Tales of a Shoebox Princess

I'll post something non-EJ or church related. How about crafts? Or food? Or both? Yesterday was a refreshing day of few commitments. I made dinner but few people were at home to eat it. Dave (not that you read this), I used some of the IQF* beef you are "storing" in my freezer for my chili last night. I learned that 20 lbs of IQF ground beef in a box does not come in smaller quantities when you open the box. Nope, I had to scoop out what I estimated I needed (2 lbs) out of this: Yes, it looks like worms. It weirds me out every time I look at it. But we ate the chili anyway, those of us who were at home. And now for my craft. I haven't crafted in ages. I have been meaning to do a craft for ages because I'm so often at home these days and I have lots of craft supplies. For the craft that I wanted to do, however, I needed vinyl letters and wooden blocks, neither of which I had. But I do have acquaintances who do. So I turned to them in my time of need a...

I love sites like Pinterest, Tip Junkie, One Pretty Thing, etc... (no links cuz I'm too lazy). I love to look at pretty things people have made with their own two hands (and a bunch of raw materials. Or maybe not so raw) On occasion, I have even tried to make some of these things that the craft sites promise are so cute and easy and amazing and beautiful and designed to make lasting memories...... ad nauseum. (excuse me while I barf just a teensy little bit). And for the most part, the crafts do turn out pretty. I set them out during the appropriate season and I get a little kick every time I look at them. The problem is that nobody ever blogs or posts pictures concerning the ABSOLUTE MESS that is associated with each project. I made a simple card yesterday and, O heavens above, the mess was huge. It took me three times as long to clean up after myself than it did to make the one card. I should have taken a picture. You know what I wanna see along side those studio-backdr...

Hayley has been bugging me to put pictures of her Halloween costume on the blog. She finished it last week and we got a wig to go with it. This is the cartoon character she is trying to look like: Princess Bubblegum from "Adventure Time" And here is the dress: She's trying to be pretty Here is Princess Bubblegum Hayley with the wig and crown and the stuffed Peppermint Butler she made a while ago: And one last picture because we found it funny. See if you can guess why: Do you see why we found it amusing?  Here's a hint mixed in with some labeling requested by Hayley: Did you guess Paul's face on the computer is what made us laugh? Cuz that's what it was. I'm still chuckling.

Yes, I meant to type "Gir."  You'll get it in a little bit (if you keep reading). So the little Cheeky girl has been a-crafting lately. She likes to get into my yarn and leave yarn poop trails through the house. (no, she doesn't really poop the yarn out, but it is her mess. She is a yarn-cutting-leaver-arounder) So this most recent craft had her making black pompoms (with my help), and crocheting with lime green:  She found a pattern for this hat on the interweb somewhere and printed it off, only to discover that it was for knitting, not crocheting. She doesn't like knitting, so she decided to make up her own pattern. And, to make matters even harder for her, she only crochets in a circular pattern. But she was not afraid of the obstacles, and pressed forward in her quest for a crocheted cartoon character's head as a hat. The cartoon character's name is Gir, by the way (do you get my little pun now?). She made the hat so she could dress up like Gir ...

I had it all worked out. Three presents per child this Christmas. One, two, three. Fifteen total. Katie's were shipped; everyone else's gifts are waiting patiently in the closet for wrapping time. And then Jim had to go and mess it up. He bought a fourth present for one of the children (I won't say which one, but I will give you a hint. This child looks like his dad and is named like his dad) without consulting the LIST. It's a big present too; granted, it is something he will need for his upcoming future (which isn't all that futurous. Very very soon this future will become the now) but the addition of a fourth present has thrown me off. I don't like unfairness. I am able to set aside the lack of fairness with regard to price, but I don't like that one child has four presents to open, and the others have only three (although Katie may have gotten four, but she doesn't quite count because she won't be opening them here). Now I gotta go out and get...

This little thing rolled over to my house yesterday (Friday). She is such a dolly. I gave her Cheerios, which I hear from her mother (who tagged along) is a first. Vi didn't know what to make of the Cheerios. She gummed a few and gagged on a few. I took better pics with Jen's camera, especially the shot of Vi with a Cheerio mole. Jen gets down to business with the craft she was in charge of bringing: beribboned eggs. We both burned ourselves on the hot glue gun. Wah for us! This is what my ribbon egg turned out like Kind of tulip-bulb-y. Jen is very proud of her craftiness. My craft involved painting candlesticks and wooden eggs. I used up nearly a whole can of spray paint on the sticks because I wanted them to have the look of being painted over and over again. Pay no attention to the hose in the background. Or the drainpipe. Or the satellite dish cable. One thing I learned about these bare wood craft candlesticks--they don't hold spray paint very well. I wasted...

It's weird not posting post-birthday pictures. Katie got a little "present" at work in the form of a very nice special mention in a review form. The bank she works at sends out surveys to all their departments to review other departments and her department gets negative reviews all the time because they are the police of the new accounts. It's her job (and her department) to find errors, if any, in signature cards. So they get a lot of bad feedback. But Katie was mentioned by name in one review, which said that Katie is always helpful and pleasant to this new-on-the-job person who wrote the review. The reviewer said that Katie has made learning the system easier. So Katie was happy. I knit a sock. Now I have to knit the other one. Matt has been chosen to take part in his school's geography bee (which will take place a week from Friday I think). He's very excited. He likes learning and knowing factoids about the world around him, especially in the area...

