Lasso The Moon

Maternity Session

 

Last week my sister, only one week away from her due date with her second child, asked me to take some maternity pictures of her "before it was too late".  I am no photographer.  I only have a point-and-shoot camera, and I don't even own any editing software.

But naturally I said, "Of Course!"

And went straight to pintrest for ideas.  Search "pregnant" or "maternity" for some good results.

Here are a few of our favorite shots, many of which are inspired by those on my pintrest pinboards!

Thanks, guys, for letting me be a part of this!  So much fun!

Octopus-in-the-Box

 I'm not sure I'll ever get used to dropping Emma off at school each morning.  I can hardly stand to see her little self disappear through the huge doors of her school as I watch from the carpool drop-off lane.  She's okay with me walking her to her class, but sometimes she'd rather just go in by herself.  This one has an independent streak.

One thing that takes some of the sting away is that I make her lunch everyday.  Most days her lunchbox holds the usual--sandwich, fruit, drink, etc. But it still makes me feel better that I made the time to build into her school day.

Occasionally, I spend a few extra minutes and send her something like this:

Want to make your own octopus hot dogs?  Here's how you do it.  First, cut your hot dog in half.  Then on the cut end of each half, make slits to form the arms.  This is the only tricky part, but it's worth it to make sure you have all eight arms.  You can bet your kids are going to count them.

Then drop them into a pot of boiling water for about 1 minute. Marvel at the way the little creatures seem to come to life, plumping and curling their arms. 

Set them on a paper towel to dry and cool.

This is pretty good already, but adding eyes makes them even better.  You'll need a toothpick and some cupcake sprinkles (the long kind) for this step.  "Pre-drill" your eye holes with the toothpick.  Then, making sure the hot dogs have cooled, insert the sprinkles so that only the tip is visible. (If your hot dogs are too warm, the sprinkles will melt and not look as good.)  Placing the eyes is more difficult at 6:30 am, before I've had my coffee, but I'm sure it's a breeze later in the day.

Now they are all set for the lunchbox!

Add a small container of ketchup, some apple and cheese slices, and lunch is served.

Emma said last time she took this lunch, it caught the eye of a couple of teachers, who went running for their cameras.  Hilarious.  Makes me want to see what else I can come up with.

 Linked to:

TCB, TJ, NJAH, HS, SSS

And another thing

Here's the other reason I haven't been blogging much this week.

When we moved Esther into her room a couple months ago, some of my stuff got displaced.  To the garage.  Figuring out where to put things so that they are accessible will be (and has already been) a huge ugly job, but it has to be done.

This week:

Going through my personal fabric collection.  I'm showing this picture, even though I'm embarrassed by it, because I'm hoping it will make a fun "before" shot.  And so you people will hold me accountable.  This cannot stay this way.   I have a feeling the local thrift store is going to get an sudden influx of donated sewing supplies pretty soon!

Baby Sling

The blog has been a little bit quiet this week, because I am trying to get some things done.  Like this:

This pretty fabric is the front side of a new baby sling for a friend back in Indiana.

My slings are reversible, non-padded, and so flattering for new mommy.

They are also so simple and satisfying to make, that I was thinking about putting a tutorial together.  I used to protect my sewing secrets like they were national security, but these days, since I don't sew as much, maybe it would be fun to see someone else's take on them.

Would you be interested in learning how to make a baby sling for yourself or a friend?  Leave me a comment, and if there is some interest, I'll put one together.

And if you want, I might even share my secret for making the matching drawstring bag!

XOXO Anna

Paper Mobile Pattern and Tutorial

Hey y'all!  I mentioned yesterday that I would put a diagram on here to help with your mobile building.  If it works, I may have done one better!

Here's the diagram, along with step-by-step instructions.

OR you can download the diagram so you can print it out and use the patterns:

Download Mobile10001

Have fun!  If you make a mobile from this tutorial, I'd love to see it!  Leave me a link to the picture in the comments.

Happy weekend!

Mobile 1

I have been making an effort these last few weeks to just get things done.  There are so many ideas and plans that I have for our home, but I noticed that my days were going something like this:

Get Emma ready for school.  Stop and nurse Esther.  Take Emma to school.  Sit and play with Esther. Start laundry and dishes. Stop and nurse Esther. Finish laundry and dishes.  Help Ethan find something to do/play with Esther.  Put Esther down for a nap. Spend some time in Bible Study.   Write a blog post.  Stare blankly into space.  Stop and nurse Esther.  Run a couple errands.  Pick Emma up from school.  Help Emma with homework.  Read the kids a book. Put Esther down for a nap. Start dinner... you get the idea.

And I noticed that for days on end, the creative part of my brain was getting pushed to the side--to be used when I had some more time.  Well, that day may never come.  With a nursing baby, things just take longer than they should, and if I was every going to cross anything extra off the list, I just had to make it happen.  If you read the above schedule, you may think that I should try doing something creative in that time period where I'm just staring into space...but that cannot be.  For some reason, my brain requires that time to transform from jello to semi-functional.  So creativity must be squished into the spaces between.

 

 

I read somewhere that babies need a variety of mobiles to keep stimulated and interested. (It's a Montessori concept, I think.)  If that's the case, I could whip up a quick mobile with simple supplies, and if it turned out terrible, I'd just chuck it and make a new one.  Turns out, a simple mobile is still a mobile.  And mobiles are cool.

I sent the kids out for twigs, and then just cut some simple shapes out of paper.  I backed the shapes with some white paper I had drawn with reds and pinks, and then taped the shapes to a length of thread.  Then use more thread to tie everything together.

When you think you're almost done, hang it up somewhere, and slide the knots from side to side to find a good balance point. (I'm going to add a little diagram of this later.)

Then hang it all up with a cup hook.

Esther's room has a ceiling fan, so the shapes gently flutter and spin.  She loves it.  This buys me a few minutes here and there (of happy + awake time) so I can make up for spending time on a craft.  The whole thing probably took about 20 minutes from start to finish.

 

 

 

Evidence

Clearly, something creative has happened here.

Come back tomorrow to see what it was!

Anatomy of an Idea

I wanted to make Esther a mobile for her bedroom.

So I looked through my pintrest file, "mobiles".

Which brought me to this photo.

Which linked me to this blog.

Have you seen this blog?  This dad, Joel, stays home with his kids and plays with them.  Really plays.  He invents all kinds of games and home-made toys for them to play with. 

This guy is inspiring. 

Especially this post about a paper city road trip, so we had to make a version of our own.

Draw some cars (and their mirror images--harder than it looked!).

Color and cut them out.

Let the kids draw their own roads.

Don't get freaked out if they have different ideas than you.

I've made this mistake a couple times...

Play!

(I did eventually make Esther a mobile.  I'll share that later.)

 Linked to:

bluecricket, wearethatfamily, eisymorgan, sewmuchado, momnivoresdilemma, f&j, Shabbycreekcottage,

Baby Blanket Kit

A friend asked me to put together a couple kits for a baby blanket gift.

The blankets are for a pair of twins, one boy and one girl.

Each quilt kit had a dozen 12-inch squares, one yard of coordinating fabric for backing, and some extra pieces for binding.

She whipped these up in a matter of hours and sent me a photo.

So cute!

I love this idea, and I think we may see more blanket kits in the shop in the near future.  Thanks to Abby for the great idea!

 

New Trick

Esther learned this new trick...

...just one day shy of 4 months old.