a little ART CAN'T HURT

traditions

when our youngest was born we had her photographed at two days old.
while they were all beautiful, i do have a favorite photo. 
(infant photo by jeri)

we wrapped sleeping sophie in a scarf of mine.
it occurred to me a few months ago that it might be a neat idea to take a pic of soph with that scarf each year on her birthday...
and a new tradition was born!

 i look forward to compiling all of the photos into a special book for her when she's 18.
or maybe i will keep taking photos and never stop....
and then i think i will give this special scarf to her when the day comes that she becomes a mommy herself. 
during soph's first year i also printed her footprints every two months.
i'm framing this piece and taking all acid-free/uv precautions so it will last indefinitely.

what traditions do you hold dear?
do you have any special ways you document the growing up of your kiddos?
i'd love to hear them - feel free to leave a comment and share.

 

ah, sugar sugar

we're still recovering around here from the birthday party almost two weeks ago. 
the balloons are mostly gone but a few are dragging their strings along the floor as they bob around.
kind of sad and silly at the same time.
so i figured: why not post a few more pics of that day?
the pics here were taken with my iphone.
i own a nikon d90 and love shooting with it, but most moments of life are spur of the moment and my phone is just more handy.
i'm not taking pics to sell anything or promote my "mad photog skilz"... just documenting all the little things that are really the big things when it comes right down to it.
i'll specify if any photography is from any other soure but my iphone 4s  
a little color never hurt anybody - so here goes! 

icing is like makeup. it covers up all the little flaws - martha stewart i'm not ;)
but it was tasty. and moist. most importantly, soph enjoyed her mini-cake that i made to
look like the big one.

my dear friend, miss catherine, of red shoes  made sophie's dress. 
nothing miss c creates fails to amaze me - and she has a blog! visit it here
tell her lauren sent you ;)
soph was so very dainty eating her cake...and she loved it when we sang 'happy birthday' to her!

i made three cakes. please don't judge; i was in baking mode.
we had no shortage of sweets. and the meringue letters turned out just right...the third time i made them ;)
i also made these oreo treats.
yes, eating them resulted in dental rainbow awesomeness! 

m&m favors inspired by lindsay bonnice that i tweaked and made my own. thank you lindsay!
i must give props to my hubby for assembling these and topping them with sweet stickers he designed!

for the adults i had serve yourself m&m treat bags. there were cupcakes too (see this post).
daddy insisted on making, and wearing, a tshirt emblazond with the number 1 just for the occassion.
our home was bursting with family & friends - some whom we hadn't seen in a long while.
such a sweet reminder for us of the best day ever, when we said hello to her for the very first time.
(as documented by my friend, and amazing photographer, jeri) 

i'm hoping the sugar-fog around our house lifts soon, as all treats are officially gone.
it's sunny today and i'm desperately wanting to go for a run and test out my foot to see if it holds up.
haven't been on a run since the walking boot came off a few weeks ago. i'm nervous.
thanks for sharing in a little color with me today.
if any of you have any advice on how to make birthdays on christmas day special, i'm all ears!
after all, our sophie is just that - a christmas baby.  

 

 

 

good morning

do you keep a journal? 
do you ever flip open to a page for a peek back at your own reality?
i just did and it did this momma's heart good too.

*****
21 may 2012
It’s 6:50am and the house is silent – a rarity within these four walls.

My eldest children hitched a ride to school with Nana and I just kissed my husband farewell as he breezed out of the door to work with his third cup of coffee this morning in hand.
I am left with the littlest rascal still slumbering upstairs; unusually late for her. 

In the next 30 minutes I have myself and baby to get ready before I too must leave the comfort of our home and venture into the day.
It promises to be a busy one: drop little one off to spend morning with Grandma, volunteer at ‘field day’ for a few hours (which promises to be a treat since it’s raining), mandatory meeting at work – an hours drive each way – and then picking up kiddos from school and racing to eye doctor  before they close at 3:30.
After all of that our evening will be pretty mundane with only homework and regular housework to get done.
I take that back – there is the third grade ‘market day’ project to finish up and that entails the making of 100 homemade lollipops.

