made: Paper-Cutout (Entire) Walton Family (Yikes!)

Of all the things I made last year for my year of make, my gift to my mother-in-law, Michelle, is probably my absolute favorite. She asked sometime in November if I would do a paper-cutout family (like I did for us) for her Christmas gift--of everyone. All the kids, spouses, and grandkids. It was a huge undertaking, and took me about a month to complete, but I finished it just in time (literally on our last night staying with Steve's family) and we framed it up and handed it over:

I had a lot of fun stalking my family on facebook to find the clothes they wore the most (for the guys) and on Pinterest for the clothes they wished they had (for the girls). I researched height differences, standing stances, clothing options, and hairstyles. Then I sketched out the whole family, made several copies, and got to work.

I tried to add things specific to each family, like Kev & Rachel's little bird, Penny on his shoulder (below), and Jessica's missionary tag (Steve's baby sister Jessica is serving an 18 month mission for our church), and Steve's dad wearing flip-flops, which are his go-to shoe even in winter.

Here's our family, with Charlie diving for Grace. :) And me in a dress I wish I owned!

Emily's family.

Framed up and ready for gifting. :)

made: crocheted scarves

Beginning sometime in October, I started carrying yarn and a crochet hook around with me everywhere I went. I crocheted at friends' houses, at Gracie's dance class--I would have crocheted at church if that was kosher, but I don't think it is... If you know the rules on that let me know.

Since Charlie was born not much more than a week before Christmas last year, we bought all our gifts, so this year I was excited to hand make some! I had three scarves to do before Christmas, and though it took a lot of time, I found it very fun and rewarding.

This is the one I made for my sister-in-law, Emily. I had started making it before the fam decided to draw names this year, so I switched with Steve to get her so I could still give it to her while it was cold enough to wear it!

Also self-photography is awkward. Forehead. So much forehead. I'm trusting you to focus on the scarf.

It is called a crocodile stitch. It was very time intensive, but it came out so pretty I almost kept it. Just kidding. But I was pretty happy with it. Here's a detail shot.

I made one the same color for my mama. This was a much simpler pattern, so I made it nice and long. I think she liked it.

(better angle in the mirror... much less forehead)

And I made a third for my brother's long time girlfriend, Katie, who has handmade gifts for us again and again in years past--including knitted baby blankets so beautiful that I always use them for my kids' baby blessings. (Wait is that weird that I accessorize my kids with blankets?)

This was another long haul one. It probably took like a month. I made dozens of individual flowers, all different styes and sizes, and then stitched them all together. The effect was worth it, though, and I think she was pleased with it, which is the point, right? :)

made: pre-baby-book for Charlie

You know Charlie didn't get left out! We blogged through his pregnancy, too (this time with a better camera, and better fashion sense for Mama... or at least some styled hair and less sweatpants). Because it was such a hard pregnancy, I found I had to really push myself to write about it so I could rediscover the sweet, lovely parts. I am so glad I did--I love having this documentation of the wait for Charlie, and looking back to see that getting him here safe and ready for the world was well worth the nausea and physical pain of the pregnancy (oh... and the labor).

I also really love how Charlie's book turned out! If you see any more Blurb groupons (that's the company we used to print these) let me know!

The cover photo was taken by my friend Michelle, who also took family photos for us when we went to California in April. I have no idea how he stayed asleep while we did this, but how cute is he?!

Title page. On our bed.

Sorry I realized I didn't take a ton of pictures of things we wrote about (renting our house, Steve being at AF training for 5 weeks) but rest assured that we did a good job chronicling the 9 months of Charlie-waiting. AND I was a pain in the you-know-what about getting cute weekly photos for as long as possible. After church (when I was already dressed cute) I would not let Steve change into comfy clothes until we'd snapped a photo on the porch. I like this one because you can see grass in our yard but snow across the street! It was fun to have changing seasons in this series.

It got kind of ridiculous looking toward the end there...

I blogged from labor this time, too--using a laptop instead of a cell phone... oh how technology has advanced! So we have Charlie's birth story in there, and his first day in the hospital. His Dad is so cute.

As with Gracie's, I did his book a while after we finished the blog, so I added in some extra pages to share what his first days at home were like... Love from Gracie... Steve having to study for a test he missed because of when I went into labor... and a white Christmas!

I also added the text of his baby blessing, which we'd recorded and transcribed for him. Wish I'd remembered to put Gracie's in her book, too, but I forgot. It is written down, though. We blessed him in my parent's back yard, because it was Conference weekend. Perfect day.

