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Goodbye Tonsils!

Sorry to be the all-tonsilectomies-all-the-time blog, but I swear this will be the last tonsils dedicated blog post. Because I just had to share this book with you. A Little Golden Book called Good-bye Tonsils, by Anne Welsh Guy with illustrations by Frank Vaughn, original copyright 1966. What's funny is that I bought this book aaaaages ago, in another lifetime really, before I even had kids. I bought it because I thought it was cute and kitchsy and vintage-style fun. For ages I had it tucked away in a box, and then recently when I made the display wall of shelves, I pulled it out for decor reasons. But then, lo and behold we ended up with an actual tonsillectomy in our near future and suddenly this little book went from being a joke to being rather useful.

It gives a pretty clear and accurate idea of what the whole process will be, but does not dwell too much on the whole "you have to be brave" concept that so many of the contemporary books too. I'm reluctant to introduce the idea of procedure or situation with a whole lot of "this is going to be scary, and so you need to be brave". It basically tells the kid that there is something to be scared of, which seems like not the best idea to me. The thing that the Little Dude was most worried about was that we would leave him alone overnight at the hospital, but I assured him that this was not the case any more, since this book was written so long ago, when kids did have to stay overnight, but now its just a day procedure, so no need for worry there. Thus reassured, he really liked this book and requested it regularly. And interestingly enough, he told me today that he did have to blow into a balloon thing like the little girl in the picture. I had thought that looked old fashioned, but apparently that's still how they do it. 
Regarding the child's post-surgery state, a quote on this page reads "Mary Ann felt her throat. 'Are my tonsils out?' she whispered, 'My throat hurts.' Mary Ann felt cross. She didn't want to talk out loud." After the Little Dude's operation, on our way home in the car I asked him how he felt and he quietly replied "Cross". Bless him.

Its good to see that bribing your kids with toys is a time honoured practice. Also, am I the only one who thinks its weird that Mommy leaves her gloves for Mary Ann to remember he by while she's gone over night? Oddly impersonl, but very specific to the time period I guess, back when ladies wore gloves on the regular.Ah, the 60's when you could get in your car, and sit on your grandma's lap for the ride home. Crazy.

 

 

new star wars sheets

I thought I'd seen all the vintage Star Wars sheets that had been made, so its kind of exciting to find a new one. Look at this! Bad lighting and whatnot, but stil, exciting.

How awesome is that!

I love the droids variation on this one. I love that Chewbacca is included. And he's such a nice, flowy curly version.

And there are some GREAT space ships/machinery on this one. 

Great Millenium Falcon. Though I think what I really like best about this is the clouds. 

Fantastic little walker. 

And my favourite.... Ewoks AND Han and Leia. Perfect. Though what I love most is the little baby on his mamma's back on the far right. 

See? How cute is that? 

Oh, and also Jabba... With his little buddy, Salacious B. Crumb. Love it. 

Anyhow, made some bibs with it. Wanna see 'em?I know I've made hundreds of these, but I still really enjoy it. I love the way it crops the image. 

See? Those clouds are killing me.

Good ole' Jabba.

The best. 

Anyhow, I'm having a really sewing-heavy week, as I think I might be doing a craft show this weekend. But there's a lot going down this week besides that so we'll see. I'll get some of these up into the shop next weekend. 

Right, back to sewing....

 

ell. eee. gee. oh.

Lego. That's the word around here. We eat, sleep and breathe Lego. The Little Dude gets up in the morning, and the first thing he does is stumble, groggy and bleary eyed out to the Lego table and get to work. The sun may barely have risen, but there are vehicles to build, minifigs to reconfigure and stories to tell. All through the magic of Lego.

It has kind of spilled over into most of the rest of our lives. We have a rule that there is no Lego allowed at the table, (because if the touchable distraction of his latest creation is present, very little food gets eaten) but instead whatever he is currenly working on gets set on the side table, where he can see it from where he sits. And talk about it of course. Because it is his major topic of conversation. He has so many plans. "Mom..." he says, "I have a good idea. After lunch I think we should make a Lego soccer field. Like I saw in a book. And we can make the ball out of Lego even. I think that will work."