 I’ve known today’s schedule for a while seeing as the different events of our lives begin layering themselves onto the calendar weeks in advance.
It requires a certain choreography to accomplish everything without forgetting something at home or missing an appointment.
To some it may seem that we live in a frenzy but I would not have it any other way.
We are LIVING and that is truly a blessing. 

I hear sweet baby babbling on the baby monitor, signaling me to go upstairs where I will be greeted by the most beautiful smile and sweet baby hugs.
I wouldn’t trade today for any other day, and I will say the same for tomorrow.
***** 

a lot of mornings around here don't go quite that smoothly.
there is the occassional squabble over someone "using up all the hot water in the shower" and then there's moments when there's no-milk-left-in-the-house-for-breakfast. 
lately since the baby is walking it's like a giant pinball machine around here with everyone dodging and weaving to avoid tripping over the weeble wobble that's no doubt chasing the cat or in to the dog's food bowl. 
it's mornings like that when i would like to hit REWIND or just go back to bed for another hour or two. but i can't. who can?

lately whenever mornings around here start to get shaky and i feel the chaos revving up i stop and repeat to myself:
have an attitude of gratitude.
it's helped me to take a pause and see in the moment all the GOOD that i'm missing by letting the little things get in my way.
looking back in my journal also reassures me that not every morning has to be or is a race.
a hefty dose of humor goes a long way too.
in these cold, dark midwestern winter months it is especially hard to kickstart my mornings, but with persistance i know that living life IN gratitude will help me.
what do you do when your house is abuzz and total bedlam?

meringue animals

our youngest just had her first birthday and we threw her a party with a vintage circus theme.
so i got online to look for decorations. mistake #1.
you see, i envisioned in my head cake toppers of various whimsical circus animals.
cute AND yummy. so they had to be edible.
couldn't find any such thing online.
frustrated, i jumped on to pinterest (yes, i'm there too - follow me at: artcanthurt) and looked up baked goodies, candies....anything i could think of that might work.
nope. nothing that i liked.
so i decided to make something i'd NEVER made before. mistake #2.
two days before a party is NOT the time to try a new method in the kitchen.
five batches (VERY messy batches at that) of meringue later, i had tweaked the recipe & baking time so that my vision of cake toppers came to life.

i also piped the meringue into letters for one of the bigger cakes.

i threw some photos up on instagram and apparently meringue shapes and letters are new to even my craftiest of friends! 
to save you the time and trouble of wading thru recipes for meringue online and being frustrated after burning a few batches or having it come out grainy and not fluffy, here is the recipe with my notes "from experience" in green:

MERINGUE
ingredients & supplies:
-3 large egg whites
-1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar (in the spice/baking aisle at your market)
-a pinch of salt
-3/4 cup superfine sugar (i used a little less than the full 3/4 cup. some bags of sugar do not say 'superfine' - just use the smallest grained sugar you can find)
-pastry bag (disposable one are cheap and less cleanup) 
-round-shapped tip with small opening 

• place egg whites in a medium bowl and let stand for 30 minutes (they MUST become room temperature or they won't set up right); discard yolks.
• add cream of tartar and a pinch of salt. using an electric mixer set on medium, beat until soft peaks form. increase speed to high and add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time (take the time to add the sugar slowly, it matters! it will not puff up if you dump the sugar in all at once), beating until stiff peaks form and sugar is nearly dissolved.
• preheat oven to 300 degrees F (my ovan runs hot, so i had to bake mine at 250+ degrees and keep a close eye them so they did not brown like a marshmallow). meanwhile, pour meringue mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a small round-shaped tip. pipe shapes onto two parchment-lined baking sheets (yes, 3 eggs really does make this large a batch of meringue. do NOT try to double or triple this recipe! the batch gets TOO BIG). bake for about 10 minutes, then turn off oven. let meringues dry in oven, with door closed (and oven OFF), for 1 hour.
• carefully peel meringues from parchment and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely, about 20 minutes.(i didn't bother with the wire rack cooling, i let them cool completely outside the oven on the cookie sheets and they were fine)
  (original recipe from country living magazine)

i chose to make shapes of giraffes, lions, elephants, monkeys and sea lions. 
if you feel comfortable free-handing it like i did great.
if not, find an image you want to trace and slip it under the parchment paper and trace away.
BUT REMEMBER TO TAKE THE PAPER YOU TRACED OUT before baking....that could get ugly.
here is my sea lion from start to finish:

the meringue toppers were a hit at the party and tasty too.
they will not keep for long and must be stored in an airtight container or even the moisture in the air will cause them to soften and start to weep. yuck.
you can also accent your meringue with edible dragees before baking them - have fun and i'd love to hear from you if you try making meringue too!
happy baking! 

