Wishing you a spooky fun Halloween to all of you! We finally carved the giant pumpkin and I’m feeling rather festive.

Have an spooky and wonderful night!

xoxo

sarah

Hello!

Well, today is the big day. SO big in fact, that the web decided to explode on me and leave me without being able to access visibility to my blog! I had to have a friend (who also stays up in the night to make things!) to post this for me. Crazy world. I’m sure I’ll have access later today….but I couldn’t launch this site without giving you a formal introduction!

So, say “Hello!” to this new little space! 

It’s saying “Hello” back. Just so you know.

There is so much to share, that I can’t really do it all in one post. So, I’m going to let you play the “I spy with my little eye” game, and tell me what you see that is NEW! New product, new options…it’s all there. I’d love to hear what you think!

I’ll be posting about all the new features and goodies over the next few days!

Now just for reference, cause I know you’ll ask, the shop on my website is in addition to my ETSY shop, which I love and care for deeply. This new shop can just offer more things that I think you’ll be happy with!

And…dun dun dun…we’re launching this party with a big fat 15% sale on your whole order! Just this week. Enter code “SJGRAND15″ and you’ll be all set!

So…I’m signing off to let you play around. You’ll notice a few little links that may not work, but like I said. Minor explosion. Men at work.

Have fun looking around! 
xo
sarah

This news is so important to me, I thought it merited a blog post!

I’ve been shifting around my pricing and shipping rates for my shop a lot this past summer, all with the intention to help us both out! I need to make money, and you need to save money! We’re all in this together.

I think I’ve settled on a good deal. And I hope this is something to your liking! Cards and small items will always be less than $5.95 in shipping, but you’ll never have to pay more than that.

(Please note…this is only for orders within the USA. We’re currently working on making all international orders as economical as possible, so bear with us!)

Happy Weekend, and happy October! I’m off to making more art…there’s always a brewing project around here, and this weather makes me wildly creative! You?

Signing off…

xo

sarah

I’m wanting to keep sharing some of the influential books from my childhood, and to do that I can’t leave out songbooks!

I grew up with music, books, pictures, and art all around me as a child.  My mother was a passionate picture book lover, and to this day won’t let me keep some of my favorites as a child. But this book (probably because she doesn’t play the piano any more) is one she did hand down.

The Great Song Book edited by Timothy John and illustrated by the legendary Tomi Ungerer.

Gorgeous art. I think I was 12 before I realized that Bethlehem didn’t actually look like that magical snow covered German village. That’s how much I believed in these illustration!

I love that this is a song book with the music right there to play for your children. We use this book all the time, and I love teaching them these old forgotten songs.

Do you have books that have been passed down from your childhood? What are you favorites?

**And on the news front, check out this fun award mentioned on Babble. I guess according to their ranks, I’m one of the top 50 ETSY moms this year, placing 2nd in the Artist category! Check it out here.  So flattering as I know there are so many amazing moms on ETSY. Thank you Babble.com!**

I’ve been thinking of small things lately. Small little people. Small acts of kindness. Small carrots and other not-so-ready-to-be-picked items from our garden occasionally make it inside the house. All with the “Oops! Sorry, Mom” look on my kids faces.

Giveaway entries however were NOT so small! Thanks so much for spreading the word about the new things in the shop….really. It means so much! And since there are so many facebookers and tweets to collect, I’ll be posting winners tomorrow.

Love to you all! Happy Monday!

Wonderfully handmade loveliness is just starting to come in on the handmade front with Children at Play.

Quilt Story designed this quilt pattern around the Playhouse and  Meadow line of Children at Play, and they turned out so darling! When I designed this line, I wanted to have the images useable for applique and fussy cuts too…so this was so fun to see!

You can get the pattern from their site here.

Do you have pictures you want to share? Hop on over to my Flickr Group here and here. I know it’s early on…but I can’t wait to see what you design! And send me a note too…I’d love to see them!

xo

sarah

So I texted my husband this afternoon with the usual: “Hey Hot Boy. See you soon. PS: Can you take over when you get home from work? Deadlines.”

“Sure. No Biggie”

“Oh, and can you do dinner & bedtime? xoxoxo?”

“You got it.”

My husband is a school teacher, and is always home before dinner, which is so nice! He leaves at the break of dawn however, and so I’m hardly alive to even mention the usual reminders.

But he is so good about coming home and playing with the kids for an hour while I play catch up in the studio. I work at night when the kids go to bed, and I don’t do the late-nighter thing very well (although that’s what usually happens.)

