Ikebananas

Last week I took an Ikebana workshop with my husband and mother-in-law through our county park system. Ikebana is a Japanese art of flower arrangement. I still couldn't tell you much about it, but Wikipedia does a great job. 

It was held at our favorite park, Deep Cut Gardens, and I think I signed up for it because I was hoping it would take place in their magical greenhouse (it wasn't). But I find floral arrangements to be one of the great pleasures of life, along with watching a baby nap, sheet cake that's better than it needs to be, falling asleep on the couch, and The Met. Plus, I'm always looking to add to my bag o' tricks.

Once we arrived, I was excited to learn a different approach to flower arrangement that uses materials, shapes, and proportions uncommon to the Western style. All my arrangements tend to look the same. I do a lot of round stuff with one kind of flower. Any time I diverge from that, it gets awkward. 

We each made an arrangement, and mine was OK. To be honest, I'm not sure I know good or bad yet, it's so foreign to my eye. I'm not a natural minimalist, and I didn't think my materials vibed together all that well. I wasn't sure if I'd do it again by the book, but I was inspired to try again with plant materials from our yard.

So today, after Mother's Day brunch, the babe was napping, the mister was mowing the lawn, and Pip and were looking for something to do to pass the time until our next meal. (Why not put it bluntly.) She came with us to the Ikebana workshop and was eager to try her hand at making her own arrangement. We took clippers outside and found a ton of good stuff to use. 

I gave her a traditional vase and I used a wide, shallow bowl more typical of Moribana (the style of Ikebana we "learned" -- that's a stretch). We had two colors of Japanese maples, azaleas, lilacs, and Japonica. There are a lot of specifics to the proper placement and geometry of the branches in Ikebana (refer to our handout up top), but I despise following instructions in all circumstances except when giving my children medicine, so we wung it. Basically: tall thing, slightly less tall thing, wide thing out to side, something protruding toward you, something heavy down low to anchor it. This is probably blasphemy but I find it works.

Mama Ikebana

Pip took a more maximalist approach and made the most beautiful arrangement I've ever seen (I'm not exaggerating because I'm her mom). I'm telling you, you'd have to pay $130 in Brooklyn for this thing. It is hauntingly beautiful, and all from found clippings in our yard. I would have been hard-pressed to summon the freedom to make something so luscious and exuberant and great.

Pippa Ikebana

It's something I've noticed whenever she paints too -- she has an innate understanding of beauty. It's direct, it's colorful, it's free, and she knows exactly when to stop. Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once you grow up." Kids. You learn something from them every day, if you pay attention.

...

On a side note, the babe is ten months today! She has her bottom right front tooth, and all the others seem to be just below the surface. She loves to eat real food (clementines! ricotta! meatballs! banana!). She isn't quite crawling forward yet, though she just figured out how to get over her other leg, and she loves to do "So big!" and clap for herself. She says "da da" all the time, and yesterday she said "Pippa" (we both heard it). So far she has no interest in saying "Mama" -- not even for Mother's day.

Pre-school Valentines

With the Little One starting school, this time of year means school valentines. But nothing sugary! Drats. The days of going to the grocery store and getting a box of Looney Tunes Valentines are gone, I'm pretty sure of it. These are Pinterest times we are living in. 

That said, I wasn't all that inspired by Pinterest's non-sweet valentine projects. I thought I'd give each child a balloon so they could go home and blow it up and have something fun to play with that wasn't permanent junk. But I was home all day with the Little One and and thought she wouldn't enjoy that project very much. So I opened up my completely disorganized (and downright scary) closet of lost and sundry items and found a gaggle of little pompoms left over from her 3rd birthday party. I thought I'd cut shapes for ice cream cones and the Little One could glue them down with her fancy blue glitter glue, and we could use pompoms for cherries on top. But of course she had the best idea and wanted to use as many pompoms as possible, so we made the pompoms the ice cream. Collaboration is where it's at!

I should say that she was done after we completed about 3 of 15, and retired to watch "Curious George." But if I was going to slave over a craft project by myself for an hour, at least the idea came from her.

