Ambrosia Creative

I really ought to be cleaning/nesting but making stuff is so much more fun.

My sewing skills are pedestrian at best, so I’m glad I was able to pull off this cloud pillow to the degree expected of myself (not very high). I even hand-drew the chevron pattern using a fabric marker. Brilliant idea by Mer that I’ve been wanting to try out.

A happy cloud is so apropos right now because it’s going to be a rainy weekend.

Their birthdays were this week. I now have a 4-yr-old
(“Four like Caillou!” Dax likes to say) and a 6-yr-old.

And I really thought the baby was going to make her debut last
night. Woke up to long, drawn out contractions and shakes and shivers
– got those last time I was in labor. But I willed the baby to wait,
because as excited Dax is for the new baby, I knew he wouldn’t
be cool with sharing his birthday. Crisis averted!

We kept hearing about the amazing fall colors in the North Carolina mountains, so a couple Saturdays ago we headed up north. The piles of leaves were such a big deal to the boys. When they attacked Ryan relentlessly, I suggested he ignore them and act as if he didn’t care (because they’d surely leave him alone – reverse-psychology!). But that plan didn’t work out so well.

I’m getting closer and closer, and as if I weren’t excited enough, bloggers, family members (people everywhere it seems!) are having their babies.

So, a topic that frequently comes up with the boys is “How is the baby going to come out?” And let me tell you, I am not ready to have that conversation with them. So I vaguely tell them that there is a “Baby-coming-out-hole” and of course, they ask “Where’s that?” I don’t want to be a complete liar, so I bite the bullet and say it’s near my bottom. And I don’t know how it is with girls, but the moment anyone says “bottom” within earshot of the boys, they bust up laughing and the conversation pretty much degrades from there. Birthing to them is such funny business.

Here’s an easy Halloween craft that even involves a little bit of outdoors time. All you need are 1) twigs (bendable, or strip some dead-ish thin branches off a tree or bush), 2) yarn, 3) glue gun, 4) fishing line, and 5) plastic spiders.

I made two hoops, one smaller, one larger, by tying ends together with the fishing line. Next, to make the weaving process easier for the kids, I used a glue gun to attach ‘spokes,’ connecting the inner and outer hoops. When it felt solid enough, I let the boys weave their webs.

At some point, I had to take over Dax’s, but Kai did great creating his web. Finishing touch was to glue on plastic spiders, then hang.

A little lot more crude and rough, but these were inspired by this tactile Yarn Font project by Teri and these pretty dreamcatchers. I also spotted Dana’s yarn spiderweb DIY this evening. I like this as alternative decor to the cottony stuff.

I’m happy to share that I will now be a regular craft contributor to the ever-inspiring Bloesem Kids!

My first contribution are suncatchers inspired by the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. It’s a very simple project for children that involves reusing plastic food packaging, drawing a Halloween design, coloring in with Sharpie markers, and displaying on your glass door or window. Kai really loved this and wanted to make more, but we ran out of plastic to use. Need to buy more Trader Joe’s cookies!

Full instructions can be found on Bloesem Kids and feel free to download my (very rough) template for skulls and such. And make sure to check out lots more neat bKids crafts.

It’s been a challenging sort of week thus far. The kind filled with disappointments and soggy socks from the rain. And sad feelings from missing my best friends, one of which just had her beautiful baby, and the other whose baby is taking his first steps. But there was a moment today when the boys and I had croissants and hot cocoa after school, and it was so sweet and everyone was warm, content, and happy. I declared every rainy day to be a hot cocoa day, and the boys said “Yeah!” They even left their mugs 1/3 full so I could finish off the rest (and I tried not to think about backwash). Cocoa is cozy.

Other cozy things today: a sweet gift from Jozen, and curling up with the novel The Death Cure. Yep, YA lit is my guilty pleasure!

I absolutely feel like crashing right now, but since my blog doubles as personal journal, I just had to quickly visually document our week. Good news is that Kai should have his cast off in two weeks which is before his birthday, before Halloween (a huge concern for him), and before the baby arrives (gigantic concern for me). Then he can go back to what got him in trouble in the first place; attempting bike tricks and worrisome speeds. But this time he’ll have elbow pads, wrist guards, knee pads, shin guards…whatever to keep him from breaking another bone. A little crazy? Yes. But is my child crazier? Yes.

And I’ll be posting an easy kids’ Halloween craft soon. Once I find some energy, blessed energy.

(Also wanted to throw in the link to the new Future Islands album. So much good music happening. Fall is the best.)