7 Layer Studio

Moving Right Along

Happy New Year from Oregon!  We finally finished all the last minute things to do on our house (it's going to be a rental now) before bidding adieu to Hawaii and making the big journey across the great Pacific to spend a few days with my sister.  Tomorrow we're off to Boise for some winter fun with some of Steve's family and the baptism of Steve's sister's boy Kenny, then back to Oregon to spend time with my family until mid January.  I hardly know where to start with all the adventures we've been having...I won't bore you with all the particulars, but here's a bit of advice: if you can at all help it, DON'T ever plan to move the week of Christmas!!  :-)

It has been quite challenging to try and keep Christmas traditions and activities intact while we have been consumed with packing out, cleaning and preparing the house for renters, taking care of all the many, many details involved with moving across the ocean, etc etc.  A HUGE thank you to all our friends who graciously watched our kids for so many hours while we were patching, painting, cleaning, sorting, and eliminating what was left after the packers came. 

In the middle of all the craziness was Steve's graduation from grad school and UH.  After a condensed, 18-month program he earned his MBA degree.  Congrats, honey!

We have so many stories of the crazy things that happened last minute (we can laugh about them now), including finally heading to the hotel in the evening of Christmas Eve, only to discover AFTER driving an hour into Waikiki that neither one of us had our wallets.  Our gas tank was on empty because we were shipping it the next day and it needed to only have a few gallons in it, so we had to bum $10 off the very kind gas station attendant to put enough gas in our van to drive back to our house (I hadn't had time to pack our luggage yet, so we just had a few overnight things) to pick up our wallets.  By that time it was after 8:00, and we were all starving. We drove into MacDonald's for a quick bite to eat....but it was closed for Christmas Eve.  Same with Burger King...and Wendy's.  We drove back into Waikiki, repaid the gas station attendant, found a Jack-In-The-Box that was open, and by 10:30 that night we were finally settled into our hotel room!  Beautiful.

 

The next morning, Christmas Day, we drove all the way BACK to our house, ate breakfast with Andrea and her family, and at around 10 am the kids were finally able to go see what Santa had left them in their stockings.  The were VERY excited about the giant candy cane lollipops.

We had made arrangements with Santa to deliver their actual gifts a few weeks after Christmas, when we finally get settled in Virginia.  The kids were surprisingly willing to wait, thankfully enough.  Their gifts from mom and dad were almost all winter clothes, surprise surprise...since Eliza was Hazel's age when we moved to Hawaii, and the other 2 kids were born there, we had practically nothing warm to dress them in!

 

 

It didn't matter to Hazel that the plastic was still on the lollipop...she had a great time with it anyway.

 

Here are Eliza and Hazel modelling their Christmas skirts...I made Eliza's a couple of years ago, when that darling fabric from Michael Miller first came out.  I had a little bit left for Hazel's skirt, which I paired with the super fun polka dots and stripes also from Michael Miller.  Hazel's skirt is definitely too long (oops - I forgot to measure her and I made it while she was napping), but hey- it should be just right next year!

 

Here's a goofy-faced Eliza expressing her boredom with posing for mommy...

 

Hyrum playing peekaboo in the bushes...

 

...and Hazel doing one of her favorite things - playing in the rocks.

 

Here she is trying desperately to see what is going on over at the neighbor's house - she could hear the kids having a great time over the fence.

 

 

I also FINALLY got my haircut last week, thanks to my friend Stacy.  I love it - it feels so good to have my hair off my neck, and it's just long enough to be able to pull back into a ponytail to get it off my face.

Since my tripod was already packed and gone, I pulled a mirror shot like Camille, who also showed us her new do like this (except her mirror was clean).

 

Here we are at the hotel, with Eliza showing us her beautiful snowflake she made with her new Connectagons set.  It was very tricky (gross understatement), by the way, to keep two rambunctious kids quiet for a few hours while baby Hazel was trying to take a nap in the same room and Steve was doing all the last minute things on the house and taking care of our vehicles. 

 

We went to dinner that night with Steve's brother Paul and his wife, Dale.  The kids were so wound up, they were absolutely crazy - I'm sure that everyone in the restaurant was glad to see us leave after so many spills, running around, hiding under the table, "speaking" in outside voices, etc. (sigh)  Every time we go out to eat (a few times a year), we always vow that we are not going to do that again for a very, VERY long time!

 

On the way up to our room on the 17th floor, the power went out and we were stuck in a pitch black elevator for a few minutes.  Not the best feeling in the world, to say the least.  I'm not typically a clausterphobic person, but that was not a comfortable scenario! 

Fortunately the power came back on momentarily, and we were able to make it up to our room before the power went out again,this time for good!  Apparently lightening had struck a few of the power centers (for lack of a better word) and they shut down the grids on the ENTIRE island all night long.  The emergency lights were operating in the hallways, so we went out there to open the gifts that Paul and Dale had so generously brought for us.  Thank you!

