diy advent calendar.

happy day after thanksgiving! the official start (in my house at least) of the christmas season. and what's a better way to recover from that breakfast pumpkin pie than an afternoon of crafting on the couch. and so, to encourage just that, here's a snazzy advent calendar diy, complete with printables, for all of your couch crafting fun.

i love christmastime. i love having a living tree in the house (and fending off cats and toddlers). i love sipping hot chocolate with peppermint. i love roaring fires and cheesy music and endless cookies and cakes shaped like logs. as much as i love christmastime though, i'm not such a huge fan of christmas. i think it overwhelms me. with all the stress of giving presents and getting presents, all of the goodnesses of the season gets briefly lost in the frenzied day. last year, though, i think i struck on a happy balance. a way to embrace all of the awesomeness that is christmastime and minimize the stress of presenting while still having fun things to open.

advent. a full month of intentional christmastiming. last year i sent my sister lilly a random assortment of advent gifts (only a few of which got blogged) and had a total blast collecting them all, wrapping them up, and shipping them out. so this year, my sisters and sisters-in-laws decided (i.e. agreed to go along with my crazy plan) to do an advent calendar swap--each person would make their own advent calendar, and then we'd exchanged them randomly. this is my contribution to the mix.

i was totally inspired by this one that i saw on pour mes jolis mômes. i loved its modern look with the black and white, its use of washi tape (seriously, can there be too much?) and most importantly, its ability to hold candy (and maybe also the way they look like those ice pops from the elementary school cafeteria...). i've been making some simple hand drawn patterns for a while now, and i figured this was the perfect opportunity to finally make vector graphics from them. so i took the same premise and made twenty four of my own black and white designs. and i'm completely in love.

and a little sad that it's already left my house. but stoked that it's being hung up in an awesome house in south carolina. and since i made printables, i can make them over and over again. and so can you! just click here.

in addition to the twenty four pouches, i also made small cards with scriptures on them and cards with suggested festive activities, one each for each of the twenty four days. rather than reinvent the wheel, you can find awesome assembly instructions over at pour mes jolis mômes.

i chose to make mine into a garland, so i wasn't able to hang them by the string in the corner (they don't all face outwards that way...which i found out the hard way...). tiny clothespins worked perfectly, though, even with the weight of a couple of pieces of candy.

so you should make some! and keep them for yourself or give them to a friend or to a neighbor or to someone completely random. and then hang them up over the fireplace, with a yak. or throw them in a basket. or hide them all over the house, easter egg style.

and since the pouches aren't too christmas specific, they can be used for other occasions--like twenty four days of birthdaying or twenty four days of summer or twenty four days of just because! 

on a somewhat related note, if you do choose to fill them with chocolate, hanging them above an often used fireplace is probably not ideal. just saying.

happy christmastime!

pajama pants.

so last week was kid's clothing week, and, as always, i totally forgot. i did remember sometime on thursday evening, and managed to make this sweet pair of pajama pants. then, of course, i did not get around to taking pictures of them until now. alas, maybe one day i'll be more on the ball. in the meantime, here are some cool pants!

i apologize in advance for all of the blurry pictures you're about to see. the only way to convince a toddler to model pajama pants is to let them jump on your bed.

i made these by just adding length to dana's kids shorts pattern , which continues to proove to be a great investment. pajama pants are forgiving enough that i could easily have self drafted a pattern, but i already had the pattern pieces on hand. a win for laziness.

i used the pattern option for the full elastic waistband and added a draw string, more for looks than functionality. pajama pants were made for drawstrings.

these were super quick make. under an hour from cutting to complete, and that included having to redo the button holes for the draw string when i realized i put them in the back originally...

i'm really loving this woodland flannel. it's from jo ann's (which is open again here...yay!!). ever since finishing these i've been pretty jealous of margot. soon, i'll probably break down and make me a pair, so we can have matching mommy-daughter pajama parties.

accompanied by much bed jumping.

pizza and pasta and donuts, oh my!

you had to know that all of my felt food making wouldn't be limited to the vegetable variety. there are far too many other tasty treats to be had (or made).

like donuts! sprinkle donuts are margot's favorite (and every other two year old). she likes to eat them from the top down, meaning she only eats the frosting and the sprinkles. sometimes she accidentally eats some of the donut. these felt donuts are a bit hard to eat, but super cute to look at. and perfect for tea parties. 

     

  

margot is also a big fan of pizza. when she says it, though, it sounds like 'pasta', which is really confusing. confusing because i never know if she's asking for pizza or spaghetti and also confusing because she used to say 'pizza'. not sure what happened there...

the best thing about this felt pizza is that it is disassemble-able...so that margot can make and re-make her pizza over and over again. this is a particularly entertaining activity on friday evenings when we're waiting for the pizza man. then she goes and puts it in her oven, where it seems to only take fifteen seconds to cook. the magic of felt food.

these farfalle may be my favorite! so cute and so similar to the real thing. and the three color blend really makes them look awesome (and speaks to my new habit of hoarding all of the various shades of felt from all of the craft stores).

making these is super simple, as long as you have pinking shears. i suppose you could make them with straight ends, but it wouldn't be nearly as cute. the first set i made (the off-white ones) i sewed on my machine, which was fast, but made it a bit hard to keep them lookin neat. for the other two sets, i simply hand stitched them while watching tv one evening. five or six quick stitches is all it takes for these adorable little bow ties.

and  margot has a blast playing with them. they go from being stirred in the pot on the stove (with large chunks of wooden butter, of course), drained in the colander in the sink and then back to the stove. luckily, you cannot over cook felt pastas.

and that about brings this blog up to speed with my felt food endeavors. still on my list are more things that can serve as salad or pizza toppings, like mushrooms, peppers, onions, and the like.