Past the Last Nothing

26 May

Remember the “I love you more” game you play with your kids or–if you’re freakishly sentimental–with your significant other? You know the game. You try to top each other’s metaphors for the amount of love you feel.

I love you infinity plus 2…

It may start with “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

“I love you the most.”

And then it changes.

“I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life.”

“I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in this life, the past life, and any future life I may ever have.”

And so it continues to escalate.

I saw Charlie post this to her husband Lars’s facebook page once, I believe it was on Valentine’s Day. Coming from her, I knew it meant a lot. ;D

My son Max and I used to play it all the time when he was little (he’s 10 now).

One time, he was 6, and it was the first time he spent the weekend away from us. He called me from his grandma’s house, feeling insecure, and missing us. We talked on the phone for about an hour, and a good part of the conversation was saying goodbye in the form of the “I love you more” game.

I said, “I love you to the moon and back.”

“I love you to the moon and stars, and all the way through the sky and back,” said Max.

Now, I’ll spare you the entire conversation, and skip to the good part where he says one of the most powerful things I’ve ever heard.

“Mommy, I love you past the moon, the stars, and the sky, all the way until there’s nothing. Then I love all the way past that nothing, and into the next nothing. Then past that nothing, and into the next nothing, until there are no more nothings. I love you past the last nothing.”

I had tears at the corners of my eyes, and I said, “Okay. You win. You love me more.” He laughed  and  laughed and laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his life.

The truth is that he will never know how much I love him. Well, maybe he will when he has kids of his own.

Max and Oliver.

I love these boys past the last nothing.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Make Your Own Plush Toys

25 May

Or rather, make toys for your kids. I’ve written before about our paper toys, but we have also branched out into toys of the 3D variety.

It all started when Max made an “Ugli Doll” for our favorite homeschool craft class. It was the perfect starter sewing project, ’cause you seriously can’t go wrong. I mean, the dolls are supposed to turn out ugly!

His name is “Greenie”, and he has special moves like “thunder wing”.

Once Max realized how simple the process was, he started getting ideas for all kinds of toys we could make. So, I told him if he did the drawing, cutting, and stuffing, I would be willing to do all the sewing for him. (He hates sewing with a fiery passion.)

The next toy we made was Mr. Tickle from the Mr. Men and Little Miss book series.

I will admit that I had a little bit of a hard time at first not perfecting his design, or tweaking little things like one eye being bigger than the other, or a round shape not being perfectly round (it’s my control freak/perfectionist tendencies), but once I decided that it would all add to the charm, it became easy to just let him do his job, and me do mine.

We also made Mr. Bump from the same series.

The Process:

It might be self-explanatory for some, but then I thought I’d better add this brief tutorial, just in case anyone needs it.

1. Check your perfection at the door. There’s no room for it in this project, especially if you are working with a kid.

2. Trace the general outer shape onto your fabric. Anti-pill fleece works great. Have any old fleece sweatshirts? (Old Navy, anyone?) Those would make for a great upcycle.

3. Trace another line around the shape, making it about half an inch bigger. This is your seam allowance. So, you’ll be cutting it out about half an inch bigger than you want it to be when finished.

4. Cut it out. (I see Joey from Full House anytime I hear or read that line.) Make sure you cut through 2 layers of fabric! You’ll be sewing them together later.

5. Draw and cut out any face pieces or embellishments (like gloves, etc.). Felt works great for this part. (See pic below.) Make the pieces the exact size you want them, and hand sew the pieces on wherever you want them to go. This does not, by any means need to be neat or perfect.

6. Put the two main pieces of fleece together, right side in. That means you want your toy’s face to be touching the other piece of fabric.

7. Sew around the edges (I use a 1/4 inch seam allowance), and leave an inch or two on the side open for stuffing. I use a machine, but you could easily hand sew it.

8. Turn it out so that the face is now on the outside, and stuff it nice and full with pillow stuffing. Stitch up the open spot, and you’re done! You’ve got a brand new toy!

This is an “Ugli” dog that I was making as a gift for my 3 yr old. You can see that I added the face pieces to the front before sewing the main shape together.

Green penguin.

Green “puffle”. He’s a big Club Penguin fan. As with the others, Max did all the designing, but he was perplexed on the hair. He wanted to be able to change the hairstyle, so we tried yarn, and it worked great!

I’d love to see pictures of any stuffed toys you’ve made with your kids. If you haven’t made any yet, and you like this sort of thing (or your kid likes it), then give it a shot! It’s a great project to do together.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Home grown arrangement

24 May

I turned the big three-three in April. My 30s are going pretty well. I have amazing kids, an amazing husband, and amazing friends. Speaking of amazing friends, look what was left on my door step on my birthday.