 

The power was out, but the weekly fireworks show (every Friday night) went on as usual!  Here's a tripod-less shot of the fun, as seen from our hotel room balcony.

 

On Saturday, we went to the local Aquarium.  My absolute favorite sea creatures are the jellyfish.  They are so mesmerizing with their pulsing, transparent phosphorescent forms drifting gently through the dark water.  I am just fascinated with the fact that they lack a brain and internal organs, and yet they move, eat, grow, glow, and reproduce.  I could sit and watch their graceful aquatic dance for hours...but since the kids, especially Hazel, had no intention of staying put for more than a few minutes, I had to settle for a few quickly snapped photos and it was off to find Hazel the explorer.

 

 

 

How would you like to come face to face with this huge "beauty" in the middle of the ocean?

Isn't it incredible how human-like its face is?

 

This picture doesn't show it, but those fish are actually HUGE - much bigger than the little boy in the foreground.  I couldn't get a good shot that accurately conveyed their real size.

 

I was intrigued by this little Sea Dragon - isn't it amazing?  The tank was dark to show how it glows, so I wasn't able to get a good shot of it without slowing down the shutter so much that the quick little creatures were blurry.  At least you can see all the amazing appendage-like fins it has.  It really does look like a dragon!

 

I am always amazed by the incredible array of colorful fish there are in the world...

 

The kids were very excited to see "Dory" fish (remember Nemo's friend?)

 

I love polka dots, and was especially entertained by this spotted beauty.  Every square inch of this guy is gloriously bedecked with spots.  How fun is that?

 

Hazel had such a fabulous time splashing at the pool - she LOVES the water.

 

 

Here are my other 2 fishies at home in their aquatic environment...it was good to get one more pool trip in before moving on to the land of winter.  Hopefully we can get Eliza involved in some sort of aquatic sport when we move to Virginia - she is already fairly proficient in all the strokes, it's so fun to see her demonstrate her skills. 

 

....and here they are, enjoying one last hug from Santa before leaving Hawaii. 

I hope you have all had a Merry Christmas, and may your New Year be full of fun times and cherished family memories!  Now it's time for me to sign off and play games with my family.  The cousins have had such a great time playing together, it's been a wonderful visit.  Now where is all that chocolate?  I've gotta get my fill before getting serious about some resolutions...I haven't written a single one down yet, so I figure I'm okay until tomorrow.  Isn't that how it works?  :-)  Happy New Year!

Snow in Hawaii, Part II

 

While the rest of the country is being pounded with unseasonable amounts of fluffy white stuff, this is still as close to snow as it gets here in Hawaii.  Yesterday I cut out some paper snowflakes and plan on doing a tutorial for you, but I have to touch up all the walls of our house with paint first, and repaint the kids' rooms because the color in there is anything but neutral, and hem the drapes...

 

So for now I just have time to quickly post these little lovelies.  I'm using my husband's laptop, and the color on his monitor is decidedly different than the monitor that is now all packed up and waiting in a crate somewhere, so I just wanted to post a little disclaimer on the color of these pics.  I have no idea what they really look like!

 

 

I adore snowflakes, I could make them for hours.  I probably would have made a lot more yesterday, but I ran out of paper.  I had set aside a big pile of white paper before the movers came because I knew I wanted to do this project, but between all of us we have depleted the whole stack. Time to go beg a few sheets off the neighbors so I can do a step by step tut for you!

 

 

 

I just love the infinite variety of snowflakes, both the real kind and the paper versions.  No two will ever be exactly alike.

 

Let it snow, Let it snow!!!

 

I also wanted to show you the, um, exhuberant gingerbread bows I made for Eliza a few years ago.  They're very festive, eh?  A little on the large side, but Eliza likes to wear them at Christmas time.

I'll try hard to get that tutorial for the snowflakes done before Christmas!  Thanks, by the way, for all the wonderful comments you have left in regards to the bag giveaway.  It is SO much fun to read what you have to say, I really enjoy hearing from you.  Just a few more days until I draw a lucky winner! 

Tick Tock, Tick Tock

 

What a week it has been!  Full of last-minute projects to finish before Monday (tick tock goes the clock).  With a sigh of relief, I was able to finish Hazel's stocking on Wednesday night.  An angel for my little angel baby (thanks, Fran, for the angel idea!).

 

Hazel's angel started like this....

 

Became a full-scale drawing like this.....

 

And ended up looking like this!  I had forgotten how time-consuming those little numbers are - it took me quite a few hours to make that stocking from start to finish.  I'm happy with the results though - and unfortunately, so is Eliza.  She likes it so much she wants me to give it to her and make a different one for Hazel.  Sorry, honey, no can do.  Besides, I love the teddy bear I made for her.  Hopefully she'll get over it soon.

 

This was yesterday's project - I finally finished the bag for Chris, my friend and Hyrum's preschool teacher.  I love that fabric by Amy Butler.

