Monday, February 20, 2012

The Valentine's Day Mompetition

I've admitted my newfound excitment over Valentine's day before. So I decided to come all the way out and share just how crazy I have gotten this year. My kids are in 4th and 1st grades and in all their years of choosing and passing out class valentines I have never gotten creative and helped them make something from scratch. We have always gone for the obnoxious Star Wars or Princess boxes of valentines that come with a sticker, pencil or in the worst case, a tatoo. In recent years its come to my attention that class valentines have become somewhat of a mom competition. Last year my kids came home with cards that included their classmates photos posing with something exploding in pink and red, homemade heart-shaped crayons and my personal favorite, the original poem complete with photo AND candy. This year I was having no more of those all inclusive boxes from Target. I felt the need to jump on the creative bandwagon and go for something that would throw me in that competative mix. Browsing Pinterest I came across a great idea to create a flower with card stock and a sucker. Now one thing I dont think I have shared before is that I rarely just take an idea and go with it. I like to make some changes, add a twist and make it my own. I decided to go really old school and use doilies instead of card stock and let the kids help - since they were their valentines after all - and go nuts with glitter foam stickers. A little marker and tape later we had bouquets of dum dum flowers all ready for classroom shoe box mailboxes. I am already plotting next year's creation - just in case I need to start a couple months early to really go over the top in the valentines "mom"petition.
Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and red Hawaiian sugar hearts.

And for the post competition celebration drink - pink champagne.

Kids' Valentine's Day surprizes in tin mailboxes.

The Evolution of the Eternity Scarf

Not long ago I wrote about my excitement over learning to crochet an eternity scarf. If you remember, the "eternity" part eluded me but I figured
out how to fake it with well hidden stitches connecting the two ends. I kept messing around with my crochet hook and, to my extreme joy (and mostly by accident), made an actual eternity scarf. Through several skeins of yarn and about a week, my Frankenstien scarves turned into beautiful, seam-free, creations complete with the quirky twist I love so much. The excited recipients who benefited from my trial and error are now sporting these all around town. I may just go into business...

From left - slate blue stitched together with no twist, grey stitched together with twist, indigo and moss green both no seam, no twist - and the masterpeice - cream, no seam and with a twist.