how is your memory?

Handmade gifts are a favorite of mine.  I love to get them and I love to make them. Before Anika arrived, I spent a lot of time doing non-mommy things: yoga, getting massages, going out for coffee, shopping, knitting, sewing... now I spend a lot of time doing mommy things: washing bottles, making baby food, laying down with her while she sleeps - I can hear you groaning and muttering to yourself, "I thought she had a college degree and could read and understand parenting books".  Well, I can read.  And I have a pile of books littering the living room on sleep training... but simply put, I am ignoring all of the advice given to me in said books.  So my point: since I lay in bed with her for a few hours a day, I have mucho timeo to come up with projects and flip through sewing/knitting books (very quietly of course!).  This is one of those projects - a memory game for Leif!

What a great idea!

Emilie and Mikael emailed me some lovely pictures of their family (who all love at least 5 hours away, and not one family member lives in their resident state of Iowa) and Leif's favorite toys and I went to town.  I unfortunately cannot take credit for the memory game idea, it is a project from Alicia Paulson.  But I can take credit for the fabric zipper bag that hold the pieces.  This was my first time sewing in a zipper - I had to use a few YouTube videos to get it straight in my head.  Yippee!  I heart the Internet. 

Leif just turned 3 and memory is not the easiest of games especially when I made 36 pieces - hell, I don't think I would get very far with his game.  So Emilie, in all her mommy wisdom, set up the game with all of the the pictures facing up.  Brilliant!  As far as I know, he LOVES his game and plays it daily, perhaps hourly... Emilie, don't burst my bubble of joy.

mermaids

In order for me to hold onto my sanity, my husband and mother both give me breaks to run errands - read: get out of the house solo - and get my craft on.  Yep.  I just said that.  I had a few projects in progress this weekend and lucky for me I was able to finish a few of them - including Anika's mermaids from the Wee Wonderfuls: 24 Dolls to Sew and Love book.  Fabulous patterns - easy to understand and oh so fun to make!

I had made one a while ago and she loves it - she talks to it when she is supposed to be going to sleep, she makes it fly over her head when she is supposed to be going to sleep, she chews on it when she is supposed to be going to sleep and she throws it across the room when she is angry.  It is quite the versatile toy.  But then, the ribbon started coming off of her hair and her body started getting pilly - I used fleece instead of flannel, lesson learned.  I needed to make her a new mermaid... why not make three?  Anika chose one for Stella and kept two for herself.  One lives in our bed, and is sometimes found underneath Kevin's pillow in the morning and the other moves around the house.  It might be behind her changing table, or stuck in her exersaucer, or under the kitchen table.  Maybe my next project should be a homing device.