kids

Holiday Photo Card Out Takes

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It’s that time of year, everyone that was on top of their sh*t got their family pictures taken in October, even November with lovely fall colors, amazingly pulled together outfits, and perhaps with that angelic yellow light from behind, or maybe it was photo shopped in but really whose judging?

Last year we did a photo shoot in late November/early December, I wanted a little snow in our picture, it turned out lovely.

This year I had a whole shoot in mind, but time slipped by, outfits and accessory got to be more work to find and pull together for 6 people than I had imagined, I worked 80 hours at the hospital in the span of 3 weeks, normally I am home….on so go my excuses.

So, no well-planned photo shoot for us this year, just me, my Cannon 7D, all 4 of my favorite players, and some natural light streaming from the windows full of crisp wonder from a fresh layer of snow.

Ahhhhh, sounds magical right?  Well here is what will NOT be sent out on my cards this year:

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Avalon was obviously having the best time….you can see here that she is mortified that no one else is having fun.

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Santa’s tassle is blocking Santanna’s face.                              Avalon, again loving every minute, and eyes on me, please.

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Ok so this might not have been the best idea, someones head got bonked, eyes of madness oing on , and again Avalon just not feeling her cooperative mojo.

Ok… lets try single pictures, just a head shot, that won’t be too hard right?!?

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ALriiighty Season’s Greeting from our family to yours,

Love, Jon (attention getter, prop man, not pictured), Sarah (behind the camera, also not pictured), Crazy laugh guy (who was apparently snacking), the
Pouter age 8, Squishy face and the Joker.

In all honesty I can’t help but laugh when I look at these,  the best part about pictures is that when you look back they mean so much and are great memories, of small teeth, hair styles, chubby wrists that are now gone, and memories made, out of the 395 photos I snapped I did get 1 that I used for the photo card and 1 head shot of each kid that I am going to make into wall canvases, but please tell me that others of you have these amazing moments stored on your hard drive as well??!!

Appliqued Turkey Shirt Tutorial

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Happy to update from yesterday’s post that the Turkey shirt has made it through BOTH the washed and the dryer!!

Here is what I now have for Santanna:

 

I am very happy with the way it turned out, I really like the raw edges on all of the appliqué, it gives it a bit of a feathery feel…if you make a shirt like this you can use a product called fray check on the edges and it should prevent this from happening, it may make the edges a little more stiff though so keep that in mind.

Please keep in mind that I am in no way experienced in the art OR science of sewing, especially with a machine, that being said here is how I made this shirt:

1. Grab a shirt, this black one was for sale in my ebay store, it was a new with tags Target cast off that set me allllll the way back 49 cents….so really if you are a novice like me, just take a shirt that you already have or thrift one, just in case…..

2. Gather fabric, I recommend getting material that is not very stretchy, it will make this much easier when sewing onto the T shirt that is stretchy itself, I am pretty sure the fabric I used was quilting fabrics that someone had donated. If you have old sheets, tablecloths etc, these would be great

3. Grab templates for a circle, and feathers, our local bread store gave the kids these “feathers” to color and return for a free cookie, and the circle is a trace around any round object that you have at home. I know some of my directions might not seem super concrete but I think that any artsy/craft project should be more of how you like it with guidelines than solid have- to’s..

4. Cut out all your templates, I free handed the eyes, the fabric I used dictated the eyes, you might want circles or layers, play around with what you have until you like them the I had a few different styles before I decided I has them right. For the beak I cut a triangle and for the snood (the bacon looking thing, yes I had to Google that) I cut a free hand bacon shape. I cut different size circles for the body which was dictated by the size of the shirt. So you have a circle (body), arrow shapes (feathers), triangle, (beak), and a bacon shape (snood).

