Getting Personal

While trying to think up something fantastic for my daughter's preschool teachers (who are incredibly fantastic by the way) I came up with an idea.

The entire year, the teachers work with each child to get them to write their names. So, collecting all the names from the children at the year's end. I came up with this framed artwork. Such a great way to say thank you!

My son's kindergarten class's mascot was a frog. They were called the frogs and whenever they had to line up the teacher would call out for her frogs! Also another fantastic teacher and one we wanted to bless with something special. She has frogs all over her classroom and we decided to add to her collection with the names of her class this year in a frog shape:

I've decided to offer customized art like this in my Etsy shop. A customized piece of art with any names you like - all in a digital format that you can print again and again. I printed these out at my local photo center and they turned out great!

On the path...

First Lost Tooth

Buggin' Out

Since my children are only a year apart in school (one is in kindergarten while the other is is preschool) I get to do back to back school classes, projects, field trips and parties. Seems like I get one year under my belt and then here comes the other one. That can be a good thing as the previous year is still fresh in my mind.

For both of my children, preschool involved the introduction of the zoophonics characters. Does anyone out there remember The Letter People? A totally retro, 70s/80s curriculum of letter-learning. That is how I learned my letters people, by psychedelic half human, half letter puppets in bright jumpers and blue hair. It was groovy!

Now we have the super cute, not quite as groovy zoophonics characters and my kids are singing their songs all the time. Anyway, towards the end of each preschool year, the children are encouraged to dress up as their favorite zoophonics character. Imagine my excitement when I came across this costume that would have been perfect for Jerry the Jellyfish. I mean, cool right? I was positive that no one else would show up as a jellyfish. I would start off conversations with "You know what would be cool? Dressing up as a jellyfish!" But no, my son insisted on going as Deedee Deer. I tried the same tactic on my daughter with no such luck. She knew right away that she would be Inny Inchworm.

Okay, an inchworm. How does one go about making a worm costume? Giant shirts of course! Giant shirts are great for so many costumes and also for just wearing around. My nightgown of choice growing up was a giant shirt (mom's or dad's, it didn't matter). But I digress.

I started with a men's medium green t-shirt. The $7 kind.



Then I cut off the sleeves with pinking shears and used this pattern to form the hat. I was a bit nervous making this hat as the sleeves only offered the exact amount of fabric. I am not a one-hit wonder with the sewing machine so I prayed as I sewed that I wouldn't mess up. I added a snap closure as I didn't have enough fabric to do long ties. I highly recommend the cap pattern to anyone interested in taking a costume from good to great!



Nothing else was done to the t-shirt itself in the way of cutting. I only had to figure out a way to make the segments of the inchworm's body. Hm, I'm no entomologist but inchworms have segments of some sort, right? Oh well, if they don't I made segments anyway so my daughter could look more like a bug rather than a girl in a giant sleeveless t-shirt.

All I needed was some stretchy elastic and I was in biz. I didn't use the thicker, stiffer elastic that is used in waistbands as it is difficult to stretch. I cut a length of elastic that was about three inches or so too short for the circumference of the shirt. Sewing slowly, I stretched the elastic but left the t-shirt alone, gently guiding both through the machine. It worked! I did three loops around the shirt, creating four separate segments.

To finish off the costume, we just hooked some green pipe cleaners to a headband and we were done! I have to say this costume is pretty cool. Maybe I'll let go of the jellyfish idea. Maybe.


 Inny Inchworm and Catina Cat

On the path...

Back with a Roar!

We celebrated my son's sixth birthday with a ferocious roar! Well, as ferocious as a toothless Tyranasaurus Rex would be as he bared his ferocious gums. He requested dinosaurs which really deviates from the normal cheetah obsession, so we had to create a prehistoric jungle.

OF COURSE!

I had so much fun painting the toothless dinosaur head that I really didn't want to leave the upstairs room where, paints in hand, I had music playing and sun shining through the windows. The rest of the team, meaning my brothers, SILs and parents, came up to find me and drag me away from my art project to help with the rest of the preparations. The little guy loves to be surprised so we were all working away creating the most believable jungle atmosphere before he got home with the pizzas. No, he wasn't driving. He was with his daddy.









I had to show the cake twice. Isn't it cute? As I was scanning for party ideas a few days before (I know, it's like cramming for a test; these holiday birthdays always seem to get lost in the shuffle), I came across this tutorial.

We all had fun masks and ate dinosaur claws (Bugles!). I really wanted everyone to have tails but hey, you only have so much time in the day, right? They didn't seem to be missed as everyone was having a great time. Especially with the dinosaur habitat sounds playing in our "jungle".



Fun masks found here. Awesome dino bones here.

Happy 2012!

A Mysterious Book and a Tale Besides

I have been writing novels for almost two decades. Yes, you read that right. I've been seriously writing since I was about fifteen. I'm starting at fifteen because before that I wrote as well, but never really considered shopping around my Tale of the Bunny story I wrote in first grade. I started writing and collecting stories around high school wondering if I could ever possibly have the hope of getting them published.

