I may be gone on and off from this little blog for a few weeks.  I need to spend my time sewing (not blogging) for this sale.  So, I’ll leave you with 7 random things about me.  Christine from sewchristine tagged me with the 7 things meme and though I’m still on the fence about these meme things (brings back a crazy chain letter obsession I had in fifth grade) I thought what the hell.

1. I’ve been to Syria

2. I only have one bobbin

3. when I use scissors my jaw moves up and down

4. I am the youngest of six

5. I love a good turkish breakfast

6. I majored in philosophy

7.  I made this cake and it was much better than a ding dong.

there are rules to this whole thing and here they are:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. 2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. 3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. 4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So I am tagging

1. shiso mama

2. hyena in petticoats

3. five green acres

4. write mama write

5. beetlegirl design

6. domesticali

7. dear meagan

Most of the christmas decorations are making their way back to storage and the house is looking pretty empty. Every year after all the lights are packed up and the sad little christmas tree put on the curb I wonder why I don’t have something beautiful to put in their place. We go to all this effort to make our houses glow at christmas time and then January comes around and suddenly they are so bare. There have been some really beautiful mobiles on the internets lately and I think one would look nice hanging above my mantle. So I thought I’d try to organize a little swap: a mobile swap.

If you would like to make and receive a mobile for your home email me at elsiemarleyblog AT gmail DOT com with the following information:

1. name

2. email address

3. website (if you have one)

4. mailing address

5. favorite colors

6. whether the mobile is for a baby’s room or not

That’s it! The mobile can be out of any kind of material using any design you can think up. Sign up by Friday January 18th and I’ll send you your partner’s information the following Monday. I’ll try to arrange it so you send to one person, but receive a package from another–just to mix it up. Packages should be sent out by Wednesday February 20th at the latest. I started a flickr group where you can post pictures of your mobiles before you send them off. And please feel free to copy and paste the mobile swap button onto your blog. So pack up the rest of that holiday paraphernalia and get making.

Today is Monday, so my daughter and I had a little crafty time together.  I wanted to try making a collage with contact paper for a while now.  She’s only just 2 and she hasn’t quite mastered the glue stick yet. We gathered our supplies: contact paper, tissue paper, leaves and twigs we picked up on a walk, and fabric scraps.  We slapped everything down –well, I arranged mine–on the sticky side and then put another piece of contact paper (sticky side down) on top of it all. It looked like this:

Then I cut out leaves and taped them to the window.  I think this is a good craft for the toddler set.  Tearing paper and sticky things are pretty exciting to my daughter so this project actually held her interest for a while.  Contact paper isn’t all that sticky, so the tissue paper worked best.  But if you are crazy like me and save the tiniest scrap, well they work too and I think thread would look nice.  Leaves work if they’re pressed (ours weren’t) and you get leaves in leaves at the end, which is exciting only to me.  You could, of course, cut any shape out: turkeys, christmas trees, vacuum cleaners, whatever.  When it came time for cutting, my daughter was already on to other things, but 10 quiet minutes is pretty huge.

I know it’s not quite the holiday season proper, but if I’m going to make an advent calendar (like I say I will every year) then I better start soon. Here are a couple that I think are just lovely.

Martha Stewart made this one, of course. I think only Martha could make 25 gifts small enough to fit in it–really what the hell do you put in there? one m&m? whoopie.  Still part of me wants to make it, because it’s just so damn clever and the tiny drawers are ridiculously cute.

This one is from the flickr group DIY holidays 2007, which is full of chock full of ideas. It was inspired by Martha and made by Ali Edwards .

And this is my favorite: an advent calendar kit from Domesticali‘s etsy shop. She’s sold out, but maybe we could all convince her to make more. Have a good weekend everyone!

Here it is the second installment of Making Mondays: a cardboard dollhouse. Sounds simple enough, butI think the project was a little over my daughter’s head–she is only 2 after all. I was inspired by the Constantine dollhouse (pictured below). It’s a lovely and simple idea, but unfortunately there isn’t a spare $145 lying around these days. So we made our own.

We started with a box, cut it apart, and used one long side and the two shorter sides. I cut a slit in each of the short sides almost up to the top and slid them on top of the longer piece of cardboard, so they were perpendicular to it. Then I tried to make the walls a little sturdier by taping the corners and my daughter pulled the rest of the tape off the roll. To decorate, we looked through magazines and cut out pictures of kitchens and bathrooms and couches and chairs, and she picked some pretty paper for the walls as well. I thought this would be the best part, but really she had no patience for it, thankfully the glue stick made up for that. And with that glue stick we slapped it all on, cut some doors and the dollhouse was done.

I think this is a good project for kids that are a little older–hell, I might just make another one myself. There are a couple things I would do differently the second time around. I think it would be nice if the house came apart and could be stored flat. This would make decorating both a little easier (you can lay everything flat on a table and work on it) and more difficult (you have to remember what walls go to what room). Also, in order for the house to be stable the shorter walls must be taller than the long wall they fit over (I didn’t do this and our house is very wobbly). And though I think it’s fun to find pictures of things in magazines to decorate the house, it would be nice if the walls were felt. You could cut couches and chairs out of felt as well and stick it to the walls–then you always would have the option of redecorating!

To see all the rooms, you can go to my flickr page. Even though my daughter was frustrated with the amount of time it took to make, in the end, of course, she loved it. And now she calls it her castle (where did she learn that word?). If there is interest I would be happy to make up a pattern (obviously with the improvements I mentioned) and have it be available to download and print.

One more thing: if it wasn’t obvious,this is my little post for Blog Action Day. Reuse your old boxes and magazines by turning them into dollhouses and Recycle them when that dollhouse falls apart.