January bl(AH)s

January has indeed brought some snow here. 

We missed two large snow storms across the province in the last few weeks. 

One of them saw schools closed in the whole province, except for our county.

Kids were bummed that we didn't get a snow day.

But into Saturday night and Sunday morning, we got our snow and a canceled church service.

Big deal in our house, I sing in the choir and the kids are both altar servers. A sunny day off.

The most perfect time to test the smaller of our two ponds for ice skating.

Turns out, the ice was thick enough!

This is the first time in our 4 winters here that we are doing this. I am so excited!

The kids are excited! The neighbour's kids are excited!

My daughter facetimed a family from the ice and they came straight over to play hockey.

Here is our portuguese Zamboni team

They finally were able to trim the alder bushes/trees that took over the pond. 

I haven't seen this view before.

Now, my usually very sport obsessed son, 

( He does play basketball 2 days a week, and skating, but that is not enough for him) 

can play outside again.

I am looking forward to a neighbour hood hockey game on the pond with benches and a fire pit next to the oak trees. Hot chocolate, marshmallows and wieners on the fire. Yes, Winter at it's finest.

But most times, you will find me here.

(the most delicious Moroccan Tajine cooking on the woodstove)

And if I'm lucky, I will get to knit a little bit of this.

(look ma, it's not socks!)

 

Oh yes, for record keeping, I must have a picture of my boy, who is now 12!

At the moment, he is heavily into rubiks cube, (and anything puzzle related.. triangles, shape shifters, holes in the middle of the cube), Basketball, skating and dreaming of sailing in the summer.

Have a good one, keep warm.

Amanda

craft making

Howdy!

Well, winter has set in and regular routine has taken it's hold again.

There's been less screen time in this house to make some of these instead.

 It comes from the book The Cuter Book by Aranzi Aronzo

The kids love this book because 1. the felt friends are cute, 2. the instructions are amazingly illustrated.

I get them to trace the pattern and cut it out, then I cut it from felt. 

They don't want to mess up the felt cutting so they leave that to the pro. :} 

Their stitching has improved.

 I even made the bunnies. (sorry sucky cell phone picture)

 Here are a few other feltie books we've enjoyed looking through and pondering over which to do next.

 I was so happy when Mollie Makes had an American edition and so sad when they canceled it.

But, to their credit, Mollie Makes UK are honouring their North American subscriptions by substituting with the UK version. A great win. (I regret that I didn't sign up for a 2 year subscription).

The UK version usually comes with a gift. And yes, they sent it over here too.

Cool beans.

 Even though the Christmas Mitten rush is over, I still get calls for mittens. I really need to stock up for such calls, as sometimes, people are just passing through and are not able to wait for a few days while I make them. There are some though, that live just close enough to put in an order.

Thank you. I've been busy.

 And then, this happened!

 My lovely sailor boy turned 11!!!

But now, in this winter season, he's skating boy!

And that makes me so happy.

 This is not our pond, but the neighbour's field that floods. Perfect. It's a long one too.

Now our sailing and scooter boy can enjoy the outdoors in the winter. And that he does!

It's been a white winter wonderland in these parts.

Even the birds look good.

Have a good one,

Amanda

favourites of the moment

Well Hello!!!

May is almost over! how did that happen?

So much has happened, that I can't put it all in here. But here's an abridged version.

Much driving, passing of a dear aunt- trip to Newfoundland, back and forthing to Halifax, friends from Toronto visiting us, different friends from Toronto visiting Halifax, working at the brewery, birthday and Victoria day Weekend, a visit from Prince Charles and Camilla, sock knitting,

arrival and putting together of furniture from Ikea!!!!

whew. Notice something is missing? 

No crafting! Blah.

Maybe I can do something about that this week. Who knows?

Anyhow.. here are a few of my favourite things at the moment:

Birdhouse built by my very talented uncle. Built for me. :}

Makes me happy.

 Early seasonal flowers that fit well into my mini vase collection.

 My new on the counter egg holder. Purple!

New shoes for me, from me. Happy Birthday to me. Orange!

The peach tree I got for last year's Mother's Day has finally been planted by our visiting guests.

Blossoms. Maybe there will be some peaches??!

 Last evening, the mosquitoes weren't out yet. We let the chickens out before dusk to wander around. 

Then they happily go back in the coop for the night.

I loved turning around and seeing the warm glow from the lights inside the house. 

I often don't get to see the yard from this view. 

But my plans for the back grounds ( maybe next year) will make this a common view.

 And another of my favourite things is this one. Hoola hooping with her curls. Growing up too fast.

