I've Moved...

Please come visit me at www.lissybug.com!

Playdough Raceway!

I have to admit- when I saw this idea in Making Make Believe (I love this book) I thought it seemed like nothing special. Little did I know the power of just a little suggestion to spark imagination.
We rolled out snakes of playdough and made this track for the cars. Soon cars were zooming, parking, towing and racing along. Leland went down for a nap and I went into the other room and James continued to chat and play away. When I came back the playdough had been all mushed up into a ferry (this was explained to me. Lumps made by three year olds can be hard to interpret, you know.) Next James want's me to make green playdough so it can be used for "walls and rails and tracks."

Here's the playdough recipe I used.

The other fun thing that resulted from this playdough play? The next day we played car wash and rinsed all the little blue bits off the cars that had been transported by playdough ferry!

Learning Curve

Whew- you know, before I had kids I never realized how nice it was to be able to sit and concentrate on one thing for LOOOooong uninterrupted pieces of time. I'm working on learning wordpress amongst other things, but quiet computer time and small boys don't actually mix. at all. So it's taking a while. Frustratingly I feel like all my creative energy is being sucked away by the computer and yet I need to be on the computer in order to get things moving along. I guess the benefit of the poor Boy-Os being sick today is that they're both napping at the moment. So I'll get back to work. I just want to get past this learning curve and get going again!

Some Vintage Clipart to Distract You...

From the fact that I haven't been here for some time! Excuse me, I've been absent lately- I'm in the midst of getting together a logo, graphics, fonts and whatnot so I can move onto my own domain (It'll be lissybug.com once it's up and running.) Once I have that all together I have a bunch of vintage and second hand fabrics to list. I'm developing a little sustainable sewing shop focusing on vintage, second hand and upcycled sewing notions and fabric. Some organics may show up as well. Until then- if you like vintage images here are a few great sites I've come across with some wonderful, free vintage clip art and fonts.

Beautiful stuff at The Vintage Moth- this is my favorite recent find for vintage images:


Vintage Images and old photographs at Old Photo Album:













Clipart ETC is full of black and white line drawings such as the one below. A great source for botanical drawings as well a animals and insects.













Full Moon Graphics- Not only does she have oodles and oodles of free and wonderful graphic sets, she also has tons of resources to find even more graphics and fonts. Careful, you may not get off the computer for a long time ;)




Do you happen to need and authentic looking document from the 1920s/30s? Here ya go- The HPLHS Prop Document Project has you cevered. Also they have a list of 20s and 30s fonts for free.














And if you love Mid Century Modern (and more!), you must go to Tack-O-Rama. What a great resource for retro clipart and fonts. The background for this blog is from there.

Creative Doldrums

I was reading a book a few months ago that talked about the creative ebb and flow. The book, 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMeekin, talks about the way our creativity cycles through high and low points. So right now I am in a lull which can feel rather uncomfortable. I don't have that wonderful feeling of moving along with exciting projects, brimming with excitement at the next wonderful idea. I've spent the last few weeks figuring out priorities, ridding myself of excessive commitments and extraneous STUFF. Yet facing what amounts to a blank slate, instead of feeling invigorated I feel murky and uncertain. McMeekin says, "Whenever and however we arrive at the void, the experience promises to give us a close encounter with fear and insecurity. As we release an old identity and move into a sense of being lost, purposeless, undefined or confused, we must encounter the darkness in ourselves."

So here I am, fears bubbling up and not a lot of inspiration coming with them. But instead of panicking and packing up my schedule again with things I don't actually want to be doing, I am looking at my goals. I am hanging out with these uncomfortable emotions and trusting that this is part of the cycle. I am continuing to clean out and clean up and make little steps forward. I am trusting I will reemerge from the creative void and thanks to the time spent creating space and order I will be prepared for the rush of creative energy and opportunity that is sure to come along.

Preschooler Cookin'

I'm loving the Preschool Cookbook we got James for Yule. The book is Pretend Soup, by Mollie Katzen. It's got pictures with each recipe so even my three year old can see what to do next. The recipes are just right for preschoolers too- not too complex, and tasty. James gets very into selecting what he'd like to make and we put the ingredients on the grocery list. You can see the book in the recipe stand below.

We've been making Chocolate banana shakes the past couple days and I love seeing him proudly pour his brother and I our drinks the he made (almost) all by himself.

Chocolate Banana Shake:
1 Cup Milk
1/2 Banana
2T Cocoa
3 Ice Cubes

Put all ingredients in Blender. Blend. Pour. Drink.

