What a disappointment

As is our tradition, we went shopping the day after Christmas to pick up some clothes on clearance, including new pajamas for Beeper. One of the pajamas sets we got for him was a Superman outfit, complete with a little cape. He was so excited. I did not comprehend the real reason for his excitement until he tried the outfit on for the first time the other night. He started jumping around the room, attempting to fly. After several minutes minutes without a successful take off, he came over and cried in my lap. "It doesn't work! My cape doesn't work!"

Poor, sad little guy. Maybe I should return the pajamas. "Excuse me, I'd like to return these. The cape doesn't work. You see, my son can't fly in them."

Excuses, excuses (Spinning in the New Year)

This week's Spin Cycle topic is Resolutions. I like to participate in the Spin Cycle when I can, and I don't have any moral objections to New Years Resolutions, but the truth is this year I don't have any, and I don't feel like making any.

I don't want to spin with a bad attitude, but having a baby and graduating at the same time (and more especially the six months between now and then) are so overwhelming to me right now that I don't even want to think about anything, let alone make more goals. Of course, there are the little, hard to measure goals and tasks that remain constant in life like being a better mommy, getting my homeschool act together, eating more fruits and vegetables, getting a Sunday School lesson prepared every week, personal scripture study....

Maybe my resolution should be to stick with all the goals I already have without losing it.

Whether you plan to just keep your head above water or ring in a whole new you, here's hoping your new year is full of contentment, surprises and not too much more than you can handle.

Babywearing

I know the aspirin commercial was long ago recalled, but I didn't got around to sharing my thoughts at the time. Let's have an open discussion about babywearing.*

In the commercial the mom made a comment about whether moms who babywear cry more, because it causes aches and pains (which I assume was the main point of the commercial, that you need aspirin because of the pain from carrying your baby, but that didn't really come out that well, I thought). There are many aspects of that thought that can be addressed, but the short answer for me is that I think babywearing saved me from crying more often than not.

Before he was born, I knew I would want some kind of sling for carrying Beeper, but I also knew it would have to be something that went over two shoulders, because I don't have the best back in the world. Yes, carrying him in the sling was still tiring, but having something that went over two shoulders instead of just one helped a lot, and it was definitely much less painful than just carrying the baby in my arms or lugging around one of those stupid infant carriers. He was also a very colicky and clingy newborn, and I know I wouldn't have been able to hold him as much as he needed with a sling. Good support is definitely something to look at when choosing what to carry your baby in.

The baby carrier I ended up purchasing in the beginning was the MamaRoo. The design is based on a wrap, but it is meant to be much easier to take on and off. It did take a little practice before I felt comfortable with it, and I never really did feel like it was a great fit. It just wasn't sized right for a big mama with a big baby. I tried a couple of pouch slings too, but that was an even worse fit, so I stuck with the MamaRoo for the first five months or so. I wore Beeper to church and to cub scouts and just about everywhere else when we was an infant.

This would be a good place to insert a public service announcement that some experts believe that babies should not be worn in the sitting up position until they can sit up on their own. It can be harmful to the developing spine. When it comes to my baby's spine, I figure it's better to be safe than sorry.

When Beeper was ready to sit up in the carrier, he was so tall that his feet would hit my knees. I wanted to wear him on my back, but I didn't quite trust the "ruck sack" position on the Roo (plus, I think it requires two people to get the baby in place). This is when I discovered the Ergo Carrier, which I love. This is the most all-encompassing baby carrier I have ever seen, plus it is comfortable and easy to learn to use. You can even buy an extra piece for infants (which we'll be doing this time) to wear them in the "sling" position until they are big enough to sit up. It's a little pricey (what carrier isn't?), and this is going to sound cliche, but if you are only going to buy one baby carrier, buy this one. This time around I imagine I will switch back and forth between the two, depending on the situation and what kind of mood I'm in. I also imagine I will have a lot more need of being "hands free" this time around.

In a recent discussion I was reading about baby carriers, one mom mentioned that she felt like she was being looked down on by those babywearing moms whenever she went out with her stroller. Once Beeper could sit up, we bought an umbrella stroller (best $10 we spent), and I used that to take him just about anywhere, whether it be walking down the street to the park or walking at the mall. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. However, there were times when I was so grateful for my carriers. For example, we lived in a hotel when Beeper was about 5-9 months (long story), and we lived on a different floor than the laundry. How do you carry a baby and a full laundry basket down the stairs at the same time? I don't know how I would have gotten by for those four months without a carrier. Obviously, that's not a situation everyone is going to meet, but you never know when you might need your hands free.

