Saturday was my youngest granddaughter’s birthday and she had a mermaid party! She requested a mermaid skirt rather than a dress with pictures of mermaids so her Mama (my youngest daughter) made her one. We weren’t expecting a repeat of last year when she refused to wear her “baballoon dress” but that’s what we got. She did have the skirt on for a few minutes:
But as soon as she took her socks off she started fussing and pulled the skirt off and refused to put it back on. We’re not really sure why but she finally came up with “itchy”.
I wore the mermaid earrings my friend Lisa made and brought a lot of my mermaids. The large two piece one that looks like part of it is underwater and a few others decorated the food table. We were stuck inside so the plastic ones which were originally going to go in the water table outside sat on the art table instead. I also brought all my mermaid books. “Did you imagine that they were going to sit quietly and look at books?” asked one of the moms. I also printed out some mermaid coloring pages.
Either because of the skirt refusal drama or because there were so many children indoors and they were definitely not just sitting and looking at books, we neglected to take any pictures. My daughter was disappointed that she had not captured the party so I suggested a vignette featuring the skirt. She made several:
The mermaid tail cookies and ribbon wands were the favors.
While they look green in this picture, the mermaid cupcakes with tails were actually blue.
The napkins also featured mermaid tails. Both the birthday girl and her sister got these fancy hats and her sister wore a “Shellebration” tshirt. And it certainly was a “shellebration”!
In addition to all the tulips in Holland, Michigan during Tulip Time there are a lot of wooden shoes and references to wooden shoes. “Wooden shoe like to (do this or that)?” appeared on lots of signs and souvenirs. Most store doors had signs asking those wearing wooden shoes not to wear them into the store. And there was the Tulip Time Klompen Garden – 45 artist painted “wooden shoes” nestled among the tulips. Klompen is the Dutch word for wooden shoes and klompen cakes are pancakes hence the “Klompen Cakes on a Klompen” by Donna and Gary Bogle:
There were many inspired by traditional Dutch designs and pastimes but one of my favorites was “Dancing Tootsies” by Marsha Marier:
And I liked the nod to the pre parade street cleaners “Street Scrubber” by Veronica Morgan.
Last week we went to Holland, Michigan for a 24 hour getaway during Tulip Time. We saw so many tulips (in fields and parks, along the road, in downtown planters, and at almost every business and home) and some Tulip Time festivities including the dancing and street cleaning that happens before the Tulip Time parade.
It was kind of cold and rainy on the parade day so we spent a lot of time going into the stores and found a few things to purchase, of course. We hadn’t taken our Spring decorations down at home so the little wooden birdhouse and nest with eggs got hung up as soon as we got home.
I put all the Spring decorations away this week but it was nice to admire these for a few days.
And of course mermaids are always in season at our house. There were some booths at Windmill Island Gardens (that’s where I took the above picture of a tulip field). I couldn’t resist a redware mermaid plate by a Pennsylvania artist (unfortunately I can’t decipher the signature and had no luck with Google searches).
And lest you think a mermaid plate was not a suitable purchase in a town near an inland lake rather than the ocean, I also purchased this book:
I plan on bringing it on our Lake Michigan vacation with our grandchildren this summer.
We just returned from our grandnephew’s Wild Thing first birthday. My niece said she wanted to make me proud with the decorations and she did! She made all the signs herself.
We got chocolate chip cookies to take home.
The invitation read no presents but I couldn’t resist making a Max ornament like the one I made a few years ago for my storybook tree.
Cake time!
Wild Thing, you make my heart sing!
My oldest granddaughter had her sixth birthday party recently. It was her first drop off party but I was invited because it was unicorn themed and I had a great unicorn project. I first saw the unicorn ornaments on a Christmas blog post from Rambling Renovators http://www.ramblingrenovators.ca
Then I did some Pinterest surfing and came up with the elements we’d use – acrylic paint (glitter and plain), felt for ears, Sculpey horns that I’d make in advance, fabric flowers from the Dollar Store, and assorted ribbons and yarns. The children chose their paints and squeezed and swirled them into the ornaments, cut out their ears, and chose their flowers and other additions and their placement while I glued those on with a low temp glue gun. Then they drew the faces on with Sharpies. While my example, a picture I had on display, and the birthday girl’s dress, had closed eyes only, most of the children drew complete faces.
Some were quite elaborate!
Since we had the ring toss rings from last year’s flamingo party we also had a unicorn ring toss.
I made the horn from three empty thread cones covered with gold paper.
The birthday girl’s Mama, my youngest daughter, made her a beautiful unicorn dress. The mask is from another friend’s unicorn themed party a few weeks earlier.
Next up a mermaid party in June for my youngest granddaughter!
Finding a budding branch to use as our Spring tree still seems daunting so I’ve been looking for something in stores. We hadn’t found any before the Spring brunch we had when my niece was visiting on St. Patrick’s Day. I had made some bunnies I wanted to hang as decorations and give as favors so I started looking for pussy willows and in the third supermarket we checked we finally found some!
This weekend on our third trip to Target to search for trees we found two different small ones so we bought them both. The wooden one seemed perfect for eggs.
That cute gingham bunny comes from http://www.ishouldbemoppingthefloor.com
The other tree has some green felt leaves and small eggs already and I hung some bunnies, chicks, a sheep, and two carrots on it.
That still left a lot of Spring ornaments. Since I had moved the new wooden bunnies I had left from the pussy willows to the leaf tree, the pussy willows were empty and I realized that they could be our Spring tree!
And we moved some more ornaments to join the ones that were already on the kitchen hooks.
The maple leaf with the drawing of the sugar house hangs near the maple syrup bucket now.
