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We had another dreamy Sunday afternoon and can I just say that this is my all time favorite day of the week? I love regrouping, spending time with loved ones and just plain keeping things looooow key. If I had to choose a time and a day when things are happiest and pretty darn near perfect in our house, it would have to be on a Sunday afternoon.
On this particular nearly-perfect-afternoon Jon decided to introduce a make shift marble ramp for the boys (and lets be honest, himself) to enjoy. He used the boys IKEA drawing paper roll for the marbles to slide down and thew a couple of broom sticks and shoes on opposite end to create a "goal" of sorts for the marbles to slide into. Needless to say, all boys were in love with it. We also had some train table playing going on which kept Little O and I occupied for hours. I have to confess, it's incredibly satisfying setting up a train track in various configurations. I seriously think I should be a city planner. I mean the possibilities are endless.
We're big fans of the Brio Network train set (which is unfortunately hard to find in the US). The virus characters are super fun and they even have little "emails" that they transport around the track which can then be placed into little slots that make silly jumbled electronic noises when a virus triggers it. The boys go nuts for it. So yeah, like I said. A pretty great summer Sunday afternoon. sigh...But I think we're relaxed and ready a new week now...maybe...just maybe...
Last weekend we were able to attend the fabulous LA Renegade Craft Fair which has become a favorite Los Angeles experience for us. It has also become a beloved spot for finding unique, one of kind, back-to-school t-shirts for Little A and this year we made it a point to be on the look out.
We loved quite a few shirts showcased by a number of different vendors but it seems like our tried and true favorite is Pinecone & Chickadee (It didn't hurt that they were the most affordable, and with an in person deal of two for $30, well, we just couldn't resist).
Last year we scooped up the Kids Whale baseball jersey and Sasquatch T-shirt (seen below).
This year we couldn't resist the bright colors and fun graphic illustrations on the Kids Plant and Tiger T-shirts (seen in the top two pics) and Little A is over the moon about them as well. We have our sights set on the Strong Man Tee for next year. After that, here's hoping they come up with more versions, because we're officially hooked!
My older sister recently welcomed her 4th little girl into the world (5th child total, as she has one boy) and I couldn't be more happy for her. I wanted to celebrate this new little darling, baby Ella, so I decided to make her a quilt. I have had this idea for a simple herringbone quilt for some time now and was excited to have a chance to try my hand at it.
I chose to make this a smaller quilt, approximately 30"x 40", so it would be something baby Ella could snuggle up in while young and then perhaps convert it into a "lovey", that she could tote around with her, as she grew.
I knew I wanted the fabric and herringbone quilting to be the main focus so I chose to go without patch-working and to use only two sheets of fabric. I chose a floral vintage inspired fabric, that I purchased from reprodepot, back when they still sold fabric, and went with a solid white for the back side.  After placing batting between the two sheets of fabric I pin-basted everything together. I chose a coral pink top thread that corresponded with my binding and a blue bobbin thread that complimented the floral fabric and placed the white fabric side up to make it easier to see my stitches. I then chose where I wanted my vertical lines to go and machine quilted those first. I liked having them various widths apart but you could make yours more precise if you like. From there I just chose one end and started connecting my lines in a chevron/herringbone fashion. Again I liked the organic, freestyle nature of this project so I wasn't picky about how perfect the stitches were and made a point to vary the lines up a bit.  When the quilting was done I did a zig-zag stitch around the edges to make it easier to attach the binding. I wanted to binding to pop so I chose a bright coral pink fabric that had small blue flowers (found at Walmart for 1.99 a yard. score!) that I thought went well with the vintage quilt fabric. I love Heather Bailey's continuous quilt binding tutorial and referred to this when finishing up the binding.
I was happy with how easy it was! Not to mention slightly addicting. I seriously think this is my new go-to baby gift from here on out.
