Bedtime Story Sweater Pillows

Now that all the kids in my family have opened their Christmas presents, I can show you my favorite sweater pillows that I made--I call them bedtime story sweater pillows.  I got the idea from my little owl pillow that has a pocket on the back. I'm not sure what the pocket is supposed to be for because it's so small (maybe a tooth for the tooth fairy?), but it got me to thinking about pockets and what else I could use one for on a pillow, and I came up with a pocket for a book. Kids always love to have special little places, little compartments for things, and I thought it would be a good spot for a favorite book. I made 12 of them, each with a bookmark, and here are a few of my favorites. Time to snuggle up with a book!

PS. Thanks for your comments about my blog woes!  They made me feel better.  For now, I'll keep doing what I've been doing, but maybe soon I'll have a new look for my blog.

What do you think?

I was hoping to have a new look for my blog for 2010, but now I'm not sure what to do. I wanted to do something different, just to change things up and make it look fresh and stand out a little. I wasn't planning on changing my banner, but maybe re-arranging the categories, or taking some off. I'd really like a 3 column blog, too. But I haven't actually even started because I've been in a bit of a blog funk. I'm just not sure what direction it should take, so I thought I'd see if you have any suggestions. I started my blog to share general things I like, things I do, and places I go, but those are broad topics which can be all over the place. Sometimes people email me wanting to see more family pictures (pictures of Lois) but Andrew often tells me that if I want to write about family, I should have a separate blog for that. I want to take more pictures in stores and write reviews, but I don't know that that should be mixed with our family adventures or Lois updates. Then again, I'm not sure that I have time to keep up with two blogs. I know a lot of people do it, but I'm not sure if I would. Also, sometimes I feel I'm just talking to myself here, and I've thought about not writing my blog at all anymore. So tell me what you think. What kinds of posts do you like to read most? Is there anything you want to see more or less of? I'm sensitive so go easy on me!

PS. The picture above is from a farmer's market in Zurich.  I loved seeing that one yellow tulip among the rest.  It almost looks like it's Photoshoped, but it was really one yellow tulip in the bunch.  

Christmas Dinner

We had a great little family Christmas!  It was the first time it was just the 3 of us, and it was really relaxing and fun.  Lois got a lot of great toys and books, and she even got her first bike, a Skuut! She won't be riding it for a while, but we all still love it.

We also had a great Christmas dinner.  One of our guests was our friend, Mark, a rabbi, so we had a kosher Christmas dinner! To start we had cheese, olives, and our friend Doug's homemade quince paste.  We drank prosecco with pomegranates and Jason's homemade eggnog. We ate short ribs with pearl onions, polenta, roasted cauliflower, and a salad. Then we ate delicious thumbprint cookies for dessert.  Great food; great friends. Christmas was a success!

And thanks, Lisa, for letting me borrow your great votive holders! They helped to make everything merry and bright. 

Festive Breakfast with Lisa

This morning we had Lisa over for a yummy breakfast.  She'll be with family for Christmas, so we wanted to see her before Christmas and thought a festive breakfast this week would be fun.  Also, Lisa is re-opening her shop, The Pickled Hutch, in Pacifica, so we wanted to celebrate.  Andrew made yummy waffles, poached eggs, and bacon.  It was delicious!  I used our leaf-etched, platinum-rimmed china, my favorite star etched glasses, some of my favorite blown glass salt and pepper shakers (I collect salt and pepper shakers), and some cute tea cup embroidered napkins.  I liked the contrast of the fancy plates with the casual napkins. Here are a few pictures of what's in our tummies now. It was nice to have a real breakfast, at the table, and with a good friend.

Fun with Bokeh

A while back I read about bokeh, a blurring effect that's especially interesting when it takes on a particular shape (at least that's how I understand it, though, specifically it might be more involved). I think this is a fun photography 101 sort of experiment--it's easy and very satisfying. I had seen some flickr images of the effect a while back but wasn't sure exactly how to achieve it.  Andrew sent me a link this week with instructions on how to create this cool effect. You can read them here. It was so easy!  Basically, you just create a filter with a shape in the center that covers your lens.  Once you place it over the lens, you open the aperture all the way, as far as you can (setting it to the lowest f number), point your camera at some nice lights (Christmas lights are especially great), and that's about it!  Well, I think it's important, too, to put your lens on manual focus so you can adjust the blurring effect as you look through the lens.  I made 4 filters: one star, one heart, one angel, and one tree, which I cut out with an x-acto knife.  I have some fun shape punches, but they wouldn't reach to the center.  Cutting them out by hand just took a few minutes though.  It was really fun.  Here are a some of my favorites!  And here again are the instructions. Wee!

