January 2011

Ahhh, today is our first day getting back into our normal routines. We had a joyful holiday season but as I so often am, I am sooo ready to get into our normal pattern of daily life. We have a few new school books we will be trying out, including a beginning Latin program for my history obsessed son who has asked to start a language. And of course, Pixie girl will be moving onto our Winter Wonderland unit. If you are interested in joining us for some winter fun with a nature focus, check out our Winter Wonderland unit.

BTW - I decided after completing the Harvest Time unit that I will probably not do weekly update posts with the book lists but instead would like to encourage everyone working on the Winter Wonderland unit to leave comments on the curriculum post. That way all the comments will be in one place.

If you are working on the unit and would like to include the button on the blog... here it is. You can copy and save it to your computer or just copy the text below and paste it on your page.

Enjoy!

On the surface, Michelle and I are as different as night and day. (Think Gilmore Girls!) By the time Michelle was 5 years old, she always held onto motel keys for me, because I was constantly losing them and Michelle was ALWAYS organized and had a place for everything. By the time she was 10 years old, she packed her brothers' bags for vacations, and did a MUCH more thorough job than I did. I use to say, "When I grow up, I want to be just like Michelle!" Still do :)

BUT, when it comes down to all the important things like our basic values and drives... our hearts beat as one. So it is not surprising, that after the holidays, while the cold winds blow, we both tend to our houses with gusto. It is time to mend the broken and give attention to the neglected. It's time to paint the walls and replace flooring. Most "small crafting" goes on hold while we tackle the big projects. Before long the gardens will call to us, so for the next 3 months, without any major holidays to distract us, we pull out paints and hammers and set to work.

My big project this year is painting the house. This is the first time EVER that we have actually hired someone to do it for us. There is something so appealing about having a crew come in and paint the entire downstairs in 1 day!  It's a luxury, I know, and we will have to give up some other projects in order to finance it, but life changes, and we must adapt!

So, the painter comes over, gives us an estimate, and leaves behind his book of color samples!

I am ready for a change, and oh the possibilities. I quickly visit some of my favorite blogs... blogs hosted by young women with young color palettes. Oh, how I love the peaches and aquas. Or the bright whites, reds and yellows. Yes, I WANT a drastic change. I've had the deep folk artsy, country colors long enough. As if proof... here's my 2010 calendar...

and here's the one I bought for 2011. (BTW... with a million calendars to choose from, can you believe Michelle and I picked the exact same calendar? What are the chances?!!)

But anyway... here's the thing... after much looking and much drooling, in the end I settled on a modified version of my tried and true colors!

I do plan to lighten up my colors and accessories BUT for as much as I love all the rooms I look at on line, it would be like trading in my flannel nightgown for satin pajamas. I like... no I love my flannel nightgown. I mean I really REALLY LOVE my flannel nightgown. I got it at L.L.Bean 15 years ago. I wore it until it was thread bear. I went back to L.L.Bean and they still carried the same nightgown. I changed things up a bit, I ordered one with forest green stripes instead of the navy blue. I know you are thinking... what an outrageous change... but I got use to the change and embraced it :) Then, I did something that still makes my family chuckle... I ordered 4 more identical nightgowns, and packed them away. I was living in mortal fear that they would stop carrying them and that someday I'd need to find a new nightgown. Now, I sleep in peace knowing when the day comes to retire this nightgown (and I won't give it up easily) I have 4 more tucked away. True story :) I ask you... does THIS sound like someone who would embrace drastic change?

So, there you have it. I'm looking forward to a change... bringing a lot more yellow tints into my colors instead of the blues... hopefully making the colors brighter and less gray. I plan to get rid of most of my deep cranberries and dark greens and bring in the color palette of my new calendar. I have lots of projects planned to make things brighter and a bit more whimsical. I'll be sharing!  
  

Several years ago Michelle encouraged me to start a blog. Actually, encouraged is a very nice way of saying she was hounding me to start writing. "Mom, I know you'll love it. It will get you writing on a regular basis, and besides, I want you to write stories about us growing up so they aren't forgotten, and we can share them with our children." That was how my original blog One Generation to Another was started. And BTW, thank you Michelle. As always, you were right. I have LOVED blogging :) ANYWAY... with all the household projects we are both busy with right now, it reminded me of this blog... MY VERY FIRST blog entry ever! First published October of 2007. Hope you enjoy and have a lovely weekend!  

When you opened the front door of our house, you stepped into the foyer. To the right was our living room, which I always TRIED to keep company ready, (okay, frequently the overflow from the rest of the house osmosed into it) a hallway that lead to the kitchen, and the stairs that lead to our bedrooms.

