A simple advent calendar

Posted on November 25, 2015 by snapdragonstudios

When I was growing up, our Advent calendar was a little wall hanging with pockets. The top was a snowcovered house and there was a little mouse that we moved from pocket to pocket as we neared Christmas.

My parents still put that calendar out every year, so this year I started thinking about some ways to celebrate Advent at our house and remind us to take time to enjoy the season. I came across this post on A Beautiful Mess and decided to do something similar.

We have some sections of weathered fencing left over from fencing our backyard, so I pulled a few boards off of one scrap piece and cut them to length. My tree is about 3 1/2 feet high and the “branches” are about 12″, 15″ and 21″ or so.

I knew I didn’t want the kids to have chocolate every day (a whole month of daily chocolate might be enough to make me put them out with the cat), and I also didn’t want to amass 24 (x 2 kids, so 48, ugh) little toys to unwrap every day, so I settled on activities that we can do together each day, scheduling the activities to coincide with my work schedule and other obligations.

I glued and stapled regular sized clothespins to the boards and used a big punch to make red and green paper “ornaments” that I wrote activities on. Each day we’ll take down that day’s ornament, do the activity and replace it with a pretty metallic paper ornament as we count down to Christmas.

If you’re looking for ideas of what to do with your kids, here’s a post I wrote for our library listing many of the activities we will be doing. Some of them are specific to our area, but most communities have similar things going on at this time of year.

Happy Thanksgiving! We’re thankful to all of you who take the time to stop over to our corner of the internet.

-Elizabeth

In praise of less

Posted on November 6, 2015 by snapdragonstudios

So I get that minimalism isn’t a new thing. Everyone on the planet has Marie Kondo-d their houses, we all read Apartment Therapy‘s tips for living in small spaces, we know to rid our lives of clutter… we’re on it. Nothing in this post is anything that hasn’t been said before, it’s just a testimonial to the power of less.*

But you guys.

Earlier this week, my almost 3 year old and I went toe-to-toe over picking up his toys before naptime. Now, we live in a 484 square foot house, so it’s not like we own a ton of toys to begin with. And a couple months ago (in my Marie Kondo/ Simplicity Parenting fervor) I gathered up all of our toys and sorted out half or more of them to put away in the garage because I noticed that Jack was arranging his toys in rows instead of actually playing with them (a sign that he had too many according to Simplicity Parenting).

But when Jack refused to help pick up his toys earlier this week I issued an ultimatum: pick up your toys or they’re going away. He called my bluff and said he wanted them gone.

So they are.

I’m not a monster. They’re in the garage with all the other toys that are put away. The only things I left out are the books**, a Thomas the Train track and trains, a Clipo set from Grandma that has seen some play lately (mostly from the 15 month old who likes to empty and refill the bucket, but whatever), a stacking rings set, one Hess truck and our wooden blocks.

But you guys.

They’re playing with all of it.

And they’re playing *nicely* with all of it. And not just dumping it all out and leaving it or lining it up in rows that can’t be touched.

And when it’s time to clean up it takes less than a minute and there are no tears as long as Jack can “be-tend that I’m a big cuhWAIN and I’m YOADing sings!” (… say it out loud. You’ll get it.)

So as the holidays approach and you’re bombarded with advertisements for All The Things, consider this a nudge in a different direction. If a kid adores one truck, 10 more aren’t going to make him 10x happier. But fewer options available to him will lead to more focused, deeper play. I’ve seen it.

And don’t worry. He’ll still have the pleasure of strewing every toy in the house around the living room. It will just be less likely to make both of you cry.

– Elizabeth

* No affiliate links in this post, just stuff I’ve used or read or liked.

** Half of our books are also put away, ready to be pulled out when we’re bored with this set.

Summer doings

Posted on June 15, 2015 by snapdragonstudios

Happy Monday!

Let’s have a ~~brain dump~~ coffee date, shall we?

I’ve been busy in my studio ~~because it’s the only place I can catch up on Game of Thrones away from little eyes~~ because I’ve been working on some new projects for Snapdragon (still secret, sorry!) and doing a few projects for friends. I am in another wedding and baby shower season of my life, which means handmade gifts and a busy calendar. I shortened a bridesmaid dress for one friend (two layers of slippery lining topped with chiffon, ughhh) and sewed a sweet little linen bias slip dress for another friend to wear under a sheer beaded tunic for her sister’s wedding.

Still on my cutting table or in progress: a gift for my friend’s baby shower (she reads this, so no details for another couple of weeks!), a few projects for me that I’ve been daydreaming about (Thurlow trouser shorts, another Myla tank, a summer Weekend Rambler skirt, a maxi skirt and maybe a maxi dress since I’m dreaming big), and, of course, my sister’s wedding dress. We have the lace and I ordered the silk last week. We made the pattern a few weeks ago, so as soon as the silk arrives we’ll be in business and my studio will look like an atelier with lace and silk and tulle, oh my!

Out of the studio we made some time for strawberry picking over the weekend.

We should’ve weighed Jack going in and coming out because he ate more than he picked (perhaps you noticed that every strawberry in his box has a bite out of it? Yeah), but we still came home with a big crate. Some were frozen for strawberry rhubarb pies later this summer and for “strawberry cubes” for strawberry rhubarb lemonade for my friend’s baby shower. Many have been eaten fresh, and there are still a few in the fridge waiting to be enjoyed this week.

In a mom-fail, I didn’t take a picture of Samuel on his first strawberry picking excursion, perhaps because I was too busy deterring him from eating the straw and digging into the box I was picking into. He was perfectly happy as long as I gave him one strawberry for every two I put in my crate.

We finally had rain over the weekend, so my garden is happier (and so are the weeds… sigh).

This picture is from a few weeks ago (back when it was cool enough for a sweater in the morning!), but this is what we’ve been doing almost every day. It’s so good to be outside!

How is your summer going so far? What would you tell me over coffee this Monday morning?

-Elizabeth

Parenting (and a moose)

Posted on May 13, 2015 by snapdragonstudios

I am only 2 1/2 years into being a parent, and there are a lot of things I am still learning. Patience, for example. But I am getting better at slowing down and having more “kid – level” fun, so I thought I would share a little escapade from earlier this week.

Jack is pretty attached to a stuffed moose that my mom and dad gave him.

He and Samuel were going to be at my friend’s house on Monday while I worked, and the rule is usually that our toys stay at home so we don’t have to worry about forgetting them all over creation. Jack sneaked the moose into the car, though, so some bargaining took place and we decided that the moose would come to work with me at the library. Here’s what he got into.