Probably most of you know that I’ve been selling my jewelry through Etsy and now I got picked as a ‘featured seller!’ It’s pretty damned exciting; I’m on the front page, they posted an interview, and I’ve been getting a zillion emails and messages asking about my jewelry, custom pieces, and just notes saying nice things about me and my work. It’s made my day.

One more thing – I should mention also that I got a couple of great write-ups on other blogs in the past few weeks: Emerald Green Weddings in Seattle, and earthfriendlywedding blog!

When we were in the Bay Area last month, we visited with Nina and Henrik from Bika, whom we met while anchored in Portobelo, Panama. They sailed Bika (the most adorable Contessa 26 you ever did see) through the Caribbean, up the east coast of the US, into the great lakes, down the Mississippi, over to Rockport, TX, then had the boat trucked to the Bay Area to continue their trip (they started in Norway in 2005). They are currently doing some work on the boat getting her ready to head south down the west coast and eventually across the Pacific. Anyway, they brought a gift for Ronin; it was a box of legos. She loves them and it didn’t take long to expand our collection; Grandpa Jeff bought a big pink box of supposed “girl” legos when he came to visit. One must have many legos. And actually the pink is really pretty.

Ronin’s favorite thing to make are dogs. Sometimes she makes big flatbed trucks to ferry the dogs around.

This one might be a bichon frise, except cuter.

Happy green eco-dog!

Can you see those brown ‘ear’ lego pieces? Well, Ronin has something of a potty humor and often likes to pretend they are dog poops. Making the lego dogs poop brown lego poops can keep her occupied for a good long while.

Super-duper long-necked giraffe dog!

Brown-headed double-collared poodle-dog

This is Otto, our friend Hans’ deaf and blind and dumb (I mean the dog is lacking in brain power; he is definitely not mute) wiener dog. Hans loves that animal better than anything on the entire planet. Ronin likes Otto too but only because he likes to eat poop.

Hmm. This appears to be some sort of shepherd with a pink and red collar.

Legos come in the most awesome colors these days. There is a bright chartreuse green that is really pretty, and we have three shades of pink! The set Nina and Henrik gave us had some lego guys with conventional brown hairdos; however, all hair has been replaced with more interesting pieces, such as this ornate floral headdress.

My spaceship. Flower power!

Joshua’s spaceship.

Some of the bird ornaments I made for our tree (and for little christmas gifts). The black and white one was a pattern I got online. I doctored the original pattern to add interfacing to prevent stuffing lumps and I reinforced the tail. Essentially I turned a reasonably quick and easy pattern into a royal pain in the ass. My specialty!

All the other felt birds were ideas I ripped from making random google image searches. I made them out of wool felt and embroidery floss. I haven’t really ever embroidered before but there are a lot of online tutorials.

I took Ronin’s mobile apart temporarily to add raindrops to the tree.

I felt compelled to make a mustache ornament since they are ALL the rage this year. Mustaches, not specifically mustache ornaments, but I imagine they are out there.

Ronin loved the birds. I made several of the stuffed fabric ones and put them on the lower branches. Ronin had a field day rearranging them each morning.

We interrupt the usual baby photos and poop stories to brag about my new website. I drew the pretty pictures and Joshua made it all happen. After much trial and setback and extensive persnickety requests from me, it is finally live and I think it looks lovely. I also put together an etsy shop if you are looking for an online shopping experience…

I actually have memories of fingerpainting myself. Unfortunately, those memories are not made up of feelings of excitement as my artistic self was awakened, of the infinite possibilities before me as I contemplated my paper and palette. Sadly, the memory brings back a fingers-on-the-chalkboard sort of cringe as I remember how it felt when you ran out of slimy paint and the thin skin on the inside of my knuckle dragged against the scratchy dry paper. I have goosebumps right now as I’m writing this; I’m not kidding.

Nonetheless, I decided quite suddenly the other day that Ronin’s brain was going to shrivel up and fall out her ear if I didn’t get her some Craft Projects immediately. Enter the fingerpaint. Maybe she’ll like it. Maybe it’ll be a mess. I’ll certainly use better paper than they gave babies back in the 70s. Plus, I’ll make pretty colors (I also remember the paints being dark drab colors: forest green, navy blue, burgundy, brown—bringing home papers with a slurry of blended green/brown/black smeared in the middle).

I found this recipe on the internet and cooked up a batch earlier this afternoon. Cooking it was fun—sort of like making cream of wheat where you stir and stir and stir for a million years and still it is just watery milk and then, suddenly, in the span of 15 seconds, all hell breaks loose and you suddenly have a pan full of porridge. Corn starch and water is a very curious porridge indeed.

After it cooled, I portioned it out into baby food jars and added food coloring. That was fun. It’s pretty thick with the recipe above so I added more water to make it a more paint-like consistency and stirred it all up with a chopstick. Even more fun, Ronin discovered the food coloring tubes and how to twist off the caps and while I was off neglecting her, she opened up the red, blue, and purple and squirted the stuff all over her hands. I was sort of flipped out and she repeated after me as I ferried the food coloring tubes out of reach “ssit ssit” (bad mama!).

The setup. All neat and tidy with cool and warm colors separated by dinner plate. I stripped her down and planted her in front of the paper.

Ronin tests the waters. Hmm. Colors pleasing… Paper smooth…

She was a little weirded out by the Stuff! on her hands!! It can be nice having a neat-freak toddler (she is a relatively tidy eater—partly because she doesn’t like to eat) but it is also alarming to take said toddler to the beach all, “BEHOLD: THE BEACH,” and have her totally freak out when a grain of sand gets stuck to her hand. She mellowed out a bit but I got her some tools anyway.

Palette knife and paintbrush.

Paintbrushes are for lamers.

Of course, nothing is better than simply cutting to the chase and eating the paint straight off your palette knife.

I’d say it was a success mostly. I’ll do it again at least despite the fact that food coloring does not just wash off of hands (or anything else) and her fingers are now stained purple-green-pink. Hopefully this fades quickly. I have to get better at ‘letting go’ as far as smearing paint in hair and eating it is concerned but I’m working on it. Ronin seems to enjoy the painting just fine but the real standout is getting to stack and rearrange the plates (between sneaking nibbles of turquoise or fuchsia), dumping the paper out on the grass and then arranging it back on the blue bin. And I sit back and dream wistfully that her future memory of fingerpainting will be happy, cathartic, and with zero spinechills.