Fingerprint Ornament DIY

I'm sure many of you have seen this fingerprint ornament floating around pinterest. When I saw it, I wanted to make it soooo bad to commemorate our first Christmas with little baby. Well, technically our second Christmas with Little Baby, but he was born so close to Christmas that it is was all a blur to me, but I digress. Anyway.... on pinterest the comments claimed this ornament could be made with salt dough. Excuse me, but if you actually click on the picture, you find out that the ornament is cast in bronze (hence the hefty price tag) and you are NEVER going to get such fine fingerprint lines from salt dough. Believe me, all you get is a blob of an indentation which could have been a grape that you pressed into the dough.

Now, this is by no means perfect, but I am pretty satisfied with the result, and it sure beats the $210.00 price tag of the one I linked to above!

Supplies: Sculpey clay*, circle cookie cutter or lid/jar/glass, straw, stamps, dark ink (or dark crayon), fine tip Sharpie, Sculpey gloss glaze, and piece of ribbon.

*Note, Sculpey is NOT food safe, only use tools with Sculpey that will NOT be used with food.

1. Sculpey comes in a little square with 4 segments, remove a segment and roll in your hands to form a ball. Flatten ball with a rolling pin until it is 1/4" thick. (I sandwiched my clay between 2 pieces of parchment so it wouldn't come in contact with rolling pin)

2. Cut out circle shape with cookie cutter. Mine is a bit wonkey shaped because I used an exacto knife to cut around a jar lid.

3. Use a straw to poke a hole in the top of the ornament.

4. Now this is the fun part -- fingerprint it up! Be sure to press firmly enough to leave a print, but not so hard where you squash the clay flat. Little baby didn't want to cooperate at first with his finger, but later he willingly gave me his little pointer finger and let me squish it into the clay. Then he smiled, looks like I have a crafting buddy!

5. Use stamps to put the year in the center, or even your family's last name. I used these metal stamps that I have.

6. Bake according to package instructions and cool.

7. Rub a little ink into the fingerprints. I used calligraphy ink and a q-tip to lightly rub it into the impressions. I used a fine tip Sharpie to fill in the year. Let dry.

8. This is an important step, I think it gives a more finished look to the ornament. With a paintbrush, coat the ornament with Sculpey gloss glaze. Let dry.

9. Finally, tie a piece of ribbon through the hole. I used a pre-tied ribbon ornament hanger, just because I had eleventy-million lying around.

A close up: Not perfect, but it is a sweet memory of my little family -- Papa, Baby, and Mama.

Another fun idea is to make smaller, individual prints of your child, with their name on one side and the year on the other. You can make them into ornaments or skip the step with the straw and make them into magnets instead. 

Necessities for a Sick Baby

As some of you may know I have a baby who is frequently at the office and he has picked up his first cold. Poor baby! A few things that have been helpful around these parts are the Nosefrida Snotsucker

You just place the tube against baby's nostril and suck the snot away! You might think "Eww, gross!" but there is a little filter so not a bit of mucus touches your lips. And boy does it work! The traditional bulb aspirator can't hold a candle to the NoseFrida.

Next on the list is doTERRA's Breathe blend, I am quite the fan of essential oils (see my shop here!). I mix one drop of this blend with a drop or two of jojoba oil and rub it on baby's chest and back; it works like Vicks but I think it is stronger and it doesn't contain any petroleum jelly and is safe to use on babies, it's 100% natural. 

Poor baby is on day 2 of his cold but snuggles, and his favorite blanket and stuffed animal seem to be helping him. Get well soon sweetheart!

Tis the Season...

...to watch all of your favorite Christmas movies and tv show specials. In no particular order here are my favorites to watch year after year after year.

Christmas In Connecticut

The Muppets Christmas Carol -- a perennial favorite.

Elf -- I was watching this last year when I went into labor, needless to say I did not finish the movie.

Home Alone -- I just recently sold my Talkboy.

Addams Family tv Christmas Special

It's A Wonderful Life -- I have a very special place in my heart for this movie. ♥

The Little Drummer Boy

Meet Me In St. Louis -- This isn't necessarily a Christmas movie, since it covers all of the seasons, but it spends a good chunk of time at Christmas. And here's a piece of trivia; Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas was written for this movie.

Home Alone 2 -- I so badly wanted to go into FAO Schwarz, it looked like a dream toy store!

Flinstone's Christmas tv Special -- I loved everything about this episode, I liked seeing snow on the palm trees, Barney's ear muffs made out of a wishbone and Betty's usual bow replace with a sprig of holly.

Charlie Brown Christmas -- "And that's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown."

A Claymation Christmas Celebration -- Oh my gosh, I LOVED this tv special as a kid; from the dinosaur hosts to the California Raisins, it was the best in my book!

Happy Days Christmas tv special -- the Fonz has no family but doesn't want to tell the Cunninghams that he has no place to go on Christmas Eve.

The Brady Bunch Christmas tv special -- Oh no, Carol has laryngitis and can't sing her solo at church!

The Office Christmas Party episode -- the office has a Christmas gift exchange, Michael gives an iPod and gets upset when he receives a homemade oven mitt.

