Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is my least favorite "holiday." However, I could not be the only mom who sends their kid to preschool on their Valentine's Party day without valentines for the whole class. So, I got this idea to make felt envelopes for everyone. I mean I can't just buy a lollipop from the store. No. I have to make felt envelopes for everyone. Of course!

This was the plan. I had bought all the materials about a month before Valentine's Day party. I had made some of the stamps already, too. I was going to make all the envelopes a week before we were going on our vacation (which was a week before the party at school), so when we got home a day before the school party, I would have everything ready for her to take to school. The envelopes would be stuffed with lollipops and a little sweet note from O. They would be neatly in a bag waiting for us when we left for school after our vacation. That WAS the plan.

This is what actually happened.

A week before our trip to Mexico, I came down with this crazy cold that just took all the energy out of me.  No sewing of felt envelopes even crossed my mind during that week. I just needed stay awake enough to focus on every day routines. I was annoyed that I couldn't breathe through my nose, and I was certain I would be sick the whole following week in Mexico too. "The vacation is ruined!!!" I convinced myself. (Turns out that I was wrong, and I now realize a bit too dramatic about it all.) Then we were off to Mexico for a week. It was fantastic. It was a well needed vacation for all of us.

On Sunday night, we flew back from 90 degree sunny weather from Mexico to snow and ice in New Jersey. What a welcome back! The next day, I unpacked, did laundry, tried to get used to being home again, thought about my English lesson that I was going to teach that night...and, then I remembered. "Tomorrow is the Valentine's Day party at preschool, and I haven't made the envelopes!!!" It was 2 pm. Any normal person would have driven to Target, bought a packet of cards and lollipops, and call it a day. But, not me. I had a plan, and I was going to stick to it. Time or no time. I was going to make those stinkin' felt envelopes for the class. I needed to make 11 of them.  And, 30 minutes before I was to get ready for my evening class, I had all the envelopes done. I left the task of writing the notes and envelope stuffing to K and O. And, we did it.

But, it was not enough that I had made the envelopes to her classmates. I could not forget the teachers. "Everyone else is bringing something for the teachers," I was thinking. I had learned my lesson from the previous year. (And, I should know better...after all, I am a teacher as well.) So, after I got back from teaching (at 9 pm), I sat down on the living room floor and made three felt heart pins for O's teachers and the director of the preschool. I got the idea from PurlSoho's blog (Valentine Pins), and I thought the pins were super cute, usable and quick to make. I was having fun making them while watching Downton Abbey and eating cereal for dinner. However, it wasn't until three hours later that I realized I was still sitting there...And, I should have been in bed a lot earlier.

Nevertheless, O went to school the next morning with cute Valentine's Day gifts for her class and teachers. And, I am happy I made them.

Here are the pins for the teachers.

Happy Valentine's Day! Hyvää Ystävänpäivää!

Super hero monsters

It seems like super heroes are now all the rage. All the little boys at O's preschool class are all about super heroes. They know everything about Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, Captain America...and, many others that I didn't even know existed. :) I have a hard time keeping up with the names of My Little Ponies.

Since the little monsters that I have been making have been a great success among their new owners, I have been making them. They make great gifts and are fairly quick to make once you have the materials and idea. O carries her monster with her everywhere, and when it is not in sight, we look for it with cats and dogs.

This weekend, I decided to try to make two super hero inspired monsters. Most of O's friends are little boys. She loves "my boys" as she calls them. One of them LOVES Batman, so I decided to make a Batman monster for him. Since he is only two and a half, I did not want to make the monster too scary, so I decided to use Batman material and create Batman's logo for its belly.

I went to Google images and printed out the logo. I cut the Batman shape out, pinned it on the yellow fabric, and cut it out. I decided to put it on top of another fabric and then zigzagged it on its place. I hope it will last. I was happy how well it turned out even though the zigzags are a bit all over the place. :)

My plan was to make a cape for Batman, but I was so excited to finish the monster that I didn't think ahead and sew the cape on before I sewed the whole monster together. Once I had it all put together, I realized that I had forgotten the cape. Well, I tried to take the top part of the monster apart, but the fur started to rip, so I decided this Batman monster can be without a cape. Maybe the next one will have one.

