Chica Schmica

Easter Greetings

April 12th, 2009 § 3

Hope everyone is having a fabulous Easter Sunday! We spent the bulk of our morning at church and since we knew we wouldn’t have time to do baskets beforehand, I set everything up after ushering everybody out the door. When we got home from church, the girls were surprised with this scene upon entering the house:

bunniesandbaskets

If you’ve been following OCP, then some of this may look familiar to you. The baskets were inspired by the one from Disdressed, the bunnies were inspired by the chenille bunnies from Smooch Designs, and the idea for the goldfish carrots came from No Fuss Fabulous. Here’s a better look at the goods:

insidebasket

They each got a book, some stickers, a pocket purse, some heart bangles, and bubbles. Inside the plastic eggs were either animal crackers, peeps, or Play-Doh.

Sweet and simple, just how I like it.

Here are the girls on our way to church this morning. Lately they don’t want to go anywhere without their sunglasses!

charlotteglasses

annabelleglasses2 copy

They’ve been so excited about Easter for weeks and we’ve been counting down the days on our calendar. A few days ago I had them both paint some wooden eggs. I saw a similar idea here and I thought it would be a fun tradition, plus I love the idea of having a massive collection of hand-painted eggs by the time they’re both teenagers.

paintingeggs

Of course, the eggs needed a home, so we tried our hand at the yarn nests that I’ve been seeing everywhere.

nests

I think I enjoyed making these more than anyone, but we must have used waaaaay too much glue. It took forever and a day for them to dry, and when they did they just looked like a big goopy mess. We ended up keeping all of our eggs (the hand painted and dyed eggs) on a plate on our kitchen table. It’s been a lovely and colorful centerpiece that will be missed after today.

—————————————————————————–

Right now it’s nap time. Everyone is sleeping and as my eyes glaze over my computer screen, scanning what I’ve typed thus far, I’m thinking perhaps I should have joined them. We’ll be spending what’s left of our Easter driving to different relative’s homes and celebrating with family. The food is good, the hospitality is always warm, but hopping from place to place is downright exhausting!

Wishing you all a very happy Easter!

Pocket Purses

April 9th, 2009 § 1

I’ve been meaning to make these for a while, and since we’re so close to Easter, I decided to throw them into the basket with whatever other goodies I can pull together.

If you’re thinking they look a bit familiar, you’re right. They are the cuffs from the same sweaters that I used to make the heart-felt scarf. There’s so much left of those sweaters and I’m determined to use as much of it as I can!

I had originally intended to make some simple purses for the girls, but the more I thought about it, the more a pocket seemed like the right direction to take. They love pockets! I figure this way they can have a pocket handy no matter what they’re wearing. Plus these were super easy to make. Just lop off the cuffs, turn inside out, sew the ends, add a handy strap, turn the right way and you’re done!

I really think they’re going to go over well and can’t wait to give them to the girls. I’m thinking about adding a little something to them. Perhaps a flower or butterfly applique? Any thoughts?

Wordless Wednesday: Wispy

April 7th, 2009 § 15

whispyhairedited

Happy WW!

catching up

April 2nd, 2009 § 8

I haven’t been around much here, if you hadn’t noticed. And it’s not because there aren’t things I’ve wanted to share…there’s plenty. So today, for the sake of catching up, I’ve decided to create one BIG post that includes everything that I’ve wanted to post about over the past couple of weeks.

Lots of pics (mostly unedited).

Few words.

We had an absolute blast at a butterfly garden:

(photo by my wonderful husband)

Here’s Annabelle chasing the butterflies:

Here are both girls totally engrossed watching this one little white butterfly on the red flower.

Charlotte’s favorite part was smelling the flowers. I think she smelled each and every one!

The flowers bloomed

Annabelle got sick…she was so miserable.

We broke out the watertable and have enjoyed it daily.

We made a sailboat for our water table adventures.

Then this guy came around.

He was showing a little too much interest in our recycled watercraft.

And the next thing I knew we had a stowaway. It seems you can’t go anywhere these days without being invaded by pirates.

Have I mentioned before that our neighborhood is classified as a registered bird sanctuary? One of the perks is this distinction is being able to look out into our backyard and see this on the other side of the lake:

Quite the looker, wouldn’t you say?

I love those wispy feathers that hang from his neck.

Oh..and what’s this? Putting a little show on for us, eh?

And if the scenery here looks familiar it’s because it’s exactly where Mama Duck was hanging out with her babies. I guess the geese were getting to be too much of a nuisance to her because I haven’t seen her around lately.

Annabelle started feeling better and Charlotte and I enjoyed having her home so much that we pulled her from daycare.

More fun at the water table:

I thought the girls would enjoy making a birthday card for their friend’s first birthday party so I carved up a quick potato stamp.

Ooops! Forgot to reverse the image! We didn’t have the time to redo everything so I captioned the inside with something about the baby girl being “on the other side of one now.”

Had some fun fingerpainting.

This one got a little carried away:

By the time she was done her upper body resembled a smurf…I’m sure it was a wonderful sensory experience for her, though.

Surprised my husband with a cake for dinner on April Fool’s Day:

It’s a meatloaf cooked in a cake pan covered with creamy mashed potatoes. I got the idea from Jenny last year and knew I had to do it. It was great. Poor Charlotte was *very* disappointed when she bit into her piece…even though both girls saw me make the whole thing. And Cory was totally confused until he realized what it was.

