We take turns posting (at least three times a week), usually on a different theme each month. For this first month, we chose the theme "Novels" - but we allow lots of leeway in what to write about. You can see my first post on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and other motivational writing "tools" here.
Of course, there's lots of other great stuff to find there too. A report on the great Katherine Patterson and her recent talk in Pittsburgh, a piece on finding your voice, a fabulous tutorial on twisting folktales to turn them into novels, new picture book stories, or tall tales, and even an interesting and funny discussion on figuring out what teens like to read (complete with very, very tasty recipe for Cornflake Chicken - yum.) I hope you'll check the blog out! Here!
Next month's topic is Giving and Receiving. I'm still noodling what I'll write about when it's my turn - but I'm already promising some kind of a nice giveaway. (Let me know if there's something you'd like me to write about.)
Oh, the new picture of the frog in my header is one I took this summer of one of the residents of my family's newish pond. I'll leave you with some images of flora and fauna around the pond this summer. (Can you tell I'm already feeling nostalgic for warm weather? Even though I really do love fall too.)
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By: Carol Baicker-McKee,
on 1/1/2010
Blog: doodles and noodles (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: children's book review, craft idea, vintage children's books, Add a tag
I'm making a wish for peace in 2010 - for the world, for my family and friends including all of you, and for myself.
The paper crane is a symbol of peace. In 2001, I gave out paper crane ornaments (like the one in my current header) as my holiday cards, and this year I'm planning to make one daily - at the end of the year I'll turn them into something cool and auction the resulting piece for a donation to a peace-related charity (not sure which one yet).
The cranes are easy to make once you get the hang of them. A google search will reveal many, many tutorials for making them, including this animated diagram one here (I think it's pretty easy to follow.) Adding some beads makes the cranes hang a little better and look good as a stand-alone mobile. I use jewelry wire threaded through a long needle (large enough to fit through the body of the crane, from the center to the point on the top). The first bead can be a charm or dangling bead, and you can add others or just pass the wire through the body. You can also put more beads above if you like, or just make a loop in the wire to thread a ribbon through for hanging. For the last few years, I've made these often, and I keep them on a branch in my living room; if I need a quick gift for a visitor or to enclose in a note, I just grab one.
For several years, I've been making the cranes mostly from recycled papers (like the ones in the photos above). Here are a few close-ups of some from last year (though I apologize for all these crappy pix). These ones are from security envelopes:
And these are made from (left to right): a page in a magazine, a map, and a calendar page.
There are several excellent children's books about paper cranes, including this one by Rosemary Wells, one of my favorite author-illustrators. Yoko makes cranes to stay connected to her grandparents who live far away, which is a nice use for your cr
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By: Carol Baicker-McKee,
on 12/10/2009
Blog: doodles and noodles (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: craft idea, my creative space, advent blog, Add a tag
Not too surprisingly, I continue to fall farther behind with my attempts at daily blogging this month, even though the weather has been keeping me home and mostly inside - though also computer and sewing machine-free, as I seem to be taking my electrical interference tendencies to the wider community and causing neighborhood electrical outages. (Really we got some of that huge storm that hit much of the U.S. through here - really wild winds and plummeting temps for the last couple days. Brrr.)
On my drawing table this week are the little angels above. I made the prototypes last year (based on the characters in my Merry Christmas, Cheeps and Mimi books) intending them to be gift tags that could be made into ornaments, but never finished them. The dog found the paper prototypes the other day and got completely freaked out by them (they move when she breathes heavily on them), which inspired me to finish them, if for no other reason than the opportunity to freak the dog out in living color.
On my sewing table were also this old doll, in bad need of a new dress...
...and this new one in need of, well, everything.
Lots of sewing and ironing!Head on over to kootoyoo's to see the rest of the creative spaces bursting with projects. And take your time checking them out, because Kirsty's taking a well-earned break until after the holidays. (Phew - gives me more time to make some progress on my studio. And maybe finish up some of these projects.) While you're there, be sure to check out the pix of Kirsty's own beautiful creative space. I'm so jealous!
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By: Carol Baicker-McKee,
on 12/8/2009
Blog: doodles and noodles (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: holiday traditions, craft idea, hot + not, recipe, Add a tag
Hot. Not. Loobylu. Need I say more?
