Wow, it has been a long time since I have updated this blog. In my defense, I do keep up my family blog with all the wonderful and cute things my girls are doing so I don’t really feel too bad. But now that we are settled in our new home and have somewhat of a schedule, I have been able to get some more creative juices flowing. Casey has even helped me have two Saturdays each month where he watches all the girls for a few hours so I can work on one of the billions of projects I have scribbled about in my little black book. (I have the best husband in the world!!!)

Here are a few of my recent projects. I love projects that I can execute without buying anything! I use a lot of cardboard and stuff like cereal boxes…makes for easy crafting. I think my problem is that I get an idea and get so excited about getting it done that I cannot wait until I can go to a store to buy materials so I just end up using whatever I already have in my craft corner. (which is getting bigger all the time) I keep a big box with random materials…pretty much just containers and cardboard of all kinds. It doubles as fun nap time activities for Elsa too. She loves just getting whatever she wants out of there and playing with it.

Elsa likes to give me a thumbs up whenever I take her picture lately. I think she likes my pile of randomness to play with!

Showing off my cute old window and ladder along with my new scripture bears shelf.

Scripture Bear Shelf: For Christmas my mom gave the girls each a scripture bear. It is such a cute idea. I have to confess that it does not work as well as I thought it would. The idea is that these are special bears that the girls only get to hold when they are being reverent for scripture and prayer time. Then they go back on the shelf until the next time we read scriptures. I had to get with it and make the bears their own special place to “sleep” because Elsa was worried about them. This is just an old German wood shelf that I labeled with scrapbook paper and attached with sticky tack.

Mommy’s Command Center: For a looooooong time I have been scribbling down ideas of what I wanted my command center to look like, what I needed to be on it and what cool materials I wanted to use for it. Well, my ideas changed for this about every day. And even moreso when I started seeing how other people’s ideas for command centers come up on Pinterest.  So finally I just decided to just go with the most current idea I had and just get it done because I was in serious need of the structure this would offer me and the organization it would hopefully bring to my life. So, it is made out of cardboard, but it is still awesome and I LOVE IT!!!

There are three categories: Cleaning, Food and School. I made most of it in German and English because, well, I want to learn German and I want Elsa to learn German better. And it just looks cool with both languages. For each category there is a clip for each day of the week which holds just a piece of paper specifying the activity or meal for that day, a pocket to hold extra papers, and a checkbox that can be flipped over when it is done for the day. The Food category has a pencil holder and a post-it holder for writing down grocery lists. The School category has two boards, one for the days of the week with the specific activies and the board underneath it is for hanging up work we have done that day for school time…so we can show daddy what we have done when he gets home from work at night. And it has a clip to hold a list of possible activties for the specific theme for the day. I particularly like this idea. I have been writing down school time activities in categories so that each day I just have to get out the paper corresponding to the theme for the day and hang it up and just pick something from the list that will work with our day.

Puzzles: Elsa has found her LOVE for puzzles just recently. For Christmas she got a few puzzles that she loves and literally puts them together atleast ten times every day. Then I found a bag of puzzles from a huge puzzle book we had a while ago but the book got torn apart so I just kept the puzzles thinking that I would eventually find some crafty idea that required puzzle pieces. I got them out today to see if Elsa would be able to put them together. The pictures are kind of difficult to see and so Elsa was not able to do them on her own. Then I got this awesome idea to let her decorate her own puzzle. When Leah was in bed for nap time I sat down and thought of a few things to put on the puzzles that would make for some fun learning time. Elsa has been working on her numbers lately so I made a numbers puzzle, an alphabet puzzle, a simple flowers puzzle and then I asked Elsa what else she wanted on a puzzle and she said “Butterfly, circle, flower and hearts…all the girl shapes.” And so I made one with the girl shapes. I think I might just have to color on the back of all our puzzles!!!

Fun with learning words: For a while now I have been cutting out letters from cereal boxes and such for Elsa to play with. Just today she found the container I was storing them all in and got SOOOO excited. She kept asking me how to spell words so I decided to make a game for her. I got out some small cards and wrote simple words on them. On one side is the word in upppercase letters and the other side is lowercase letters. Then she has to match letters to the letters on the card. I just need to keep building up my collection of letters. She was sad that I did not have a “mommy E” for her name.  I also had some tiny plastic cups that she liked using for making small collections of letters.

Our family was Planted in the Temple: I have been wanting to do this for a long time now. But again I was waiting for some more time or more money to use some more durable or cute materials. But I just decided to get it done with what I had. And I am so glad I did. Every time I look at this it makes me so happy! I am very blessed with my family and I am so very glad that we have the blessings of the Temple in our family. Each one of the flowers is a member of our family. It has the name and birthdate on each flower too. Below the flowers is a huge picture from our wedding that Casey had made for me for Christmas.

