Now that the holidays are over, I can show off some of the toys I made for the kids. Here are the fairies I made, to go with these from last year.  All of them get played with a lot, by both The Boy and The Girl. I won’t show you how last year’s look now.  They have held up well, but they have been played with hard. Somehow I find that very satisfying.  I also love how I find these little fairies in odd places all over the house.  It’s a nice surprise.

I’m very pleased with how these came out, and now that I’ve made quite a few, they are getting much easier to make.  They are so cute, I am always tempted to keep them for myself.

I mean, they would look cute on my desk.

Much to my chagrin, The Girl chose to be a princess.  Specifically, “a princess with a fluffy blue dress.” While I don’t especially subscribe to the whole princess thing, I can surely understand my girl’s desire to wear a big beautiful dress. Despite the trickiness of all those layers of tulle, the dress went together pretty easily after just a week’s sewing.  I used Simplicity 2569, even though I had to combine several of the designs to get what she wanted. The crown is the same as these.

The Boy chose to be The Dragon King.  His favorite fantasy character at this time, The Dragon King does not hurt the dragons, but rather he communicates with them.  He is their friend.  We re-used the cape and shirt from this costume, so all I had to make was the vest.  You can’t really tell, but the vest fabric is printed with reptile scales.

This was the first year we took the kids trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood, and we had a great time!  There was much grumbling at first, but once the kids saw how much candy they had, they began to really enjoy themselves!  It was a very sweet and easy Halloween, quietly celebrated by our little family of four.

I love the springtime.  It’s my favorite season here in Florida, and it can be fleeting.  I love the whole spring holiday aesthetic: pastel colors, birdies, eggs.  What’s not to love about that?  I vowed to not let the holiday sneak up on me this year but it did anyway.  It seems that every year we are sick in the weeks leading up to it.  I don’t know why I am surprised that it happened again this year.  But every year I let go of a bit more and every year I am happier with our celebration.  I did not make The Girl’s dress this year, and I did very little crafting for basket stuffers.

And it seems I’m the only mama on the planet who didn’t make her own plant-based egg dyes.  Every year I want to and every year I don’t.  But I’m okay with that.  I have to be honest that I love the bright colors of the food coloring, but next year I swear I will make the natural dyes.

I did manage to make Not Martha’s Surprise Eggs which were a lot of fun.  The kids loved them. They are filled with chocolate, jelly beans, temporary tattoos, stickers, and a pipe cleaner chick.  These were seriously fun and with splitting up the tasks over several days, they were fairly easy to make.

I also managed to make some fresh butter while on the phone with The Bird. How’s that for pioneer woman productivity?

I made the same meal that I always do (except the salmon) and this year I made a gluten free lemon cake because The Bird planted the idea of lemon cake in my head and I couldn’t get it out. With cake flags, of course.

Hopefully next year I will actually get my act together early instead of just thinking about it.  I’ll admit that I’m still trying to find my rhythm as far as having both kids at home and working school into the day.  Watching the holiday come and go so quickly made me contemplate starting winter solstice gifts now.  Seriously.

What can I say?  My girl likes pink.  This yarn is a silk and cotton blend from The Infamous Stash, and the pattern is here.  This was a fun and incredibly easy pattern.  I plan on making lots more of these in wool for next winter.  I see it layered with a long sleeved top underneath.

I just never get tired of knitting for this girl.  She is so happy and grateful when I knit something for her.  It just melts this mama’s heart.

Really busy. I’ve got spring fever something fierce.

I’ve given my kitchen a makeover.

I’ve made progress on my Spring Wardrobe Project–two tops and one skirt finished.  (It is impossible to take photos of oneself without a tripod, I’ve discovered.)

I finished this sweater.

I whipped up some shorts for The Girl on Sunday.  Nothing better than a Sunday morning date with the Featherweight.   I remember purchasing that fabric years ago, knowing that someday I would make some clothes for my little girl.

When the shorts were finished, she told me that they needed a pocket.  Of course she said that after the shorts were done.  There may be a patch pocket in her future.

And here’s a preview of what I’m working on for the kitchen.

Today I am feeling a bit under the weather.  We’ve had the ickies for the last week and I’m feeling like it can move along any day now.  You hear that?  Any day now.

I’m slowing down as much as a stay at home homeschooling mama can.  Trying to get enough sleep and rest.  I cast on a new spring sweater for The Girl.  (You know a sweater is small when you find it easier to knit it on double pointed needles rather than a circular needle.)

Mostly I’ve spent a lot of time thinking.

I’ve been thinking about Spring clothes to sew.

Wishing I could pore over seed catalogs like my friends who are blessed with enough space and sunlight to garden.  When the weather begins to warm, I always get the urge to get my fingers in the dirt. I’ve been fantasizing about a front yard vegetable garden.

Thinking it would be nice to finish my new kitchen curtains.  The ones I started before I got sick.