One morning I had a scathingly brilliant idea. (By the way, my life is littered with almost as many scathingly brilliant mistakes!) I decided to remove the wall-to-wall carpeting that ran up the stairs and into the hallway. There was a rational thought process involved here. Since cleaning is not high on my list of favorite pastimes, and vacuuming the stairs involved precariously balancing the vacuum cleaner while I tried to clean the 13 steps, it seldom was done. The corners of the steps became low rent housing for domestic spiders, carelessly dropped “O”s, and vintage dust. The plan: remove the carpeting allowing me to simply sweep the steps whenever necessary, and tah-dah, efficiency in housekeeping. (My parents didn’t waste money on MY home economics degree!)

Okay, I wasn’t imagining anything quite as grand as the stairway in Gone with the Wind, but I was more than a little surprised at what I did discover. After cutting the carpet away, and giving a mighty pull, I was staring down at what I realized was construction grade stairs. It was painfully apparent that these steps were never meant to be viewed and the obvious intent was to keep them well hidden under wall-to-wall carpeting. The stairs were made of bonfire worthy wood. You could see the footprints of construction workers that must have made a point of stepping in all sorts of gooey substances before walking up and down the steps, thus leaving their mark for posterity, which rivaled the opulence of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. And, surprisingly, at least to me, very little thought was given to precise measurements…obviously stair building is an “ish” thing. I could see my basement through gaping cracks, tack less installation strips were firmly attached to each step, and gobs of hardened, aforementioned, gooey substances poxed the surface. General housekeeping note: Once you cut and rip carpeting off your steps, you can never put it back and expect it to look like anything other than a haphazardly laid drop cloth…kinda the same premise as refolding a map. Since the cost of recarpeting the stairs wouldn’t be in our budget, for, say, hmmmm, months, if not years, I had to think fast.

Fortunately, I’ve always been a rather make-do-with decorator so I rolled up my sleeves, gave an exasperated sigh, but was sufficiently delusional to be optimistic. It did take the rest of the day to remove the tack less installation strips and scrap off the larger gobs of stuff that I thought might actually trip us. With demolition complete I began to think about what I wanted to do with the stairs. That evening when my husband came home from work, I was in the kitchen cooking. He always wore shoes with hard heels, and I realized as he ascended the stairs that they had become bongo drums, amplifying each step he took. Probably as a penance for my impulsiveness, for the next several years, I was awaken each and every morning to the sound of those shoes hitting those stairs, mocking me, as if to say, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. To his credit he said nothing about this new household development, which I think said more about the frequency of these types of decorating debacles than personal restraint on his part.

The next morning, with a vision firmly fashioned, I was good to go. I painted the risers of the stairs the same cream color I had throughout my house and then the steps my comfy colonial blue. I did need to install some moldings to close off the gaps to the basement, but all-in-all, it turned out to be a relatively simple project. I was quite pleased with the results, although when standing back and looking at the steps, I did feel that something was missing. Another idea! Thank God I have a million of them. I asked myself, what do I want my foyer to say to people? We’re talking first impressions here. I wanted my foyer to say, “Welcome, come on in, relax, stay awhile, and make yourself at home”. How to do that? I simply stenciled the word “Welcome” on the riser of every step. I tried stenciling every other step but you kinda got the feeling some of the steps were being antisocial, so I stenciled them all.

The effect was perfect. When someone came over, not only were they greeted by a friendly face, they were extended a personal welcome from the house. Frequently, when my children’s friends came over, I’d listen to them read the stairs out loud, using a rhythmic head bob, “Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome”, and they were!

Your foyer is your house’s first impression. What does yours say? Look around your entry. Does it say “welcome” to visitors? What can you do that will make people feel comfortable and welcome?

Quilting Basics - Part 1

Quilting Basics - Part 2

Quilting Basics - Part 3

Quilting Basics - Part 4

Probably the question I get asked MOST is... how do you get your stitches so even. My glib response is usually... years of experience. Although that is true, there are tricks I've learned along the way that helped my skills improve.

Quilting is all about stitches. By definition, quilting is sewing 2 or more layers of fabric together, usually with some layer of batting in the center for warmth or to give the stitching depth. Whether you are quilting a patch to a ripped pant knee or sewing a large quilt, the techniques are the same. If this is your first go at quilting, I do recommend you start with a small, manageable projects. Bulk equals additional complexities.

So, today, we are going to make a practice piece. When you are done, you may decide to incorporate it into something else, but this project is all about process. We will be creating a free form design, then learning the basics of quilting.

