images for classes in poulsbo

Some pictures to inspire you this holiday season...

I'm teaching classes this winter at Rubber Soul in Poulsbo.

This is what my life is like these days

Sabrina made this silly video for you...

Father's Day Mini-books (Part 2)

This is the second album I made for Father's Day. This one was for my father who joined us for the 4th of July celebration we had at the cabin. It was a great weekend and fun to play cards and be silly like when we were on vacation as kids. The cousins were all together and it gave me a chance to be grateful for my family and the chances we have to get together to just be.

Album 2: You Make Me Smile mini-book
This album was made using a kit I received at the Technique Tuesday Bliss weekend (which was awesome!). It was very quick to put together - just glued on the paper and rounded corners. Cropped the photos and placed them on with some quick journaling. It was fun and I'm happy with how it turned out. For the journaling, I asked my kids what they liked best about Grandpa and just created a simple list to go with some photos I had around. Took me a little over an hour to pull together.

Father's Day Mini-books (Part 1)

For Father's Day this year I made mini-books for my husband, father, and father in-law that turned out super cute.

Album 1: Shrimping with Dad and Grandpa
Mother's Day weekend was one of only a few days you can shrimp on Hood Canal and we had fun taking the kids out for their first time. Carter (5) decided he wanted to try to kayak by himself this weekend too, so it ended up being a lot of firsts for us! I was glad that I got to document it for our family and knew that my father in-law would like to look at the pictures over and over again.

I couldn't find a decent chipboard album last minute at the craft stores I visited so I had to improvise. I bought wood rectangles that were super light and adhered the pictures directly to the wood. After trimming the pictures with an exacto knife, I used sand paper to even up the edges and give them a little white border. Then I took some white ink and stamped directly onto the photos - but the ink took forever to dry. I used my hot gun and it still didn't dry. The stamps are all Ali Edward's from Technique Tuesday. A friend gave me a tip to just put some paper towel over to soak up anything that was still sticky and that seemed to work. I think they turned out awesome!

Part 2 coming soon!

Make something cool: Pup tent

Ran across this great idea today on the interwebz. Who doesn't want a pup tent? So cute!

Another version to try too - this one starts with a sheet and looks easy:

Summer drinks: Watermelon slushee

We are having fun experimenting with summer drinks at our house. We've master the orange julius, iced almond coffee, and chai tea blended drinks. Yummm... Today we invented a watermelon slushee and it was delicious! Great mocktail for using up watermelon that has gone a little mushy.

Watermelon Slushee

4 cups seedless watermelon cubed
4 T sugar
juice of one lime (optional)
8 ice cubes

Put it in the blender and let it go. The longer you blend it the smoother it will be.

Enjoy!

Make something cool: ruffled shrug

I just saw this adorable shrug on one of the blogs that I follow. It is made out of a t-shirt that was stained and looks simple enough to attempt. What a great way to repurpose clothes! I'm raiding my daughters dresser as we speak...

Make something cool: Iced Orange Cookies

These are yummy and theoretically good for you since they contain whole grains. Good for Christmas or special occasions, they look fancy and taste great.  These are soft and cake-like cookies with a creamy frosting.

Iced Orange Cookies
From King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking

Dough
11 T unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 t vanilla
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 egg
1/2 cup orange juice (grate the zest before juicing)
2 T grated orange zest (rind of 1-2 oranges)
2 c whole wheat flour

Icing
2 c confectioners' sugar
2 T butter, softened
1 T grated orange zest
1/4 t vanilla
1/8 t salt
2 T orange juice

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.

Prepare the dough. Cream butter, sugar, vanilla, baking powder and soda, and salt in medium bowl. Beat in the egg, then the OJ and zest, scraping the bowl. Will look curdled. Add the flour, beating until smooth. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto the prepared sheets.

Bake cookies, reversing pans midway through until they are just barely beginning to brown around the edges, 10 minutes. Remove cookies fromt he oven and let them cool on the pans for 10 min before transferring them to a rack to cool.

Prepare the icing. Beat the sugar, butter, zest, vanilla, and salt in a medium bowl until well combined. Beat in the OJ till the mixture is spreadable. Spread icing on the cookies when they are completely cool, using a generous 1 teaspoon icing for each.

Making marriage work

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a ParentMap lecture by Dr. John Gottman at Town Hall in Seattle. It was insightful and entertaining. I thought I'd share my notes with you so you can benefit from what I learned.

