My Pot is Painted!!!

We picked up our painted pots and here is mine!! Love, love the bright colors and of course DOTS....just right for a few little paintbrushes on my desk. All three of our projects can be seen on Cookie's blog.

Checking Off Lists

We are heading north tomorrow and so the packing lists are being checked and re-checked today as the car fills up and the excitement builds. Dropping off the dog is a little sad but we get to pick up our pottery that we painted last week--which will be cool. I-pods-charged, books and art supplies mustn't be left behind! No phones, no TV, no cell phones!! Perfect--at least for a little while.

Book to Inspire

I was poking about again, this time in my bookshelves and pulled out this yummy book "Pictures in The Post" edited by Michael Baker to take on vacation--along with my art kit. The ink and watercolor sketches are dreamy and quaint. You can still find this book used at Alibris, etc. for about $12-15. Especially look at this website for lots of the illustrations from the book and more---very neat!!

Maps in Kid's Books

I was reading an old book..Milly-Molly-Mandy & Co... (pub. 1955) to Em last night and it dawned on me how much I like to find maps in storybooks. This is the map from the front pages showing MMM's village. I remember as a kid looking at books in the library and I would always choose any book that had a map in the front.

Scottie Dog Finished

Here is the Scottie Dog that I was working on last week and he's all ready for his trip. He caused a bit of mischief earlier by running out the door and down the street but finally agreed to jump into the box for my friend Coleen. I am hoping he behaves for her.

Czech toy film strip

In going thru some stuff today I was surprised to come across a very cool toy filmstrip from the 1950's Czech Republic. (Czechoslovakia at that time) I found it in a junk store in the early spring and hadn't looked at it since. On the packaging are a few pictures from the filmstrip. The translated title is perfect--The Gingerbread Cottage. In coming up with a name for my blog I tried to think of things I loved and the cookie/candy house came to mind. I love dollhouses, cottages, and playhouses and I have always loved the Hansel and Gretel story, being scared at being left in the woods and the awfulness of the children almost being cooked in the witch's oven, in the end tricking her to get into her own oven. Of course an edible house was just a bonus, the icing on the cake, so to speak. :-)

Painting Pottery!!

This was a grand exit for our camp. We went to a paint your own pottery place and had a ball! Em chose a little cat and Meg a huge octopus--took her forever to paint it, but it was such fun. Here are the girls in action.

Felt Softies

The girls and I made felt softies last Thursday. I used the pattern I found at allsorts for the scottie dog. Thank you Jenny Harris! Made mine in black felt, here he is trying on a ribbon collar. I was surprised at how easy it was to fit together. I hadn't made a felt pattern with gussets before. Meg made one with a pattern from a Japanese softies book for a rabbit and Em got a "first sewing kit" from ALEX company all done up in a small orange suitcase. The kit came with pins, needles, thread, trims, and cut out felt pieces ready to make 3 different animals. A very nice kit!

Re-ment miniatures

Found these miniatures at a Japanese grocery, opened the box to find a mini grocery cart and little mini food items. They are very cool, so I looked online to find more about them only to find that the company has opened a US operation in VA. Currently they are offering two lines of miniatures....sweets and foods. Each is sold in a blind box in which one of twelve or so sets are within. I hope that they start offering more...the japanese version can be had thru e-bay and other imports but the shipping is quite dear--too expensive for me.

Organza ribbon bracelets

The girls and I made these bracelets this morning with organza ribbon and beads. Each has a charm on the end so that the closure stays underneath the wrist when it's worn. The darn things kept rotating to show the lobster-claw closure--how pretty. :-) The girls went on to make necklaces as well.

Lanterns

The three of us made these lanterns over the past week and just getting a pic up now--not creatively hung but they still look festive.

Just Plain Maggie

Snuggled up this morning and finished our camp book. It is a story by Lorraine Beim I've had since I was young, it came out in 1950, before my time, but I have read it so many times. Em, not always interested in being read to when there aren't pictures on every page was urging me to "finish, Mommy, finish". A story of a country girl headed to camp for the first time and the feelings of loneliness and all the fun of camps, canoe rides, swimming and getting to know a bunch of different girls.

