Crystal Madrilejos

Design & Creative

On Creativity

Handmade Gifts 2013: Leg Warmers

If you have lots of little humans in your life, legwarmers are great gifts that work up quick, and are fun and unique. When I first started knitting and crocheting, like most beginners, I didn’t work much outside the realm of scarves. They are simple and easy, but there are only so many winter scarves a person needs. However, legwarmers are a little out of the ordinary unless you are a dancer. And there are so many different ways styles and patterns you can make, but they still look cool and work well when they are really simple.

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On Creativity, On Family

Handmade Gifts 2013: Crochet Pinafore

Ever since the babies started arriving in our family almost 13 years ago, Andrew and I have been hand-making gifts for the holiday. It’s something we enjoy doing because we like to be able to make things that are really personal and specific to their personality and interest. But also, we like that it’s not something that they can go out and buy themselves. In the coming weeks, I’m going to highlight some projects we’ve made in the past in case you want to give them a try yourself. (more…)

On Creativity, On Family

Kids & Photography

Quil started showing some interest in using a camera a little while back. (Sorry for the blurry iPhone photo above. He’s a photographer on the move!) Most of his baby photos were taken with this very camera he is using in that photo, but unfortunately, we don’t break it out that often now that I have an iPhone. But we’ve been bringing it out more so that he can explore with it. Neither Andrew and I are photographers, so we don’t have a ton of knowledge to pass on in that area, but right now he’s still really young and couldn’t grasp the concepts of shutter speed and aperture (I still struggle with this too). If he’s still interested in the future, it would be a fun thing to learn together. Right now, he’s just content to take photos of things that he sees.  (more…)

On Creativity, On Family, Uncategorized

Totoro Birthday Party

I mentioned in my last post that I’d post about the Totoro party, so here I am making good on that! The party, overall, was a success. Considering how little planning I did and just sort of threw some things together at the last minute, I was pretty happy with how the decorations turned out. If you aren’t familiar with the movie “My Neighbor Totoro,” you should check it out. Quil loves it (obviously,) as do Andrew and I
Also, BIG THANKS to my sister Maria for hosting and helping with decorating and making food and baking the mini-cakes. She is the best planner and most organized person I know. No family holiday or event could take place without her. The members of our family would all be arriving at different locations at different times and there’d be no food if she didn’t wrangle us all together! She really is “the glue” in our family.
Here are various photos of the different details. Totoro is a forest spirit so a lot of the theme was basically nature related. 
The table center piece consisted of faux-plants, dried moss, grapevines, fabric flowers, and flower stickers. I hot-glued dried moss to wooden boxes from the dollar aisle at Target, we then used as risers for the cakes. 
These wooden acorns were made from mini-wooden eggs found at the local craft store that I stained and painted to look like the acorns the Mei collects in the film. It’s hard to see in this photo, but they have a clear coat of gloss spray on them as well. 
Here is a wider view of the table with all the mini-cakes (there were five birthdays being celebrated. We have a big family!) All the faux-plants were purchased from a local craft and hobby store. 
In place of party hats, we had a few leaf hats based on the scene from the movie where Totoro has a leaf on his head to protect from the rain. These were pieces of felt cut in the shape of a leaf, with a little extra piece for the stem, hot glued to brown headbands.
We happened by this outfit for Ellis at Target randomly. It’s supposed to be a rabbit, but I thought it looked close enough to a Totoro costume to warrant its purchase. Plus, it’s just super cute. Target has that ability to lure you in with their low-prices and high-cuteness-factor. It’s a dangerous situation to go into when shopping last minute for a party!
This paper cut mobile was supposed to have three tiers, with Totoro at the top and then the two smaller Totoros (the blue and the white ones) hanging below. However, the pieces for the smaller Totoros were so tiny, there was no way I was going to be able to cut them out within a reasonable amount of time. Mind you, I was working on this around 10pm the night before the party (because I’m nuts.) So I decided to forgo the smaller guys even though the OCD/perfectionist in my brain was giving me hard time. In the end, it still turned out fine.

And a few more shots of the mini-cakes my sister made. You can see some Soot Sprites peeking out here and there. For these, we bought black pompoms and stick-on googly eyes. They were so simple, my 4-year-old niece was able to make them. We had her churning out Soot Sprites at maximum speed! The little pink, orange and aqua flowers are from the dollar aisle in Target. They came as long ribbons, but I just snipped a few strands apart and sprinkled them around. They actually reminded me of the candy the Soot Sprites eat in Spirited Away.

So, that was our joint-birthday Totoro Party, in a nutshell! I can relax for another 5 months until Ellis has her FIRST BIRTHDAY. Yikes. Hers should be extra nuts because she’s a summer birthday! I’ll be sure to “over-do” like I always do, according to Andrew.
xo,
c.