5. Now lay out your feathers on your shirt, move them until you like how they lay, I did some at different lengths to give it a natural abstractness, then lay your circle over them and carefully pink the feathers to the circle but NOT to the shirt. Sew around the circle to set feathers in place, do not forget to backstitch. Continue these steps, continuing with the beak, eyes and snood (are you comfortable with this word yet?…not sure I am :))

 

6. Now you should essentially have a turkey patch or an appliqué, lay it out on your shirt, and pin it into place, after I did this I found there were some feathers that needed a little trimming here and there. Now here comes the trickiest part, sew around and up and down your circle and feathers to completely secure your turkey into place. Here is what I learned: the first shirt I made I actually just went whole hog and stitched the turkey parts onto the shirt like above, but I found it got very bulky and was hard to keep all the feathers straight. I did complete my first shirt by sewing right onto it so if you feel like this will work for you please do not let me discourage you. I just think it works better especially for the eyes and smaller parts to already have them sewn on prior to sewing on the shirt, otherwise it gets to be quite thick, and this starts in the T word….tension, I am not there yet. I appliquéd my turkey one feather at a time, and then laid my shirt back out to make sure all the parts were where I wanted them. I did end with some puckering some pieces moved a bit, but I really like the originality of the way it looks.

 

 

7. Decide if you want legs, or any other special details, a little fabric bow would be cute if you want a girly turkey. Snip any loose threads, turn the shirt inside out and wash in cold in and dry as you would any cotton T shirt. ENJOY your Turkey shirt!!!

The kids are really having fun with this, I just finished Solomon’s shirt tonight and he decided his needed legs, Raiven has decided that she would like hers appliquéd on with dark aqua thread. What better way for us to all hang out and be creative, then THEY get to wear it!!

You can see it is not perfect, but I can tell you that I have less than $6.00 invested in each shirt, if even that. I will post a picture of all of us at the Turkey trot.

Thanks for looking!

Gobble gobble:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turkey Trot Appliqued T-Shirt

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I do not want to prematurely claim this project to be awesome since at this very moment I have it in the washing machine with my fingers crossed that is will not crumble 🙂

My family is participating in a local Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving with some friends and when I saw this shirt on Pinterest, I though how cute it would be for the kids to have a Turkey shirt:

The tutorial for this shirt can be found  at  cookinwiththejohnstons.com

Super cute right, it got my mind turning, then I remembered all that fabric I had thrifted last year and posted about here, and thought, ooh I can make one of those.

Lets segway for a second; I think there are two kinds of people, those that go to craft shows and buy cute things and artfully decorate their home, then there people like me that go to shows, and scour Pinterest and think, I can do that….. although this is not always true, and it is in no way is a discredit to original ideas and artists, I think we just really think we can do it. We are literally in the mindset that if you can do it so can I.

Ok back to the shirt, I can make one of those……with my 5 previous hours of experience on my sewing machine, of course I can make a Turkey appliqué shirt, hellooooo I have a Pinterest account….geeez.

Well, I did it, and I love it, however, it was not as easy I thought and I definitely had to separate myself and the sewing machine (she is going to need a name) me to reassess my strategy and the machine for poor behavior.

I will post the steps as to how I made my shirts once I have pulled it out of teh dryer and I am certain that it survived.:)

Repurposed Puzzle Snail Mail Letters

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It seems to me like all we ever get in the mail are bills, magazines, political propaganda (which I think is over now, thank goodness), and an occasional party invite.

In my sometimes old fashioned nostalgia I encourage our kids to send letters to friends or family.  Santanna is especially fond of making letters and pictures for her little friends.  Who does not like to receive a fun piece of mail personally addressed to them in ink??

Our friends daughter,  who I wrote about previously  who is battling brain cancer, is getting an overwhelming amount of mail, letters and packages, guess who feels a little left out/angry about not getting any mail?  Little sister Elsa.  So, her mom grudgingly asked if we could help a girl out and send some snail mail Elsa’s way.  I think we all know how hard it can be to actually ask for help when you need it right?!

This got me thinking, we needed to blow up this girls snail mail box, how many pictures was Tanna willing to color?

Then it came to me, a puzzle letter:

Here is what we did:

  1.  Went to savers (you might have one of these not being used at home as well, we recycled this one, you might be able to repurpose your own),  bought this puzzle.

2.  We put the puzzle together upside down. This is harder then you think wihtout picture clues.

3. I helped Santanna write a letter and she drew whatever and decotared whatever she wanted in Sharpie and Crayola markers.