I'm not saying babywearing is for everyone. It doesn't always work for everyone, and not everyone needs it. What I would recommend to anyone who wants to try it is to look up your local chapter of La Leche League. Yes, they are a breastfeeding support group (and I highly recommend checking them out also if you want to breastfeed), but chances are there will be multiple people in the group who use slings, and they are usually very happy to let new moms try them out. Some groups even have some available for loan. In Redding, CA, where we lived for a while, there was an amazing breastfeeding center that had a bunch of slings as part of their lending library. It can be very beneficial to try out as many different kinds of carriers as possible to find what works best for you. Everyone is different. I have known people who swear by the pouch style slings, but, as I mentioned, they didn't work well for Beeper, I think because he was such a large baby. It can also be beneficial to know other experienced babywearers for the help and support.

They say slings and wraps can also be great for breastfeeding discreetly and easily, but I can't really vouch for that. I could never get it work very well, probably because (how do I put this?) I'm... lower than other moms. But I understand that it can be very handy if you can get the hang of it. Give it a try!

*Disclaimer: All moms have different needs and styles, and this post is not meant to promote a "best" style of taking care of your baby. Rather, it is meant to promote an open dialogue and support to moms in the choices they do make, because we all need to choose what is best for our own families without having to worry about being "less" of a mom.

Holiday Fact or Fiction

Just for fun, if you find yourself a bit bored today or wondering about holiday traditions, head over to snopes and read their Christmas Legend list. You can find out about the origin of the candy cane, why it's called Boxing Day, where Rudolf came in, and whether Coca-cola really had a hand in forming the modern image of Santa Claus (all according to the research of the snopes reporters, of course).

We've had to stave off a lot of questions (and "informed" statements) from our nine-year-old Sunday School class the last couple of weeks regarding some of these topics (and I admit I did not do a good job answering or deflecting most of the time). My favorite, though, was when one child asked, "Why do we open one present on Christmas Eve?" as if this was something everyone did and it had some religious context. Maybe this was my favorite, though, merely because I could easily answer it with confidence that that was a family tradition and he would have to ask his parents.

Experiment Results

I completely forgot to explain the recent short experiment I conducted here. The idea came from a book I am reading for Senior Seminar called Art of the Edge and Over by Linda Weintraub (which I intend to review eventually, but the short version is this is probably not something you need to run out and buy). The author of the book asked thirty aquaintances the question, "What are the sources of protection and security in your life?" and received the following answers:

Seat belts
Insurance policies
Money in the bank
Mouth wash and deodorant
Vitamins
Water filters
IRAs
Sun-block lotion
Condoms and the pill
Burgler alarms
Well-lit parking lots
Shatterproof glass
Smoke detectors

Some of those I can see, and some of them I hope were an attempt at snark. The author's conclusion was that our society has become jaded and commercial. She revealed that some of the people did refer to themselves as religious, yet still "their trust... remains rooted in the profane world."

When I read this, my first thought to the question was my husband, and my second was God/Jesus/the gospel. I knew, though, that being "in" on both halves of the experiment made my answers suspect. My other thought was that the author needs to look at who her friends are. Either that or she lives in an especially dangerous city.

So I decided to try out the experiement myself on you people to see how different the results would be. You didn't let me down, and I think I can be proud about the kind of people who visit my blog. (Not that there's anything wrong with a more"secular" answer like "IRA" but this proves, I think, that our society is not completely commercialized) (and you can think of this when you watch Charlie Brown Christmas tonight). These are the answers my commenters left:

Love
Prayer/Beliefs/God (mentioned by almost everybody)
Prudence (in the use of resources)
Fire arms
Knowledge
Signifigant other

Spin Cycle Christmas Edition

For this week's special edition of the Spin Cycle, Sprite's Keeper has asked me to write about one of my favorite blogs, Life with 9ndhouse! The saying around here goes, "If one is good, two is better." Hm.. If two is better, what is seven? Isn't seven associated with perfection and divinity?

When you have seven kids, there probably isn't a lot of perfection to be found, but there's undoubtedly a lot of love. Blogger 9ndhouse blogs about life with a family of nine in the country, not just raising seven kids, but homeschooling them. She started after many requests from people at momformation to start blogging her stories.

There are so many reasons I like reading this blog. I like reading homeschool blogs to see how other moms do it, but this isn't so much one of those. I relate to the idea of living out in the middle of nowhere with a small town/city twenty minutes away, but mostly this is more of a reminder that being a parent is a balancing act for everyone. You have to organize and sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) compromise. This is a favorite line of mine from a recent post: "...we sweet talked Dad into taking us to Wendy's to use some of our free Frosty coupons. I batted my eyes and got a chicken sandwich out of the deal and a few burgers to make it a little healthier of a supper."

