Crafty Ambrose

I was looking through our family photos on the computer and noticing that we had a lot of crafty Ambrose pictures. I wish I would have thought to take a picture of ALL his crafts over the years, because it would be quite the overwhelming collection.

The boy loves trash.

Anytime I am about to throw out any empty box or container I have to hurry and do it before he notices or I will get in trouble.

"No Mama! I was gonna save that for a craft!" Is the most common phrase to come out of Ambrose's mouth after, "Sandwich please!"

Although I feel I am missing some of his truest masterpieces, here are a few I found recently:
Valentines- I did the cutting of coures cuz he was little little here

Homemade watch

Cardboard fort

Rocket with Mama's help

Some sort of alien gun?

iPhone. Duh.

Stilts- grandma cut the hole in the cans

Another rocket

A remote control car remote... one Mama's trash is truly his treasure.... frequently I will throw something away and find it like this later that day.

A paper "friend" named ROM...

He was jealous of his friend's Ironman toy so he made his own

Jack Skelington from Nightmare Before Christmas

He insisted we need personalized, decorated food trays for Family pizza and movie night

A robot factory... clearly. This is a combination of different days of trash and you should see his face when you happen upon him configuring something like this. SERIOUS. We could go through a roll of tape in a week and sometimes we do.

A family of finger puppets

Oh get ready for this one! A laptop computer with a mouse to go with it. I walked in on this delightful scene. I laughed for like 20 minutes with glee.



Oh and sad, he really wanted video games like all his cousins and I told him not until he's older so he fashioned this little gem and played on it all afternoon:


Kite

Bug jar with grandma and her Stampin' Up! supplies and a recycled jar of course.


Extremely intimidating robot (Daddy helped with cutting)

Oh, and a clock.

You get the idea. I could post at least one a day, but suffice to say, this child is a crafty beast. I am endlessly entertained.

nature: my fave

other current faves include:
thomas and his nature photography (see above)
ambrose
asher
birthday weekend extravaganza
ward camp week at the beach
oh yeah, beach
filling my house with tree images (yes, like the one above)
the new bike i'm getting belatedly from my parents and thomas. all i had to do was turn 26.
trying to get organized about teaching my sons (see side bar: mama school)
my friends
essential oils ("balance" and "wild orange" to be exact. makes me feel like a revitalized mother nature. i told you i'm psycho.)
planning our up-coming mainland take over! i mean trip.
a resurgence of mates of state love
a tall glass of cold water with 1/2 a fresh squeezed lemon in the morning
love wherever it is found
sneaking little moments on the computer to keep in touch
the book of mormon
seizing creative moments
lists. obviously.

dear diary,

A couple Thursday thoughts here.

Why does poor Asher have more fevers than anyone I've ever met. Fevers and other yucky stuff since Saturday night. That's right, even on his first birthday. Tragic. We have a urine test being processed right now and hope they can figure it out so we don't have to go back in for the blood one.

Don't get me wrong, I love the extra cuddles this misfortune affords me, but all the day-long lethargy, tears, and all-nighters of keeping nervous, sleepy vigil over my feverish boy are starting to take a toll on the family. And I just want my feisty, happy boy back!

Get better little one.

Ambrose is going stir-crazy too. But! We are going to Disneyland this summer and so I've been piling on the Disney movies via Netflix. How is he supposed to know just how magical Disneyland is if he doesn't know all the characters??? I'm just trying to get my money's worth here.

Have you watched Lady and the Tramp in a while?

Aside from the Siamese cat part making me feel embarrassed for Disney and like apologizing to Asians everywhere, the stylings of the house are AMAZING! I want all the large graphic "arts and crafts movement" (thank you Mel P) wallpaper, tile, and rugs rugs galore. I am well aware that it's just animation. But wow.

I feel the same way about Snow White though. That whole Eastern European vintage cottage in the woods look makes my heart sing. I think I got this from my mom.

I can't really find a good picture example, but you know what I mean right? Quilts, and carved wooden beds, and lots of forest creatures roaming around... and like, this kind of ribbon everywhere:

Anyway, this morning was Bambi and boy is that movie precious. I want the whole soundtrack. Nothing cuter than seeing Asher boy perk up for a few minutes and dance with a silly grin on his face to "drip drip drop little April showers..."

