Gingercake

A Love Affair: a Boy and his Dog

There is a love affair happening at our house.  The relationship between a boy and his dog is powerful and adorable.  Our puppy is now 7 months old and this is as close as Cal is getting to a brother...

That is a stalk from a brussel sprout plant from last year's garden they are playing with!  See all those soccer balls in the yard?  They even play soccer together.  These photos also show how lush spring is here and although the winter was long and awful, this spring is glorious!  Having a puppy at our house has been wonderful and terrible at the same time.  Here, on this blog of happy times, we only share the wonderful becuase that is how we want to remember things, right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heart Monster Craft

Everytime I go in for a class party, I am so grateful and amazed at the job that elementary school teachers accomplish everyday.  When you do the craft at these parties, you wonder how these women and men get anything done!  The kids are fun and awesome but the range in their ability to listen and understand is pretty broad- even on a super simple craft like the one I am about to share with you.  Teachers, I salute you yet again!

I like this because you can share it with kids who are a little older ( 7 & 8 year olds) but with help, little ones can do it too.  It is also great for boys and girls alike.  And I like that the materials are super simple and all found at my local dollar store.  Cool.  Also, your kids can spend some time playing with them after school while you chill and have a glass of wine after dealing with making crafts with 20 kids all amped up on valentine sugar.  Very Cool.

This is pretty simple so I am just going to give you an easy photo tutorial.

First, the materials~

To make this with just a few kids, they can cut out the heart, glue the googly eyes on, etc.  To make this with 20 kids in a short amount of time (like 7 very hurried minutes of a 20 minute class party), I prepped  quite a bit before I went in.  

I cut out all the hearts (in a variety of colors so they could choose), I glued the googly eyes to the styrofoam balls so they wouldn't have to wait for glue to dry, and I prepared all the TP rolls by cutting them in half and cutting out the finger circles.

The kids chose their pipe cleaner (and cut it in half) chose their googly eyes, chose their hearts, and drew the mouth and stuck on the teeth. And, of course, they assembled the monsters themselves!

I love the rainbow of teeth on this one...

Many of them decided to use the 2nd half of the pipe cleaner to make arms.  Very cute!  

The only thing about this craft with a class party is that you have to have 20+ TP rolls!  I was collecting them since I knew I wanted to do some kind of craft with them.  To reach 20, I had to cut paper towels rolls down to size and they were not as nice to use as the actual Toilet Paper rolls.  The kids did not notice at all though!

Hopefully you may find some use of this tutorial for doing some easy crafting with your kids!  

holiday Gifts Sewing Series: The Southern Institute (daughter!) sews a Penguin

I am so please about my guest sewer today!  Jenny from the Southern Institute is one inspirational lady.  She is a go getter with a big heart and her creativity is limitless.  Today on her blog she shows off her daughter's version of Annie's Penguin.  YES!  Her 10 year old daughter sewed this and it was her first complete sewing project on her own.  Head over to Jenny's blog to hear about this experience and leave a comment for your chance to win a copy of the Annie's penguin pattern.

Hello September!!

Boy oh Boy.  I can't remember the last time I went a whole month without blogging.  It's true that regular blogging brings on more blogging but now I feel like I have to make a huge long post to catch up.  But a small blog post is a start to get back in the groove so here we go!

We had a 2 week lake vacation which was wonderful.  I took lots of instagram pictures!  Here are a few...

It was so nice and relaxing.  A little colder than I would have liked but still a great time!  Hopefully more catching up later in the week!

Goodbye May!

Last night I realized today would be the last day of my favorite month of the year.  May is fantastic in Western Pennsylvania.  Just beautiful!  I am feeling a little let down since I haven't been able to sew much lately but May is a hard month to stay inside and sew!  Here is has been happening this month...

Hopefully you can see that I made some changes to the website.  My awesome helper, Christian was in town and he helped me work some things out I have been wanting to do for a long time.  I do the designing and he makes it work!  Also, thank you to Vanessa for giving me some great tips to clean things up the looks of things here on the blog.  Good friends can give you a much needed fresh eye sometimes!

I joined a program in which I can choose my own sponsors for the blog.  Scroll down on the right to see them.  I love the program since I can choose who I want to have advertised and it can be part of my blog theme.  You have to be approved but it's a short process and I am looking forward to seeing how it's going to turn out!  There are tons of businesses to choose from.  Email me if you want more info on my experience so far!  

I wasted a bunch of energy on creating this silly turtle which I have now abandoned for other ideas temporarily.  Sometimes you just have to take a break when you can't get things quite right and you start to get too complicated your own good.  This turtle took up a week and I have only this oddly shaped thing to show for it!  If I pick it up again in a month or so I bet I'll figure out a way to make something better...

I have spending LOTS of time at my kids sports this month.  It's cute though and they like it.  I bring my chair and a blanket for the baby to play on and we watch all the fun of little kids playing soccer and baseball.  Not a bad way to spend your evenings and Saturdays!

I have other projects happening which I hope to share soon but this little gal is taking up A LOT of my time!  I refuse to complain though since she is one good baby and now that I am older and I know for sure this is my last one, I am really enjoying all her cuteness...