Cheer In Progress

I'm happy to report that after our second weekend of recouping from wicked colds, we scraped ourselves off the couch, unglued our eyeballs from "Frozen" (yes, the freeze has finally descended upon our household), and made some Christmas ornaments out of baking soda/corn starch dough. 

It was pretty simple, except working the the press cookie cutters, like the snowman... Those are tricky but ultimately gratifying. We really got into poking holes in each ornament with straws and then blowing the little plug out like a spitball... When you hang out with a 3-year-old it's the little things that really get you going.

We feel slightly elfy and are excited to tie ribbons on these suckers and give them to friends, family, and teachers as tokens of our love and appreciation. Pippa was quoted at school at Thanksgiving saying that how you cook a turkey is to "Make a triangle and a heart. Then make a star. I'd cook it with hearts and stars so I don't burn my hands." So it only seems appropriate to give heart and star ornaments to her teachers. Please note: all the other kids still answered like pre-schoolers but were much more literal. My little dreamer.

And of course we'll save a few for our tree. ; )

Thanksgiving In Maine This Year

Easter Grammy

My mom is quite the armchair knitter. Last year she whipped up bunnies for all the kids. This year she casually knits a kid's sweater a week at nights while watching TV, the first incarnation being an oatmeal colored sweater with rainbow buttons (for catching rainbows at Grammy's house) for BabySevPrez. At first the little one proceeded cautiously, but once she found a matchbox car planted in the pocket (!!!) she was all in, and wore the sweater all weekend, including nights over her jammies. Her blue sweater with ladybug buttons was a similar success.

Little Feet

Passed out in the car seat after a fun afternoon.

They might actually not be so little... Mr. SevPrez jokingly refers to me as Chief Big Toe (I do have a big big toe), so I dubbed the little one Chief Little Big Toe.

Funny names aside, she started walking on Monday, July 9th. Two steps at a time, a couple times. Now I believe she's up to 4. Very, very exciting.

My mom would also like me to add that she's signing "more" and "all done."

Today three generations of SevPrez women had an impromptu summer day of fun. Mom met me at the craft store where I was picking up dye for an upcoming project. Then we went shopping and had lunch. Chief Little Big Toe didn't sleep a wink. She was just too excited to miss a thing.


Add caption



In With The Cool Girls

There are many amazing things about being the new mom of a daughter, but just one of them is the fact that my nieces, ages 12, 9, and 4, love coming over to their "cousin's house." (Could you just die?!) Which also means that they bring their interests with them. Which right now includes their boxes of string and collection of lanyard. Side note: it is so awesome that they have actual interests beyond watching TV and playing video games. Good old fashioned kids!


Now that I have a baby and don't have much spare time, I appreciate the fact that each visit usually yields at least one friendship bracelet. They are the perfect jewelry for a mom since they are soft and don't bother my little lady when I hold her.

Tonight my job is to try and recall my lanyard skills so we can move on to a new medium tomorrow. Exciting!

The List Is Back

This morning over blueberry pancakes I had a little therapy session with Mr. SevPrez. I have been staying up til 2am every night with the feeling like I'm waiting for Santa. I have always been a night owl and now that I don't have any reason to set my alarm I'm showing my true colors. Waking up in the morning knowing there is nothing on the agenda, really, except birth this baby is a bit emotionally overwhelming, seeing as how I have no control over whether it happens or not. Couple that with the incredible heat wave we had over the last few days that made it really difficult to spend any time outdoors, and the fact that everyday I feel more pregnant and more uncomfortable, and it's physically taxing as well. Let's just say I'm sick of the couch, and we have watched every movie made in the last year.

I have a real need to feel productive, whether it's at work or at home, and I realized this morning that I really miss my lists. I kind of stopped writing them since I have been kidding myself that everyday delivery is imminent. No wonder I've been feeling so lost. So when my session with Dr. SevPrez was over, I made a little list and we set out on an expedition to run some errands and cross some things off.

