The Pretty Penny

How To Plant a Natural Grass Easter Basket

In a fit of spring fever, my daughter and I planted the grass for her easter basket too soon.  Now the basket needs a serious haircut before the easter bunny comes and finds it too full for treats.

You have just enough time though, even if you procrastinate a few days, you'll have enough time to plant the seeds and watch them grow.
You'll need to go to Whole Foods or some other health food store and buy about one quarter to one half cup of wheat berry seeds.  Before you plant them, you'll need to soak the seeds overnight in some tepid water.
Put an old plastic shopping bag wighout any holes inside your easter basket and fill it up with soil.  I find that it's easiest to fill it with soil before you trim the excess bag off because the soil will hold the bag against the walls of the basket.  Spray the soil until it's good and moist.
After the seeds are good and soggy, spread them on top of the moist soil in the basket and then cover them with just a dusting of moist soil.
Place them in a nice warm sunny place and you can almost see them growing they grow so fast.

I like to take any leftover seeds and plant them in unexpected places around the house.  Seeing grass growing in my bathroom or kitchen gives me a happy springy feeling.

Flowers in November

We had a great Thanksgiving.  It was a beautiful day so we went to Griffith Park and hiked all the way up to the observatory witch was quite a feat for the mini.

I love living here.  All the things that I was warned about when we were thinking about moving to LA, the schools, the crime, the traffic, none of it has been a problem for me. 

I love the fabulous moms at the park

I love the skinny women in stretch pants who turn out to be 70 when you see their faces

I love the weather bunnies with huge basooms on the news

I love the weather

I love men holding hands on the street

I love the palm trees

Flowers in November

Armani in thrift stores

The best hamburgers

Someday all of these things might feel like bars of a prison but now they are exotic and interesting and new.

Happy Halloween

G or Gee Mommy What's That?

My daughter is so excited about Halloween that she has me tell her the story of what’s going to happen every night before she goes to sleep.  This is a ritual left over from when she was really little and we had something going on that she was excited/nervous about like a trip.  It would sooth her nerves if she felt that she knew exactly what was going to happen and who was going to be there. 

She keeps her costume on display at all times in her room and will sometimes take it down and gaze lovingly at it.  She’s going as a witch, which I’m happy about. 

This year she specifically asked me not to make her a costume; she wanted a store costume she said.  A couple of weeks before Halloween we went out and bought a twenty dollar pink polyester princess dress in a plastic bag.  I tried very hard not to roll my eyes and make faces at it. 

She said she liked it when she tried it on so we took all the tags off.  A few days later she said she didn’t like it.  She wanted to be a witch.  I went out and bought a witch hat for a dollar and fifty cents.  She is happy.

We’re planning on going to the West Hollywood Halloween festival, which I’m a little nervous about.  I have a feeling that it might not be exactly rated G.

Maybe more like, “Gee mommy what’s that?”  I’ll take some pictures.

Handmade Halloween Witches

My daughter and I have been making these adorable little wool witches, adapted from the directions for wool gnomes in Magic Wool by Dagmar Schmidt and Freya Jaffke. 

I’m a little behind on our handmade Halloween crafts this year, maybe because it’s still a little hard for me to feel Halloweeny when it’s ninety degrees out.  I guess some day I’ll adapt to LA weather but right now it still feels like summer to me.

I love these witches because they have such a ragged witchey look and because they are a project that my five-year-old daughter can make without a lot of help from me. 

They are so easy that they almost don’t need instructions.  Just knot a five inch long strand of wool roving in the middle and fold in half so the knot becomes a little head.  You can wrap a thin piece of wool around the neck to keep it in place.  Next lay a piece of black roving, sort of spread out and flattened, over the head to form a kind of cloak.  Don’t worry about the pointy hat yet. 

Wrap a thin strand of black wool around the neck to hold her little cloak in place and then gently pull the wool upward into a point.  I secure the cloak under the chin with a few stitches of thread and then draw the thread upward through the head for a little loop to hang her as an ornament. 

Joining them in their magic circle is a little ghost done in the classic tradition.  When I was in school we used to use Kleenex and a cotton ball for the head.  For this one, I used lightweight interfacing and a little ball of white wool.  Be sure to cut the bottom in a ragged zig-zaggy line.

Wonderful Paper Toys

We love paper dolls in our house.  For my daughter, they are the perfect toys.  She loves anything new and interesting, her favorite toy is always whatever is the newest.  The great thing about paper dolls is that when they get old, torn and so last week, they are easily recycled and don’t become a mess of unappreciated toys on the floor.  She also loves to cut, paste and construct, so they have the added bonus of being a process as well as a product.

 I love them because they are simple, open ended, and not made of plastic.  We make our own, sometimes, and sometimes buy them, but by far our favorites are from this website.  The illustrations are wonderful and there are so many more things than just paper dolls, we’ve downloaded almost all of them and they are all just wonderful.