catching up

do you ever have a moment when you run in to an old friend and suddenly you have so much swirling around in your head that you want to share, that you don't know where to begin?
i kind of feel that way right now.
so much water has passed under the bridge since i last took to cyberspace as a creative outlet.
so much good. some sad. a bunch of really amazing WOW moments too.
i guess there's some catching up to do.
all in good time. for now i must call it a night and turn the lights out on the ornaments that still adorn our home.
happy new year!

 

 

 

happy 4th

(circa first grade)

colorific

i've used chalkboard paint many times before, but now there are options other than black and green!

hudson paint has introduced 24 new colors of chalkboard paint!
colors like 'safety orange' and 'genius pink'!
at $24/quart it's not cheap, but that's why we have christmas lists! *wink*wink*

unexpected fun

eating meals has never been more fun around our house.
but then again, in between the meals is pretty fun too.
and homework will never be the same.
we owe it all to one simple thing - our table top.

with three kids constantly crafting, homeworking, cooking, etc. our kitchen table was taking quite a beating. our wooden table top was not pretty.
we don't have a formal dining room - just this table - but i'd like for it to look nicer than a dog's chew toy. it just looked rough.
i mentioned to a friend in passing that i'd seen a metal table top in a magazine....
i came home one day from work and i there was a new metal table top on our table!
(did i mention that our friend is a sheet metal worker?)
it was custom fit to the exact dimensions with softly rounded corners welded neatly into place.
but...
the best part was when i found out that dry erase markers could be used on the surface!
life takes on new meaning when you can write on your table!




such an unexpected creative outlet!
want to do this to your table? call your local trade school to find someone who can do this for you!
i'd love to hear about it if you do! you won't regret it!

coming home

many moons ago i posted these photos of our breezeway - 

not much of a before/after! 
this is our breezeway between the garage and house.
i've wanted it to be a cheerful entrance ever since we moved in here two years ago and we finally got around to painting it a few weeks ago.
here's the finished breezeway -




by now the chalkboard has been written on and erased many times.
once of my favorite quotes is on there right now:
"respect for ourselves guides our morals; respect for others guides our manners" - Laurence Sterne

this space will be fun to fill with the kids artwork.
the grey and yellow feels so cozy and it's so calming to come home to.
already the breezeway looks different with backpacks, boots, flowers & such that comes with life.
sometimes it's the little changes that can help us adjust to things in life we can't change.
feeling refreshed and giving thanks every day!
how do you display your children's artwork and projects? 

 
 

lollies

a perfect rainy day thing to do! the colors make any day better!

 

 

 

how to make LOLLIES
you will need: jolly ranchers, candy sticks, parchment paper, foil & a cookie sheet

1) lay a piece of foil on cookie sheet. cover foil with a piece of parchment paper.
2) unwrap candies and place side by side on parchment paper in your choice of color & flavor combinations. use three candies together for extra large lollies, and only two candies together for regular lollies.
3) heat candies in oven for about 5 minutes at 200 degrees. keep a close eye on the candies and take them out as soon as they've barely melted together. if you leave them in too long they will melt too much and you won't be able to put a stick into the lollie. alter the cook time accordingly.
4) carefully take cookie sheet out of oven. immediately lay candy sticks into place on melted candies. slowly twirl in melted candy to coat the stick and so it will hold in the lollie. they're hot! don't burn yourself but you will have to work fast before the candies harden.
5) let the lollies cool about 30 minutes before eating or wrap up in clear cellophane bags, tie with ribbon and give as gifts or party favors!