penny carnival

Inspiration all around

I'm flipping over photos my cousin Bethany just sent me of a necklace she made with her 2-year-old daughter, Grace. They live in Rhode Island, where there's no shortage of coastline, and she said they often go down to the beach to collect shells and rocks. It looks like she just drilled a hole and linked the shell to the leather with wire. I sent her an e-mail to get more details.

Bethany has always been a crafty genius--I remember her sewing her own clothes when she was something like 10 years old.

An update from Bethany and I added a photo of beautiful Grace wearing the necklace:
"I actually found these shells with perfect holes on the beach, nature did the work for me. I thought it was pretty amazing because the holes are perfect, but that's why I like to look for things on the shore because most of it's made from the earth. It's cool stuff!!"

Another lovely project (middle photo now) is something my friend Kristy did when she was pregnant with her daughter, Lyra. On her walks, she started noticing that pieces of bark often look like letters of the alphabet. Soon enough she had a whole collection (with the letter "X" being a couple of pine needles). She said she never altered the pieces to look more like letters. She just waited until she had all 26 and then framed them for her daughter's room.

Playing house

I had a story in the paper yesterday about tree forts and playhouses. I'll paste the lede below. Visiting the families I interviewed and seeing their forts gave me the itch to put something in our yard, too, but it's not high on our home-improvement priority list. We would never do something over the top, but it would be nice to have some sort of structure (perhaps helping Bo conquer her sweet little fear of slides?). Anyone know of a company that sells modern play structure kits?

Further in the story I mention a woman whose father built her a playhouse in 1937 out of an old car. It had a small wading pool nearby and a slide attached. I'll paste the old newspaper clipping she sent me here--hopefully you'll be able to read the cutline.

When I interviewed her she talked about how back then moms and kids didn't leave the house very often. Food was delivered. Meals were eaten at home. The big outings happened on Sundays--a trip to the creamery for ice cream. A big part of me longs for life to be more like, but I also know I'd go bonkers before too long.

Anyhow, here's the top of the story, a photo I took of one family's log cabin on stilts, the 1937 newspaper clipping, and a link to the Amish company that builds the pirate ships mentioned in this excerpt.

Trevor Childears is the king of the world. At least, that's the image that comes to mind when the 6-year-old from Mead climbs atop a wooden pirate ship in his backyard, perches himself on the bow and stretches his arms out wide.

"It's best that Mom doesn't know everything," Trevor's mother, Amy Love says, as she watches her youngest son dangle his feet at least 10 feet above the ground.

Love and her husband, Chad Childears, and two other family members assembled the ship — a backyard play structure meant to be climbed on by young pirates like Trevor — one day last summer, after its parts were delivered to their driveway via semi-truck. The couple had ordered it from a Lancaster County, Pa., company called Home Place Structures, which sells Amish-made playhouses, forts and other big backyard toys.

"We wanted something different," Love says.

Different is what they got. Although it has some typical play structure parts – a trapeze bar, swing and climbing wall among them – there likely aren't many ships like it marooned in other Spokane area backyards.

Its hull is a commanding 14 feet wide by 8 feet long. A firehouse pole leads from the top of the ship to a private hideaway below, in what would be a regular ship's cargo space. And a plank goes from the ground, where the family dropped sand to drive home the pirate-ship theme, to the ship's deck.

"It's pretty great," Trevor says with a grin.

Playhouses, tree forts and swing sets are fixtures in many American backyards. For decades, parents have built play structures for their children, providing retreats where muscles can grow and young imaginations can wander, as well as providing moms and dads temporary breaks from their charges.

Today, ready-made kits and companies willing to install them make it easier than ever to erect play structures — although perhaps they're pricier than ever, too. Some families still opt to build the structures from scratch.

Mommy brain

I can't stand that term--mommy brain. It usually refers to those times (and I have several on any given day) when we forget even the simplest things, like mailing the bill that was due last week or forgetting to go to book club even though we've been looking forward to it all month (guilty). C'mon. We're in charge of a few lives here. Give us a break.

I'm going to reclaim the phrase and turn it into something good. I declare, from now on, that "mommy brain" means "stroke of genius." Here's a mommy-brain idea that knocked my socks off. Love it. Can't wait to try, given we have no shortage of stained onesies around here.

Some friends and I put our mommy brains together this morning and exchanged freezer meals. There are five of us, and during the last few days we each cooked two different dinners for each family. So, for example, I made five eggplant parmesan meals and five risotto con pollo meals. They all showed up with coolers and kids, we swapped meals, and the kids ran willy nilly in the backyard all morning. Now, my freezer is full of ready-to-heat goodness for those nights when the original meaning of mommy brain manifests itself (i.e., when I plan to make fish tacos for dinner and leave the grocery store with all the ingredients I need ... except the fish).

Apron strings

Prepare yourselves for an onslaught of aprons.

I know the vintage apron thing has been huge for the last several years. They're lovely. I get it. But I haven't gone bonkers for them.

Until now.

The parentals are visiting from the wet side of the state, and my mom brought with her some of my nana's (her mom's) old aprons. Nana wore them every day--for cooking, cleaning, everything. I remember some of them, but some are new to me and believe me, it's love at first sight.

