My Knit Hat 5, originally uploaded by StephLewis.
I just finished knitting this hat for me for winter. It is actually a hood with two cable-knit braids down the front. I can tie it around my neck as a scarf and can also wear my hair up while the hat still covers my ears. I love it.
It was pretty easy to make and I got the pattern from Lion Brand Yarn.
I like to set up little art activities before I go to bed so that when Caleb wakes up in the morning he wanders over to his little table and engages in the activity. One of my favorites is to do drawings in sharpie on paper that I then tape down to his drawing board.
For the record, I strongly suggest that you use drawing boards with kids. They make the paper more stable and less likely to rip. Oh, and you can move the drawing board around the house or outside easily. I'll tape several different things down including blank paper, pages from coloring books, magazine prints, etc.
This drawing is of Daddy, Grandpa, and Ella. When he came out to this, he kept shouting, "Grandpa! Dada! Ella!" as he worked. Here I let him "paint" with water. Later he added crayon and then some watercolor paint. To finish, we cut out pictures from an old magazine and Caleb taped them on the paper where he wanted them. We finished it with some tempera paint. This whole process takes about a week and I love that he gets to see something slowly progress into something bigger.
I'm trying to think of some good ways to display his finished artworks. Currently they go on the fridge or on the surfboard clips in his bedroom. I'm thinking up some ideas using old picture frames and clips that I think could be cool, but I'm not in a hurry. Maybe I'll get inspired to that end this summer!
For Christmas this year, i made my nieces and nephew each a pillow that was a portrait of each child. Here they are:
Pillows for Maia and Elise:
For Elise's pillow, I wanted to show her love for kindergarten and "paperwork." Her picture has a giant pencil (hard to see in pic) and her name written neatly on that weird lined paper they give you in the early grades. Elise with her pillow:
Maia loves Peter Pan and Robin Hood and is always dressed up like them, yet she's still a girl, so that's why I went with green and pink. She's also mischievous so that's why she has sneaky eyes. Maia with her pillow (her hair used to be all layered and that's what the pillow portrait was styled after, but she got this new sleek look just before Christmas):
Jenna's Pillow:
Jenna is a girly girl and loves princesses and pretty things, so I made her a princess with butterflies that sparkle. Jenna with her pillow:
Marcus' favorite things is cars, and cars that go fast, and cars that look cool, and cars on the road, and him driving cars. Marcus' pillow:
Marcus with his pillow:
I made the pillows using a variety of scrap fabrics, fusible web, and then sewing them on my machine. I started with a simple drawing I made on paper, cut out the pieces with an x-acto knife, then used those pieces as templates to cut out all of the fabric pieces in the portrait. With fusible web on the back of the fabric, I'd iron them in place on the pillow and then sew around the edges using my machine. The key was layering fabrics in the right order, which is not always easy to do. I tried to use a variety of fabrics so they'd be very tactile.
The pillow backs are grey fleece with a surprise zipper (wish I got pics of it...). When you open the zipper, there is a pocket with a tag that says, "Shhh! It's a secret!" For each child, I put a "secret" gift in the pocket and whispered to them about it later. They got a big kick out of having a secret place to keep their secret stuff.
I've been very busy working on various crafts as gifts for others and learning tools for Caleb since November. I have been mostly diligent photographing them, but I've been terrible at sharing them on my blog (or keeping up with blogging at all!). So, I'm hoping to backtrack for awhile while I share what I've been up to.
First, I would like to share how we have been wrapping gifts as of late. I got frustrated with the price of wrapping paper and also thought I could do something much more interesting. So, I got this giant roll of brown paper for like $8 at Home Depot. It's in the paint section with the drop cloths. Then, I would cut a folded piece large enough to accommodate the gift I was wrapping, decorate it with paint pens, and then using my sewing machine to sew around the edges.
Here is one we wrapped for Eddie. I tried to have my drawings give a hint as to what was inside. We got Eddie a doormat made of recycled flip-flops. I also alluded to my favorite comment by a student ever, "Art can be beautiful or ugly. It can be beautiful like flowers in a field, or ugly like a hairy man leg." So, I guess you can call this art.
Josh loved this one, for our nephew Andrew.
