 1-year-old. While the boys are still too young to really understand playing together, they enjoyed the same things, and it was a great time chatting with the parents!
See the bales of hay in the foreground? That was a major attraction to the toddler set.
We are all staring at a huge owl sitting in the grass over in the shade.
“Hoo hoo”
Both the boys loved this puppet show. It was classic Punch and Judy, and most of the jokes were about drinking too much, but it was captivating to them.
Watching the musicians on our walk back to the car.
In all, the event is probably one that will only get more interesting as Jax gets older. Eventually he’ll want to watch the juggler of fire and learn about the hawks. For now, the music and puppets, the owl and climbing on the hay were entertainment enough!
We had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend and did so much that I’ll have to write a separate post with at least 384 pictures – just as soon as I have a tad more time (I will finish my dissertation’s conclusion this week!)
In the mean time, I thought I’d post a quick note about some stuff we found: I guess Memorial Day weekend is a chance for many people to get their spring cleaning out of the way before summer, and there is some amazing stuff being lovingly given away around here. We went out yesterday evening for our nightly walk and couldn’t even make it halfway around the block without loading up on stuff: a brand new beach umbrella (useful for the daily trips to the river I’ll tell you about soon), a kite in the shape of a biplane (still in its bag), old school kid’s camp chairs, a wooden play kitchen, woven baskets, a shoe shining kit, and a plant stand. After two trips we decided we had enough projects to sand and clean up and that we didn’t need to be those people who stock up on so many “bargains” that their house looks like a permanent rummage sale.
But then this morning I drove by one of the piles again and couldn’t stand the thought of leaving a wooden student desk in the approaching thunderstorm. So with no other help than my toddler-carrying-trained biceps and the Volvo, I brought this sturdy piece home, too. It’s in the garage pending a decision on its fate. If nothing else, we can put it on freecycle.org to find it a home.
I love this neighborhood. Everybody seemed to be outside last night and we met a bunch of neighbors/owners of the piles we were perusing. They were so happy to know their stuff was going to be used and loved by another family.
So here are the highlights:
The desk, which needs sanding and refinishing, but is in perfect working order.
The plant stand, something I was just talking about getting for the overflow pots on the side of our house (and to somewhat mask the hose from street view).
These kid’s chairs looked a bit better in the darkness. Today it’s becoming clear that a couple may need to be rewoven, but they are so lightweight compared to today’s beach chairs, it may be worth figuring out. Or maybe they’ll have to go back out onto the curb.
The kids who enjoyed this play kitchen are now 16 and 20 years old. It’s been hanging out in a garage, but after some sanding and scrubbing, I think it’ll be very well-loved by our 20-month-old aspiring chef. Have you seen how expensive wooden kitchens can be? I think this project, if none of the others, will be worth it. Plus, I love projects that involve light sanding and painting/varnishing, since I’m not too handy with the actual woodworking to make such things.
Jax has been officially initiated into our ragpicking ways: he held the kite in his hands as he rode in the stroller on the way home, with a grip that meant he took his task seriously. Poor thing, he doesn’t yet know it’s not normal to routinely bring home the neighbors’ trash!
I have an all-or-nothing problem with fresh produce. I’ll either buy way, way too much or not enough. I’ve been reading the French classic cookbook Je Sais Cuisiner and am trying to get better about meal planning. But the reality is that sometimes veggies start to fade before we can munch them up.
This week we had an excess of carrots and zucchini, and they weren’t looking too good. Since it was 92F/33C degrees yesterday, making an easy but hot puréed vegetable soup didn’t sound too appealing. Instead, I tried my hand at making zucchini carrot muffins – with the added challenge of making them as healthy as possible. After some recipe research and drawing on my experience with muffins in the past, I came up with a pretty good recipe, based on this one, but with much less sugar. We were all out of whole wheat flour, but that would have made it a tad more healthy, too. In all, I’m quite pleased with the result and will definitely use it again.
What you need:
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup granulated (white) sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 average-sized finely shredded unpeeled zucchini
3 small-to-medium-ish finely shredded carrots
What to do:
Using a food processor, finely grate/chop the zucchini and carrots.
Preheat oven to 375°. Grease 12 muffin cups (I have been using a great all-natural grape seed spray).
In a mixing bowl, beat the oil with eggs, sugars, and vanilla extract.
Combine the flour, soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon; add to the wet ingredients; stirring until blended. Fold in the shredded zucchini and carrots.
Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle of one comes out clean.
When we lived in Paris I picked up a few vintage linen dishcloths at a flea market. What was unusual about them was that they had never been embroidered, so I did some internet research and created my own simple monogram to match the classically simple red-stripe design. Check out that project here.