I finally made Elsa a job chart! It is more of an activity chart right now, but I think it will change more into a chore chart as we get more settled and Elsa gets more used to the idea of the chart. It pretty much speaks for itself. I just used a big piece of cardboard and glued fabric onto it and used velcro (thanks mom) to put the pieces on.

Part of the chart is the “Good Behavior Garden” When Elsa does good things (ie. shares with Leah or does a really good job cleaning up or being helpful) she gets to pick a flower and put it in  her garden. I have not decided yet what the reward will be for filling her garden, but it will be a treat or something.

So here is how we do it. In the evening after Elsa is in bed, I decide what will be on her chart for the next day. Mostly it is the same for each day except for Sundays and when we have outings like shopping it is different. I put up the different activities for the day on the left. Then as we do them during the day Elsa gets to put up a green heart in the middle if she did a good job, a purple circle if she did perfectly and a “sad blue heart” if she needs more work on that activity. Lately playtime has been the “sad blue heart” because she has a hard time being nice to Leah. And then at the end of the day we have a kind of review of the day and see what we did well and where we got the “sad blue heart” Then we write on the chalkboard what we need to work on tomorrow.

Mostly it has been wonderful. I think as we get more in the routine of it and Elsa understands the reward of being good just for the sake of feeling good about herself, that it will work better and better. It is fun for me too. I had a lot of fun making it and it will be an easy thing to change around as need be. Or as we need to add Leah to it.

1. Use Chalkboard paper. You can stick it anywhere and it is fun to use!

2. Make a big flannel board. Easy to make and Elsa loves it. Just glue some flannel fabric onto  a piece of wood or thick cardboard and then cut out shapes from felt and they stick great.

3. Go to the Basket Factory and get these cute storage things at a great price in the bargain basement. That is where I got this cute cubby/drawer wall thing. Then I added the chalkboard labels to it.

4. Hang blankets on the wall. It adds color and it helps with echoing in funny French apartments. (Thanks mom for the cute blanket)

5. Hang up phrases to learn. Educational and easy to do. I hung up a bunch over the sink so I can review when I do dishes. (Pardon the messy sink…but this is always how it looks)

6. Go to the Euro store and buy cheap wall stickers and make a cute wall hanging with cardboard. It adds color and it is educational.

Um…I don’t know what to do with the bathroom. Any suggestions? The walls are solid. It is impossible to put holes in them to hang up anything. I am looking for a very cheap over the toilet shelf to put some cuteness on and to hold the candle on. No matter how many times we burn a good smelling candle in there it always stinks! We have weird ventilation and so I think smoke from other apartments seeps in and mixes.

As most of you know, our little family has recently moved to France. That meant new…everything. New home, new place, new ward and new language. Emphasis on language. I am still worried that I will not be able to pick it up as well as I want to, but I have help. Two ladies from our new French ward pounced on the opportunity to teach an American girl some French. One lady has come twice now and the other lady is coming for the second time this week to cook us a French lunch. I hope that with their help, and a little extra help from above, that I will be able to learn the language.

But that is not what I wanted to post about. I think the biggest change I had to make was moving away from my family, from my babysitter and my personal mommy’s assistant. I went from having a mom and a sister to help me be a mommy of two to being just me. It was great having so much help from them for the year that we got to live with my parents in Germany. But, Casey’s degree has brought us to a new chapter. And so I am back to being mommy all by myself. So that was a huge change.

I remember the first few days the girls and I were here in our new apartment all on our own. I kept thinking: “What should we do now?” Elsa even said that to me a few times. I really did not have a plan. It soon became very clear to me that I was going to have to put some effort into being a mother, put some effort into playtime.

I know Elsa is at a critical time right now where she is soaking up any and everything. And so I need to prepare myself to make sure that I teach her what I want her to know. And I need to establish some habits of my own that will enforce what I am trying to teach.

I still have a LONG way to go but I have come up with a few things that have worked great so far in my nurturing, teaching, loving and playing here at home with my two girls.

The biggest hit so far has been THE ACTIVITY JAR. It is exactly what it sounds like, activities in a jar. I sat down one night and wrote down a lot of activities I could do with Elsa. Having as my goal to teach her some things and to have fun along the way too. The activities range from “make a tent” to “help mommy vacuum the floors.” So during the day when we have some down time in between meals or nap times, I get the jar out and Elsa picks an activity and we do it together.

