Pinata Postmortem

 It would be wrong to say the pinata was a hit, right?  But the littles loved it, and they delivered some very satisfying---and effective---thwacks to its shaggy exterior, squealing with glee when it spilled its candy-filled guts.  And was it worth all of the work? (Because you must realize that although the finished product looks as though it was slapped together by a preschooler in need of Ritalin, all of the careful, gluey preliminaries were completed by yours truly.  In the wee smalls. )  So no, probably would have been easier to buy one, but that's not gonna happen on my watch. 

There's been a bit of a backlog at the workbench, which makes me happier than you'll ever know.  Just sent this little cutie out in today's mail...a bit of a spin on my washer keyrings.  I'm liking it.

Craft Show #2: Done!

The "after" isn't a whole lot different from the "before," is it? This was a terrific show---my second, for those of you who've just tuned in or aren't paying attention---and I'm still trying to get my proverbial act together.  I made a bunch of sales, though, and people had lots of nice things to say about my work, so it was a success in my book, hands down

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 Check out my new bunting!  Yup, that's the one I was working on while Chevi had her surgery.  It's lighter and easier to schlep around than the big wooden sign I made for my first show.  Also a heck of a lot easier to hang.

 See those burlap necklace displays?  They're about to get a significant facelift, because the "look" of my setup has changed pretty drastically since I made them. I also used them to hold my ornaments this go-round, since the hanger I made for the last show was un-hangable in this setup.  I need to work on that, I think...

 Okay, this display is my current favorite---it's lightweight, holds a boatload of product, and cost me nothing.  (Except that I had to find a new location for the potatoes, because that's the crate they usually live in.  Don't ask me how I stumbled upon this little stroke of genius---just be glad it happened and know that the spuds are doing just fine in their slightly less glamorous new-old plastic-milk-crate digs.  Get it?  Digs? Potatoes?)

 New product for this show---my washer keychains!  Even had the wherewithal to put together a drawing for a freebie, which generated a surprising amount of interest.  People got a kick out of the idea of designing their own keychains, and a couple of folks actually wrote down their ideas along with their names and email info on their entries. 

 My button jewelry got a lot of attention, and the sheer number of people who told me tales of their mothers' or grandmothers' button boxes/tins/jars boggled my mind.  If I had a button for every person who mentioned the huge stashes of buttons they have collecting dust at home, I wouldn't have to troll the thrift shops and estate sales the way I do!  (but, really---how much fun would that be?)

All in all show number two was a winner.  And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a birthday cake to frost and a pinata to hang.  Miss Chevi is having her seventh birthday part this afternoon, and her mom has been a little too craft-show-focused this week to get much planning done.  So I'm off to fly by the seat of my pants once again....I'll be back with photographic evidence later!  (Here's a teaser from the actual birthday---which I was reminded incessantly wasn't her real party---last Sunday.  Please disregard shoddy cake frosting.)

Sixteen Candles

My eldest turned sixteen today.  (Which is odd, because my own sweet sixteen doesn't seem that long ago.  But I digress...)  I spent the day in a frenzy of cupcake-baking, roll making, and potato peeling to commemorate the occasion.

Luckily, I had a couple of partners in crime to keep me in line.

The kitchen floor bears the nonpareille-ed scars of their helpfulness; never have been cupcakes so earnestly sprinkled. 

Esti celebrated with two of her besties at an impromptu gathering in her room. (I had the kitchen pretty well tied up, and Jess was doing homework at the dining room table.  The colors look almost as though we planned it, no?

It's Sierra Mist in the goblets, I swear.  We ran out of plastic cups this morning, and haven't unpacked the everyday stuff just yet.

I'm feeling pretty old, too, you know?

Still here.

Cool porch, no?  And the kids are terrifying the dog-walkers and joggers alike as they careen down the ramp on their bikes...

The new house is a marvel of freshly-finished floors and just-painted (or just-about-to-be-painted) rooms.  The basement makes the Labyrinth look like child's play and the garage is chock-a-block with the vast majority of our possessions,  but the overall impression is favorable.  The laundry chutes work, the studio is coming along, and the bathrooms are intact, though terrifying.  (Seriously---who paints over the shower tile?  Wait!  It must be the same people who---I kid you not---wallpapered the entire kitchen with Contac paper.)

The kids' rooms are set up, for the most part, but Jess and I are shacked up in the basement until he can harness some manpower to help move our beds upstairs.  The paint colors we chose (long-distance) are fine, for the most part, although the creamy yellow in the living and dining rooms is a little more washed out than I'd hoped for, and the Honeydew that the little girls decided on at the last minute has kind of a neon subtext that borders on being less than soothing.  The kitchen---aqua walls, red accents, and black and white checkered floors---is a glorious sight to behold, although I'm in a snit about the flooring.  Pattern, fab!  Texture, FAIL.  Grainy.  Who makes grainy kitchen flooring?  Suffice it to say that the floor-maintenance department is unimpressed.  Pics forthcoming.

I'm mid-dresser-rehab, in the midst of the madness, and am making a slapdash job of it.  The girls are entranced, though, and can't wait to have the finished product in their psychedelic digs.  Just add princess crowns, and they're happy, thank goodness...

Akiva's 12th birthday came in a frenzy of chocolate-cake-making.  Given the fat that we'd been in the new house for a whopping three days and I'd yet to locate the majority of the Finer Things---like Shani's shoes, the damned baking powder, and all of our hangers---I felt justified in patting myself on the back for
a) unearthing the KitchenAid and
b) producing--- and serving!--- anything even remotely palatable.

Card art by Esti---she blows my mind.

The munchkins sally forth to school this week, and we're all looking forward with varying degrees of enthusiasm.   I'm hoping to have my act a bit more together in time to tackle the carpool-lunches-homework show with my usual aplomb, but have already accepted the fact that we may have to fake it for the first couple-few weeks.  No use being all Pollyanna-ish at my own expense...

Three!

 My Shani turned three today. 

She rocked it.

At My House: A little cheese with that whine?

I'm sick.  The real deal---nose, throat, ears, cough---and I feel like it's more effort than I can handle to do the bare minimum.  However, the birthday cake had to be made,

  

the menorahs unpacked, set up, and lit,

and the latkes made.  I'm thrilled to tell you that I managed it all, and am now embarking on a brief stint of self-indulgence and chicken soup.  There will be rice bags, trashy novels, and lots of blankets.  There will be a distinct lack of cardboard boxes and copious amounts of OTC drugs.  I anticipate it will last, if I'm very lucky, until morning.