 And Mom...., after we finish eating and are excused from the table, I think we should play Lego dino hunter. I think you would like that Mom. Only first we have to drive to the store to buy a Lego dinosaur. One that is a minifig, but not little, like Jabba the Hutt. He's a minifig, but he is not little. And he's kind of like a dinosaur, but we need a real dinosaur. Ok?"

And my favourite: "Mom... you know what I think we should do? I think we should make a house out of Lego. Only it will be a real house that is big enough to live in, and we can go and live in that house and we will make beds and tables and chairs out of Lego and then we can live there. Everything will be Lego. Except the food. Because you can't eat Lego. We can have real food. But on Lego plates."

That's pretty much how most conversations around here go. 

And I have to say, I'm impressed with his Lego building skills. This is an X-wing fighter that he made himself, with not parental assistance whatsoever.

The wings are hinged with some ball joints that came in a Lego Creator robot set he got awhile ago. 

He was very proud of this one, as you can see. He even made a spot for R2-D2 to sit in the back, just like the real X-Wing Fighter.And he specifically requested that I take these pictures so that we can send them to Sean Kenney. Who is Sean Kenney you might ask? Well, as L.D. says to the ladies at our local library. "Do you have any books by Sean Kenney? Because he's my favourite author."

Sean Kenney is in fact a professional lego designer/builder and the Little Dude informs me that he wants to have a job just like Sean Kenney when he grows up. Now, I know every parent thinks thier kid is exceptional, but I think that L.D. has some pretty mad skills when it comes to putting Lego together, so who knows, maybe he has a shot at his dream job?

Anyhow, as far as childhood obsessions go, Lego is a pretty good one. It combines both the creative/storytelling/imagination aspect of play that is so important, and the spatial and proceedural constuction skills that are very useful. For example, I gave him this little helicopter kit the other day at the beginning of his quiet time, showed him on the paper where the visual instructions began, and then left him alone to put it together all by himself, with not a bit of guidance or correction from me.

I love how pleased he was with it and I love how he perservered and stuck with it all the way through. There were 18 steps to follow, and a lots of little pieces. Not a small feat for a four year old. Anyhow, Sean Kenney, this one is for you. 

He wanted me to take a picture of the finished helicopter to send to Mr. Kenney, but also needed me to take a picture of the brochure from inside the kit that shows all the other kits he 'needed'. (most notably the dinosaur) This is his favourite part of any kit; being able to see all the other options available. Though I must say this is NOT my favourite part, because then I spend the rest of the day hearing about what we could build with all those other kits. Oh those clever people at the Lego company and thier tricky advertising tricks....

But when he's not busy planning what to buy, he is happily at play. The tinkling clink of the bricks as he runs his hands though the bins, looking for just the right piece is music to my ears. And as he clicks and builds he sings happily to himself, and I love overhearing the snatches of made up lyrics about Rancors and Teddy Bears and Tauntauns and the planet Hoth.

And we've all grown to love the minifigs. I am peppered with requests like: "you know what we need Mom? We need some of those short legs, so that our Lego men can be Lego children. Like Anakin Skywalker. Also, we need some hoods, like the Jedi's have." And on, and on. Though I don't mind it too much, as I can remember pouring over those little booklets myself, when I was young and inquisitive and fiercely aquisitional. Is that even a word? I don't know, but I remember wanting stuff. And we keep it under control. Any time he tells me about his latest great idea involving the purchasing of a new kit, I tell him that that sounds great, and we should put it on his birthday list. He knows that I'm not just going to drop everything and rush off to the store to buy him his latest whim. His favourites and priorites change so much that I don't know what will be on the top of that list by the time that his birthday does roll around in June. Though I'm pretty confident that it'll be something Star Wars related. 