Materials:
solid fabric - use a light weight cotton or flannel (fabric should be washable in order to remove the tracing paper design)
light weight cotton batting - DO NOT use the "fluffy" type of battings
contrasting quilting thread or cotton floss (I used a fun variegated floss)
needle
small chunk beeswax
copy of pattern or blank 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of paper
safety pins and/or stapler
tracing paper and tracing wheel (the type with a "teethed" wheel, not a "smooth" wheel)

To get started we need a design. Remember in early elementary school when you were asked to draw a meandering line, never lifting pencil lead from paper, eventually ending at the beginning? Lovely little enclosed shapes were created as we crisscrossed over lines. Then we were instructed to color in all those odd little shapes creating a stained glass look. I always LOVED this project.

Now, you can either make a copy of a design I created, or let the spirit move you and draw your own. NOTE... you will be quilting all the lines you draw, so don't make the design overly complicated!  Also, keep your design at least 1" away from all sides.

Cut out your fabric and batting. Cut 2 - 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" squares of fabric for the top and backing, and cut 1 square batting the same size.

Take your top fabric and lay it on a hard surface with right side up. Lay a piece of tracing paper on top of it, with the wax side against the fabric.

Place your pattern on top and pin through all three layers. Now, taking your tracing wheel, trace the entire design. Press firmly and try to trace the design without lifting the tracing wheel. (If your pressure remains steady, you can actually turn the pattern with one hand while tracing your design with the other.) The wheel will create little holes in the pattern. If you do need to stop, carefully realign, trying to line up a tooth on the wheel in a hole it already created. (NOTE: Before tracing on your fabric, you might want to try tracing onto a piece of paper to get a feel for the amount of pressure you need to leave a good design.)

When you are done tracing, remove the pattern and the tracing paper. Your design should be easily visible if you applied enough pressure when tracing.

Now, sandwich your fabric together beginning with the wrong side of the backing up, followed by the batting, then the top with the design visible.

Pin the three pieces together. You can use straight pins. Not my favorite since they poke and catch your thread. I prefer safety pins. HINT AND CAUTION: you can use a stapler on some fabrics. Do not use on delicate fabrics or fabrics that snag easily. Staples are blunt ended, whether as pins have sharp points. A stapler can cut the fabric instead of moving the threads out of the way when going in. Always experiment on a scrap piece of fabric to make sure the staples do not damage the fabric when they are removed. The benefit of using a staple is there is nothing on the surface for the thread to get caught on. Of course, you can only use a stapler on small projects.


When quilting, you should use quilting thread, which is a thread heavier than regular sewing machine thread, but not as heavy as rug thread. You want a slightly heavier thread because it will hold up better and if you need to give a slight tug, the thread won't break. Plus, quilting is both a functional and decorative stitch. The heavier thread is more visible. You can also use cotton floss. If using a 6 ply floss, use 2 ply. Work with thread about 18" long.

Before threading your needle, slide your thread through the edge of a piece of beeswax. This serves a couple purposes. It strengthens the thread and helps prevent it from tangling. I ALWAYS wax my quilting threads, mainly because it really helps stop the thread from getting tangled, which can be so frustrating!  

Next time... stitching your piece.

 

On the 23rd of December I finished up the last of my Christmas knitting and wanted something super simple to work on while visiting with family. This little shawl is what I made over those festive days. I followed the simple pattern Traditional Icelandic Three Cornered Shawl available from Ragga Goes on About Knitting. It show cases my first couple skeins of Noro yarn (Aya a super soft silk/cotton/wool blend with an amazing texture) which were a treat I got as a birthday gift. The two skeins didn't make a shawl that was big enough for me (sigh)... well, I can drap it over my shoulders while working at the computer but it really isn't long enough. Of course finding the perfect owner wasn't a problem... it looks amazingly cute on Fairy girl (or Pixie but I think Fairy won it for now). Due to the wonderful blend of colors, my kids have dubbed it Joseph's Coat of Many Colors.

Our winner of the Winter Wonderland Give Away is...

Submitted by Kristy on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 10:38.

What a nice thing to do!
I would share these books with my 3 nature loving, homeschool girls.

Congratulations, Kristy. Just send your snail mail address to weefolkart@yahoo.com and we will send it along to Sarah. Please contact us by January 24 or we will select a new winner.

Thanks to everyone that entered, and thank you so much, Sarah, for thinking about Wee Folk Art and sharing this generous give away with us all!

If it seems like we haven't been cranking out the crafts recently, you are right. We went right from the holidays, to illness to having my house ripped apart. (Not to mention I'll be leaving mid week next week for a week with the Little Lady on her home turf :) But life, happens, right? Not getting tired of you guys, just getting stuff done... or at least trying to.

So... has anyone ever had this experience? Find your dream paint, have the painters put a sample on the walls, step back and say, "Uh... lady, are you SURE you want this color?" Okay, he didn't say it exactly like that, but I could see it around his eyes! Plus, looking to Tim for his opinion I got a, "Don't ask me. I can never tell!"

