Author Archives: Leslie

Three Handmade Ornaments to Give or Keep

Posted on December 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

When I heard the call for handmade ornament donations from the Del Ray Artisans for their Fine Art & Craft Holiday Market, my creative wheels started spinning. I’ve contributed a few of my creations to the sale, and in the process, came up with some projects that the kids could do too. In fact, these projects are suited to a range of skill levels: easy requiring very little crafting know-how to slightly more involved projects requiring simple crochet, hand sewing, knitting, and embroidery work.

Yarn Basket with Tiny Knitting Needles

Using scrap yarn, I followed this free Ravelry pattern. I didn’t bother with a gauge and used whatever worsted weight scrap yarn seemed appealing. After doing the first one, I improvised a bit on the length and height of the baskets until it looked right to me.

With more scrap yarn, some fingering weight (thinner), I rolled tiny balls and glued the ends down with craft glue. The girls helped me glue tiny beads to the ends of toothpicks. I broke the toothpicks in half so they’d fit in the baskets nicely. They’re delicate but precious and will hopefully sell well at the Holiday Market.

Simple Embroidery Hoops

We have tons of embroidery floss from Ana’s many friendship bracelet kits, so I thought this project would make a nice addition to the Del Ray Artisans holiday sale. I bought several of the smallest embroidery hoops I could find and thought we could use some of the felt we already had from the advent calendar project.

It’s hard to draw a design on felt, I discovered, so I did the lettering free-hand using simple running stitches. As a result, my circles are a bit askew. I guess I’ll keep this one for our tree! I think it might be easier to use colored backing instead of felt so you can trace a design on it first.

Nonetheless, I tried my hand at making Rudolph with red ornaments in his antlers. I think this one turned out better.

DIY Kids: Woven Stars

This is an idea from one of my favorite kids crafting site, Crafty Crow. After trying out the idea, we colored the cardboard using silver spray paint. We only sprayed one side of a cereal box and then cut out the circles. After that, I scored the outside with small cuts every half inch or so.

Ana and Nadja each took different colors of embroidery floss and wound it around the circles, making star designs.

We added a little loop on the top and we now have some unique little ornaments for our tree.

If you want more ideas for holiday projects to do with kids, here are some old school crafts we did last year.

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, Holidays

Tagged embroidery, felt, handmade, holiday, kids, ornaments, yarn

Handmade Advent Calendars to Use Year After Year

Posted on December 3, 2012 | 4 Comments

Every year, I think I’d like to make an advent calendar to use year after year. I finally did, but just under the wire. I finished it Friday night, the last day of November. Katie got in on the action too and made one to hang on Saturday, the first day on the countdown to Christmas.

Katie’s Upcycled Advent Calendar

The goal for my Advent calendar was to use supplies I had on hand and spend as little money as possible. My inspiration came from pinterest using clothespins and small packages made out of paper. I had to buy the clothespins, but that was okay because I can find other uses for them after Advent.

I wanted to secure the clothespins to a board, but I didn’t have a piece of scrap wood the right size, so I opted to use an empty picture frame and some string. To secure the string to the frame, I purchased 6 picture framing hooks from the hardware store for $.37/each.

I followed an origami tutorial to make the envelopes. The paper was from an old 2011 calendar that I found last year in the deep discount section of Paper Source in Old Town. I bought the calendar at the end of the year with the idea that I would repurpose the colorful pages for craft projects.

I also used plain red and green cardstock we had in our art cabinet and glued mini snowflakes on each one

Every day, the kids will find chocolate coins in each envelope. I ran out of time to be creative with the treats, but the coins from Trader Joe’s are just fine. After opening each one, we flip the envelope and clothespin upside down so you can easily tell what day you are on.

Although I needed to purchase a few supplies, I made good use out of an unused picture frame (the glass broke when I tried to frame something a few years ago) and the remnants of a 2011 calendar. Using cardstock means the envelopes are very sturdy and should be usable next year as well. After Christmas, we might keep the frame up on the wall and use it to post photos and postcards.

Leslie’s Felt Advent Calendar

I love the contemporary, clean look of this pattern from the Purl Bee. And now that I feel more confident in my sewing skills since I had a lesson from Katie, and I love embroidery, I went for it.

