HBP premier wear!

K decided she wanted us all to wear house scarves for the Half Blood Prince Premier. I must add, she decided this on the morning of the premier. :D As I am a squib, and even my knitting machine is not that fast, K took matters into her own hands.

She had just learned to fingerknit from a girl on her swim team this summer. (Remember me talking about how I showed up at practices with my sticks and strings and started teaching kids to crochet. Well, it went viral! Little girls and boys started showing up with their own yarn every day and by the last meet, there were wet children with yarn everywhere,... Brilliant! )

K designed her own scarves. Each is 6 foot long, two cords of the main house color and one of the accent color. The tree strands are then tied at 12 inch intervals with a bow in the accent color and the ends are tied together with the long strands left hanging for fringe. They looked Marvelous and were great for the 12 and under crowd during the more intense bits in the movie, perfect to bunch up and hide behind. :)

And we submitted them in the HP knitting/crochet house cup on Ravelry as our Charms homework. One down!

TV reporters can't resist the cuteness!

Mr. Man and I took K and her friends E and T to a couple of HP premier parties last night. K went as Ginny, E as Hermione, and T as a death eater. They were really cute. (We saw Ginny's uniform at the HP exhibit and were very surprised to see how different her skirt is from Hermione's. It's very slim cut, one box pleat in the front, and belt loops. Very plain, no frills. Quite Ginny. I'll post pics and a how to, someday,... I know, I'm terrible about that.)


At the first party there were crafts, games, snacks, and raffles for prizes. E won a gift bag filled with goodies and they were asked to pose for a picture for the paper. The photographer said it might appear in the weekend section tomorrow. At the second party they followed the reporter from the news around until he interviewed them. (Seriously, they were stalking him.) We saw them on the news last night and it was cute. I even recorded it! Good thing, because I got no pictures! Plans changed at the last minute and I forgot my camera. Though T did take a few pic with his phone which I will have to bug out of him.

We're going to see the movie today! Can't wait!

We have our tickets!!!!

This will be the first Harry Potter Movie K has seen in the theater. (She's only just old enough for Hogwarts, and she's a bit tender hearted about movies. The snake in the beginning of Chamber of Secrets still has her hiding in the kitchen, peeking around the corner.) We're going Wednesday evening and we will be dressing out.

K is so excited, she's finger knitting a Gryffindor scarf as I type. Actually, right now she is teaching Mr. Man how to finger knit.

Our little fan girl.

What to wear? Hum....

OK, what are you all wearing to the HP premier? Not much time left! K wants to be Ginny in her new Seeker uniform, and I haven't even started. I've seen one picture, but I haven't even started thinking about how to pull it off. And I will only have one short week to do it! The shirt, pants and pinny are no big deal, but the pads, gloves and boots! Oh my!

I got a comment asking for the Mandrake pot label, so I know someone is thinking of being a mandrake or at least making one. Wonderful! Here it is!

The label is also available in my original Mandrake costume post, and I have put it on Fickr, under Mandrake pot label. And just so it isn't lost, I'll send it to the crafts section of the Leaky Lounge. Have fun and please leave me a comment with a link to a picture! I would love to see your costume!

I was thinking of being Professor Sprout and making a pot to carry around. But the time is so short. Might just have to be Trelawny again. Fits my personality and it's quite fun. Especially the hair. Mr. Man makes a great Lupin, so I might go for Tonks, the pink would cover the grey. Though I prefer purple to pink.

OK, so what who are you going to be? Hum?...

Royal Dalton in Red Heart

Just finished my Divination homework. Took a bit of experimenting, but K loves it so we are calling it a success!

Took quite a bit of rip and redo to get it the way I wanted it and it is a bit wonky in the picture, but, I think that adds to it's charm.

Speaking of which, my lil'cup charmed a bunch of kids at K's swim practice . I have had a small group of wet children, watching, asking questions and, just today, learning to crochet. Girls and boys!!! And their parents were thrilled!

Tomorrow I'm bringing as many hooks and balls of yarn as I can find and I'm going to create a new generation of yarn crazy people. Mwaaaahhaaahaaa!!

I'm evil, but in a creative way.

Whimsy Swap! Our Box!

Our partner magicalspirit has received and opened her box!

This is what we sent: Warning Pic Spam!

We just happened to have a jewelry box that was just the right size. It was a decorate your own kit, covered with butterflies and flowers. We were thrilled to find out partner loves butterflies! Was that perfect of what!