Fun with HST

I bought a stack of solids and finally starting cutting into them using this method.  It's really cool to try if half square triangles interest you!  I love fun sewing tricks, don't you?  I enlarged the fabric pieces to 18" x 18" since I wanted bigger triangles.  The baby enjoyed chewing on the fabric pieces as Cal and I messed around with a quilt design.

She is getting big!  Almost 5 months already.  My original idea was much more random piecing (like this) but my 5 year old was really interested in making a pattern.  I am feeling a little over the chevron look but we were both pleased that it all came together like magic since I didn't even plan on the pattern!  Quilting is super cool like that.

I'll be sure to give more details as I get further along with this project!

Another Spring Break Adventure

Last year we went down to the Smokey Mountains but this year we stayed a little closer to home and took the educational route.  Washington DC is only about 5 hours away from us and we have friends that live close to the city.  We had a great time!  I will admit that parking is tough and the METRO is super expensive for a subway, but once you get on the Mall, the DC experience is fantastic.

Our ambitions we pretty toned down- Travis and I aimed for only a couple of spots on each of the 2 days we were there.  This strategy made everything less stressful.  It was hard to see all those big and beautiful museums and not even attempt to go inside (we did brave the air and space museum but it was super crowded and we only stayed about an hour), but it would have been a nightmare to try and drag them through the lines and crowds.

One of the reasons for the crowds was it is cherrry blossom season.  Due to the cold weather, the trees were only in bud but we did get to see these beautiful Japanese magnolias in bloom.  They looked like heaven after such a long winter!

When asked what their favorite thing about DC was, the kids all agreed that they loved playing in the reflecting pond at the national scuplture garden.  Travis loved the Lincoln Memorial and although I loved it all, I think my favorite part was watching the kids crawl around on Albert Einstein...

And what about the baby?  It turns out almost 5 months is a great time to travel with a baby!  She was content in her stroller and loved all the sound and action.  I admit I was pretty nervous about how she would fare, but she did really well inspite of the interuption in her routine.

We spent 2 days in DC and then traveled back up to Pennsylvania and went to Hershey Park.  What a great park!

I can't handle roller coasters so I was happy to stroll the baby around while Travis and the "big" kids went on the rides.  Hershey park is only open on the weekends right now and have special springtime rates.  The weather was great and the crowds were pretty minimal.  

Did you go anywhere for Spring break?  Do you have any recommendations for next year?  The kids are hoping we take a little trip each year and I am game!  Hope you all are finally enjoying Springtime!

Preschool Valentine Craft

Here is the craft I am doing with Cal's preschool tomorrow morning.  I admit I was a bit of a grumpy baby coming up with this.  First, I waited until this morning to make my plan.  Second, I kept waffling about my plan.  Third, I had to haul Cal and the baby all the way to Micheals!  But now I am happy and think the kids will like making these boquets for their moms.  What do you think?  Are the craft mom for your kid's party?

It is just cupcake liners (3 per flower), pipe cleaners, shredded paper to hold them in, and take out containers (3 for $1!).  Pretty cute and I think the 4 year olds can handle it!

The Studio at Contempo Owl Bag Sewing Class

A couple weeks ago, my friend Amy Frank asked me if she could use the Lola Owl Sewing Pattern for a class she is teaching at the Studio at Contempo in Boalsburg PA (near State College).  I said yes (of course!) and please send me some pictures.  I have heard from past customers that girls this age love to sew up Lola and I wanted to see some proof!

I wish I could have been there to take this class too!  I bet these girls had a blast sewing up their bags.  You can almost hear all the giggling and chatter as they choose their fabrics and work on the sewing machine.

For more information about the classes, visit the facebook page of the Studio here.  Amy is teaching several classes and having a wonderful time sharing her love of sewing with kids and adults.

These girls (and their owls) are totally adorable!  Thanks Amy and great job girls!

 

Sewing with my (Lefty) Daughter

A week or so before school started I asked on the Gingercake Facebook page about ideas for sewing with my 8 year old.  Thank you so much for the good advice!  She decided on making a tote bag together with a pocket on the front to hold some STUFF.

Sewing with my lefty daughter was a bit more of a challenge than I thought.  She had a lot of trouble with my sewing scissors (in fact could barely cut with them at all!) and when she used the rotary cutter, she had to turn it in all sorts of funny angles and then still couldn't get a good cut very easily.  She loved slecting fabric though and using the machine was fun with me helping to guide.  The bag took about 3 hours to make over 2 days.  I tried hard not to rush her although I did feel like the whole project took a lot longer than I planned for a simple first adventure into real mother/ daughter sewing.

This past Saturday we made this cute water bottle cooler (with insulbrite batting!) together before her soccer game.  She wanted it to match her uniform and we had fun searching for just the right colors.  She did most of the sewing and then we put the snaps on together.  This time I did all the cutting since she got all grumpy when I brought out the cutters.  "Do I HAVE to use those again??!!"  Hmm.  Cutting is a really big part of sewing I thought.

So now I see that I can purchase lefty scissors and even a lefty rotary cutter online!  What do you think lefty sewers?  Does she just need to get used to living in a righty world or will the purchase of lefty accessories make sewing that much more fun and accessible for her?    I couldn't find a good child lefty set so it looks like I would have to buy the real (and pretty expensive!) thing for her.  This would certainly be worth it if it meant the difference between having this hobby to share together and her giving up since using my tools is too hard!