May Toy Society Drop--A Beetle Bug

Just skidding in on the last day of May to make my monthly Toy Society drop (as part of my year long Toy Society commitment--read about that here, but only if you feel like it). This month I made this sweet and abstract little Beetle Bug by Carly Schwerdt of Nest Studio. Her pattern can be found in the fantastic book, Softies Only a Mother Could Love.
And this is where we made the drop--here at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, which happens to be about my favorite place in the whole city. Beeper actually picked the sculpture for us to hang it from--he chose Arikidea by Mark di Suvero. Of course, it is one of Beeper's favorites, owing to its hugeness and also that you can climb on board the wooden platform and sway on it.

And if you want to see all the other drops I've already made this year for The Toy Society, you can find those here. Only 7 more to go...

Sweet, Sweet Summertime...

The living is pretty damn easy right now, I tell you. Here's my summertime to-do list:

• Ride my bike everywhere so much that the battery on my car actually dies from lack of use
• Make every possible incarnation of a burger
• Lay in the grass with Beeper and watch the clouds, naming what they look like
• Sit on the backsteps and smell the moon flowers in bloom at sunset
• Keep a steady stream of refridgerator pickles on hand at all times--see that recipe here
• Pop open a cold bottle champagne in the back yard with friends everytime we get together--as the Europeans do all summer
• Have a breakfast picnic, a lunch picnic and supper picnic
• Go camping at a new State Park where I have never been...as well as camp again at the lovely Split Rock State Park on Lake Superior's north shore
• Make homemade raspberry chocolate chip ice cream (and then smoosh a scoop between chocolate chip cookies)--see the recipe here
• Eat dinner al fresco on the flagstone patio we put in, on the table Mr Beeper built, as much as the weather will permit
• Visit the farmer's market weekly for more cucumbers, peppers, greens, corn and beans---and whatever else may strike our fancy and is in season
• Go to the drive-in movie theater with Beeper in his jammies, some cold beer in the cooler, and a basket of treats
• Eat tomatoes sun-warmed from the vine in our backfence kitchen garden with fresh mozzarella and basil and toasted pine nuts
• Make some blubarb (blueberry + rhubarb) jam, as well as some raspberry-jalapeno jam from locally grown berries

What sort of plans do you have for summer?

Tutorial: How to Build Your Own Little Coloring Books

As promised, I am back with a little tutorial and downloadable instructions to make these little coloring books. You can download my instructions here:
DOWNLOAD LITTLE COLORING BOOK TUTORIAL

Yeah, so I got all crazy and made a little super hero coloring book (for Beeper--who was in and out of my workshop all afternoon waiting for its completion), a little alphabet coloring book, a little animal coloring book, and a little book of various vintage paper dolls. But the possibilities are so ENDLESS with this little book--cut-out papercrafts, connect the dots, color by numbers...anything you can find to paste into the pages, really...so, yeah, happy little coloring book building. Hope you and the kiddies dig it as much as we do...

May Wine Weekend

This is our official drink of spring around here--May Wine. It is a wine traditionally drunk for May Day celebrations in Germany (and also, an old pagan drink, I believe)...we just find excuses to drink it all spring at my house. It is all lightness and freshness and I like to set out a carafe of it pre-dinner when we have guests...it feels like we are celebrating spring's arrival every time.

Here is my own simplified recipe:

• 1 bottle of chilled german white wine (nothing expensive here, please--a riesling works well although I admit I have made it with about every variety of white wine, depending upon what we have lurking in the wine coffers)
• a small handful (about 8 sprigs) of fresh sweet woodruff (what is sweet woodruff you ask? a lovely little herb that has sweet teeny white flowers in the spring and likes to spread voraciously throughout the garden if left unchecked from year to year)
• 8-10 fresh strawberries, sliced

Put the sweet woodruff and strawberries in a carafe, pour in the wine, cover and allow to steep for anywhere from 2 hours to overnight...the longer it sits, the more the sweet, fresh flavor develops. Serve chilled.

I grow my own sweet woodruff, by the way. I used to grow it in a pot and it seemed to be relatively happy in a pot, but now I have it in my garden, in a partially shady area where it can spread itself around happily and flourish from year to year.

You can also purchase dried sweet woodruff and use that in lieu of the fresh--but I just like the look of the fresh in the carafe (also, many people put sugar in their may wine, but I like mine adulterated as little as possible so you can really taste the strawberries and woodruff).

Salut!

Birthday Goodies

These are a few of the goodies I made to give to the other kiddies who came to Beeper's 5th birthday party--please keep in mind the theme was reptiles (yeah, I know, don't get me started...):

• A draw-string goody bag with a reptile appliques I designed--while I have made these little draw string bags before for gift giving (see my Christmas post here)--these were really inspired by those made by Sharilyn at Lovely Design
• A reptile themed coloring and activity book (which was so ridiculously fun to make and I am already thinking of all the other coloring and activity books I can make...again, something I will provide a tutorial on at a future date because you really should try to make one for yourself--just because)--again, inspired by Sharilyn's children's notebooks--but modified by me in both technique and purpose...
• A little pillow box with a handful of toy reptiles inside (the pillow boxes were purchased at Paper Source--but you could make your own if you had the inclination and endless buckets of time at your disposal...)
• A little booklet of temporary reptile tattoos from Dover Little Activity Books ( they offer about a bazillion types of little books in every theme you can think of--stickers, tattoos, coloring, paper dolls, puzzles--most priced around $1.50 apiece)
• And some eco-friendly soy-based crayons from Stubby Pencil Studio
  

And I don't know if you get this when you hand-make SO MUCH--but I always start to wonder whether anyone really gives a crap that I do all this--and even worse, if they resent it (not the kids, but the parents of the kids). I mean, I really do make all this stuff because I LIKE TO--but I know it probably seems like I am some crazed Stepford Mommy or something...anyway, so as I was assembling these goody bags on Friday I was asking myself: Is it worth it? And it was a question that went unanswered for me until I handed these to the kiddies at the end of the party on Saturday and saw the surprise and delight in their faces as they pulled open their drawstrings and peered into their bags...I swear I almost caught a whiff of awe or gratitude coming from the pre-schoolers.