Yes it sounds simple, but the magic is that James is getting to flip through the book, decide from the pictures what he'd like and see how to make that very thing, and then find that he actually is able to do it.

For more recipes, you may enjoy The Kids Corner on Mollie's website as well.
http://www.molliekatzen.com/kids.php

Lists Keeping- On Wall and Online

I use lists all the time. Below you see a picture of my list wall in my craftroom. The cabinets are our old metal kitchen cabinets, so I can stick my lists to them with magnets. I used to write these types of lists in notebooks and on slips of paper, but then they'd disappear. Now I always know where to find my lists, they're visible and easy to get to. I do still keep a notebook in my purse for when I'm out and about. The napkin's just stuck up there because I kept needing reminders on how to miter a corner the other day. This is excellent for me in the craftroom because when I get going on anything creative, my brain wakes up and thinks of bunches of important little things that must be written down. Now I can just turn and write on the appropriate list and get back to work. This is particularly good for those great ideas that I just MUST stop and do now. No, no, no, stay on task and write the idea on the "Ideas To Make" list.

Also on my list wall:
-Goals For the Month
-Sewing Room Improvements
-To Look for at Bookmens (local used book shop)
-Gift Ideas
-Wish List
-Menu Plan
-Things to Ask Michael (my husband)
And on a white board not pictured-
-To Sew
-To Do Online
-To Do
-Thank You Notes

For online list keeping I've recently discovered Springpad. ♥ This is a free site dedicated to lists. They have loads of suggestions and pre-formatted lists for things like houshold management, menu planning and recipes, trip planning, and holidays. (There's a great holiday card planner on the site.) You can also make your own Springpad from scratch.

I'm loving the ability to write down my household routines, schedule them if I like (it links up with Google Calendar) and also be able to edit them easily. I can make whatever diddly little list I like and know where to find it again, search it, tag it, share it. Yay. I function much bettter when I write things down instead of trying to hold onto skittering bits of information in my often-sleep-deprived brain. Now that I can easily find my lists when I need them, I'm sure to accomplish great things. Or at least I might remember to send a card to Grandma Rose on time next year.

Wish Boats and Burning the Tree

Happy New Year! This has got to be one of my very favorite family traditions- burning the Christmas tree. What a send off to the previous year, and a bright hello to things to come.

This year we also made wish boats (if you'd like to make these there's a great tutorial HERE on youtube) out of folded paper. We stood around the familiar oak table and creased and folded and laughed as we followed my mom's lead to make boats for our candles. The room got quiet as we wrote our wishes for 2009, slipping into a reflective calm as we focused on the year ahead.

Wishes inscribed, we made our way down to the pond. One by one, we lit candles and sent the wishes sailing.

Wishing you a year of wonder and connection with those you love.

A Doll Sling for James

Just as with a real baby, a sling is a must for carrying around your doll.

I had to (really, I just had to!) make James the sling after we went to the library and he wanted to take his doll, but all he had for carrying was the Moses basket bed. So he lugged that thing around with his doll and two blankets draping out of it.

I have to say, either way, there are few things more satisfying in life than watching your child play with a (and love) toy you made them. So sweet.

Wishing You Yuletide Cheer

Here's the doll I made for my niece, all dressed now. She wishes you all a happy holiday, good company and much cheer. We celebrated the Solstice on Sunday with a feast- lots of family, tasty food and presents. Santa came that night and brought a few more goodies. I can't wait to show you all the dolls I made for James and Leland. These dolls are fun! We're taking it easy this week, visiting with friends and family- and watching it snow and snow and snow! Best wishes to you and yours!

Yule Tradtions and Naked Dolls

No- naked dolls are not the Yule tradition I wanted to show off. I'm working diligently to clothe them. Here's the doll I made for my niece keeping watch while I sew her dress. It will be done tomorrow even if I'm falling asleep in my Figgy Pudding (which IS one of our Yule Traditions.) After I get her dress done I just have to sew clothing for James' doll and I'm done- whew, just in the nick of time. Next year I am starting earlier, I swear. I'm sure I've said that every year, maybe I could predate a blog post that says "GET TO WORK ON HOLIDAY GIFTS!"anyway...

 

What I wanted to show off is the ornament I made for Michael. One of our holiday traditions that we started when we first got married is to make each other an ornament each year.

