Ready for Take-off!

We are leaving tomorrow morning for our vacation to London and Paris. I am so anxious and ready to go. To keep the kids engaged in our sight-seeing I picked up two small journals to bring along with us each day, some colored pencils for taking notes/drawing and London and Paris themed stickers as well. I am also bringing a roll of scotch tape so they can attach ticket stubs and other mementos in their little travel books. My plan is to bring out the journals at different locations and write down questions about sites we see/foods we taste/etc. and to have the kids write down/draw their observations or favorites. For example, at the Louvre I might ask Jane to draw her own version of her favorite painting. I am also bringing along some of our Paddington Bear stories for the plane and some Madeline coloring pictures to set the mood and get the kids excited about the places we'll be visiting. Anyway, I'll be back to blogging later this month. Take care everyone. Now off to finish packing!

Felt Roadway

The other day I decided to use up some scraps of felt to make this little hand-sewn roadway for Clark's cars. It is very portable and folds up nicely to take along to church or on an airplane. I included a little felt mailbox with a letter, a gas pump with hose and a bridge to drive through. Be sure to follow the speed limit and to stop at the stop sign.

Violet's Portrait

If you remember back to Christmas, this little doll from Bla Bla Kids was our big splurge for Jane this year. She has turned out to be worth every penny and is now an official member of the family. This morning Jane drew this portrait of her doll. I love it and had to share it with you.

Homemade Children's Backpacks

Our trip is a week away and I am figuring out what to pack on the plane to entertain the children (2 1/2 and 4 1/2) all the way to London! Finding the right balance between bringing enough toys and books and having to haul around a seriously heavy carry-on is quite tricky. Since we will be sleeping through a red-eye; I decided to allow the kids to bring one small stuffed animal/doll and one small blanket on the plane with them. I will be in charge of books, toys, activities and snacks and the kids can each carry-on their own backpack with the animal and blanket of choice. Jane has a small preschool size backpack which won't hold much and Clark has a small stuffed animal backpack which holds even less.

Aha! I remembered seeing a simple children's backpack tutorial on Martha Stewart awhile back. After some serious searching, I found the tutorial I was looking for: "The Easy Beach Bag". So I used some boy fabric and girl fabric I had in my stash (I used two pieces of cotton rather than lining the inside with waterproof nylon) and made two little backpacks for the children to take with them on our trip. The directions are super simple and the bags took me maybe an hour tops. The only thing I had to purchase was the cording ($4 at Walmart for two packages) so the packs were virtually free and I love the way they turned out. I appliqued their initials on with coordinating fabric to give them a little more personality (using Heat 'n Bond). The children are excited to wear them and they'll be perfect for our travels!

Craft & Creativity's New Home Tour on Flickr

I stumbled upon the flickr account for Craft & Creativity which features photos of her beautiful new home: a remodeled 1940's house in Sweden. I absolutely love her bedroom with the beautiful floral wallpaper and white bedding and her daughter's pretty and playful rooms as well as her large craft studio and work space. Sigh. Check out her photos for decorating inspiration.

This is London, This is Paris

We have two and a half weeks until our trip to London and Paris. I am trying to think up ways to get the kids excited about the things we will see and do. I have always been a fan of M. Sasek's travel picture books for children so I purchased This is London and This is Paris and presented the books to the children for Valentine's Day. We've been looking through them all day, enjoying the illustrations and getting to know some of the sights of these two cities.
I am also planning to put together a kit for Jane and Clark to make their own travel journals while we are on our trip. I will either buy or make small journals with empty pages to be filled up each day with drawings of the sites we see, written descriptions or notes about our day and places for ticket stubs, postcards and other souvenirs. I'm hoping the kids will look forward to adding to their journals each day and drawing pictures of their favorite paintings in the Louvre or the best new food they try, etc. I am going to bring along small colored pencils and a little roll of tape for attaching mementos to their books.

If you have any other suggestions to help keep the kids involved in our trip; I welcome any/all advice.

Happy Valentine's Day

-Love, by Shel Silverstein, c.1974

Lunch

Today's lunch, as requested by Jane.

Valentine's Play Date

We hosted a little Valentine's Day Party/ Play Date for a few friends and neighbors today. I tried to keep things simple so we got out some pink and red construction paper, doilies, heart stickers and other craft supplies and let the kids make their own Valentines. We made some little goodies to munch on: pink frosted mini cupcakes, white chocolate popcorn with Valentine M&Ms (recipe thanks to Make and Takes), sliced apples and brownies. The children crafted, ate and played and we had a lot fun.

Lovely Printable Valentine from Ruffled

I really like this pretty printable Valentine from Ruffled (via How About Orange) with matching envelope. It has a lovely vintage look and will be perfect for my sweetheart.

The Day It Rained Hearts

We've been reading this little Valentine's Day book I bought Jane a few years ago: The Day It Rained Hearts, by Felicia Bond. This morning Jane decided to make her own version of the Valentine's which are made by the little girl in the story for her friends the dog, the mouse, the turtle and the bunny.

