mary makes merry

Backlog

I thought I'd be really clever and make Christmas-tree ornaments for Ellie's teachers from drawings that she made. They came out coaster-sized...who doesn't need one Christmas coaster...you know, for your mug of coffee Christmas morning?

  

   

I have some tracing paper and one of those old-school tracing wheels (think tiny pizza cutter), so I transferred a little drawing of Ellie's onto an Osnaburg-esque fabric and embroidered it. Those are Ellie's pigtails atop her head! She used to draw me with two pigtails, too, but now I get one big, dark line coming out of the side of my head. Clark's hair is a series of short lines on top of his head. It's wild to watch her develop this great artistic style.

Anyway, doing this was really easy -- anyone can do it. Obviously you could gussy up the background, etc., if you had more than an hour to do three of them the night before they needed to be delivered. Draw your own stick figures and make a pin for your jacket!

Winter is wearing on me

But this helps. Portrait of girl with (first-ever) snowman. Taken a few weeks back, before the Worst Cold Ever settled over our home, unbudgeable.

First FO of '09

I love this pattern, available on Ravelry from a person named Yvonne Boucher!

This fellow was created for Carolyn and is running rampant through her digs at this very moment, I'm sure.

Meet Claudette and Henry

 

healthy tension: the first half-decade

Today is my fifth birthday as a blogger; it's a good time to blow months of accumulated dust and neglect to the chilly Chicago winds and begin again. I have a bit of a backlog to work through, but first, the Valentine's Report (Preschool). Executive Summary: Cardstock and a corner rounder + a generous blogger somewhere out there = happiness.

Among the wealth of cute downloadable Valentines, Ellie and I both liked the zebras at bunnycakes.typepad.com (Jan. 25, 2009 post). This person is serious about Valentine's Day! I loved all the V. posts on this blog. I got some vellum envelopes and Snoopy stickers, Ellie wrote her name 17 times, and all was good.

One of Ellie's classmates gave out these valentines from the Black Apple. I just mentioned this truly exciting fact to Clark and he said, "Ah, a friend [for Mommy] in the making." Indeed!

I used an envelope template I found online (the link is broken now, oddly; sorry) for the ones that needed to be mailed. I am making my own envelopes; can churning my own butter be far behind?

A Happy Valentine's Day to one and all! May all your tension be healthy. I love that February is Heart Health month, by the way. I made a grilled-cheese sandwich an hour ago with olive oil instead of butter; can I have half credit for that?