Embroidered dish cloths are old school, literally. In the time period I study (late nineteenth-century France) girls learned how to embroider, knit, and sew in school. They also learned basic reading, writing, and math skills, but until the twentieth century the curriculum for girls and that for boys were drastically different. Not cool. What would be cool is if everyone learned needlework skills and science. Can’t we all benefit from using both sides of our brains? This fall I’m giving a paper on one woman’s interesting educational theory for girls during this period. Maybe I’ll try to justify spending more time crafting as part of my “research.”
But back to the dish cloths: When it came time to celebrate my soon-to-be sister-in-law, Kendra, I thought I’d give her a French monogrammed dish cloth as a gift for the occasion of her bridal shower.
Since working on that first project I’ve discovered a fabulous site with vintage embroidery patterns that you can find here. I browsed around and came across a script alphabet that I think I prefer to the one I used on my own dish cloth.
Check it out here. See anything missing above? No W – this is actually quite common in French patterns (words that use W’s are only recent additions to French). I suppose you could just put two V’s together… Taking a look again, there isn’t a separate I or J, either. I guess you would use them interchangeably? Luckily I only needed the letters K and B this time.
After downloading the above file, I used the screen capture function on my computer to “cut” the letters I needed and then lined them up in Preview to create my custom cross-stitch pattern.
I then embroidered the initials onto the dish cloth, not worrying too much about finding exact squares, although it was fairly easy to do so on the thick linen.
Voilà. A little touch of everyday French elegance.
When we heard Seth’s parents and sister were headed to Florida for a week, we decided to join them for part of their vacation. There is so much to do there which makes a great place to meet up. Highlights of our trip were a waterslide park, trips to the beach, and a full day spent in Key West (my first time there), where we visited Hemingway’s house and of course indulged in some Key Lime pie. We loved the laid-back atmosphere of Key West and would love to return for a longer stay. But we were also satisfied with taking it easy in the sand and walking along the boardwalk in Hollywood Beach.
Thanks for all the fun, Ron, Carol, and Renée!
Ice Cream Sandwich
Can you spot the baby frog? There were teeny, tiny frogs *everywhere* on the beach at the lake near Seth’s parents’ place… and tadpoles in the water!
May has always been special to me, since my birthday is the 13th. But now with Mother’s Day as well, I have another great excuse to celebrate spring! What have we been up to?
Playing soccer in the backyard:
One Saturday, while the boys did this:
I did this:
These table linens were embroidered by my great-grandmother. My aunt Diane gave them to me on our last trip out to California. That table cloth in the back was Seth’s grandmother’s. I was able to get them looking crisp and new by pre-treating decades-old stains with OxyClean and then drenching them in sunshine after washing. These are so special to me, and I’m glad they add a touch of history and elegance to our meals today!
A tag sale benefiting the local historical society was held almost literally in our backyard, at our neighbor’s. Knowing the neighbors and having seen their awesome 1920s house, I knew the stuff would be good. As predicted, I came away with many treasures, including this 22-carat-gold-plated china set made by Limoges USA (I know, American Limoges?!), from the 1920s:
I’m almost embarrassed to say how much I paid: it would have cost more to see a movie in New York City.
I also picked up the most cheerful vintage recipe box:
and a pretty bowl, which I assume to be crystal because it weighs four tons:
Ah. I live for tag sale season.
Jax grew me a Mother’s Day gift at preschool:
He loves watering it and sometimes dumping out the excess water when it gets a little full.
Jax helped Seth mow the lawn on the morning of Mother’s Day:
For lunch that day we treated ourselves to delicious Mexican food. The table-side guacamole preparation was captivating:
While not a huge fan of the taste of guacamole, Jax did enjoy the cheese quesadillas and refried beans:
A big, quesadilla-filled smile!
For dinner that evening, we used one of my great-grandmother’s white tablecloths:
Seth gave me the beautiful rose plant I’ll be enjoying for months. It has since sprouted even more blooms.
Jax helped me open my Mother’s Day gift, a necklace with a charm that says “jax”:
Last weekend we used my birthday as an excuse to get together a bunch of local families with Jax-aged kids we’ve come to know. We had a picnic that lasted something like five hours, with friends coming and going all afternoon. It was great!
I have been so spoiled for my birthday and received many wonderful gifts that I so much appreciate. I now have Martha Stewart’s Craft encyclopedia and some great movies I’ve been meaning to watch and now can. There are also new treats from France and some fun new accessories I’ll be enjoying well beyond my birthday. So sweet!
My present to myself was finishing the last chapter of my dissertation. Now on to a summer of editing and rewriting, interspersed with many more picnics and some short trips to see friends and family. Happy times!
