Painting the baby's room

100 days of happy, you are easy today :) having the best sunshiney sunday... husband and I painted the baby's room. Once it has time to settle I will be putting up some tree decals. I love how it turned out.

The whole time I was painting it smelled like redwoods and summer,  from the trees in the backyard.  Someone nearby was barbecuing,  too.

Good day, and it's not even four pm yet.

therapeutic atc's

I use a lot of collage in my therapy practice. There's something about it that helps bring the subconscious forward, and not having to draw or paint anything original can do wonders for your feelings of insecurity or anxiety. Also I like cutting things up and putting them back together.

So in any case, I collage. The atc's here used to be one large collage, but I didn't know what to do with it, so I turned the collage over and cut it up into atc size cards. There's a theme. There's sadness and longing and wanting and grieving and hope and now that it is cut up into pieces it's a little easier for me to handle.

Picnic on my front lawn

My front lawn is surrounded on three sides by Griffith Park, is owned by the city, and is a fascinating cross section of urban hollywood meets wilderness area.

Today I brought my knitting and tablet out front to have a picnic in this amazing spring weather. I am looking up at redwoods and pines and alders and at least four other types of trees I don't know. There are lizards basking on the walkway to my house. There are squirrels darting from tree to fence behind me. There are hummingbirds swooping low over the grass. There are a lot of people driving up to the observatory,  walking dogs, and pushing strollers.

I am watching West Wing, knitting christmas presents,  and eating egg salad and carrot sticks. Maybe I will take a nap.

100 happy days

I decided to join in the 100happydays.com project. So I am going to post them here!

#1 - playing new game, Swish, with my mom.

(Side note, swish is a great game, a lot like Set, great for non-readers and easily adjusted for skill level)

Baby blanket

I have posted pictures of my king-sized "selfish blanket." I am about 50/80 done with that one. Along the way I decided to start making squares about a quarter of the size, and make a baby blanket.

My first son is due May 17th. We already had a ton of handmedowns and baby things I had made for Daisy, but I wanted to spend some time on something specifically for him.

It's made with sock yarn on size 3 dpn's. It's 6 x 6 squares. I crocheted 6 rows of hdc for the edging. I love the finished product and can't wait for my baby boy to use it.

magazine atc's

Water colors, then more water colors, and then a brand new sharp exacto knife and some new magazines!

Felted animals in my little house

The past few days have been unusually rainy, here at the Little House in the Big Park, the streets that are usually lined with cars are empty, and there is a new river where the street to get to my driveway used to be.

Today I plan on getting bundled up and going out into it - but yesterday was a day for cooking pea soup and staying warm and dry inside.

being 29 weeks (and 1 day) pregnant, I've been doing a lot of what they call "nesting." I sort of hate that term. Maybe because I'm predisposed to it anyway, it doesn't seem to be only pregnancy-related for me, and it's sort of annoying to post "hey I made this thing" on facebook and have twelve people say, "ahhh, nesting" in a knowing way. In any case - there's no denying that yesterday being cozy with a craft was the best thing ever. 

Baby's room is going to be wood/forest themed. I had been looking online for things to add to the room, when I saw a few felt mobiles on etsy. They were beautifully done, super cute - and beyond my price range. So I figured I'd try my hand at them. The  project evolved - and I don't think it's going to be a mobile anymore, but here are the results:

One tree, 1 rabbit, 1 bear, 1 deer, 1 owl, and 8 birds. All made with felt I bought at Michaels, embroidery floss, batting, and hand-stitched by me.

 I have enough of the birds that I might turn them into a mobile after all. I haven't decided yet.

I particularly love the pattern on the owl wings. I am also proud of myself for stopping and not doing the whole thing - I like the look of it this way better, but it's hard for me to not fill in all the space I have.

He's so sad. I didn't mean to make him sad. And then once I did, it didn't feel right to change him.

This deer was the first one I made, otherwise I might have given her a little more personality in the eyes.

It's hard to tell in photos, but I thought a lot about the embroidered details of each - for example, this trunk was embroidered using all 6 strands of embroidery floss held together, so make it have more texture. I think all the rest of the embroidery was done with 2 or 3 strands.