They're so delicate. So time worn. And the fabrics are so fabulous.

Check out the aqua and red details on the Christmas apron. Hello!? What's old is new again.
And I just love the rusty safety pin on the pink apron. It had to have been my Nana who put it there (my mom doesn't use the aprons). How long ago did she do that? 15 years ago? 30? More?

Of course, Bo and I had to try the aprons on (what's with my veiny arms? Geesh. I'm like a monster).

I'm afraid to use the aprons for everyday, though. I'm going to have to come up with a pattern to mimic them and find some charming fabric to use, probably from here.

10 lessons from Memorial Day weekend '08

-Putting five cousins, all under age 5, together in a small cabin and expecting them to go to sleep easily on the first night is like strapping a slab of raw meat to a dog and telling him to play dead.
-Once the thrill of being in a small cabin with five cousins wears off, kids sleep like logs if they’ve spent the day exploring “bear forest.”
-That “bugs are our friends” line you keep feeding your kid is only believable if you accept it in your own heart.
-Remembering to use the potty is really, really, really, really hard to do when you’re having fun. (That’s four “reallys” to match the number of pairs of underwear drying above the fireplace at all times.)
-Lake water is cold in May. Just ask the 16-month-old niece who’s still a little wobbly on her feet.
-Food tastes better when it’s cooked outside.
-If you happen to be within 200 miles of a small-town parade, by all means get yourself there. Be sure to tell your young daughter to look for the Huckleberry Queen. If said queen looks to be about 83 years old, all the better.
-Forgetting to pack a few things is normal. Forgetting to pack more than 20 things means you need to either start making lists or stop having children.
-Just because a place has the word “resort” in its name, doesn't guarantee anything. But if the major amenities include a gorgeous view and quality time with the fam, they can call it whatever they want. (Note the use of the word “quality” versus “quiet.” Please see “five cousins all under age 5” above.)
-That persistent twitch can only mean one thing: you are addicted to the Internet and withdrawal hurts.

So silly

I have been giggling about this for the last two days.
The girls and I were outside yesterday, goofing around on the deck--me taking photos, Bo playing with her "babies" and Magpie flapping her arms now and then and screeching "galalalalaaaaaa."
Bo's babies include "Red Bear," "Giraffe," "Doggy," and "Baby." I know, I know. Her originality in naming toys astounds me.
She was taking them to work, giving them naps, taking them grocery shopping, etc., when I thought--why not snap a few photos of the babies going about their business? I was careful not to disturb how Bo had placed them (I'm a journalist, after all). The results cracked me up.
So today we had them developed (is it still called "developed" when it's digital?) and I bought some frames to put them in. Bo and I hung them in her room above her art table. When she lost interest in the wall-mounted suction leveler, she looked at the pictures and said, "Oh, my babies! Babies at work. Babies taking nap."
Still giggling here.

Handmade gift ideas?

My next HomeMaker column--the monthly craft column I write for the local newspaper--will be about gifts to make for young children--for their birthdays, especially. I've been giving homemade gifts for several months now and they've been pretty well received, but I do acknowledge that not all kids want something you toiled away on in the craft room. Or, they don't know they want it because they're so used to getting brighter, shinier, needier-of-batteries type of things.

Shockingly--to me, anyway--is when parents have expectations of what their children will receive as gifts. A friend recently told me of another mom who complained to her about what her daughter was given by someone at the girl's birthday party. I think the birthday girl was 4 years old or so. The mom complained that the gift "must have cost $2 or something. It was like the woman let her kid pick it out."
Well, duh! Isn't that the point?

Back to the column. I have a few projects I'm going to suggest--things I've made and photographed. But I'd love to gather more ideas so I can offer readers a roundup of suggestions. It doesn't have to be complicated. Some will be sewing projects, like the Angry Chicken bonnet--one of my tried and true standbys. Another of my suggestions, though, is a suitcase full of dress-up clothes purchased at a thrift shop.

OK. Bring 'em on. What's your favorite homemade gift for the kiddies?

(Photo is from MarthaStewart.com of a project I made for my niece, Coco. I forgot to take a picture before I sent it off to her, so y'all can assume my version looked as good as these. Oh, Martha. How you humble me month after month.)

Edible play dough

Does anyone remember the book "Kindergarten Cooks" from the 70s? Was this just a Pacific Northwest thing? It was a handwritten cookbook with kid-friendly, healthy recipes that my sister and I used ALL THE TIME as kids. I think she has our family's copy right now. Every once in a while I search around for another copy without luck, but just now I stumbled on this site. I think this is it, but with a new title. I e-mailed the author and will report back.

Anyhow, I'm trying to keep Boston better occupied today than yesterday when, in the span of 30 minutes, she intentionally woke her sister up from her nap (for the second time that day), painted the dog, and drank the can of water she was using to clean her paint brush between colors. "Yum!" she said.

So we were dinking around today with some play dough and I could tell it was losing its magic when I remembered that my sister and I used to make pretzels following a recipe from Kindergarten Cooks.

So, we shifted gears, put away the P.D. and made a batch of some pretty unorthodox-looking pretzels. They tasted as bad as they look, but it was still fun.