Amigurumi Mouse

Mice are busy little creatures, always rushing from place to place, taking care of themselves. When I was sixteen, and in Germany, my host mother was angry with me. She told me, "Du kummerst dich immer." (Or something to the effect--all these years later, my German is worse than rusty.) I wasn't familiar with the verb, so I asked what kummern meant. And she explained that I was always going from place to place taking care of my business. Which, as an independent kid, I would have taken as a compliment if her tone didn't clearly indicate that it was NOT a good thing. She told me (complete with pantomime) I was like a little mouse, scurrying from place to place, getting things done and not asking for help.

I took it to heart, and for a while I tried to ask for help when I should.

As an adult, I know that I'm not always successful--I tend to assume people are too busy with their own lives to worry about mine, and so I just kummern mich and get what I want done, done. Or, sometimes, not done. I have had this conversation with a friend who is the same way. I've said, "But I want to do this favor for you--I know you need it." But for some of us, it is hard to admit when we need help. And to this day when I see a mouse, I am reminded to slow down.

Amigurumi Mouse Pattern:

ch3 join with slst. slst

Row 1: 6sc into center (6)

Row 2: sc, inc around (9)

Row 3: sc around (9)

Row 4: 2sc, inc around (12)

Row 5: sc around (12)

Row 6: 2sc, inc around (16)

Row 7: sc around (16)

Row 8: sc *2sc, inc* around (21)

Row 9-11: sc around (21)

Add eyes.

Row 12-end: 4sc, invisible dec-->around until closed. (Stuff mouse before closing completely.) Do not tie off. Continue by making tail.

Tail: ch 17. sc into 2nd ch from hook. sc back to body. Tie off. Weave in ends.

Ears: Begin with ch3 join with slst

Row 1: 6sc into ring (6)

Row 2: inc around (12)

Row 3: sc, inc around (18)

Tie off, leaving a long tail. Fold ear in half, then sew onto stuffed mouse.

Whiskers: Use embroidery floss to sew on whiskers. (One strand of embroidery floss=6whiskers)

My son asked me for a grey mouse with no ears and no whiskers--it looks just like a tadpole!



Hodge Podge Inspiration Box

We are back home and back to the craziness of school and swim lessons and--with a teenage exchange student visiting us for the year--trips to the mall. I love to tell this story about my youngest, a cracking whip of a child who could spell 'hatched' and 'create' in preschool. (Not that I taught her anything.) We needed to make a trip to the mall for some reason or other, and the four year old who could define photosynthesis asked, "Mommy, what is a mall?" So with a teenager in the house and my oldest beginning to embrace the marketer-driven 'tween' stage, we have entered a new phase of life: malls, the right shoes, and blingy t-shirts. It is going to be fun!

While my oldest was off at school one day this week, I went into her room and cleaned it top to bottom--something I have been threatening to do for a few months. I swept and dusted, wiped the walls, and put in some new shelves with baskets for her felting and sewing supplies. Now everything is reorganized and boxed and easy to get to. Most importantly, now it is easy to put things away when done. In the process of cleaning,  I found some missing crafty items, a lifetime supply of pencils and many many little knick knacks. What else was there to do with them than make an Insiration Box?

I also put aside a lot of items to donate to Goodwill.

I don't want my oldest losing something next month and then accusing me of giving it away. And I, um...also don't want her to end up on one of those hoarding shows in the future saying, "It all started in fifth grade when my mom cleaned my room and threw everything away." (People who collect too much stuff usually tend to have a story like that, right? But I always wonder if it is a chicken-or-the-egg kind of issue. Do they collect because they lost everything, or did they care about and remember the loss more because of latent tendencies to collect?) The items that I had set aside for the donation box were in a huge container outside her room, so I 'gave her ownership'  by asking her to take the things and put them into bags. That way she would be able to see what she was getting rid of.  She was permitted to rescue two things to give to friends or her sibs and five things to keep, provided she found a home for them in her room. She only kept two. Whew! That was a relief to me.

