House Plants

I've been on an indoor plant kick lately. Our house isn't dark, but it isn't light-filled either. The major windows in our home face directly east or directly west, so I've been huddling pots around a couple of these bigger windows. I know my husband thinks it's cluttered looking, but he hasn't said anything yet. Still, once you commit to a house plant--that is, take it home and put it in your own pot--you want it to succeed. When you don't have a lot of bright windows, grouping all the plants you can fit on one little side table by your couch may be your best option.

I took the above photo this evening. It is not an example of the aforementioned plant cluster. This plant supposedly prefers low light, so it's been relegated to a lesser lit room. As I took this photo in the semi-dark of an east-facing room at dusk, I had to hold as still as possible to get this sort-of in focus image. As I held my breath (to keep from moving) I could hear my children in the next room "falling" asleep: the little one telling a story to herself, talking too loudly for the older one, who came out to tell me so. She crept out of her room just as I was done shooting this. I was about to step out into the hallway when she walked by. I think it startled her a bit when she noticed me. She didn't expect her mother to be lurking in a dark playroom with a camera. Ah well, I suppose it's best to keep my kids on their toes. You can never know what to expect when your mom is trying to be an artist.

The Next Day of Spring

Although I mention it in the title, this post has little to do with spring. I just like to remind myself that it is officially spring. It's hard to remember this fact when the rain has not let up for days.

Instead, I write to you about my messy house.

My home has reached a crescendo of messiness after a busy weekend. It's as if all of our stuff exploded onto all of our surfaces. The floor littered. The tabletops and counters covered. Oh, and I can't forget the (clean) laundry pile up in the living room. It's approaching Everest status again.

To prove my point, I will include this photo of a life-sized Barbie that's been hiding in my living room. The Mega Barbie, as I shall call her, is usually hard to miss (and our living room is not large). She's the size of a small child. She is actually bigger than my small child. Nevertheless, I had not seen Mega Barbie for a few days. It turns out my daughter had tucked her into a blanket by Mt Laundry Everest and I did not notice until today. Even as I piled the clean laundry nearly on top of her, she eluded me. It was a bit of a shock when I noticed this:

And now I think it's time to fold some clothes.

Mysterious Masks

Some things that occurred here today: It rained, I monitored my newly transplanted plants, my husband and I watched my niece and nephew while their folks worked.

In anticipation of the kids' visits, I checked out The Muppets Big Book of Crafts from the library. It's a generous book filled with quirky projects, as you'd expect from a Muppets book. There is a project for making Popsicle Hands out of a juice and rubber gloves and another for making Bread Dough Monsters, which look in their example photos like mini orange Jabba the Huts (made out of bread dough of course.)

My niece, who is a very methodical nine-year old, carefully looked through each of the 322 pages and marked for me all the projects she, her brother and my daughters were interested in making. She noted in the book the twenty or so projects with post-it notes, then charted these projects with their difficulty rating (one Miss Piggy head means it's easy, three indicates difficult.) Finally, she narrowed the list down to the top five, based mostly on practical matters. Last week we made Super Secret Sketchbooks. This time, Mysterious Masks. Next time, it's Treasure Island Dioramas!

With my niece's list in hand, I went to the craft store to load up on supplies. There, I spent way too much money on the aforementioned supplies. Still, the time spent with them seems worth it (Perhaps they'll remember me fondly as the Artsy-Craftsy Aunt who made the funky projects with them) and I really can't pass up an excuse to buy more craft supplies. Win, win.

A Pincushion Photo Instead of A Blue Photo

I'm reaching back to the holidays by posting these photos. I want to share something more recent, but lately my camera has been acting up and giving me blue photos. For now, I will share an image of a pincushion I made for a friend this past Christmas. She's just getting into sewing. To make the pincushion, I modified a pattern from the book Sewing Bits and Pieces by Sandi Henderson.



My grandmother began teaching me to sew when I was young, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from my technique. I am not the most proficient seamstress, but I'm trying not to let that get to me. In the meantime, I collect sewing, quilting and embroidery books so I can drool over the projects.



I hope to have a mini quilt to post soon too. When I get my camera to obey me again, I will share photos of that project.