- I recently won a blog contest. I. Won. Shocking really, since I never win anything. I’m very unlucky. And it wasn’t just one prize, but 8 awesome prizes from great Etsy/indie craft shops. It was better than Christmas! Especially for a girl who has that whole “mommy shopping martyr” thing down. “No, don’t worry about getting anything for me, just buy for Daphne. No, don’t buy me anything for Valentine’s Day. I don’t need anything. Blah, blah.” And I rarely buy anything for myself. One of the prizes was a $25 gift certificate to Pink Loves Brown, and I plan on ordering a custom stationery set. Doesn’t this have my name written all over it? Well, it will once I order it.

- My Flickr pro account expired and I had planned on renewing it in February. I found out today that because I don’t have a pro account, I can only view the last 200 photos I’ve uploaded. WHAT!?!?! That’s insane! Very, very, VERY irritating.

- Last Sunday, Masterpiece Classic aired a new version of Jane Austen’s Emma. It was awesome!! Clearly the best traditional adaptation of Emma I’ve seen. (Clueless is still my favorite.) The only distracting bit? Emma had some facial expressions that reminded me of BSG’s Starbuck (Katee Sackoff). Anyway, catch part two this weekend. Or you can watch online.

- I’m ready for LOST!!! Hurry up Tuesday!

- If you are on Facebook, you might have seen the “Change your profile picture to your celebrity doppleganger” thing going around. I have a few things to say about that. #1- some of you are dreaming!!! You wish you looked like a supermodel (hehe, just kidding)! #2- Hubs asked me who he looked like, so I told him- a mix of George Stephanopoulos, the Dog Whisperer guy (when he has a tan and a goatee), Tom Cruise, and Chris added this one… Curious George. Bwahahaha! He went with George Stephanopoulos, which looks a lot like his senior picture.

- The one thing I really wanted to get Daphne for Christmas, but wasn’t able to, was an American Girl Bitty Twin. Couldn’t justify $95 for 2 dolls, and didn’t have time or reason to drive all the way to Dallas to the AG store to buy one single doll. But it’s definitely on my list of things I want to buy for her this year. I realize there are a lot of AG haters out there, but after buying a Fisher Price bitty twin knock off at Costco, I’m done with buying cheap, crappy dolls. Poor Daphne’s Sweet as Me doll has the worst hair. Like it was electrocuted. Everyone who sees it comments on it. “What happened to your doll’s hair?” Ooops! I think it looked like this for about 3 seconds:

And when I do get her a new doll (and trash that sad FP doll), I’m going to make them matching ModKid outfits. Cute, huh? Maybe for her birthday.

Enjoy your weekend!

If you’ve been reading along, you know I was asked to do a crafty workshop at a womens event last weekend. At first, I was all enthusiastic. Yeah! I’d love to do it! And then it hit me, what was I going to talk about? And since a Make & Take project was involved, I needed something that everyone could do, regardless of skill level, in a very short amount of time. Like my talking time and the crafting time was 40 minutes total. So I decided to focus on felt, since it was versatile and easy to work with. We discussed some different kinds of felt, I presented a lot of ideas (too many ideas probably!) for kids projects, accessories, and home decor and then finished up with a felt rose pin project for Valentine’s Day. It went over pretty well. Here are some of my favorites:

Coffee Sleeve/Cozy. Clearly the easiest project I’ve ever done. Ha!

I just felted a 100% wool sweater, cut off the sleeve cuff and slid it on a disposable coffee cup. Since the sweater was already felted, you don’t have to worry about finishing the cut edge. And the buttons were already there, so I didn’t even need to embellish. I also did a similar cozy out of a red felted sweater. A His and Hers coffee date set.

And using the same felted sweater, here’s a little nest pin from a pattern by Betz White.

I love birds, and this was another super easy project. Just cut and glue. I was under a time crunch and didn’t have the opportunity to felt my own little eggs, so I just had to use cheapo tiny plastic eggs from Hobby Lobby. I think this would make a cute spring package topper, or napkin ring. Or maybe have a little nest sitting at each place setting on your Easter table.

Same idea, just bigger. This wreath is for my mom.

Just wrapped a silk/mohair blend yarn around a foam wreath base and added the felted wool nest. Very easy!

And another really easy project, that would make a great Mom’s Day present (or for Grandma!), a custom silhouette.

The hardest part of the project was getting Daphne to stand still for a profile shot, then I just used that picture as a pattern to cut out my wool blend felt. And this pic really sucks, the reflection in the center makes the felt look like it’s faded. It’s not. I was too lazy to Photoshop it out.