We went to the Red Bank Antique District to look for a set of vintage drinking glasses, since I keep breaking them and we are a very thirsty family. We were just about to leave empty handed when I noticed an area we missed, and low and behold, we found a set of 8 glasses for $25. They are pretty awesome and harken back to a set I got in Brooklyn many years ago that has since died.

And we stopped at a craft store so I could just bite the bullet and get some embroidery floss to make friendship bracelets. I had a nice set of contractions earlier while making this bracelet and it was the perfect thing to focus on. Of course the contractions since went away or else I would not be writing this, but I finished the bracelet and it's ready to give to a friend as part of her birthday package.

Killing Time With Crafts

As I twiddle my thumbs waiting for this baby to arrive I am remembering why I always made so many crafts over the summer when I was young. If you didn't go to camp, (and I didn't because I hated camp, except art camp) you needed to do something with your time.

I just texted my entrepreneurial 12 year old niece to ask her if she is still making string friendship bracelets. I really want one. Actually I really want like, 4, all big and crazy colored. I think right now she's really into making costume jewelry with tools and stuff. But then I saw these bracelets on a blog and thought, maybe she could encorporate both? And charge me a little less than $425... You know, family discount and all.

Truth is I would make my own friendship bracelet (is that sad?!) but I gave all my string away to my niece. So I'm thinking maybe after a walk to the post office (to send back "The Wire" on Netflix and get our new disc pronto -- we are completely obsessed with the wire and just started season 4), I might need to bust out the paints. I have been really inspired by all the painting going on at Sketch42 blog but abstracts are not really my thing. We'll see. I keep trying to think of ways to jinx myself so the baby will come. Like once I get all the paint out and all my brushes dirty, maybe I'll go into labor? I'll try anything.

Reusing Is Where It's At

Took home a bunch of old Dolphin Studio calendars from work a few months ago when we were cleaning out a closet. They are nice enough that you don't want to get rid of them at the end of the year, but unless you are particularly attached to a month that you want to hang up on its own, what do you do with them?

You reuse the pages as wrapping paper! 


Awesome since I love paper gift wrappings and adornments but won't let myself go crazy spending a lot of money on dreamy gift wrap since it all gets ripped up and thrown out. This is the best of both worlds. 

Sharp Edges

The eggs that went into the Greek frittata, decorated with a vast collection of Sharpies.
Click for full image.

Snowed In and Loving It

The snow did not derail my weekend plans and good times were had and art was made! Here's the magnificent chair to prove it.

Of course I don't have a magenta floor, but a girl can dream, can't she?


Then, on Sunday, to my great surprise and delight I got to play host to my two nieces. They helped me figure out how to make this year's felt valentine. They know what they're doing, wouldn't you agree?

Felt For All Occasions

I have been meaning to make a felt wreath for a year. I was inpsired by Crispina Ffrench's (daughter of the Dolphin Studio Ffrenches) tattered scrappy wreaths, but my taste is a little more "hemmed" in than hers. So I had an idea to make 3D representations of roses out of the felt, which I actually got around to doing last Presidents' Day. They have been hanging out in a Ziplock bag in my craft drawer ever since. 


So when I found myself on a shopping expedition to Michael's with my best friend and her seven-year-old daughter, I picked up a wooden wreath frame and a hot glue gun, and wouldn't you know it, 6 hours later my wreath was completed.


I made it with Valentine's Day in mind, but it's the kind of thing I would keep up until I got sick of the color red (which doesn't happen very often.) But, as it turns out, I'm going to give it to my mom for her birthday. I always try to get or make her something sentimental or one-of-a-kind (she is a one-of-a-kind type of lady), or do something for her, as was the case with her dinner party last year. 


So this year, she'll be receiving the long awaited felt rose wreath! 

Here's a close-up on the roses, which I made by folding and raveling a spiral of felt into a rose-type shape, fashioning the ends to look kind of like leaves, and sewing through the middle to secure.

