I stayed up late working on the tablecloth and it’s finished!

Done!

I used a coordinating fabric for the back side so the kids can flip it over and get more use out of it. I have a feeling I’m going to use the back side to flip it over when things get spilled on the tablecloth, so I don’t have to take it downstairs to the laundry room.

I’m lazy like that.

I’m going to Wal-Mart and Fabricland tomorrow to get more material. Wish me luck.

My favorite games as a child were imaginary games I would play with my siblings. We would dream up elaborate and beautiful scenarios. I remember thinking that we were special to be able to create such amazing games. My imagination ahs served me well but the last several months it’s made it difficult to sleep.

My problem?

I started thinking about making signature pieces to put around my home. Things that I could make and tailor to our own family needs and our own color preferences. I am distracted all the time by ideas of colors, patterns, pillows, tablecloths, duvet covers, headboards and kid aprons.

I’m haunted at by the creations my imagination dreams up but I’m unable to do anything about it because I have no sewing machine and no knowledge of how to use one.

In the spirit of Christmas I asked Mr. Santa to bring me a sewing machine that I saw on sale at Canadian Tire and he was kind enough to leave it under the tree.

Now my problem is figuring out what to do. I read the manual so I can’t say that I don’t know how to turn the machine on and I’m not going to let my fear and ignorance keep me from getting a good night’s sleep after finally making those floor pillows I’ve been imagining at three in the morning.

Chuck and I took the kids to a quilting store here in Cochrane. There were rows and rows of beautiful fabrics although it was a lot more expensive than I was planning on spending on something I’m sure to screw up the first couple times. I was just about to leave without buying anything when I found this pattern.

I love it! It has the lime green color in it just like my dining room chairs and the dark brown pulls in the colors from the living room. I love it. I just wish it wasn’t $16/metre. I know I’m new to the sewing biz but that seemed a mighty bit steep to me. Of course I couldn’t leave without atleast a little bit of it. I think I’m going to turn it into a tablecloth for Jocelyn’s play table which is now sitting in my dining room. Jocelyn is enjoying playing house a little more involved lately. She’s cooking, cleaning and setting her little table for every meal.

I found the clearance bin and let the kids each pick out a $4 roll of fabric. Jason wants a cowboy bandana to cover his face while he’s pretending to rob his little sister. He found this fabric and decided it was as close as he was going to find to camouflage.

What?

Cowboys don’t wear camouflage and carry Tommy Guns?

According to my son they sure do.

Jocelyn really liked this deep blue pattern.

I’m completely lost as for what to do with it. It measures 22×19 1/2 in. What do I do with such a small amount of fabric?

David was so excited to choose a pattern like everyone else and I think he chose better than the older two. He chose this car pattern.

A close up of the cars

Isn’t it fun! I think I’m going to buy some muslin and try to piece together a tote for him to carry his cars and trucks around in. He’d love that.

So all you incredibly crafty and imaginative folks, where does one start? What easy, small projects do you suggest for a woman eager to start creating up a storm?

By the way, if you’re also interested in crafty whit-whats then you might be interested in some of these links to some crafty people. I’ve started reading them in the past couple weeks and they’re definitely not helping me keep on task without thinking about colors, cuts and creations.

Make & Takes
Little Birdie Secrets
Wise Craft
May Fly
Creative Bliss
Craft Pad
Tip Junkie
Homemade by Jill
Wishes Dreams
Ask Kari & Kijsa
Sew Mama Sew
The Apronista
modern Jax

I know that’s a lot of linky love but there are some great creative geniuses in those links and I shouldn’t be so greedy as to keep them all to myself. So, go and frolic in the land of internet craftiness.

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Laurelyn is now 7 months old. She has two teeth on the bottom, she’s crawling everywhere and she’s not pulling herself to her knees against furniture to get at food. She’s always looking for something to put in her mouth and if you think it’s cute to put your finger in a baby’s mouth with fresh teeth, you’re an idiot.

It’s not cute and it hurts, let me tell you. From one idiot to another so to speak.

Here are some pictures of her getting into her brothers dry cereal. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I am one of those mothers who reaches for the camera before I stop my children from doing something they shouldn’t. I’ve got to have something to blog about after all. It’s not like there’s anything else interesting happening lately.

Now, about Christmas. I have lots of pictures I could share with you or I could write about all the fun we’re having with Chuck being home, the kids off school and all that snow in our backyard to sled down but if I write about it then I’ll have to admit how little time we have left before school starts again and Chuck is back at work. I’m not ready to do that so you’ll have to settle for this post instead.

Happy New Year everyone!

“Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she’ll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she’ll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she’ll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she’ll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of s*!&.”

Amen.

I’m not referring to Barbara Streisand. I’m referring to my own little actress. Jocelyn did her own hair the other day and I thought it was so adorable I had to take a picture and share it with you.

A very popular cartoonist had this cartoon on his blog and I wanted to share it. If you’d like to see more of his unique style work you can check him out at gapingvoid.

The weather is warm enough to go outside and I think that angels are singing for the relief I feel at being able to throw my kids outside and into the snow drifts.

Here are some pictures of the fun they had.