My Little Elf

Lois, the helpful elf, designed our wrapping paper this year. It's a good thing, too, because I've been a little behind this year and wasn't sure what I'd do for my wrapping. I always like something fun and creative, so I got out a few rolls of kraft paper and some crayons, and with some scribbles here and there, me and Lois made our wrapping paper. We tied the packages with gold raffia ribbon adorned with mismatched buttons, and wrote gift tags using scraps of vintage wrapping paper. Most of our packages are on their way to loved ones, so now I have to get back to wrapping so our little tree doesn't look so lonely!

Peaceful Thinking

The countdown is on!  I still have sooo much to do before Christmas. I'm not the type of person who shops throughout the year to be finished by Halloween, or has all her shopping done before Thanksgiving, with gifts wrapped and waiting in the closet.  Not me.  I wait till 2 weeks before to shop!  Well, this year we did.  I've also been making a lot of sweater pillows for all the little people in our family, and I'm a bit under the wool here.  My determination to finish these, and lack of much time to do so (just spent 15 minutes cleaning squished banana out of a sisal rug), has made me feel behind in other things, like shopping for presents!  The pillows are presents, but just little ones for the kids so everyone else needs presents.  Our families are small, so gift buying really isn't that overwhelming or crazy expensive, so I'm not complaining here about gifts, etc.  I like Christmas and gift-giving.  But sometimes I need a reminder to chill.  We went for a walk around the neighborhood the other night, and I saw this little entryway that I loved. An otherwise inconspicuous entry, calling for attention with its festive, bright lights and red ornaments.  It's so pretty and simple and peaceful. I'll keep it in mind today as I wrap the first of our gifts.

Looks a lot like Christmas

This year we have our very first real Christmas tree as a little family! In the past we've put up 2 very small synthetic trees, in part because we're usually away from home for Christmas, and because we don't have a whole lot of ornaments.  The little trees have always been nice, but I was hoping for a real tree this year.  About two weeks ago, though, I pulled out the ornament box, and well, it didn't have many ornaments in it.  It was a very small box, much smaller than I was expecting.  I've been collecting ornaments here and there the last few years to build up an amount that might fill a tree, but I still didn't have very many (I swear some are missing because I feel pretty certain we have a lot more).  So I told Andrew that maybe we'd wait till next year to have a tree. I like to pick ornaments one at a time, or a few at a time at the flea market, or get them on sale at Anthropologie after Christmas. So I decorated the two little trees and called it a day. I packed up the rest of the cute ornaments and put them back in their box to be stored until next year, which made me a little sad because we're staying home this year.  I was sad, that is, until Andrew walked in door with a Christmas tree!!

He was wearing a big o'l smile, ear to ear, a smile so big and one I've only seen on him a few times.  He smiles a lot, but I'm talking Joker big.  He was so excited to bring home a tree.  He said we have to have a tree for Lois's first Christmas (well technically her second, but she was just tiny last year, and we weren't here for Christmas anyway).  We put the tree in the stand, and I got out our little ornament box and decorated the tree.  It looks so beautiful.  I love it!  It doesn't even really matter that the ornaments are a little sparse--with some tinsel, candy canes, and christmas cards stuffed in the tree (a family tradition), it looks just right.  And I think I'll go to the flea market this weekend to see if I can find a few more vintage ornaments.

I took these pictures with our new camera and lens, not my iPhone for a change.  The camera is awesome!  Initally I took a few pictures and thought they were pretty good.  I put them on my computer and made some adjustments in Lightroom.  Later, though, I checked out Greg Miller's blog when I was doing a few minutes of blog reading.  He's one of my favorite photographers, and I'm always so impressed with his pictures.  I saw on his blog that he just posted about decorating his tree. I love the pictures, and decided I should have another go at mine. My post inspiration pictures are much better, I think, than my first attempt.

We don't have many Christmas presents yet, but the best thing under the tree yesterday was a cutie named Lois, all wrapped up in her Christmas dress. As usual it was hard getting pictures of her, but this one turned out pretty well and is one of my favorites.  I love how her arm is showing and still looks really chubby.

After all that work, some hot chocolate with whipped cream was in order.  It was a festive afternoon.