It looked so much better two weeks ago when it was my birthday. My friend, Carol, potted some oregano and thyme and then put other cuttings from her garden into a glass jar and propped it up behind. I dissected it for you so you can see the details. Or rather because it was time to plant the oregano and thyme outside.

What a great arrangement! Unlike my floral arrangements (which I love and have a $20/month cut flower budget), I was able to display this in my home for 2 weeks and then plant the potted herbs and use the cut ones. And now that I have my own herb and wildflower garden growing, I look forward to being a total copycat and using this idea.

Tags: , , , ,

Add a Little Magic to Your Backyard With a Fairy Garden

23 May

I’ve always had kind of a thing for fairies– the kind that would show up in British folklore or a Shakespeare play, not a Disney movie. They are such a great amalgam of magic and nature. We’ve made temporary ones with found nature objects but this year I decided I wanted to add a permanent fairy garden feature to our garden.


First I bought some super cheap wood birdhouses at the craft store and we painted them green so that they would blend well with the garden.  Then we decorated them with items from the backyard and spanish moss from the craft store.

I found a kit with some fairy sized garden accesories at the local nursery.

We found a container suitable for creating our garden.  I wanted it elevated somewhat and the container needed to be wide enough that it would have space for the garden.  This old bucket we had laying around was the perfect size.  I drilled some holes in the bottom (when I say “I” I mean my husband) and prepped it with potting soil.  When picking out plants I tried to think of ones that would compliment the fairy houses size wise.

After placing our houses and planting our flowers I decided there needed to be a garden path so I got the smallest bag of aquarium gravel from the pet store and created paths between the houses.

Our finished fairy garden!  It is nestled between some hostas and Iris underneath a couple of trees right off our patio.

Tags: , ,

Build Your Own Self-Watering Containers/Earth Box DIY

22 May

If you don’t have a lot of space to garden, you don’t have a lot of energy to garden, you don’t have the time to water daily, or you just want to add some plants right outside your kitchen door for convenience, then you might want to consider container gardening. In my last home, my garden was almost exclusively in containers. I’ve grown everything from lettuce and herbs, to tomatoes and pumpkins, and even carrots and radishes in containers.

I recommend Ed C. Smith’s container gardening books on what plants to grow in which sort of container. He says that even though he grows crops on acreage, he always keeps a container garden close to his door.

Here’s some good news: Rather than spending $60 or more/unit on commercial self-watering containers, I was able to make 5 containers that each held 2 full-size, indeterminate tomato plants for right around $60, including the fertilizer. (I also grew 2 very successful pumpkin plants out of one of my containers.) While some flowers and veggies are not happy with consistent moisture, and herbs fair (and taste) far better when they are allowed to dry out between waterings, most veggies grow bountiful in self-watering containers. My tomatoes thrived.

Here’s one corner of my container garden in standard pots (not self-watering). I’ve got chives, lemon thyme (amazing on chicken!), lemon balm (great as a tea for an upset stomach), and petunias. The big leaves camouflaging the pots are squash leaves.

Here’s another cluster of pots that I had right outside the door. You can’t see them all, but in addition to the flowers, I have parsley, basil, mint, and oregano.

The required parts for one self-watering container:

2- 18 gallon plastic totes– They don’t have to be exactly that size, but close is good. Get the lids.
1- 20″ or so of  food grade tubing–I found some at Home Depot. You want it to be about 5-6″ taller than your tote.
1- 5″ or so pond basket. I couldn’t find any in the water feature section of Home Depot, but I did find some pond lilies in baskets. It was late in the season, so they were on sale for $1 apiece. I discarded the flowers and used the baskets.

Required Tools:

Really good, heavy duty scissors. We didn’t have luck with a hand saw or our cheap electric saw. The scissors worked best.
Ruler
Pen or marker for marking measurements
Drill

Here are the parts, unassembled.

I built these back in 2008, and had checked many sources before building them. Most of my tips, and my main directions came from http://www.josho.com/gardening.htm. I’ll share the basics directions here, but he goes far more into depth. I used Ed Smith’s guide for the potting mix, and the Earth Box’s plant and fertilizer placement guide.

Here’s what the box looks like assembled, before adding the soil mix.

Building the Box:

1. Measure from the bottom of “tote A” the height of your pond basket, and draw a cutting line all the way around the tote. (The pond basket is the black square basket with holes in it in my first picture of the parts. Yours may look different.) Mine was 5″, so I had a line 5″ high going all the way around my first tote (“tote A”). Cut all the way along your line. Discard the top part (the part that’s open on both sides) of the tote. You can plant potatoes or something in it later.