A Very Brady Christmas -- And the Brady's make it again on my list in this cheesetastic made for tv special! I absolutely loved it as a kid because the Brady's were all grown up, I was bummed that it was not the real Cindy though.

Nester the Long Eared ChristmasDonkey -- Another Claymation gem, why is Nester crying? You'll have to watch to find out!

Miracle on 34th Street

Well folks, that is a pretty comprehensive list of my favorite Christmas movies and shows to watch, maybe you'll find a new one to watch and love!

Pinecone Garland DIY

Well, the festive season is upon us, and here is a simple DIY garland that can transition your home from Thanksgiving to Christmas. What I love about this garland is that it is a hardware store craft; I don't know about you but I love going into hardware stores and imagining what I can do with non-crafty supplies.

Supplies: Package of small screw eyes, pinecones, twine and scissors (they didn't make it into the picture, rats!) 

Twist the screw eye into the center of the pinecone. It is pretty easy, but you do have to use a bit of gentle pressure. My finger tips were just a little bit sore after doing all of these.

If the screw is a little bit tight, you can use a pair of scissors or a chopstick to help twist it into the pinecone. Once all of the pinecones have the screw eyes, tie them onto a length of twine. I cut a 7 foot piece of twine and I tied the cones about every 6 inches.

Ta-da! An easy pinecone garland, if you want to get even more festive you can paint the pinecones gold or silver or add glitter to them.

Happy Halloween!

Today is the Big Bad Wolf's first time trick or treating, I think he's going to make the cutest wolf around. We decided to make it a family affair and I am going as Little Red and D. is going as the woodcutter. For baby's costume, I wanted to get him this sweet one from etsy, but the price ($55.00) was a little too steep for me. So I got some fleece from Joann Fabric, which was running a great sale and I just figured out a pattern and made Little Baby this wolfie costume for a whopping $2.70. I must say, I am a bit proud of myself. *Pat self on back* I am new to sewing and I was a bit doubtful of my skills, but I am happy to have pulled it off and it looks strikingly similar to the one I found on etsy. My cape is the bottom of a skirt that I cut off a long time ago and the hat was out of my collection. Yes, I do wear this gnome/pixie/Little Red hat on a regular basis when it is chilly outside. :)

On Having Less

My whole life I've been, umm what do you call it...a pack rat. Yes, that is the correct term. Now I've never seen the show Hoarders, but I've heard enough about it and something about that show kind of resonates with me. I can understand how you can get to be that way.

(source)

 Growing up I was kind of like Templeton the rat, I used to squirrel away anything I deemed useful...chunks of wood, pieces of Styrofoam, rocks etc. and I kept them under my bed! Being crafty made me never want to pass up a potential craft object, I guess I thought I could make something real good out of a crumbling, noncompostable hunk of foam. I always liked things cluttered and "lived in" looking. My boyfriend (now husband) would always be appalled with the state of my bedroom because stuff was strewn all over the floor. He asked me how I did not trip in the middle of the night when I navigated to the bathroom. I told him I had radar feet.


Now we'll fast forward a couple of decades from my Styrofoam hoarding days and I find myself wanting to purge of all the excess I have. I see I'm not the only one thinking this way, it is kind of a trend going on right now. Oh how I dislike following trends, but I hope this one sticks with people. I'm glad knowing that I'm not the only one who is so tired of excess, I find myself wanting to live simply. Blame it on my  living in Oregon, having a new baby and not wanting all the "stuff" that goes with that, growing a vegetable garden this year, the Woody Guthrie play I saw last week, the fact that the 3 of us are moving into a one bedroom apartment, or living the last 6 months with my grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression.

But wherever my desire to declutter is coming from, I'm glad it's come. Having a lot of stuff does not make us more happy, it is really just burdensome; we have to pay to take from place to place with us...pay to ship, pay to store and ultimately it meets its demise in a trash heap somewhere. Now, this isn't to say that I want to live in a tiny four walled room without a stick of furniture, it just means I want to be intentional with what I purchase and what I bring into my home. I don't want to have stuff just to have stuff. I find my whole aesthetic is changing and I'm being drawn to interiors like this



Wow! Where's all the stuff on the floor?

See, while it's not sparse, it's not really cluttered. At least compared to what I'm used to.

So all this is to say that I really don't need to keep that Home Alone Talkboy from a million years ago (this just in, cassette tapes aren't coming back!) For those of you who stuck around to the bottom of this post, thanks for letting me ramble and in the words of the pioneers of old just remember...


"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!"

Cute Packaging for Earrings

When giving earrings as gifts, it is best to make sure that they are packaged, you don't want to just hand someone a jumbled mess of earrings and say "Happy Birthday". True, earring that you buy at the store already come packaged, but what about those one-of-a-kind finds from yard sales or your own handmade creations that you want to gift someone? Well, here is an easy (and cute!) packaging idea.

Supplies: Cardstock, 1/8 inch hole punch, scissors, washi tape.

Cut cardstock into small rectangles, cover the top half with piece of washi tape, punch two holes in cardstock.