And you might have noticed Daphne’s headband in the last post.

That was just a simple child’s size Goody headband with a scrap of ribbon glued to the top. I used Yoonie At Home’s Peony tutorial for the flower, and vintage enameled flower pieces and a pearl for the center.

And I needed something to wear in my hair, so here’s my headband.

The flower is from Heather Bailey’s Le Fleur Debris pattern. The center is one of my mom’s vintage clip on earrings. Black Headband- $0.75 at Forever 21. Gotta love Forever 21 for cheap headbands.

And last, but certainly not least (since I had to cut out 50 of these babies), the felt rose Make & Take project.

I’ll be glad to scan in and upload this pattern if there’s any interest. I had to draw about a million scalloped felt spirals to get a flower shape I was happy with. This is a really easy project, just roll and glue.

I did a bunch of other projects, but that’s all I can bear to look at right now. I’m on felt overload. Taking a crafty break until February, when I start sewing for Daphne.

So, my crafty friends… what are you working on?

There have been so many potential blog posts that have simply fallen through the cracks over the last few months. I’ve been busy. But it’s been running around in circles busy, not accomplishing things busy. So, here’s what you missed.

- In December, my little sister had a healthy baby boy. His name is Oliver and he’s the cutest little ball of baby chub you ever saw. And at 6 weeks (or is it 7 now), he weighs the same as Daphne at 10 months old. He’s a big boy!!!!

- Got my hair cut recently. It’s shorter than it’s been in months, between shoulder and collar bone. Lots of layers. Cute, but as I feared, my suddenly curly locks are even springier. I have two problems. Well, make that three. Problem #1- My CHI sucks. My mom has an older style CHI that survived being bashed against her car window when she was stuck in the flood last year. Her CHI still works better than mine. Mine just doesn’t straighten as well. And just a little trivia. Did you know Mr. CHI, Farouk Shami, is running for governor here in TX? Problem #2- I have no patience to sit and section out my thick hair to flat iron. So, I end up doing a decent job on the sides and then skimp on the back. Problem #3- I live in Houston, TX in a humid sub-tropical climate. And for the first time this weekend, my somewhat straightened hair (I had hot rolled it just to smooth it out) started to curl on me since it was humid out. And the funny thing? It wasn’t even August humid. You know, the humidity that makes the air feel like a swamp. It was just a little humid. My bangs started to wing out and curl on the ends. Oh boy. This hair thing is rocking my world. I repent from all the years in my youth spent perming and teasing my hair to get that 80’s style. Curly hair sucks. Please let me have my straight hair back. Please.

- After my marathon crafting session last week for my workshop, I’m taking a break until at least February. If I see another piece of felt, I might barf. Eventually I’ll do a post of some of my recent projects, because I did have a lot of fun making things out of a few felted wool sweaters. Easy and cute!

- While I’m on the topic of my workshop… I taught three classes. My public speaking skills have improved slightly since ‘95, but not much. Hahaha! And let’s just ponder for a moment why I can remember that the last presentation I had to give was in my Women in Contemporary Art class (on Faith Ringgold) back at OU in ‘95 and yet I can’t remember my own stinking zip code when the Michael’s cashier asks me at checkout. Cashier- “What’s your zip code?” Me- “Um. Zip code? What’s a zip code?” My mind goes blank. Once I rattled off something that was a hybrid of my TX, AL and old OK zip codes. Did you know I was once a card carrying member of Mensa? No really, I still have the card. Not that you could tell if you met me now. I’m such a dingbat.

There’s more, but it’s potty training week here in the Denbow house and I have to get back to Daphne. Until next time…

Before Christmas, we considered putting a kiddie camera on Daphne’s wish list. Now, every photography forum and website I’ve ever looked at has told me not to bother with those crappy little cameras, and just get your kid a cheap point & shoot. Considering we have lots of cameras just sitting in storage, we decided to go ahead and let her play with our old Olympus.

I was a little concerned that she wouldn’t be able to work it. But, she hasn’t had any problems. She LOVES it! All she wanted to do was shoot, then look at her picture. Totally chimping. That’s OK, her mommy is a reformed chimper. If that’s even a word.

As of this afternoon, Daphne has her own Flickr account. Digital Daphne. It’s Friends and Family only, but I’ll be sharing a few of her images occasionally.

Mommy’s car, AKA “The Toaster”

Her toes

Tree (I know, these aren’t very exciting. Sorry)

Toys

Not bad for a two year old, I think. Photoshop is next. Ha!