I'll also be helping her host a birthday brunch this Sunday and baking the birthday cake, a recipe for Olive Oil Cake that came highly recommended from a friend. 

My Third Felt Pillow...

Was a present for my youngest niece. Sometime in the future her room will be upgraded to a "big girl room" and my sister-in-law very sweetly commissioned a pillow. She also, very sweetly, let me decide what it should look like. The ideal client! 


It took a while for the big idea to come to me. Let's see if you can figure it out. I will give you a hint: it's my niece's favorite food.

Any guesses? They are ice pops! I don't know if my niece really gets it, but I do know that when she opened the present on Christmas Eve she promptly put the pillow on the floor and laid down on it. That is exactly what you want someone to do when you give them a pillow! Success!


The good news is I have another commission in the works, also for a little bambino. This is good news because it's an excuse to buy some more felt in different colors. Viva la felt!

Finally! Felt Pillows!

Remember all that felt I bought? And those Hable Construction pillows I kept saying I could make? Well I finally got around to making them, with the help of a $6 plain white Ikea pillow cover and a little inspiration from my favorite building art in New York City.

Actually, I only made one so far, but I plan on making a complimenting pillow with an aqua accent color next week while I'm on vacation. I'll be sure to post the finished product on my new couch cover in my newly painted room as soon as it's all together!

Trading In My Popsicle Stand For An Icicle Stand

The New Yorker arrived today and it's a good one! I'm very excited to pack it up with the rest of my things -- Midnight's Children (too heavy to schlep, and therefore unread); sketches for an upcoming stationery project; the Lumix DMC-TZ5, with zoom enough to catch all those moose hanging out deep in the woods; and various clothing appropriate for cross-country skiing, running in the streets and at the state of the art university gym, antiquing, exploring the ghost town that is Bar Harbor in March, and most importantly, eating and drinking by the fire -- and we're off to the Great North Woods!

Editor's Note: I think that's the first time I ever used semi-colons in place of commas in a complicated series. Did I do it right? Are you allowed to use them in between em-dashes? What would Strunk & White do? Feel free to comment.

Merely Martha

Last Thursday my parents and I went to see Martha Stewart at the 92nd St. Y for their Captains of Industry series. She was being interviewed by the EIC of Business Week. (He was forgettable, so he shall go nameless.)

The highlight of the night was the table of free magazines outside the auditorium.

It was the blandest display of two adults interacting in front of a paying audience since... I don't know, you'll have to fill in the blank for me in the comment section. You know I usually make an effort to keep my posts upbeat, but a week later, I still feel insulted by the the experience. A whole lot of nothing with a price tag, and two hours of our lives we'll never get back.

If I sound bitter, it's because it was all my idea. I am fascinated by Martha, and completely envious of her career. She has built an empire on entertaining, home cooking, the floral arts, decorating, and crafts. I admire her as much for her ability to tie a perfect bow as her serious credentials as a business woman. You'd think that dynamic would make for a very interesting person, and an interesting Q&A. Not so, my friend, not so. She basically evaded every question with a watered down, coached non-answer. And these questions were soft balls to begin with.

For instance:

Q: "Martha, you have so much going on. How do you manage your time?"

A: "Well, I know what I have to do. It's all up here [pointing to her head]. I go to bed very late and wake up very early. Sleep is tertiary."

Gee, thanks for that illuminating insight into the inner workings of your universe.

I scribbled down notes of anything that I thought my dear readers might find interesting. I'm not going to dress them up, so here they are:

-She spoke with conviction about the Martha Stewart Center for Living at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. After watching her mother navigate old age and deteriorating health, she was inspired to create a place devoted to geriatric care and living, since she feels it is a greatly overlooked area of medicine. 

-Recently MSLO acquired Pingg.com, an online party planning and invitations service. Papyrus also made a move like this recently. Both empires are looking to gain a foothold in the online universe, but I don't see how this is A) a good idea for Martha considering her brand is premised on quality, handmade goods, and B) profitable. Actually, I happen to know for a fact that it's not profitable for Papyrus.

