From Pink to Black

Pink & Pinker is gone! The bear I mentioned in my previous post didn't languish for too long in my Etsy shop before finding a new home.

The next bear I finished was a custom order that came to me when someone spotted my Blue Jean Bear on my Flickr and asked if I could make a black denim bear with scraps they had on hand. I'm always interested in doing custom orders like that, so they sent me one leg's worth of an old pair of jeans and here's the result (I added a red ribbon around the bears neck after taking these pictures):





This customer happens to be an amazing photographer. She sent me a couple of her pictures so I could turn them into pocket mirrors to include in her package with the bear. Here they are:





You should check out her blog here and see her work on her on her Flickr, too.

Pink and Pinker

When my daughter was just a preschooler she used to ask for her favorite yogurt... one of those colorful Trix yogurts with the blend of two flavors. I don't remember what the flavors were, but her favorite was something that was a mix of light and dark pink that she called "pink and pinker".

I thought of that as I put the finishing touches on this pink denim teddy bear. Usually, I'll add a ribbon of a contrasting color, but then I spotted this brighter pink ribbon and thought, "why not?"

So, I present to you my "Pink and Pinker" Teddy Bear...now available in my Etsy shop! I used to sew faces on all my bears, but some people like them left plain like this, and others have a preference about eye colors or whether their bear should be a girl (with eyelashes) or boy (without eyelashes), so I leave them face-less now and let the buyer tell me what they want.

New Style Puzzle Ball

Most of the puzzle ball toys I've made so far have been in a traditional style. Traditional kid colors, prints and fabrics. I recently got a bunch of non-traditional scraps from my friend, Kristie, aka Rockerchic...here's her Etsy Shop, which you really should check out if you get a chance. Wish I could've found some funky clothes like the ones she makes when my kid wore toddler sizes...she would've loved them!

So now I've got some funky scraps to play around with. Here's the first of many to come from that collection. This one will be listed in my Etsy shop tomorrow morning:

New Year, New Projects

Okay, so it's been a new year for a little over a month now. I guess I took an extended vacation after the holidays, but I'm back now!

Here's my first Teddy Bear for 2008, made from recycled blue jeans (something we'll never have a shortage of at my house!



Come back tomorrow and I'll have pictures of my newest puzzle ball...something new and different.....

Christmas Memory Chain

Here's an idea my family has enjoyed for almost 30 years now that has kept us from getting too distracted by the little stresses and reminded us of what's most important....

Years ago, when my husband and I were first married and about to join my parents, my sister, brother-in-law & 2 nephews and my brother and sister-in-law for a Christmas Eve dinner, I was anticipating all the little stresses that would go along with such an event. Which serving dish was appropriate for what...whose recipe to use for something-or-other...did the napkins match and did somebody remember to iron them...do you want me to wash that for you, no, I just did that, Mother...etc., etc., etc. Not to mention the commentary on my haircut and my outfit! Maybe your family isn't like that, but mine was back then, or so it seemed to me at the time.

I was determined to find a way to deflect all the tension and remind everybody to have fun and enjoy each other. So here's what I came up with...a Christmas Memory Chain.

I cut strips of construction paper to make a paper chain. On each link I wrote a Christmas memory. I started with the kind of things you think of when you say "It's just not Christmas until..." or "You know it's really Christmas when...." and then branched out to funny or sweet things I remembered from Christmases past. I had no trouble coming up with things to write! Here are some of them:



Red & Green Hershey's Kisses in a silver candy dish (My mom put that out every year!)

Candles lit in every room

"What size does your mother wear?! (My dad could never remember!)

Steve & Eydie on the radio

Christmas Ideals magazines sent every year from Aunt Fiesty (yes, I really did have an "Aunt Fiesty!" That wasn't her real name...we just called her that because she was!)

"You can't come in here!" (something my mother always yelled from behind a closed door when she was wrapping presents!)

A Charlie Brown Christmas on TV

The weatherman's radar showing Santa's getting close!

Aunt Becky's "pregnant" Christmas tree (flat on one side and rounded on the other...it fit perfectly up against her window!)



So many more, but I won't bore you with them all here!

I gathered my paper chain and we took it with us to my sister's house.

At some point in the evening I got up and I hung this paper chain around the bookshelves in my sister's living room. Right away everybody started asking what it was and what it was for. I just told them to go read it. They did.

They'd read one and smile. They'd read another and grin even bigger. By the time they read a third they'd be laughing and reading them to each other out loud!

We had a wonderful time reliving some great Christmas memories. Good thing I'd brought along more blank links for the chain because we thought of lots more things to add to it.

Now, each year, we all notice things that should be added to our Christmas Memory chains, whether figuratively or literally. Whether I use an actual paper chain now or not, there's always something that happens every year that makes me say "Oh, there's a good one for the Memory Chain!"

So, whether you're looking for something to get your extended family laughing or just an excuse to tell stories to your kids, you might want to give this a try this year. It might become a tradition for your family, too! (You can keep the kids busy decorating the links of the chain, too!) Let me know how it works for you!

Christmas Packages and Choir Dolls

For the past couple of days I've been gathering everything that must be mailed to members of my extended family for Christmas. Since I live in Maryland and most everybody else lives in Texas, that's a lot of people. Now, my thing isn't about spending a lot of money and shopping for the next big thing. Mainly because I don't have a lot money...never have...never expect to. Necessity is the mother of invention, so they say. In my family, make that poverty is the mother of creativity!

I don't know if my mother made these because of a lack of money for buying decorations or if it was just a burst of creativity. I say a burst because with my mom we saw a steady stream of creativity and talent every day of our lives. But I remember when she made these choir dolls by folding magazines, spray painting them and adding a few other details. They're made with a copy of Look magazine, one Good Housekeeping and a TV Guide. My dad drew the faces and cut them out. I helped by staying out of the way!

These choir dolls were put on display in a place of honor atop the piano every year at Christmastime until they practically fell apart. I still have these original dolls. One year I started to make new bodies for them, finding current magazines of the appropriate sizes and I made an interesting discovery. Today's magazines have at least four times the amount of pages that magazines had in the early sixties! If I try that again I'll have to do it with with much less than a whole magazine! I'll get to it someday. In the meantime, here's a picture of the originals:

Happy 100th Birthday, Grandma!

Yesterday was my grandmother's birthday...her 100th birthday!

I didn't get to go to the party since she lives in Texas and I live in Maryland, but I sent flowers to honor the occasion. I talked to my sister tonight and got a good report of the festivities and it sounds like a good time was had by all, especially Grandma!

A few weeks ago I was in Texas for a brief visit and my sister and brother-in-law and I went to see Grandma. We had brought along some old family photos we'd found that we'd never seen before. One photo showed what appeared to be a large family gathering of some kind...several couples with kids of all ages, one mother holding her baby in her lap. We showed it to her and asked if she knew anything about it. She perked right up and said "Oh, yes! That baby is me! I was six months old!" She said it was a family reunion and she pointed to each person, reciting their names and relationships, telling us the whole story of the event as though it had just happened last week.

We were spellbound. Well, at least I was. My sister was scrambling to write down everything she was telling us so we could have it all documented!

100 years. She told me once how she used to pick cotton as a child of 6 or 7, with the hot Oklahoma dirt burning the soles of her bare feet as she dragged that long sack of cotton behind her. And yesterday, I was ordering flowers for her over the internet and now I'm sharing the story with all of you. 100 years...amazing....