 

I'm almost done with this project:  staining our back lanai (patio).  Steve etched the cement and power washed it, we primed it with a very sticky primer, and I spent quite a bit of time staining it.  The tricky part was getting the transparent stain to look reasonably even with no obvious roller marks.  After the second coat it looked better, but some lines are still visible.  If I ever do this again, I'll use a big brush and do random strokes insead.  Now, after the rainstorm here is over, I need to put a clear topcoat on it.  Yes, we're good at putting off big projects until the last minute.  Which is why I still haven't hemmed any of the drapes in my house (they're just pinned), another project to do very soon!

 

I'm ALMOST done with all the window treatments for my neighbor's house - these are the last ones.  I need to take pictures before our computer gets packed up so I can show you how they turned out!

   

Now it's time to finish these....

 

....and say goodbye to these.  I need to start packing up my Christmas things that somehow managed to escape their storage spots for a few weeks.

Visions of Sugar anything

 

Don't you just love Christmas goodies?  I'm working on mine the earliest I ever have, because I lose my kitchen stuff on Monday!  Aack!  I'm also not doing my usual bake-a-thon this year, as I just can't deal with the mess and the time commitment said annual bake-a-thon creates.  This year I'm doing candy.  Simple, easy candy, with some store-bought things thrown in like the candy canes (of course) and the peppermint bark from Costco.  I haven't even started really packing anything in my house, because I'm in a mad dash to get everything made, sewn, and painted before Monday when the packers come.  Don't even get me started on all the things I still have to sew; this is a post about food....more specifically, CHOCOLATE!

 These are my new favorite candy to make, because they are so EASY!  I got this truffle recipe from, of all things, a food magazine put out by Kraft.  I wasn't expecting to find anything too impressive in there because, no offense to all the Velveeta lovers in the world, super-processed Kraft products are usually not on my list of favorite foods. 

HOWEVER, these truffles taste quite incredible considering how easy they were to make. 

All you do is cream an 8 oz block of cream cheese until light and fluffy (KitchenAid or equivalent recommended), then add 8 oz of melted semisweet chocolate.  (you can use the blocks sold in the little boxes, or just use chocolate chips, weighing them on a little kitchen scale like I did.  Or just melt about a cup and a half of chocolate chips and call it good.  This recipe is not rocket science).

Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least an hour.  Roll spoonfuls of the truffles into balls (watch out, this is very messy because the heat of your hands melts the cream cheese mixture immediately, so it gets a little gooey.  I ended up just sort of pressing the mixture into balls instead of rolling it), place on waxed paper-lined tray, and refrigerate again.

Meanwhile, over double boiler (or pyrex measuring cup resting in about 2 inches of water in a saucepan) gently melt 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips with 2 Tbls shortening (NOT butter, like I did the first time and it totally "seized" on me, the same thing that will happen when you get even 1 drop of water into the chocolate.  Seized means that the chocolate gets all grainy and clumpy instead of smooth).  This will be what you will dip the balls into.  The Kraft recipe said nothing about the shortening, I added that because the pure chocolate was just too thick and wasn't cooperating.

Take a little cocktail fork or two-pronged fork,  poke a chilled truffle ball, then dip it completely into melted chocolate.  Place back on waxed paper, sprinkle with finely chopped nuts, sprinkles, etc (I used peppermint flavored sprinkles) and chill.  These get soft really quickly when warm, they should be stored in the fridge. 

And there you go!  Homemade, heavenly balls of calories...I mean chocolate.  They really are incredibly smooth and luscious - you need to try this recipe!

 

With the leftover chocolate, I made these simple pretzels.  Hyrum had a great time helping me with this one.  He also had a great time eating the inventory, but who can blame him?  The crunchy, salty pretzel juxtaposed with the sweet, delectable chocolate is quite tempting.  I melted some white chocolate and made some with white chocolate too, then put the extra white chocolate in a ziploc baggie, snipped a tiny hole in one corner, and drizzled white chocolate over some of the dark chocolate pretzels. 

 

I STILL had some leftover melted chocolate, so I tossed some of those nugget pretzels into the melted chocolate until coated, laid them out on waxed paper, and did the white chocolate drizzle action on them as well.  They look like solid chocolate nuggets, but the pretzel interior keeps the guilt (and calorie count) down a little bit.  Unless you eat twice as many as you would have otherwise.  :-)

 

I packaged up several little boxes and tins with the goodies, which will have to do for the kids' gifts to their teachers this year, as well as treats for the neighbors.  Except for the bag I have yet to make for Hyrum's preschool teacher, who also happens to be a good friend of mine.  Guess I better stop blogging and start sewing, eh?

 

Here are the cute little goodie boxes, all packaged up and ready to go.  Now that I look at this photo, I'm thinking some extra ribbon embellishment is in order....well, maybe next year.  Time to get back to that sewing machine.

In Search of Smiles, Cheesy or otherwise

 

Ah, the joys of taking a family portrait!  My family hears the words "let's take a family photo!" and they all run and hide, screaming the whole way as they flee into their locked hiding places.  Ok, slight exaggeration; Hazel's too young to lock her own door.  But really, it is incredible how much effort such a seemingly simple thing requires. 

