Lasso The Moon

Just when you thought I'd forgotten all about them

I just found the picture of the onesies we made for my teeny tiny niece, Ellie at the freezer paper party we had.  I mentioned them way back here, and again here. 

Almost all of these were made using freezer paper stencils, so they might give you some ideas.  The four on the bottom are my favorite.  That kitty was so unusual and mod.  I would never have come up with such a cool design.  (Good job, Charis!)  The seahorse on the left was inspired by an Eric Carle illustration.  I made one new one, but the angle makes it hard to see.  It's way up at the top, second from the left.  A dandelion.  (click the picture for a bigger view)

I highly suggest hosting a freezer paper onesie party for a mommy-to-be.  It was a huge blast.

Eat local

My mom sent me this really good book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it got me thinking about where we get our food.  I wonder if the country would be in such an oil crises if we didn't insist on having bananas every morning and green salads in the dead of winter.  I'm not saying I'm a full convert by any means, but it did get me thinking.

I found a great local farmer's market and have been going weekly for the last three weeks.  But last Saturday was the last one until November 22!  And after that, May!  Oh, well.  At least now I know where it is and can start using it again in the spring.

The other night I made a pizza that used tons of local ingredients:
Crookneck squash from my garden
Tomatoes and peppers from the farmer's market
Salad greens and other greens (dandelion!) from my garden  (I just planted them about a month and a half ago, and it's been so fun to go out and pick them for dinners!)

The pizza was very good--even Donnie said so. 

My mom is so into eating local that she started a new business based on the idea.  It's called "edible" and she and her friend, Lori are putting in vegetable gardens for clients in the Dallas area, where they live.  Honestly, it might be easier to eat local when you live in the balmy South, but they don't have the apple trees that we do here, in the Midwest.  So I guess it evens out.  Mom just started a blog about her business.  Check it out!

I spent my movie time last night making her some business cards with the little radish logo I came up with.  They're on their way, Mom!  I am so excited for her.

Seeing Spots

The auctions are over (hurray!) and I've been able to work a little more on the halloween costumes.  I don't want to show everything just yet, but here are some highlights:

and this.  I love a kid with a tail...

I'll show the whole effect when we get picture at the fall festival.  I used McCall's pattern 8938, which doesn't have a puppy option, so I had to wing the tails and ears.  Not too bad, though. 

I also got to start on my Cruella coat. I didn't want to use a pattern, because I wanted as few pieces as possible (which means as few stitches as possible) ,and I didn't need a perfect, snug fit.

So, I used a coat of mine as a "pattern".  (The fold of the fabric is at the shoulder.  One less seam there, too.)

I meant to get a step-by-step photo shoot of this process, but I got too excited as things kept working out, and this is the last picture I took!  No career in photo-journalism for me, I guess.

There is fur all over the place. 

Shoes

I haven't been posting here this week, because all of my computer time has been spent turning this:

into cold, hard cash on eBay.  I had no idea we had so many.  Why is it so hard to get rid of their little shoes?  I think maybe because they spend so much more time in one pair of shoes than they do in one outfit. 

If you want to track the auctions (I don't know--maybe you have the time!) click here.
I'll be back to share pictures of the costumes as soon as I get a little work done on them. 

And if you still can't get enough of me, I added a few slings to the shop, and I still have a couple left.  Check them out!

This can't be normal.

I am pretty excited about Halloween costumes this year.  We like to go as a group theme, so this year we picked 101 Dalmations.  Yes.  The kiddos are going to be puppies, Daddy is a dog-catcher, and I am of course Cruella de Vil.  I already found my wig.  Yay!

But there was a problem with the puppy costumes.  No dalmation fabric anywhere.  I wanted fuzzy, spotted puppies!  So we did this:

Solid white furry felt.  Then I made a quick stencil out of...

You guessed it--freezer paper.  Only I didn't iron the stencil down.  I didn't need the spots to have sharp, clean edges, and I wanted to be able to reuse the stencil.  It worked really well!

And in less than an hour, I had four yards of the perfect (and cheap!) spotted puppy fur.  Of course, I did this last weekend while Donnie was out of town and I was really REALLY sick, but had to watch the kids anyway since everyone I know was also out of town on the youth group retreat.  So I was painting, mothering, and coughing my head off all at once.  There might be something wrong with me.

Circus Party - Complete

These outfits were so much fun.  I'm going to see what else I can make with this design.  Maybe a couple appliqued tote bags?  Anyway, here they are all finished and ready to wear:

This shirt was for a birthday boy turning 4, so I gave the bear 4 numbered balls to juggle.



Again, the littler birthday boy was turning one, so his balancing monkey got a numbered ball of its own.  I usually outline everything with a satin stitch, but this time I outlined many of the pieces in a straight stitch.  This way, with washing, they'll take on a soft, fuzzy appearance.









We weren't able to go to the birthday party since we've been sick, but I hear it was a riotous good time. 

(Sorry about all the underlining.  Sometimes typepad has a mind of its own!)

Babies everywhere!

More stencilling.  Am I driving anyone crazy yet?  Sorry.  But this still won't be the last.

A couple onesies made for a friend while I was in Dallas.  The two on the right are mine.  The one with the spiders was made by my sister, Abby.  I love how she used both parts of the stencil.  Cool idea and great placement, Abby!

We used back issues of Home Companion magazine to jog our brains when we were coming up with ideas.  The dog came straight out of my imagination, which is unusual for me, and the car was inspired by an Orla Kiely journal I saw at Anthropolgie.  (I love her!)

These two were made the same day, for a friend whose baby's initials are BMW.  Cute, huh?  Oh!  Before you start painting a shirt or onesie, be sure and stick something between the layers of fabric to prevent the paint from bleeding through to the back!  We used a piece of freezer paper with the plastic side up.

I didn't want the great car shape to go to waste, so I made Ethan this little bag.  And then I left it behind in Texas.  Oops.

Try it yourself!

Here's the design I came up with for a birthday gift this week.  It's a simple bird design to trace and stencil using the freezer paper method. 

 Download this file, and print it out. It is complete with directions.

Download freestencil.pub

  It's a publisher file.  If you try to download it and can't, please let me know.  I've never tried this before.

To make a two color, layered image, trace the design onto two different sheets of freezer paper.  Then darken only the section of the stencil that you want painted in each color.  Then only cut the darkened areas of each.  

Remove the first stencil and wait until the first color is dry before adding the overlapping color.  I did the bird body only in blue, the stem only in brown, and everything else was in both colors.  The effect was cool since the two stencils didn't line up perfectly, and both colors showed through.

It would be great if I had a picture of the finished product, but true to form I wrapped it up and gave it away before I thought to take a picture.  Of course.