I’m currently taking a short break from my weekend crafty workshop preparations- sewing, freezer paper stenciling, felting sweaters, and cutting out 50 felt roses for our Make & Take project. Whew!! So why not post some recent pics of Daphne.

It’s been in the mid 70’s this week. We even had to turn the air conditioner back on. After our “cold” snap a few weeks ago, it was nice to pull out the capris and sandals again. Here’s our girl, taking her new trike for a spin around the block. Actually, she got her foot stuck while trying to get on the stupid thing and decided she wanted nothing more to do with the trike that day. Ahh, toddlers…

But at least she was able to show off her cute toes. She actually let my mom paint her toe nails.

Then we walked around the block. Daphne wasn’t feeling it. See her “Can we just go HOME Mommy?” look.

And one more from this week. Daph on the slide. I know everyone thinks that Daphne is dressed up all the time, but that’s so not true. Sometimes I let her go out looking like a little hobo. Here she is in ivory shoes, white socks, brown yoga capris, purple shirt and a pink and blue Matilda Jane jacket. Nothing matches, and not in a cute eclectic way.

She’s still cute though.

Daphne is now 28 1/2 months old, for those of you out there keeping track, hehe. In most ways, she’s your typical two year old. Talking better every day, exerting her independence, throwing a few tantrums. We constantly look at her and wonder how she got to be such a big girl.

While I’m on the subject of being a big girl, my mother DVR’d part of a holiday special from a local Baptist megachurch when she noticed the soloist looked A LOT like Daphne, just fast forward a few years. The eyes are a bit different, but otherwise she could be Daphne as a tween. Here’s the video. I apologize for the sucky “trying to record off the TV” quality:

Ah, what a sweet little girl. And a little freaky, huh? Especially if you scroll down to my post with Daphne’s 2 yr photos and compare. Daphne just loves watching and singing along with this clip.

Let’s see, what else is going on? I mentioned Daphne’s love of Kai-Lan. Today she actually told me “thank you, Mommy” in Chinese to try and sweet talk me into getting her a Kai-Lan hoodie that was on clearance. She can count to ten, knows right and left, all her shapes and colors, and most of her colors in Spanish as well. We are currently working on her ABCs. She calls them the BBCs and I’d say can only recognize about half of them. We have some ABC flash cards with animal pictures, and she looks at each card, identifies the animal and then looks at the upper and lower case letters underneath and says, “BBCs!” So it’s “Cat and the BBCs (Cc)”, “Lion and the BBCs (Ll).” Yeah, that’s not quite right.

Daphne had a little cold a few weeks ago and started waking up in the middle of the night, wanting to be brought into our bed. Now, I realize this is a dangerous thing to start, but considering she isn’t a very cuddly child, I took the opportunity to snuggle with her. She’d wake up each morning, look at me and say “Hi Mommy!!” like seeing me just made her day.

I have GOT to get her hair professionally cut. It’s looking crazy right now. Just not sure if I want to try my own stylist, or one of those places that cater only to kids. Suggestions? And her hair is so thick. I think her pony tail is about as thick as mine.

I love being able to carry on a conversation with her. And whenever I leave the room and come back, she fills me in on what I missed. Or she’ll come up to me and tell me that “Daddy went night-night” or explain what is going on in her Dora episode. She’s not a chatty girl, so I cherish those moments.

7 1/2 months until her 3rd birthday and I’ve already started planning. We are having an Alice in Wonderland tea party theme, which I wanted to do for her 1st and 2nd, but just didn’t think she’d get it. With the movie coming out, and all the awesome AIW finds on Etsy, I’m hoping I can pull off a really amazing party.

Up next in Daphne-land? Potty Training! Wish me luck…

January is my least favorite month. The combo of the post Christmas let down, crappy weather and usual cold and flu season makes for a depressing month, in my opinion.

I’ve chosen to fight the January blahs by being crazy busy. Insanely busy. Too busy to be posting on the blog right now. Ha!

Currently working on:

- Website design for a special sermon series at the church we attend. Hubs and I thought we had ironed out all the bugs, until this morning when we started to get reports that the header image was being cut off. Unfortunately, NONE of our 4 computers at home could duplicate this. We chose to create a static site using Wordpress, and I think our theme is flaky. I’ve been tweaking the CSS & HTML all day and I’m ready to pull my hair out. Hopefully it’s fixed. I’ve run the site through browsershots.org and it looks OK in all browsers/operating systems. Next step, either new theme or I’ll have to create a site in Dreamweaver, I guess. Dreamweaver will be my last resort, because it’s been a few years since I’ve worked with it and I’m not entirely confident I can embed the necessary media. Nothing like flying by the seat of your pants. I will say, that after January is over I need to totally redesign my blog. No excuses now with the amount of time I’ve spent sifting through the Wordpress forums this week.