So…..

Let me preface this by saying that the past few times I asked him to watch the kids and have him make dinner and do bedtime, this is what happened:

He ended up going to the thrift store and purchasing an original 1970′s-ish Clip Clop for the back patio. He started small.

And then it was the tree swing, complete with climbing 50 feet into our backyard locust and sawing down branches while the kids waited for their cue to yell, “TIMBER!!”

Then it was the teeter-totter that was built in the empty space in our deck supports made with a palette, a left over fence board, and some cut up branches from said tree swing.

Most of the time, it’s working on a new project in the garden. Which is always a huge hit.

And then last week, it was a zip line from our mostly-dead cherry tree at the top of the hill, to a locust beneath.

Remember: this is all in response to “Can you watch the kids, make dinner and put them to bed?”

And today’s babysitting activity?

Oh, you know. Just building a platform for them to zip from. No biggie.

Just some power tools that he always seems to have in his back pocket. I mean, don’t you?

Some oh-so-coveted-snacks for the Princess to keep her occupied away from said power tools.

And Voila! A safe place for feet with nothing fancy…but left overs in the garage after building the booth for Quilt Market.

And one…..

….two…

…three…

….Oh, ya….

So there you go. All my worrying that having to work on my “art” while the kids are with Dad somedays is all in vain. They got so excited this afternoon…and when they get excited, they get super cuddly.

But you know, who’s taking all these pictures? Me. How am I supposed to get any work done when they get to have all the fun? I still don’t know.

Pretty soon our backyard will be Disneyland made from scraps around the yard. Just you watch. Man…if I stopped designing in the afternoons, these kids would have a pretty boring back yard.

Actually, no. Instead, the new tree platform would just have curtains, floor pillows, and be painted turquoise. Hmm……

This weekend was snowy (Bleh!). Friday was 72 degrees, and we were enjoying every second of it. Then a good 5 inches of snow dropped on us, and we’ve been bundled up in the house all weekend.

Spring, and I tend to forget this every year, is like that. You never know when those ‘inside’ days are going to hit. And I wanted to have some fun.

So, I made a puppet theater for the kids. And it was so much fun to make, I’ve decided to post it here so you can play too!

Peter and the Wolf is a long time favorite in our house. I grew up listening to the record and my husband, who is 1/4 Russian himself, grew up the same way. Our children were listening to this story before they could even talk! It’s just such a classic. You know the music, right?

In case you are unfamiliar, Serge Prokofiev wrote Peter and the Wolf (the first symphony for children by the way) in 1936. It’s a narrative symphony about a boy (Peter) and his animals as they encounter a wolf from the nearby woods. Here’s a fantastic 1941 recording for you.

Peter and the Wolf Recording with Basil Rathbone (22 minutes)

The story goes like this:

One day, Peter opens his gate to play out in the meadow beyond his house. He meets a bird, and soon his duck and cat come to join in the play.

He comes back inside and his Grandfather scolds him for leaving because beyond the meadow are woods filled with wolves (just like a Russian Grandfather would).

Grandfather locks the gate and tells him to never go out there again. But, Peter paid no attention. “Boys like Peter are not afraid of Wolves.”

Peter is inside the gate, but his friends, the bird, cat and duck are still out by the pond. The wolf swallows up the duck in one big gulp and goes after the cat and the bird who are up in a tree.

Peter gets a rope and climbs over the gate and into the tree where he ties up the wolf and catches him.

A hunter comes and sees the wolf and is about to shoot when Peter cries out that he has caught the wolf. They tie up the wolf and take him to the nearby zoo.

In the story, the duck is still alive inside the wolf’s belly as they parade heroically to the zoo….and our version, we like to say that the wolf spits up the duck and they all parade together.

And that’s the story! But the music is what makes it. I can’t get it out of my head. And it’s so good for children!

Last Christmas, my husband’s parents made us an incredible hand carved collection with all the characters and the book and CD in a hand painted wooden box. We have spent the past year acting out this story at least once a month. The children listen to it over and over again, using the characters to follow the musically narrated story. It’s been such amazing play for the kids, I’ve wanted to do something similar for YOU! But I’ve not been able to come up with how to do that. I nearly came up with a paper doll version, but it didn’t seem to be as fun.

But with paper puppets, the body parts move….and can be played with even outside the stage. Hours of fun.