 

First, there's the scheduling aspect; since it's like pulling teeth to get everyone dressed up (and showered, hair fixed, etc) on any day other than Sunday, that limits things.  Then, since we have church for 3 hours in the morning,  the last thing the kids want to do is put their Sunday clothes back on at 5:00 pm, which is when the light is optimum for this sort of thing here in Hawaii.  As Sunday after Sunday has slipped by and still no Christmas portrait, I insisted that we had to do it today, even though we were feeding the missionaries at 5:00.  The plan was to take pictures starting at 4:30.

 

Well, I think you can all imagine how tricky that is to try and get dinner all ready to go, the kids dressed up (happily), and my own hair re-curled since it goes flat almost immediately in humid weather....which is why I almost never attempt to curl it at all, except for pictures.  I'm also in desperate need of a haircut (I haven't had one for over 6 months) so that doesn't help matters any!  :-)

 

Then, as I had to wake up Hazel from her nap (the poor girl was understandably fussy), I was thinking to myself, "Is this REALLY worth it?"  The kids were grumpy, the grown-ups were grumpy, and once again we had to do the photo thing in a big hurry because of other deadlines.  I think that's a huge part of the stress of the event - there's always something else going on and so time becomes of the essence.

Fortunately for me, my kids really were incredibly good sports about the photo shoot once we got started.  Hazel wasn't in too much of an amiable mood, but the two older kids were cheesing it up pretty well!  Not that you noticed, right? 

It was so funny to see Hyrum's canned photo smile; no matter how I tried to explain to him that he had a fake camera smile on and could he please just smile his usual charming grin (with jokes, tickles, goofy faces, and everything short of standing on my head and juggling 9 rainbow balls with my toes), he reverted to the canned cheese almost every time I raised the camera to my eye.

Ah, well, at least he wasn't crying or pouting, right?

 

I love these pics of Hyrum and Eliza being all chummy together - it's so nice to see them being happy and sweet to eachother, and I'm so excited to have it on "film" to prove to myself, during those inevitable contentious times, that they really are capable of getting along quite nicely!

 

Eliza, especially, was being very accommodating today - thanks sweetheart!  I really appreciate your ready smile.

 

Eliza loves her new Christmas dress.  I wanted to design it to be versatile both in temperature comfort and longevity of wear (meaning something she can wear after December 25th).  I made it into a jumper so she can wear either long or short sleeves (and because I didn't want to hassle with a store-bought pattern, set-in sleeves, zipper, neck facing, etc).  I made it entirely red and white with a Christmasy doo-da pinned on from the inside with little safety pins so I can make a different doo-da for Valentine's Day, 4th of July, etc. etc. 

 

I put 2 sections of elastic casings on the back so she can pull it on and off over her head with no zippers to mess with.  You can see that it pulls up a little too much where it joins with the straps, but oh well - chalk it up to trail and error.

 

Here's a close-up of the Christmasy doo-da that I pinned to the front.  The green fabric is a big yo-yo, and the middle circle is a fabric-covered button.  I have a tutorial for the bow doo-da on my sidebar, and here's a quick link.

For a tutorial on how to make a yo-yo, click Heather Bailey's site here.

 

If you haven't already taken your "Christmas Card Shot", good luck and may the "Cheerful Bugs" tickle your kid's funny bones at camera time!

Stress Relief

 

Some people deal with stress by eating, watching TV, exercising, etc. When I'm overwhelmed with things, I either sit there zoning out while the hundreds of things I should be doing swirl around in my head while I think to myself, "which one should I do first?" OR I work on something fun but completely unessential.

So, even though we have our moving sale tomorrow and I SHOULD be going through Eliza's room weeding out toys and clothes, I'm posting another clip of my holiday things and other projects.  At least I'm not attacking the ice cream, right?  Gotta look at the bright side.  :-)

  Actually, posting these stockings does have a bit of a purpose; I need to make a stocking for Hazel, and I'm stumped about what character to put on the front.  I'm hoping one of you will have a great idea for what to make for my sweetie pie baby girl.

These kind of felt stockings were a tradition in my family growing up, and my talented mother made all of us beautiful stockings that we used our entire childhood.  She made an angel for my stocking, maybe she was hoping that I would eventually turn into one??  Sorry, mom, I guess that didn't exactly pan out.  :-)

You may recognize the bear on Eliza's stocking - it's from Suzy's Zoo.

   

My stocking is a pseudo-successful rendition of Toot and Puddle, my most favorite pigs of all time (with the possible exception of Olivia).

 

I couldn't resist doing something helicopterish for Steve, as he's a helo pilot and all. 

So now, I need to make Hazel a stocking and I can't seem to think of the perfect thing.  Anybody have any ideas?

 

I had to share these fun little numbers with you - my SIL gave them to me several years ago, and I just LOVE them.  They're so fun, and will be a great momento to remind us of our years spending Christmas over here.  Thanks, Janelle!

