Camp Gramp Key Chains

During the week of Camp Gramp, the kids do many crafts.  We try to make the crafts meaningful and useful, so we spend all year in search of the coolest things to make.  This key chain  (found on Ucreate) ranks right up there.  It is useful, and the process teaches the kids how to use a sewing machine. All that is required is a few straight lines of stitching, so the kids are exposed to using the machine without the frustration. (I can't be the only crafter who has to get the sewing machine manual out every time I start a new project!!)

The kids and I started the week with a field trip to JoAnn Fabrics (try taking seven kids into that store...see what happens) so the kids could pick out two long ribbons and one short ribbon.  The longer ribbons were mostly cut to order, so we got each cut to a quarter yard.  A quarter yard was more than enough for one key chain.  For the shorter ribbon that wraps around the key chain in the last step, I encouraged the kids to share spools of thin ribbon.  That required some artistic juggling, but we managed.

First step: sew together the two fat ribbons, using one line of stitching down each side.

Second step: insert the metal key chain (also found at JoAnn Fabrics, in the purse craft section) and sew the ends of the newly stitched fat ribbon together to form a loop that holds the metal key chain.

Third step:  pinch the loop of fat ribbon together, about a quarter-inch above the metal key chain.  Wrap the thin ribbon around this area and sew it securely with two straight stitches along the edges of the thin ribbon.  (This part was tricky for the youngest crafters--due to the thickness of the many ribbon layers-- so I had them depress the sewing pedal while I maneuvered the key chain through the machine.)

Each crafter now has a key chain made to order!

Camp Gramp Batik T-Shirts

Every summer I take all of my parents' grandkids to their house to spend the week for what we like to call Camp Gramp.  We swim, go on trips, watch movies, and do crafts.  The kids pitch in by doing a big chore each day to help their grandparents (weeding is a biggie) and by rotating daily chores such as setting the table, cleaning the bathroom sink area, and under-the-table crumb patrol.

We make t-shirts each year to wear on our day trips. In the past, we've done tie-dye and bleach pen designs. This year we made Batik Shirts. 

Making the shirts took about two days.  First, we drew designs on plain t-shirts with gel glue.  White glue tends to run too much for the look we wanted. We used white shirts, but any light color would work.  It is important to put a plastic grocery bag or other barrier inside the shirt so that the glue and paint do not go through to the other side of the shirt.

After letting the glue dry for a day, we painted over the design with watered-down acrylic paints.   To get light colors, add more water.  For darker colors, add more paint.

We let the painted shirts dry for a few hours.  Then we soaked them in warm water and gently rubbed off the glue.  Some of the paint does run out of the shirts at this point, but once they dried in the sun again, the painting was made permanent.  The area where the glue had been is now the color of the shirt (white, in our case).

The Color of Water

Water Coloring takes on a whole new meaning in this simple (and CHEAP) (...oh, and UNmessy!!) summertime activity in which kids paint with --what else?-- plain old water.

Today I gave the kids a large bowl of water and several fat paintbrushes.  You'd be surprised how long kids (even big kids) on a hot, sunny day will paint with water.  They are fascinated by the way it evaporates.

My kids and their cousin started off painting the patio wall, but it wasn't long before they moved on to other surfaces and then eventually dumped the bowl of water on the wall. No problem!  Just refill that bowl and get back to Water Coloring!

Tomato Wine

Many gardeners look at rows of growing vegetables or fruits and imagine a harvest feast.  My husband, R, gazes at the ripe apples or plump tomatoes and thinks: alcohol!

After several years of learning from our apple wine, R has ventured into the area of tomato wine.  He recycled old wine bottles into a batch of about 15 last week.

I'm not wild about the taste, but I also do not care for Bloody Marys or V8.  The reaction from family and friends has been mixed, but the wine is still young. It may mature into something that doesn't taste like a Brillo pad. (Did I type that??? Oops.)

Now, he's eyeing up the blueberries...

Summer Fun is in the Can

When one thinks of childhood, one often pictures unlimited creativity and imagination. 

And then one wakes up and realizes that children also have an amazing ability to be bored after only TWO DAYS of summer vacation.

So glad that we have The Can.

Years ago (so long ago that I can't remember where I got this idea) I decorated an old oatmeal container with my daughter. We wrote "Summer Fun is in the Can".

Lots of little pieces of paper fit into the can, and on each piece is an idea of what to do if boredom strikes.

At the beginning of each summer I go through the papers to remove some and add others.  For example, "Put on a Barbie fashion show" is no longer in there, now that my daughter is in high school and the Barbies are in the attic.

