Hearts and Crafts weekend

The kids and I spent yesterday preparing for Valentine's Day - early for a change! Usually we have a mad dash at the end to make cards and it's a huge disaster. This year, in all our wisdom, we created the cards early so we just have to put names on them and sign them before delivery. Gunnar's valentines are shown above. Here are Annika's (yes, made by Mommy - she will decorate them):

There are a few of them stacked together. We made red and pink. She'll color the hearts and add the names. We had much fun with our Valentine production line. Now I have to figure out how to use all of the punched out hearts. Ideas?

The second photo above shows our seasonal display on the buffet in the entry. It shares many elements with the Christmas display, since the red Swedish candelabra and the white hobnail dishes work for both holidays. We bought the hearts on the garland at Ikea for 99 cents per box of 4. They're supposed to be for Christmas, but I think they're perfect for the Valentine decor. Here's another look.

The next project that was started this weekend (but not finished) was an Argosy scarf in the red yarn on the swift. It's Sweet Georgia Speed Demon sock yarn in Merlot. It's a beautiful, rich color of red that will be perfect for its mystery recipient. Here's a close up of the yarn. Progress shots later.
Last on the crafting front (so far - it's only 1:45 on Sunday!) is a skirt for Annika. She has decided that she hates jeans and she hates cords and she will only wear skirts. I put her in a really cute pair of jeans that I bought her for Christmas and she had a huge tantrum. "I look like a rock star in these jeans and that is NOT cool!!!!" Sigh. Being too lazy to go look for patterns, I broke out the measuring tape and the butcher paper and made a 2 piece pattern for an elastic waist A-line skirt. We found some white twill in the cupboard
 that was left over from some Ikea curtains 3 years ago that we used for the practice skirt. I didn't want to screw up fabric that I care about. A little bit of cutting, a little bit of sewing, and ta daaaa....
It's a little white skirt! I trimmed the hem with a pink white and green grosgrain ribbon so it wasn't so boring. I'm pretty pleased with the result, but next time I'll make it a little wider at the hem - this is a little on the narrow side for serious running and tree climbing. Of course, it's also white, so tree climbing would be a bad idea. I'm sure it'll be trashed in no time, but I'm happy with it as my first try. Now I need to do the same thing for me. You want to see another look or two? Okay, if you insist.


I hope everyone else had a productive weekend too.