 

 

Here's another holiday sign I painted long ago.  I think this was my first one!

 

Whoa, something that's not red and green!!  Shocker, I know.  This is a little outfit I just finished for a friend who had her baby awhile back, and I'm just now coming through with a gift for her. 

 

I just love the brown and pink combo, don't you?  It's so playful and feminine.

 

Here's the extent of my outdoor decorating this year.  Ah, well - at least it's something!  The kids just love Christmas lights, and they love to go out and plug these in as the day's light fades.  There's something so exciting and, well, glowy (is that a word?) about Christmas lights.  Makes me feel happy and peaceful to see them.

Lights All Aglow

 

Here's our drop-dead-gorgeous REAL tree this year (I'm referring to the tree itself, not the ornaments...or the tiny little strand of popcorn tucked into the middle of the tree...see it?)  Those of you who read my earlier posts will now see why I gushed so enthusiastically about our lovely noble fir tree.  It makes me happy just looking at it.

We haven't gotten very far with the kids' paper ornaments or the token little popcorn strand...I had drawn out designs for the kids to color and cut out, which they did enthusiastically for about 20 minutes and then, well, that's about all one can expect from a 4 and a 6 year old.  I haven't had time to make any more popcorn strands to add to the one we did as a family the other night, with limited success (see Snow post below), and I don't think we'll have time to get around to it, either, with our moving sale this Saturday and the packers coming the week after.  The red plastic balls and occasional candy cane will have to do this year. 

I unwrapped all the ornaments to take the photos for my previous post, but then rewrapped them with double the tissue paper to prepare them for the big move.  I know there won't be time to do that next week, and I want them to be safe!

 

I thought I'd better take a picture of the Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas in Hawaiian) sign that I painted years ago, as I'll be selling that soon.  It's hard to see how big it is in this picture - it's about 6 feet long.  I have it suspended from the eave of our house.

   

Since I'm not doing any decorating outside this year, I thought I'd include some pics of when I went all out decorating in our previous house here on island.  These were taken about 4 years ago.  When it doesn't get cold during the Holidays, people tend to do a little more excessive decorating to make it feel "Christmas-y".  I am definitely no exception!

These were my big snowy friends who graced our rocking chairs for 4 years.  They have a new owner now, as we are moving to the land of real snowpeople!  To make them, I just sewed large white tubes, gathered them at the top, lined them with quilt batting, and stuffed them with crumpled newspapers.  I tied string around the sections to create the body sections, and added felt features.  The noses were made from toilet paper tubes cut into a cone shape, then covered with orange felt.  To store them I removed all the crumbled paper = much smaller space requirements that way.

 

This is my nativity scene that I painted several years ago.  It's a piece of MDF board with pressboard "shingles" nailed and glued to the "roof".  All the stars (you can see them in the yard pics above) were cut out of pressboard and painted.  Quite a job!  The backs of the stars have a little block of wood glued to them, with a little hole drilled in the block of wood for the bamboo skewer to be inserted into the block of wood.  Yes, I was crazy to have spent so much time on those decorations.  :-)

 

...and here we have my eager little gingerbread house makers.  This is a tradition that the kids REALLY look forward to, and they take great delight in placing all the candy onto the frosting.  They also take great delight in eating the frosting and the candy, of course.  Thank you, Costco, for making gingerbread house kits!  All the fun, none of the hassle.

It's Ornamental, my dear.....

 

Through the years I've made a LOT of ornaments...most of which I've given away to family and friends, but from most series (every year I do a different themed ornament; one year it was mittens, another year stars, etc) I've kept some examples of my own.  I've also tried to make at least one ornament for each child every year, with their name and the year written on the back of it so that when the kids grow up and leave the house, they can take their own collection of ornaments with them to begin their own traditions with. 

 

It's so much fun to unwrap each little ornament and see what it is, while memories from Christmases past come rushing in.  I used to love doing that when I was a girl, and hopefully my kids will be excited to see ornaments from when they were little too.

 

As you can probably see, these mitten ornaments are pretty tiny.  It was pretty tricky to get the snowflake details just right - I had to use a toothpick to pick up the tiny little strips of Sculpey clay and position them properly. 

Any of you who have worked with Sculpey also know about the inherent "dangers" of the red clay...the color comes off on your hands and fingers, and then when you touch the white clay it stains it red!  Yes, I learned about that the hard way...

 

I think the mitten series has to be one of my favorites.

 

These stockings were really fun to do too...actually to tell you the truth the stripes on the one in the foreground really drove me crazy to finish - it's pretty tedious, but the results are sure fun!  I love the colors of these ones, even if they're not traditional Christmas colors.

 

Another snowflake ornament.  After I started it I was wishing that I had just done one big snowflake in the middle = it's really tricky (and time consuming) to work that small!

 

At our house we usually have two trees - one with all the randomly colored ornaments, like the one at right, and one that changes from year to year based on a color scheme or theme. 

 

Eliza was really big into ballet a year or two ago, so one year I made her these ballet slippers.

 

This was Eliza's first ornament (back when I had more time, obviously).  It's an unfortunate mix of styles (I'm thinking a cross between Wallace & Grommet and, um, Botticelli?) which is regrettable, but by the time I put the Wallace-esque face on I had already spent so much time on it that I just went with it.  The homage to Wallace, by the way, was unintentionally done - that was NOT the look I was aiming for!  :-)

 

More ornaments for the kids....

 

This one is for Hyrum, and he was very excited to pick out his own colors.

Hyrum LOVES trains, and has for years.  I think I made this 2 years ago, and he's still very excited about it.

 

I did a series of angels for everyone the first year Steve and I were married.  I made them with all different hair colors, styles of dresses, and I think wing shapes too. 

I always think of our first year together when I see this one.

 

This sweet little Teddy is one of my all-time favorites!  He took me a good little while to make, but I just love the little guy...and his little teddy bear too!  I did this one (and the ones shown below) based on the characters of Suzy's Zoo.  Remember those cute little animals?  I loved them.

 

Here's that cute little turtle.  I made this one with bread-glue dough, back in the days before I knew about Sculpey clay.  The colors have faded quite a bit, even with the topcoat of lacquer.

 

...and here we have Mr. Walrus.  He was made with salt dough, which was always tricky for me to work with because the dough would always puff up and distort when it was baked, so things never looked the same when they were done.  This guy doesn't seem to mind.

 

I used a ceramic cookie press to get the snowflake images on these clay discs, and then I added all the little pinprick dots and the golden border.

 

One year I made a series of star ornaments, all in white.  I put them on a tree with white seashells and seastars, glass icicles and red glass ornaments.  It was a gorgeous tree.

 

Another one from my white star series.

 

I didn't make these, but my Dad did!  These are just a few (you can't really tell, but they're 2 different sizes) of the ornaments my Dad sells as part of his business, Design In Metal.  You can order them directly from him if you're interested.

 

I didn't make this one either (Hallmark did) but it's one of my favorites.  I just love the clean lines and the fun little details of this white, gift-laden deer.

 

These are store-bought too - aren't they so much fun?  We just had to have some ornaments that will remind us of our time spent here in Hawaii.

 

Mr. Snorkel Santa...

 

...and of course Mr. Shaka Santa (shaka is the gesture the locals make with their hand, with the pinky and the thumb sticking out).  Santa needs to work on his shaka a little more.

 

And, finally, to wrap the post up, we have my fading, bread-glue-dough rendition of my all-time, absolute favorite characters ever; the immortal Calvin and Hobbes.  Always up to something, those two.

Have a merry tree-decorating time, if you haven't done it already!

Let the Season Begin

 

Oh, how I love the holidays!  Remember in my last post how I said I wasn't going to do any decorating this year?  Well, I just....couldn't.....help.....it.  I had braved the attic storage where my 15 or so Christmas boxes are tucked away in order to find the lights for the tree, and once I started looking at all the fun things I just had to bring a few of them down to enjoy for a couple of weeks. 

 

Besides, I had to do SOMETHING with the extra fir branches I was able to glean from Home Depot's recycle box when we bought our tree.  They were just tossing the cut-off branches in a big box, and they kindly let me scavenge.  I was laughing at myself at how excited I got about those branches.  You'd think I had won the lottery or something.  But let me explain....

 

When I was growing up, as Christmas time rolled around we would go out with a big box and snip fir and cedar branches from the trees in our little forest out back.  The trees were so fragrant, and the branches so fresh (they were also cold, wet, and a bit muddy, but let's not ruin the nostalgic moment with too much reality here) that I always enjoyed the rather lengthy task of making wreaths and garlands for our house and as gifts.

When we moved here to Hawaii, I quickly realized with dismay that, at Christmastime, none of that walking into the backyard and clipping evergreen branches was remotely possible.  (oh, the agony!)  This is the first year that I've had REAL fir branches to play with in 5 years, so hopefully that will explain a little bit of my giddy reaction.

 

Just in case you're wondering, all the wreaths in these pics are from fake garland strands.  I just save them, decorations and all, from year to year = huge timesaver!  The branches scattered about on the table are real though, as you can probably tell.

 

I just had to bring out a portion of my Santa collection.  It's a little tight with them all crammed together here, but I don't have time to decorate the whole house - I'm limiting myself to the two front rooms, and only on horizontal surfaces out of Hazel's reach.  So no garland on the staircase bannisters, no huge collection of Christmas plates and things above the cabinets in the kitchen, no garlands draped from every doorway and window, no wreath on every door, and no lights or decorations outside (sigh).  But hey - at least it only took me a day to decorate instead of my usual week!  That's definitely a plus.

 

Here are some happy Santas doing their Santa thing...

