Gifts for Little ones, Fall & Winter edition

Fall was a busy time for birthdays and birth days (I suppose it's that time of my life, when all the friends & coworkers are popping little ones out!), so here's a little round-up of five projects I managed to squeeze in between school obligations and house & yard chores. . . 

Small tote bag, with monogram, for the niece's 2nd birthday:

It was a big hit.

Pocket!

Christmas Cards, 2015 Edition

Coming soon to a mailbox near you!

Halloween 2015!

Last year, Gwen and I managed a pretty fantastic 90s era costume. If you missed it, check it out here. This year we went more whimsical, honoring some beloved yard art.

Critter Cuteness: Knit Bunny

I saw this cuteness come across my pinterest feed the other day and decided it would make a fun Easter treat for my niece.

Happy (Belated) Halloween!

This year the sister and I went in on a joint costume. I came up with idea earlier in the year, and with a little planning, some tween-dress shopping, and last minute embellishments, our costumes were complete.

Guess those 90s ice queens!

Perfection on skates

Christmas Cards, 2013 edition

The past few years I have been a bit ambitious and made cards with individual designs; last year was the paint-chip theme and quite a few cards were designed with the recipient in mind. The year before was a mixed bag of different designs, both catalog-collage & stamped. Back in 2010 I cut out a crazy amount of paper snowflakes that were the cover of each card (by the way - I found a dozen or so extras when I was gathering supplies for this year!). 

This year I stayed simple with two designs, and minimal prep: just folding the cardstock, punching approximately 90 little snowflakes (give or take the few that may be under the couch or that the cat absconded with) that were affixed with glue tape, and stamping.

Holiday Pregaming, Ornament-style: Clothespin Snowflakes

I generally wait until it is at least December before I get into the holiday spirit, but for the sake of a crafty blog post (which, by the way, you've already had three of this month!), and the Pintester's latest Ornament-themed Pintester Movement, it is Christmas in November!

obligatory artsy window shot
pre-snow - which has been gracing us over the past few days
here in the MRV

I'm a sucker for snowflakes, so of course I was inclined to find a snowflake-inspired ornament, and I tend towards the recycled variety, as well. Lucky for me I had a two-for-one that I'd pinned a while ago: the Clothespin Snowflake.

Summer Knitting Projects

I haven't done a ton of knitting this summer, but have been keeping busy with a few projects:

The string-of-lights is slowly growing. . . twenty-five lights are knit, five more are set up, and I have more than enough yarn to create more strand and lights. This will be done by Christmas for sure!

two yards and counting on the string of lights
(and a sneak-peak at the front porch and front yard)

Summer Project #1: String of Lights

Despite having a lot of my stuff packed in boxes in the storage unit in anticipation of moving out of the dorm apartment, I did leave out a few projects and miscellaneous craft stuff. One of the projects I decided to work on this summer is one that I'd seen a friend knitting several years ago, a string of lights. The pattern is part of a set of patterns from Knit Picks, called Winter Wonderful, which now comes as either the pattern alone, or with the yarn; when I bought it a couple of years ago, I bought it as a kit with the yarn included. Of course, I really only love a few of the patterns, and in retrospect probably could have figured out on my own how to make the lights. But I like the yarn colors that were included in the kit, and I already have some ideas for using them up down the road.

five lights done:
dark blue, light grey, light blue, white, blue.
repeat.

The pattern is essentially a long I-cord with the lights coming off at regular intervals. I started with the string itself and it's now just over two yards long (measured very accurately using the nose to fingertip method), with space for about 30 lights. You can see the loop at on end, and the stitch holder at the other end. The safety pins are holding the stitches that will start each light. 

'Tis the season: gingerbread men and 3-D paper stars

A little round up of some baking and crafting from this week/weekend.  Despite the 3 or four inches of fresh snow that fell overnight, I took this morning to finish up procuring and wrapping presents for the family.  Zoe makes an excellent backdrop, and her patience was rewarded with an hour or so hike on some trails across from the nearby elementary school.

wrapping paper courtesy of old seven days papers.
just another way to cut down on waste during the
holidays, doubling as a great fire starter!

Christmas Cards, 2012 edition

Another Sunday crafternoon.  It's snowing outside, "White Christmas" is on TV, and the holidays are just around the corner.

