Water Baby

Miles is my only water baby.  Noah has finally started liking showers and Toby will tolerate baths but they both still hate getting their heads wet and hair washing is the worst.  But Miles loves it all and will happily stand/dance under a shower spray until the water runs cold.  In fact, while the other boys sometimes cry about having to take a shower or bath, Miles will cry when it's time to get out.  At 20 months of age, Miles' vocabulary is multiplying by the hour and he's found new ways to express his love of water.

Wahr is water.
Bash is bath.
Plash is splash.
Po is pour.
Washit is washcloth.
Soapah is soap.

And now my favorite.  Howard is shower.  Tonight when I turned the shower off and attempted to wrap Miles in a towel he grabbed the handrail in the shower and started screaming, "No!  Want more howard! Pwease, Howard!"


I'm so thankful I didn't drop him: all my laughter plus his writhing, slippery baby body made for a pretty treacherous moment.  But don't worry.  I promised Miles he could have more Howard tomorrow.

Handmade Harry Potter Wands

Noah was invited to a Harry Potter themed birthday party and to help him get ready for it we watched the first Harry Potter movie. It was fun and strange to see the actors as little kids again. And Harry's first experience in Ollivanders gave me a great idea for something to bring to the party. We made wands!

And to add to the experience we also made wand boxes.  Here's Mr. Ollivander's spidery handwriting.

These red boxes were a thrift store find and I designed the labels after looking at a few similar labels online.

Below is a closeup of the label.  I'm gonna go with the story that Ollivanders has updated their logo several times in the last thousand years.

But I'm sure you want to see the actual wands, don't you?

They are made out of incredibly special, difficult to find materials.

Paper, hot glue, and spray paint.

We just rolled the paper into tight cones.  Then filled the tubes with hot glue.

After they were dry we drizzled more hot glue on the outside.

And finally we spray painted them with a mixture of whatever spray paint we had in the shed.

This was a fast and super easy project.  

It wouldn't take much time at all to whip a few of these up for your own Hogwarts party.

I'd love to know if you make your own wands.  Send me a picture!

Catching Up

Remember my goal of making one new design for every month? Well, I have been keeping up on it. I just haven't been keeping up on posting them. So here's a little catch up post showing off the designs for June and July.

June   

Rosie Posie Necklace

This little beauty sold right away at the Old Fashioned Festival so I didn't get a chance to take more photos of  it alone or on a model.  But I have plans to make a bunch more for a couple Christmas bazaars I'll be participating in.  Each necklace costs just $15 and the color choices are limitless!  Let me know if you'd like to custom order one.

July

Unnamed Earrings

 This is actually a design that I've been tweaking since last Christmas.  I still don't know if I'm totally satisfied with it.  I'd like to try it making it with a heavier gauge wire.  They are supposed to be leaves with a pearl or crystal dangling in the center but I'm still working on getting them to hang just right.  However, lots of people have said they like these as-is and I do admit that they are very sweet with their half-heart curlicues.

Here's a lovely shot taken by my friend Becky.  I love how the earrings are framed and how the background fades into soft blurriness.  I am not sure what to call these earrings.  If you have any ideas, please share!  If I choose a name you suggest, I'll give you a little surprise from my shop!

I need to make a date with my amazing model photographer, Molly, to get some shots of my newest pieces (including some from the Old Fashioned Festival that I'll show you later this month for August's reveal) on models.  Then I plan to add a bunch of new stuff to my etsy shop.  But if you saw something you liked in any of the OFF pictures just let me know and I can give you more details on it.

In other news, Miles (20 months) has been potty training himself!  I take zero credit for this amazing event.  I'm convinced he just wants to be like his big brothers.  He's sat on the potty 9 times in the past 3 days and has gone every single time.  I put him in underwear for the first time today and he kept them dry for about three hours but then we had to go grocery shopping so I put him back in a diaper.  The possibility of being a diaper free house soon has got me all giddy!

Don't forget to tell me what you think those pearl and leaf earrings should be called!