 

sweetest bib/baby combo ever

Not much to repor here, but I did finish one of those bibs that I was working on, and of course, I need to show it to you.

See, its reversible. I have to say that I love those little red buttons. Its funny; whenever I decide to make one of these bibs, I carefully go through my fabric stash of vintage bedsheets and look for the ones I like least. Yep, there are many, many sheets and pillowcases that I like so much that I can't bear to cut into them. I mean, I will cut into them someday, I'm just saving them for a special occasion (and yes, I realize that there is probably something wrong with me). Or a really important project. Not something that will get totally trashed, like a bib. So I find this brown, which is not vintage at all, just an old Ikea pillowcase, and that yellow, which is a sheet that I have the same pattern of in two other better colourways (blue/green and pink orange) and the blue polkadot is not the greatest thing ever either. Sort of plain, but its a good blue, so it tied the two other fabrics together nicely. But the funny thing is, now that I've actually taken the time to make this thing, they are all sort of growing on me. And I must say that I really, really like the comination. Funny. 

But never mind that bib, look how awesome it looks on that Baby.

Yep, reversible. Maybe I like these fabrics so much now because of their proximity to this kid's adorability. 

This is so cute I cannot even think of a caption. Because I'm overwhelmed by cuteness.

Back view. Also cute.

And here's a shot of it in action. I love making bibs for the kids, because its something you actually use. A lot. And it gets dirty and worn and there is no need to be precious about it and save it for a special occasion, as I tend to do when I make them clothes. Because its a bib and its meant to be worn. By the world's cutest baby.

sleepy cat

I was half-heartedly cleaning up my studio/fabric storage room the other day when I came across this little treasure. (this one's for you Brookly Codger) Its a fitted sheet, so its kind of a pain to take a picture of, but I spread it out on the lego table and got a few shots. 

Look, it's everyone's favourite lazy fat-cat: Garfield!

When I was little, my younger brother was SO into Garfield. He had stacks of those short wide comic strip format books that he would read over and over again. I read them too because, you know, they were there. But I wasn't quite as into it as my brother was. I like this sheet though, mostly because it makes me think of my little red-headed brother's 10-year-old self crouched over his comics. But also because of the big stacks of pillows. I find it funny though, how its supposed to be drawn to look like an iconic pillow; the cliche of all pillows, and of course, you recognize it as a pillow, but at the same time, have you ever in your life seen pillows like that? I have not. What's up with those weird corner bits that look like ears. Odd. Oh, and of course I'm bummed that neither Odie nor Nermal make an appearance on this sheet. Nermal was the best. 

And of course, as soon as I spread this out on the table, the Baby did his very best cat impression. Art imitates life, right?

Soooo sleeeeeepyyyy. Must have been that entire pan of lasagne he had for lunch because he was all like "ZZZZZZzzzzz".

Ha! No, just kidding. Sneaky Baby.

 

vintage by bibu

I've made a new addition to my etsy shop. I'm selling vintage now! I mean, it was about time. I have more lovely vintage goodies crammed into this house than I know what to do with, and I figured it was time to stop hoarding and start sharing. I wasn't sure where to start (I have books, pyrex, knitting patterns, knick-knacks, clothes, jewelry, and fabric galore) but finally settled on these sweet little items that I really have no use for.  Dresses. Adorable, sweet little vintage girls dresses. 

Because its time to face the facts: I am a mother of boys. I do not currently have any little girls and it is very unlikely that I ever will. Because I think our little family is complete. And so, as I was digging through the cupboards the other day and found this box labeled "Girl Clothes" I knew that it was time to let it go.