And I did a little wrap up for him, too, about being 6 months old. And how we love him. So much.

His whole book can be previewed here.

made: pre-baby-book for Gracie

Did you think I'd stopped making things? I didn't! I've just been terrible about blogging about them. I just realized I have to catch up on all my record-keeping of things I made, though, because it's time for the new word of the year and I want to get going on that. :)

If you've been with us from the start, you know that we wrote baby-blogs for both our kids during their respective pregnancies. When we started Gracie's blog (almost exactly four years ago!) I knew I wanted to make it into a book one day--but those blog books are expensive! Luckily at the beginning of the year a Groupon popped up for a Blurb book (one of the companies that will make your blog into a book), so I snatched up two of them and got to work!

Blurb has software you use to design the book, so I had full control over how it looked. I chose a photo of Gracie and Steve in Encinitas for the cover. I'm almost positive this was her first trip to the beach, at about 6 or 8 weeks old.

Steve started our blog on New Year's Day, 2008--the day we found out we were expecting! To celebrate we went to Ruby's and got vanilla Coke and fried zucchini to go, and enjoyed them at La Jolla Cove. We also kissed and made faces. And I bought a copy of What to Expect.

I did my best to take weekly pictures once my belly was big enough to look pregnant. For some reason I decided to wear the same (grungy) clothes every time for the first while. Guess I wasn't really thinking that I would have to look at these photos forever. Still, I love having these pictures of my belly growing.

We wrote about everything we did, anything baby-related, during the wait for our little bun to finish baking. Like going on a "Babymoon" (we did this *before* it was the big thing, FYI).

The caption of this one just says, "These two are going to be parents." Steve has q-tips in his ears.

Our friend Lani took some maternity photos for us (for free--what a sweetie) at the beach--we LOVE these pictures. I wish we had done some with Charlie's pregnancy. Oh, also, Steve graduated AND sliced his finger open and had to go to the ER. He needed some attention.

This is one of my favorites BECAUSE it was taken at the spot where Steve proposed to me! The EXACT spot--except there used to be a bench! We thought it would be so cute to take a picture there for this shoot, but when we got there it was just a cement slab--bench was gone. It cracked us up.

I carry... big.

I added a photo of the house we brought Gracie home to--we moved in with Steve's cousin a week before Grace was born. Her room was a large alcove by the stairs with no door (which is why she sleeps so well--accidental genius). I know that sounds like Harry Potter, but we actually made it very cute and cozy.

And of course I blogged from labor--also before it was cool. It was all done via old-school texting. Pretty fun. Oh how things have changed in only a couple years! This page has our first two family photos--the one I like best is on the right, but it had to be small because it is low-res--my dad took it on his phone. :)

And since it took me so long to publish her little book, she got a bonus letter from Mama with tons of mini-photos of her first three years (up to the point I got the book printed). It was really hard to choose the perfect photos!

Couldn't resist a full-page spread of the kiddos. They are best friends; I LOVE IT.

And her closing page. What a cutie.

If you want to see the whole thing (or read it--watch out, its long), you can check out the book preview here.

(p.s. I loved Blurb! The book came out looking lovely, high quality--couldn't have wished for better!)

made: bread

I feel like all my posts lately are starting with "a few weeks ago" and alas, here is another one. I have been coping with Steve's ever-changing schedule and blogging has taken a back seat to either hanging out with him if he's home or wrangling the kiddos as I tried to get them to bed (relatively) on time. Anyway I just came across these photos tonight and I remembered... A few weeks ago, I made bread!!! 

See how they are shiny on top? That's some BUTTAH. Yum.

This may not be a big deal to some of you bread-making experts, but if you remember my barely-rescued roll catastrophe from last year, you will know that I feel an incredible amount of accomplishment for making two beautiful and delicious loaves of bread, from scratch, no bread maker involved!

My grandma gave me a Lion House Bakery cookbook for Christmas, so I did one of the easiest recipes out of it. AND I figured out why my rolls went so badly last year--the humidity here means you need a ton more flour. I added at least another full cup, possibly more, to get the stickiness to the right level.

Steve and Gracie were happy to help me eat several helpings slathered with the jam--which I had also made! Not bad for the girl who didn't start cooking until 3 years into marriage.

