Etsy Favorites Wednesday - creepy Victorian-era toys

We saw The Woman In Black this weekend and I have a piece of advice for you: wait for it on DVD, or see it at 8 a.m. on a Sunday so there's no one in the theater with you. You need peace and quiet to enjoy this movie. We attempted to see the movie its opening weekend about a month ago, but ended up walking out of the theater because people would not stop talking and we couldn't hear the movie at all. We've never walked out of a theater. It was so bad though! We couldn't follow what was happening on screen, there were people all around us talking and sharing popcorn and slurping pop. So, we decided to give it another go this past weekend. We figured seeing it weeks after it opened would maybe help, maybe there wouldn't be so many people? Nope. The theater was filled with loud kids {it's got a PG-13 rating} and the amount of noise was just crazy!! We stayed and watched the whole movie because we were determined to see it. We could see and hear more of the movie than our first attempt, but overall the experience was marred by rude stupid people screaming bloody murder at the jump scenes {I'm not exaggerating - a girl would let out a blood curdling scream when anything remotely scary would happen on screen. It got to the point where I was dreading anything happening because I knew she would scream.} and a girl sitting next to my husband texted the ENTIRE time and then passed her phone to her friends, four seats away because they came into the movie 15 minutes late and couldn't sit together. Anyway. {We complained afterward and got free movie passes, so, win? I guess. I'm not to keen on returning to that particular theater though.} Annnyyyywaaaay, the movie itself? EXCELLENT! Daniel Radcliffe? EXCELLENT. The movie was excellent. And spooky. It was a period piece and much of the action occurred in an old house, in an old nursery. 

The dolls and children's play things in the movie were reeaaaalllly CREEPY. I tend to like creepy things but some of the toys and items were scarier than the ghost woman. 

Check this out: 

Ahhh! Those toys! Their eyes!  

Without further ado {this is the longest introduction I've ever written for my Etsy Faves list!!} here is this week's list. You can have your very own creepy dolls and photos ala The Woman In Black!  They're for sale in the vintage section of Etsy!

Doll - oh my.

Doll house - a creepy place for creepy dolls.

Clown bank - oh for goodness sake. His eyes! Aaaah!

Family portrait - they look perturbed.

Doll - she's got quite the 'do.

My mom and me

One of my most favorite things to do is unpack the girls' folders from school because nine times out of 10 I find little gems like the one I found last week! Lydia wrote a story about me and she was very complimentary. I loved it and I had to share!

To translate, she writes, "I love my mom a lot. She is so pridey (teehee! "pretty") and nice! My mom has green eye's and brown hair. I miss her a lot when I am at school."

{Oh my goodness! So precious!}

"My mommy is vary nice. My mom's favorite color is green. She is 32 years gold. My sister and me like to make her pichrs." 

{I told her she can say I'm 32 forever and she didn't know what I meant. I told her ladies don't like to reveal their ages but 32 is a good age to be. [I'm 33 going on 34 in 32 days, but who's counting].}

"Over the weekend she cled {cleaned} her crafd room. We do craf's together. One day she helpd me make an owl." 

{Not sure what the 'peloe' thing is on the bottom ...}

I LOVE these. So much. I'm going to keep them forever and ever. My 'to-keep forever and ever' pile of things from the girls is ever growing! Every day they write in a journal and those are journals are just beyond precious. I'm going to put them all in the binder at the end of the school year.

Both of the girls are getting so good at spelling for being only in first grade! It shocks me how good they are. They spell things right almost all the time and if it's wrong, it's spelled phonetically and very close to being right. Such smartie pants. And so sweet! How lucky am I to get such sweet sentiments?! 

Poor neglected Etsy shop

Oh no! I'm a bad, neglectful shop owner. I went to visit my Etsy shop today and said OH MY GOSH because it was EMPTY! That's because I had accidentally let all of my for-sale items expire. {Etsy gives items a six month shelf life before they automatically 'expire' and go offline.} I felt so bad. In the past I was always so good about keeping my shop updated. I'd re-list items way before they'd set to expire. Shame on me, I've been slacking lately. Because honestly I haven't been feeling it lately. And obviously haven't been a good shop keep. BUT, the items that are still in my shop are quite lovely and need a good home! 

Take Mr. Bunny for example, he's quite lovely - he's still for sale - and would be a cute edition to a youngster's Easter basket, I think! He's $7.50 AND he has a twin in the shop too!

House pillows - I have two house pillows for sale too - I love loved LOVED these wee house pillows. Remember the Halloween one I made? I never made one of those for myself; I will have to make one this year.

And dolls! I have retired the dolls. Won't be making any more. So these that are left are the last. Kinda sad, but it's time to move on.

My plan is to sell the inventory that's currently in my shop and develop a new product. I'm not sure what that new product will be, but I have a couple of ideas! I'll be sharing my sketches and new ideas in the coming weeks ...  

Portraits

I took advantage of a sunny day and was taking photos for an upcoming craft tutorial I will feature here soon, and the girls wanted me to take their picture too. I'm quite pleased with how these spur-of-the-moment shots turned out! I printed copies and framed them!

Arlene

Lydia

Present

Results! Pinterest Challenge 2012

The results of the Pinterest Challenge to-do list are IN!  Six bloggers, including myself, were in for this challenge. One blogger had to bow out and a couple gals didn't get to all of the pins they had intended to conquer. But overall? SUCCESS! Here are the results!

