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I’ll be back again this after noon with some fun links, but first….how hilariously awesome is this random little Christmas Ornament?? I was searching on eBay and stumbled upon her. A pixie caterpillar??? How creepalina is that?!? I would have plunked down the cash because she is just so weird and cool, but with shipping she was gettin’ a tad pricey and did I reeeeeally need a pixie caterpillar?
Hmmm. I kind of love her though. Shoot. Maybe I should have bid on her.
*sigh*
I’m so excited about this weeks kiddo, my friends. We have our very first little style maven glasses! And this cutie patootie is sportin’ the most rockin’ pair of spex you’ve ever seen! Meet the fabulously, adorable Wren. Her mama Mari is an ex toy designer (and a great pal of Modern Kiddo!). She runs the awesome blog, Small for Big and is always showcasing really fun, cool stuff. Wren is a sassy two year old with moxie to spare! Take a gander, peeps:
+ glasses – Bbkids, from the Glasses Menagerie
+ pom pom hat – Handknit by her momma! (pattern available on here)
+ coat – Kate Quinn Organics, from lili picked
+ flannel plaid shirt – Fleet Farm
+ red t-shirt – Interesting story. It’s a sample brought back from Paris by a coworker on a trend research trip several years ago. Mari got it when the woman cleaned out her office (score!)
+ cords – Old Navy
+ shoes – Livie & Luca, from Hautelook
Seriously now….HOW CUTE ARE THOSE LITTLE GLASSES??? I love this girl! Her style is very boho chic….like, in a few years I can imagine her modeling for Anthropologie , am I right??
+ glasses – zoobugs, from The Glasses Menagerie
+ dress – Kate Quinn Organics, from Lilipicked
+ pants – Right Bank Baby, from Hautelook
+ dress – Kate Quinn Organics, from Lilipicked
+ pants – Right Bank Baby, from Hautelook
+ shoes – Livie & Luca, from Hautelook
+ dress – Kate Quinn Organics, from Lilipicked
+ leggings – the gap
+ Shoes – Converse bought on clearance from Babies R Us
+ tunic – Right Bank Baby, from Hautelook
+ leggings – from Modern Kiddo sponsor,  Parasols Boutique!
+ coat – Stella McCartney for the Gap – scored on clearance!
+ skirt – Right Bank Baby, from Hautelook
+ leggings – the Gap
+ shoes – Converse
Wren is a rambunctious, artistic, independent little sass. She loves kitties, coloring with her colored pencils, and putting stickers on everything. For some strange reason she calls every single one of her crayons pink (which has stunned and slightly dismayed her momma!).
But she also drops everything and runs to the back window to watch the Choo Choo Trainsacross the field from our backyard. She has an innate talent for modern interpretive dance with props—large kitchen spoons paired with Vampire Weekend and the classic 1970s Sesame Street album “In Harmony” are her current faves! (I die….) She is also a pro at running away from her parents in parking lots. First thing each morning you’ll find her sitting quietly with perfect posture on the sofa, her favorite picture book of the moment (or Daddy’s C++ manual) flipped open in her lap.
Thank you Mari for sharing your crazy cute little sweetie with us!
Professor Dottie here again from the School of Slap Dash Craftin’ with the easiest Christmas craft tutorial that you can do during your kid’s afternoon nap.
Friends, I bring you the:
Simple and sweet in all its felty goodness!
To make this skirt, you’ll need:
Key Prep: figure out the following measurements before you start the project:
1. Take the folded piece of felt and fold it diagonally into a narrowing triangle three times until your fabric looks like this:
2. Make sure that it is very flat and not wrinkled and that you also have a nice sharp point. I tried to true it with a ruler.
3. Choose the bowl/pan/whatever you have that is round to be your guide to create the scallop edging. Make sure to measure out the length that you wanted from the point to the farthest part of the scallop.
4. Draw a line with a marker using the bowl as your guide to create the scallop. It can get kinda thick, so I cut through what I could and unfolded it and re-drew the scallop with the pan.
