Oh, hello!

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stay away this long. I would say that "we've been busy" but it's really just that we've been doing "life". We celebrated ProLife Day (January 22nd) by celebrating 17 years of The Professor being in our life.

A cozy pair of hand knit fingerless gloves from Sunshine!

Reading a card from Rain

He's growing into such an amazing young man that we are honored to call our son . Shortly after our celebration, Sean headed off on a business trip to Boston. The Boston that was just shut down by record amounts of snow…

yeah, THAT Boston!

Before he left though, he built a new countertop for the dry bar. We have wanted to get rid of the white laminate countertops for a while and create something that would match the built-in side opposite it.

Before with the old white laminate tops… they were not always decorated with such pretty food.

During...

...more during...

Done… just needs to be stained.

 I have discovered that I am not a staining kind of girl. It was terrible. It smelled. It seemed so arbitrary… what the color looked like in the can vs. what color it turned the wood. I had to mix stains to try to match the already stained side but then try to figure out number of coats. To condition or not to condition was another agonizing decision. And then don't even get me started on the oily polyurethane problem that had two master carpenters and the customer service rep at Minwax scratching their heads! It's done now and I have decided it will be a cold day in you-know-where before I willingly take on another staining project. Even though it turned out really nice! Home improvement projects should not be traumatic.

After!

Both sides. There is one tiny piece of trim that needs to be put back on underneath the tall countertop. It had to be removed to get the old countertop off. 

Looking from the dining room into the dry bar. 

Since my husband still wasn't back after the third coat of poly dried, I painted these mason jars as therapy… to make up for the trauma of stain.

Ahhhhh… beautiful paint. So tidy, so predictable, so comforting. These are a set of ombre colored jars that I intended to use as vases on the new bar or just for fun because they are pretty. I used this tutorial if you want to paint some pretty jars too or if you need some paint therapy.

Extreme Makeover ~ Dolly Edition!

So, y'all convinced me. In fact, with only half of the total opinions in, I already had her under the knife, or scissors, actually! It was a complicated operation, but the patient had a great attitude and should recover nicely.

Caution... naked dolly pictures ahead! If you faint at the sight of wool stuffing, please avert your eyes!

First step, to make her more huggable, I opened her back to remove some of the stuffing from her torso area. I didn't need a big hole, just big enough to get a crochet hook in there to start the removal process.

I found that not only was this dolly stuffed tightly, she was stuffed using really large wads of stuffing. I like to stuff my dolls with little bits of stuffing which is why they end up squishier, I think.

I tried to remove her arm at the shoulder but found that her arm was a single tube that went all the way through her body (also not the way I make mine because then their arms are always splayed open never falling down at their sides). So I ended up opening a seam up under her arms (to minimize scarring) and removing the stuffing that way. There again, not a big hole, just small enough to pull the stuffing out and put some back in in little bits. Once her arms and legs were done (I opened the legs high up on the inner thigh) I stitched her back together with a blind hem stitch. It took a lot out of her but I think she'll pull through! Hah hah hah, I crack myself up! Actually, it was about a quart size baggie of stuffing. Maybe I'll use it to sew her a nice pillow or stuffed animal.

Next step, I started chopping the hair off as close to the stitched line as I could using very small, very sharp pointy scissors. It came off easily and I knew that any remainder would be hidden under the new wig cap.

I decided not to change the face because my big girls said they liked it, buy you can see where the stitching for the eyes and the mouth was hidden under the hair. It would have been easy to change that if I wanted to.

Here she is with her wig cap on. My kids said it looked like an old fashioned bathing cap! 

Then we gave her new hair and a pretty side part and voila!!!

A new old dolly who fits in nicely with the purple haired Cutie Beautie and the fiery redhead, Dorothy Ann. She doesn't have a name yet. We are going to let Cupcake tell us what it is once she decides. That could take a while.

 

A Little Jane

We had a few extra onesies to decorate after we made Cupcake's patriotic cupcake. The girls' decided to use up a leftover Jane Austen silhouette from Sunshine's birthday party and make her a Baby Jane.

 And then on the very same day, we received the most delightful gift in the mail...

I had no idea such an adorable board book existed! And look... there are more!

Thank you, Miss Kelly! 

I think today might be a day for a little Jane. Shortcake is on the couch with a fever.

Sunshine's Sky Scarf

I meant to post this back in June... oh well.

I saw this Sky Scarf idea on Pinterest (thanks Miss Kelly!) and showed it to Sunshine. She fell in love with it. Can I just say, as a homeschooling mom (although not a knitter), I love the idea of conceptual knitting. She's kind of grooving on it too and thinking of projects she can create along the same lines.

