Buzzmills

A hangover kit...

A week after my birthday one of my sister's had a birthday...a big birthday, her 21^st to be exact!!  

This made me feel really old!  

I remember when she was born.  I remember it was a Saturday morning and I was getting ready for my friends to come over for my birthday party when my Dad called to tell me that he and my step mom had their baby!  Oh, I was so very excited, I couldn't wait to tell all of my friends!  I felt so cool to have a little baby sister!

And now, 21 years later, she is all grown up and I have all these motherly instincts now, you know since I am a mom ;)  but still wanted to give her a sisterly gift...Hmmm, what to get her what to get her...

Ah ha!  A hangover kit!  Funny, yet thoughtful!  

I decided to make her a lavender eye pillow.  Actually, I find that having one of these on hand in the freezer for a massive headache is pretty much an absolute necessity!  We also just recently used mine after warming it in the microwave for a bit for Violet and an ear infection last week.  So, a lavender eye pillow is where I began...

I used this tutorial (because, you know, this was one of those times where it was nice that someone else already figured out all of the dimensions for me).  I decided to use a bit of Anna Maria Horner little folks voile that I had leftover for the eye pillow itself.  I imagined that the super soft and silky feel of cool voile on my head or eyes after a long night would feel fantastic!!  Incidentally, the voile was leftover from a dress I made for Violet when she was about 2 1/2...
oh my...this is one of those dresses that I wish could have fit for ever and ever and always!  And darn it, I never really got a very good picture of her in it!  

Back to the eye pillow...

Anywho...making the eye pillow was almost as therapeutic as using it, the smell of the lavender was heavenly!  Don't you just love lavender!  

After making it I went to Whole Foods to buy some natural hangover remedies as well and packaged it all up.  
I got an LOL, thanks text message from her after she got her present, so I think she liked it. ;)

Come to think of it...I didn't get much sleep last night, ugh...where is my eye pillow...

Oh, and Happy Leap day! :)

This confusing weather...

This weather has us so confused.  One moment it is beautiful and spring-like and the next moment it is windy, dark, cold and there are flurries fluttering around outside, no wonder everyone is sick.  While we were cooped up inside last week and not feeling well enough to go outside for long or at all we still managed to keep ourselves busy by making some beaded snowflakes.  I guess since we aren't getting our own snow we will just have to make some of our own ;)

And, with all of the mittens we have sitting around not getting much use...we made up a little game.  Violet calls it wintertime.  There might be a more creative name for it, but we were having too much fun playing to stop and think beyond the wintertime name so the name stuck.  Gather pairs of mittens, the more the better!  Separate the matching pairs.  
Hide one mitten for each pair then hand out their matches to the players.  Count 1 -2 -3 and then search!  The first person to find all of their matches wins!!  Seriously, this game is a ton of fun!  All four of us had loads of fun playing regardless of whether we were searching or hiding.  Okay, okay, so Henry was really just running around the house giggling while the rest of us played...but there were giggles so I'd say he enjoyed himself!  I was pleasantly surprised at how well Violet hid her mittens, also surprised at how well she found them...seeing that she is not typically very good at finding lost things ;)

After seeing this week's forecast it seems like we might be in for some more ups and downs around here, let's just hope that we can keep the illnesses away!

Maple sugar festival...

Yesterday we got a chance to do a little Maple sugar tasting, tapping, and fact collecting.  It was a beautiful cool day, unfortunately though the cool meant that we didn't actually see any of the sap coming out of the trees.  It was still a bit too cool out and the trees hadn't warmed up yet.  None the less it was all very interesting and fun.  I was amazed at the maple sugar facts that they had posted around, really, I had no idea about many of these!

While we didn't see the sap coming from the trees, we did get a chance to taste the sap.  It tasted like very weak sugar water and was surprisingly refreshing!  

Oh, and we got a chance to visit the bees!  

They were starting to come around the trees a bit...an indication that perhaps the sap was on it's way...but, we still missed it, there's always next year!  We were just happy to be getting out of the house for some fresh air and fun after being cooped up all last week with illness!  

Happy Monday to you!

Freezer paper violet shirt...

Apparently, a shirt with ones age on it is quite important.  This is one thing that I had not considered until Violet received a shirt with a sparkly number 2 on it for her second birthday from two of her cousins as a Birthday present.  It was a hit!  Of course, what toddler wouldn't want to shout and show their age proudly?!  So, now it has become a bit of a tradition.  Last year Violet got a sparkly three from her cousins and I made her a red and white striped, Dr. Seuss-like three.  They both got a lot of wear!  

This year, instead of appliqueing a four, I decided to try something different.  This time around I used freezer paper to do a stencil.   First I drew a bunch of "violets" all over a piece of freezer paper that I cut to fit the front of my shirt.  I also drew on a four, but it was horrible, so later I printed a four of off the computer and used that one as my template.  After drawing them all on to the paper (on the dull side)  I cut them out with an exacto knife. This process was a bit tedious because there were so many and because Violet had her hand on the handle "helping" me.  Once I had all of the violets and the four cut out I ironed the freezer paper on to the shirt and then we painted.  

Then we waited...

While we were waiting for the shirt to dry Violet made a little collage using the flowers that we cut out
and made her very own four shirt with some special t-shirt markers that she received as a birthday present.

After both shirts were dry I set the color with an iron (I first peeled away the freezer paper).  I decided to add a bit of depth to the violet shirt so I cut out a few little wool felt violets and sewed them onto the shirt as well.  

And there you go, two brand new four shirts for a four year old.  

I do not know how it happens, but doesn't it feel like they grow an entire year once they have their birthday?! Suddenly, she feels more grown up this week than she did last week!

One last thing...don't forget the Covert Robin Swap.  There only a couple more days to sign up!  And, if you sign up you might have a chance to win some super cool prizes, check some of them out here.  And, I just decided on what my prize offer is going to be!  I've decided to offer up this rainbow pack of 100% wool felt as a prize.  

I love working with wool felt.  It is what I use as accents in my stuffed animals, what I used to make flower pins, lovebirds, puppets, finger puppets and children's games and so much more!  The feel of wool felt is so soft and the colors are so rich and vibrant, so if you sign up, you'll get a super cool handmade gift from your partner plus get a chance to win this felt or some of the other awesome prizes that are being offered!

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Signs of Spring...

I do LOVE snow and I was very much wishing for at least one big snow storm this winter, but  after a dreadful week of sickness in our house that still does not seem to be over...I am glad to see a bit of color popping up out of the ground this week.  Now,  I'd say, I am just ready for Spring and gardening and more and more outside time...

Happy weekend to you!