Rabbit Hill

If you look at my daughter's blog you will see the rabbit hole that has shown up in our front lawn. The babies have their eyes open now, but have not come out of the hole yet. I mowed over the hole last week not knowing that the rabbits were there but we have since mown around it and left the grass long in the vicinity of the hole. We don't need anymore rabbits in this neighborhood but they are sooooo cute. I scared the momma away today--oops, she was hiding in the nearby daylilies that I was deadheading. (taking old blooms off)

The picture is of course a Beatrix Potter watercolor.....inside a rabbit home.

Camp Mail

Last nights mail was the result of our message in a bottle project. It was fun thinking of mini items to go into the bottles. I wrote a mini paper, rolled it up and created a tiny plastic sleeve for it. We added beads, confetti, charms, and small stickers to the contents and decorated the outside surfaces. The "mailman" got to stamp each letter with a postmark and deliver it to each mailbox.

Camp flag

I forgot to show you the camp flag. I made it out of felt the first year of camp. We tried to make t-shirts with the logo the second year but the decal washed out. Camp wasn't as busy today. We bicycled over to a park and played and sketched for awhile and then headed home for lunch. I made some mail this afternoon and Em worked on her book. Meg took pictures and added to her blog.

Post office and mail bag--we're ready....

I'm exhausted.....been getting ready for camp all day and it is hot, hot, hot here. (not that I'm suffering too much--our air conditioning is working-thank goodness) We are all set for tomorrow.....we have some camp stamps printed and a post box painted---here is a picture of it---it's an old bread box done up by Megan. (the post office sign is done by Emily) We also got kits together for the projects we are doing and I picked up a few more beads--for a bracelet project--at the craft store on my trip to the grocery.

This is the felt Mail Bag that I stitched up over the past few days. It is regular felt-single thickness-except the strap and top flap which I doubled up. Here is a close-up of the embroidered stuff. I free-handed the stitching because the pen I have for transfers is blue ink---not very useful here. :-)

Camp Stamps

Here are the stamps that I put together on the computer for our camp post. My daughter made a template on PowerPoint and I had fun filling in each little box with clipart from Microsoft Office clips, adding backgrounds, words, etc. to make it look like postage stamps . A listing for my older daughter's blog is listed on the side here. She also made a sheet of stamps for camp and has posted it. My youngest is looking forward to her chance with the template this coming week.

Maple Tree Camp

The girls and I are getting ready for camp next week. We have had a family camp for 4 years. Just the girls and I doing camp activities and field trips. It is hard to believe that we have done it for this long, but I'm pretty sure.....

This year we are having an art camp. We are setting up a postal system so we can make faux stamps and send letters to one another during camp. We are each making a zine, Em's is a blank book that looks exactly like a Little Golden book--princesses. Mine will have to do with miniatures. Iwant to make a pretend catalog of toys for Brownies-Palmer Cox. We are going to make grosgrain ribbon bracelets. In all we have about 20 some activities, about 4 a day--some as simple as going to the playground.

One year we had a theme of fairies-a favorite and last year we did museums, which culminated in an opening of our own museum with it's own catalog. This was a lot of fun and took our minds off of living in a 2 bedroom apt. in transition from active-duty military to retirement and finding a new job. In the picture above you can see the computer boxes we used for tables. We were on cots and air mattresses, w/ lawn chairs and plastic dressers. Seems like it should have been fun but in the end a bit harrowing.

Today, I am putting together a felt mailbag and putting together blank journals for the week.

Yummy Sweets

A new find....Japanese craft books! After looking at the blogs I mentioned and others linked off of them, I discovered these great books. They are in Japanese but the illustrations are very well done so that with a little trail and error most things can be made. I went a little nuts and found a Japanese bookstore in Chicago and dragged my family there over the weekend. This is one of the books that I got.....those yummy blueberries on the front sold me and I just have to try them! Below is a picture of some felt cookies that I made last week before this book--I like them just the same. The chocolate-frosted cookie was supposed to have just pink beads as sprinkles, but with my slowly slipping eyesight I used pale purple and orange beads as well.

Lovely start to the day!

Raspberries to start the morning. Emily and I fought over the few in the box...$2.99-pricey but so worth it! We went overboard and had a slice of cinnamon bread with the berries. :-) Both slices of bread had a hole thru the center--to spy thru. :-) A slightly sad note--downloaded pictures only to find that Katy's wedding photos were taken using the indoor selection on the camara thus all photos taken outside have a blue hue......blueberry-colored glasses.