What to do with paint chip strips that have been laying around? Make Christmas cards, of course!

some paint strips

Christmas Cards, 2011 edition

I haven't been all that crafty or creative as of late, in part due to the craziness that is the new job and grad school. Last years family-imposed hand/home-made gifts was a huge motivation for crafting - I think I need to impose that on myself again in the future, simply to make my self do something creative on a regular basis! I really enjoyed making Christmas cards last year and decided to give it a whirl again this year.

I had already decided to do something in a tree-theme with some green origami paper and several stamps I'd bought through Paper Source - this store is one of my favorite sources of stamps, papers, funky gifts, their catalog is full of beautiful and colorful pictures. Further inspiration came as I flipped through a recent Paper Source catalog.

some trees and
some papersource catalog pictures

Year of the Pie #11 & 12: The Simplest Cranberry-Apple Crumb Pie & Maple Pumpkin Pie

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our family is fairly consistent year-to-year in what we have at Thanksgiving dinner - there's something about tradition, I suppose. We had turkey, stuffing, green beans, apple-herb rolls, kidney bean salad, homemade cranberry sauce, roasted carrots and parsnips, and sweet potato casserole. Dessert consisted of two pies and cranberry mousse.

My sister and I were assigned desserts, and everyone knows that it's not Thanksgiving without pie! Hopefully these two pies (plus a bonus dessert!) will partly make up for the baking pie-atus (get it?) I've been on as of late. We were charged with making an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and cranberry mousse (my favorite holiday dessert - and SUPER easy to make).

cranberry-apple pie

maple pumpkin pie

Year of the Pie #10: The Easiest Apple Pie

Happy 4th of July!

The 4th here on the island is really incredible. There are TONS of people downstreet for most of the morning. The parking lot is closed off to cars and there a bunch of booths for PIE, the Fire Department, Friends of the Library, ICMS, the Land Trust, the Childcare, a penny raffle, the French Club, and each of the high school classes has a game booth, the Lions Club hosts a food booth (mmm. . . crab rolls), as well as countless others interspersed. The parade goes by twice, with fire trucks, ambulances, little league teams, the town band, random floats by island businesses and groups of friends, and more - all following a theme set forth by the 4th of July committee. This year the theme was "Breaking News" and the floats were fantastic. Oh, and Vinalhaven experienced its first flash mob, too.

no, really, it is easy!

Year of the Pie #6 & 7: Extra Rich Lemon Custard & Strawberry Chiffon Pies

Happy Easter! Another two-fer this round, in honor of the Easter holiday and Easter dinner with friends.

I knew I was going to bring a pie for dinner, but arriving home mid afternoon on the Saturday before Easter didn't leave a lot of time. Not to mention the (sometimes) limited selection at the store, and the last-minute trip at 30 minutes before closing. I wanted to make a pie that evoked a sense of spring considering today was cold and rainy (and snowy in parts of VT and NH!). My original plan was to make just the Extra-Rich Lemon Custard Pie. The author describes this as a basic pie that's easy to assemble - just a few liquids to blend.

Homemade Christmas

The family decided at some point this past year to do homemade christmas, and keep it lowkey. Most of us followed the rules, and most of us waited until the last minute. Mom still hasn't completely finished a few things, but we got to see the assorted makings of said gifts.

Several of the things I made were requests or suggestions, and a few I had to come up with because the recipients were being most unhelpful ("I have no ideas. I just want to get rid of stuff"). I didn't wait until the last minute to get started, but I was definitely finishing at nearly the last mintute.

Without further ado, here are 2010's homemade christmas gifts.

Holiday Crafting

Because there isn't quite enough to do around the holidays, what with getting the kids prepped for Christmas break at school and all the other random things going on, I decided to make Christmas (or Holiday or Winter or Seasonal or Etc.) cards this year. Of course the idea festered before I finally started them, and I'm not sure they'll get to anyone before Christmas - but everyone loves a New Years' card, right? Granted it was a bit of a process, but I'm kind of psyched about how they've turned out. The inside of the card features a sweet stamp with a generic seasonal greeting that I figure anyone can appreciate. It will very likely make an encore performance at future holidays.

Surprise, surprise, I went with a snowflake motif.