So, yes, I guess I have decided to it is worth it-- although one parent did comment, "There goes Holly setting the birthday party favor bar even higher for the rest of us."--I like to think she was kidding. Still--it's not always easy being the crafty one...

Beeper's Birthday Counting Card

Just made Beeper his own birthday counting card from my template found in this post. We'll give it to him on Saturday at his birthday party. It contains:

• 1 custom-made mini superhero coloring book (I'll share the little book design technique I used in a future post...promise)
• 2 fruit lollies
• 3 Star Wars paper crafts downloaded from Toy-a-Day
• 4 shiny quarters
• 5 little photos of friends

Just thought I would share. I have another one I am planning to make later this month for yet another birthday. How about you? Have you used my counting card template yet? If so, would love to hear about how it worked out and what you found to attach to the cards. Be back later with more Beeper birthday party prep--I have some homemade goody bags and a king cobra on the docket.

Beeper's Birthday

When Beeper was only about 2 months old, I was at the grocery store with him strapped to me, asleep in his sling. A man, there with his two daughters who were about 5 and 7, approached me and said "Hold on to this time. Believe me, it will fly by faster than you can begin to imagine. Before you know it, he will be heading off to kindergarten." And I looked at him through the lens of my sleep deprivation and just could not even begin to wrap my head around the idea that my boy would EVER be as big as his two girls hanging off the sides of his cart and I might have another full night of sleep again.But here we are--having just registered for his kindergarten last week and as of today, my boy is 5 years old.
So, a favorite Beeper story from this past year:
6:00am on a Saturday morning and Beeper came stumbling into our bedroom in his jammies, hair all bedraggled, eyes barely open--and he said in a sleep-raspy voice, "Mommy, when I say I'm ready to rock and roll, that means I am ready to have fun." He paused, rubbed his eyes.  "And Mommy, I am ready to rock and roll."

I did not make that up. 100% true. 6am on a Saturday, still in his jammies, he is ready to rock and roll--and that is what perfectly sums up the essence of Beeper's personality for me.

Happy birthday, Beeper. Let's rock and roll.

Lolly Birthday Bouquet

Beeper and I made these together over the weekend so he could hand them out to his pre-school class for his birthday treat. They're a cinch to make--all you need are some lollipops, tissue paper and florist tape. You can find the nicely detailed instructions here on the the Full Circle blog. I mean, a rainbow of tissue paper and Dum-Dum lollies--does it really get much better than this for the 5 and under set?

Who I Came From

This is my mum (with4 year old me). This is who I came from. And I owe her so much--I mean, not just in terms of having fed, clothed, sheltered and tolerated my ornryness for at least the first 18 years of my life--but what I really mean is for all she did to encourage me to become who I am. Meaning, this blog likely owes its genesis to my mum, really. She was the one who was always, always, always encouraging my creativity and what was inspiring to me--everything from little people to monsters to barbies to Andy Warhol. She taught me to imagine, draw, color, bake, sew, create. And she is still one of the best seamstresses I know. I dug these out today from the archives of my childhood toy chest (you didn't think this interest in plushies spontaneously erupted from nowhere, did you?)--a few of the toys she made me way back when... A doll she designed after my little-girl self, my first ever rag doll (the one with the pink dress and bloomers), a vintage-style mohair teddy bear, a circus giraffe, and my beloved Ellie elephant who went to college and traveled the world with me, strapped to my backpack. Of course, there is much more she made me throughout my life--much of my clothing in elementary school, my red satin prom dress with the sweetheart neckline and mini-length skirt (hello, 1980's), our truffle-like chocolate wedding cake, Beeper's nursery crib set, the curtains that still hang in my and Mr Beeper's bedroom today...

My mum is a creative force to be reckoned with--and still going strong. And if you were also wondering, she is one of the most generous and loving people I know. I would know--I lived with her for quite a few years.

Happy Mom's Day, Mum. Thanks for it all.

The Hero Factory

Here's a little something you can do with the kiddies (or just for you--no need to be embarrassed)... design your own breed of superhero. It is a website called the The Hero Factory--and for the superhero obsessed (i.e. Beeper), it is a fine way to waste an hour or so, while enlisting at least a portion of your right brain. Strangely addictive--and Beeper LOVED it.

Don't Read This Post Until Sunday, Mum!

Another book, another Blurb. This is the Mother's Day Gift en route, as we speak, to my mum and Mr Beeper's mom. It has sort of become a tradition to make one of these with the year's photos of Beeper. I love the square design, the tidy format, the very professional looking hard-cover with dust jacket finish.
Oh, the plans for future books I still have. The imagination reels with possibilities. And, I swear, I am not on Blurb's payroll. Really.