Dr. Gottman studies couples and makes observations based on their interactions. Evidently he’s been able to predict with 90% accuracy which couples will succeed or fail based on how they interact. He’s found that the ratio of positive to negative interactions for a healthy marriage is 5:1 measured in number of seconds.

The ability to repair after a negative reaction is key. Listen openly, quick to forgive, etc. Most of the time we are emotionally unavailable when we need to be (statistically only 9% of the time are we both available at the same time). Odds are stacked against us. What makes repair work?

“What can make relationships work is surprisingly simple. Happily married couples in their day-to-day lives have hit upon a dynamic that keeps their negative thoughts and feelings about each other from overwhelming their positive ones. They support each other’s hopes and aspirations and build a sense of purpose into their lives together.”

What can you do now to make your marriage work?

1. Nurture the friendship in your marriage
- Build love maps – maintain awareness of your partner’s world. What stresses you out? Values, hopes, aspirations. Learn it and remember (will get you more sex too!). Present problems as “our” problems that we kick around together (vs “you are the problem!”). Avoid criticism. Complain when you are upset, but tell what you need and give a chance to repair that doesn’t feel like attack.
- Share and nurture fondness and admiration – and express it to each other. The marriages that work build a culture of appreciation and respect in the small moments that build up. Like spontaneous gratitude. It is a habit of the mind – scan for mistakes and offer “constructive criticism” vs ignore the mistakes and look for things to compliment and appreciate. What is going right? Communicate your affection and respect, don’t just think it (gentlemen). Listen to complaints that are specific and gentle vs an attack on character. Avoid whining or acting like an innocent victim. Accept responsibility within the first three minutes (especially the ladies) – goes a long way.
- Turn toward each other instead of away. Manage stress as a team. Contempt is ugly – saying something from a superior place or talking down to each other. Avoid insults, name-calling, correcting grammar, condescending tone, etc. Lack of responsiveness is bad. Emotional bank account gets filled up when bids for attention are responded to (master couples responded to bids 86% of time vs 33% of time for couples that divorce).  Each bid for attention is a “sliding door” (the movie) opportunity and is a choice you make.

2. A positive perspective occurs when the friendship in your marriage is strong.
Be a good listener and respond. Don’t stonewall or shut down. Instead, take a deep breath and calm down and try to listen and engage. You have to get to a positive perspective to make repair work, couples will do a cost benefit analysis and if it is more heavily weighted toward disaster they will bail. It gets to the point where you cant switch from negative to positive, so have to cultivate along the way. The litmus test for a marriage is friendship – if it isn’t working you are running on empty in the bank.

3. Deal with your relationship issues and learn to manage conflict.
69% of time we don’t resolve conflict, deal with perpetual problems.
- Accept influence from your partner. Be open to compromise.
- Discuss your problems. Take turns listening to one another about ongoing problems. Resolve solvable problems. Talk about the perpetual ones. The topic doesn’t matter, figure out the underlying issue (talking about money vs what does $$ mean to us?). Often the issue is related to something in their love map (dreams, values, etc.).
- Practice self-soothing to keep yourself calm. You have to relax or else you will dig in heals and hit gridlock.

4. Find ways to make one another’s life dreams come true.
Make sure you know what they are first. Don Juan DeMarco movie.

5. Create shared meaning.
Build a shared sense of purpose. What is your mission and legacy? Celebrations. Holidays. Intentional conversations about what they should mean. How do you want to be treated when sick? How deal with economic setbacks & failures? Goals. Mission. Values. Legacy.

Clean up your room!

There is a lot of angst around cleaning up rooms right now. And I'm not sure why it is so especially frustrating. I'm tired of yelling to motivate my kids and need a new system. It seems like they get overwhelmed with the number of tasks or requests you give them. My son is always getting frustrated because I've asked too many things of him at one time. So I created a little chart in Word to laminate for their room. There are images and words so that they can theoretically work independently on picking up all their stuff. I will let you know if it works. Here's what it looks like:

Very Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is my all-time favorite recipe for cookies. I don't even care that it is made with whole grains. It is that yummy. My family agrees. I like that you don't have to bring the butter to room temperature - it makes the whole thing go faster and allows me to make cookies spontaneously. Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookies
From Good to the Grain

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Dry Mix:
3 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

Wet Mix:
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 c dark brown sugar
1 c sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
8 oz bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

Instructions:

1. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper (especially if using big chunks of chocolate). Can butter the sheets instead.
2. Sift dry ingredients together.
3. Mix together butter and sugars in stand mixer, just until butter and sugars are blended. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla. Add the four mixture on low until barely combined. Add the chocolate all at once (I add some chopped nuts too at this point).
4. Scoop mounds of dough about 3 tablespoons onto baking sheet about 3 inches apart (6 to a sheet).
5. Bake cookies for 16-20 minutes, rotating half way through, until they are evenly browned. Transfer cookies on parchment to cool on the counter. Cook the rest of the cookies.