Our rule is that up to two pieces may be picked in one day, but no more. (I didn't want the children just reading through all of the papers out of sheer ennui.)

The kids make up many of the papers in the Can, but I also add some each year. If I'm reading a magazine with a fun craft or game idea, I'll tear out the page and put it in the Can.  Also, if I notice a neglected toy (think of that Lite Brite in the closet), I'll write the name of it on a paper and throw it in the Can, too. 

Today the boys made a fleet of paper airplanes.  Here are some of our other ideas:

make a house for the fairy garden

ride bikes

do a puzzle

have a catapult contest

look in a cookbook for something to make

plan a family game night

play 'radio station' over the intercom system

make a coloring book for a friend

write and mail a letter to a cousin

host a teddy bear tea party

wash the car

set up a scene with blocks and soldiers

make a marble maze

read the Dangerous Book for Boys

sort all the books in your bedroom

climb a tree

write a story with pictures and staple it into a book

play 'circus' outside on the swing set

use sidewalk chalk

play 'school'

hide something and make a treasure map for someone to go find it

look under your bed/in your closet (you'll likely find something you've forgotten you own!)

make a stuffed animal 'zoo' using laundry baskets for cages

Teacher Gift

I have long wanted to do something with chalkboard paint, and was recently inspired by Craft-Werks' chalkboard mugs and then Someday Crafts' repurposed bottles feature to make this gift for my son's teacher:

The room moms always give the 'big' gift at the end of the year, so I wanted my son to be able to give his teacher something that was more personal.  He wrote the message and picked the flowers with me.  He takes pride in the eggs he gathers.  The glass bottle can be reused as a vase or repurposed as a container for rice or beads; the chalkboard makes it versatile.

To make the chalkboard area on the bottle, I taped off the section I wanted to paint, primed it with a multi-purpose primer, and simply painted three layers of chalkboard paint on it.  [Then I went a little crazy, painting old --and ugly-- photo mats, cheap frames, and anything else that wasn't moving...I'm loving the chalkboard paint almost as much as my kids love the fuse beads.]

Harvest Shot

Underneath the blueberries are some peas, arugula, and parsley.  I also brought in some lavender.  I've grown lavender for a few years, but this is the first year it has looked nice enough to notice.

Yesterday I picked a pint and a half of blueberries.  I need to get rid of the blueberries in my fridge to make room for more, so I'm making a pie today!

I've never made a blueberry pie, but I'm banking on my belief that if you add enough sugar and butter to something, it can't taste bad.  Wish me luck!

Learning from Potatoes

Here at Apple Falls, we do not claim to be master gardeners.  We don't even claim to be 'real' gardeners.  As a matter of fact, when people come to us with questions about growing things or maintaining a garden, my husband and I usually qualify each answer with, "...But we don't really *know* what we're doing...!"  A fine example of this trait is found in our potato patch. 

Having never grown potatoes before, we thought we'd give it a try.  We don't eat a lot of potatoes, but we do eat french fries (you know, those frozen things from the grocery store???) and we like the idea of harvesting something that doesn't need to be canned or eaten right away since we're usually up to our ears in tomatoes and apples each fall.

It has been a great learning experience for everyone at our house to watch the potatoes grow.  Even from guests, we hear comments like, "I didn't know potatoes had bushy green leaves above ground," and the newest comment is, "I didn't know potatoes had flowers."  They do indeed have flowers and are a very pretty addition to the Fairy Tale Garden.  We can't wait to see what else we learn from them this season.

Picking Blueberries

Here is my idea of fun:  picking blueberries on an overcast Saturday morning.

Here is Boo's idea of fun: hiding in the blueberry bushes, waiting until I stick my hand way in there to grab a ripe berry, and then attacking my hand like a jungle cat. 

Cowboy Birthday Party

We've been busy--throwing a Cowboy Birthday Party for N, who turned five last month.  The cowboy theme was his idea, and I was surprised at how little there is out there for small cowboys.  It seems that if a birthday theme is not commercial, you won't find tablecloths and matching cups for it anywhere local.

So we did the best we could!  Once N came up with the idea, I searched my house for related items, asked people I know to search around their homes, surfed the web and local stores for more ideas, and then tried to adapt party classics (pin the tail on the donkey, for instance) to fit our theme.  One web site I find particularly helpful is BirthdayPartyIdeas.com.

The only cowboy items I found to purchase were the plates, cups and napkins in the 'western' theme, pictured above.  We used a Toy Story cowboy Lego set for our cake topper, but otherwise tried to stay away from using too much Toy Story. 