I have a few more posts in my head and pictures at the ready. 

Maybe I'll visit a few more times before May is over.

Have a good one,

Amanda

Abby's Beastie Bag

 There's nothing like a request for a birthday present to get the fingers sewing. (That and the sun streaming trough my studio windows)

I was in the mood to make something different and used this time to make the 

Bear Beastie Bag by Abby at While She Naps fame.

 I've sewn from Abby's patterns 2 or 3 times now and have a good sense of how she writes.

 Her patterns have a lot of pictures and details. It's always a good idea to read the step in full before you start or you might make a few mistakes. (ahem) As such, my lining didn't lay as flat as I would like. But it's still ok.

It was fun. Took about 1.5 hours. I'm sure the 2nd time around, it would be quicker. I'm going to do the dino next. Some nice green boiled wool. Oh, this one was made from a beige wool coat. 

In other news from here...

the tooth fairy made a visit. It was quite an intense evening. The tooth would loosen a bit more, then the realization that it could be pulled out. NOW. Who would do it? Daddy? But was she ready? Laughing, tears. Finally, one more tug from her and it fell out. No tears. Notes were written to the tooth fairy and put under the pillow. The tooth fairy did not disappoint on the first tooth. Now the one next to it is wiggly. Oh boy.

One of the treasures at the flea market in Lunenburg was this portable type writer. Many song lyrics, famous and Rafael made are being typed up. As well as a love song to this mama. Be still my heart. (But he can't remember the tune. There sure is a lot of "ooo, mama mama mama" in there.)

For Neve, it's a lesson in  "it can't be perfect". The newest popular tool and most misplaced around here is the tape corrector white out. Much improved from the bottle of intoxicating liquid white out. Now THAT was messy.

Well, nice to have lunch with you. My home made seafood chowder was delish, thank you very much. Off to make some more. I have some exciting opportunities happening behind the scenes. I just have to make sure I do them!

Cheers,

Amanda

A Minecraft Birthday Party

My boy turned 9 yesterday! NINE!!!

 

 A Minecraft Party was requested. The easiest way to create one of those is to look for other people's ideas! So I went here and made this board.

The Sunny By Design had some great things.

Here's my ode to Minecraft Party..

Creeper juice. Those little Chubby drinks. Paper torn off and faces put on.

 Torches= twisted pretzel sticks. I could have dipped the ends in red melted chocolate, but time got away from me. The slime balls were to be green jello squares, but that was left home in my fridge.

The zombie boogies were wasabi peas!

Sorry for blurry photo below. I started making little TNT bundles, then decided not to, putting them in a glass instead.
My favourite part of the party was when I exclaimed," there are still lots of fruits and veggies left. If you don't eat them now, I'm putting them in your loot bags!" There was a big woosh to the table and things were being eaten. :}

THe cake was a brownie instead of cake. I wanted to leave the edges un-iced and figured the brownie would be less crumby. The icing was Fluffy Boiled Frosting. It wasn't sweet at all. We made way too much for this cake, so I made meringue puffs and put them in the oven. Left those home too. 

 Here's a new thing I learned, to make meringue, you beat your egg whites, heat the oven to 350, put them in, turn the oven off and leave until the oven cools down. Easy peasy.

 The signs and grass leaves were from a Sizzix dies. The old ones, the big, honkin', thick ones. You can do it in the cuttlebug using a B plate on the bottom and top of the die. Don't use the A plate a t all.

We rented the local arena to let off some party energy.

 We go to the general skate at least once a week. this boy has come a long way in the past few weeks. He even looks like a skater now!

Dad and his boy.

 Everybody sing...... Happy Birthday to you!

 Loot bag time!

And the loot inside. I don't like giving loot bags with a bunch of little things. So I gave hand made creeper cookies that took 2 days and a trip to the local bakery to ice (Thanks Flying Fox), a CD of Minecraft Parodies. I googled that title on You Tube and gave it to my husband to do his magic. And then some other snacky things.

Birthday party's all over! 

(paper characters)

It was a fun one!

Edited May 8: WOW y'all are probably on a reading frenzy for minecraft party ideas.What we wouldn't do for our kids. At this time, I've had close to 10,000 hits on this post. In my world, that's a lot. People have been pinning my creeper juice bottles like crazy. Awesome. But look at my sidebar. Only 13 followers. Makes me feel kinda lonely. Wanna join the party on my blog? Bookmark or follow me to see what else I've been up to. I've made ninja peggies too! You can use those for the next party.

Cheers,

Amanda