 

In April of this year we got five hens (ha! or so we thought.)As it turned out one was a rooster. As it also turned out our big black menace...err dog found chickens running around in the yard sufficient motivation to push open our screen door. So just when we were asking ourselves what we should do about the rooster- she took care of it. I learned how to pluck and butcher poultry and the resulting meal was quite tasty and well earned and this is the wishbone from the rooster with "wish" embroidered behind it. Yes it's a little odd. I think it'll make us laugh when we pull it our years from now.

OK, the doll is getting impatient. She's just staring at me. I better go finish up.

Sling Instructions- Done!

I've finally finished writing out my instruction sheet for the ring-slings I've been selling. Having no instruction sheet to give out has really held me back on even wanting to sell any slings, but now finally they are DONE. Whew. One thing off my plate. Still yet to be accomplished- finish sewing gifts for Solstice.

 

I'm feeling a little discombobulated with the holidays approaching. I have a custom apron order to sew, dolls to finish for the kids and no decorations up yet. My husband moved his office into the back of our house a couple weeks ago and that's just been a bit odd. We're working out the kinks still. Leland is getting in molars and just screams at anything that doesn't go his way, and being that his way is the fickle way of an 18 month old, screaming happens a lot. As my grandmother would say- good thing he's cute.

 

Making the Holidays Meaningful

We're really focusing on cutting the stress and enjoying our family this year for the holidays. The gifts we're giving are simple, handmade things like cards or baked items. We decided to make our own little family the priority then look outward. This way the neat things I've wanted to make for my husband and kids or the fun activities we want to do don't get buried at the bottom of the list. So my kids are getting mama made dolls and my husband can read, and just might read this blog, so he doesn't get to know what he's getting. A link to a really great guide that talks about avoiding the Holiday Hype came in my email today, and I thought I'd share it: Commercial Free Childhood's Holiday Guide

Thanksgiving

There's also a section on their website with lots of fun and creative ideas for Gifts in a Shoebox that you can put together possibly with things you already have. I'm thinking for my niece I'll make a shoebox kit of the Paper Dolls that James and I had so much fun decorating.

We started things off yesterday with an advent calendar- I was going to get complicated, but instead I took out the calendar that I forgot about last year and wrote little activities on the back of each flap, so when they open the flap it says things like "pancakes for breakfast" or,"make cookies."

We also swapped family advent calendars with my siblings and my mom, but I'll post about that later.

Raisin Pie Update

Well- the pie below? Wrong pie. It wasn't the one my mom ate growing up. It tasted alright, even though it was very unattractive and we didn't even serve it at dinner (not like we were lacking in the dessert category anyhow.) The good news here is that when I got home, I looked at the recipe I had from my grandmother (I'd forgotten it here) and even though the one I found online looked similar, they're not the same. So I may yet be able to recreate this family favorite. For the moment though, we're rather satiated as far as pie goes so I think I'll wait a bit on that experiment. I'd post a picture of the pie I did make, but my camera's gone a little bit missing in all the Hoopla.
ETA- found the camera:

Oh- I've also decided that I just don't like that vodka pie crust recipe. I'll stick with the Cooks Illustrated (other) best pie crust instead.

Sour Cream Raisin Pie

My mother has often told me about a raisin pie that she and my grandfather loved. The other night I was at my grandmother's for dinner and asked her if she thought she still had the recipe- and she did. We dug through her recipe box and eventually found a little slip of carboard from the back of a SunMaid Raisin box with a recipe for Sour Cream Raisin Pie. So I'm baking this today for Thanksgiving!
I hope it turns out well enough to evoke the memory of the pies my grandmother used to bake. I'm at my mother's and forgot my usual pie crust recipe at home so I did a search online. I like to use the best pie crust recipe from Cooks Illustrated, which I did find a version of HERE but I also have tried their recipe with Vodka in it a couple times. I'm not totally sold on it (the dough is really soft, thus sticky), but it's so interesting that I have to try one more time to see if I like it or see if I for certain DON'T like it. I'll chill it for longer than I have in the past I think... I'll let you know how the pie comes out!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Button-down Shirt Sleeve Pants

Leland's got some new pants made from Papa's old shirt. I made these just like you'd make pants from a sweater, though of course, with cotton shirts there's no felting involved. Leland wears about 18 mos. clothing and I don't think you'd be able to make these much bigger than that. Well, nevermind- with MY husband's shirts I couldn't make them much bigger.I'm thinking these would be cute with a pocket on the side- maybe from the shirt front?