We had our annual photo shoot whilst on vacay, as is now the tradition, and what better backdrop than my parents out-of-service barn? We've used this fond location before but this time we decided to venture on inside and we were delighted with what we found. Not only was there a delicious amount of woodsy debris, but right in the midst of everything, was our vintage blue wooden rocking horse made by my father (he made this for my older sister when she was a little girl and we've all had a turn on it at some time or another whilst growing up). Honestly, it was perfectly placed in the middle of everything and all we had to do was put the boys on it and click away. Totally kismet. (Oh, yes, and Little O made sure that Woody came along for the fun...so very like him. If you notice, Muno came along for the pirate pics. He's pretty much never without a famous friend of sorts somewhere near by).  The above pic is the best one we got of Little A. He's apparently, at the very "old" age of 5, over his parents and couldn't wait to get back to all the fun with the cousins. I think it was something short of torture for him to be pulled away from it all, if even only for a moment.  The below pic is my favorite. I like the playful nature of it and Jon is such a cutie, don't you think?  And I had to get a pic of me with my little sister, Lorajean, our resident family photographer. I love her vision she's a natural behind the camera.
Thanks so much little sis' for letting me pull you away from the fun for a bit of photo mania! 
Whew! We have finally returned home from our annual summer reunions to see family and friends and as usual, had a most excellent time. The kids were over the moon with seeing grandparents and cousins and we couldn't have been happier either. We pretty much didn't see Little A at all in the past 3 weeks as he was playing non-stop with his cousins (and one time even asked us to leave so that he could play with the other kids without us around) so I'd say he was pretty happy. Yeah, it pretty much was a smashing summer success. This year for the 4th my family hosted a pirate party themed reunion. We started things out by attending the Real Pirates exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science where we were able to see the one and only pirate treasure ever discovered and actually got to touch real live actual pirate treasure coins. Yeah, it was pretty cool and a great way to get us all on the mood for some pirate partying.  As usual my mother went above and beyond, transforming her home into a pseudo pirate ship of sorts. The small spot below the balcony stairs became "below deck" where a play kitchen was placed for little cooks to "prepare" grub for the crew. The tree in the front yard was de-limbed on one side within the tree to create "dead man's tree" where various pirate toys were placed, complete with handmade styrofoam mountains, for the little buccaneers to play with.  My father and brothers made miniature cannons that really worked! They were so cool, you have no idea. All I can say is that they were made from black PVC pipe, styrofoam balls painted black and fire extinguishers that gave a great smoke illusion when firing. How they were assembled is a mystery to me, I'm sure you could find it on youtube or something. Needless to say, we had some fun with those.  My little sis set up a pirate photo booth and we all dressed up in our pirate best. (This is my brother-in-law Trent in the pic above, who wins "best pirate look" for his overgrown beard and just overall piratey stances and gestures. Don't you just think he looks the part?).  Jon led the littles in a pirate treasure hunt and they loved every minute of it. He pretty much had the accent, swagger and humor down to a science.
After our annual hot dog bar and loads of delicious salads and sides we devoured a most scrumptious pirate ship cake.
Jon finished up the night up with a bang by presenting an exciting display of fireworks that we picked up on our way over. Then a few of us headed to City Park to see the big overhead fireworks display. Little O fell asleep on my lap while we laid under the stars celebrating the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Another great 4th of July.
I'm not sure what ye land lubbers have been up to but we be sailin' the desert seas with our sights set on plundering some pirate treasure.
We have many a more piratey adventures to share when we sail on back home and will be sure to share them with ye all then! Stay tuned...or ye just might be finding yerself walkin' the plank...
We've been doing a lot of drawing and painting around here. Little A is getting older and is more capable and willing to really learn how to draw and Little O is just over the moon to do whatever his brother is doing (and of course loves getting his hands on any sort of messy, colorful, creative substance - and doing it in your undies...well, does life get any better for a 2 year old?). Because of this we decided to get a family annual pass to the LACMA this year. After attending for the first time (thanks to Tim Burton!), I knew right away that we needed to bring along a pad of paper and pencils for the Littles to soak it all up (Little A drew his first Jack Skellington interpretation on a museum brochure and I was over the moon).
I've been wanting to create some sort of art/drawing carrying case of sorts for the littles for sometime now and after this recent museum trip, I knew it was time. I thought it would be fun if Little A had some sort of ownership involved with the carrying case so I had him paint black circles onto linen that I would then use as the outside of the portfolio.  I will confess that he did lose interest in this after a bit so I helped fill in a few spaces. This then got him right back into it and grabbing the brush back out of my hand for him to finish up.  I then proceeded to sew the portfolio carrying using this new "custom" fabric.  I pretty much just made everything up as I went along (so there are a few rough patches here and there) trying to accommodate all the needs of sketching and painting on the go.