I guess even the best moms have to throw in an occasional burger in an attempt to squeeze some nutrition into the day. Thanks Katie/9ndhouse for letting us peek into your life. Merry Christmas!

Blog Design

I have been meaning to post this for a while. I recently designed some blog graphics for my sister-in-law's vinyl lettering business, and I wanted to show them off. You can view them here. I am always torn when designing graphics for my own blog, because my blog is ecclectic and so is my personality (to put it lightly) so I like having graphics that reflect that. On the other hand, if I am trying to show off my skills as a designer, they're not really that great. Which side do I satisfy?

Now, though, you can see what it would look like if I was actually trying to make my blog look classy. Also, if you are looking for some vinyl letters, which are actually a lot of fun and very addicting, you can see some examples of what people are using them for at the Oak Creek Station blog. (My sister-in-law, btw, has the most amazing eye for design I have ever seen, and she comes up with some really beautiful things. I really like this one. I think she plans on posting pictures soon of the stuff she put up at her mom's house recently, which was really fabulous and set off the decor very well.)

Half Hour at the Museum

Which is a lot less scary, I'm sure, than spending the night there. Yesterday we dropped by the big museum in town so I could chat with the director of exhibits about what kind of volunteer work she needs done. For one of my current classes I am supposed to do two hours of service for a gallery, art show, art fundraiser, etc. I thought the museum would be a good place, because they have art galleries and shows there, and because I recently met this woman who is in charge of the exhibits, and she's really nice.

So she showed me around for half an hour, things that she needs done. Last year when we came to Elko for a visit, we went to the museum with some of my neices. My husband had remarked about the history and geology exhibits how they could have so much more, and maybe this would be a good place to donate some of his dad's old stuff (don't worry, dad, he wasn't really going to give your stuff away). Yesterday, though, I found out that they have a whole basement full of historic things that they can't find a place for, or don't have time to work into the displays. She told me that for years when people's parents died, they would donate a lot of the old stuff to the museum, rather than having to throw it away. Now the museum has so much stuff they don't know what to do with it.

Basically what they need is not more donations of stuff. They need volunteers to help update the displays and figure out where to put everything. I thought that was an interesting thing to learn. If I can find time, I plan to eventually put much more than the required two hours in there, because I think it would be a lot of fun just to help out and have a chance to really look through all that old stuff.

It's a great museum and a great asset to our area. They cover the history of our area, geology, natural history (tons of big rooms full of stuffed animals), art, and they even have a small children's area. Updating the children's area is something I'd like to tackle first. I need to brainstorm some ideas on what else they could do with it. I will have to think about all of those children's museums we have visited. Hmm....

Alphabet Meme

I decided to take a chance and try this meme from Sprite's Keeper, because it looked like fun, and because I've always liked word games (there's my geekiness showing through again). Here are the rules:

You leave a comment on this post if you want to play, and I’ll assign you a letter. Write 10 things you love that begin with your assigned letter, and post it on your blog.

Because Jen loves me so much, she gave me the letter 'Z'. I can only assume this means she has a lot of confidence in my vocabulary. I hope she is not too disappointed to learn that I did have to pull out a dictionary or two for some ideas, and I learned some cool new words. Because there might be one or two words below that my readers may not know, I'll include definitions on a lot of these.

zoo - I have always been a big fan of zoos, so now that I have a young child, I am of course thrilled any chance I get to take him to the zoo. Being married to firebirdluver, I have had a chance to combine my love of zoos with traveling, and we have taken Beeper to five or six zoos in his life, so far. Of course, most of those he doesn't remember, but I had a good time. And I could say something good about all of them. Even the tiny zoos were a lot of fun. Actually, when taking a toddler, the smaller the zoo the better. For small zoos, we had the most fun in Tucson, where they let you feed the giraffes, and the gibbons were always swinging around doing their mating calls at the time of morning we visited. For big zoos, you must go to the Omaha Zoo at least once in your life. It is awesome. You may think this is crazy, but I highly recommend Omaha as a family vacation spot. There really are so many fun things to do there. I can give you a list, if you want. This first word has turned out being pretty long, but I really do love the zoo. If we lived near one, we'd definitely get a family pass every year. No question.

zucchini brownies - It's turning a vegetable into dessert. What's not to love? I've never grown zucchini, but after this convincing post from my uncle, I might give it a try next year. Especially if I can get Pat to give me her brownie recipe. She brought some to the art club BBQ and they were oh so good.