       4.     I included instructions with the first envelope.

       5. Then we took the puzzle about, mixed it all up and I got out my postal scale for mailing packages and we weighed each one equal to/less than an ounce.  For this puzzle it was about 5 pieces per envelope.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I am so excited for her friend to get this, she is going to be thrilled, plus it gives her something to look forward too.

I think I am also going to do this when the big kids are at camp for the summer.

Why is turning 5 so bittersweet?

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There are just some birthdays that seem like such milestones in our child’s life.   First you count the days, then the weeks, months and the BIG ONE!  Your baby turns one, they smash the cake, they are on the verge or are walking, and soon words are going to start falling out of that cute mouth that is constantly growing new teeth.

A few years pass, the twos, the threes, the fourth, all arguable divine and frustrating simultaneously, but how sweet to watch your child grow and learn.

Then they turn 5, this is such a milestone to me, included on my list are 10, 13, 16, 18 and 21 but thankfully I am not to those yet…stay tuned.  Five years old, kindergarten, watching the excitement and apprehension as they get on that yellow bus you are certain they will look back and wave..blow a kiss, or maybe they just march right on and wave from their seat to you on the other side of the window with a big grin on their face.

And there we are mommas & poppas, moms and dads, teary eyed, proud, our hearts in our throats and then it clears, they are ok, we are ok, oh my gosh we did it!

Then one morning they wake up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their smile has changed, our baby is changing and growing and getting on a big bus, baby teeth know it is time to leave, big teeth are moving in, changing that little kid grin, into a beautiful/handsome smile.

We have a new smile at our house tonight….it is bittersweet, they all grow up so fast.  It is exciting for them, and us, but also for me a little heartbreaking, the world is so easy and fun for them now, I want it to stay that way, that dollar under her pillow tomorrow is going to pure joy that will not be whisked away by bills, or deadlines, that means little things mean more and touch her heart in a way that I hope molds her beauty on the inside as much as it is growing on the outside.

Back to School

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Yes school stared last week, but it feels more real today.  After all the orientations and meet the teacher and back to school happenings, last week felt more like an intro into back to school.

I am actually very sad that summer is over, we had such a fun summer, evident from my lack of blog posts ;), that it was very hard to send everyone back to school.

Today it was just Avalon and me at home for the morning, and we spent the whole morning outside, she played in her water table and the sandbox, and I cleaned out 2 flowerbeds, the garden, picked up after Farley and have the tractor sprinkler watering the almost completely dead grass.

Truth: I still miss the kids but I am LOVING being productive when they are not here.

My goal, I am sure I have posted before; for the blog is to post the completed photos of some of the projects we have introduced the beginnings of on here.  For sure the corner fireplace, and some bedrooms that we have been redecorating, also we have what I hope is going to be an awesome project for the garage to post about.

Here are the charmers that I am missing while they are at school:

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*sigh*….off to be domestically productive.

Golden 3

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Here it is the big 3, Avalon turned 3 today marking her Golden birthday.  I really have no idea what the history is for Golden Birthdays, making me think I should do a little research for my knowledge bank.

Back to the birthday girl, she is the youngest, I can’t say last it hurts to much, I would love another, our own or maybe even an adopted,  and I can’t coin her “the baby” because I have expectations for her that are the same as all the other 3.

We went for her 3 year check up today, since she has had some minor growth delays and health issues, I like to keep a record of her growth should it stall/stop again.  Great new for Avalon she is now in the 5% percentile for height and 13%!!! for weight,  considering she was totally of the charts for most of her 2nd year this is awesome!!

It was another day packed full of normal day activities , but I snuck in a city bus ride to downtown with the kids, Avalon really wanted to ride a bus, such an easy wish to grant on a birthday.

After dinner and cupcakes Solomon, Raiven and Santanna gave Avalon their gifts, it juts warms my heart how much our kids love to give to each other and the time and thought they put into their gifts.  The girls each made cards, Raiven’s was a pop out card that I know she spent a lot of time on.

So thankful to celebrate another candle on the cake for our little sprite!  You grow girl!!!