These little dresses need to find a proper home, and it is just a shame that they are packed away in a box, never seeing the light of day. So I dressed up my little mannequin and had a fun little photoshoot and now am ready to send them off into the world, where they can dress up your adorable little girl. 
 

mug vs. mug

Being a vintage shopper collector is great fun, but I must say, does come with a few draw backs. For example, I always run into storage issues. The other day a cute new mug came home, and there was literally no more room in the cupboard on the mug shelf. So Hubs, helpfully, went into the cupboard, pulled out the ugliest mug he could find to either be packed away in a box, or 'gotten rid of' aka, re-donated to whence it came. However, when I walked back into the kitchen I found he had chosen one of my favourite mugs as the reject. Since that was clearly a mistake, I went to the cupboard, pulled out what was obviously to me, the ugliest mug there, and set it aside to be disposed of. Upon which, Hubs returned to the room and said "you're not getting rid of that mug. That mug is awesome!"

So, see if you can guess which mug is which. Which one is Hubs' favourite and which one is my favourite? If you know us well, I'm sure you can probably tell. Let me give you a few hints.  Here is the bottom of the one on the right. 

And here is the bottom of the one on the left. 

Figured it out yet? I'll tell you more about these mugs. The solid orange one has a thin smooth lip, and a graceful fluting shape. 

It is made of glass, so it has a slightly translucent quality that makes it appear to glow.

The lighter coloured mug has a pleasing heft to it, and a somewhat chunkier lip and handle. 

The inside has a very nice patina that includes a sort of crackle effect, due to age and use I'm sure. 
 It also has a glazed pattern on it that could either be a bagel with butter on it, or a flower, depending on your mood. 

The other one is plain reddish-orange, but is a very rich colour, and since it is made of glass, has a nice quality of being opaque while still haveing a sort of translucency to it. 

So, have your figured it out? Obviously you have, since my pick is clearly the awesome one - its the orange one pictured above. Because its Pyrex (and you know how I love Pyrex) and its beautiful and it glows and feels very nice when you drink from it. Honestly, what was Hubs thinking, threatening to get rid of it? I shake my head at his lack of taste sometimes. 

better than flowers

Hubs picked up a little gift for me on the way home from work.  You know that a man really 'gets' you when he cannot drive by the three boxes left on the side of the road marked "FREE SEWING MAGS". What a sweet guy. 

I haven't had time to really look them over yet, so I don't know if their contents will be useful to me, but I just love seeing how they are organized and were kept by their previous owner. I like this woman already. 

Not only did she regulary purchase at least six different quilting periodicals, she also kept them very neatly filed in home made magazine boxes, cut from recycled material. 

What I know about her: She like quilting. She kept her whites white, she had a dog (note the Milk-Bone box, second from the right)....

...and she was probably also an Avon lady. 

I'm going to try and set aside a little time this weekend to page through them. They are not really old (40's/50's/60's which I like) but just sort of recently old (70's and 80's, not as promising) and were produced in a pretty low budget way, clearly from before the current quilting boom has hit. They are mostly printed on a soft manilla type paper, with very few colour pictures. So how many I'll actually keep remains to be seen. 

But for now I'm just enjoying them as a collection, with warm thoughts towards their previous owner, who was crafty and thifty and appreciated clean laundry. I think we have a lot in common. 

home improvements

I've probably mentioned before that since we don't own this house, we haven't put in a lot of time and effort into making changes to it. And it used to be my parent's house, which they kept very nicely, but also, is filled with their taste and their choices. So we try to find little ways to make it our own, but without spending too much money or time. We've repainted a few rooms and put up some new curtains, but much of it remains as it always has been. 

