Baking Up Some Love!

Want to add a little something extra to your child’s Valentine’s Day this year? How about a handmade apron? Kids love aprons if not for cooking, then for crafts. 

You have two options here: 

1. You can make a really cute apron, from a dishtowel, and I tell you how below, or 

2. You can cut to the chase and just buy one that I made for just $7.50. (No one will think badly of you if you just buy it—it’s still handmade!)

Yes, I made it from a dishtowel. This is a handy trick my super creative friend Leslie Saito taught me. You can find some very cute and very inexpensive dishtowels at Target, Ikea, and elsewhere. Many of them have cute borders or appliqués to add to the design.

Take the dishtowel and from a short end (the side without the border if it’s designed like that), measure about 3’ to 3.5” inches. Fold diagonally. Repeat on the other side.

Measure 3"-3.5" on short edge of dishtowel & fold diagonally. 

Repeat on the other side. 

Press it into place. This will form your casing.

Stitch about 1” from your folded edge.

This will make your casing.

 You’ll need about two yards of coordinating trim—anything will work, ribbon, ricrac, cord, etc. Starting with the lower edge of one casing, run the trim through using a safety pin to guide it.

Once you come through the top, the trim will create the neck hole of the apron. Continue to lace the trim down through the other casing. Adjust so ends are even.

Just slip the top loop over your child’s head, then tie the trim on the back. If this is for a really young (small) child, you might be able to wrap the tie back around to the front and tie it there.

You can buy one of four prints I made this weekend by clicking here. You can also access my Carts and Rafts shop on the right hand column of this blog.

Three Kinds of Babysitters

Over the years I’ve learned a lot about babysitters. My kids are 11 and 9 now and never had fulltime childcare, I’ve always worked from home. Our babysitters have been here for shifts as short as an hour to cover a void until another parent got home to as long as a weekend.

Each sitter we have hired over the years brings in their own style and background. Interesting quirky characteristics aside, I can put them each in one of three categories:

1. Sitters,

2. Teachers, or

3. Housekeepers.

Sitters

No, silly, they don’t sit ON the children! They do indeed sit, they watch TV, they text their friends, they do their own homework, maybe they eat, but they don’t do anything besides fill space. They are there for emergencies only. My dad falls into this category, which is fine by me. Sometimes that’s all you need. When my older one was about four years old, Grandpa came over to watch her and her sister while I went to an appointment. When I got home she tattled on him, “Grandpa just read his paper while he was here.” Oh well! They were safe and all was well. Most of these are younger, newer babysitters. These are not the sitters to call for a weekend.

Teachers

You know this type—they have a bag of tricks and a whole curriculum for the day. They are not necessarily professional teachers, this is just how they are. Teachers are constantly trying to stimulate your kids. Out come the board games, the flashcards, craft materials—they keep the kids busy. They take the kids outside and go on nature hunts, taking pictures of things they find along the way. Occasionally they’ll watch a movie, but somehow it fits with their overall lesson plan. Even though the teachers have a lot of spunk and want to keep the kids occupied, some of them are not tidy. After a day of playing with everything in the house, you can only hope they put it all away. No one wants to come home to a disaster because the babysitter was too busy playing and neglected to teach the valuable lesson of cleaning. 

Housekeepers

Aaaah! It’s wonderful to come home to a clean house. We had a sitter in this category who would put the kids to bed, then clean the kitchen (beyond rinsing the dinner dishes), organize bookshelves, de-clutter the coffee table and fold a load of laundry. In hindsight, she was probably plagued with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it worked in our favor. For the most part, the housekeepers get the kids started on a project and then only mildly interact with the kids while they find organizing projects to do around your house. This is my favorite kind of babysitter. Probably because she fulfills things I rarely make time to do. She has many of the qualities of a teacher without micromanaging the children and she also leaves the house better than she found it.

I have found that the key to being happy with any babysitter is to be clear about your expectations when they come over. If you expect them to clean the kitchen or fold laundry, you have to say so. No one can ever meet unspoken expectations. What are you waiting for? Call a sitter and go have lunch with your friends!

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Easter Candy Still Lurking?

Are there Peeps peeping at you from baskets? Are there plastic eggs with jelly beans in them hiding around the family room? Are there marshmallow eggs tempting you to eat just one more? Have you even cut into the chocolate walnut filled Easter egg?

Rather than hiding it from your children (or yourself) and giving them a piece a day until next Halloween, recycle it. I do recommend throwing out anything that doesn't meet your food standards, though. It will not become nutritious in another form. These ideas for new treats are simply that--treats!

Crafty with Candy
If you don't think you have anything salvageable, then buy the candy from your kids at a fair price per pound, or trade them a toy for it. Bright colored candies are also great items for crafts. Let you kids glue them on a cigar box or butter tub in pretty designs. Shellack them and give them to grandma for Mother's Day! She'll love them!

More and S'More Peeps
A friend in Arlington roasted her Peeps on skewers for an evening of s-mores. That's a great way to get rid of those little pesky pets. Lightly roast a marshmallow filled egg for the same results.

Tasty Add-Ins
Chop up Easter eggs and candies and mix them into cookie dough or spruce up some brownie batter before baking. If you don't think the candies will survive in an oven, mix them into some slightly softened vanilla ice cream then refreeze or use them as decorations on sugar cookies or a cake.

Your children will be so impressed with your ingenuity they won't mind that their baskets are empty.

Go ahead, Hop to it!

Wrap Stars—Get Creative!

It’s December 21^st. Are you bored of curling ribbon and stick-on bows? Get creative and make your presents even more exciting to open.

Ribbon and Such

Satin or organza ribbons make a present look really special and you do not have to spend a fortune on the materials. Buy by the spool in solid colors that you can use all year. Checkout the bargain bins in fabric stores, but check the yardage. Even the 99¢ store sells ribbon, but sometimes you might be getting three feet (one yard), which is not at all a good price. I love using rickrack as well. Some fabric outlets sell this by the 25-yard spool for just a few dollars. Why is it so cheap? Usually the cheap stuff is nylon, not cotton. So don’t iron it, it will melt. Laminated packages might not be what you are after. Raffia is still a natural favorite and very affordable. No fancy bows required when you use nice materials.

When Original Beats Pretty

Your favorite tool man will get a kick out of gift wrapped with duct tape or electrical tape. Florist tape is great for a gardener. Your daughter will get a charge out of an extension cord wrapped around her new sewing machine.

Add-ons Are Special

Kids are drawn to the gift that has a gift they can see on the outside. Guess what? So are adults! The spatula taped to the new wrapped cookbook, sunflower seeds taped to a box containing a baseball glove, or a Christmas ornament (you can get them on sale right now) on any gift. It’s an extra gift that hints at what might be in the box.

Gift Tags

I think I got this from a Martha Stewart magazine many years ago, you might do it too. Recycle all of the Christmas cards you get by cutting off the back flap where the writing is. Use the decorative fronts as gift tags. Simply punch a hole and tie them onto your packages. Use a pretty corner cutter from your scrapbook supplies to spruce them up.

You’ll have Christmas wrapped up in no time with packages that never looked so good!