(Speaking of my uncle, I just saw on his blog a mention of "Zuzu's petals" and I wanted to mention it, because if firebirdluver were making this list, I'm sure that would be on it. He's really loves "It's a Wonderful Life" and I think Zuzu's petals might be one of his favorite parts.)

ziti - This is that pasta that looks a lot like penne. My most favorite thing to order at Olive Garden is the five cheese ziti. So full of cheesy goodness (so full of cholesterol). I love Olive Garden.

zephyr (peacefully blowing wind) - Don't you love laying out on the grass on a spring day when it's warm, but not too hot, and you have just a little bit of a breeze blowing over every now and then cooling things down? I do.

zoolite (fossil animal) - Here's my geekiness/tom boy side coming out again, but I have always loved dinosaurs. And now I am married to a geologist who has taught me much about other fossils. When we were dating in Omaha he would take me to the park down by the Missouri River to do some fossil hunting. We never found any dinosaurs, but we did find some tiny ammonites. Then, when we were still dating and living in Utah, one day he showed up and my house and said, "What should we do today? I thought we'd go to Wyoming." I love that. He took me to the fossil museum in Kemmerer and picked up some fossilized fish. It was so fun. One more story about fossils - last night we went to a Christmas party for the Nevada Geological Society. The speaker talked about dinosaurs of Nevada. They had two cakes that looked a lot like this one (third cake with the fossilized dinosaurs). They had the same dinosaur toys and the fire (I guess it's fire) and everything, but no name, and they were actually a lot better done. Beeper scored two of the dinosaurs, and they are actually really cool little toys. I wanted one too. My favorite dinosaur is a parasaraulophus. What's yours?

zenith - The dictionary defined this as the "highest point" so I thought it would be a good excuse to tell you something else about me. As a kid and a teenager I always wanted to get to the top of everything. I was fascinated with climbing trees and mountains and always trying to get higher. I never quite made it to the top, though, and now I get sick when I go hiking, which is really sad. I was afraid Beeper would be the same way, but he actually has a fear of heights, which I find a little strange. I thought he would grow out of it, but it actually seems to be getting worse as he gets older. There's still plenty of time for him to get over it, though...

zest - As in, Beeper's enthusiasm for life and everything in it makes me smile everyday. It completely wears me out, but it also makes me very happy.

zoetrope - This was the beginnings of animation, and a pretty nifty little device. I am an animation geek as well, and I love the history of it. I really wanted to take a history of animation course to fulfil my art history requirement, but I couldn't find one. And it really bugs me when people think every animated feature must be Disney. I just had to drop that in there. Just because it's animated and it's good doesn't mean it's Disney. There's also a big difference between Pixar and Disney, even if they're merged now.

zakuska (hor d'ourvre or snack) - This is a new word for me, but I love hor d'ouvres, and it's a lot easier to spell. The zakuskas at the party last night were so good. There were these chipotle egg roll things that were delicious. Everyone else was going for the bacon wrapped figs, which were also good, but not as good as the ones we had at that little hotel in French Gulch, California. I hope the restaurant who catered last night has those egg rolls on their regular appetizer menu, because if they do, I will definitely be getting some when we go there.

zanyism - This is defined as "buffoonery" which is a word that always makes me think of clowns and jugglers and some of the friends I had in high school. I like everything having to do with juggling, therefore, I like zanyism. Plus it's a fun word to say. Say it with me. Zanyism...


That fills my ten words, but I wanted to add "zounds" because the list I was looking at defined it as a "mild oath" which I thought was funny. It reminded me of this clip of Patrick Stewart on Sesame Street, except that I think he says, "Zoons." Maybe that's just the British pronunciation.

Also, for the record, I do not love zippers. Zippers and I have never gotten along. I was always the kid with the broken or stuck zipper (still am). I also never got the hang of sewing zippers. My sister showed me the trick, and they still always turn out weird. I liked using snaps.

Anyone else want to give this game a try? It's actually a lot of fun. And you don't have to worry too much now that we're back at the beginning of the alphabet (maybe).

ThinkGeek for Crafters

You can probably guess from this picture of Beeper as a tiny guy where his uncles like to shop (I've always thought it needed a caption like, "Mom still uses Windows?!?"). (And if you don't know, that's a baby Tux the Linux Penguin t-shirt). My brothers are big ThinkGeek fans. What I saw this on SewMamaSew the other day, that's what I thought of. (The wallet especially made me think of you, Joseph). It would be perfect if you have a geek on your Christmas list, and you don't have any money to buy them a present but you do have l33t crafting skillz.

Okay, so it's probably too late to be making very many Christmas presents at this point, but it's still fun to look through all of the ideas from SewMamaSew's Handmade Holidays. Maybe now would be a good time to start working on next year's presents... Actually, I think I saw one or to things on there to make for myself. Good baby shower present ideas too.

