steve the groundhog...

Sunday night as I was falling asleep it occurred to me that Groundhog Day was right around the corner. Groundhog Day doesn't mean an awful lot to me other than I remember it's the birthday of a girl who was a grade below me named Valerie P. (I went to a very small Catholic junior high so we all knew everything about everyone...)



Anyway, as I was dozing off it seemed to me that a finger puppet was in order. So yesterday I designed Steve. I think I'm going to call him Last Minute Steve, because it would've been much nicer if I'd thought of making him on Friday or Saturday night instead!

Molly spent the better part of yesterday coloring various groundhog pictures and the boys asked me to print copies for them to take to school today too. If you need a little groundhog finger puppet in your life too, please feel free to download the pdf here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/26257340/Steve-the-Groundhog or if you're feeling like a coloring page is more your speed today: http://www.scribd.com/doc/26258911/Steve-the-Groundhog-coloring-page

The paper version is a big hit with the kids, but I finished up a felt version last night and it seems he's gone back into hibernation already because I can't seem to find him anywhere...will keep looking once I get back from dropping Molly at school!

Happy Groundhog Day, everybody!

i busted out the yudu again...

and silkscreened twenty t-shirts for Caleb's class and two posters for his teacher.



I thought the kids could all sign one of the posters and then Mrs. Smith could save the unsigned one for next year (or whatever).

Anyway, I am having a love/hate relationship with my Yudu right now. I will pontificate in my next post...when my brain isn't tired and grouchy. Sweet dreams, everybody!

trying to fix comments...

bear with me...

the list...

I am not one for making resolutions...I go strong for a couple months and then peter out after a while. I do like to make lists though. I get the satisfaction of completing the task AND marking it off the list - it's a two-fer-one sort of deal as far as I'm concerned.

So, with that said I'm taking my list from my head and making it official by posting it for everyone to see. Part ONE:

• overhaul my website - started work on that today!
• get back into the swing of making again - I have a show coming up in March and I'm going to need fresh goods to show.
• continue purging our closets - I made my way through the boys' closet a couple weeks ago and came away with two huge bags of clothes for donation. I did a quick sweep of Molly's things too and will be sending a TON of her stuff down to my new little niece, Charlotte, in a week or so. Lots more beyond that to do, but it doesn't seem so overwhelming anymore.
• purge my studio - I have tons of good stuff that I have to admit I probably won't ever use. I'm betting someone else could do some great things with it so I'm going to suck it up and part with as much as I possibly can.
• have the freaking garage sale we keep talking about having and keep piling crap up for. I would like to use our garage for garage things like power tools and easily accessible bicycles and such. Plus we are on the verge of having to replace most of our kitchen appliances {groan} and some extra scratch will come in handy.
• make a concerted effort to take better care of myself! And by that I mean exercise and making better choices when it comes to what I eat.
  

i do make things...

However, lately, I've been dreaming about making stuff more than I've actually been making stuff. I finally got around to making our thank you notes for this year after I realized the kids weren't going to cooperate for a collaborative effort. Which is totally fine, but I guess I kept holding out thinking something might click. Anyway, it is done! And done quite cleverly, if I do say so myself.



With the simple blind contour drawing of the family I decided it might be cool to color code the cards. Which ever person is writing a particular note gets their little head dotted with a bingo dauber. Side note: it never would have occurred to me to buy bingo daubers for anything, but Caleb's preschool speech therapist let the kids use them when they were working on /sp/and /ts/ sounds. Completely genius if you ask me.



Since most of my thank you notes include my individual thanks as well as Molly's and an across the board thanks from the household, I went ahead and dotted everyone on my cards. Now all that's left are the envelopes to be addressed and stamped and they'll go in the mail tomorrow! Huzzah!

cubbies pinewood derby...

watching the final heat of the derby. lots of cool cars to see.


logan's car. definitely would have fared better if i had bought some graphite for the axles and dremeled the wheels. there's always next year.


caleb's car. ditto. i figure we can improve on these for next year and they can run them in the open class.

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In other news: I have lost my haloscan comments {drat!} and haven't had a chance to figure out how to convert back to blogger comments yet. Until then, feel free to email me at amyATaplcreationsDOTcom if you need too!

twenty-ten...

From our house to your house, Happy New Year! May 2010 be filled to the hilt with health and happiness and prosperity for us all! xo

christmas frenzy...

I finally finished up the Christmas decorating tonight! The tree is up, the kids hung all their ornaments, the garlands are all hung and the front yard is lit up too. Tomorrow Logan and Lynn have a cub scout thing in the morning and Caleb, Molly and I will be raking the last batch of leaves from the yard and pruning back the last few plants that need pruning.

After that the boys want to make more ornaments. So far the boys have made polymer clay lions and snowmen (which still need painting) and then we painted plaster of paris "wreaths" (a term I use loosely, because I was informed they could be sugar plums or life savers or, or, or - you get the picture :)).



We are definitely going to make some more wooden knob snowmen (instructions can be found here) because Molly will be able to play along fairly easily. After that? Who knows? Maybe some more borax snowflakes?



With the few we've made so far we've discovered a few things:

• crystals do not want to form on curved lines like they do straight lines (which is a bummer, because how cute would snowmen be?)
• you will get a much more consistent covering of crystals on your pipe cleaner base if you suspend your snowflake surface parallel to the bottom of your container versus suspending it perpendicular.
• if you make a super saturated solution (4-4.5 TBSP dissolved in a cup of water versus the 3 that Martha suggests, your crystals will form quicker)

I had another reason for popping in, but at the moment I can't remember what it was...

I hope everyone is getting done what you need/want to get done and that you're having a good time doing it! xo