Hearts in a Row

I made a little Valentine banner with my Love Notes fabric. Just in time for the holiday. To make the banner, I ironed heat 'n bond to the back of the fabric, traced and cut out a heart shape around several of the children and trimmed around each heart with my rounded pinking-shears. Then I cut hearts out of red felt that were slightly larger and ironed the fabric hearts onto the front. I lined them up and sewed them together at the sides, then sewed a short piece of binding on each end to hang it up with.

Spiced Applesauce Bread

Yesterday, I felt the urge to bake something yummy. I was out of butter and had only one egg so I had to get creative. I pulled out an old recipe I have (I don't know where it originally came from) and baked two mini loaves of Spiced Applesauce Bread. They were promptly eaten by the children and I for lunch and not one crumb was left. In other words, the bread was a hit. So I thought I would share this easy, tasty recipe with you.


Spiced Applesauce Bread

1 1/4 C. applesauce
1 C. white sugar
1/2 C. vegetable oil
2 eggs
3 Tbsp.milk
2 C. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x5" loaf pan.
2. Combine applesauce, sugar, oil, eggs and milk and mix well. Add in flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and stir until smooth. Fold into loaf pan.
3. Bake for 60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Note:
I made half of this recipe and it filled two mini loaf pans which took about 30 minutes to bake.

A Colorful Quilt for Clark

Last week I decided to sew a quilt for a neighbor of mine who is having a baby boy. I did a really simple patchwork design and completed it in a day or two. I feel sort of terrible because I intended to give the quilt as a gift, but I ended up loving the look of it in Clark's room and it fit so nicely on his little toddler bed that I decided to keep it for myself. I think the color on Clark's bed (which is completely white) was much needed and I feel like the room is starting to come together. It turns out that Clark is getting a little brother so I am planning to put up the baby crib and re-arrange everything in the room so the two can share the space.

Happy Hearts

Next week Jane will be exchanging Valentine's with her preschool classmates so yesterday I gave her a choice as to whether she would prefer to go to the store and pick out Valentines to give out or whether she would like to make her own. I really tried not to sway her decision but I always prefer handmade to store bought. I am trying to instill an appreciate for handmade goods in Jane so I was glad that she chose to make her own Valentines this year. I gave her a few suggestions for different types of Valentines she could make and she really liked the popsicle stick heart puppets from Alpha Mom. This turned out to be a perfect project for a four-year-old. All I did was to cut out the hearts and Jane did the rest of the gluing and drawing. I love the look of these happy smiling hearts. They really are fun and I am excited for her to hand them out next week.

Printable Valentine Goody Bags

I love free printables. These Valentine goody bags from Twig and Thistle are beautiful and perfect for goodies made with love. If your printer allows you to, you can print them directly onto white paper goodie bags or you could use sticker paper and adhere them onto bags or boxes.

Rose Barrettes from the Purl Bee

I just stumbled upon this sweet felt rose barrette tutorial at the Purl Bee. I would love to make a few for Jane. We have been growing out her hair from last year's short little bob and the in-between awkward stage is driving me nuts. She always has to have a barrette or headband on to keep the hair out of her eyes (though they never seem to stay put). Anyway, maybe I'll whip up a few colorful roses with my leftover felt and see how they turn out.

I Heart OhDeeDoh

So nice to get some love over on OhDeeDoh today. They featured our new hallway makeover and it totally made my day :)

Simple Handmade Valentines for Kids to Make

Alpha Mom has put together some great ideas for simple Valentine's children can make to give to classmates. I've been thinking about this lately as well. I love the idea of having Jane make her own Valentine's to deliver to her friends at school; however, I want to come up with something simple that can be produced in mass quantities by a four-year old. I really like these popsicle stick heart puppets as well as these printable butterfly lollipop cards from Skip to My Lou.

Valentine's Day Paper Dolls

I've put together a few of my favorite vintage Valentine's Day themed paper dolls from Teri Pettit's printable paper doll collection. And funny enough, I am pretty sure I remember cutting out this exact Joan Anglund paper doll at the bottom from the February 1987 issue of Good Housekeeping. Just click on the picture and print.

V.I.P. Day Preparations

We have been discussing Jane's upcoming V.I.P. day and making plans for her special day at preschool. We decided we should tell her class about our upcoming trip to London and Paris (in March). Maybe show them where they are on a map or show a few photos of famous sites. We may even teach the class a couple of simple french words. We also decided it would be fun to give each classmate a little paper passport where they can draw their own picture, write their name and color pictures of places where they've been or where they want to go. For our snack, we are planning to bring our own version of London's famous fish 'n chips (think Swedish Fish candies and potato chips).

Jane is working on her own passport as I type, drawing illustrations of different countries and planning to stamp the pages with various stamps.

Jane's Passport photo

Mexico (notice the cactus) and London

USA (President Obama) and Paris (the Eiffel Tower)

China (lanterns)

American flag