If you really like to quilt

This is the ornament I made for the handmade ornament exchange we did at the Art Club Christmas party. Everybody was so impressed, but it's actually not that hard. Okay, maybe a little time consuming (I think it took about two hours to make), but not difficult for anyone with needle and thred experience. I liked it so much, I plan to make some for our tree, but probably not this year. The pattern comes from this book:

When I first saw this book in a fabric store a couple years ago I thought, "That looks like fun, but not worth $20." A few months later, my mother-in-law showed up for a visit with a stack of her latest quilt books for me to look at, and guess what was on top? I promptly read it and copied the patterns and have been having fun making these balls ever since.

Now that I have made lots of these balls, I have to say that this book is worth it (especially at the amazon price). There are a lot of things you can do with these balls, they are fun to make, and they are a good way to use some fabric scraps. These are even something an older child (I'm thinking maybe 8 or older, give or take) who likes using needle and thread and needs something to do during Christmas break can handle.

The above ornament uses the smallest pattern (for math geeks out there, it's based on an icosahedron). It's also a good pattern for juggling balls. I've also made juggling balls from the next biggest pattern (the dodecahedron) resized to 75%. I use the regular size on the dodecahredon pattern for tag balls made out of minky, which are popular baby shower gifts. (Speaking of baby shower gifts, check out this teether. I think I'll have to buy some rings to make a few of these to keep on hand too. They look very easy and fun, and with recent findings on toxins in toys, wouldn't you prefer your baby chewing one something like this?)

You can see below I also used one of the bigger, trickier patterns to make Beeper a ball when he was younger, which he still enjoys. In fact, I also made a ball for Grampa (who was living with us then) to keep in his room around the same time. It's a favorite toy with the grandkids, even the older ones, when they visit Grandma and Grampa. The larger balls could also be coordinated with decor for a fun decoration as well.

One other thing I like about this book is it also includes a section on how to draft your own pattern pieces. In other words, it shows how to use a compass to construct a triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, etc. all with the same size of sides so that they can be fit together. This would make a good geometry lesson to go along with sewing the balls.

So, if you are a quilter or you have kids you want to keep busy and teach them geometry at the same time, I would definitely recommend this book.

Stuff Beeper can do

I have been having so much fun making Christmas decorations and other crafts recently, but you may have noticed, as I did, something missing: Beeper's help. He hasn't been complaining, and he was able to help with the cookies last week, but I knew I needed to come up with some things he could do. Today I threw together this snowman craft, and he loved it.

I cut three circles out of white felt (I used a frozen juice can lid for the pattern), got out some blue cardstock, a handful of small buttons (having a button box has turned out to be very handy), a little bit of white paint and a Q-tip.

I started him out with the paint and instructed him to use the Q-tip to paint dots all over the page (for falling snow). Then I had him lay out the three circles where he wanted them, and I glued them down for him (he still needs help with the glue). Then I had him pick out some buttons and lay those down where he wanted them, and again I glued them on. That's all there was to it. He is so pleased with it. We need to find somewhere now to hang it up.

He is also in the process of making a couple of these. I cut some stars out of craft foam, and he painted them with some glitter paint. Now we are waiting for the paint to dry before he paints the other side. He is pretty excited to be making his own star ornaments for the tree as well.

The funny thing about presents

I was a little worried this year about putting presents under the tree. With all those presents out in the open, wouldn't Beeper be always trying to rip the paper or otherwise molest them? Or at least asking constantly when it's time to open them? Especially so close afer his birthday. But we took the chance, and he hasn't bothered with them. Until this weekend.

A couple of people sent Beeper a few dollars for his birthday, and I had this brilliant idea - why not take him Christmas shopping? When we were out running errands on Friday, his dad and I took turns taking him into the dollar store to pick out presents for each of us. Then when we got home, we took turns helping him wrap them.

Ever since, he has asked about fifteen million times whether it is time to open those presents yet. I think it is very interesting that he wasn't that interested until there was something from him under the tree. Is it just because he already knows what's in there and he is anxious to see it again? Or does he already understand, to some extent, the excitement of giving something to someone else? That's the part I always have the hardest time waiting for with holidays and birthdays - giving that gift I spent so much time picking out and seeing the reaction.

To give you an even better idea about how excited he was yesterday about these presents - until now the advent calendar was his big focus. He's been asking me at least a few times a day, "Can I check another pocket?" Yesterday, whenever he would ask about the presents, we would explain, "No, it's not Christmas yet," and I would ask him if he wanted to check his pocket for the day, because he hadn't yet, and we could count how many days were left until Christmas. It took him most of the day before he finally decided to check his pocket.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Cookies!