There…all caught up now!

Now that both girls are home I’ll likely be doing more kiddie crafts around here. Hopefully I’ll be able to share our daily goings on more regularly than I have been. I’m still trying to find the right balance for everything. I’ve decided not to post more than 3 posts per day on OCP and I’m hoping that will help me manage everything better. But frankly, there’s just so much good stuff going on that it’s hard not to post everything I come across.

I’ll also be working on the girls’ Easter gifts over the next week and hope to share some of that.

Did anybody actually read all of this? If so, thanks for hanging in there!

See you soon!

ducklings…as promised

March 24th, 2009 § 5

We spotted these Mallard ducklings across the lake over the weekend. There are 9 of them…9 little puffs of fluff sticking close to Mama and making all kinds of sweet little duckling noises. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I’ve been telling the girls to expect some ducklings soon, so I was elated when I noticed them swimming about!

So far they’ve been staying by the natural preserve across from our lot, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of them as they get older. There are a couple of Canadian Geese that have been behaving very aggressively towards these little guys, so Mama Duck is understandably keeping them as protected as she can.

We’ll be keeping an eye on our ducklings, so you can probably expect a few more updates over the next few months!

in the mail

March 23rd, 2009 § 0

What a treat to come home from visiting my mom this afternoon to find two packages at my door! The first contained a (very) belated gift for a friend. I can’t show the gift just yet, but I can say that it was from Wellhouse Farm Pottery on Etsy. They sell beautiful works and I just hope she and her husband like what I picked out.

The second package is very exciting and will likely be the object of a giveaway on OCP in the next week or so. It was sent to me by a publisher…for free…with no obligation whatsoever. I’m still beside myself that someone would just send me something cool for free. Clearly they have me mistaken for somebody else. Regardless, I figure I’ll pass along my good fortune to some other lucky gal (or guy).

And since this is turning out to be a bit of a teaser post, I’ll give you a glimpse of what I’m working on. I have a few posts that I meant to put together last week about some fun we’ve been having around here. I’ll hopefully have a few tutorials put together for some simple things I’ve made for the girls. Side note: I know my tutorials are often so piddly they hardly seem worth mentioning and I thank you for humoring me. One day I’m sure I’ll make something grand and these little tutes that I put together here and there will be great practice for the Big One! Back on track now: I have an idea for using some of the left0vers of my felted heart scarf, so if that works out I’ll be sharing that with you, too.

Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you soon!

her ball collection

March 17th, 2009 § 4

Photograph taken by my two-year-old, Annabelle, of her favorite thing in the world: balls.

SOOC

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

mustaches and lips pencil toppers

March 16th, 2009 § 3

I said I would post this Thursday, but I changed my mind. You don’t mind, do you?

First, I have to give a little background about my inspiration for these. I’ve been seeing alot of mustache crafts around the blogosphere lately, and they always make me smile. Not long ago, I saw these and immediately thought, “Oh, how cute, a pencil topper!” Upon close examination, I realized they weren’t pencil toppers, but tiny little staches on sticks. Still cute, but I really liked the pencil toppers, so I decided to make my own!

I had a blast making these pencil toppers for my school-aged nieces and nephews. They’re a snap to make and tons of fun. If you’d like to make your own, just download the template and follow these steps:

Gather materials
craft foam
glue gun
scissors or exacto knife
pencil or marker
template (printable PDF)

Cut two mustaches (or lips) and one rectangle

Apply thin beads of glue along the two long sides of the rectangle

Smash together, making sure not to let the glue spread to the center.

You should still be able to open it nice and wide.

Apply more glue to one side of the folded rectangle

and attach to one side of the mustache with the whole facing downward.

Add another bead of glue to the open-facing side of the rectangle

Position the second mustache piece on top of first so that all of the sides match up.

Add more glue to the ends so that both sides are attached securely.

Stick in a pencil.

Take copious amounts of goofy mustache pictures.

another baby gift…and a teaser

March 15th, 2009 § 1

I had to pull the plug on the baby booties I was trying to knit. The hat apparently gave me a huge confidence boost so when I read “make this pattern when you feel very comfortable using round needles” I figured I was golden. After all, I used them once with no problems so I must be an expert. I have been humbly put back in my place and will attempt said booties at a later time.

Instead of the booties, I turned to JC Handmade’s Best Bib pattern, available on Etsy. Hers are gorgeous. Here are mine (plus a little hat I threw in):

Aside from a sad attempt at free-motion quilting, I was very happy with how they turned out. I’ll definitely use the pattern again. Actually, the girls didn’t want me bringing these bibs to “the baby” so I might go ahead and make some for them.

Oh, and the B on the hat is for Brian, which will be the baby’s name. Can’t wait for the little guy to get here!

Teaser: I will have a tutorial up some time this week. Probably Thursday. This poor blog has been neglected lately, so I’m really excited about having a few things to post about this week. See you soon!

my favorite…

March 5th, 2009 § 5

season is Spring!

I love the burst of fresh colors, the long-awaited warmth, and the promise of new life. The ducks have been chasing each other around for weeks, and I’ve assured the girls that we’ll get to see some ducklings in the coming weeks.

To see what other people’s favorite things are, click here!

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