Contemplating the carving of a wooden spoon.  I love watching this.  I’ve always wanted to work more with wood and this seems as good a place to start as any.  We all need spoons, right?  And lately I’ve been thinking more about how useful things can be both useful and beautiful.  This man is serious about his spoons.  When I find something like this it just makes me love the world even more.  And I do like the Spoon Carving Manifesto.

That’s where I’ve been today, how about you?

We had a simple and sweet party at home.  She invited two girl friends and the rest of us were family.

Here is the fairy set I made for her.

They are so cute, I could nearly explode.  And the boy fairy!  So cute!  Let me tell you that sewing a little pair of one inch trousers is not an easy task!

Purple fairy with her tiny braids.

Yellow fairy with her big puffy pigtails.

These are the same as the bendy doll family I made last year.  Thankfully they went together much faster this time!  The little acorn caps were found on our New York trip.  They are much bigger than my local southern acorn caps.  The hair is wool roving, the tops are wool felt, and the skirts and wings are silk flowers.

And here’s the house I made for them to live in. I purchased the plain wooden house very inexpensively at a large craft store, then hot glued twigs from our yard all over it.  There is a ton of glue on this thing.  Like about 30 sticks.  The roof shingles are from pinecones.

The little wooden furniture is from another playset we have, although I do want to make some more furniture.  This was totally a last minute gift, and I consider it a work in progress.  I knew there was no way I was going to get it done in time for her birthday if I tried to hide the work from her, so when she asked what I was making, I told her I was making a fairy house.

“For me?”

“No, for the fairies.”

“Mom, I think you are trying to surprise me,” she said.

This year, we decided to put together a farm set for The Girl.  This is the second batch of wooden animals that The Daddy Monkey and I have made, and they are fun and easy to make. I’m very proud of these because the designs are entirely my own.  I’m especially fond of the dog, even though somehow his scale got all messed up and he stands as tall as the cow!

barn photo by Finns and Flowers

To go with the animals, my mother and I split the cost of this beautiful handmade wooden barn, made by Finns and Flowers on Etsy. I couldn’t be happier with it.  It is gorgeous.  My father bought this cart from The Wooden Wagon to go with the horse, for pulling loads of hay and oats, of course!

I’ve really simplified our gift giving this year, and I’m so thrilled to be giving my Girl this set which was made by the loving hands of true craftspersons (and her parents!).  Along with the usual holiday messages of goodwill to your fellow humans, gratitude, and peace, I feel it’s important to show my children that we can create things on our own, without going to the store.  That items made by the hands of real humans do indeed have great value.  And that it’s nice to have playthings made of natural materials that will last a very, very long time and not end up in a landfill.  Perhaps that is the greatest gift of all.

The Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos is a holiday celebrated predominantly in Mexico and has evolved from an ancient Aztec festival.  Rather than being a somber occasion, it is a celebration of the lives of those who have come before us.  Traditionally, a feast is prepared, and an ofrenda, or altar, is built to honor the dead. It is believed that on this day, the spirits of the dead return to the earth for a visit! I believe it is important to remember the generations that have come before me, making my life possible.  And I hope someday someone will celebrate my life and memory on Dia de los Muertos!

As far as the party is concerned, I still have plenty to do.  Gather buffet supplies, get decorations ready, and finish the piñata and sugar skulls.  I’m in good shape now, and I just have a few last minute things to do. The paint on the piñata is drying as I type this, and the housecleaning will have to wait until tomorrow.  (And do I really need to clean the house before a party when it’s just going to get messed up anyway?)

I’ll be back next week to share images from the party, but for now I wanted to share the outfits I made for the kids to wear.  I had some scraps of muertos fabric from a skirt I made years ago, so I made a shirt for The Boy, and a skirt for The Girl.  I’m pleased to report that I had only tiny slivers of fabric remaining.  Love that fabric stash!

My only regret is that I did not have enough fabric for a similar skirt for me.  Also, I might be about thirty years too old for a skirt like that.

The Girl went as a fairy.  As much as I tried to persuade her otherwise, she insisted upon pink.  (I was rooting for aqua blue.) The dress and wings are from my own pattern.  There was much grumbling during the making of the wings, but it was all so worth it when she was the epitome of cuteness.  Indulge me in some cute photos, Okay?

The wings:

I ran into some difficulty with The Boy’s costume, which was supposed to be a robot.  But the silver lamé fabric would not cooperate and caused even more swearing than the fairy wings.  (It is not by mistake that the fabric is named lame.)

You must think all I do is swear while I sew.  I assure you I do not.  I’m usually a very happy seamstress.

So I gave The Boy two choices: I could go ahead with the robot (being very snagged and scratchy) or he could choose something from the dress-up trunk. Thank goodness he chose the latter. My sanity couldn’t take much more of that fabric.

He chose to be Hercules, wearing the Roman armor I made for him for Christmas 2008.  He refused to wear one of the many helmets we own, insisting Hercules did not need a helmet.

Action shot!

My favorite shot of the day?  The two of them playing together.  It is still such a novelty that it warms my heart whenever I see it.