We used star cookie cutters for the cake and the cupcakes, above, and my mother was clever enough to realize that if we used a Santa boot cookie cutter in May, it would look just like a cowboy boot! I used a toothpick to draw features on the boots, throwing on the occasional silver ball for decoration.

The craft store had foam western houses (for $7 each!!), so I adapted the idea.  I purchased western foam stickers (much cheaper!) and some craft sticks (even cheaper!).  I covered tissue boxes with the craft sticks, made doors and signs for each one from a large sheet of foam, and let the kids decorate the houses as an ice-breaker activity at the beginning of the party.  The houses served as place markers and goody bag holders. (Goody bags were just brown paper bags tied with twine and a bit of bandanna. Inside, guests would find candy, a small toy snake, a bison tattoo donated by a local bison farm, some playing cards, and whatever goodies the cowpokes earned throughout the party.)

For our party, we made up a wanted poster for RattleSnake Pete, wanted for scattering rattlesnake eggs all over the ranch. The kids went in search of RattleSnake Pete, starting with earning their sheriff badges in a game of "Pin the Badge on the Sheriff".  From there, they had to pan for gold (pennies and gold rocks from the craft store floral aisle) to get money for supplies. Panning for gold required a snack break, so we dined on Corn Puffs, which look a lot like golden nuggets.

 The first supplies needed were horses!

To get a horse, each cowpoke had to lasso a horse with a hula hoop.

The kids also played horseshoes at this area.  From there, the cowpokes needed guns, and to earn a squirt gun, they needed to take target practice.

[Just for the record, I have long been an opponent to guns in the house.  I caved on this stance for this party for several reasons, and I'll be honest and admit that one of those reasons is the fact that N is my youngest and I just don't feel like fighting an uphill battle anymore...my boys were born making battle noises and will turn anything--sticks, ribbons, noodles, grass--into guns.]

For target practice, the cowpokes needed to squirt a hole in the tissue paper target, which was fun to do with a squirt gun.

After target practice and some horse riding, we played There's A Snake In My Boot (based on the saying of Woody in Toy Story, when his string is pulled). I made a boot from an oats container and the cowpokes took turns throwing plastic snakes in the boot.  Winners (everyone's a winner!) got gummy snakes for a snack. 

The kids followed the trail to an area of the lawn where rattlesnake eggs were hidden everywhere (yes, I had to take out the Easter Eggs that I only put away a month before!) and found a large stuffed snake...Rattlesnake Pete was a real snake! Well, that put a new light on this 'criminal'.  No wonder there were snake eggs!

But since we can't have a dangerous snake at a party, the only solution was to confuse the snake and head it in the other direction.  We did this by playing 'hot potato' with the snake until it got dizzy and looked like it would leave us alone while we ate cake and ice cream.

I am thankful to my older children for helping to lead the small children through all the activities.  I am also thankful to my parents who supplied the hula hoops and many other party items.  : )

A Window with a View

If you recall from my garden wish list, I have been hoping for something to spruce up the very bare part of our house that we see from the patio.

I am happy to report that this wish has come true in the form of my Mothers' Day gift-- window boxes! It has taken a few weeks for R to install them, but today I finally prettied them up.

The nursery was overwhelming, so I immediately latched onto the first employee who could tolerate me.  She was kind enough to show me all the options available to someone with my sort of light exposure (full sun until afternoon).  Being the kind of person I am (no plan at all) I put plants into my cart, put more plants into my cart, took out the plants that didn't look right, got more plants, took out more plants, and so on. My enthusiastic nursery staff person put up with that for a little while and then said, "I'll leave you do your decision-making." I settled on ivy, trailing verbena, geranium, vinca, and magilla perilla (why do I want to call it 'gorilla'??). 

Peach Trees

The view from our kitchen window just got three times prettier with the addition of three small peach trees behind the fence and blueberry bushes.

R planted them this weekend and hopes to add three apple trees to the 'orchard' later this week.  The small trees have little fuzzy peaches on them, but we are not expecting much of a harvest this year.  Either the shock of being planted or the local deer population will minimize our first summer of peaches.  Once the trees get tall enough to outreach the deer, though, we are hoping to be able to start adding peach pies, preserves, and wine to our list of things to do in the late summer.

In this shot you can see the zigzag pattern of how R planted them.

