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Some months ago I made these hand puppets for my daughter’s best friend, Evelyn, for her birthday.  The puppets represent her, her mother, her two fathers, and their dog, Nickel. Her grandfather made her a beautiful puppet theatre and I thought she would get a kick out of being puppet master of her family.  The puppets were a lot of fun and not too much work to make. They were made using fabric squares, felt, embroidery floss, and my cheap sewing machine. Honestly, you can probably use whatever you have around.  Youtube was my lord and savior when it came to figuring how to make a functional mouth. I found photos of them I wanted to use for reference and added little bits of “them” to each puppet (a Hillary pin, Waylon Jennings shirt, bald spot.)  They are not perfect and don’t have to be; their cartoonish nature is part of the funnies. When she opened up her puppets, the adults loved them probably more than she did, haha.

 

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Fun fact number one: I made this shirt.  It is the most comfortable linen sack ever, which means I may never take it off this summer.  Fun fact number two: National Park Week began yesterday!  From the 16th to the 24th you can get into any national park for free, so avail yourselves, my friends, of the natural wonders your tax dollars help protect and maintain.  We did just that today and paid a visit to the Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preservation.  It was a fun little hike with the kids and we were rewarded by a beautiful marsh and a lookout at the end (I’m under the lookout in the above photos).  It was windy, clear, and pretty damn near perfect. Next time we will definitely bring Banjo, too.  Hope you all had a great weekend!

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The universe has made me an aunt to a gaggle of dreamy little girls.  My go to gift every year for all of the nieces and nephews are books, because I love books, think they are important, and want them to love books too.  But last year for xmas I made foos a dollhouse the nieces coveted, so I thought this year I would give them something homemade.  I made them bunnies or cats, inspired by this toy anthropologie was selling (methinks mine are less creepy).  These were pretty easy to make and you can modify them however you’d like (I thought about adding whiskers, but got lazy).

For those of you who would like to make these, here is a list of materials I used.  I am also including the pattern I drew (poorly) for the dolls.  The pattern for the bunnies and the cats are the same except for the ears.  The capes come out better if they are at least an inch bigger than I have allowed in the pattern below.  This was learn as you go, but I’m very pleased with the results and christmas texts from my siblings confirm the girls loved them too!

Materials:

1. Fabric scraps (seriously, some of these are made of old pillow cases)
2. Felt (for the cheeks, but could be anything really)
3. Embroidery floss
4. Batting or buffalo snow (for the filling)
5. Scissors
6. Sewing machine

Poorly Drawn Pattern:

1. Head
2. Body
3. Cape

 

Enjoy!

photos: Seth

 

 

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Ruth Bader Ghostburg.

I’ve written here before about my daughter’s obsession with all things Ruth Bader Ginsburg; she has made up a song about her, has her photo hanging on her wall. It’s only natural she would would choose to be her for halloween, well the future ghost of RBG to be precise.  We are borrowing a Darth Vader mask from a friend, in case she wants to combine her two loves into one costume – Darth Bader Ginsburg – on halloween night. This is her favorite time of year, and we always have a lot of fun dressing up.  Here, for your viewing pleasure are some of the ridiculous things/awesome people she has been over the years.

Frida Kahlo & a Hobbit

A juice box

Edgar Allan Poe

Last but not least, Freddie Mercury!

Happy Halloween ❤

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This was a most excellent weekend.  We went to the beach, where I almost ruined a really nice dress, but the water was warm and Foos was having blast, which made it worth it.  We did our part to welcome fall (even though the temp was in the mid 80s) and salute basic bitches everywhere, by baking pumpkin muffins.  I felt a little like the patron saint of baked goods after offering these to my neighbors, a madonna of fat treats.  I suppose there are worse things to be.  A shot of Banjo is included, on a chair he isn’t allowed to sit in, because he is the best.

Photos: Seth

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Seth’s birthday was this week! it was a nice quiet day spent with the kids and his family for dinner.  It was great to celebrate a wonderful person who means so much to so many (especially me). I baked his favorite cake (chocolate with raspberry frosting, and I finally had the chance to make this cake topper (with adjustments!). This may be my favorite thing ever and the best part was he loved it too.

1. After looking over the original tutorial I thought I would personalize it a little. I found a picture of Seth I thought would fit the body of the tightrope walker nicely.
2. I followed this very easy how to on how to turn a photograph into a drawing using PS6.
3. Still using PS6 I cut and pasted Seth’s decapitated cartoon head onto the tightrope walker.
4. I followed the rest of Oh Happy Day’s tutorial, printed, watercolored, and cut out my Seth in bubbly shorts figurine.
5. Laughed and laughed. I still laugh every time I look at it.

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I have been keeping up with the Refashioners challenge going on at Makery, in which a bunch of crafty bloggers repurpose a button up shirt any way they choose. After seeing this tutorial by Erin, I tried my hand at making my own. Erin had already done the hard work,  which made it an easy sunday morning project for me. The whole time I was sewing my four year old sat across from me begging for me to stop and play Connect Four.  Bad mom.  Just kidding! She got her game in eventually. I’m very pleased with the way the shirt turned out and will likely try my hand at the other repurposed shirt tutorials.

Photos: Seth

55

This is a big transitional week for us – we got a new puppy, foos starts school- but it started with a visit from a very familiar face.  April and I met in college (we lived on the same floor) and became fast friends.  She only attended for two semesters, but we’ve kept up with each other now for the better part of ten years.  We always check in, sometimes aggressively, sometimes not. Mostly via letters and drawings, random tokens of shared weirdness.  We’ve kept this correspondence up through moves, marriages, failed pregnancies, her deployment to Afghanistan, the birth of my daughter, my divorce.  In this way April has been there for me through every major occurrence in my adult life, even though we’ve only really seen each other a handful of times since college.  It was only fitting then that she would be present for these ones, too.  She left yesterday and I already miss her like a phantom limb.

an old cigar box I turned into a jewelry box by butchering my nudie books (sacrilege, i know!) and some mod podge, as a gift for April’s birthday.

I baked this carrot cake during the visit. It was the fattest most deliciously satisfying thing I’ve had in a while.  I will definitely be baking this one again.

Nice photos : Seth

Phone photos: not seth.

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Foos’ new bookplates!  She got into Star Wars  (and comic book super heroes) via library books, and they are all she has been talking about for a few weeks now.  Seriously, this girl can do a spot on Darth Vader on command. All you need to personalize your books is a printer and a computer. These were done using vector images sold on etsy, free fonts, and photoshop.  Super easy.  Enjoy your weekend!

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Inspired by a google search of embroidery art and my daughter’s current obsession with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I created this little dude for her room this past weekend. I take great pleasure introducing Foos to amazing women, usually through books or a google search. She took to RGB as if she were made of candy. If adding streaming video to wordpress didn’t cost money, I would post a video of the awesome song and dance Foos dedicated to RGB.  Though my embroidery skills really need improvement, this wasn’t difficult to do; It was a quick project, and in a weird way, fulfilling.  I used a photo found on the web, which was printed on photo paper for my base image (a post card would work so much better), and embroidery floss for the rest.  I think I am going to try my hand at doing more of these.  I’m thinking Bukowski wearing a flower crown telling you to go “fucking read,” ha! The possibilities are truly endless.