The big thing to remember was that whatever I put in the jar, if she picked it I had to be willing to do. And so  it is also a good thing for me to stick to my word to do what I have said we can do. (if that makes sense)

And so every day for the past few days we have been using THE ACTIVITY JAR and it has helped me have more fun and it has helped me get back into loving the every day stuff about being a mother.

My question now to you is WHAT IS IN YOUR ACTIVITY JAR? What do you do with your kids everyday to play with and teach nurture them? Do you have job or chore charts? Do you do reading time, music time, quiet time, or clean up time? Do you have your own kind of activity jar? I am still in need of lots of ideas so feel free to share.

This is a call for help. As a mother of two, I have little time to devote to myself, let alone a hobby of mine that takes several  hours weekly.

As a question to all mothers out there…how do you make time or find time for a creative outlet? Do you think it is important to have an outlet?

I want to get going again on bookmaking or basket making but I don’t know how I can do that and be a mother.

I would like to find something that I can do to be creative and something that will benefit my children. I have thought about making an art station. And then having time each day where we would color, paint or play with play doh. At least that would be something.

What have you done that works for you?

After a month of moving and visiting family and friends and lots of car driving and airplane flights…we are finally in Germany!! I keep having to tell myself that we are actually here and we are not just visiting. It really has not hit home yet. We are having a lovely quiet two weeks before the rest of my family comes home from their Utah visit. For now it is just us and my dad.

I have plans to get back into my bookmaking as soon as our shipment arrives, which will be at the end of the month. Then we have the baby to prepare for and wait for the end of August, so maybe it will be longer than that before I get into the studio again. For now I am just keeping a notebook of book ideas and projects I want to experiment with.

If anyone has a book idea or request, feel free to share or ask about it.

Well I guess not really. I do not really have a studio but it sounds cool and someday I will. Anyway, we have finally gotten some important information and have made a huge decision for the future of our family…and my artwork.

WE ARE MOVING TO EUROPE!

As most of you know, this is where I grew up and where I think I got my roots in the Arts. You can imagine how excited I am that my little new family gets to now move back there for at least two years. My husband is going to go to Graduate school in Saarbrucken, Germany and then in Nancy, France. We will get to live with my parents for a year and then we will live somewhere in France, probably in Nancy.

It is my hope that I will be able to keep up on making art…books or paintings or just keep a better sketchbook of ideas for future creativeness. I am expecting a second baby girl in August and we will be moving in September so things will be busy for a while, but I want to keep up with my skills and would love for some custom orders to keep comin my way.

My husband and I in Paris…cannot wait to go back there!

One of my favorite places in Europe…Lauterbrunen, Switzerland.

Can you say YAY for awesome material for paintings!!! I love the color palette in Germany.

Just thought I would share some awesome news. I am busy with moving and baby preparations (baby girl number two due in August) and trying to plant a garden and tons of flowers which I am soooooo excited about, our yard is going to be awesome and I will hate to leave it….so I will not be doing much art for a while, and now you know why.

Yay! I got another book finished. Elsa was an angel today and just played happily in the living room while I sat in my barricaded “office” to sew this book. Now she is taking a nap and so maybe I will get to start sewing the third book.

This is my favorite book out of the bunch…very classy and girly. (though the fabric was TERRIBLE to work with, it frays like crazy) I think it fits Elizabeth perfectly. What do you think? The clasp is kind of loose right now but I figured it will get tighter as the envelopes get filled up. I have to say that the sewing on Scott’s book looks nicer, but this one is good too. Hope you like it!!

Detail of the clasp. I had a hard time deciding what to use but I think the braided linen thread ties in nicely with the sewing.

I finally have one of the Johnson order of birthday books done! I am rather pleased with how it turned out. Sorry that it is taking me so long. I have had to barricade myself into a corner with my work table so Elsa cannot get to me or all the supplies. Our living room looks very funny with toys everywhere and the couch and all other furniture surrounding my table…I guess I will need to move my workstation into a room where I can close the door, but this works for now. I just hope we do not have any visitors come over to see my very messy living room.

I do not know why, but when I saw this fabric I thought of you Scott…and so it came home with me to go on the cover of your book. And I love the huge wood button. I hope you like it as much as I do!

I think the sewing on this book is the best I have ever done!! I cannot get enough of that beautiful coptic stich!! Let me know what you think. I will hopefully be able to get the other four birthday books done very soon.

I have been working on a batch of Birthday books for my sister. I have some of the covers done and sewing will soon start. Just thought I would give you proof that your books are coming along…very slowly.

Elsa has gotten tall enough to start grabbing stuff off my work table, so that is interesting. I have been just working on them during her naps.

Next project: Love letter books for the Johnsons. Let me know if you have any more thoughts about how you want those to look.