Miss Kitty did not fit in the box. Neither did our cauldron in cushion. But we stuffed it in the shipping box anyway. Miss. Kitty got in the box, checked it out and decided it was not suitable for a nap and got out.

Here's all the goodies packed in,

We love Origami and Magical spirit loves paper craft so, perfect! She also like dragon flies,


And we thought she might like a dragon who flies, if you throw him. Throwing not recommended.

And a tiny tulip in a pot of Alabama red dirt.

And a pair of butterfly earrings

And a necklace to match

And some tiny books,


And an origami book mark,

And a snail, who is translucent and very cool to fold,

And a lily pad with a tiny frog, which are both very tricky to fold, K had to help me with the lily pad.

And a panda, one of K's specialties,

And a tiny space shuttle, because we live in the Rocket City,

And another one of our favorite things, flower fairy dolls, handmade and so much fun,

And she likes beads, so a beaded dragon fly.

And a small gazing ball for her favorite plant

We also sent her a bar of soap, handmade by a lady we volunteer with at Burritt Museum, from milk from her goat named Scout. It was Apple Jack and we thought it smelled wonderful. K wrapped it in some paper she hand dyed. (She is big into watercolors at the moment.) K also shared some of her favorite things in the world, tiny erasers.

And a necklace to keep something she loves close to her heart.

We also sent her some crocheted goodies, a Clover, for luck, with a mossy bookmark,

And a crochet leaf bookmark, though K thinks it makes a neat necklace,

And last but not least, a ton of Puffles, because Magicalspirit is a fan of Club Penguin, some beads in our favorite tiny bottles, stickers, a glow in the dark bouncy ball, an eyeball ping pong ball, craft foam snowflakes, sequins, some cute note paper in a orental sho box, an oriental purse and a bunch more little stuff.

We hope she liked it!

Whimsey swap!

We received our Whimsy Swap from Caitirin! Thank you !!!!

K saw the postman deliver the box and started squealing "It's Here! It's Here!" and ran out to get it. We were just about to race across town to K's first swim meet, so we didn't have time to open it till this morning. K wanted to open it soooo bad last night at 10 when we got home, but just couldn't keep her eyes open long enough.

For this swap, we each filled a 4 cup jar/box/bag/whatever with fun crafty stuff. Caitirin filled a mason jar and it looked so cute!

The jar was stuffed full of cool craft stuff.

There are pastel pom poms, two big erasers (a lady bug and a spider,) a bunch of small erasers (flamingos, palm trees and purple flowers,) wooden letters and shapes to paint, 4 lip glosses, a bag of blue green beads and silver beads and toggle clasps, a paper punch, a flicker light (brilliant idea,) some crochet balls on a string (K loved those,) big safety pins, three gel pens, a set of tiny maracas (cute!,) three spools of ribbon, and two sets of cool buttons.

Thank you Caitirin! One of K's all time favorite things is tiny erasers, so you definitely made her day. My personal favorites are the beads and clasps, I dibbsed those already. We both love the wooden two layer dragonfly, frog, lady bug and butterfly. They are so cute and they're stickers!

Thanks you again Caitirin! We loved it all!

"I always wanted purple freckles."

K joined the swim and dive team and has the purple freckles to prove it.

They keep coming out and look even worse today.

She loves diving and in two hours went from never having even tried diving off the board head first to starting to dive backwards and get some height in her forward dive. Scares the pants off of me and I used to do the same thing. Mr. Man does not swim and would faint dead away.

Though I have to admit, watching K walking around without her glasses is much more frightening. Luckily the dive coach is in the same boat and is keeping an eye out for her.

Her first meet is Wednesday. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and eyes shut.

Vacation Bible School Goodies!

I must shamefully admit, for several years, K was a Vacation Bible School Orphan. I did so much, I barely had time to eat and sleep, let alone talk to my family. My crafts were creative, well prepared and fun, I was told I was a fantastic teacher and my decorations were so good, the directors couldn't throw them out. But it was too much. I realised it was not a good thing and I quit. I've been very happy and much less stressed and can now pick K out of a line up every time.

This year was the first time in three years that, when asked, I said yes, I would do one little thing. Just one. I think that's fair. If everyone did one little thing, there wouldn't be the poor few who work day and night for weeks to make it all happen. Our director tried very gently to increase my commitment, but I stood my ground and did my one thing, in a timely fashion and never once woke up at 3 am freaking out over how to make 8 foot paper and chicken wire volcano smoke without burning down the sanctuary or how to help 100 children each make a hand painted t-shirt in only 2 hours. (I still have nightmares about those t-shirts.)