Don't they look so yummy? :)

made: paper cut family portrait

Have you noticed our new header? I am very excited about it. In fact, I keep clicking over to our page to look at it. It makes me happy. :)

I don't know how it started, but the idea just popped into my head one night. So I drew out a little sketch, planning out my layers. Then I made several photocopies  and used them as patterns. I pulled out my handy dandy knife and cutting mat and got to work. Charlie took the most layers. (His is my favorite depiction because he is chewing on his foot, his real life hobby.) I put everything together using tape (which added some nice dimension) or, for the tiny pieces, just some regular old glue stick glue. Then I scanned them and edited the color, saturation, and brightness in Photoshop Elements. (Notice I changed the color of Steve's pants... I didn't have any blue-enough scrapbook paper so I just changed the tint in PSE). Here is what everything looked like in its original scan colors:

And of course you see the final at the top. But here it is again:

made: blooms

I love spring here--there is such a lovely, sharp turn in the weather: the grass sprouts up and leaves unfurl and everyone's yards go suddenly from naked and lonely to bright, spring green. Steve has had a nice slow rotation doing Emergency, with several mornings and even a few full days of freedom, so the first chance we got we packed up the kids and hit the garden department at Home Depot. We loaded up our cart with impatiens for the shady boxes on the porch and petunias, snap dragons, and marigolds for the sunny front steps.

Gracie was very happy to help with everything. She liked digging, breaking the bound roots, planting, and watering with our new purple watering can. We probably should have invested in three shovels, though. Hindsight.

The porch needs a sweep, but now its all ready for lunching and lounging in the Adirondak chairs Steve built for us last summer. :) (Also, sorry this is so late, but this was a couple of weeks ago... But guess what? Everything is still alive!!!)

made: Charlie's semi-portrait

I've always liked to draw. I'm pretty good at it, when I practice. And I need practice. So as part of my "year of make" I've been trying to draw my kiddos. From life. The problem being, of course, that kids are on the move. I'm not even going to show you the drawings I've done of Grace, because she keeps moving, so they don't really look like her. But here is a little picture of Charlie that I did while he was sleeping (of course he had to fall asleep facing the wall that day, so its a picture of the back of his head).

But actually, I am kind of glad. I love the back of his head. Look at his cute little neck folds. And the little bald stripe along the middle of his noggin where he has rubbed his hair clean off looking left and right while laying on his blanket. I love his cheeks. And I am constantly telling Steve how much I adore this sweet little boy's head. It is just the cutest little baby head! And it smells so very nice.

But I still think the original is cuter.

made: baby neckties

So far I am loving my word of the year, because it not only encourages me to finish making things that got started long ago but also inspires me to look for new ideas. Yesterday I was walking around the house gathering things for Goodwill, and just as I was tossing Steve's pile of rejected ties into the bag I saw the skinny end and thought--those would be perfect for some Charlie ties! So I picked two of my favorites, abandoned my clean up efforts, and headed to my craft room. You can make some, too.

First, measure out your preferred tie length and trim it off the skinny end of the tie (you know, the part that goes in back when it is actually tied on a grownup) as well as a length just above that to be your (pretend) tie knot.

Wrap the shorter piece around the top of your tie piece, back side out (the side with the visible fold). Eyeball where you want your knot to taper down, and pin. Then sew on a diagonal from the pin to the opposite outer corner (to make the knot shape) with the front sides together, fold facing out. Like so:

And trim off the excess fabric.

Next flatten it out so the seam you've just sewn is in the middle, on the back. You could press it with an iron... but I was lazy and so I just pressed down with my fingers a little.

Now its time to attach the tie to its "knot." Take your tie piece with the back (fold) side facing up, and tuck the raw edge into the fold of the knot piece:

Now just tack the fold down over the top with some quick stitches, being careful only to go through the back layer of fabric (you don't want your stitches to show through on the front of your tie later). These stitches are going to get tucked away, so you can use whatever thread you want and your stitches don't have to be pretty (just sturdy).

Now flip the whole thing right side out. Almost there! Hurray! Except now you'll probably have an ugly pointy raw edge at the top like I did:

Tuck it down into the center, and tack it with a few stitches in a thread similar to your tie color.

Now you should have something a little like this:

At this point, my tie knot looked a little boxy:

But I wanted it to look more like this:

So I just pinched the bottom half of my knot a little from the back and tacked it with a couple little stitches. Then go ahead and stitch on your elastic (obviously be careful of choking hazards if you go this route, though I'm sure I don't have to tell you that) to the top (I did mine at the seam, but you could tuck it into the knot at the top corners if you want it to look more polished... I just wanted it to be not a lot of work) or attach a clip so you can affix your tie to baby's super dapper ensemble.

And voila! An itsy bitsy baby tie. Go ahead and say it: OH FOR PRECIOUS. I know. Grandmas everywhere are passing out at the cuteness. And so will I when I get one on Charlie.