Here is a pile of some of the first ones I did. I got better (and more creative) as I got going and now feel that I have more of a feel for the artistry of it than I did with these:
I think some people thought we were weird (and possibly thought we were really cheap!) for wrapping gifts in this way. I think several were also confused, like, "How do I open this???" But, I think it was more fun to do, more personalized, and much cheaper than buying wrapping paper! Plus, Caleb had fun watching me and "helping" me draw them all. Sometimes I would ask him what to draw and he'd say "Ella!" so then I'd draw a festive Ella as the decoration. What fun!
Edit: I forgot that I had a picture of this one as well:
This is the wrapped gift I made for twins, Andrew and Karina. It was fun to give them one package with two compartments. I also sewed Bible verses to each side that correspond with the gifts inside.
I am in the process of designing the most awesome diaper bag ever. It has so far involved me inspecting every bag, backpack, diaper bag, purse, satchel, wallet, or other "put stuff in here and carry it around" device. I have even been inspecting art caddies. Anyway, my goal is to have a diaper bag that works for me and doesn't just get crammed with crap all the time (sometimes literally).
So, I'm going to go modular. That means that the bag will have different parts that you can add or subtract depending on where you are going. For example, I currently put my wallet, lip gloss, iPod, and cell phone in the side pouch of the diaper bag (mostly because... why would I want to carry a purse and a diaper bag???). There have been too many times that Josh has been carrying the diaper bag and went off somewhere and I didn't have my stuff until I could find him. Like the time I got carded for wine tasting and...where...is...my...wallet???
I want to be able to detach a slick looking purse/bag that is feminine and wonderful that I can take with me and reattach to the diaper bag when I don't want to be carrying a million things. I would also like another piece that is detachable from the main bag that can be used when you need extra stuff like pajamas or toys to occupy the child. I don't need them all the time, but sometimes I do and I don't want to have to cram them all in my current diaper bag or carry an additional bag (can you tell that I hate carrying lots of bags).
Here's where I'm at so far. It will be a backpack (where I can zip the shoulder straps together to have just one strap that you can sling over if I wish, for the times I'm feeling one-handed). It will have three modules, that can be added or subtracted from the main compartment as needed, and each designed specifically to hold the following stuff:
I'm trying to think this through very thoroughly since it's going to be a huge task once I get started. I have lots of sketches in my book waiting to evolve into the most perfect bag ever. Please let me know if you have any thoughts about what could make my bag super awesome, or if you have any things that you hate/love about your bags that I could keep in mind.
Caleb was a Lion for Halloween this year. I made this costume for him out of fleece and ribbon. I made it a little big (with room to let out) so that he can still play in it over the next couple of years. He loved being a lion and even got the hang of roar-ing towards the end.
First we went to Grandpa & Grandma Whiting's house and trick-or-treated there. They loved how cute he was with his little tail. Then we went to visit the Peterson & Lewis families in White Bear Lake. We trick-or-treated with Elise (a clown) and Maia (Robin Hood). Andrew & Karina (superman & wonderwoman) joined us for the first house, but then stayed back because we party to hard for them. So, Jon & Emily and Grandpa & Grandma Lewis all came with us trick-or-treating.
Caleb was confused at first until one of the houses had a dog. He was excited and stood at the door looking at their dog. I think after that he thought trick-or-treating was so we could look for dogs in other peoples' houses. Once he realized a house didn't have a dog, he seemed disinterested. If a house had a dog, he would get excited and stand at the door bouncing up and down. (Note: I think I would actually prefer Halloween if we went from house to house admiring other peoples' pets. It would be way better than candy.)
When we were finished trick-or-treating, we went to Trinity Baptist where we played some games. Caleb enjoyed jumping in the giant inflatable dog, and also spent quite a bit of time pointing at the giant inflatable dog making "woof" sounds.
All in all, we had a fun night out!
Well, it worked for me anyway. I officially declared every Friday as "pizza night." A couple of weeks ago I tried a pizza dough recipe, and it was pretty good. Then I found this one, the sworn "best pizza crust ever" by a woman who has had a pizza night for a long time.
My husband was complimenting me before I even took the pizza out of the oven, then in between bites, then continuously after the pizza had been consumed. Tonight we were coming home and he said, "Oh, I can't wait for Friday pizza night!"
I was like, "Dude, this recipe is awesome." So I decided that you should know the recipe too! Kudos to Amy from The Motherload for sharing!
(Oh, two things I did different from the recipe was to use 3 cups all-purpose flour and 1/4 cup whole wheat flour... just to get some whole grains in there. And I didn't have onion powder, so I just doubled the garlic powder.)