What better way to spend the weekend than hard at work on Christmas cookies.

We also got a little bit of snow last night, and Beeper couldn't wait to "get to work" in it this morning.

We bought the kid-sized shovel the other day at Walmart. Definitely worth it.

Hope you're having a great weekend too.

Spin Cycle: Origins

For this week's Spin Cycle (which actually lasts two weeks) Jen asked us to write about our blogs, where the names came from, why we started them, etc. Once again, who doesn't want to write about their own blog?

I don't really remember specific reasons I started this blog. I think it had to do with the enjoying reading other blogs and thinking I have a lot to say, so I gave myself a place to say it in. It's a good way to keep the family updated too. If they care enough to check a blog once in a while, then they deserve updates. ;)

Maybe not havng a focus to begin with is why this turned into a blog about parenting, artwork, digital scrapbooking, college... Or maybe I just skip around a lot because that's the way I am. No, I still haven't quite decided what to do when I grow up. Being a mommy/sculptress/designer doesn't keep me busy enough. (I hope the sarcasm is coming out here.)

As for the name, there is a story to go with that. I started this blog shortly after we moved to Nevada. It was our fourth or fifth time or sixth time (hard to keep track) moving since we married (we just celebrated our fourth anniversary a couple of days ago to give you some context). We had started out in the desert of Utah, and after two years in Calfornia were moving to the desert of Nevada. The phrase "spors in the desert" to me conjured an image of dandylion seeds being thrown around in the wind (I know dandylion seeds are not technically spores, but they are easier to see) which I thought was an apt description of our family. We have now lived in this house for 14 months, which is a record.

"Evenspor" was a name conjured by my husband a couple of years ago. I knew I would eventually want a website for my art, and I wanted to think of something original for the URL. I had almost always used "evenstar" as an online moniker, but ever since the movies came out, that's been a much more popular choice. After some brainstorming, firebirdluver came up with "evenspor" as a combination, of course, of our last name and evenstar. I though it was catchy, and it's most difinitely original enough that I won't have to worry about someone already using it.

"Firebirdluver" is pretty straight forward. That's the handle he has always used online. His favorite ever car is a 1967 Pontiac Firebird. Purple.

That's all about us. What about you?

Crafty Giveaway

This is my kind of giveaway. Bagladee is giving away Christmas craft goodies: felt, pom poms, fun paper...

Calendar Review: Lulu vs. Winkflash (+ coupon)

It's been a tradition ever since we got married to make a custom calendar every year with our own pictures in it. This has gotten even more fun since I started downloading digital scrapbooking stuff. For the last few years I've been making our calendars at Lulu.com and really liked it. This year, I tried winkflash because I like their photobooks, they were on sale, and they offer the folded, stapled calendar, which I really prefer to the spiral bound. It seems hard to find anything but spiral bound calendars these days. Winkflash is once again having a sale. You can see the details here. The upshot is you get 40% off any calendar using the coupon code CALSAVE40 between now and December 14. This comes out to $7.77 for a standard folding calendar, which I think is a hard to beat deal.

So what do I think now that I have my calendar? Both the printing and the paper on the winkflash calendar are high quality. The interface offers only very basic choices, which can be good or bad, depending on your preferences. You get to pick the style for the calendar and border (optional) around your picture. There are a lot of choices of styles - more than I've seen anywhere else. You pick twelve pictures for the twelve different months, but you don't get to pick a cover photo. (Actually, as I recall, you do get to decide exactly how many months your calendar will have and which months they will be.) It just automatically uses the January picture for the cover. If you want a no frills, good price calendar, I would definitely recommend with winkflash. Epecially if you are like me and like the folded kind.

Lulu's quality is good (not quite as good as winkflash I think). What they offer is a lot of choices if you really want to customize your calendar. You get to choose a cover photo in addition to twelve monthly pictures. The part I really like, though, is the customizable holiday/event page. There are a number of different choices of holiday sets to choose from (ex: Christian holidays, American holdays, Canadian holidays). You can pick as many sets as you want, then add your own. I like to add things like Daylight Saving Time, General Conference and family birthdays. This saves me the time of having to write them in when the calendar arrives. It does take some time, especially if you have a lot of birthdays, but it saves your preferences in your account, so there's less work if you use Lulu again in future years. Be sure to remember, though, to erase any empty spaces on your custom holiday page. I forgot last year and ended up with a bunch of "Insert Event Here" on January 1. Oops.