Oh! And society soul mates! Have you started your apron yet? I've gotten as far as realizing that I want to attempt my first made-up-by-myself pattern and improve an existing apron that I have. I love this one:

for it's almost full-body coverage, but want to improve upon it by making sure I can tie it at the waist like I have in the picture AND go to above my chest. When it's tied up now the apron strings go up much higher than my waist, which was cute when I was pregnant, but makes me look awkwardly pregnant now. Not so cute.

So, I searched through my scraps and came up with this:

An old curtain from Ambrose's room in the old house, a tiny scrap of some Japanese fabric I have saved every last shred of that may be just BARELY big enough for the torso part of the apron, some pinstripe denim that I cut out for a baby bag that never was for the waist band, and some olive solid scraps from a backpack I made for the straps around the neck. Oh, and some hippo IKEA fabric scraps from Ambrose's party favors when he turned two for a pocket.

All cut out.

Waiting for me to get the guts to execute my made-up pattern.

I really don't want to mess up so I am just letting them sit there.

Maybe until the night before we all get together at the end of the month.

But hopefully before.

Welp, I think this concludes this long diary post. I don't want to waste all of Asher's nap, but it sure feels good to dwell on something silly for a couple of minutes. I'm gonna go watch those gosh-awful Siamese cats with Ambrose and maybe even eat some more bread from our brand new bread maker!

Shout out to Thomas Robertson for doing some research and buying an affordable, yet awesome one. Did you know this thing can make bread (duh), all kinds of dough, including pasta dough, and jam! Let's hope I don't gain 100lbs. exploring all the options, but I'm excited to get all homemade up in here.

Aloha!

so much fun. everywhere.

I think I blog more when I'm feeling inspired!

First of all, I have been listening to massive amounts of Birds, Beaks, and Bones by Quail and I would have a song from that album playing but it's one of those super cool indie albums that can only be found at the source. You can be in on the secret too. Order it straight from Marty today!

Next, I have so many cool crafty friends. Thanks for being so amazing y'all. You give me a lot to shoot for.

And then of course there was the little mixer last night:









You like my hair pretty? Katie made it. She's Pretty Swell if you didn't already know. Thanks Katie friend!

We came up with some great ideas:
-of course you already know about our society apron challenge. I hope you're cutting out fabric and getting that machine fired up!

-Katie and Becky have some great etsy support and workshop ideas we will do in Hawaii and then post about for all society members to take part in

-Echo and I are getting a fabric swap fired up

-I have a sewing music mix swap idea in the works for all society members near and far...stay tuned!

And so much more. It's fun to be surrounded by creativity.

Finally, I have a big goal to figure out Thomas' fancy pants camera this summer so I can take better pictures of my kids when they are doing awesome things while daddy is at work. All those magical everyday moments. I'm gonna work on it big time this summer and post good results for the grandparents and auntys as they hopefully happen.

Life is too amazing to be trapped in a dull, uninspiring routine. Do something magical today! Make something beautiful even if it isn't the best out there. I am not great at anything crafty, but I keep plugging along because it make me so happy and it's in my nature. Happiness is your heritage too. Go chase your inspiration down and let it take over!

get ready to be inspired

Remember my ridiculously talented BFF Diana?

You know, of Yan Photography?

Well, she's putting on a workshop, wait no, HEARTSHOP they are calling it, with none other than thee Becky Earl! What an amazing, powerful duo!

The minute I heard about it I clickity clicked all over that link to see if they would be doing it while we are on the mainland this summer and alas, they are not. It's June 4th and 5th (come on ladies, wanna push it back a month and a half later??)

Oh and the schedule is so AMAZING! A campfire? Really guys? That's enough to make me want to look for flights.

Fly me out Yan and Becky! I'll model a shoot for you. It can be, like, a learning experience for your attendees: how to shoot someone awkward, and let's face it, not really photogenic. Whaddaya say? Anyone? Bueller?

Anyway, browse around the workshop site if you live anywhere near Utah and I think you'll get as excited as me and lucky you- you live in driving distance if you are anywhere on the mainland.

Here's some of their recent work:
YAN-





I had to stop myself- I could have picked like every photo from her blog she's so dang good. AH!
and we can't forget Becky Earl-





Is anyone freaking inspired yet?

I also love how it is a workshop about getting back to the art that you love and making it shine. It just seems like two days packed with brilliance and positivity. I so want to be there and I am not even a photographer!

Please attend this heartshop and then call me and tell me all about it. I'll be jealous, but happy. :)