So, after looking at the instructions, she decided to come up with her own color scheme and wants to alter the width a little. It's going to be a long process but she's excited. The knitting began yesterday and Sunshine has given me permission to blog her progress. Since she is using worsted weight and not fingering or lace weight, a year's worth might make it too long so Sunshine reserves the right to finish off the scarf when she feels it's a good length. Might be 6 months, might be 9, we'll see how it goes. I think she'd like to see the change from summer to fall and then winter primarily although spring would give her more stormy skies to notate.. We decided that 10am was a good time for her to make a daily observance, of course reserving the right to change her observation should the weather change drastically during the day. I told her not to treat it like a science project but to allow for artistic license. I think she's going to find the patience the hardest to accomplish. She's usually anxious to start a project and get it on it's way enjoying seeing the progress she makes. This project progresses slowly but I think a few months will be enough to see something lovely emerging.

Here are her sky designations...

Clear blue:

Clear blue with clouds:

Light blue:

Light blue with clouds:

Foggy or snow:

Cloudy / overcast / light rain:

Dark clouds / heavy rain / thunderstorm:

A Future Homemaker's Kris Kringle

BigBoy drew Shortcake's name in the family Kris Kringle draw. She has been loving her new role as primary kitchen helper since Cupcake was born. She has made several batches of pumpkin bread, banana bread and even surprised her siblings with a batch of Daddy's famous chocolate chip cookies. BigBoy gave her a HUGE hug for that act of service!

So he and I came up with an idea to decorate a recipe box for her. I thought we'd be able to find just a plain wooden box for him to paint but we had no luck in our craft stores. Jewelry boxes, yes, but no recipe boxes. So we opted for this photo storage box on sale at Hobby Lobby. He drew a picture for her to decorate the front and chose some recipe cards with puppies on them. I printed off the pumpkin bread and cookie recipes for her and made some dividers from some cardstock we already had. I added a bag of chocolate chips from the pantry to let her know that he would appreciate if she would put her new gift to good use... soon!

I won't be able to post the girls' gifts to their brothers because they are already wrapped and hidden away. Sunshine chose this map of middle earth poster (it was less than $5 when we ordered it but it looks like it's gone up a little) for The Professor along with a pair of fingerless gloves that she knit for him. Shortcake found a Family Circus comic book for BigBoy. He loves The Family Circus and was sad when we told him that Bil Keane passed away last month. It's a used copy, since most are out of print, but my kids don't mind. A new book is a new book even if it's been owned before.

 

A Knitter's Kris Kringle

My kids love to do Secret Santas with each other. I encourage them to make things when they can but it isn't a requirement. If they choose to purchase a gift, it should be something small and simple.

This year, The Professor pulled Sunshine's name in the draw. Everyone knows they can get her a new skein of yarn and make her Christmas bright but he decided to try his hand at a little crafting after I showed him this ornament Kelly had pinned on Pinterest. I think it turned out great. He chose the yarn from our yarn box and wrapped it himself. I helped him cut the skewers and glue on the beads (hot glue).

FYI... he used a styrofoam ball ornament instead of a glass ball ornament like the original poster used. He also wanted to make her a CD. Last year he made a mix-CD of Christmas song for Shortcake. We set about looking for songs that have to do with yarn or knitting and these are the only 7 we came up with. If you know of any others that are appropriate for a young lady, please let me know.

Yarn Washing Girl (Huan Sha Nv) by Xu Hong (instrumental)
Doozer Knitting Song by Fraggle Rock
Knitting by Arthur Askey
The Knitting Song by Sophie Madeleine
Knitting Class by Nancy Wilson/Jimmy Heath
Weave the Yarn by Mary Knickle (a fun little Irish jig)
Flourescent Scraps of Yarn by Laurel Brauns

Mary G. found another one:
Knit One, Purl Two by Glen Miller
 

Pattern Helper

Somewhere, on someone's blog, I think, I saw mention of a magnetic board that helped them keep track of their place in a knitting or crochet pattern. Obviously, the details didn't stick in my pregnant brain but the idea did. When I went looking for it again or something like it, I found this magnetic tabletop easel and thought it would serve my purposes. It has wonderfully!

I used a strip of magnetic tape and some pretty paper scraps to make some magnetic place markers. The reviews of the easel say that alphabet magnets don't stick very well to this board but I think that's due to the weakness of the magnets, not the fault of the board. The ones I made stick and stay in place just fine. It works much better than my old method of marking off sections with a pen!