These are both great websites. I recommend Lulu for self-publishing and Winflash for photobooks (you can read a review of winkflash photobooks here). What I would really recommend, though, is signing up for the newlsetter. You can get really great deals if you wait for the sales in the newsletter. Winkflash has really great flat rate book sales every few months where you can get a 12" x 12" photobook (anything 100 pages or less) for ony $30. I recently bought an 8" x 8" on sale for $13. And of course, that's where I learned about the calendar sales.

Love and Pizza

Yesterday I was heating up the oven so I could toss a frozen pizza in for Beeper to share with the babysitter while firebirdluver and I shared a nice Christmas dinner downtown with the art club. Beeper saw the pizza sitting on the counter and asked, "Are you making a pizza?" I told him that I was indeed making him pizza for dinner.

I knew pizza was one of Beeper's favorite dinners, but I did not expect the excitement in his reaction. He threw his arms around my legs and said, "I love you, Mama," followed shortly by, "You are always making things."

I love this kid.

[Photo notes: I have started working on my sculptures again. This is a tiny peek at my current project.]

One more

As long as I am posting all of these homemade Christmas decorations, I wanted to add one more that we have up this year. This one was not made by me. It was a gift from the family on my husband's side that has us for Christmas this year. I love it!

I've been wanting to do an advent calendar for Beeper anyway. What better way to learn about counting and the passing of time than counting down until Christmas? They made this themselves (from felt and various knick-knacks), and it is perfect. Beeper is really enjoying it.

Tree Pictures

I finished those ornaments this weekend, and I am really pleased with how much they added to the tree. It's hard to really capture the full effect of a Christmas tree in a photo (at least, without a fancy camera and a tripod), but here are a couple to give you an idea of how it looks.

Gingerbread Winner

We pulled out the Beeper 9000 Random Number Generator this morning, who picked:

Yay, tif! I hope this helps sate Carson's gingerbread house hunger. Congratulations!

For everyone else, umecrafts is having a sale through the month of December - 20% of all patterns (with a few exceptions) - so you can go over and buy the pattern at a discounted price to make your own house.

Beeper Stuff

Sorry I didn't post more about Beeper on his birthday. We had a fun day, and I love seeing him grow up. This time of year how much he's grown always becomes especially apparent. Milestones like how he handles Thanksgiving and Christmas and his birthday are easy to compare to last year.

Sometime last week I was making dinner, and I peeked into the living room to see what he was doing. This is what he was up to:



Yes, those are wooden nativity pieces, and yes, he was using them as dominoes. As far as I know, he came up with this himself. I don't recall doing anything like this with him or in front of him recently.

One more funny tidbit from last week. Every other present he opened on his birthday, he said something like, "It's what I always wanted!" Don't know where he got that from either. Where did this kid learn to be so gracious?

An Experiment

Please answer the following question:

What are the sources of protection and security in your life?

Think about it for a few minutes, then leave a comment. There are no wrong answers!

Homemade Holidays 2

I was pleased at the positive response to the the homemade ornament post. At least I won't be the only out there with an uncool tree. Actually, I think our tree will look very cool, when I finally finish some of these ornaments. I wanted to add a couple of tips for these simple silhouette ornaments (inspired by the shiny leaf and this one from Better Homes and Gardens) after experimenting with them this morning. It is surprising the impact a few simple shapes, repeated several times, can have on the overall look of the tree.

It occurred to me that these would be incredibly easy if you happen to live near a craft store with a die cut machine with these kinds of shapes. We used to live near a store that allowed customers free access to their die cut machine, as long as it was used on supplies purchased from the store. You could grab some card stock from the scrapbook section (they would probably even have already glittery paper like what I used for the pictured snowflake) and have a good pile of ornaments made within minutes. I don't know how well a die cut would work with felt, but I think I have seen paper-backed felt, which would have a better chance of working. You'd have to ask a knowledgeable staff member at the store.

Unfortunately, we don't live near any craft stores anymore, so I have to cut my ornaments out myself. I learned, though, that tracing and cutting out complex shapes from felt is easier if you iron some freezer paper onto the felt (I knew that freezer paper would come in handy for more crafts). I wish I had known this a few days ago, when I was working on the Christmas houses (only today and tomorrow left to enter). I still found it easier to cut out the shapes with my scissors rather than the craft knife, but that could just be because they were mostly round shapes or because I didn't iron the paper on right. After I cut out the felt shapes, I soaked them in some fabric stiffener, to make them a little sturdier and hopefully last longer, then let them dry on some wax paper. If you want to punch holes in them, you probably want to do it before adding the fabric stiffener.

If anyone uses any of these ideas or any other handmade Christmas ideas, I'd love to see them. I will, of course, post pictures when I finish decorating our tree for this year.