I bought the felt for the pockets on Etsy. Then, I hand embroidered the numbers before sewing the pockets just as the pattern called for.

I taped the pockets to the backing leaving about 3 inches in between rows to make room for presents to stick out of the top. I then sewed the pockets onto the back.

I doubled up the two pieces of wool felt that I bought for the backing and added a blanket stitch around the sides. Then, I sewed a couple of tabs to the top and stuck in a knitting needle to use for the hanger (just like in the pattern).

I’m buying little gifts a few at at time for the girls, like peppermint lip gloss, Japanese character erasers, stick-on star earrings, and candy. I put the gifts in at night for them to find in the morning. I couldn’t trust the youngest to keep her hands off the pockets if I filled in all of the days ahead of time!

Have you been busy making an Advent calendar? Do you have any Christmas traditions you celebrate year after year?

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Posted in Arts & Crafts, Holidays, Living with Kids

Tagged advent, calendar, christmas, embroidery, felt, paper, upcycling

Winter Planting As an Act of Faith

Posted on November 30, 2012 | 2 Comments

Would you plant this?

I should rephrase that. Would you buy it and then plant it? My neighbor Elin did with the absolute faith and certainty that the plant will emerge in the spring healthy and green and beautiful. Her trust comes from knowing that the nursery where she purchased the plant is Nature by Design, a terrific native plant nursery tucked away off of Calvert Street in Del Ray.

The owners really know their stuff and they’ll go to great lengths to educate customers about native plant choices. In a nutshell, native plants are desirable because they meet the needs, including food and cover, of native wildlife without causing long-term damage to local plant communities. When I wanted to find butterfly and bee attracting plants that are shade-loving and native, they emailed me a long list of options.

When you buy plants in the late fall, early winter, like us, you’re rushing to get something in the ground before the first frost. So, you buy something that looks half dead, and imagine in your mind, the splendid specimen you’ll see during the growing season.

Many of the plants are dormant, the leaves and flowers have dried up, turned brown, or fallen off, or the nursery staff has pruned the plant back, but the roots are moist and healthy. This way, the plants are conserving their foliage and flower development in favor of root growth. The plant will produce blooms of new growth in the spring.

These past few weeks the nursery is blanketed in maple leaves, so you have to do little hand raking to get to what’s underneath. Luckily, the plants for sale are well labeled.

On my plant-shopping excursion with Elin, I bought two ferns that actually look like ferns now.

I also bought two climbing vines. One will grow up and cover the unsightly white gutter extension I rigged up to drain into the rain barrel when I moved the barrel farther away from the house.

The vine is called the Carolina Red-Berried Moonseed (Cocculus carolina). Next year at this time, it will have juicy red berries.

And since we have a certified backyard habitat, we now have another food source for many types of berry-loving birds, such as mockingbirds, cardinals, and white-throated sparrows.

The other, that sorry-looking brown plant near the fence, will grow up the metal trellis near the bird bath. (I choose to believe it will — the reward is just too great!)

This native climbing vine, Clematis virginiana, is from the buttercup family and will produce profuse white clusters of small white flowers.

I picked a wild red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) for the shade garden too. This native beauty is also in the buttercup family. The tubes have nectar that attracts long-tongued insects and hummingbirds, so I fully expect my back patio to be teaming with insects (plus a few mosquitoes I’m sure) and birds next summer!

Finally, I couldn’t resist picking a few of the wild leeks, also know as ramps (Allium tricoccum), members of the lily family.

They’ll make their appearance in early spring and as their name suggests and taste like mild onions or leeks. The bulbs and foliage can be used in soups and salads.

I didn’t know this, but there are “ramp festivals” held in regions where the plants are plentiful in spring. In late May, in the highlands of southwest Virginia, the annual Whitetop Mountain Ramp Festival includes music performed by local players‚ crafts‚ games‚ mountain dancing‚ a ramp eating contest‚ and barbecued chicken flavored with ramps. May be worth a road trip, or perhaps I’ll have my own small backyard festival.

Nature by Design is open through December 23. After January 7, they’ll be open by appointment as weather permits. Get there while the getting’s good!

For more about this small, independently run nursery, read this article by Dana, a columnist for the Del Ray Patch.