Losing the Lawn, Bit by Bit

My husband hates to mow.  Well, he *says* he hates to mow.  He didn't seem to hate it too much a few years ago when I was inside with a crying baby and he escaped for a few hours of blissful silence (the word 'silence', here, means 'no baby screaming'). Anyway, when it comes to our lawn, the less he has to mow, the better.  So he frequently suggests that I expand the blueberry patch by another three feet, that I mulch all around the vegetable bed perimeter by another few feet, that I expand the herb garden by a few feet on each side... are you starting to form an image in your mind of how garden design works around here?

Anyway, this weekend it was my idea to expand the mulched-not-grassy area, whittling down the amount of mowable lawn by just a dozen or so more square feet.  I had several reasons for this temporary insanity.  First, I must take the wheelbarrow to the mulch pile at least every other day or my neighbors start to think maybe I've gone missing. Second, I have a lot of cleaning indoors that needs to be done and I'd like to avoid that at all costs.  And third, my parents gave me lots and lots of Russian sage Sunday morning, which I needed to plant right away.

 

I spent the hour car ride from their house to mine trying to think of where I'd plant the Russian sage. (Why can't I say no to plant give-aways!?) The only solution was to spend my entire day creating a new area in the garden.

Rather than dig (my least favorite chore in the garden-- I only dug enough to plant the sage) I put landscape cloth down over the grass by our trellis.  This may be cheating, but I love this shortcut.

I mulched all the way out to our crazy fig tree/bush/thing, creating a welcoming entrance through the garden gate.  This took all day and was a lot of hard work.  It may be just me, but hard work often seems more difficult when someone watches you the whole time, occasionally yawning loudly, as Boo is prone to do.  See her here on top of the trellis:

Harvest Shot

I love going outside on a rainy morning and coming inside with something like this.  The pop of a strawberry coming off the stem, the thrill of looking under leaves to find something red and round, the smell of wet dirt...it is a good morning.

This is the first day we've picked strawberries.  Last year, we got a very low yield after weeding out some Creeping Charlie two years ago. The weed wrapped itself around most of our strawberry plants, so to remove it required unearthing each plant.  We also had a drought that summer, so the weeding and replanting and baking in the sun was a bit too much for most of the plants to take. After two years, we're finally starting to get some strawberries back.  The ground ivy is still a problem, but I've promised the strawberries I'd be more vigilant about weeding it before it strangles them.

Oh, and I found a pretty egg when I opened up the chicken coop this morning. (See it nestled in the strawberries, above.)

Jack and the Beanstalk: the Beginning

Surely this is when Jack's story started to get interesting: those beans started to grow!  And this is when our Fairy Tale Garden* starts to get interesting, too.  I didn't have to trade a cow (not that I own one to trade), because most of these beans were given to my by my father, who grows pole beans around his swimming pool.

Our Fairy Tale Garden will hopefully be full of many magical story elements by summer: beanstalks for Jack, orange pumpkins for Cinderella, giant sunflowers for the wondrous effect they create, and purple cabbages to represent that mythical cabbage patch where all children are told they were found (all my children, anyway).

*Our Fairy Tale Garden is different from the Fairy Garden, which is another magical place found here.

Another Use for Chicken Fabric

Found a great tutorial for a fabric keychain on U create and finally I got around to making my own version.  This is a great way to use a little bit of fabric you *really* like. It is also a great way to find your keys!

Happy Day!

This day started off rather dreary outside, but upon closer inspection there was a bit of happiness coming up from the soil.  Look carefully in the picture above and you'll see two butterfly-shaped cabbage leaves sprouting.  I tried growing cabbage last year, with no luck.  I am trying again so that I'll have a nice supply of red cabbage for the chickens all summer.  (I'll eat some, too!)

Rosemary, O Rosemary...

The tale of our relationship with rosemary is a long and sad one.  It started fifteen years ago when we had a beautiful rosemary plant near the side door of our home in the city.  It was a lovely plant that overwintered well and eventually grew to be a two foot high shrubbery.  Yes.  A shrubbery.

We almost didn't move to our new house because we'd miss the rosemary so much, but more practical reasoning prevailed and we assured ourselves that we could always plant rosemary at our new home.

You know where I'm going with this, don't you?

For ten years we have failed to get a rosemary plant to overwinter outside.  This year we took one small plant inside in a pot and it survived, but barely.  Now that it is spring, we start the experiment again...

Here we see location #1, near the shed. This location faces west, gets afternoon sun and has the benefit of the shed wall to shelter it and a driveway in front of it to radiate heat from a day of sunning.  Of course, planting it right next to the dead remains of last year's experiment should be a clear sign that this location isn't all that great... We garden the hard way around here.