The last few weeks have been a lot like this re-purposed Valentine box. You know, full of lovely treasures, but chaotic at the same time. Luckily, we still manage to squeeze in some creative projects here and there. But when we run out of ideas, an Inspiration Box like this is a great way to brainstorm. The juxtaposition of objects makes me think about things in a new way: "I love the way the vintage blue and white ribbon looks next to the chunk of turquoise. How could I use them together?"

In honor of the hodgepodge of items in the box, here are a few knick knacky paragraphs about things going around in the chaos:

• Mad Libs periodically take over our home. My son will walk around with a pencil asking the rest of us, "Adjective? Can somebody please give me an adjective?" Out of desperation last year he taught his little sister the parts of speech. By now she is an expert and can rattle off adjectives like a pro. On the downside, she has also learned that the word 'poop' can be a noun or a verb. With a little creativity she has also figured out how to make it into an adjective (poopy), adverb (poopily) and an exclamation (Oh poop!) Her brother has been instructed to ask for more appropriate words.

• I read to each kiddo every night. I am reading Redwall to my oldest. My youngest and I just finished the third Ga'Hoole book. My son and I finally finished the last book in the Fablehaven series and were both disappointed that the action and humor-packed series closed with a sappy romantic ending.

• I bought a game called "My Math Trainer" for the ds. It is awesome for practicing very basic math facts. My kiddos are quite resistant to running through flash cards. This game is like flash cards, but in video game format. The single game cassette can be wi-fied to up to 16 other ds systems at a time, then provides a series of math problems while it tracks who finishes first. So the kids sit in a circle and have contests with their math facts. (I'm sure they'd prefer to play Pokemon in a heartbeat, but when they've used up their allotted video game time, I let them have some extra time for math. You know, they'll do anything to stay on those little systems. Including math.)

Explaining My Absence

When we flew off for our long summer vacation, I made sure my camera was full of crafty photos to keep this blog busy. Spending summer here at Grandma's, we find plenty more things to take pictures of, too. We've been to the oldest aquaculture greenhouse in the US, the Westside Market and the Cleveland Asian Marketplace. But my dad's computer is from the last century (literally...1999). There is a slot for a floppy disk, but no port for sd cards, and we're so busy catching toads and dancing in the rain, that I haven't found an alternative way to download pictures. I'll return in a few weeks when we go home to Arizona. Until then, I hope you enjoy your summer!

Technology rising

Pokeball cake pops



Lots of moms will tell you that they don't allow video games because they stiffle creativity. They suck up the kids' brains and spit them out, hypnotized, several hours later. It's a stereotype, right? The moms saying no and the dads saying, "Aww, just wait till Mom leaves for the grocery store, then we'll play them together." In our house, it is the mom that encourages the video games. Here's what I like about the games: because all their friends play the same games, my kids are not clueless about pop culture icons and can have the childhood version of water cooler chat with their freinds. They learn some things from the games themselves--they enhance their reading speed and comprehension by presenting dialogue in a different form, the games the kids like to play have some puzzle solving aspects, which can be brain builders, and sometimes it's nice (for me) to have a moment of peace. 

Carrot cake!


What I don't like is chasing them off of the games when the time comes to end the play. And it does come, oh so soon. They are not allowed to play on school days, but on weekend days they get half an hour a day. (With the possibility to earn extra time during the week, which can be tacked onto the thirty minutes.)

My children love to play on them to the point of obsession. So that if my son were on his ds and you were to say, for example, "Hey, we're going to a bithday party for the Tooth Fairy and all your friends are going to be at your favorite restaurant eating pizza and magical cupcakes that make you fly!" he would just keep playing and say, "Eh, no thanks." That is what I don't like about the players.

The other day my son had already used his thirty minutes and was begging for more time. "What do I have to do to earn more ds today?"

"Well," I said, "I don't really have any extra jobs for you to do today, so you probably won't be earning any extra time. Unless you do something extraordinary, like save a baby from a burning building or something like that."

"Aww, but that's impossible!"

"Sorry."

Half an hour later he came to me and said, "Come here, I want to show you something." He lead me into his little sister's room. The two of them had taken red construction paper and cut out paper flames, then taped them all over her loft bed. He climbed the ladder up to where she lay on her back waving her arms and legs and saying, "Goo goo, ga ga!" Then he picked her up and started to carry her 'out of the burning building.'