The big brother of Batman fan is a fan of Spiderman. Well, I couldn't go to their house with one super hero monster, so I decided to make a Spiderman monster for the older brother.

I used Spiderman fabric again, but the "web" on his face, I sewed with black thread. It was not all even, but luckily, I was able to hide all the imperfections with the eyes. He looks a bit scary to me, but the new owner did not seem to mind it. Phew!

While I was making Spiderman monster, I was thinking, awesome now I will have a chance to make a cape for it since I have not sewn the monster together yet. I made the cape and everything, and when I was getting ready to sew it on, it dawned on me that Spiderman does NOT have a cape. What a tragic mistake that would have been! And, I am SURE I would have been corrected. ;)

This just shows how much I know about my super heroes. Sigh!

Here are the super hero monster brothers together. I'm happy their new owners seemed to like them.

Crocheted Rattles

A few weeks ago, I pinned a picture of  beautiful crocheted balls on my Pinterest. The link took me to an Etsy store (ATERGcrochet) where I not only found the pattern (for sale) for the balls, but I also saw these beautiful flower rattles. I had to have the patterns, so I ended up purchasing both.

Once I had the patterns, I started to go through my yarn stash, and I realized soon that all the cotton yarn that I had was going to be too thick for these delicate rattles. So, the searching started. The yarn that was used for both patterns was Schachenmayr Catania Cotton. It is 100% cotton and fingering weight which means it is very thin and delicate. The colors are beautiful, and there are lots of options. It is also, of course, made in Germany which then means that it is pretty expensive to buy here in the U.S., and one can mainly find it in specialty yarn shops if they happen to carry it. Well, since I had bought the patterns, and I had decided that I was going to make the flowers and balls, I started to obsess a bit about the yarn. I went online looking for a local yarn shop that might carry it. I looked for Finnish stores to see if they sold it there. I looked online yarn shops. I did Google searches. I went on Etsy. I looked on Amazon. I spent some hours doing this, and I was not going to let it go until I found this yarn at reasonable price.

Interestingly, I found the yarn on Etsy, and the seller had a nice range of colors available. It turned out that the price per skein was great, but shipping was ridiculously expensive since she was selling them from Germany. Well, of course, she was. Not only was I not going to pay $7.95 for shipping, but I also refuse to buy things such as these from Etsy since, in my opinion, one should be only selling handmade items on this site...don't get me started on that. So, after doing some serious price comparisons, I ended up finding and buying the yarn from Angelika's Yarn Store. They were wonderful! The price was good and shipping was a great deal. I was able to convince my friend that she also needed some of this yarn, so we ordered together and split the shipping. Yay for crocheting friends!!

The yarn is beautiful. And, it is so much fun to crochet. I highly recommend it.

Here is my very first flower rattle. It is an exact copy from the pattern. It was so much fun to make, and I am a bit obsessed now with these rattles. Good thing we will be having another baby girl. She will  have lots of flower rattles to play with. :)

I also made another one (on the right), and this time I made up my own color combination. I am pleased with that one as well.

And, here is the ball that started all of this craziness. I chose my own color combination for the ball, and that is what is so nice about the pattern...you can just make up the colors as you go. They are super easy to make and took no time. The only annoying part is all the ends of the yarns since you switch colors after every row.

For each of the flowers and balls, I have stuffed with fiberfill and added a little bell so that it makes a sound. I have been working on baby gifts for friends, and some of these will be send for them. I hope that the babies, who by now are almost 1, will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them. If nothing else, at least, they will add some color to the toy basket. :)

Fuzzy furry friendly monster friends

I love getting my weekly Pinterest email. I, however, turn into this crazy woman who can't put her phone down because I need to keep pinning new craft projects that I just LOVE. And, once I tell myself I am done, I go on my computer and keep pinning more. At the end of it all, I start feeling anxious and overwhelmed. I think (or, share out loud with my poor husband who has to witness this crazy behavior) every week after I have stopped pinning with my eyes all blaring and crazy, "Why are there so many people out there who are SO talented? How do they come up with so many cute ideas? I don't have time to make all of these things? Damn you Pinterest!!!!!" 