But this past weekend we finally got around to doing a small project that I've had on my list for some time now. If you read this blog often you also know that I am a collector of lovely vintage things. However, I walk the fine line between collecting and hoarding because I'm not very good as displaying all the great vintage finds I collect. They get added to the piles or the boxes labled "vintage table clothes: embroidered" and "vintage table clothes: printed". We had to re-arrange the boxes last week because we were trying to find stuff and I noticed how many boxes I have labled "vintage books". I love vintage books. Obviously. I collect old school readers, and old how-to manuals and old medical books. It made me sad that I had all this great stuff and never saw it. I was also at the library the other day paging through some random glossy home-dec magazine and I was feeling jealous about how lovely all these other people's homes were (I consoled myself with the thought that clearly they did not have small children, and if they did they could obviously afford 'help' in the form of cooks and cleaners and decorators). And as I read the tips I noticed over and over again how the decor experts exhorted people to seek out clever, one-of-a-kind flea market finds in order to personalize their decor. And of course I occured to me that I am sitting on, like, the motherlode of clever, one-of-a-kind flea market finds. And that I should quit feeling jealous and do something about it. Because boxes of lovely old things just feel like wasted potential. I should have all these things out in the light where I can enjoy them. 

Of course, the problem is the two sets of ten sticky little fingers that would love to schmeer themselves all over my clever, one-of-a-kind flea market finds. So I had to find a way to put stuff on display without putting them in the line of smearage, as it were. I decided that book rails were the best possible plan. That way we can change the items on it regularly and they can be on view but also up out of harms way. 

So we spent a couple of nap times making it happen. We decided on using the dining room/front room/play room as the place for it. You see it when you walk in the door so it can set the tone for the house, and also, we spend a lot of time there. And it was the biggest stretch of wall that did not have a piece of furniture or a window obscuring it. Here it is before: We'd sort of 'wall papered' the space with two large drawings that one of our MFA classmates had done (Ian Campbell if you are wondering). But they had to come down. We've relocated them to the living room. Then there was the issue of the actual wall paper. I'm not a huge wall paper fan. I mean, there are some lovely, innovative things happening in the world of wall paper right now, but the choice may parents made for this room probably a decade or so ago, is not one of them.

My Dad and I have a running argument about home decor. He feels that neutrality, especially in transitional spaces, is something to strive for. I don't necessarily disagree, but his idea of neutral is a pale yellow I like to call 'eldercare beige' and my idea of neutrality is white. So this slightly textured beige wall paper is way to 'meh' for me, but just right for him.  Its a good thing he doesn't live here anymore, because that wall paper is coming down!

The Little Dude was so helpful. I cannot tell you how much glee he took in tearing off large swaths of wall paper. He enjoyed it almost as much as we did!

We'd had plans to paint the wall white once the wall paper was down, but upon discovering that the wall underneath was very nicely painted a rather pleasing shade of vintage-y green, we decided to forgo the effort and cost of paint and just clean up the wall really, really well. Its funny, I only vaguely remember this paint colour from my childhood. Which makes me wonder how much of our surroundings the Little Dude and the Baby are taking in. 

Eventually the fun exciting part of stripping wall paper was done and we were down to the boring tedious part of cleaning the wall, so I was glad that I had prepared a little painting activity for L.D. to do at the table behind us while we got on with the work. 

Hubs built our book railings/aka picture rails/aka skinny little shelves with some stuff he bought at the hardware store. This is not a 'how to' so I'm not going to go into the details and it mostly happened out in the garage while I was busy washing the walls and distracting a pre-schooler. We got the wall finished and the shelves done during the Baby's nap time, but waited till he was awake to screw them to the wall (because drills are really loud). And I forgot to take pictures of the installation. But they went up on the wall just after dinner, and pretty much as soon as the Little Dude laid eyes on them, he knew what they were for.

Obviously, they are little train shelves for Thomas the Tank Engine and friends. We let him play it like that for the rest of the evening, and as soon as the boys went to sleep, we did some last finishing touches with the paint and then let them dry over night. And in the morning, I got out my six boxes marked "vintage books" and had at it. 

Et voia! Our display wall.

Going through all the boxes and choosing what to put on the shelves was really fun. Like rediscovering treasure. But it was also hard to choose. I just put up a general selection this time, but I think in the future I will pick themes (things that are red, children's books, graphic impact, etc.) and build the display around that. Also, it works for books and artwork and the kid's paintings and record albums and all sorts of fun things. Doing this also made me realize that I am not as good at arranging things as I'd like to be. It made me wish that some of my Montreal friends lived near by, so I could have them come over and make a display for me (I'm looking in your direction jake.m).