So here’s what you need:

A Paper Stage:

This is a FREE download in hopes that you can use it for more than just Peter and the Wolf. You can cut it out and fit it to any kind of box, but a cereal box works great. The stage is very close to a full size sheet of USA standard paper (8.5 x 11 inches). So find a cereal box that works with that size. The crown of the proscenium is easy to tape on, or even better, fasten on with brads so you can change it out and replace it with others that title the performance.

Download the Stage HERE.

Peter and the Wolf Characters:

I debated on this one….I wanted to make it completely cost free, but since it is rather elaborate, I’m charging just a small fee: $5.50 for the entire set. I plan on making more stories, some of which will be more simple will be a free download.

You can purchase the full PETER AND THE WOLF set HERE.

Other Household Supplies:

Cereal box

Scissors

Tape

String

Small brads (these are used for scrapbooking and are smaller than normal brads used for school or office. You’ll find them in any craft store that sells scrapbook materials).

Safety pin (to pre-poke holes before fastening with brads)

Sticks for puppeting These are found at any craft store, wooden skewers used for barbequeing work as well. Popscicle sticks are going to be too wide, so don’t try.

MUSIC:

The Disney animated classic can be viewed on You Tube HERE.

Another favorite version is here, but there are lots more.

But feel free to LISTEN OFF THE BLOG for free whenever you want. (It’s not the best recording out there, but it is the best FREE recording out there. But the voice of Basil Rathbone? Fantastic!)

So there you go! I really hope you like it….in fact, I’d LOVE your feed back on this one. Please comment and tell me your thoughts….I have been wanting to add this kind of thing to my shop/blog for a long time.

Is this something you’d like to see more of?

Can you think of other favorite (copyright free) stories that you’d like to have characters of?

Would you prefer a PDF download, or a KIT with all supplies included that you can purchase and have mailed to you?

I can see this as a collection you can keep adding too….some with just black and white print outs that children can color themselves, some more elaborate and entertaining.

I’d love to know what you think! I can’t think of anything out there quite like this….so spread the word and we’ll see if I can’t get more little “performances” put together. It’s the perfect creative play, and I can promise you it’s going to be a big hit at your house. Tell me how it goes!

Did you know that Audrey Hepburn had a pet deer? Yes. And did you know that it was a childhood dream of mine to have one too? Yes. So I know I’ve posted this before….but when I found these images a while back, I think I let out an audible, “Awwwww…..”  I mean really. Who wouldn’t want a fawn for a pet. And it really was her pet…the deer’s name was Pippin, and she called him “Ip.” Parties, car rides, long walks…they were always together.

These valentines cards were inspired by Audrey’s pet fawn mixed with my childhood dream to have a pet deer. And since Valentines Day is just a few days away, I thought I’d mention these PDF downloadable cards in the shop in case you need a little last minute love note.

They’ve been marked down,  and will be on sale for the rest of the week!

You can also get them in card form, and we’re happy to send. They are printed on really nice textured soft paper…they have the feel of letterpress folded cards. So sweet!

I’ll be posting a bit more about Audrey Hepburn this week. Somehow she goes really well with Valentines day.

Happy Monday to you all!

This weekend, I had the lovely time of having the lovely Katherine photograph my studio. I’m going to be on KSL this morning (11:10 am on KSL news), and I needed to send in some pictures of my work space.  And though I haven’t finished decorating and designing it, it was fun to shoot anyhow. I’ve had an array of work spaces over the years, and it’s fun to look and see how they have evolved…I’ve had everything from corner of the dining room table to shared computer desk to bedroom. But if I have learned one thing about what I need in a work space, it’s two words: “comfortable” and “inspiring.” So that is what I am working on. I’ll be sure to show more pictures soon! Like when I put up my half wall bulletin surface, and paint the other wall with chalkboard paint. Stay tuned.

But really, if you are local, tune in. I think it will be a really great panel. I’ll be speaking with 2 other women and we’ll be sharing tips and realities of starting a business at home. (I could say a lot on this topic!!)  And thanks for all your wonderful comments about that topic. I got some really good ideas, and I hope to be addressing those! I’ll post the link to the web clip below as soon as I get it.

Thanks so much! See you on T.V.

P.S. I’ll be the one who’s trying really hard not to look nervous. I haven’t been on T.V. since 5th grade morning announcements. This should be about the same thing, right?

EDIT: Here’s the link to the video clip. It was fun to do…and not long enough…but I did it. Whew.