Anyway, this is what I volunteered to do.

The VBS we are doing this year is Crocodile Dock and these are Bible Buddie trading cards. You print the front and back on a sheet of cards stock, cut out 9 cards and each child gets one at then end of the day to take home. They're a big hit with the kids and very inexpensive. The first two years I designed, printed, cut and cornerounded 600+ of them. I was hallucinating by the end. This year, I only did the design part, a bunch of teenagers are going to do the printing and cutting. Love those youth volunteers.

If you could use them, I've made one set for each day and uploaded them to my flicker account. Please leave me a comment if you use them, comments make me glad. :)

Last Day of School 2009!

Today is K's last day of school! Her friend E spent the night Friday and they dyed T-shirts to wear the last day of school.


They made Mr. Man and I one as well.




Unfortunately, K spent the rest of the weekend coughing her head off, poor kiddo. Her temp is down, but she is still uber snotty and coughed most of the night. I would have let her sleep and kept her home, but she really wanted to go. You can't miss the last day!

Summer here we come!

Reducio Sock Swap: Goodies from Addykan!

I got my Reducio Sock Swap package!!! *happy dance* Addykan went above and beyond the call. K and I squeed with glee when we saw our package came all the way from Tipperary! It was all wrapped in orange tissue paper with a little note on each package

K and I made short work of that! Miss. Kitty helped of course.

Okay, first she sent the cutest tiny little sock, which she says is her first mini sock so she hopes “its OK.” OK… it’s brilliant!

She also included some cashmere in Ravenclaw book colors. Beautiful and so soft!

She made me a lovely pea green mini facecloth and soap “made in herbology lesson.”




And she included some Herbology note lets, a balm “from last terms herbology,” and a Cadbury Melts!

K, who is a huge Redwall fan, ran off with the Badger lip balm. The chocolate is mine!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Addykan, we loved it all!

Mad Eye Moody Dishcloth

I was bored and this just kinda happened

Makes me laugh every thing I use it.

We have been so busy lately! In a crafty sort of way!

We've been silent, but so, so busy lately. It's the end of the school year and K has had three performances already and one more to go. I just haven't had a moment to post, let alone breath or sleep.

The funniest thing we've made lately is a ball and chain. K had a costumed part in her schools Spring Concert, first time ever. She was a prisoner on a pirate ship, and she had two whole lines, with many words, and several minutes of acting and singing. And she had the tricky line, it went like this:

Stowaway: "No?!?"

Prisoners: "YES!"

Stowaway: "No?!?"

Prisoners: "YES!"

Stowaway: "No?!?"

Prisoners: "YES!"

Stowaway: "YES!?!?"

K: "No!"

Prisoners: "WHAT???"

K: Big Shrug

*Big laugh*

*proud mommy and daddy cheering*

Her performance went like clockwork, all the prisoners did a great job, and her teacher said she was fantastic!

K it turns out is a bit of a ham. And possibly slightly evil. She did a marvelous job of taunting the poor Stowaway, who I can never see without thinking of him as a tiny little 2ND grader dressed in jeans, white shirt, tie, scar, and robes at a costume contest. He was the best little Harry I've ever seen and played the part to perfection. K was Violet Incredible and he won first and she second prize. OK, I have to show a picture.

Too cute and she put together her own costume, from bits and pieces. Even made her own mask that magnetically clipped to the front of her glasses. Isn't she clever. Oh yes!

Anywho, naturally, as a prisoner, on a pirate ship, she needed a ball and chain. We checked Party City and the like, but alas, no ball and chains so, we made one. Fun foam strips, stapled into rings with the sharp bits covered with black Duck Tape for the chain and a small, slightly deflated playground ball covered with black fleece for the ball. Some torn strips of black cotton to tie it to her leg and there your have it, one Ball and Chain.

The chain was long enough that she could pick it up and carry it easily. The ball was not so light as to look bouncy, but not so heavy as to be cumbersome or hurt whomever she might want to hit with it. I understand a bit of that took place back stage. Overall, she loved it and it looked great.

And can't you just see the possibilities for the Half Blood Prince premiere. SQUEEEE!!!!

Thank you Pren!!!!

Gifties! Pren sent K and I each our own RAOK (Random act of kindness.) We each received a skein of Lionbran Recycled Cotton and a letter in our own envelope, separately in the mail. K LOVED that part. K's is Rose coral and mine is Pebble Beach and we can't wait for school to end to make something with them.

Thank you again Pren! You really made our day!