things to make after a storm

A couple of weeks ago here in the PNW, the clouds opened up and dumped eight to ten inches of snow on us, for the second time this season. It's simply unheard of in our area to get that amount of snow, and especially to have it last for more than a couple of days.

By midwest standards, I know this is laughable; I think most of us were in on the joke until an ice storm followed the heavy snowfall and started breaking stuff. Branches, limbs, and whole trees fell. Houses and cars were crushed. Streets were closed down. Pipes cracked or burst. Power was out in some areas here for several days. And even so, I know it never got as bad here as it did in, say, Slovenia the same week.

Still, though the temperatures have risen to the mid-50s this past week and we've returned to a rainy winter instead of a snowy one, signs of the storm remain. There are the lingering piles of snow in parking lots plowed in the wake of the storm. There are the rivers and lakes swollen and brown like coffee-with-milk. And there are, everywhere, still fallen branches and limbs and trees that Public Works crews and private tree services haven't gotten to yet. If I called it backlog, would the pun be out of place?

Anyway, I've collected here for you, readers, who may be similarly living in areas where trees have become sidewalk hurdles, a list of things to make and do with fallen timber. There should be no shortage of it for some of us for awhile to come.

* Log Stump Side Tables:
Oh Lovely Day
Ruffles and Truffles
Etsy - Sosikian Furniture

* Log Stump Stools:
Remodelista
Martha Stewart
Shelterness

* Branch Clothing Rack:
Convoluted State of Mind
The Art of Simple
Sugar and Cloth

* Branch Buttons:
Shrimp Salad Circus
Design*Sponge
Etsy - The Hickory Tree

* Tree Branch and Twig Trellises and Arbors:
Tara Dillard
Better Homes and Gardens
Vegetable Gardener

* Doll Furniture
One Inch World
Apartment Therapy
An Every Day Story

* Building Blocks
I Can Teach My Child
Everyday Art
Natural Pod.com

p.s. you can make any of these photos larger by clicking, but maybe you knew that already?

snow globe ornaments

To go along with the Paul Bunyan towelendars and some other things (to be discussed in my next post), I made these cute snow globe ornaments with tiny bottle brush trees and a ton of glitter (both opalescent and silver). I inserted the trees with long tweezers and attached them with hot glue.

I found the bottle brush trees and clear ornaments at Ben Franklin Crafts here locally, which turned out to have ample supplies of both after the other chain stores sold out (also better pricing than JoAnn).

I tried this with both plastic and glass ornaments, and each had some pros and cons.

Mainly, I had more problems with hot glue strings sticking all over the inside of the plastic bulbs, but this also meant that the trees were more secure once they were stuck in place.

The glass bulbs didn't have as many problems with glue strings sticking, but I also had more trees come loose from the bottoms of the bulbs. In addition, I had one glass ball break, so buy one or two extra if you have a set number of people on your gift list.

Again in the pro column (for me) is that the glitter is statically attracted to the inside of the glass, so there's a bit more of a "falling snow" effect on the sides of the glass ornaments than inside the plastic ornaments.

I finished these off with baker's twine loops and tags cut from wood veneer. I purchased a large piece (2 x 5 feet) of wood veneer at the recycled building store for $3, and it cut easily with kitchen scissors. To prevent ink from running in the grain, I drew the year on with pencil. As a bonus, it has a nice handmade look to it.

I'll link you here to my inspiration for this project, last year's Prep & Landing snow globe project from Disney's Family Fun Magazine. I ended up foregoing the bases and using bottle brush trees after seeing a few similar projects on Pinterest, and was happy with the decision. I think my additions of the twine and wood veneer tags are what make them really stand out as a nice tie-in to the Paul Bunyan tales though.

Did you put together any fun Christmas ornaments this year?

Thanks for reading!

p.s. Did I mention that you can make these photos larger just by clicking on  them? You probably already knew that, but I thought I'd mention it.

p.p.s. Did I also mention that I cut our cedar Christmas tree out of our yard this year, Clark W. Griswold style? Yeah, that totally happened.

snow!

You may have heard: we got a truckload of snow in my neck of the woods: close to eight inches, and record-low temperatures. So. Cold.

Day one, with snow falling hard:

Out for a walk. These days I always wonder, "will he remember this?" He's at that age. Snow melts, but memories start to stick.

The strangest thing about the snow is the way light acts in the middle of the night. I took this photo at 10 p.m. Everything is reflected. (That's another way the snow is like little kids, by the way.)

Thanks for reading.

snow day ? ! ?

Random snow day on the first day of spring. The sand boat was adrift.




More than six inches dropped overnight on the valley floor; very unusual for our area.




It was the kiddo's first real experience playing in the snow, and OMG, you never saw anyone who enjoys falling over as much as this kid does in the snow. The mister was excused from work, so we just played and loafed. It was kinda great.




If you got snow, too, I hope you escaped tree and building damage! Lucky us, knock on wood.


(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)

pajama pants from old pajama pants

My husband picked up a cute set of Nick and Nora flannel pajamas for me at Christmastime a few years ago, featuring flamingos and Airstream trailers in the snow. Loved them. I wore them even when it wasn't Christmas, even when it was early summer.




But, as happens with flannel, they wore out, wore through (in some places), and basically started looking kinda trashy. Considering that I wore something featuring both flamingos and trailers, you can imagine how bad I let these get before finally making that call.

With plenty of soft places left that remained hole-free, I thought these probably needed a second life as a pair of (much smaller) pajama pants for the bebe.

Using a pair of his existing pants as a pattern, I cut the shape of one leg from a part of the old pants. I cut the new leg on the old side seam, so that I'd have a little less sewing to do; the old leg's side seam became the new leg's side seam. I did the same thing for the second leg.




Here's a shot of the new pajama leg unfolded and spread out.




The next step was to fold it back over (this time with the patterned surfaces together), then stitch along the inside leg seam. That's the part that runs from the crotch to the cuff.




I used an overcast stitch on the first pass, then did a straight stitch to reinforce. I turned one leg right-side out, then tucked it into the other leg with edges matched up. This became the center seam, also overcast then straight stitched.




At last, I turned the entire pair of pants inside out, hemmed the cuffs, created a casing for the elastic, and finished them off, just in time for bed! The bebe loves them, and they're holding up well so far! Here's hoping for a nice second life for these pj's!


(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)


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