2. Still working with “tote A”, trace the top of your pond basket onto the center of your now cut piece (the bottom half) of the tote. (You’ll see the square cut out of the tote in the first 2 pictures of the parts. Yours may be a different shape.) Cut that piece out.

3. Also trace the top of the food grade tube onto the top of “tote A” in one of the corners, and cut out the hole. Make sure the tube fits tight.

4. Drill lots of holes into the top of the same piece of “tote A”.

5. Place the pond basket into “tote B”, and then place “tote A” into “tote B” over the pond basket. Make sure the pond basket is centered before pressing down tightly in the center and all corners.

6. Drill a hole into the side (or front) of “tote B”, just below the top of “tote A”, making sure it goes through both totes. For instance, if “tote A” is now only 5″ tall, then measure about 4.75″ up from the bottom of “tote B” and drill the hole there. This is your drainage hole that will prevent you from overfilling the tank you have created at the bottom of your container. It will also tell you when your tank is full so you don’t have to guess. About a 1/4″ hole should do. Make it no bigger than 1/2″. I don’t have a picture of this hole, but if you refer to the directions link I gave you, there is a picture there.

7. Cut all but the rim away from one of the lids. (See the last pic of the final product, with the plants.)

The soil mix is half high quality potting soil from a local nursery (it’s Family Tree for the KC folks), and half compost, mixed together.

Filling the containers:

You can find many tips on what works inside the container. I used a combination of Ed Smith’s tips, and the Earth Box planting guide. Here’s the formula, though I can’t tell you exactly how much it took. I just kind of eyeballed it, though you could be mathematical about it and figure out how many cubic feet your container will hold.

1 part organic potting mix
1 part compost
3 cups of organic fruit and vegetable fertilizer

Mix the compost and potting mix together, but do not mix in the fertilizer. The fertilizer will go in a strip at the front or center of your container, depending on what you plant. It’s all in the Earth Box’s plant and fertilizer placement guide.

And here we are with the baby tomato plants.

I wish, I wish, I wish I’d taken a picture of the tomato plants fully grown. I can’t believe I didn’t. I used 6′ fence posts, and trellised them. They grew all the way up, and then a couple of feet down the trellises.

I did, however get a pic of a typical summer day’s harvest.

And here’s one of the squash blossoms from a pumpkin plant. You can see the self-watering container in the background. We got about 6 sugar pumpkins/plant! These I did not trellis, because they were “bush variety”. Yeah right! They ended up growing all over the patio!

Do you have a container garden? If I’ve inspired you to start one, be sure to let me know! If you’re in the States, it’s not too late to get started! If you blog about it, feel free to post links in the comments.

Edited to Add: Charlie, I’ll loan you my book. He addresses converting a regular, decorative pot into an SWC. ~Daniél

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Make a tshirt from a tshirt!

21 May

Use a tshirt to make another tshirt. Lamest upcycle ever, you say. But really. Does this look lame?

I made this from a women’s large into a child’s 6-7 and I only used fabric from the original t-shirt. You may need to use two tshirts depending on the size you start with and the size you want to end with. Always start with a shirt that is longer than what you want your finished product to be.

Step 1

Fold your shirt in half and cut off the sleeves. Since I’m using the tshirt’s hem as the hem for my new shirt, I cut off the excess length from the top of the shirt. This also gave me a built in armpit area.

Step 2

Using a shirt I knew fit Eden, I decided how far in I needed to bring the shirt. Sew new side seams but keep the extra! This is going to be used for your sleeves. If you don’t have much extra fabric, you are likely going to need a second shirt.

Step 3

From the leftover top fabric or your second tshirt, cut two strips the same length as the top of your shirt. You will end up with 3 sets of pieces which I have conveniently labeled for you.

A = 2 pieces cut from the sides of your tshirt or from a second tshirt. These will become your sleeves.

B = 2 pieces cut from the top of your tshirt or from a second tshirt. These will become your facing.

C = the 2 pieces you originally cut from your tshirt. They were the front and back and they will, once again, find their glory as the front and back of your new shirt.

Step 4

Let’s make the sleeves first. Grab your A fabric. Length depends on the size you’re going for. I cut these 9 inches long and 8 inches wide for a 6-7 girl shirt. When in doubt, cut long as you’ll be able to trim back if you need to. Fold each piece in half, wrong sides out, and stitch the length (the 9 inches). Turn them right side out and sew a quick gathering stitch on each end.