*Photo - Snowflake made from glittery silver card stock, reindeer made from red felt, snowman made from glittery white felt

Cool Tidbit From Iraq

I was scouring online art publications this morning for articles to use for an assignment, when I came across a magazine I think I'll be keeping in my favorites and checking regularly, The Art Newspaper. The top headline this morning caught my interest: British Army to help turn dicator's palace into a museum. The Brits are working with the Iraqis to turn one of Saddam Hussein's old palaces into a museum.

I am cannot pinpoint exactly what it is about this that makes me so excited. Maybe it's because I feel any new museum anywhere is a good sign. Maybe it's because museums mark a certain level of culture to me - a sign of progress in Iraq and the good that's being done there. Maybe it's because building the museum in an old palace ("old" as in, not in use anymore; the building itself isn't really that old) is so reminiscent of the Louvre. Maybe because it's just nice to hear about the positive things going on in the world once in a while. Whatever the reason, I think it's pretty cool stuff.

Word of advice

If you happen to be considering what major to choose in college, let me give you some advice. You may be thinking to yourself, "It does not matter which major I choose, because most people don't even work in the industry they major in, so I may as well choose something easy." That would probably be a fair assumption, for the most part. What I would steer you away from is thinking art is an easy major. Because it's not.

I've only been in Senior Seminar for two weeks, and I am already scrambling to catch up. From what I have seen so far, I think this may be one of the hardest classes I have taken (also one of the most fun, if you like reading art criticism and going to galleries). Oh, and I need to find some time in between writing summaries to work on sculpture too.

Just so you know.

I have a long queue of post ideas, which we will hopefully get back to eventually. And two new books about art to review.

Oh, and happy birthday to Beeper yesterday. I told him he was turning three-years-old, and he replied, "But I am already old!" Yes, you are, Little Man.

Spin Cycle: Creative Newletter Alternatives

I guess I am in a crafty mood lately. When I saw the topic for this week's Spin Cycle (holiday newsletters) I thought of a couple of the projects from yesterday's crafty links.

I like holiday newsletters. We have a good-sized mailing list of family and friends that we find it difficult to keep up with, so newlsetters are a nice way to catch up with everyone and let them know how we're doing. Maybe the form letter isn't very personal, but I think it's better than nothing, which is probably what most of them would get if we tried to do something more personalized. (Does that sound mean? I just mean that if we tried writing 100 personal notes, we'd never get it done)

My favorite kind of newsletters, though, are the more creative ones. For example, instead of a letter, my aunt sends a top ten list every year. It provides a quick and funny summary of the most important/exciting things that happened to her during the year. That's why I like these two ideas from Family Fun. The idea is to use pictures and a few key ideas or events and put them into the provided templates. Have them printed on cardstock, and you have fun, personalized holiday cards that the people you send them to can make into ornaments if they want. I think we may try one or both of these in future years.

Template for a photo cube ornament card
Template for a Christmas chain card

Speaking of crafty things, here's a work in progress:

Don't forget to enter by next Sunday!

Palm Centro Giveaway at Momformation

Here is another great giveaway that is making me drool. Molly Baint at Momformation is giving away a Palm Centro (uber cool smartphone) at Momfo this week. She's even giving everyone three chances to enter. Go check it out and enter before Friday.

Homemade Holidays

I like the idea of a tree covered in handmade ornaments. Maybe it's because I have so many fond memories of the many Christmas decorations we had growing up that my mom made. I also have memories of some ornament making projects that turned out not so great, but we had a good time. I already know I'm no Martha Stewart when it comes to decorating a tree, so I'd rather it be something fun for the kids that they can enjoy instead of an "adult" tree decorated just to look nice.

With that in mind, I've been keeping an eye out the last couple of years for handmade ornament ideas that still look fairly nice. Naturally, I was excited when my sister-in-law e-mailed me these two links the other day:

Better Homes and Gardens: Easy Christmas Ornaments
Family Fun: A Homemade Christmas

Here are a few others I've spotted on various Christmas trees in shops (sorry about the picture quality - cell phone pictures):

I saw thes leaves just the other day on a tree at Target. I don't think these were homemade, but they would be incredibly simple to duplicate. Cut a leaf shape (or some other shape) out of cardstock and cover in glitter. I think part of the impact of the ornament was that it was fairly large, maybe 5 or 6 inches across.

This is a garland made out of pipe cleaners. Sparkly red pipe cleaners were twisted with white into rings, then linked together in a chain.

This one I thought was an especially fun and easy idea. It's a snowflake made out of cotton balls. As I recall, there was a little bit of glitter on it too that doesn't show up too well in the picture.