If it looks fuzzy in that last picture of Jason and Jocelyn holding up their sled it’s because it took them forever to get it out from under all that snow and every time I wanted to take a picture I had to slush through a ton of snow on my back deck. In case you wonder what a ton of snow looks like I took a picture.

I’ve been noticing a trend in my daily blog read and that is that everyone seems to be sharing their favorite do-it-yourself Christmas traditions. Whether it’s gifts, crafts or baked goods there’s something out there for everyone, except the craft challenged so I thought I’d put out my version of a Christmas tradition that my mom started years ago when we were little. It’s a lot of fun and it’s dead easy, which makes it my favorite.

Here are some pictures of the candy trains my kids made last night.

David’s Candy Train

Jason’s Candy Train

Jocelyn’s Candy Train

Don’t they look like fun? It’s our favorite part of Christmas besides the caroling, good food, cinnamon rolls, gingerbread houses, presents. Well, these babies make the top ten of our favorite things anyway.

Let’s get started. You’ll need candy. It doesn’t need to be lots and the more times you make these the better your judgement will be on what kinds of candy your family wants. Make sure to have a candy bar for each person. The candy bar is your base. We always have candy bells, peppermint patties (my maiden name is York so it’s a requirement to get the name brand), Reese Peanut butter cups and usually tootsie rolls and starbursts. It’s been crazy weather lately so I didn’t drive into the city for the last two ingredients. I made do with some small chocolates that could take the place of the starbursts which usually play the part of presents on our trains.

All of the candy, except the bells, should be in a wrapper. The glue gun will be used to glue everything together so you want to be able to pull the glue off and eat the candy.

Seriously, that’s all you need. It doesn’t take much to put these trains together and hands are helpful. Besides, now I can show you a picture of my new wedding ring. I’ll tell you the story of what happened to my original ring and where I got this one (and how much it cost me since I’m such a tight wad) another time.

Choose your candy bar first because you will gluing all your candy to it. Make sure it’s your favorite kind because this is the candy that goes into your stocking and you want something yummy on Christmas morning. Nothing like a ton of chocolate for breakfast.

Choose the beginning idea. Are you making a sled or a train? You could get really creative like my brother in law and make a circus car with a lion inside. He used a couple tootsie rolls like clay and made a lion. It was really cool. Hey April, do you have any pictures of that?

Warm up your glue gun and put a small dab on each piece of candy, one at a time.

Here’s my train with the wheels in place. What? Trains have wheels don’t they?

These are the chocolate packages that I got instead of starbursts. This is to give you an idea of how I usually do it but once I read that these were chocolate ‘flavored’ confection I decided to try something different instead.

My finished candy train. Tada! So there you have it. Go on out, pick up some sugary goodness and make these puppies. They’re fun, quick, relatively cheap and if you’ve been snowed in for several days it makes for a good distraction. We sometimes lay tin foil over a cardboard piece, spray that fake snow on it and lay black licorice ropes as train tracks and put our trains on top of that. The trains stay displayed until Christmas Eve and then they magically get shoved into the stockings.

When I moved to Calgary I was kept unaware of how cold it can get. I would learn eventually and why ruin something before I’ve even had a chance to fall in love with the beauty of the mountains and the cowboys who live all over Alberta.

Honestly, a cowboy walking nonchalantly by and then tipping his hat at you can melt your heart into loving even the frozen tundra I live in now.

It’s a very different place from Bellingham, where my parents live and even more different from where I grew up in Las Vegas.

We moved to Calgary in the warm months. I love the outdoor atmosphere, the biking/walking trails that criss cross all over the city, the Bow River that runs right through the center of town, the parks and the proximity to the mountains. Oh, I already mentioned the mountains. Well, I love them that much. I also love the easy going and friendly people. There are certainly people who have been beaten with the idiot stick but you find those people anywhere and I try to stay away from them just in case it’s contagious.

I remember my first winter and the feeling of my nose hairs becoming crunchy and frozen because of the extremely cold air. I couldn’t talk and could barely breath. It was insane and I was ready to pack up and leave. I was a newlywed though and the idea of taking off to Barbados fir six months, until the warm weather came back, without my new husband was not an idea I could spend a lot of time thinking about. I stuck it out and it turned out that it takes more than 6 months for the warm weather to come back. Who would have guessed! The warmth did come back though and I’m trying to think about that right now.

I’m hunkered down in my home, baking cookies, beating my son at chess, reading books, watching movies and having deep conversations with my husband. It’s been a great time but I like my freedom, my mobility and my choice to leave whenever I want. I suppose I could leave but when it’s this cold outside who would want to be out there?

It is -13 F and with the wind moving in gusts from 40-60 km it feels like it’s -29 out there.

I have some desire to make something or do something big like scrapbooking or taking warm baked goods to my neighbors or making an edible craft like my little sister did but the couch is comfy, the fireplace is warm and my book is calling. I think I’m going to be lazy and watch the original Rudolph movie with my kids. If you knew my kids you’d know that watching a movie with them is a big project so really I’m not taking the lazy way out.

Really.

I don’t have any pictures from today because my eyelashes would freeze shut when I blink so I’m not going out there but I have some pictures from yesterday before it got so cold.

The snow is more than twice as deep as it is in these pictures. Like I said, I would take pictures but right now my thighs are asking not to be buried in freezing snow. I’ll let you know when they relent.