 

.....and Mr 12-Days-of-Christmas Santa is among my favorites.  I was able to buy him at a steep discount because the crook of his staff was broken off, which didn't matter to me!  I love Jim Shore's figurines.

 

I couldn't pass these candles up at Pier1 this year.  I love to look around at that store every Christmas for ideas.  I'm not the type that buys anything bigger than little incidentals from stores like that (unless it's on sale) but it's sure fun to look!

 

More bright baubles in Santa's sleigh...

 

I made this garland from my precious fir branches.  The Believe sign was a very lucky find at Ross, and I've had the nutcrackers for quite awhile now.  My other nutcrackers are still tucked away in a box.  Poor things, they're probably lonely.  :-)

 

The short black "stand" that the cranberry ball is resting on is just a glass tealight holder that I spraypainted black, inside and out, and placed upside down.  Remember that from the stack of tiered plates that I assembled for Halloween?  Yup, I love a decoration that is versatile and able to disassemble (is there a word for that?  Somehow disassemble-able just doesn't sound right, nor does it roll off the tongue.  At all).

 

More repurposed glassware; the one hiding in the back is a glass sundae dish turned upside down.  I need to get some holiday photos of Hazel in some of my frames!  The poor girl is definitely under-represented.

I've actually been waiting and waiting for the opportunity to take our Christmas portraits.  I finished the clothes awhile ago, but it has either been raining, someone's been really sick, and/or Hyrum has scars or scabs on his face from various incidents with his friend's skateboard, his scooter, etc.  Hopefully we'll all be presentable soon!

 

 

 

 

This is a sign I painted a few years ago, and I usually have it displayed with my porcelain nativity scene.  That is going to have to stay under wraps this year (there's no way I'm trusting the packers to put all those precious little figurines back where they go safely!  I've heard too many stories of the chuck-everything-in-a-box method that some of them use.  We were lucky when we moved from Oregon to Hawaii, but I'm not taking any chances with my more fragile little Christmas decorations that need a lot of time and care to put away properly).

Hint:  if you every plan on writing/painting with gold paint over a black background, be prepared to paint many, many coats of the gold.  It was quite a chore, but I'm happy with the results.

 

Here is another one I did several years back...

 

 

This is our new advent calendar.  Isn't it fun?  I bought it at Target on the way home from my househunting trip (as there is no Target (!!!!) here on island...yet.  The first one is due to open a month or two after we leave, and if ever a store has been long-awaited, Target surely has.  That place is going to be absolutely mobbed when it opens, and its shelves will be stripped bare.  I'm not kidding, I assure you!  Since the shipping takes so long here, when a store runs out of something it's at least 6 weeks before it's back in stock again, if ever.  I'm so excited that there are 5 (whoopee!) Targets within a few miles' radius where we are moving in Virginia.  I know that probably sounds ridiculous to get so excited over such a thing, but trust me - living without a Target for 5 years has been a trial.  :-)

 

Oh, it's really late and I'm too tired to post any of the ornaments that I took pictures of today (and put them back in their safe little places, due to packer paranoia syndrome and to keep them out of the curious clutches of baby Hazel).  I'll just have to let this picture give you a little sneak peek of what is to come.  Have a great day!

Snow in Hawaii + Yam Recipe

 

Okay, okay, I lied about the snow in Hawaii...but the kids were pretending that this popcorn was snow!  We got our Christmas tree today, which, by the way, is the most gorgeous noble fir I have ever seen.  Usually they're a little on the sparse side, but this one is so incredibly full that I get giddy just looking at it.  I'm not kidding.  It looks like a fake tree it's so perfect. 

But fake trees don't have the intoxicantingly pungent evergreen fragrance that now graces the air in our house.  I walk around taking deep breaths like I'm huffing or something.  :-)  Don't make fun of me - I grew up in Oregon, land of evergreen trees and the capital of Christmas tree farms (our tree this year is from, you guessed it...Oregon).  Every whiff of that sharp, sweet scent of noble fir brings a million memories rushing back of my childhood days....

But I digress.  Since our things are being packed up mid-month, I'm not decorating our tree with our usual array of handmade ornaments and fancy store-bought ones.  I keep having to force myself not to decorate for Christmas, but it's really, really hard not to.  Especially now that I actually have a blog to post pretty pictures of all the decorations I've made through the years!  I have a few photos of previous years, I think I'll have to sneak those in.

 

We are going to decorate our tree this year with edible or paper ornaments and decorations, so I thought I'd get the kids to help me make some popcorn strings like my family did every year when I was little.  As you can see by the pics, my kids are still a little too young.  Hazel made a concerted effort to make sure that every piece of popcorn was thrown/spilled onto the floor (note empty bowl at her side), and Eliza played vacuum cleaner instead of threading popcorn (see first photo above).  Hyrum did his best for the first foot or two of his string, then he thought it was very funny to crush the popcorn already on his string until it fell off. 