And did you see that Amy posted her cheat sheet for her favorite recipes? She posts them on her fridge so she doesn't have to look them up each time. I think that is brilliant! And I've made a bunch of these and they are yummy. For real. Go make the chocolate cake right now. You will not be disappointed.

Disappointed

I am a big John Mayer fan. I think he is so talented and have enjoyed following his career. But when I saw his latest interview with Playboy, I was really disappointed. I mean, really? My heart sunk on so many levels. Thinking about all the kids that idolize him, about the grip that porn has on his life, and how sad things are generally for youngin's trying to hook up. This article in NY Magazine communicates how I feel about this issue eloquently.

Spring is here

I am loving the longer days and the sun shining through the trees in the evenings. Kids playing outside and happy. It makes me so thankful to live where we are. We had a great Easter weekend - Sabrina had a birthday and we got to hang out with both sides of the family.

This is the digital scrapbook page I pulled together to remember Easter. My first digital spread all by myself! I used an Ali Edwards template to help make it easier and I'm hoping it'll go faster next time.

Now I need to work out a new process and work flow for processing my pictures. I would like to be able to import the pictures, review them and mark my favorites and tag them, then edit the pictures I like if they need it, and then share them with my friends and family or print them at Costco.  There has to be a more efficient way to do that. I like how iPhoto organizes the photos, but don't like how they make another copy. I think I'll download Picassa to organize and tag the photos, Photoshop to edit the pictures, and then pull them into iPhoto to facilitate sharing.

Make something cool: Felt toolbox

I love felt. And this project is adorable!  Tutorial is here.

Walmart may be the best source of local produce?

Really? Potentially better than Whole Foods? Really? Hate them or love them, WalMart may be single handedly bringing back small farms. Really?

Interesting article from the Atlantic, where chef prepares side by side comparisons for discerning pallets with surprising results.

Listening to life

I started a new book tonight in the quiet moments when my husband was giving my kids a bath. I love it when that happens! I would like to become a more contemplative person and I'm hoping the book "Let Your Life Speak" by Parker Palmer will help.

I wanted to share the opening poem with you because I think it is beautiful:

Some time when the river is ice ask me

mistakes I have made. Ask me whether

what I have done is my life. Others

have come in their slow way into

my thought, and some have tried to help

or to hurt: ask me what difference

their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say. 

You and I can turn and look

at the silent river and wait. We know 

the current is there, hidden; and there

are comings and goings from miles away

that hold the stillness exactly before us.

What the river says, that is what I say.

  - William Stafford, "Ask Me"

Tell me a story

I promised that I would publish the instructions for a craft I led recently at our MOPS group. This post is terribly tardy. And I apologize for those mama's waiting for this information. God bless you!

I first ran across story dice on Amy's blog and promptly ordered a few from etsy and this great artist. When they arrived I squealed with delight. The packaging was beautiful and it feels good to buy things that are made individually by such talented people. I think I was more excited than the kids were. Aren't they cute?

But then I discovered this great tutorial for making them and asked the author to post the illustrations she used. And she did! So now you can make them too. They are super easy and you can find the blocks at JoAnns or Michaels depending on what size you want. I've used 3/4 inch to 1 1/2 inch blocks with success.

These are pictures of the dice that we made for our craft. We put them in cute little purple bags. I think the moms really liked them!

I originally ordered these dice as a cure for our witching hour between 4-6 in the afternoon when I am trying to make dinner and am spent from the day. I think it was after I read the Creative Family book and they talked about drawing together as a family and just making supplies available to the kids to create when they want. The good stuff too. And it does help. I think my kids will be even more into this as they get older, but just creating the little booklets was really fun and they are filling them up with pictures and 'stories'. Now that they can write letters this will be a fun activity to re-introduce.

This is our little story center. It is setup in our dining room so the kids can access it anytime.

Have fun!

My quest for a fashionable camera bag

...has not been easy, let me just tell you. My goal is to find a bag that is cute that can hold my dSLR, an extra lens and flash and the battery charger in one place. Ideally it'll have some padding to keep everything safe. And it should be beautiful - not boxy and black. I'm not a professional photographer.