"Alright," I laughed, "very creative. You can have fifteen minutes."

They both cheered. As I walked back to the laundry room I heard my daughter say "You said it would count for something and you were right!"

I like the equation: thirty minutes of cooperative, creative play, and fifteen minutes of hyperactive relaxation.

Stuffies Rock!

I love stuffies. They are quick, cool, and nearly free. And if you make them small enough, they can be made into functional art. At times I make something (like amigurumi, for instance) and think to myself, "It's cute, but what am I going to do with it?"

Little felt stuffies can be useful for anyone. I'll bet you could use the right stuffie to convert an anti-craft curmudgeon. Stuffies can be made into hair clips, brooches, refrigerator magnets, paperweights (with the right stuffing), Christmas ornaments, or even rear view mirror danglies. You know, if you are into that sort of thing. Which, um...I'm not. If I had something hanging from my rear view mirror I'd probably get distracted by it and run into a cactus. But I do like seeing danglie things sparkling in other peoples cars.

A while back I made my daughter a 1-up mushroom stuffie, hot glued it to a hair clip, and sent her off to school. She came home with a list of girls that needed their own 1-up mushroom hair clips.


This cute little bird stuffie has a pin sewn to the back so that it can be worn on a blouse or lapel. Or backpack. If you don't wear a lot of pins, here's a tip for you: string a silver chain through the pin and wear it as a necklace. (This trick also works with vintage clip-on earrings.)

I have noticed that when I receive things in the mail, the way they are packaged has some impact on how I view the items themselves. I decided to mail this stuffie pin out in a little square box from the recycling bin. The round box was $.99 at our local craft store. I painted it green, stuck on a few little metal scrap booking embellishments and filled it with some colorful notepaper that I had shredded with a pair of my kids' craft scissors. Nearly free, but a great way to improve the impact of this little stuffie pin.

Blankets for Breast Cancer

One of our Kindergarten teachers has cancer.

Teachers share more of their lives these days. They tell little anecdotes about their lives, stories about their pets, and encourage students to watch their favorite sports teams. It creates an environment where the kids trust their teachers enough to really learn from them. It is certainly a different model than learning through fear of authority--wooden ruler knuckle raps and silently threatening paddles leaning against the chalkboard. It also exposes the kids to aspects of life they might not be currently encountering at home.

And now one of the kindergarten teachers has breast cancer.

In the last five years, we've known teachers who have been pregnant during the school year, whose parents have died, who have taken time off to travel to see their college age children compete in national sports events, who have gotten divorced, who have gotten married, and who have sent their kids off to Kindergarten for the first time. And with the exception of the divorce, these events were celebrated (or mourned) openly with the students. Not in a way that took away from studying, but in a way that enhances it. One teacher gives a weekly written language correction test, and the sentences are specific to the children's lives as well as hers: "yesterday my dog goed to the vets offis", "joe is excited to selebrate his birthday nekst weak" Another teacher leads the school cheerleading team after school, and during the day she teaches her young students their most difficult spelling words by creating memorable cheers. Almost four years later, my daughter still chants A-P-P! R-E-C! I-A! T-E! each time she needs to use that word.

And now, one of the kindergarten teachers has breast cancer, and the whole school is rallying around her.

Every Friday, classes compete to see which has the most 'spirit' as evidenced by the most students wearing the school colors or PTO t-shirts. Once in a while, Friday Spirit Day is themed. On Hawaiian day, the students wear luau shirts. On Crazy Hat Day they sweat under the hats they are normally not allowed to wear. In addition to the usual assortment of spirit clothing this year, the PTO ordered pink t-shirts with breast cancer ribbons and the teacher's name printed across the front. And on the Spirit Day dedicated to the Kindergarten teacher, pink shirted boys and girls filled the playground. The principal and his assistant principal stood outside as they always do, directing traffic and manning the crosswalk. And that day, they proudly wore their bright pink shirts.

But while showing spirit in this way replenishes the spirit, teachers' salaries only go so far. And cancer can be expensive.