And, then I get inspired.

During this week's crazy Pinterest pinning session, I pinned a website Sun Scholars: 30 Homemade Gifts for Kids. They have lots of great ideas and links to either other blogs or Etsy stores. One of the gift ideas was these beautiful little monster friends. I have been sewing baby gifts to friends with new babies, and I thought this would be great gift. So, over the weekend I had a date with my friend, and we ended up at Joanns. Surprise! Surprise! We found the fur that I believe was used in the pictures that I saw on the website. I was getting excited about this sewing project!

I may not be creative when it comes to coming up with new ideas, but I am really good at following directions (in every part of my life). So, that night, I sat down, looked at the pictures of these monsters and started cutting. The fur is super messy, but after I cut the fur, I used my serger which helped that the fur did not keep shedding. I used scarps of fabric that I have plenty of to make the face, ears, belly pocket and legs. The eyes are made of flannel that was left over from the monster patches for the jeans (which, I am happy to report, have held up nicely after many many washes). The heart is a felt heart from Joanns.

My 4-year-old daughter fell in love with this soft fuzzy monster. It is now hers. She named it Ollie the monster (although she sometimes calls it a dinosaur...), and Ollie is with her pretty much everywhere. So, I would say this was a successful sewing project.

Ollie's front.

Ollie's back.

Ollie's face.

My O with her O.

Since the monsters were so much fun to make, I decided to make another one. This one is little bit smaller than Ollie. It was again supposed to be a gift, but after O saw it, she decided that her future baby sister needs a monster too. So, we put it in the box with things for the baby where the monster can wait for her arrival.

Here the two monsters together. Big Ollie and little baby Ollie. :)

I can't wait to for this weekend when I get my email from Pinterest again. Let the craziness start again!!

I love Christmas.

Three more days, and it is Christmas Eve. Since our household consist of equal amounts of Finnish and Americans, we are celebrating both days. Works for me! On Christmas Eve, we have invited our American friends for a traditional Finnish Christmas dinner. I am going to make lanttulaatikko (rutabaga casserole), porkkanalaatikko (carrot casserole), makaroonilaatikko (macaroni casserole), rosolli (beet salad with potatoes, carrots, pickles, onions, and apple), potatoes, and of course, ham. In Finland, joulupukki (Santa) comes to your house on Christmas Eve and delivers the presents personally. I don't personally like seeing Santa in my house (I was scared enough as a kid), so I thought it would be nice to each of us buy a present for each other and exchange them on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, we will do the American tradition. We have our stockings ready and Christmas tree is set up for Santa to bring presents over night. Since I love Christmas, I love both traditions, and I am happy to teach it all to my daughter.

I have been busy getting ready for Christmas this year. I have done some baking and sewing. I am super happy how much I have gotten done...and, there a few more projects waiting in my sewing room.

One of the traditions that I have from home is to bake gingerbread cookies on Finland's Independence Day which is December 6. When I was growing up, my mom would make the cookie dough the night before the 6th, and we (my sisters, my mom and I) would bake and bake and bake the following day. All day. We made enough cookies to last through the whole Christmas season. I have continued to do the same thing here in the U.S., and I find that it is now even more important to me that I have my own child. I give many of the cookies as gifts to friends. And, I, of course, think that these are the BEST gingerbread cookies there are in the world.

Sadly, most of these cookies are already gone. I am considering making more...but, it may not happen this year.

