small + friendly

Garden Harvest Apron

The idea for this apron was born from taking one too many trips in from the garden with a shirt full of produce.  With a few dishtowels and a little time at the sewing machine, you've got yourself, (or better yet, your mom) a handy apron that can hold loads of treasures from the garden.  

I even designed a mini version, so you can do a cool mommy and me deal.  As an added bonus, when I finished the child's sized apron, I realized that it makes an awesome adult sized craft apron.   

I love using "tired" dishtowels in the garden.  They might be a bit too shabby to hang in the kitchen, but they can have a second life outside, where stains and holes are just "character."  Of course, you could also start with beautiful new tea towels or just good old cotton fabric.  And best of all, you can complete the Mother's Day gift giving by adding a new pair of gloves, shears, or a beautiful plant.  

Looking for another handmade gardener's gift?  Might I suggest the handy garden kneeler.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of aprons, I wanted to let everyone know that they are the focus of Craft Hope's latest efforts, get all the details here.

Without further delay, I present tutorials for both adult and child sized Garden Harvest Aprons.     

Garden Ornaments

This week I thought I would share a few handmade items that would make great Mother's Day gifts.  What mother doesn't like a little garden flair?  In fact, this first project was a gift to myself.  I couldn't possibly love the book And Then It's Spring any more.  Jude and I have read it more times that I can count, and I never cease to get a huge kick out of it.

Inspired by a particularly adorable page, I made this sign for the garden.  

It was very easy to create.  I simply applied letter stickers to a small board, spray painted the board, and then removed the stickers.  (I didn't have small stickers, so I just wrote the second bit after the paint was dry.)  

Jason attached it to a cool stick I found in the backyard, and voila, super cute garden sign. (Too bad cats can't read ... I would have changed the word stomp to "crap" if I thought it would do any good.)

With this technique you could create all sorts of personal garden signs and older children could certainly pull it off with very little assistance.

Another cool garden project is a birdhouse.  

Jude painted this daddy-built birdhouse for his great-grandmother's birthday.  (You could, of course, start with an unfinished birdhouse from the craft store.)  My kind of gift: simple, affordable, useful, and artsy.

Here's my tips for successful toddler-painted gifts:

1.  Choose three coordinating colors, this avoids one big brown mess. (In this case blue, white, and gray which matches my grandma's house)

2.  Try to stay out of it.  Beyond limiting the color palette, you want it to be your child's creation.  It will end up a lot cooler if you haven't controlled it.

3.  Stop while you're ahead.  Okay, so stay out of it until ... it looks super cool and your toddler appears to be shifting from thoughtful strokes to wild coverage; at this point, offer some paper and whisk away their beautiful creation before it loses that artsy, abstract quality.  

What do you think, would you like to give or receive something for the garden this Mother's Day?  Stay tuned for more ideas!

Karma, she's a real B from H

Sorry to use such harsh letters, but she is currently kicking my A.  In an effort to not swear in front of Jude, I use letters.  I can just imagine Jude saying something like "My mom says you're a bee," which will be a whole different round of karma.  (Our efforts to shield him from swear words has also been fairly unsuccessful, but that's a story for another day.)  

Currently, I am being haunted by a very specific question: "What are you doing?"  A few months ago, Jason pointed out to me that every time he went to sit down, I would ask him "What are you doing?"  Which translated to: "I can see that you aren't busy, and I have something for you to do."  In my defense, once I was aware of it, I have made a real effort to knock it off.  Except when I was super-tired/PMSed/frantic-to-get-things-done, then all bets were off.  Until now ...

... because my tiny arbiter of karma is here to insure I never utter that phrase again.  For the past two days Jude has asked me what I am doing approximately every 30 seconds.  Here's a sliver of my life right now:

"What are you doing?"

"Going pee."

"Hey, Mom, What are you doing?"

"Washing my hands, we always was our hands after going to the bathroom."

"What are you doing?"

"Popping a zit, okay?"

"What are you doing?"

"Jude, what are you doing?"

"Mom, what are YOU doing?"

"Trying to remain calm."

"Oh ... now what are you doing?"

 Here's to accepting karma with as much humor and grace as you can possibly muster.  

P.S. - Fittingly, Carrie at Oh Baby O! is hosting a read along of Buddhism for Mothers, I highly recommend it.

P.P.S. - I plan to join in on the last bit of screen free week, so I'll be offline Friday-Sunday.  Wishing you and yours a beautiful weekend.