I got to play with some friends today (one friend related by marriage and the other by blood). Both of these friends brought other friends along with them for playdates with friends of mine that I keep in the house. Mike's Jen came with Mimi and Violet and Jessie came with Bon. Mimi played with Fake Child and Bon played with my kids. Jen, Jessie, and I sat upstairs at the table and crafted and talked (and ate treats). Picture recap Mimi hugs her foot Jenny is SO EXCITED to be here So Jen was sitting on my couch and fingering an afghan sent to me by a different Jen. Something poked her. She found this many pins in the afghan. And this is in addition to the four I found previously. Jenni in Florida: that old lady must be wondering what happened to all her pins. Here Violet demonstrates the proper rolling-over technique Jessie and Jen get started. Each of us picked a Halloween (yes, Halloween) craft for which we bought the supplies for three sets. Jen did countdown blocks, J...

It's craft day! Jen and Jessie are coming over to play! And we realize that it's nearly Thanksgiving and Christmas is close at hand, but there was a request to make Halloween decorations because certain people have found a disturbing lack of pumpkins in their personal decoration cache. And I can always use more Halloween stuff. (Note to self: get another Rubbermaid container. The two boxes I have already are full)

This is the last Halloween Decoration Special Feature of the year and that leaves me a little sad. Tomorrow all the pretty pumpkins and scary skulls come down. Boo (hoo!). I'll update later tonight with pictures of trick-or-treaters so for now I'll just leave you with the last Halloween Decoration Special Feature. It is the pumpkin dishcloth I knitted over the last few nights.

I came across some paper dolls on the interweb. I've downloaded and printed them and am cutting them out now (when I'm not actually blogging). I thought I'd share them with you, well, with those of you who have little kids. My littles are too old for paper dolls, but I would have totally printed them out for Hayley and Matt to play with had I seen them years ago. But now I have Fake Child, so I'm letting her play with them. Boy Halloween paper doll Girl Halloween paper doll Check them out. Jen, your girls might like these. They do take a bit of time to cut out, but they are so cute. As promised, here is a picture of Hayley at the sewing machine. She is working on a pair of black pants for her Halloween costume. This is her first foray into sewing and so far she is doing just fine. As for her costume, I have NO idea what it is she is going to be. Some anime character with a squash shaped backpack that apparently holds sand. WTH??!! (WTH=what the heck) She alr...

You know it's going to be a special post when I purposely misspell most of the words in the title. So it's my favorite time of year. I love October. The weather cools down after the heat and humidity of summer. The leaves turn on their neon colors. And pumpkins pop up on porches like children waiting for a candy handout. Halloween is coming! And I got my crafting groove on because it is my mission in life to turn my living room completely over to orange kitschy goodness during the month of October. Please ignore the eyes rolling over in the other corner of the house. Husband is rolling out his Halloween tradition of non-verbal sarcasm. This is the result of my crafting efforts: Like all good crafters who share their dalliances with the creative muse on the internet, I will now post the instructions for this very easy craft. 1. Convince your parents to provide you with a slightly younger sister who will grow up to have a wicked awesome sewing machine that can make these: ...

...and probably one of the sillier uses for it as well. I bought an amigurumi book this summer but not for the doll patterns. I bought it for this hamburger. Technically the hamburger isn't amigurumi, but it uses the spiral crochet technique that amigurumi uses. Have you ever bought a pattern or a kit and then never used it? I too have done that. But I vowed when I bought the book that I would DO THIS PROJECT before I die.* The separate pieces are easily completed in an hour in front of the TV--the onion slices and the tomato slices are done in less time. No, I'm not going to make you one. I've done what I set out to do and now I can put the book on the shelf and let it gather dust. *And since I've fulfilled the vow I made regarding this project, I fully expect to die in the next few days.

Hayley has moved on from amigurumi Mario and Pokemon creatures (she finished a Mew--a pink cat-like thing) to wearables. She crocheted a hat for herself WITHOUT a pattern! She did it all yesterday and hasn't taken it off since she finished it. It fits her quite well. Matt, anxious to get in on some more blog exposure, created these two, um, creatures. I have no idea what they are. They have eyes, obviously, and one isn't even knitted. He just amasses materials of all sorts and does his own thing to these raw materials. Then, several hours later, VOILA, the world is two stuffed blobs richer. Not to be outcreated by my own children, I tried my hand at amigurumi too. This is the result. You have to guess what it is. I'll post the finished thing sometime in the future. (No it's not complete. Well, that particular element is finished, but it's only one of several pieces of a certain thing)

It's amigurumi showcase time! Hayley went to an amigurumi camp this summer where she learned to crochet, and since then, she has been hogging all the yarn in the house to make little creatures (like she and Matt don't have enough stuffed animals in the house!). Matt knitted a rabbit earlier this year and, with Hayley being consumed with crocheting, he had to get in on the fun. So he knit this thing. He didn't use a pattern, he just made it up as he knit. I could be all helicopter-parent-like and say "Isn't it wonderful? Isn't he so creative?" and give him kisses and stars and have a party, but I break out in hives every time I try to act like a really good caring parent who wants to foster and nurture my child's precious self-esteem. Sorry kids. Personally, I think Blue/Green Rectangular Thing is hilariously odd. It reminds me a little of Spongebob. I'm so glad Matt doesn't create things to get his ego boosted. This is the combined col...