- Getting ready for my crafting workshop next week. Making up samples, drafting the Make & Take pattern. Not stressing out yet. That will be next week.

- Need to get my college applications in, and figure out if I still have my FAFSA pin#. I know I’ll be applying to the University of Houston, but haven’t figured out what my second option will be.

- I’m ridiculously behind on my correspondence. Lots of emails to answer.

- And I’m trying to do all of this while chasing my 2 year old. She’s suddenly decided that I need to be involved in all her daily activities. Like at the park… “Mommy’s turn to slide?” I can’t sit at the park bench and wave anymore. Or, “Come here Mommy!” as she leads me to her room, or the pantry. She’s hilarious.

Up next? A Daphne update.

Until then…

As I was going through my Google Reader today, I came across several posts that made me say to myself, “You know, I’ve never tried/seen that. Hmm.” Like, normal things. Things you take for granted that everyone has experienced. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing. When I found out my husband had never watched Gone With the Wind, we sat down and watched it one night. After the final scene, Chris turns to me and says, “You mean I sat through that entire movie and THAT’S how it ends???!!” Hahaha.

Anyway, I started to make a mental list of my “nevers”. Here’s just a few:

- I’ve never seen the Godfather (or any of the sequels), Goodfellas, The Sopranos, Scarface. Not a mob movie fan.
- I’ve never watched a single episode of CSI. 10 years and one of the most watched shows. Meh.
- This one is a little more surprising to me, since it’s more my taste, I’ve never seen an episode of X-Files.
- I’ve never tried Nutella. I’m pretty sure I would love it, though.
- I’ve only watched one season of American Idol, but only because my husband was Ruben Studdard’s boss before he went on to AI stardom.
- I didn’t start watching Sex and the City until after the series finale.
- This isn’t necessarily a never, but I don’t get the Seinfeld hype. I’ve seen a handful of episodes. Don’t get it. I think they are really, really annoying. But I adore Arrested Development, which is another show about quirky, unlikeable characters. And proof of how much AD has invaded my psyche, 2 sentences ago I originally typed annoying as annyong.

Do you have a list?

Happy Palindrome Day!

Chris and I had the opportunity to get away by ourselves for a few hours while Daphne went to the movies with her cousins and grandparents. Woo hoo!!! We started out by going to lunch with friends at Lankford’s Grocery.

You might have seen it featured on Guy Fieri’s show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on Food Network. Chris & I used to love to go to little hole in the wall places to eat, but that gets harder to do when you have a kid.

After a brief trip through the Rice area, we went thrifting in Montrose. I was trying to find a few cheap 100% wool sweaters for felting/crafting purposes and totally hit the jackpot at Goodwill. Doesn’t it make your week when you find exactly what you were looking for? That hardly ever happens for me.

Then off to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to renew our yearly membership (thanks Mom!) and check out the new contemporary Korean art exhibit. Interesting. I’m going to go back to see if there really was a person in the giant bunny costume. And was there really a family in the other set of animal costumes? I also had to briefly listen to the “You call that art!” rant from Chris. If you ever go to a museum with me, please refrain from saying things like that, or “My 2 year old could do the same painting.” I will probably tell you to shut the hell up. Playfully, of course.

Then it was photo walk time. Every place we considered (Hermann Park, Rice Village, downtown) was packed. No parking. Complete insanity. Not to be deterred, I just started taking pics from the passenger seat of the car.

Hello, husband!

Chris shaved his goatee off recently and it’s freaking me out. Not that you can tell from this pic, because he didn’t shave this morning. Give him another day and he could completely grow it back. I don’t really love facial hair on men, but for some reason like my husband better with the goatee.

A fake tree in the Museum District. Hmmm…

And my artsy shot of the day. I call it Nuclear Blast. Or more accurately Not Paying Attention to Metering and Exposure on the Old D90.

Hey, Jen, take a pic of the Mexican Consulate. Oops, missed it.

And hey, Joel Osteen. *cough, false prophet, cough* Hehe.

And one more. I call this Whatchu Talkin Bout Willis?

So, yeah. Photo walk was a bust. But we still had a really nice day!