You'd think I would have gone on to a quietly exciting life of writing in college, completing the Great American Novel by graduation and signing a lucrative contract with a giant publishing house. Alas, that never happened. I was going to do something a lot more predictable ...

Be an actress. Or an actor, whatever they are calling them these days. That didn't work out so I decided to become an artist.

OF COURSE. Wouldn't you? Well fortunately for me, art did work out for me and I am still working in an art-related industry and making money to boot. I guess I can be proud of the fact that I at least used my degree that I finally ended up receiving after much blood sweat and tears.

However, through those college years and beyond, I still honed my writing skills, wrote down ideas or characters that inspired me and finished a few manuscripts as well. I shopped my stories around for about five years and just when things were looking up for me I had a bad experience. I had taken some time away since that experience. I still wrote but mostly for enjoyment and not in the pursuit of being published.

Then all my friends started reading eBooks. Then I started reading eBooks. Then I had an idea. What if I went ahead and published one of my books as an eBook? I immediately went back to work on one of my manuscripts (which was edited by a wonderful professional and voracious reader). I've edited it many times. I still lie awake sometimes and wonder what mistakes there are in the book.

Oh well. It's out there people! It's a fun little book. Here is the summary write up:

Alan’s life seemed perfect on the outside even to the sixth-grader himself. He had a loving mother, two best friends, and a brand new school building. That meant no more beat up desks, ancient gum on chairs, and classrooms that smelled like feet. However, something about Alan’s new substitute homeroom teacher is unusual. Even though he’s new to the school, Mr. Winter seems to know everyone’s name. He receives mysterious mail on a regular basis from a far away country. He even talks about Alan’s dad as if he knew him well.

Alan’s dad has been dead for years.

Determined to be an investigative reporter like his dad had once been, Alan is focused on finding out about this Ethan Winter. The deeper he dives the more outrageous and unbelievable the clues become. The Mysterious Disappearance of Ethan Winter is a coming of age story that follows Alan and his friends as they deal with a new school, new challenges, a bully or two, and a mystery so consuming, that Alan even risks his life to find the answers he’s looking for.

It's cool everyone! Please pass it along to anyone you think may enjoy this book.
Stay on the path!

Click on the icons for a direct link to the book:

The Close of Summer

It's almost summer's end and already many of my friends' children are headed back to (or are already in) school. This will be such a different school year for us as my oldest is about to enter full day kindergarten.

KINDERGARTEN.

I really thought that I was okay with this. After all, my babies had been in day care for part of their infant lives. They have had babysitters and grandparents watching them. They were left overnight before they were one so my husband and I could get away for our anniversary. Even when he started preschool we were all excited to see Chandler head to his little class.

Now ... well. It's different. Does anyone else agree with me?

Going to full day kindergarten is going to break up our little gang. For five years we've taken mid-morning walks, exploring the natural world, making up stories and having pretend adventures. We've lounged at the coffee shop, chatting over our cups of hot coffee and cocoa respectively. We ran around like crazy people at the almost-empty zoo on Tuesdays, making animal calls and pretending we could talk with the animals. I suppose it wasn't really pretending since some of them spoke back to us. No more pre-school skating at the roller rink together. No more story time at the library.



Strangely, my keyboard is wet while I'm typing this. Hang on while I get a paper towel...

I guess what I'm trying to say is that kindergarten is breaking up my family! There, I said it. Stupid all day kindergarten that my son is so incredibly excited about. Dumb kindergarten that I couldn't possibly compete with on any level here at our boring house. Stupid time. Stupid growing up.

Clearly I have yet to grow up.

It will be very different this fall, with just my daughter and I bumming around town. She missed her brother terribly when he went off to preschool and that was just for two days a week. She'll be in preschool this fall as well and doesn't really want to go. Would I be a bad mother if I held her back a year?

Oh, I would? Dang.

September will come and we'll be a party of two instead of a party of three. I supposed us girls will just have to drop big brother off at school and drown our sorrows in a good cup of cocoa. Yes, that's it. We'll stick together, even if it's only for one more year.

On the path...

Summer

It's sort of a sad sight: half finished knitting projects tucked away in their bins, patterns and cloth all cut out and neatly pinned, ready for sewing but no one to sew them, and jelly rolls of beautiful fabric just sitting there ... and sitting there.


This year has been all about focus for me. It's been fun to dabble in this and that but a point came, and I knew it was coming, where I had to hone in on a singular focus and start working towards that goal. So, that's what I've been doing lately and it doesn't leave much time for blogging and since I don't have a smart phone that will allow me to blog on the go, this site has been lonely for a while.


We are still doing so many fun things this summer! Even though this is a busy time for me work-wise, we still make a point to get out and enjoy all the summer season has to offer. These photos were from a photo scavenger hunt we recently took one morning. My children love to collect what they call treasures from their walks. We even have treasure bags to hang on our belt loops for said treasures. Well, sometimes our house (and my washing machine) collect one too many rocks, pieces of bark, leaves and such. I turned these photos into a fun slideshow that we watched on the TV at the end of the day to show Daddy.