Kylee, who blogs over at Two Pretzels, made three pins. First she made slow cooker creamy chicken and wild rice soup!

She says, "it was SO easy and ridiculously good. In no way, shape or form would you ever be able to consider this delightfully creamy soup low-cal, but it was fantastic. Does it count for something that I used non-salted butter?" 

Kylee continues, "I'm usually put off by creamy soups, but I was thrilled that this one didn't use a Campbell's 'cream of' soup in the recipe and it was smooth and not oddly clumpy or separated like some cream soups can be. May it be noticed that you could probably add cauliflower and some other veggies and it would be just as good. AND, you MUST eat it with crusty bread."

Next, she made Tea Tin Fridge Magnets.

She says, "Well, I didn't have a tea tin, but I DID have a mini olive-oil tin that is as cute as a button. I wasn't so fantastic at using the hand-held can opener to get the top of the can off (few little scrapes on the tin) but hey, it's a homemade craft!"

She says, "I cut up a left-over fridge 4X6 picture frame magnet that was in not-so-great shape and hot glud it to the back of the can. And wah-la."

"It's the perfect litlte holder that holds our family's necessities: a couple of pens, a sharpie and a couple of pencils. I love that they're up high so that a certain pair of 2.5-year-old hands can't easily get to them."

Next up, she made Kid Artwork.

She says, "This one was easy - I bought a canvas and used some leftover stickers that we got in the dollar bins at Target in Missouri this past summer. I applied the stickers, Lila {her daughter} painted."

"The paint dried, I peeled off the stickers with the help of an Xacto knife, and ..."

"... there you have it, the finished product. We hung it next to another one of Lila's masterpieces. I kind of love it."

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Sarah D, who blogs at Turtle Parade, was going to make Art from Toddler Scribbles but instead decided to make S'More Cups!

She said they altered the recipe a bit and it was EASY. And very delicious.

Joss {her daughter} helped to crush up the graham crackers for the crust.

She made the crust with crushed graham cracker, powdered sugar and butter.

She smooshed them into mini cupcake tins and baked them.

Joss then dropped three chocolate chips into each cup and then four mini marshmallows.

She put a single chocolate chip on the top and put them back into the oven for a few minutes.

YUM! 

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Sarah P, who blogs at A Random Sampling, made Little Valentines!

Sarah says, "This project was super easy. Cutting out all the little hearts was a little bit tedious but nothing a glass of wine couldn't fix! I printed the cards off of thirtyhandmadedays.com. I used some pre-cut card stock that I found at Michaels for the backing. I also had a bunch of coloured paper clips that I thought were more fun than regular silver ones. I had all of the other supplies I needed sitting around my craft room (scissors, hot-glue, glue stick and embroidery floss.) This project was super easy and made me look like the Mom who had it together (it was dead easy.) I might be kicking myself for starting this handmade trend so early - but I made over 17 over the course of a weekend, so what's a few more than that when my daughter hits school, right? ;)" 

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Nadja, who blogs at Athena Bees, completed four pins! Wow!  First up, Skinny Taco Dip. 

Nadja says it turned out great! She used reduced fat shredded cheese and fat free sour cream and cream cheese.

Next, her and Athena made 2-ingredient strawberry fudge.

She says, "Candy made out of a can of frosting? Yeah." 

Then, they made skinny crock pot soft tacos!

She says, "we used boneless skinless chicken and fat free cream cheese and served it in little flour tortillas. Muy bueno."

And lastly, they made angel food cake skewers!

She said Athena LOVED these - cake for breakfast!

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Up next, me! I had intended on doing two pins, but only got to one. 

I made a version of these wax paper hearts. I filled the hearts with mini cinnamon dots. Except, wax paper wasn't working for me. It was too slippery for my machine. It kept getting bunched up, and it didn't look as pretty as my inspirational pin. 

It could have been because I was trying to use a zig zag stitch. Either way, I wasn't happy with the results.

So, it being a Sunday when I tackled this project, I decided to use newspaper instead! To great results!

I had a lot of fun going through the paper and picking out what to cut out. I used a heart cookie cutter as my pattern.

I gave these hearts to my colleagues on Valentine's Day. We had a meeting in the morning so I set one at each person's place. I even personalized a few. A woman who does beading crafts got the beaded heart (above) and the HR people got hearts with classifieds on them, ha! {This was a part of Operation: Social Wendy! It was a success - I was nervous at first about giving them something I made but everyone really really liked them.} Isn't that Yanni one funny? 

Now, I will say, filling the hearts was really difficult! I said a few curse words! I ended up cutting a paper towel roll into quarters and used that as a guide for the cinnamon candies. A few of the candies went in at a time; they rolled all over and all over me and the machine and the table and the floor, but the good thing about that is I had two little helpers that enthusiastically helped to clean up because they got the eat what they picked up!

The girls each got a heart on Valentine's Day - they got the funnies!

Overall, despite the frustration of getting the candies into hearts, this project turned out really great and it's one I would tackle again. 

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Wow, aren't we a busy bunch?!  THANK YOU to those who participated. I enjoyed seeing everyone's finished projects. We'll do this again!