Location #2 faces east and gets morning sun.  The small patio light may or may not have an effect, but the patio stones should collect heat all day in the sun and hold some for the little plant to enjoy.  The bushes behind the rosemary may provide shelter from cold air and wind, but may also hinder growth by blocking some sunlight.  We'll see.  At least no rosemary has ever died here, so we have hope.  No rosemary has ever lived here, either, but people with hope ignore stuff like that.

Location #3 is the favorite to win, mostly because it will come inside this winter.  We planted a new rosemary in the lucky pot.  Our money is on this guy to live all winter.  Especially if we water him.  (We have found that potted plants need lots more attention in this area than the plants in the ground. . . Please don't ask how many potted plants had to die before we figured that out.)

Location #4 has two rosemary plants.  One of the plants is the guy who overwintered inside.  The other is a new guy.  You can see them in this picture in front of a large clump of sage. [From front to back, left to right: thyme, thyme, rosemary from the pot, rosemary, sage, parsley, parsley, wilting gerber daisy]

This location gets full sun until the afternoon, but has no shelter from wind or cold air, and no wall or patio to retain heat.  We don't have a lot of hope for these two plants, but we have failed for ten years, so what do we know??

More Plant Markers

I was happy to find these inexpensive write-on plant markers at two area gardening stores recently.  They are not large enough for the vegetable rows, but are perfect for the herb garden.  The tops bend back, too, so that no one has to crawl down in the dirt just to read them.

Ipod & Phone Case

Getting crafty this week!  Or, you could say, getting sick of not being able to find something I could buy that would hold my ipod and phone without scratching it up.  So I found a fabric I would enjoy seeing every day and some felt to match, some ribbon, and a snap fastener kit.

DISCLAIMER: if you know how to sew, how to follow directions for a sewing project, how to do any real crafting, or have left-brained tendencies you may find yourself feeling queasy as you read the following directions. Around here, we just sort of do thing by trial-and-error and hope for the best.

The first thing I did was measure out how much fabric I'd need.  [Yes, I just put the phone and ipod on the fabric and cut around it...  I warned you.  Really left-brained people may want to measure and draw out a plan, but do what works for you.] 

Then I cut ribbon for each side of the case. The ribbons need to be as long as the case fabric, but will be each folded in half. 

 Finally I cut another piece of felt to use as an insert between the ipod and phone, so they won't scratch each other.Felt is great because it does not fray.  The chicken fabric is cotton and does need to be sewn on the edges to keep tiny threads from coming loose.  To do so, I folded under the edge and sewed it to the large felt piece.  You can see they are already sewn together in the photos above.

Just to prove that I do know a *little* about correctly-done sewing projects, the above photo shows that I did iron the folded ribbons and large rectangle.  It is all crooked and crazy-looking, but at least it is flat.

Next, I sewed the felt insert to both sides of one half.  I put the ipod in and it fit. So far, so good!  However, to put both the phone and ipod in the case at this point would make the case too fat to close.  This is why I added the ribbons to the sides, but I tell everyone the real reason is that it looks really good with ribbon on the sides.  See how this works??

Here is where I started wishing I were a bit more left-brained, but I forged ahead bravely.

With the fold of the ribbon where the top of the case will be (shown above at the top of the picture) I sewed a ribbon to each side of the top half of the case.

Then, with the case felt-side-out, I sewed the other side of the ribbon to the other half of the case, stopping near the bottom.  I did not sew across the bottom (unfolded) side of the ribbon.  Since nothing tiny, like a coin, will go inside this case, I am not worried about the small gap this will leave in the case.

I then turned the case right-side-out.  Notice in the above picture that the bottom of the ribbon tucks neatly inside the case. Notice also that the left and right sides of that ribbon are sewn differently.  I'm telling everyone that I did that on purpose because it looks cool that way. You may be thinking that if I had drawn out a plan, I could have figured out a way to make the right and left sides match, but if you are thinking that, you are too left-brained to do crafts with me.  [I did warn you.]

Because my purse is a disaster area, I needed something to keep the phone and ipod inside the case. It had to be something I can undo with one hand (not that I get these things out of my purse while I'm driving, but I may need them while I'm arm wrestling or something, you know).  I opted for snaps. 

Using a snap fastener kit, I attached snaps at alternate places.  The snap fastener kit was easy to find at JoAnn Fabrics and easy to use. The kit requires pounding a hammer on the little fasteners. But like Martha Stewart likes to say, you might not want to do that on your mahogany dining room table.

I've been using the ipod and phone case for a few days now and it is working really nicely. Success!