Its so nice to see some of my favourite old things though. This book cover makes me so happy. 

And the design on this old box blows my mind every time I see it. 

Another favourite book cover, and so appropriate as I'm constantly surrounded by little people who are daily gaining skill with words. 

The Little Dude is pointing up at his favourite, the picture he made for me with heart-shaped sponge stamps while I was stripping the wall paper the day before. "It says 'I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you." he says, counting the hearts. (you can see it on the top shelf in the picture of the full wall).

Not bad for something we did for almost no money over the course of two naptimes on the weekend. 

 

quilted baby jackets

For someone who sews, its kind of funny how little sewing I do for my kids. Because you see, I also work in retail and what with the discount and my thrifting addiction, there are so many beautiful ready-made children's clothes that I kind of don't need to sew for them. Of course, I know that most of the people who do sew for their kids these days don't need to, strictly speaking. But honestly, clothes sometimes just appear in our house out of nowhere (thank you magic hand-me-down bags!) so we are literally awash in lovely clothes. And my meagre spare time is generally earmarked for quilting or art-making anyhow. And the boys do get the occasional mama-made sweater, so its not like I never make them anything. But I was just sort of mentally tut-tutting at myself over the lack of adorable quirky hand-sewn clothes in the Baby's wardrobe when I stumbled on the most wonderful items at the local Value Village.
I have a pretty good eye for the unusual, if I do say so myself, and can just quickly scan down a rack as I troll the aisles and can quite quickly identify the handmade or vintage items amidst all the mall cast-off dreck. And these two little beauties literally leapt off the rack from almost half the store away. They looked so different from all that was around them, I just had to go in for a closer look. 

Though it was obvious they were handmade, upon closer inspection I could see they were in fact hand-sewn, which is another thing entirely. You wouldn't believe the amazing button holes on this one. I'm actually having a hard time figuring our how they were done so neatly. And they've got this simple quilting, with a very short stitch on the front and a very long stitch on the inside. Really interesting. 

The styling and the exterior fabric choices have a very Asian feel to me, and you know how I'm a sucker for anything blue and white. But what really gets me are the linings. 

The mishmash-y way that they don't really go, but were chosen instead because they were warm, soft flannels and would feel good against the baby's skin, and keep him or her warm. Or perhaps, they were made on a deadline (the baby will be here soon!) and the fabrics were what was on hand. Or possibly, they were chosen out of necessity, as thrift was of the essence. Who knows. That is what always draws me the most when I find a vintage item. The fact that this fabric was lived in by someone else, who had a life entirely separate from mine, a life that I can never know, but can only imagine. And of course, whenever I find and purchase a second-hand, hand-made item, I feel that I can honour the love and labour that was put into that garment by the original maker, but letting that item continue to have use in my life and the lives of my children. And so, I feel connected to the woman who once spent her evenings carefully putting the stitches into these little jackets. She reaches forward through the lives of her child or grandchildren and now gently lays her hands into the lives of mine. 

Because really, how sweet it that? You see how it comes to life on our Baby? (though you must excuse the less than stellar pictures. Taken in the ugly corner of the kitchen, with bad lighting in the ten minutes before dinner was ready, in between the chopping and the stirring with a less than co-operative model who kept running over to me to look at the picture on the back of the camera. Sigh, I suppose he's a child of the digital age. Anyhow, definitely not my best effort. But it was a very busy day, with no time for a proper photo shoot, so we make do where we have to.) 

He's not entirely sure about it.... And I will admit its a little tight and short. He sort of looks like a small, sweet blue and white sausage. Cutest sausage ever though, am I right?

Ah but that's better! Now that's a fit. This will be such a perfect little fall coat for running and playing outdoors when the air begins to turn crisp (not that I'm done with summer yet... we still have a few more weeks, right?