I am super excited that we got bunch of snow a few weeks ago. (It's all gone now thanks to 60 degree temperatures) O even had a snow day from preschool a few weeks back. We took an advantage of the snow and built a snow man, and I showed her how to make a snow lantern. This is also what we used to make as kids in Finland. We would have lots of them on the yard, and once it got dark, we would put a candle inside. It made me happy to see one of these on my own yard this year.

Another traditional Finnish Christmas food item is joulutorttu. It is puff pastry with prune sauce. Since I don't know where to buy prune sauce (thick paste like) in the U.S., I always make my own. It's super easy. I just put a bag of prunes in a pan and add some water and then I let it boil. I add water if needed. Once the prunes seem soft and cooled, I use a hand blender to make it into a paste. Yum! Today, in Finland, you can buy puff pastry that is already cut into shapes of the pastries, but since I don't have the privilege of finding that in my grocery store, I use my own traditional mold. I bought this mold this past summer while visiting a consignment sale with my sister. I paid 20 cents for it. The woman who sold it for me no doubt was happy to get rid of it, and I was thrilled I no longer needed to make the cuts myself with a knife. Yay!!!

Here are the pastries all finished. Some people sprinkle them with powdered sugar. Yum!!

When I was growing up, my mom and dad would bring a Christmas flower and/or box of chocolates to their friends and relatives. This was a way for them to say Merry Christmas (Hyvää Joulua) and thank them for another year of friendship. I remember driving around town and delivering these Christmas thank yous with my parents and sisters. I find that I do the same with my friends now. Many think that I am giving them a Christmas present, but it is not a present. It is a way for me to say thank you for being my friend.
This year I made some hearts that my friends can use as Christmas tree decorations. I also made a little house ornament.

I also did some Christmas pillow cases. I used thick linen and red fabric paint to write Merry and Joulua (Christmas). I have another fabric on the other side. I closed the pillows with zippers. 

I made a little fabric star for our front door to wish everyone Merry Xmas! The idea for the pillows and little hearts came from my mom who has made them in previous Christmases. Kiitos ideasta, äiti! 

I made more of the fabric stars that I posted about some time back. Here are pictures of the Christmas fabric stars. I got all the beautiful fabric from a local quilt shop. Totally worth every penny. They are so pretty. I gave one star for each of O's preschool teachers and the director of the school. I kept one for myself. 

I want to wish you all the happiest Christmas!! Oikein Hyvää Joulua myös Suomeen!! 

Giraffe

A few years ago, I bought this book "Cute Creatures to Knit and Crochet." It has many cute toys, but the one I absolutely loved was a giraffe which was a puppet. My niece was just born, and I thought making her a giraffe was a fantastic idea until I started the project. I decided not to make a puppet but just a soft toy. That was the easiest part. The most difficult part was the pattern for the giraffe which was in chart form. I had never followed a pattern like it, so it took me awhile to figure out how to read it. Once I had that settled, I realized that all the parts of the giraffe are made in individual pieces. Phew!!! It took a lot of time and patience. And, I don't usually have the latter when it comes to making things. It needs to be done NOW! :) 

Anyway, I finished the first giraffe for my niece, and she loved it. This summer while visiting my sister I looked at the giraffe again and decided it was time to make one for us, too. I guess I had forgotten how much I hated following the charts and how looooooooong it took to finish the first one. However, I was too excited about my new yellow and tan cotton yarn to remember any of that, and I couldn't wait to start. I started the giraffe in July. I finished in November. And, I still hated following the charts (although it was much easier the second time around), and it took me a very looooooong time to finish my second giraffe. I told myself multilpe times during the project, "never again." Give me a few more years in between, and I will probably make another one. ;)

The giraffe (still with no name) is SUPER cute and huge! I don't have the measurents but here she is sitting on O's arm chair and is basically filling the seat. 

Her face. I was supposed to make the nostrils and mouth, too, but decided not to do that. I didn't think she needed them. 

Side profile. 

Peeking to the other side of the chair. You can see that she is as big as the back of the chair. 

I'm happy I made the giraffe, but it will be a looooooooong time before I'll make another one. :)