screenwriting

About a year ago, Elizabeth and I started occasionally watching the ABC television series, Once Upon a Time. She's always been a huge fan of fairy tales, having multiple copies of Brothers Grimm collections, and even several collections of international fairy tales. Once Upon a Time takes great liberties with the story lines of the most famous fairy tales, but the series nonetheless held immense interest and appeal for Elizabeth. After winter break from school, when we watched the first few episodes of the current season, Elizabeth wondered why a few of her favorite fairy tale characters had failed to make it into the story line of Once Upon a Time. She gave a great deal of thought to how a few of the missing characters might enter the current storyline on the show. As she thought, she came up with a great idea for the entrance of Rose White and Rose Red. She decided to write down her ideas, then created a blog to publish those ideas, and she wrote a letter to the producers of the show with a link to her blog, hoping that they might take a look at her ideas.

What was initially a few paragraphs of idea became more and more fleshed out in her mind. Paul bought her a copy of Save The Cat!, a popular book on screenwriting, and we checked out another book on Screenplays from the library. She devoured those books over the course of a few weeks, while reworking her paragraphs of ideas into a more standard screenplay format. She also found a few copies of actual Once Upon a Time episodes online. She studied the lingo, paid attention to how they emphasized words and expressions, and pondered dialogue. Eventually she transformed her few paragraphs of ideas into a full-fledged screenplay. She spent hours over the last 3 weeks or so, reading, writing, and editing. You can find her screenplay here. I have to admit that I'm proud of her dedication to this project. She has been deeply committed and has worked long and hard to reach her goal of finishing this screenplay.

on Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day might be one of the most low-key we've ever celebrated. Not that we usually celebrate in a big way, but being snowed in certainly puts a natural limit on the festivities. Finn has already worked hard on his Valentine bookmarks for his classmates. They won't receive them today, but they'll be ready when he finally makes it back to school.

We found this cute printable with 8 different bookmarks, printed them, cut them out, punched holes in the top, and tied thin grosgrain ribbon to the top of each, then Finn signed the back of each bookmark. A lovely alternative to the homemade Valentine's card, I think.

As for my gift, I rose early this morning to finish the remaining toe of my husband's Valentine socks. They were kind of a last minute idea so I've spent much of the last week working on them. Tweedy green socks make for a good Valentine gift. We have to keep the toes toasty for these last few weeks of winter!

My boy and I also plan to have a grand time on this beautiful sunny day full of glittery snow. We will undoubtably spend a fair amount of time enjoying the snow remaining outside. The temperatures are supposed to be in the 60s next week so we won't have long to enjoy our southern snow.

But for today there are many inches waiting to be sledded, with a nice layer of ice on top for speed.

handmaking decorations

When my sister-in-law was here over the Thanksgiving holidays, she pointed out an adorable bottle cap snowman craft she saw on Pinterest. We gathered the supplies, some from the Michaels craft department (a necessity for the bottle caps unless you start saving them NOW for next year's crafting), others from my stash, then we set the kids to work painting and drawing. Of course, my children being their charmingly creative selves, we didn't end up with a single normal snowman among them. (Or maybe Elizabeth's were; I can't seem to find them right now.) But we do have upside-down snowmen, very long snowmen, and snowmen with heads on both ends. It's all about the process, right? They are quite festive, if non-traditional.

The knitted cork trees that I began a few weeks ago multiplied successfully, and in addition, Paulie made several origami Christmas trees from a tutorial I found for him. We decided that some of the smaller ones looked cute with the knitted trees. Finn had his own ideas and decided to add snow drifts around our trees. Now Paulie is scheming for a way to add white to the tops of his trees to complete the look.

I love the creativity that seems to naturally burst forth this time of year. It makes the long, sometimes dreary, days indoors seem that much lovelier.

If there are any holiday decoration tutorials that your family has enjoyed, please pass them along!

::right now::

::playing Bremen Town Musicians in front of the early morning fire::

::savoring the autumnal flavors::

::weaving with Grammy::

::collecting the last of the autumn acorns::

::creating a centerpiece::

::mixing an experiment with Grandad::

::obsessing over volcanoes::

::right now::

::watching the leaves transition::

::piecing a Christmas present quilt::

::smiling at his Halloween creations::

::shivering through the first frost::

::freshening Elizabeth's bedroom walls::

the busy work of summer

I fear I have been rather neglectful of this space as of late. The last few weeks have found great deals of produce at small prices as late summer's bounty swings into my local farmer's market. These are the busy days of summer.  I remember these days as a child, keeping myself occupied as my parents spent long hours dealing with bushels of peaches, bags full of tomatoes, or, as on one occasion, an entire trunkful of corn (no small feat in the vast trunk of the Delta 88).