Really Easy Applique

About a year ago I read instructions on Melissa Haworth's Blog, Under Construction, about how to applique by sewing your applique piece onto iron on interfacing. Though I left an enthusiastic comment I still didn't get around to actually trying it out until recently while decorating some bibs. When I wrote Melissa to tell her I'd finally used the idea, she told me that her new favorite way of doing applique is to just sew the piece onto another piece of that fabric, then stick it onto whatever she's decorating with a bit of wonder under if she wants to stick it on. This has become my favorite way of making little decorative patches (though I have yet to use the wonder under tip. I think that'd be quite helpful for hand applique though.) Here are my own little instructions.

James wanted to get in on all the sewing I've been doing and dug through my scraps to find this cowboy. He told me he wanted it on his stripey shirt so I created this little tutorial in case you'd like an easy way to add a bit of decoration to...anything fabric.

• Cut out your image- this can be much rougher than I did in the picture.
• Choose a fabric for the backing- interfacing works, a piece of the same fabric, or for this one I just chose a scrap of black fabric.
• Right side to right side, sew all the way around your image. All the way, closing the gap.
  

• Cut out right next to your sewing line. I find using pinking shears carefully works very well.
• Cut a slit in the back fabric that you will turn the piece through.
• Turn your piece inside out and use a finger or bonefolder to press out the seam.

• Iron.

• Sew onto intended item. You can hand applique, top-stitch or use your machine's applique stitch. Some patches look really cute when sewn on with a decorative stitch.
• My model was none too cooperative. He's trying, in this picture, to hide the cowboy and take the camera from me, but it's the best one I got.

Another blog tutorial that was helpful is on Stitch Rip Repeat.
Thank you Melissa and Beth!

Could This Be Our Daily Bread?

Last month Stefani at Blue Yonder wrote about her family's, "Daily Bread." Thank you Stefani! The recipe she posted sounded simple and tasty and I love the idea of making our own bread, but also find it somewhat intimidating. So we tried it out the other night and I'm hooked!

The boys helped out of course- though when took the dough out of the Cuisinart to knead it some by hand, neither of them were interested in touching it. We live at 7000 feet so I'm never sure how well baked goods will do, but this came out great. The only adjustment I made was to cut down the rising time the second rise. Oh, actually I substituted brown rice syrup for honey since I was out of honey. Oh, uh, I also took it out of the oven a bit early because we were HUNGRY. So this is a forgiving recipe! Next time I will let it bake longer though to get a nice crust.

After trying this recipe I got all brave and made rolls the next night. I think I could be into this homemade bread. We'll make Blue Yonder's Daily Bread again today. I may have to slow down (but not really just yet)- all this tasty bread drastically increases butter consumption!

Test Shots- Product Photos

Aack! Last night I spent some time trying to get a few decent photos of things for my shop, but no. They came out all wrong. The first one- well that apron not actually 'on' someone just looks like road kill. No good. I'll have to get my sister over here and take pictures of the aprons on her.

This bib with the harsh shadow I don't like and I think I need it to be really easy to take the pictures, so probably just laying things down, not hanging them.

Which is what I did here, (not that I expected to like the look of my carpet in the photo.) I'm thinking though, with the intensity of the flash on my little digital camers, I'll have to take the pictures during daylight in a well lit place so the flash isn't necessary. It just is too bright and ruins the color. Gee, that sounds doofus-ly obvious when typed out.


Oh well, here's to getting pictures taken today and actually listing things!

Paper Doll Papas

This is SO much fun to do with the small person of your choice. James chose "Special Art Time With Mama" as a reward he could earn recently and yesterday he cashed in his certificate while Leland napped. To make it special I made up a basket of supplies and brought them into his bedroom at his little table and cut out these dolls we could decorate, figuring I'd give them as an idea and then let him take the lead. It was great. I just dove in and started drawing faces and he grabbed his own and got to work.

What was most fun is was hearing him tell stories about them. His were "all Papas." One of them didn't like clothes, one liked hats and one wanted a face. Once he had a face he started demanding food and we had to make him a plate! He was so excited that I'd made them hold hands and wanted to know how I'd managed that, and then he wanted to know all about my dolls, and eventually took to helping me dress them too. After maybe 20 minutes he said, "Ok, Mama, I'm done!" and then helped clean up. We will be doing this again for sure. I left all the doll supplies together so we can grab them easily. Whether you have paper or fabric you've got to try this sometime. You never know what those Papa dolls will be up to!