Well, after seeing this...


and this...


it might be enough to dissuade the faint of heart. But this is the time to stand your ground, see your vision, and with all the conviction you can muster say... "Yeppers!"

So they proceeded. The official color name is "Sassy Green". Every once in a while I'd hear one of the painters say, "Yep, this sure is a sassy green." Well, as they proceeded...


I was feeling better and better. They finished the family room and dining room last night and I LOVE IT! It is a drastic difference, but I was in the mood for a change. It is going to be so much fun coming up with some new projects for these rooms.


This morning they started working on our living, foyer, stairs and upstairs open hallway. The color is just going a little deeper than it is now, so not as drastic, but still...

They got the first coat on everything and will be back tomorrow to finish it up. YAY! I think the hardest part was watching my row of "tree of life" stencils being covered up. In one room or another, I've had them stenciled on walls since the mid 80s. I am not going to re-stencil the design, BUT I will find a way of incorporating at least 1 of them into something for the house.

I'll share pics of the finished rooms when order has been restored! 

I remember the first vinyl album I ever bought. It was Donovan's Greatest Hits. It included great songs like Colours, Catch the Wind and Jennifer Juniper. I played that album over and over until well worn and a couple of scratches made songs skip a few words. To this day, when I hear any of the songs played in pristine condition, I miss the skips that I came to associate with the songs and my youth. I am still obsessive with music. When I find a new artist I like or when a new album is released, I play it over and over again until I drive everyone around me to distraction.

Also, almost any large crafting or decorating project I've ever worked on has an artist or album associated with it. 1980s... stenciling my living room... Billy Joel's Innocent Man. 1990s... painting and preparing my preschool for opening... Joshua Kadison's Painted Desert Serenade... and my latest musical immersion... Katy Perry's One of the Boys. For the rest of my life, whenever I hear a song from the album, I'll think of Sassy Green paint, and my "perky" period of decorating :)

The album Painted Desert Serenade, (the preparing the preschool album :) featured the song...

Beautiful In My Eyes 

You're my peace of mind in this crazy world.
You're everything I've tried to find, your love is a pearl.
You're my Mona Lisa, you're my rainbow skies,
and my only prayer is that you realize
you'll always be beautiful in my eyes.

The world will turn and the seasons will change,
and all the lessons we will learn will be beautiful and strange.
We'll have our fill of tears, our share of sighs.
And my only prayer is that you realize
you'll always be beautiful in my eyes.

You will always be beautiful in my eyes.
And the passing years will show
that you will always grow ever more beautiful in my eyes.

When there are lines upon my face from a lifetime of smiles,
and when the time comes to embrace for one long last while,
we can laugh about how time really flies.
We won't say goodbye 'cause true love never dies.
You'll always be beautiful in my eyes.

You will always be beautiful in my eyes.
And the passing years will show
that you will always grow ever more beautiful in my eyes.
The passing years will show that you will always grow
ever more beautiful in my eyes.

I love the song for many reasons, but my favorite line EVER, from any song I've ever heard is...

(When) there are lines upon my face from a lifetime of smiles.

Twenty years ago, as I listened to the song I thought, I want to live my life in such a way that years from now I'll be able to say... there are lines upon my face from a lifetime of smiles.

When I look in the mirror now, I see a few wrinkles around the eyes and lips, but they are most pronounced when I smile :) Life IS good, and it has been filled with smiles. I always want to keep that thought close to my heart, so I wrote in on a freshly painted wall! (I love the faith Tim puts in my decorating decisions!) I love how it turned out, and I love the constant reminder to myself and everyone that enters our house, to embrace all the good and goodness life has to offer!

Tomorrow I'll share how I went about getting the phrase on the wall :) Have a lovely day and work on those wrinkles ;)

A couple of days ago, when the crew was over for Sunday dinner, Pixie asked for a copy of our Primitive Angel Coloring Page to paint. I ran off a copy on water color paper, and she used the water color pencils to color it in.

When she was done, she asked me to draw a picture of a turtle so she could paint it. "What should the turtle be doing?" I wanted to know. She thought about it a minute, bobbed her head, and said, "Swimming".

3 minutes with a piece of paper and her swimming turtle was born. 

"Wait', Michelle said, "Don't let her paint that yet. Scan it first and put it on Wee Folk Art."

So there you have it... NOTHING is done around here without assessing its blog worthiness :)

The Swimming Turtle Coloring Page can be found HERE. Enjoy! 

PLEASE NOTE: Coloring pages are copyrighted designs and are meant for personal use only. They cannot for duplicated nor can projects made from the patterns be sold without our permission.