5. Now, go to the point of the triangle and use your pan to draw the circle for the Christmas tree. Make sure you have the radius number, which is half of the circumference. You have your skirt. Now comes the fun part. THE DOTS!
6. I looked high and low for dots–at Michael’s and Beverly’s and finally found them at our local hardware store in the framing department. Huzzah! Self stick to boot, so you don’t have to deal with glue. Double huzzah!
7. Â Make your dot pattern–I free-handed it with putting a dot in the middle and at the ends and in between.
8. Now you are almost done, my friend! You need to make a cut in the skirt from the center circle to the edge so you can get the skirt around the Christmas tree.   Just slice it with a rotary cutter or scissors. Now you could do buttons, but please, I teach at Slap Dash U, not Fancy Pants Anal Retentive College. You have better things to do with your time than making button holes for this baby. So we are going to use those wonderful velcro dots that you can buy from the hardware store or your closest craft store.
9. Place the dots in a line at the edge of the cut with the velcro tops on top of the dots.
10. Place other edge of Christmas tree skirt on top of the dots. And voila–you made a lovely Christmas tree skirt that will look great before and after the tree is loaded up with presents.
You gotta love a good bit of holiday inspired craftiness, no? Â And bonus points for being cheap–the whole project cost me less than $10. So I can splurge on the really good rum for the egg nog! Hick!
What holiday crafting are you doing?
Since we were just talking about Christmas Pixies earlier this week, I wanted to share with you a new book I recently acquired. I hope you guys will love these illustrations as much as I do!
The drawings are so sweet and lovely….I love the little girls and the amazing owl….but the last one is almost my favorite! So simple. Images are from the book “Christmastime in Pixieland” by Dennis Burley. Illustrations by Felicitas Kuhn. 1970.
image: Nashlinks
On Christmas Eve in 1955, the red hotline phone rang at the Continental Air Defense Command office (CONAD). Colonel Harry Shoup was the commanding officer and he quickly picked up the phone. On the other end of the line was a young boy asking to speak to Santa Claus. Colonel Shoup wasn’t amused and thought one of his fellow officer was playing a joke on him. But then the phone rang again, this time with another child who began reciting his Christmas list. The calls continued through the night and Colonel Shoup knew he had to get to the bottom of things. After a little investigating, he discovered that the local Sears & Roebuck had produced a holiday advertisement that listed a special phone number so children could call Santa Claus. Unfortunately they misprinted the phone number and instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids straight through to the Commander-in-Chief’s “hotline†phone at CONAD!
Colonel Shoup was a kindly man and rather than ignore the barrage of calls flooding his phone, he came up with a clever idea. In a lovely gesture, he told the children that while he wasn’t Santa, he was quite “in the know” on Santa’s whereabouts. In fact, he claimed that he and his staff could see Santa on their Radar screens as he headed down from the North Pole. Throughout the evening, every child who called received an update on Santa’s progress. Local media heard of the calls and reported the story….and the next year even more calls came flooding in. Colonel Shoup and his team answered every call.
In 1957, COVAD became the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and they continued the tradition. Soon NORAD was partnering with Armed Forces Radio and broadcasting their Santa updates. Â Children all across the country would tune in eagerly every Christmas Eve to hear updates on Santa’s travels.
Of course, in this day and age Santa has gone global and NORAD maintains the tradition with a really great web site that allows you and your kiddos to track Santa Claus as he makes his Yuletide journey around the world!
Greg discovered the Norad Tracks Santa site a few years ago and we’ve made it a bit of a family tradition. Wolfie loves it and eagerly reports to us which continent Santa is on and when he’s getting closer to our house.
It wasn’t until recently that I became aware of the sweet history behind NORAD and Santa Clause, but I thought it was terrific. Unfortunately Colonel Shoup passed away last year, but his lovely tradition continues to live on, bringing Christmas joy and a sense of wonder to little kiddos everywhere.
images: Norad
Be sure to track Santa with your kiddos this Christmas Eve! You can do so on Norad Tracks Santa. Ho ho ho!