This week, I'm starting with the NOTS.
Not. Any Computer in Our House. Or, for that matter, any electrical appliance, like say my car. My refrigerator. Half the lightbulbs.
Lordy, it's been a week of technology-related woes, and I still feel a bit shaky. I know I was complaining about this last week, but things just kept getting worse every time I turned around, and of course my husband was out of town for much of the week, leaving me, the person who still struggles even just to turn on the TV (which is really not my fault, since we seem to have like a thousand remotes and way too many buttons and I never have the right ones), to be the family Geek Squad. Mostly that means we were computer-light (hence the week of no posts - but I have lots of stuff half written I'll try to post in catch-up fashion). And the car wouldn't go, so I was stuck at home. And the refrigerator was WAY too cold, freezing all the veggies and making the butter extra-rock hard. Maybe even diamond-hard. And I don't know what the heck was going on with the light bulbs, but they were burning out left and right and I still haven't caught up replacing them.
Making Little Dresses for Little Piggies.
This little dress was way too small. This little dress was way too big. And this little dress was really too big too, but I fudged and made it kind of fit because I couldn't bear to try again.
Not getting the recipe for this St. Nicholas Day treat up until today. Two days after St. Nicholas Day.
These are actually buckeyes, which aren't officially a St. Nick treat, but they are very similar to a traditional St. Nick candy I found online. More importantly, they are super easy, no cook, use only ingredients I already have in the house, and contain chocolate.
Here's what you do: Combine 3/4 cup of peanut butter, 2 T honey, 1/4 cup crushed graham crackers O
4 Comments on Hot+Not: Computers and Piggies and Lanterns, Oh My!, last added: 12/11/2009
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By: Carol Baicker-McKee,
on 11/27/2009
Blog: doodles and noodles (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: my creative space, mimi, softies, craft idea, Add a tag
Well, I'm a day late with this post this week - Thanksgiving and guests got me a bit behind - and, I'm ashamed to admit, I've made no significant progress with organizing my studio this week. Sorry Crzylady - next week will be better, I promise.
On the other hand, I did make progress on several projects this week, including this prototype for a Mimi softie. She's from my book of the same name (see sidebar for more info about it). Since the book was published last year, I've received numerous questions about when there will be a Mimi doll available to buy, and sadly, the answer likely is never. It's actually rare for a picture book to get merchandise (it pretty much has to be a best seller). Mimi has had okay sales, but not even strong enough for a go-ahead on the sequel I was hoping to do, much less a softie or something fun like that. But because I continue to get requests, I decided to develop a pattern and tutorial for interested people to make their own. The pattern-making process has proven a bit tricky, though - I'm really not much of a seamstress (I'm a big fan of glue), and I've made only a handful of stuffed animals in my life.
My prototype thus has lots of flaws, but I think she also has some lopsided charm. With luck I'll have figured out the worst of the difficulties in the next couple of days, so I can get the tutorial and pattern up in time for people to make this for a holiday gift. I'll have patterns for clothes (you can see the first bunny slipper in the photo above!) and for Mimi's friends, her stuffed Bunny and her roly-poly Frank. I'm also hoping to offer some help making other accessories, like Mimi's cape, tiara, and sunglasses, Frank's special yogurt cup home, some library books, and maybe Mimi's missing underpants too...
Speaking of which, here's Mimi's bare backside - which has already gotten me in trouble with a few folks who objected to the view of her little piggy tail in the book. Oops.
Here's the start of her dress.This Mimi is poseable, with a pipe cleaner skeleton inside. She's intended for kids past the age of putting everything in their mouths. I'm also working on a simpler softie-version with all embroidered
4 Comments on My Creative Space - Week 3, last added: 12/25/2009
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By: Carol Baicker-McKee,
on 10/28/2009
Blog: doodles and noodles (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: What's hot Wednesdays, my books, craft idea, Add a tag
HOT
- Me, blogging again Wow, that was a long unintended break, but I'm glad to be back at my keyboard. The one good thing about such a long hiatus is that I have TONS of material saved up.
- New books! I haveTWO of them out this fall! I illustrated the picture book An Apple Pie for Dinner by Susan VanHecke (Marshall Cavendish) and wrote another book for parents of young children, The Preschooler Problem Solver (Peachtree). I'll write more about both these books in coming days, but in the meantime, you can check out the beautiful website the author created for the apple pie book here.