Here's what I've found so far:

I love that this bag is quilted and roomy.

This bag is beautiful! And according to this blog, is roomy enough for what a girl needs.

This is cool because it has dividers and was intended for photography.

I like this one too - again designed for a DSLR. Small too, a bonus.

But the one I tried first (in part because it was cheap!) was this cute bowling bag from Amazon.com:

I think it is going to work, though the hubby isn't thrilled with the design. I think he was hoping for a bag that he could lug to sporting events. This is not that bag. But really, when are we apart for said events?  It fits my Canon and an extra lens, but not much else. You might be able to shove the battery charger in there - it is a bit of a tight squeeze.  The bag has a little padding, and will keep everything nice and clean when not in use (a concern for households with curious kiddos). It is small enough that I can throw it in a larger bag or purse too if I go on a trip.

Will keep you posted. Anything else I should be considering?

If you really want to know me...

You should look at what I'm reading. Anyone who knows me knows that I read a lot. And as I was cleaning up I was noticing all the places I'm tucking away books because I don't have shelves up.

In my kitchen, I've placed my go to cookbooks by the oven so they are handy. I love these books. They are the ones I use over and over and over.

And these are the books on the table by my chair. Notice the books stacked up on the piano? My husband did that after he got sick of the tower of books on the table that kept falling over.

What can you tell about me from my books? I like to cook and bake, I have kids and am trying to figure out this parenting thing, I'm crafty, and I am our family's memory keeper. You already knew this? Look closer. These books tell you even more about the type of parent I want to be, the kind of life I'm carving out for my family, the kind of art that excites me, and the adventures I want to take.

I'm curious, what are you reading?

More projects for valentines

I ran across a couple more ideas that I think you are going to like!

How about a personalized flip-book from Color Me Katie? Super simple and won't cost you a thing.

You can find lots of creative gifts that are hand stamped and personalized at my buddy Carissa's etsy shop here. (I found a super cute gift for my sweetie but don't want to spoil it before the holiday!)

Lots of great ideas here too.

And over 30 printable valentines are listed here for you to use.

On a related note, I finished making my heart garlands and they turned out so cute! I brought them to our local parent fair to decorate our MOPS booth and they looked great. I also made simple pendants that were super cute too. What do you think?

My friend Kelli dropped of a Vera Bradley catalog with lots of pinks and reds in it and I used a heart punch and some invisible thread to pull this together pretty quickly. 

And for these I just cut a 12x12 piece of scrapbooking paper in half and then folded those in half, identified the center of the open end and used my paper cutter to cut out a triangle. I threaded some cute red twine through the center and secured with double sided tape. I cut out the letters on my Cricut using Sure Cuts A Lot software and Gill Sans font.

Hoping you are inspired!

Sabrina, the ballerina

Lookout America's Funniest Home Videos!

And she recovers with a strong finish...

My first little dress

It is official. I feel like I've graduated to a new level of craftiness. It is one thing to sew squares for pillows or quilts. It is another thing entirely to fashion something you can wear and make it look good. I am one that cuts corners. Not someone that relishes in the little details that make a project look really professional. But I have to say that I am quite happy with this little dress:

She liked it so much she started dancing!

It was made from one of Jason's old shirts. I love re-purposing old clothes! It makes me feel good and it costs no money! And if I hate it when I finish - no big deal.

Anyways, I know you want to go into your husband's closet and start cutting apart one of his shirts. Go for it! I found a detailed tutorial here. Follow it to the letter. Do not deviate. I found the belt part a little confusing because I didn't understand that the elastic for the waist does not go inside the tube that you create, it goes between the tube and the dress. When I make another dress (and I will), I won't make the neck as scoopy or deep. And I broke a button sewing up the collar because I wasn't paying attention - so make sure you have enough fabric to create the casings before you cut the neckline/hemline. But everything else turned out great. And I already have the pattern set to go for another one.

I really thought that this would be something I could do in an hour or two. Not sure why I thought so... Cut off the collar and sleeves. Shape the dress and sew up the sides, throw in a little elastic and you are done. And that may have worked (seems like a couple ladies did that with good results). But the tutorial has lots of finishing work that helps it look super! What do you think? Here are some pictures of the project in progress.

And this is what was happening all around me when I basically took most of the day to make this dress:

Some more dresses to inspire you: