a lot of words about one thing.

Last year sometime our neighbors across the street had a yard sale. I bought this big print from them for $5. I liked the scene and I liked the price. After a year in this house, our walls are still fairly empty, so I am always on the lookout for affordable art.
The frame on the print was not very attractive. The main wood color was pleasing enough, but there was a speckled wood stripe that made it look really dated. My first plan was to paint that stripe. I did that, but it came out very poorly. The paint bled under the blue tape and looked terribly sloppy.
My next idea was to paint the rest of the frame black and keep the pale blue stripe. That way I could touch up from both directions and end up with a clean straight stripe. After that effort the stripe remained impossible to clean up to my standards and I ended up painting the whole frame black. The most significant development at this point, though, was that when I ripped up the painters tape (even though I used the "delicate" variety), pieces of the print came up with it.

I thought about imitating one blogger's clever fix, but Nate wasn't sold. Ever since the poodle portrait incident, I'm trying to take his tastes more into consideration. I decided to go in a totally different direction. I created several collaged vingnettes, then tried to pull the whole large piece together with a web of sorts, a sprawling structure of black and grey triangles.

The collage work on this piece was very much inspired by the collages of Lisa Congdon, especially her recent work (see here, and here, and here). The bright colors I used were directly inspired by the great neon shades she has been using lately. I also used some geometric shapes similar to those showing up in her art recently. I've been a big fan of her work for years and hope that if she ever runs across this piece, here or on flickr, she'll be more flattered than insulted.

To make these little scenes I used black and white prints of our family, along with a selection of brightly colored papers, some small paper doilies, and a few vintage photographs from my stash. Can you recognize all of us?

Here Nate, Simon, and Theo walk through the woods. The business on Nate's feet in this scene was directly inspired by an AMAZING embroidery artist whose work I admire on flickr, Jennifer Porter, aka Porterness. Love her work.

Here I am with Nate and Simon on a vintage photograph.
Another vintage picture, which I used because the image mirrors the forest/stream scene on the large canvas.Here Theo pulls me as I ride a cow in a boat.
Another vintage picture, a blurry shot of leaves.
Theo scales a mountain, Simon runs past, Nate claps his hands.This is the boys' favorite bit. They say they are "zapping" like superheroes.

The size of this print was a challenge for me. As evidenced by the tiny vignettes, I'm much more comfortable working on a small scale. I probably could have done a better job balancing all the elements within the larger scene, but overall I am happy with how it turned out. It's a fun piece of art for the wall. Now on to other projects!

what to do for a raisin up the nose.

Our day took an unexpected turn on Thursday when Theo shoved a raisin up his nose, too far up for me to reach. I quickly consulted the internet and found very little information, mostly moms telling their tales of woe on parenting forums, many of them ending up in the ER. Not letting myself yet believe that I would also end up there, I called my pediatrician's office. They told me they could not treat him there, it was best to take him to the ER. Darn it.

Everyone at the ER was incredibly nice to us, which made our experience pleasant enough. But it was still almost three hours with a toddler in a small room filled with medical equipment. Not exactly the way I wanted to spend my day.

After our long wait, a nurse came in and described the raisin-removal procedure to me. I was amazed by its simplicity and by the fact that I would be involved. Here is what we did: the nurse used his finger to plug the opposite nostril (the one without the raisin in it) and I put my mouth on Theo's, forcing a quick puff of air into his mouth. The raisin flew right out! Sure I got a little snot on my face, but I was pretty thrilled by this method. It was kind of awesome to be in the ER, surrounded by the best in medical technology, and to solve my son's problem myself, with my own body, using such a simple, non-invasive technique. Additionally, I could easily have held the opposite nostril myself, eliminating the role of the helpful nurse. I could have done this all by myself, had I known what to do.

I am sort of shocked that I couldn't find this little trick on the internet. And that's exactly why I'm writing this post. Maybe some other poor mother out there can read this before making a trip to the emergency room. Of course, I'm not a doctor. I understand this method will not work for every object a child might shove up a nostril, or even for every raisin stuck in a nose. All I'm saying is that for us it worked like a charm. Perhaps someone in the same situation might try it and save themselves the expense and time of a trip to the ER.

gosh.

I can't believe it's been so long since I've written here! Time is flying by. I feel insanely busy this summer so far. I can't put my finger on why exactly, but it just feels like non-stop activity. I'm having trouble keeping up with it all, to be honest. The house and yard get overwhelming and I just have to avert my eyes sometimes. Just dealing with the boys day to day is enough. I don't have energy for much else.
All in all I'd say it's going pretty well. I've had some moments of lost patience, moments I am not proud of (especially involving Theo). But I start again each day, trying to lighten up, focus on the fun of the day, and be the playful mom instead of the stressed one. And I feel okay about how we're doing. Exhausted, but okay.
Today we celebrated Theo's third birthday with friends and family. It was warm. A little too warm for my taste. Our guests were extremely gracious in not complaining about the heat. We went first to Theo's Ice Cream Shop, then to a nearby park. I think everyone had fun, especially the guest of honor.
Tomorrow is his proper birthday. We'll celebrate by having some birthday pancakes, lazing about the house, and then going to a dinnertime cookout. I'm looking forward to it all. Before that, I'm looking forward to putting these dudes to bed and crashing on the couch. Being out in the sun today really took it out of me. I'm ready for vegetation. (Which reminds me, I need to take some pictures of the garden. It's going like gangbusters! Soon...)

first, last

Today is Simon's last day of kindergarten. This school year flew by so quickly.

Now I am trying to switch gears to summertime.... With no outside forces controlling the structure of our week, it's all up to me, and that's a lot of pressure. I know I need to strike a balance between planned activities and downtime, time at home and time other places. I have a few goals in mind: arrange at least one playdate a week, maintain as much of my current gym schedule as possible, and spend as much time at the public pool as possible. I want their screen time (tv/computer time) to stay at the same level or even decrease. That will require some focus on my part, and some willingness to actually play with them instead of expecting them to entertain themselves all the time. It's all about balance, and I don't always feel that the balance of life is my strong suit. But I'm going to do my best.

I'm also re-reading this book about siblings. They have really been at each other lately and the increase in time spent together promises to be a challenge. I read this book before when Theo was a tiny baby. It was good then, but a lot more applicable to my life now. A review is definitely in order.

I'll end this post with two short interviews with Simon, pre- and post- kindergarten. I love this boy so much. I hope I'm doing right by him.

pleased as punch.

Allow me to introduce you to my most recent baby, born only yesterday...

Yes, it's a garden. And I am excited. The actual plot is small, only 4' x 8'. But then I made a substantial mulch border around the edge, and put up a (hopefully!) rabbit-proof fence around that. The border makes the garden look tiny and I thought the whole plan was kind of ridiculous at first (it was my plan --- I'm my own harshest critic). The more I think about it, though, I believe that border will be just fine. It gives me enough room to move around and work my garden. It's also big enough that I could plant some flowers in it, and/or place some potted plants around. Next year, if I want to go bigger, I can just rake the whole plot over, let the mulch decompose over winter, and till up the border as well as the existing garden. We'll see. For this year, though, I think this set-up will do nicely. Now I just hope my little plants and seeds grow and that I don't have to engage in any serious critter wars. The fence was my preemptive strike.

My in-laws helped a ton with this project. I absolutely could not have done it without their time, brute strength, and experience, all of which they offered up so generously. I'm hoping to pay them back in tomatoes.

up to lately

competitive potluck. much fun. more pictures here.

planting seeds. some look good, others not so good. hopefully this week they will go in the ground outside where they will have more room to grow grow grow.

observing baby bunnies in our yard. cute beyond words.

appreciating simon's teacher. he helped me print apples on this little tote for her.ice cream.

more ice cream.

lots and lots of satin stitch.

letterboxing. but we didn't find the letterbox. maybe next time.

enjoying seasonal produce. asparagus stir-fry, recipe here. delicious.

busy busy busy! i seem to be updating my flickr more often than this blog right now, so be sure to check over there if i'm quiet here. hope you are all enjoying the springtime.

mother's day plates.

Our Mother's Day took on a theme, unintentionally.
I made plates for both grandmas, based on this blog post. The boys used washable markers, of course, and I wasn't thrilled with how their drawings became blurry when they came in contact with the Mod Podge. I didn't have time to start over, though, so I tried to sell myself on the old adage, "It's the thought that counts." I think both Nate's mom and mine were very pleased with their gifts, even though I thought they could have been better. Grandmas are good like that.

Nate offered to take us out for dinner Friday night as an early Mother's Day treat. I opted instead to order a gift for myself, this awesome plate. I can't wait to see it in person.

This morning I treated myself to some leisurely browsing at the antique mall, all alone. It was wonderfully peaceful and I picked up several plates.
There is a big bare wall in my kitchen that is just begging for this treatment, and I am trying to collect plates to this aim. I have two criteria for plates. I must love them and they must be cheap. I've got a good little stash going. Hopefully I can find time to hang them up sometime in the next few months.
Hope everyone had a great weekend.

My little brother and his wife are in the hospital today, doing the hard work required to bring a new life into the world. I am thinking about them a lot (especially about her), remembering my very long, induced labor with Simon, and hoping she has an easier time than I did. Maybe tonight I'll meet my first nephew! Maybe tomorrow...
This has been a productive week. I painted my kitchen! I had been planning to wait until the summer, but I was itching to hang up this new art gallery and decided I may as well paint before I put it up. Then I thought I'd paint the one wall (the one with the new art wire on it), and let the others wait until summer. But since I had all the supplies out and figured I should just go ahead and do the whole thing! The boys watched far too much tv while I accomplished this. Laundry and kitchen also suffered, but now I am done and will start to clean up the aftermath.
I made this area to display some of the boys' artwork. I bought vintage yard sticks from sushipotparts, nailed them to the wall, and strung a wire using hook eyes. I like how it turned out. My only concern is that I spaced the two levels too far apart. My idea was to leave space for some really big projects to hang up there, but in reality most of the drawings will be on standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Oh well. I'll just have to make a special effort to get out some big paper for them to paint on or something.
I love love LOVE my new paint colors, Window Pane and Quietude by Sherwin Williams. Of course they are not quite translating in these pictures. I guess you'll just have to stop by and see what they look like in person.

some recent projects.

Happy Earth Day! I had an idea to take the boys to the woods today with a trash bag and pick up all the trash that we usually just step over. Now the plan is for the boys to spend the day with Grandma while I paint. Maybe we can do our good deed for the earth tomorrow.

A few projects have come and gone without me writing about them here. Allow me to share them now.
First up, chronologically ordered photo albums!! I cut out numbers from felt and glued them to the spines of my photo albums. So now I know my older albums from my new ones. This project took maybe 3 nights to complete, and I'm purely giddy over the result.
Here is a little display I put together on the wall in my studio (aka craft room. I'm trying to adapt a more serious word for my work space). Top collage by me, prints on the right from selflesh on etsy, animal pancake mold from a garage sale, framed painting made by Simon in preschool.
Also in the studio, two paint-by-numbers that I absolutely adore. Bought them both at a garage sale for 50 cents.
Thrifted birdies that I painted to match the wall.
And three thrifted ladies, also painted to match the wall. Theo kept asking me what their names were, so I named them Henrietta, Bernadette, and Paloma. All three names would have been on my list for a Hartrich girl, mostly likely to be vetoed by Nate.

I made this embroidery as a gift for my friend Janna who recently had her second baby, a big beautiful girl named Sonia Grace.When they found out long ago that they were having a girl, my head was swirling with super cute embroidery possibilities. I was leaning toward something personalized, since I knew her name ahead of time too. But then I realized I hadn't made a personalized embroidery for her big brother Sal. And I have a thing about fairness between siblings.
I remembered a piece Janna had purchased from my etsy shop long ago (my very first sale, actually. It was a kindness I'll never forget). I decided to pick another illustration from the same vintage alphabet book so that brother and sister would have a matching set of embroideries. Sort of. Later I realized that the windy theme will very likely correspond to the weather on Sonia's birthday in early spring. Happy coincidence.

spring spring spring spring spring spring. we made it. we're here.

Last week we renewed our love affair with a local park. It's the 'woods park' to my boys. There are walking trails, a little stream, and a disc gold course. On a beautiful day we like to take a picnic lunch out there and then spend a good hour or two romping. Rainboots are a must for splashing in the stream. I come prepared for them to get disastrously messy and then I can enjoy the play that follows. I love that we have a place so nearby where my boys can feel so free.








I think Theo's potty-talk has really reached a pinnacle, as you'll see in this impromptu song. Should be all downhill from here (I hope).