Normally when I gather, I sew two rows of stitches but these are so small, there isn’t really an issue. Gather them up tight and they’ll look like the above picture.

Step 5

This is where it gets tricky to explain. Look at the picture first.

Lay down one C piece right side up. Position both A sleeve pieces on top. You want the gathered part to be slightly above the top of piece C. Then, put one B piece of facing on top right side down. Pin the freak out of that sucker. Then sew all the way along the top using a ball point needle and, if your tshirt is particularly stretchy, a zigzag stitch.

Step 6

Flip your completed portion out so that the facing is on the inside, the straps are secure in between, and the shirt front is facing front. You can see it taking shape, can’t you? Repeat the same basic process on with the your remaining pieces. Make sure you layer it so that when the shirt is done, the facing is on the inside and the front and back are right side out.

Step 7

Can I even explain this? My pictures for it are useless blurs of purple. To stitch up the sides, you want to sew facing to facing and shirt to shirt.

Turn the shirt inside out and open it up by pulling the facing away from your shirt. Pin the back facing to the front facing. Pin the front shirt to the back shirt. Sew all the way along this, continuously. Repeat on the other side. Turn your shirt right side out and tuck the facing back in place.

And that’s it! The hem from the original shirt gives you a complete look without the work!

Super cute, right? Let me know if you make this and what you think!

Tags: , , , , ,

When the wives are away…

20 May

Rumor has it that Lara and Daniél will both have limited internet access today… and Lindsay doesn’t often mess with the control side of things so she won’t see this as a draft… hmmm… I could reveal their deepest, darkest secrets. But that’s easier said than done. Lara is a great secret keeper so I don’t know hers. Daniél is more like me in that she tells nearly everyone nearly everything so virtually nothing is a secret. And Lindsay and I haven’t really known each other long enough for me to have gotten those secrets out of her.

And, naturally, I am far too sweet and kind to ever, ever consider doing such a thing. Naturally.

What I will tell you are a few things they’re too modest to say for themselves. Well, except Daniél. There ain’t no shame in her game. But she still deserves, like Lara and Lindsay, to hear how lucky I have to have my Blind Wives in my life.

Lara is the Blind Wife I’ve known the longest. She and I became acquainted because our boys decided to be friends about 3 seconds after meeting. A few months after first meeting, she called me on the phone to vent and seek some input about a tricky parenting issue. I don’t even remember the issue but I do remember her first saying, “are we here yet? Are we good enough friends that I can call you about this?” Sign #1 that I would never, ever have to guess what she was thinking or where we stood.

Her husband told me once that, when it comes to Lara, you can get on the train or you can get off but you’re not going to distract her course. She’s confident, secure, and direct. She’s truly my better half in the homeschool group we co-run. If she says, “I’ll do it,” I can forget that project even exists because she will do it. We double date to library lectures and to local breweries. We are that awesome.

Daniél and I became friends through the homeschool community. She said something one time that made me say, out loud, “you and I will be friends.” Her response was, “we’ll see.” I took that as a challenge. Our respective responses wrote our friendship in stone. We have had some really funny and really bizarre journeys in which we always get lost. If one of us says the word “viaduct” or “shire” we will burst out laughing and start talking about antique sales. That’s right. Antique sales.

Daniél is open and forthright. If she is thinking it, she will say it. One of the things that keeps us friends is that we can both say those really bizarre and possibly offensive things that pop into our heads and we can both trust the other to either laugh or to shake her head and say “ok, too far.” And, for us, talking is an all day event. You really have no idea. Unless you know us. Then you have a pretty good idea.

Lindsay and I met through the local attachment parenting board. We’re in different phases of our lives as my youngest child is years older than her son. But one day I had a message in my inbox from her asking me out. Well, out to coffee. She said she thought I was cool and wanted to get to know me. And it.was.awesome. She taught me, in a single message, what I hadn’t learned in 32 years on this earth. If you want to get to know someone, tell them that. And it works!

Lindsay is so smart and creative. She knows what she wants in life, and she is who she wants to be. The details don’t bog her down, and she’s always moving forward. She doesn’t wait for opportunities so much as she makes them happen. She has pictures in her head that she can take out and put into action. I wish her life allowed her more time on here as she has so much to share. Your life will not be complete until you see her owl wall.

Before one of my fellow wives can get on here and yell at me for hijacking our blog with sunshine and light, I’m going to hit publish. I love my Blind Wives and admire the hell out of them. This blog has been a wonderful chance for us to grow together.

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 52 other followers