Mouse Bed Project as seen at the Hammalier household

Oh Pintrest... you've made a crafter out of everyone. And not everyone should be a crafter. I am a semi-professional crafter... in that I force college students to take fun art classes to de-stress and hopefully learn the importance of HANDMADE. But as many of my hobby crafter friends have discovered, just because you saw it on Pintrest, it doesn't mean that yours will come out well crafted. I, too, occasionally suffer from this fate... occasionally? Well... anyway... here is my latest attempt.

I saw a cute craft on Pintrest and thought that maybe I could make it with the help of Bean. Mostly she sat and watched me hand sew and was bored... many exclamations of, "Mama, when will it be my turn to do something?!" were heard around the house with much loud sighing... sometimes I think she is 15 instead of 3.5.

Despite her preview of the teen years, Bean helped select the fabrics for our mouse bed project. White felt for the mouse body, pink cherries for the blanket and dark purple for the bedding.

When I was done sewing the mouse I let Bean help decorate her. I was then going to stitch over her pen marks with embroidery floss, but she preferred her true artistry to show through. (The large blue circles are the mouse's teeth, obviously...)

So proud of her work!

And then she kept "working on the mouse". Sigh. Why do kids always create until they destroy?Here, gentle reader, is why you might want to craft without your children present. But if you're like me and don't have a lot of time without one of these crazies running around the house, the best thing to do is to figure out how to involved them and let go of all your feelings of control. So, Bean kept decorating her mouse... the pink lines at the bottom represents the "mouse's vagina because it's a mom mouse. It has babies."

I feel compelled to make it a pair of underroos or something... she seems awfully exposed... next time. Another way to involve Bean was to have her make some patterns for me so that I could cut out and sew her creations. In the original Pintrest craft, the mouse had a little teddy bear. And because my daughter is who she is... she made a pattern for a pet snake. I did my best to capture it's likeness in green felt- complete with pink and brown decorations.

So, a mint tin, blanket, bedding, pillow, snake friend and mouse... with a vagina because she's a mom... all added up to a craft project that Bean rejected in the end and decided should be a gift to a newborn baby girl named Harper James Page. James, incidentally, is Bean's middle name too... two girls with matching middle names have a special bond and in this case that bond will be a very odd gift of an anatomically correct mouse and her sleeping quarters.

In the end it's a totally wacky take on a craft seen on Pintrest and epitomizes the awesome collaborations that Bean and I occasionally attempt. And it's another example that shows the act of making something can be more than the finished project.

HIghlights Magazine Craft

Bean and I made an easy craft on a rainy spring morning from Highlights Magazine.


I loved Highlights Magazine when I was a kid. All of the stories and poems, that crazy duo- Goofus and Gallant... such great memories. Bean received a subscription to Hightlights: High Five (for little kids) and I love it as much as she does. She "reads" it from cover to cover and then asks us to read it to her from cover to cover.

We recently tried one of the art projects they had in the back of the magazine and I have to say, it was a complete success.

Spring has come early to Missouri (or maybe it will snow again and kill all of the new buds on the trees and kill off all of the daffodils that are starting to blossom... but that's a little too pessimistic for a blog post about a kids craft project... so ... SPRING! WHOOPEE!).

Bean was really excited to help with this project which started with a tromp around the yard looking for the right kind of sticks. We put them in a glass jar (that was about to be recycled) and got started cutting our tissue paper in squares.

Bean was able to help with the twisty tie part. Take your tissue paper squares (we made them about 3"x3") and tie a twisty tie in the middle creating a bow tie shape. The ends of the twisty tie then get twisted around the branches of your sticks.

And depending on how many little branches are sticking off of your sticks you have an approximated Forsythia flower. It's quite nice on the dining room table... makes me want to do some spring cleaning now.

Easy Valentine

It's not that I ran out of time to make my Valentine's this year... not exactly... it's more like all of the other things I do were calling out the loudest and my Valentine's sort of lost their voices. So I made this simple Valentine for my husband in about 10 min.

1. I cut the heart out of one of the MANY paintings my daughter creates on a weekly basis. (I'm sure she would be okay with it!)

2. I found a pen (in this case a black Papermate ballpoint pen- my husband's favorite kind) and laying it over the heart I measured out where the two notches should be cut out in the middle of the heart.

3. I cut 2- 1/2" slits into the heart and threaded the pen through so that the top and bottom of the pen show up on top of the heart

4. I then cut a triangle out of colored paper for the arrow tip and two smaller triangles out of colored paper for the "feathers" of the arrow and taped them onto the pen.

5. To make the "feathers" look more real, I fringe cut the bottom triangles.

6. Add a sappy note on the back and you're done!

(He loved the pen... earlier that day another pen just like it ran out of ink... it's all in the timing.)

Baby Boo was the only one I didn't make a Valentine for... but he's only 4 months, so I hope he forgives me. Bean got her favorite kind of sucker. My mom got an anti-Valentine, as she prefers. All said it was a good day that didn't rely too heavily on consumerism.

No, I'm not lost in blog world...

I mean... let's just say... I've been busy. It's summer time... July just got away from me. I've spent the summer printing photographs for a show I'm putting together in September and I've been sketching, making photo transfers and all sorts of other stuff as well. Images of those later...

Dusting off

After a great conversation with two students today I dusted off my 4x5 and took some Type 52 Polaroids. It's been too long... I have 4 boxes of Type 52 (positive only film) and two partial boxes of Type 55 (positive and negative film)... so I feel the need to ration it. However, the film is already expired and it will only keep deteriorating so I have to use it.

I took two photographs of Joe and Bean, one of me and Bean and two of myself alone. It was just the beginning... a reorientation to what I love and need to do all the time.

I also processed 4 rolls of 35mm this morning (some rolls are a year old!). Darkroom + Me = mental stability.

not gonna happen

Alright, so there is no way that I can keep up with a picture a day blog... it's stressing me out more than helping me be creative. So, from now on... I will keep posting pictures but I can't deal with one a day...

Support your local! Sally listens to her balloon.

I fall asleep like this too... usually in front of the TV.

Country drive

Bean party... crazy aunties... deeelicious cupcakes = recipe for fun

But how does it work, Dada?

SCOUT DOG!

Booneville

Or your car will rust...

Memorial Day weekend and more

At the playground... Playing with a giant ball!

Crazy shadows

Cousins play with balls

Our little family goes for a walk in extreme sun

Cousins make pirate masks out of Lincoln Logs

I don't know what the sign said...

We slept in a crazy location and this picture seems to be the only way to really describe how random it was... Talk about a collaged image... Joe's disembodied head, the white plane beneath him... disembodied hand (mine) and a monkey... it's like a German Expressionist film. Okay, that doesn't actually mean anything...

Nana's gazebo... or as Charlie calls it, the Carposey.