Train Conductor hats

At our house, trains rule the toy box. Ethan loves building extensive, complicated tracks with our wooden train set. We started with a simple wooden set from IKEA and it quickly grew to fill one of the extra large buckets in the toy shelf. Rueben also likes playing with trains, but I'm more likely to find him driving the trains into the barn set or onto the play parking garage. They each have their favorite engine which makes joint playtime more enjoyable and pleasant.

Since they spend so much time playing with their trains, I thought it would be fun if they each had a little train conductor hat that they could wear while playing. I had an old pair of jeans that I wanted to use for one of them and some seersucker material for the other. A quick google search led me to this tutorial. It was so simple to measure and cut out the pieces. I decided to have the straight pleats of the cap on the inside of the hat with the angled pleats on the outside. The first hat I made was the denim one and when I put it on Rueben, I felt the brim was a bit too long, so I shortened it by an inch for Ethan's hat. I love the way they turned out and they were so easy to make. I ended up making 3 more for Ethan's preschool class to play with at school. All aboard!!!

Link Love

I thought I'd share some of the blogs that have inspired me along the way.

Food blogs that I read:

Aimee from Under the highchair is also the food editor at Simplebites.net
(I also read simple kids and simple mom)

Craft blogs I read:

Where have you found inspiration?

Celebrate the BOY

This month, the amazing craft blog MADE is celebrating all things boys. If you like to craft, you'll know that most of the craft blogs on the net tend to focus on girly craft and sewing ideas. That's why when I logged on to MADE this afternoon and found this post, I was super excited. Can't wait to see what kinds of crafts will be presented, and to see how long my 'to craft' list will become. Time to Celebrate:

Guilty!

You know, I said I wouldn't. I even made a list of other things to do so I wouldn't fall into this trap. I've started another craft project. I hang my head in shame while blaming Jill from the awesome blog Homemadebyjill. That's right... I take no responsibility for what happened. You just mosey on over to her blog and just try to not think about making all those super cute things that she cranks out. You just try.

So, she decided to do a 'sew-along' with her blog readers. The cutest little felt advent Christmas tree calendar would be the result of 4 weeks of sewing assignments. Well, I started a week late, and if you know me and crafts, I tend to start off gangbusters and crash and burn towards the end. I have 12 felt ornaments done, the tree is cut out but needs to be sewn to the backing piece, all my pockets are cut and stitched with the 24 numbers leading up to Christmas, but they too need to be stitched to the backing. I will post some pictures once I have something substantial to show.

I was really optimistic with this one, that I'd be able to get it done in time. Ah well.

How to... Grow a Winter Garden

A friend asked me how I made my winter garden grow? Well, it didn't really, and neither did hers, so I decided to do some research to find out how we can both be successful winter gardeners. A quick google search reveals a plethora of information.

1. Know your zone. Here in the lower mainland, we are zone 8. Knowing your zone helps you to know when to plant seedlings, when the typical first and last frost occur. Check here to see the characteristics of your zone.

2. Next, decide what you want to plant. Successful winter garden vegetables include carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, chard, beets, onions, leeks, cabbage, Brussels sprouts. Basically tubers, root vegetables that grow under the ground and hardy leaf greens like kale and chard.

(Photo: My cousins garden in France)

3. Lastly, know when to plant. The easy part of a summer garden is the fact that you can start planting as soon as the risk of frost has past. And you can keep planting throughout spring and summer. The trick with a winter garden is to know how long it will take for your seeds to mature (and there is huge variation from crop to crop) and then calculate when to plant.

For example, let's say I want to plant beets to harvest in the early fall. Beets take approximately 90 days to reach maturity, so I would want to plant by mid July for a mid October harvest.

Broccoli on the other hand only takes 30 days to reach maturity, so I could plant by mid September for mid October harvest.

For continuous crops, you could plant new seeds every two weeks just as you would a summer garden.

Here are some websites that I found to be helpful and informative. Check 'em out, then go out and plant some broccoli... it's not too late.

Old Farmers Almanac

Hume Seeds

Plant a Fall and Winter Garden

You Grow Girl - General Garden Blog for Urban Dwellers

R.I.P Wasteful Halloweens | Seventh Generation

R.I.P Wasteful Halloweens Seventh Generation

Check out this article from the Seventh Generation Blog with tips and resources to celebrate a green and Earth friendly halloween. This year, Ethan decided he wanted to be Thomas the Tank Engine for halloween. His costume is coming together nicely. We found a big long box that will form the body of the train which we have painted blue. We painted some toilet paper rolls for the funnel and whistle. And for Thomas' face, we paper-mached a balloon which we will glue to the front of the box. I think it's going to look fantastic and I know Ethan will love it. And one of the best parts about it is that it only cost us a few dollars to make.

This year, Rueben is going to re-use one of Ethan's old costumes. Either a turtle (if the costume still fits) or Frankenstein's monster. Looking forward to some halloween fun!

CBC Books - Canada Reads 2011

CBC Books - Canada Reads 2011

The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff

watch the video, get educated, stop buying useless stuff