So this week there was fundraiser at school, and then a rally at a local fast food restaurant, organized by a couple of the room moms, and attended by nearly the whole school. The restaurant donated 20% of the receipts turned in that night. Outside, the parents had set up a raffle booth, face-painting and crafts.

My humble addition to the raffle was a baby tag blanket and a matching toddler blanket. I used a gorgeous embroidered polar fleece and shiny pink satin. (Is it really satin? Probably not, I'm not a consummate enough sewist to know what it's actually called--I'm talking about that silky shiny satiny stuff that looks like the inside of Superman's cape.)

I enjoyed making it--something straightforward, pretty, and simple enough that it didn't require a pattern. And best of all,  it helped raised money for a really great cause.

Today I got an email from one of the organizers. The little girl who won the blanket in the raffle fell asleep with it and her mother snapped a picture. Her mom says that her daughter named the blanket for the teacher and that she likes to sleep with it. I love that! Like a lot of giving, I gained a lot more than I gave with this small project.

Penny Passport: the socially acceptable way to collect good junk

As a young child, I resented the What Little Boys Are Made Of rhyme. "How come," I'd ask, "little boys get to be made of neat stuff like snips and snails and puppy dog tails, but little girls have to be made of dumb old sugar and spice?" Personally, I defied the stereotype. Not in any purposeful way; I was way too young for feminist politics. I just followed my interests. I hung out with the boys in the woods, where we caught salamanders and cut down saplings with contraband hatchets. We dug holes and made fishing poles out of branches and string. My pockets were always full of bits of this and that: fossils, bottle caps and acorns, small pieces of sandstone that were soft enough to use as chalk, interesting candy wrappers, rusty nails, and my pocketknife. There were also tiny twigs, twisty ties, snail shells, marbles, ribbons, wire and twine.

When I was in college, tomboy was no longer an innocuous label, and I tried to revise my antisocial behavior. But it was a process, and didn't change overnight. At that time, I lived in an apartment near the train tracks. I had no car, so I rode my bike to work, and then to class each day. I had to go over the train tracks. When I had time, and a handful of extra coins (not as often as you might think--I was on the Ramen Noodle Economic Plan), I used to park my bike and wander to the tracks. In the silent pre-dawn, the shadows were long and the rails stood out against the dark rocks. The air was so still that the metallic smell of the rails was noticeable, even on the days when the snow piled up. I would place my coins onto the smooth metal and leave them there. When I came back in the evening, the sun would be setting or have set and the pennies would have been smooshed by the passing trains. They lay glittery and bright in the rocks or the snow, waiting for me to pick them up. I kept them in my pockets as a sort of worry stone.

Nowadays, my pockets hold keys. Maybe a few receipts. Perhaps a Lego or a hair clip, just until I get a chance to put them away. But despite the possibility that I may have finally grown up, I love the smooshed pennies that you can make at touristy places like museums, zoos and amusement parks. Whenever I see a smooshing machine, I make sure to make one...or three. Logically, I can see that it is a total waste of the penny plus the fifty cents it costs to use the machine. But the sentimental part of me loves the thrill of an inexpensive souvenir. And the suppressed magpie inside still loves the shiny stuff. But smooshed pennies no longer inhabit my pockets, and you can only keep so many smooshed pennies in a little pouch before they get too jumbled to enjoy. So how can you display them?

How about a penny passport? You can buy a thick plastic penny passport at some museum gift shops, and they serve their function. But they are hard and pointy and, let's face it, they just aren't very pretty. I seem to have grown into that feminine desire for pretty things, so I wanted something larger and softer. And pretty.

A while back I posted about some tea wallets that I had made from an online tutorial. I brainstormed ways to adapt that process to a penny passport. This is the result.
 

     Left: Tea Wallet               Right: Penny Passport



Top: Tea Wallet     Bottom: Penny Passport


I did not take pictures during the process, but basically, I increased the length by a little more than double and replaced the tea pockets with small rectangles of vinyl sewn on in a grid. I really struggled with the vinyl, but in the end I was happy with the final product. Let me know in the comments if you would make a penny passport. If people have interest, I would be willing to attempt a tutorial, but that seems like a lot of effort to send it off into the ether if no one would use it!