Happy Garden Day!

Micah was off school for voting day, this rainy day, and I decided we needed an event for our morning.  So I designed a garden scavenger hunt.  How many tomato plants can you find?  Pick a scallion.  Things like that.  Our final step was an edible craft, a vegetable rabbit.  Just thought I'd post some pictures, they were so cute.  The ears are radishes, the bodies are carrots, the whiskers are radish stems, the noses are peas, the mouths are thin strips of apple, the eyes are raisins, and the tails are cauliflower.

Painted Stool

 

 Finally, after a year and a half, I completed the stool requested by a close friend who'd seen a similar one I made for my nephew.  I knew I should have finished it before I had the baby!  Lest I am misleading, this did not take a year and a half to paint.  It took only a few hours.  It took a year and a half to motivate myself to do it.  Good thing she asked for it while she was pregnant or who knows how old her child would have been by the time I got around to it.  :)  Now my kids want me to make them one.  And I don't think they'll give me a year and a half.

Cotton Sock Bear

Jesse with his new bear

Jesse has had bad eczema, an itchy red rash with occasional hive-like bumps, and allergy "shiners," which are red, baggy circles around/under his eyes.  One day last week he also had what we think was the beginning of an anaphylactic reaction.  So we're taking him to an allergist in March, but in the meantime we're trying to figure out patterns for this rash.

I think I've virtually guaranteed that Jesse won't end up having a petroleum allergy.  First of all, it's really rare, so it was unlikely in the first place.  Second of all, as soon as you go to the trouble to get a new pillow and make a stuffed animal made of cotton (all of his were polyester, as were his fleece blanket and fleece "lovie")--you can pretty much guarantee that it was for nothing.  :) 

Yesterday evening was basically devoted to that bear.  As Owen was alarmed to notice, it was made primarily of two pairs of his brown socks and two of his undershirts ripped up for the stuffing.  I made it up as I went. 

Crafty Trellis for the Garden

This was an idea that I actually took from a kid's magazine.  I usually like to come up with my own ideas (aka: reinvent the wheel).  But this was an idea I've been meaning to try for a long time.  Last time I bought paint I took an obscene amount of paint sticks, so we should have some more of these for some summer climbing vegetables.  I spent a really long time tying it together, then got into a fight with hubby when he picked it up and it fell apart.  The staple gun solution was a great idea of his.  The kids colored the paint sticks with crayons (I didn't want paint in the garden) for the decor.  I think it came out well.  :)

The artists are posed with the trellis below; I'm really excited about the raspberries starting to leaf out behind Jesse's head.  I'm less excited about the lily-thinning I'm going to have to do.

It's a Whale of a Taggie!

Well, I'm finished with my latest taggie, and I think it came out really cute!  :)  I stayed up late to finish it and I'm pretty grumpy today as a result . . . but, hey, all in the name of art, right?  I've been making taggies as baby gifts ever since they became Jessie's obsession, but lately I've tried (occasionally, usually because someone has a girl and I have boy colors--necessitating something to make it look less like a boy's blanket) to personalize it a little with a design.  Anyway, this might be my favorite so far.