iheartfaces.com, favorite face

I've taken a lot of pictures this year.  When looking back to pick out my favorite, I have to say it would be this one of my octogenarian grandfather at his 60th wedding anniversary to my grandmother.  They are both so filled with love for each other and their families I feel honored not only to know them but to be related to them.

This picture he is holding back tears while looking at some artwork I drew for him and reading a card from our families.

Be sure to check out the other entries at www.iheartfaces.com !

The playmat is a big success!

I hope everyone had a great (and maybe handmade?) Christmas!  Hopefully everyone's grievances were aired properly and massive quantities of refined sugar consumed.

The highlight for me was setting out the playmat on Christmas morning and having my son run out to see it.  He stopped and just took it in.  Then he started pointing out all of his favorite places!

"My house!  D's House!  Cupcake store!  Library!  Fire Station!  Market!  I go to market now, mommy!"  And he handed me invisible fruit bought from the image of the market stand.

I was so proud.  I ended up finishing it with a quilt binding that he unknowingly picked out at the fabric store last week. He told me he wanted something made with orange stripes, so that's what he got.  Here are a few pictures of him enjoying the project!

Also, since I already sell maps over on etsy, I added a listing for a custom play mat over there as well.  Because every kid totally needs one of these!

-Meghan

The playmat has landed!

I am SO excited!  The playmat that I designed for Henry just arrived!  It's a snow (or cold, rather) day from work and he's napping so I ripped open the package and took some pictures of it.  It is amazing.  Yeah, it could use a good ironing but whatever.

The fabric is cotton twill and the cars on it will be part of his Christmas present (he's getting some plan city cars).

 

I can't wait to give it to him!!

-Meghan

Handmade Christmas, part 2

I finally finished up the design for Henry's play mat!  It will be delivered in the next few weeks on a cotton twill that is 58x36 inches.

He saw the picture of it on the computer and got all excited, yelling "Ooo!  That my house!  That library!  That d's house!"

The roads are 3 inches wide and I am thinking of buying a few plan city cars to drive around this town.

-Meghan

Handmade Christmas (part 1-point-something)

I've been thinking non-stop about this playmat idea that I have for Henry.

I am getting more and more excited.  I've been really busy and my scanner has been soooooo slow that I haven't gotten much done on it yet, but what I do have I'm excited about.

I have the base for the streets and green spaces done!  It is to scale at 42x36 inches and each road is 2" wide.  I have draw the library, our home, daycare, the farmer's market, a bakery, a fire station, a park and a few other trees and stuff so far that I need to get placed on the mat.

Here's what I have so far, I'm still making some decisions about which direction things should face.  I'm deciding between having them all face the same way or all face the streets they are on.  So tough to choose!

-Meghan

Silhouettes on iheartfaces

This week is for silhouettes on iheartfaces.com  Every time I go to this one hill I make people do a silhouette for me.  I have fun editing them later on and it's super easy to turn a silhouette into fun stationary (coming up later on that long list of projects)!

The best part about this shot was how quiet and reserved the little boy was.  Until he found this dandelion!

-Meghan

A Handmade Christmas, part 1

Last year every single gift we gave was made by hand.  From the photographs to the frames we built.  We did a fake wood learning tower for Henry and a felt house.  People got reusable grocery bags and muslin tea bags.

And, frankly, it was a lot of work.

But the principle of it was great and it was a lot of fun.  We're doing a mostly-handmade Christmas this year.

Lowell is building a mini-workbench for Henry and I have been inspired by all of the car playmats.

The time it takes to applique all of the things like Jill did on her blog seems overwhelming.  There are some great fabric ones on etsy where it is one yard of fabric with the pre-made design backed onto a cute print.

But, I think that I will design my own fabric and print it using Spoonflower's printing services.  I have designed fabrics in the past and been pleased with them.  Plus, if I design the fabric I can then make it personalized just for Henry.  It can have his library, Daddy's work, our playground and the grocery store.

I'm pretty excited and realize this is going to be a lot of time in front of a computer designing it!  But, I will be so proud of it when it's done.

-Meghan