-In case you missed it, MSLO also acquired all of the Emeril brand with the exception of his restaurants.

-She is developing blogs for her pets.

-She wouldn't admit to grooming any one person in particular to be the face of the brand after she steps out. All she would say is that they are training the various editors of her magazines to be in the limelight more and more. 

-She plans on writing an autobiography, and perhaps even a novel. Autobiography, yes. Novel, please God spare us.

She got really excited twice. First, when she talked about the Valentine's dinner she hosted at her house. She must have gone on for 8 minutes about all the different cookies she made, the menu, the guest list. Then she really got going when asked about the move of her corporate offices. She actually brought up the Gawker incident about sanctioned pens. (It's too long to go into here, just click the link for the full story.) She was very feisty. It may be a ridiculous topic, but that's the woman I want to hear. Give us the good stuff, the real stuff. Give us who you are -- your opinions, your smarts, your edge, your joy. Save the evasive, reserved saleswoman for your board meetings, or your television show, if you must. 

She mentioned that she has long ago given up trying to keep Martha the brand separate from Martha the woman. She said she just has to know who she is and be okay with it. That sounds like great advice, but I can't help but think it's a delusion. We showed up to hear Martha, the woman, and all we got was the brand.

If she wants pointers on livening things up a bit, I suggest she seek advice from Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase. His 2008 interview with Charlie Rose transported him from some banker I had never heard of to a man that I instantly admired for his wit, honesty, intelligence, and attitude. 

Just in time too, since as a former Washington Mutual customer, he's my guy now.

I Do Love A Holiday That Celebrates Red Hearts.

Was up til 2 a.m. last night making last minute valentines for my family. I was really kidding myself that there'd be no valentines this year. 

One thing I discovered that will make my life much easier in the future is that rubber cement works well for adhering felt to paper. You can brush it right onto the paper and avoid any felt fluff in your brush. A huge improvement over the white craft glue I used to make my felt Christmas Ornaments.

Planning to distribute them this evening at my niece's 10th birthday party. Happy Birthday to the Valentine baby (well, she's really not a baby anymore is she? Double digits!) and Happy Valentines Day to the rest of us!

Celebrating Mom

This was a big weekend. My mother turned 65 on Friday and we gathered the entire family together for dinner on Saturday -- all the kids, the grandkids, the aunt and uncle and cousins and baby cousins. It was good times in close quarters.

We fit everyone at one long table for dinner, Aunt Rose Thanksgiving style. Keep adding tables and place settings and eventually everyone will fit. A good mantra to have.

And it worked! Here we are!

I always say that if it wasn't for invitations and other paper products, I wouldn't host so many parties. They get me so excited. I had a lot of fun looking through all the family photos to find the best shots for my place cards. I scanned the old pictures, downloaded a polaroid template, fitted and cropped all the snapshots, and added each guest's name with a Sharpie. They were a big hit.

The kids played with my president statuettes, and even brought their own addition, our newest presidential action figure. Talk about big hits -- I think Barack Obama had the fifteenth seat at our table.

We had cake and ice cream and Mom opened all her gifts. My nieces gave her great handmade presents, and there was lots of presidential paraphernalia to admire. Love of the presidents runs in the family, like most things do. Lots of new memories were made, and as our family grows, I think we all look forward to many more big, crowded, hot, sweaty parties. I know I do.

For the entire party photo album, click here.

More on those crafty grandmothers of mine

Trimming the Christmas tree really reminds you of who you are. I realize that my urge to make ornaments in genetic. 

Exhibit A: The Felt Ice Skate by Grammy, that you've already seen.

Exhibit B: The Counted Cross Stitch Stocking, by my other grandmother. 

(These are pretty awesome, for all you needlepoint mamas out there.)

Exhibit C: The Clothespin Skier, by Grammy (There were also soldiers in this fashion).

Exhibit D: The Clothespin Reindeer, by Grammy

Exhibit E: Last but certainly not least, the Crocheted and Starched Angel, by Grammy.