The nest with eggs hangs next to a watering can on the left. We bought that tiny white rabbit on the right at the Evanston sidewalk sales
We were excited to hang the hand carved bird house with a little red bird we bought last summer at the Glenwood Avenue Arts Festival from Vulcan, Michigan crafters LBs Wood Shoppe.
The shelf decorations are still sitting in the bin waiting till we get a bit closer to Easter.
We finally went to The Mexican Shop in Evanston. I had seen ads for it and imagined it full of Mexican imports like the Mexican stores in Austin but it wasn’t like that at all. It mainly carries jewelry and clothing and doesn’t seem particularly Mexican. We did find this guy who seemed perfect for the hook above the hall gallery wall.
His price tag said vintage 1970’s and he’s marked “Made in Burma”. While he has a tendency to twist around on the hook, I think he was a great find.
I am disappointed though that the Mexican Shop was not a Mexican store since I was hoping to find Mexican tile like cabinet knobs that might work in the kitchen. Changing the knobs to make the kitchen look more like ours was one of my first thoughts when we moved here. I have found some online but we would have to buy a lot of knobs – 38! and I’d like to see them in person before spending so much. Luckily, we did find a way to bring some Mexican tiles into the kitchen. The space above the sink looked pretty empty with nothing but a discolored paper towel holder.
I had been trying to think of ways to fill it and had thought of hanging a dishtowel on either side. But that didn’t “spark joy” and one day I saw a picture of a kitchen with an old window hanging in a similar space. I looked at our things to see if anything would work for the space like the window in the picture and realized the tile tray that was sitting on the bottom shelf of the china cabinet would be perfect.
We’re going to replace the faucet and we’ll keep an eye out for knobs and other ways to make the kitchen look like ours.
As part of the riser project we have been enduring since we moved here most of one of the walls in the workroom/guestroom was removed to access the pipes of the adjoining unit’s bathroom. While the wall was being replaced there were problems with the old utility box so we got it replaced. While the old one was kind of funky and fun, the new one is ugly and utilitarian and looks like it belongs in a basement. So we covered it with my iris cross stitch picture and hung the wrapping paper picture next to it. It needed something above it too so I was glad to find a small square gold frame that was perfect for the cross stitch I rescued from the frame my mother had it in. Unfortunately both the cross stitch pieces and the mats had some foxing or mildew on them. Luckily I was able to get enough of it off of the cattail piece to reframe it.
One of the items on the bookshelf is a peacock paperweight. In the last post I wrote about this area I said my sister gave it to me. The other day my older daughter asked if she gave it to me and I started to say no my sister did but then I realized I was wrong, my daughter had given it to me.
Peacock Paperweight from my older daughter – A little blurry but accurately credited now.
The Georgia O’Keefe poster hangs alone over the couch now and the crayon batik peacock feather and iris hang above the other bedside table.
The quilt was made by my youngest daughter for our “blue” bedroom. When we moved to the “green” bedroom she was vacating to go to college, she made us a new quilt. Unfortunately, it is falling apart and while I mended it a few times I had to accept that it is beyond that now. We are now using the green comforter we bought her when we moved into the old condo!
I folded up the old quilt and put it on the bench (formerly my mother’s workroom coffee table) so we can still appreciate it. I think we figured out how to stop the rugs from curling up at the corners and moving all over the rugs. I glued the loopy sides of velcro to the bottom corners!
The rugs we bought to cover up a cleaning spot on the rug should stay in place now.
When we put away all the Christmas decorations at the end of January we left the kitchen cooking ornaments and the large window snowflakes up. They will probably stay through February.
Valentine decorating began with a heart garland I began crafting when I took out the valentine making materials on one of the days my youngest granddaughter came over in January. I had been wanting to try sewing paper for awhile and I think it turned out pretty well. I love the cherry stamp I bought this year.
Even though I had figured out a way to hang the fir garland in the kitchen this year I was glad to take it down so I decorated the tree again this year.
This year’s heart features a blue bird delivering a valentine. I combined and traced two images I found and then colored in the heart with a marker and the bird with a colored pencil. I scanned it as a photo then printed it on our printer. I had to buy thinner/lighter cardstock so that the printer wouldn’t jam but it’s thick enough to work as a tag/ornament. I wrote S.W.A.K. (sealed with a kiss) on the back and paired it with Hershey kisses.
When I’m crafting my hearts I imagine that the people I give them to will appreciate the hearts as much as the candy but when I gave them to my family on Pizza Friday it was clear that they don’t. I guess until Valentine trees become the rule rather than the exception I can’t really expect people to get excited about Valentine ornaments!
The frogs, turtles, and alligators have always appeared throughout the house. The plastic ones that used to perch on the CD shelves have been decommissioned, as it were, since the CD shelves have become art shelves. Others have found places to bask in.
1. Alligators and a frog on the windowsills in our bedroom. 2. The woven alligator sits atop a sensor above the bedroom door (a nod to all the “guys” that used to perch above door frames. 3. This guy (a painted and altered seed pod) who used to be on one of the black boxes in our bedroom is in the living room now atop the first CD cabinet. 4. The guitar playing guy also moved from a black box to join the wooden alligator with a broken jaw on top of the living room bookcase. 5. Two carved alligators lying on top of the “new” living room bookshelves (they used to be in the workroom) 6. Transplants from the old CD shelves sit on the “new” CD shelf (it used to be the paperback bookshelf). 7. The alligators with fishes in their mouths from the old CD shelves on the “new” living room bookshelves. 8. Two frogs and a turtle from the CD shelves and the glass turtle that used to be in our bathroom on the second CD cabinet. 9. Two Valentine frogs and a turtle lamp from friend Susan still live on a bedroom dresser.
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 