teacher totes

the little man is graduating from his pre-school program this week so with his help in choosing which fabrics were for which teacher - I made all four of his teachers fun colorful totes. I wish this program would continue for age 3. It's only a couple days a week for 3 hours, conveniently located and he likes it but after much pressure from all the parents , the program was unable to squeeze in an older class into it's schedule. It seems that our Brooklyn neighborhood has over blossomed with 3 year old kids and unless there is an older sibling in the school or you have a wicked amount of money to just donate to the place on top of tuition - you ain't gettin' in. We went through a ridiculous pre-school admissions process for the 2007-08 year which included application fees which mirrored my college app. fees, interviews and a long waiting process (tuition which also came pretty close to a university semester) only to be wait listed. We have a few alternative choices which are: 1) within walking distance, a 5 day a week, 8am-2pm, uniform wearing, strictly academic parochial school 2) travel via 2 subways or a long bus to a 3 day a week Spanish speaking class which sounds great but when I went to visit none of the kids were speaking - English or Spanish. I sent my Spanish speaking husband t0 check it out next and he was having trouble understanding the teacher 3) travel via 1 subway to Manhattan for a 2 day a week music & arts class. It's stressful to figure this one out...but I must remind myself it's all about having fun for him and try to chill out. Is it like this in your neighborhood or is this only a nyc thing?

sugar coated transportation

I do love this whole grain baking book. Parker and I made transportation shaped cut out cookies as it rained a couple days ago and they turned out tasty. I usually don't have patience for cut-out cookies but this batch was alot easier to deal with - minimal sticking and no crumbling or breaking. Parker was nice enough to take most of them to school for his friends so I didn't eat them all up. Here's the easy recipe for thin & crispy wheat cookies:

3/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons vanilla (Parker did this part so there was a lot more and tasted great)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

beat butter, sugar and salt in medium bowl, then add orange juice, vanilla, flour and baking powder and mix.
divide the dough into 2 pieces, wrap each piece in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat oven to 350*
line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
working with one piece of dough at a time , roll into a circle in about 14 inches in diameter and use your favorite cookie cutters. re-roll and cutting the scraps too. place on cookie sheets and can be close together as they don't spread much.
we decorated ours with sugar sprinkles before they went into the oven.
bake the cookies till they are brown around the edges about 14-15 minutes. switch pans half way through cooking time (top to bottom, bottom to top)
yum!

Lotta Sewing

Another Lotta Jansdotter inspired tote. I love the bird sitting on the tree - so sweet and hopefully Aunt Kate will like it as a very belated b-day present!

Even though half of our dining table has been covered with all things sewing for the past month - it's great to have the sewing machine out to work on fun projects. I really need to come up with a way to have a craft area in our wonderful yet tiny NYC apartment or work on talking to the family to move to a house in the burbs! Until then, I will continue to wish I lived in the Posie studio here!