rocket ship to the moon

We had a great 3 day weekend thanks to the celebration of Presidents Day. Parker loves the weekends when he can hang out with his Dad and an extra Monday off was a great treat for them...and me too. I got a little time to myself and looked at my Wee Wonderfuls space man pattern book. I've had it for a few weeks but haven't taken on the project yet - most likely because the sewing machine hasn't seen much but inside the dark corner of our storage trunk in the last few years. I couldn't dive in but just looking at it inspired Parker's new Rocket Ship to the Moon shirt.

I also made a funky felt butterfly for Parker's friend Chloe - who will be turning 2 this week. I just found out that she is having a Cars themed birthday party - had I known she was such a fan, I would have whipped up a pink "McQueen" shirt for her to wear.
Speaking of Cars, Parker was sporting his new "Mater" & "Lightening McQueen" socks last week and was slipping, sliding & falling all over the place. (by the way his pre-school teacher suggested the clumsiness was do to way too much Valentine's day sugar - and then she proceeded to feed his huge cookies covered with duncan hines jarred icing and sprinkled with full size hershey's kisses and about 20 million candy hearts - oh well) I did think that maybe his new socks were just too slick, so I used the trick I did on his socks when he was learning how to walk... Using puffy fabric paint - add dots or designs to

the bottom of the socks and it works like a charm.
Parker loves it when his Dad draws with him so I talked Eric into making a freezer paper stencil shirt for him. I can't unveil it yet, as he is putting the finishing touches on the 18 wheeler. He has a lot of time this week because Parker and I are visiting Grammy in Pittsburgh. Stay tuned...

S.W.A.K.

Parker's friend ZOE turned 3 yesterday and she threw a huge party in his class - pizza, cupcakes and he came home with a bag full of many surprises! He had a blast and was sugared up for the rest of the day - no nap for him! Zoe is a pretty sophisticated 3 year old so I made her some personalized stationery. A few different designs and wrapped up with a purple stuffed monkey & care bear crayons and she is set to scribble away a few love notes.
I can remember when I was a teenager, my Mom gave me my own monogrammed letter pressed stationery. It came in a flowered box and it was so cool. I was very selective as to who I would send one of the coveted notecards to because I never wanted to run out! As I typed this, I looked in the back of my desk drawer and here it is! The flowered box from "sir james printing" 20 cards remain...too bad that I didn't keep my maiden name. I probably never told you Mom how much I loved the stationery, so Thank you!
Is it still cool to give stationery as a gift in the age of e-mail?

hearts & flowers

Completely inspired by this tutorial at skip to my lou, Parker and I got out some old crayons, the pencil sharpener, sissors, wax paper and the "Iron Boat" and made some pretty cool Valentine's Day Hearts for our window.









Now he says a couple times a day "I want to shave with you Mommy"!



Our friend Francesca performed a little science experiment with flowers which Parker has been really into. Here are instructions. I didn't take a before photo but it started with bright white flowers which were put in a cup with water & a few drops of red food coloring and 17 hours later here they are. very cool!

Happy Valentines Day!

fly the friendly skies

"I want a big, red airplane with 3 propellers! One on the nose and the other two on the sides", Parker responded to the question 'what should we paint onto this shirt' and here it is! About a month ago I read something about freezer paper transfers and did a search and found this awesome Dino shirt on domesticali. I also entered the world of craft blogs and got motivated to start my own. It's taken a few weeks to actually make Parker's shirt, because I spend every free minute visiting cool blogs then checking out the links to other cool blogs and seeing a lot of really creative stuff. So thank you all for being so inventive and sharing.
For this little number, I followed a great freezer paper transfer tutorial here and at angry chicken and went to work. I finally unveiled it to the little man after adding a "P" on the tail and he loves it!

style mojo

I found a very pretty brown ball of yarn in my stash and decided to make a hat. I didn't use a pattern and I'm far from an expert crochet person but it looks pretty cool. I added a three shade blue flower which is attached with a vintage button. I kept going and whipped up a few for my first ever swap at swap-bot. I hope that my partners like them.

Thanks for the response to my previous post, Ali. I'm sure that I can unearth a shirt from the deep dark corner of my closet. I don't seem to wear much of anything fashionable these days and here are the top 3 reasons....

1) We packed and moved into a new home when I was 39 1/2 weeks pregnant. Thanks to Oprah, I followed the professional closet organizer mantra of "if you haven't worn in almost a year - toss it". NOT a good thing when you've got preggo brain and carrying around an extra 40 pounds. It was a lucky day for the charity thrift shop patron who wore a size 10!

2) The remaining few non-comfortable pant items moved to the back of the closet when Parker started walking at around 10 months old and then running soon after.

3) In my former life working at MTV - especially in the world of the now defunct series House of Style - I was pretty adventurous with my dress. Now my closet looks like the last chance sale rack at Old Navy. I seem to gravitate to clothes that are cheap, wearable and won't make you cry if it's used as a toddler tissue.

Maybe a fresh embellished skirt will help me get my style mojo back.
I'll keep you posted.