 

When Hazel decided she wanted to spread her carpet of popcorn all over our house (is she being contrary because the poor kid is still sick with a nasty virus, or is she just being a toddler?), and after Eliza tired of being a vaccuum cleaner, I got the broom out and swept up all of our "snow".  Our tree sure looks great with our 2-foot-long popcorn garland, I can assure you!

...and now for that Yam recipe I promised you (the one I make every Thanksgiving and Christmas):

6 or 7 whole yams (the kind with orange flesh)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar, PLUS 3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup milk (or a little more if mixture looks too thick for your taste - keep in mind that it will set up after cooking a bit due to the eggs)

4 eggs

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon, plus optional dashes of nutmeg, ground cloves, allspice, ground ginger, etc.  The usual spices in autumn food...add as desired in quantities you prefer

2 tsp vanilla

Okay; now for the directions.  Simmer (with lid on pot) whole yams, skin on and with water covering all the yams, until they are extremely soft and tender and skins are falling off.  Drain; let cool for awhile until you can handle them.  Slip skins off, then mash with electric mixer or KitchenAid.  I use the wire attachment that is intended to whip cream or merengue, as it catches a lot of the fibrous strings that are in the yams.  When those strings build up on your paddle/wire attachment, don't scrape back into the mashed yams!  Discard the stringy fibers.

Add all the above ingredients to the hot mashed yams, then put into LARGE casserole dish.  Now for the crust  (I'm a girl who likes a lot of topping, but if you don't you can reduce these amounts):

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 cups coconut

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

2 cups chopped pecans

Mix all topping ingredients (using one's hands works best) in large bowl, then sprinkle onto yam mixture.  Don't press down crust ingredients too hard - it's better if it's crumbly.  Bake at 375 for 30 to 45 minutes, until golden brown.  If the crust starts getting too dark (like mine did in the photo of my previous post) place a piece of foil loosely over top of dish until the yams get heated thoroughly and the eggs have a chance to finish working their magic.

There you have it!  Dessert masquerading as a vegetable.  Perfect. 

ps This recipe produces a dish big enough for a huge crowd; you can reduce it by half and still feed at least 6 to 10 people....but then there wouldn't be any leftovers, would there?  Enjoy!

Back at last

Hi everyone, it feels like forever since I've posted anything...probably because it has been!  I was gone for a week, and then it took me a few days to settle back into the daily routine of things...or at least as "daily routine" as one can get with 2 days until Thanksgiving and less than 3 weeks until all our things are packed up and whisked away! 

Hazel and I had a great time househunting in Virginia, and she did just great on the plane rides, despite the 14 hour and 16 hour transit periods coming and going.  I'm so grateful she's such a good kid!  A huge thanks as well to Lauren and her husband for putting up with me all week long, and to Amy and her family for inviting me to their house too!  It was great to see you all again.

I spent every day researching and viewing homes, to the point of being rather exhausted about the whole thing.  We ended up finding a nice rental in a good school district, with the added benefit of being relatively close to transit options and a 2 car garage (a precious commodity over there).  It backs to trees, which is a wonderful thing, and there's a level backyard for the kids to play in.  Hooray for that!  I got to wear sweaters and coats for the first time in years, which was great (I know, simple minds, simple pleasures) and Hazel and I both loved going outside and feeling the exhilirating nip in the air.  One day it even snowed a tiny bit, which was very exciting!

Here is one thing I'm grateful for today:  water-based markers!  The kids were having a great time playing together nicely (I felt like videotaping it for posterity, just to prove that they do indeed get along really well once in awhile!)  Since they were getting along so well, I wasn't paying very close attention to what exactly they were doing...and then I saw why they were so happy...

 

They were so proud of their skillful application of color - it was so funny!  And in the tub it came right off - I'm so glad they didn't use my stash of permanent pens (which I have stored up very high in a cupboard for fear of what they might be used for in the hands of the kiddos). 

 

Since I'm losing my sewing machine in a few weeks, I've been scrambling to finish all the Christmas gifts and projects that I've promised to help people with before packout day.  These are some little gifts I made for my darling little nieces and nephew.  I just love the peppermint candy fabric, don't you?  These are going to be "open before Christmas" gifts, so they can sport their holiday duds before the big day.

   

The girls, I hope, are going to have such fun time wearing their aprons while helping their mommy make Christmas goodies.  They LOVE to help in the kitchen.

 

A Christmas skirt for sweet little Ellie...

 

...and a very odd-shaped candy cane toy for baby Niko!  I learned a few lessons on how stuffed objects behave in 3-D with this one.  I drew out the pattern like this:

 

I discovered that I need to study what will happen when things are stuffed a little more carefully!  I should have rounded the top edges of the candy cane more and made the crook part of it angle outward to compensate for the unforseen inward bend it naturally took when stuffed.  I think next time I'd also cut it out so the stripes are at an angle.  Fortunately, baby Niko is not a picky person, and he will hopefully love to hold, chew, and throw his little toy regardless of its quirky shape.

I have lots more to post of things I've been working on for my neighbor's house, but I have to finish them first!