On Creativity, On Family, Uncategorized

Crazy Days

Whew! This past month has been a whirlwind. I just wanted to pop in and say “hi!” because I know I’ve been absent here lately. Work has been super busy and, as per usual, I’ve got my plate full of other fun side projects which haven’t left me with any free minutes to just sit and type. My blog RSS reader is up to over 1000 unread items because I haven’t had time to catch up on my regular reads. First world problems, I know.
The intense work days that start early and end late combined with a lack of sleep have finally caught up to me. Ellis is transitioning into going all night without nursing. She has cried for about 20 minutes somewhere around the hours of 2 or 3am for the past few nights. And Quil is in this terrible phase of only wanting to sleep in our bed and he’s an awful bed mate, forever tossing and turning and kicking. It’s been extra hard since Quil and Ellis share a room and we haven’t yet found a balance of them co-existing in that space without one waking the other. I slept horribly last night and when I did sleep I had nightmares of work projects gone awry. Ugh. So, today I felt rundown and just plain exhausted. 
So, tonight I’ve finally able to just (sort of) relax and write this post and work on a little crafty project: Wood Acorns for our Totoro-themed party this Saturday! Q turned 3-years-old last weekend but this Saturday we’re celebrating all the February/March birthdays in my family – there are five.
I found some little wood eggs at the local craft store that I stained to look like the acorns from Totoro. They still need a few finishing touches, but I’ll post finished pictures when they are done.
If you’ve never seen My Neighbor Totoro, I highly recommend it. Quil loves it, as do Andrew and I.
xo,
c.

On Creativity, On Family

Q Says Draw

Just wanted to pop in and let you all know that we have a new feature called Q Says Draw where we will be posting drawings that Andrew and I do at the request of Quil. Lately, he’s been doing this a lot, requesting us to draw this or that, and usually it’s of the same thing over and over and over (as you’ll see!) We’ve been trying to document as many of these drawings as we can, though I know there are many that we forgot along the way. Unfortunately, we missed the phase of “Draw a truck with a Christmas tree in the back.” I drew so many of those. Maybe I can still find a few to photograph…

In the meantime, enjoy his current obsession here. Or you can follow the new link the right sidebar. It’s hard to miss. It’s huge.

[Drawing doodle from 2004-ish]

xo,
c.

On Creativity, On Habitat

Found Treasure: Volume 3

These are some of the treasures we’ve found while digging around the yard and playing in the creek.

Clockwise from top left: Black lump (I’m not sure what this is. We find it all the time in the yard. It’s very light.), broken glass, a shell fossil from the creek, another weird fossil, a piece of white ceramic, another fossil of coral, & a broken piece of china.

If anyone can identify what these things are, especially the black lump, it would be much appreciated!

xo,
c.

On Creativity, On Family, Uncategorized

Crocheted Toy Cocoon Bag Pattern

As promised, I put together the pattern for the crocheted toy bags that I’ve been making lately. This is the first pattern I’ve written, so bear with me and please let me know if you find any errors or if any of the directions are confusing. (more…)

On Creativity, On Habitat

Found Treasures: Volume 2

treasures

Buckeyes + Black Walnuts + dried Tomatillo husk + broken robin’s egg + deer antler

On Creativity, On Family, Uncategorized

Crocheted Toy Cocoon Bags

Like most households with small children, the toy situation seems to get out of control fast. You somehow go from 0 to 1,000,000 toys in only a few short years! They multiply like a wet Mogwai and next thing you know you are constantly stepping on small sharp things and doing a monthly under-the-couch sweep of wayward balls and anything with wheels. You have entire sections of your home devoted to them and somehow they end up everywhere but there. You get so sick of putting things away that you eventually just get a huge bin that you throw everything into only to have your kid dump it out the minute you put the last toy away. Andrew said that one time he intentionally didn’t pick up after Quil just to see what the house would look like in one day. He said by mid-afternoon, it looked like someone had robbed the place. Drawers out, couch cushions overturned, cabinets open!

But one thing we learned with Quil is that he is pretty good about putting things away if each type of toy has its own container and not just one catch-all bin. We started off with just cloth bags that you sometimes get when you buy a pair of shoes. But we only had a couple of those. So I decided to start making some crocheted ones. Now he’s got bags for puzzle pieces, train sets, musical instruments, cars, and he can remember which ones go where for the most part.

Don’t get me wrong. His toys still get everywhere, but it does seem more manageable when everything has a designated bin/bag. I still need to make a few more, but these are super easy to make and work up pretty quick since I crochet three strands at once with a large hook. Check back later this week for a pattern if you are interested in making some for yourself.

***UPDATE***
The pattern is now available here.

xo,
c.