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Posted in Garden/Outdoors

Tagged plants winter native vines ferns ramps

Fun, Creative, and Memorable Holiday Photo Cards

Posted on November 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

It’s not an easy feat to get a nice family portrait during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

Believe me, I’ve been there, with the camera propped on a chair on auto-timer, and the husband, squirmy kids, and the family pet ready to make a dash for it. But, if you don’t want to hire a professional (that’s a great idea too), there are ways to create a nice portrait of you, your kids, or the whole family to use in your holiday cards.

Spontaneous Group Shots

My most favorite family shots have been ones I’ve asked a friend to take on the spur of the moment. Here’s one of our family on a visit to Rockefeller Center.

Do an On-Location Shoot with a Camera-Savvy Friend

One year, my brother-in-law used our camera to take photos of us in various locations in Old Town. Old Town is a great local location since you can stroll up many of the quaint cobblestone streets. We used one of the Shutterfly templates to display some of the shots. I should have told everyone in the card that I was expecting baby number two in these photos instead of just looking a bit larger than usual around the middle.

Simulate a Photo Booth on Your Computer

If you have a Mac, you can use the Photo Booth app to create 4 or 5 individual images that look like you were in an actual photo booth. Or you can take photos with the camera on a tripod and timer. You can use a photo editing program like PhotoShop to simulate a photo strip or you can use a free online program like Mosaic Maker to arrange the photos in a vertical column. I love how blogger Stephanie Ford packaged her family photo strip to mail in long narrow boxes.

This is one of the family strips we made back when Ana was 4 and we still had a cat.

Create a Handmade Montage of Photos from the Year

Our friends do a montage of photos from the year of their kids. Their Mother takes images she prints out on the computer, creates a handmade collage, and then makes color photo copies on nice paper. Every year, she includes the phrase “Peace & Joy.”

You can also create a nice montage of photos from the year using one of the templates from a photo sharing site, like Shutterfly or Snapfish. Quite honestly, that’s the technique I use when all else fails. Yet, it may be one of the best ideas of all. It lets friends and family see through images what you’ve been up to all year.

Stage a Fun Photo of the Kids

Last year, I asked the girls to sit on the couch and then draped Christmas lights over them. It was a sweet photo to include in a Shutterfly template.

I also took the same portrait of Katie’s boys:

The trick to making this shot work is having the room dark enough to allow the Christmas lights to shine brightly, but light enough to expose the children well. I shot the best one at a 1,000 ISO, f 2.8, shutter speed of 1/30. So a really slow shutter, wide lens opening, and fast sensor setting. A tripod would help you keep the image clear especially with squirmy kids.

Embrace the Chaos

Dana deserves a major award for persistence, determination, and a sense of humor in her quest to stage the same photo of her kids every year. She dresses them in their Christmas outfits and has them sit on her front stoop on in front of a white picket fence. She has great attitude about the near impossibility of getting the perfect shot (her son Tobias looks like he’s belting out a Christmas carol here) and why she nevertheless keeps up the tradition.

“I liked the idea of having photos in the same spot from one year to the next as a way to track the kids growth and such. The challenge, obviously, is with three, then four (!) little ones, they’re not always willing to look at the camera. I don’t consider that a problem, though. Our family isn’t perfect and I don’t expect a photograph to show anything different. I rather like the photos where they’re NOT looking at me, where their personalities come out.”

In fact, one of the series of “outtakes” that she used one year was a huge hit with friends and families. “One year, the photo shoot went so spectacularly off the rails that I decided to use a collection of the more outrageous outtakes,” she says.

“We got lots of compliments on that one. People thought it was a hoot. I also made a pretty funny video of the behind-the-scenes variety on my blog.” For a big laugh, I’d also recommend her post on another year’s series of outtakes.

More Inspiration

I often look around on the Web sites of professional photographers to see some of the props they use in holiday photos. This blogger compiles some great examples of shots using props like fake snow and sleds and includes a few DIY tutorials and other photography tips.

Also, this year, we’re going to take turns taking photos with another family. So, they’ll do some shots of our family and then, we’ll take some of them.

Do you have any tips or stories to share about your holiday photo shoots?

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Posted in Holidays

Tagged christmas cards, holiday, photography, portraits