- Fall color in my garden
It's spectacular this year. Hard for me to stay in the house when I know my trees look like that.- Autumn-themed miniature gardens
The first one was a gift for my mother-in-law and largely made by my daughter; the second is a teeny tiny one we made several of as small gifts. I'll provide some how-to in future posts, but the little ones are pretty easy to craft.What's Not
- CPSIA The Consumer Product Safety law has not gone away nor been amended in any significant way. Vintage books have been confirmed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission as forbidden to children 12 and under despite any evidence that they pose even a small threat to kids' health and abundant evidence of their value for them. Grr.
- Radio interviews I'm lucky to have gotten a bunch lined up to promote The Preschooler Problem Solver, but even though I've done tons of media interviews over the years, they still make me feel a tongue-tied mess.
- Amtrak I'm normally a huge fan of train travel, though I've long lamented the sorry state of it in the U.S. - but Saturday was a particularly deep low in my regard for it. My son's five-hour train trip from NJ to Boston arrived nearly five hours late, putting his arrival close to 2 am instead of anywhere near the scheduled 9 pm. Which meant he missed the last connecting commuter train to his destination in Worcester MA where he attends college, as well as all the bus options. And no taxi would take him that far nor to his friend's place at a Boston area college. And the train station was completely deserted and no one at the Amtrak "customer service" number would offer any assistance in finding alternative travel or lodging because he wasn't continuing on an Amtrak train. And that stinks.
Okay, as usual I have NO control of the numbering function on blogger. Pretend the numbers aren't there. And the random text color stuff also defeats me. Sigh.
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By: Carol Baicker-McKee,
on 12/25/2008
Blog: doodles and noodles (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Christmas, thank you, craft idea, Add a tag
Merry Christmas!
I, um, got behind even more with the advent, but I have some good things saved up for next year, and that will have to do.
I'll include directions and templates for making your own shortly, so you can get a head start for next year's Christmas gifts (which is what I should do). Or you could make some for New Year's gifts. (After all, the mushrooms are a symbol of good luck, which works equally well for Christmas or New Year's good wishes.) Sara and I are making some more as New Year's gifts for some special folks since we liked making these so much. (And that's amazing because I have kind of a love-hate relationship with glitter. I love it because it looks so pretty and, well, glittery, but I hate how it ends up everywhere. Forever.)
My daughter Sara and I made these little mushroom glitter house scenes for the grandmas this year. Here's what one looks like inside a stemless wine glass, which we used for display.
I'll include directions and templates for making your own shortly, so you can get a head start for next year's Christmas gifts (which is what I should do). Or you could make some for New Year's gifts. (After all, the mushrooms are a symbol of good luck, which works equally well for Christmas or New Year's good wishes.) Sara and I are making some more as New Year's gifts for some special folks since we liked making these so much. (And that's amazing because I have kind of a love-hate relationship with glitter. I love it because it looks so pretty and, well, glittery, but I hate how it ends up everywhere. Forever.)I'll be back tomorrow too, with some ideas for crafting creative and heartfelt thank yous. And I have some ideas for New Year's greetings, which I'm hoping to send this year, since I never managed to finish my Christmas card.
Hope this finds all of you snug and cozy with your loved ones, whether or not you celebrate Christmas. Thank you all for reading my blog this year, and for your kind notes and the inspiration you've given me. I feel truly blessed.
Best to all,
Carol
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Wow, Carol, what an interesting post to start off the new year with. I didn't know the paper crane was a symbol of peace and I'd completely forgotten Sadako's story.
A single paper crane a day culminating in a charity donation sounds like a wonderfully unique new year's goal.
Although I have a funny picture in my head of the clock ticking loudly and you sprawled semi comotose on the floor surrounded by paper cranes :o)
Good Luck for 2010!
Maureen. www.thepizzagang.com
Great easy directions for the origami crane, thanks Carol!
You have inspired me to borrow Sadako from our Library! Chele x
Lovely post! And beautiful cranes! I have never made a crane, but treasure the one Diane made me for Christmas 20 years ago. I usually leave it out so it can sit on a branch somewhere in the house all year long!