We made a pocket on the left hand side for his pad of paper and another large pocket on the right to hold any drawing/activity books he might be interested in at the moment.  Then on top of that right hand large pocket I created several little pockets for his colored pencils (his preferred medium at the moment) and a set of watercolors.  He really loves it and has taken to drawing several items from his step-by-step drawing book (a score for 50 cents at a school fair!).  And now that we are off on our annual June and July road trips to see family and friends this little portfolio has really come in handy.
If you want to make one yourself, I'll be posting instructions when I share Little O's art portfolio with all of you, so stay tuned!
Hope you are enjoying your first month of summer and, for those of you in the states, are gearing up for a great 4th of July!
Join me and our friend "Little J" over at the Crafty Crow today for the marvelous "Book and a Craft" series. I decided this was a great excuse to do something for the little girls out there (I mean, c'mon when was the last time I got to indulge my inner ballerina?) so we channeled Degas, Eva Montanari and ballet. Does it get any better than that?
And as of today, school is officially out for the summer! Can you even believe it? Do you have any great summer plans in store? I'd love to hear them.
We had a marvelous weekend. It started off on Friday with a fantastic benefit held in miss Davy Jean's honor. I can't begin to describe what a special night it was. Truly amazing people working together to do something even more amazing for this special little girl. And can I just say that Ruthy is one of my new BFF's? She's seriously as great as she comes off on her blog.
Then on Saturday Jon and I spent the day, with the kiddos, at the LACMA visiting the fabulous Tim Burton exibit. Needless to say it was fantastic (it's a little frightening for kids however...no surprise there...so we did a run through each on our own to really soak it all in).
And then on Sunday we enjoyed being homebodies with a little lemon square making and some freezer paper stenciling. I had a few tee shirts of Little A's that I've wanted to spice up for a while so I had Little A start out with a simple, imperfect, pattern of triangles in yellow.  He really enjoyed working on this. I love seeing how his concentration increases as he gets older. He was very into this craft and loved seeing it come together. His favorite part was choosing where to put the two random black triangles. He really got into that little element of surprise.  So like a said a great day. A great weekend.
And if you are interested in doing freezer paper stencils yourself, you can find a fab tutorial here.
What did you do over the weekend? Anything fab, indulgent or crafty with the family? Do tell.
It has been unusually chilly and drip-droppy here in SoCal as of late, especially following a brilliantly warm April full of blooms. To embrace this bit of drizzle I've come up with a little rain drop craft made from security envelopes. It's an incredibly simple craft that will be easy to do with your little ones. Just use the raindrop template (found at the end of the post - right click and save), trace it atop the envelope, and then cut and apply to either fine art paper, canvas, wood, you name it, using some sort of adhesive or acrylic medium, Mod Podge, etc. Now sit back and enjoy your little piece of spring rain as you look forward to summer days just around the corner.
As I didn't have time to make little suits for my little gents, I had to come up with something much more simple. Freehand fabric painted bunnies on t-shirts was just the ticket. Dress them up with some suspenders, a cardigan and new shoes, and an Easter hunt ensemble you have. (They wore their Sunday best from years past for the actual Easter service). We did our simple food coloring egg dye technique complete with stickers, which gave us the same fun color variation. And yes, we did this on Easter Sunday...right before the hunt...which also seams to becoming a tradition for us.  And it couldn't be Easter without our Lindt Chocolate Carrots. These are the one thing that Little A requested from the Easter Bunny...again....and again.  Needless to say, they were a very big hit.   Sugar high's quickly transformed the little ones.  Another big hit were the chalk eggs the boys received from a previous hunt. They were perfect for coloring and adorning their chalkboard painted pails.  It was a gorgeous afternoon and we spent most of it with my aunts and uncles and cousins from the surrounding area eating delicious food and playing the most entertaining round of Gestures ever (I'll just say this - my older aunt Cheryl received the card "fire hydrant" and acted it out appropriately [think dog vs. fire hydrant]. Hilarity ensued).
Happy boys.
Happy parents.
It was a most marvelous Easter Sunday indeed.
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