And here you have some sweetly packaged piggie earrings.

To keep the earrings from falling out, I cut two thin strips of washi tape to cover the earring backs. Washi tape is perfect for this because it is easily removable and won't leave any sticky residue.

Have fun making this easy packaging!

Fruits of Our Labor

D. and I are very fortunate to live in a place that places a strong emphasis on community, environment, and sustainability. Our little town has several community gardens and we were lucky enough to score a plot this year. Whooo, hoo! I heard the average wait time is a year, but we got a plot after just a few months. 

The view from the garden. Absolutely breathtaking.

Now D. and I pretty much knew zilch when it came to gardening, we kind of thought we could plant whatever we wanted, wherever we wanted. Well, that is not the case. We've enjoyed having our plot and have learned a lot along the way. There is just something very human about connecting to the earth and seeing how food is grown. 

Today's haul: cauliflower, anaheim peppers, eggplant and jalapeños. We watered the jalapeños too much, as a result we got those cracks in them known as "corking".  See, always learning...

It's important to see the work (and knowledge) that is required to produce food that we  so easily take for granted. It makes you that much grateful for every lettuce leaf you eat and every piece of broccoli that you munch on. 

Though my gardening skills are limited, it is something I definitely want to pass down to little baby. I can already imagine him digging in the dirt and eating tomatoes right off the vine.

Pinterest Projects: Rain Cloud Mobile

 Projects

As we all know, Pinterest can be a great tool for collecting recipes, projects and all around inspiration but my boards have a way of collecting virtual dust. I can go crazy pinning things and then do nothing with them, so my latest "feature" (I should not say feature because that requires frequent blog posting) will be me finding a project on Pinterest and then recreating it. First up this rain cloud mobile:

Source: laitfraisemag.fr via Jiji on Pinterest

Super cute mobile but the blog was in French, thanks to google translator though, I was able to pretty much figure out the instructions. I did not have the same materials that was used to make the mobile, so here's my spin on the project.

Cut two cloud shapes out of quilting batting (I scored this for free at a church rummage sale!) and cut out raindrop shapes from different colored felt.

Arrange raindrops into desired color combination and sew them into strands. I christened my new sewing machine by sewing raindrops, maybe someday I can tackle more adventurous projects... Sew around cloud leaving a small opening to stuff with polyfill. Sew a ribbon loop (not shown) on top of cloud and tie raindrop strands to base of cloud.

Ta-da! The finished product, my little sonny sure likes looking up at it and watching the raindrops sway back and and forth.

5.13.2012

To all the Mamas out there,

I'm happy to count myself among the mothers this year. ♥

Me and My Teeth

My teeth and I have a love/hate relationship. I love that I have teeth, but I hate that at one time I got 6 cavities. That is what too much Fun Dip will do to you. Maybe I have a love/hate relationship with Fun Dip. Anyway, I recently found a great coupon for a local dentist which included x-rays, a cleaning and teeth whitening. I am happy to say that I had no new cavities, hooray! I picked up my whitening trays today and with them they also gave me these...

(Now I can look at my Chiclet sized teeth any time I want!)

I've been having fun with them, I left them on the kitchen table and I asked if they were Grandpa's, he looked at me really perplexed like and said "Of course not, come on!"He thought they were false teeth.  But then shortly after these teeth came to life.

Please meet Marty.

Marty's made himself quite at home, and has been chewing on Little Baby's toys. I better keep an eye on him, I expect he might get into some trouble, he's very curious.

It's Bicycle Season

Well, I fell off the face of the planet for the last few months, that is just what a little baby will do to you. But my sweet sugar pie is sleeping better at night, therefore I feel MUCH better during the day. So much so that I have been on the hunt for bicycles, I no longer feel like a walking zombie, hooray! D., my sweet honey baby and I recently relocated to the Pacific Northwest to a very bicycle friendly town (so bike friendly that they have bicycle lanes!). I went to a local bike shop and I spotted the bicycle of my dreams, and I picked out one that I would consider the bike of D.'s dreams too. 

You can buy this bike here.

You can buy this boy version here.

When I saw the prices online, I was bummed. My face did this :( 

I have some very good news though, today my town held its 22nd annual bike swap were people sell their bicycles and related paraphernalia. And look at the two beauties that D. and I scored. I can hardly believe how we lucked out! (Well, I did pray that there would be some winners there for us, I am positive that had something to do with our good fortune). 

So here's my vintage 1960s Huffy cruiser. The resemblance is uncanny, no?

And here is D.'s vintage Sears bike.

I could hardly believe how we lucked out! A little bit of rust on my bike, but I am looking forward to restoring it, and for $1,100 less then the other bikes, a little rust doesn't bother me at all! Now all we need is a little trailer to hook on the back for Little Baby.

Here's a couple of blogging girl's bicycle restorations that are making me excited to tackle my own, oh and I'm going to add a basket to my handlebars!

Mandi's J. C. Higgins bicycle

Maria's vintage bicycle

If anyone knows of any other bloggers doing bicycle restorations, please leave me a link in the comments!