Last summer I tried freezing peaches for smoothies, instead of just canning them. Unfortunately, once the peaches froze into a solid mass of icy peaches, there was no separating just a few for smoothies so most of those peaches went into peach cobblers--not that I heard anyone complaining about that! This year I decided to freeze them on trays before placing them into bags. I also discovered that my Vitamix will easily blend the peach skins. Leaving the skins on the peaches makes quick work of freezing peaches.

I also acquired 7 dozen ears of corn, which were all blanched and frozen on the cob.  My children love their corn on the cob, and it's much more expensive (than off the cob) to buy in the off-season. Now we can have local Silver Queen corn in the autumn and winter.

I canned Dilly Beans again, while enjoying the last jar of last year's Dilly Beans. This pickle is one of our favorites. Food in Jars has a fabulous recipe for them, although I leave out the cayenne pepper for the heat-adverse members of our family.

Last but not least, I purchased 50 lbs of tomatoes to finish up the rest of my tomato canning for the season.  I'm nearly out of jars, which means the tomato canning must be nearly finished. Pictured below is diced tomatoes in the quart jars, pizza sauce and garden salsa (double the cilantro, please) in the pints.

And now my children, much like I did in my youth, are finding ways to pass the long, slow days of summer while I spend my days in the kitchen with my trusty canner. Finn has found joy in taking care of his stuffed friend, Fruffy, who is here eating a breakfast of fabric scraps while Finn enjoys homemade ketchup on his scrambled eggs.

Elizabeth has picked up a love of cross-stitching this summer, enabled by a kit she received for her last birthday.

summer creativity

Summer break is officially here with school ending late last week.  The first day or two after school ends, the kids crash from the excitement of it all and seem a bit antsy and unsure what to do with themselves.  By the third or fourth day of no school, they seem to hit their groove and find creative ways to fill their time. I showed them an idea I found on Pinterest, and their little brains immediately took off with variations of it. Philip made a farmer and cow; Elizabeth, a farmer's wife; Paulie, a UFO; and Finn, a fat cow (which he apparently copied from google images as I noticed a tab on my web browser titled "how to draw a fat cow").

{Philip with the farmer and cow}

{Paulie's UFO abducting Elizabeth's farmer's wife}

{Finn's cow named Fatty Patty}

When the kids were done with their finger puppets, they made a little script and story then filmed it.  What started as an idea from Pinterest blossomed into a 4 hour project complete with collaboration, illustration, writing, and film editing. A fine beginning to a creative summer.

a winter afternoon

3:20 pm - reading Finn's book, Mountain Creatures, from his school library

3:45 pm - searching for state quarters and happily finding a wheat penny and a Canadian penny

4:00 pm - Finn's little hand-knit sock feet as he kneels at the couch playing with his cars

4:30 pm - Elizabeth's making pipe cleaner art from this book

5:00 pm - Finn and I start reading Moominland Midwinter

5:30 pm - baked sweet potato dinner (the kids have theirs with butter, cinnamon, and a touch of brown sugar; mine has butter, cumin, salt, and a slight pinch of cayenne pepper)

6:15 pm - an after-dinner game of Trouble by candlelight

the handmades

The handmade Christmas presents really begin here in the summer.  I usually start my first knitted gifts very early so that I have plenty of time to finish the inevitable last minute additions. You can see all of those handmade gifts in the crafting tab. The knitting has really heated up in the last few weeks though, as the last minute additions kept popping up. Fortunately, I'm down to the last few stitches and I see no problem finishing those today.

I'm not the only one who has been crafting recently though.  The older 3 kids and I decided to do a theme for Finn's birthday (on Christmas).  We each chose a storybook around which we would like to create a handmade play set.  I was so proud of the big kids!  You should have seen them, piecing quilts,

hand-sewing felt,

constructing with paper and cardboard.

We did buy a few small wooden pieces to supplement, but below are the storybook gifts Finn will be receiving.  Elizabeth made Finn a quilt for his Little Red Riding Hood set. (I made the knitted Little Red and Grandmother for her.)

Philip made the Bremen Town Musicians window. (The Bremen Town Musicians came from Jupiter's Child, as did the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.)

(We decided he might need a flashlight to fully enjoy this set. ;)

Paulie made the Star Child, based on this pattern from Rhythm of the Home. (The wooden candle holder is from PrettyDreamer on etsy.)

Here's an up close view of the little Star Child.

All 3 of the books are illustrated by Bernadette Watts.  (We love her illustrations!) And we were fortunate to find 2 of the 3 at our local used bookstore. Finn is also getting a Peter and the Wolf book and cd from us with a wooden figure set, similar to this one, without the hunters. I didn't handmake anything for that set so I didn't picture it here.

I have been working on some other handmades besides knitting.  I made minty chocolate lip gloss for stocking stuffers.  I'm already working on my tube and it IS divine!

I also made some hand cream this year for some of my extended family. This recipe took a few days to cure and thicken, but it's very rich and creamy now.

And of course, there's the knitting...always more knitting.  All of the toes, fingers, and heads in this house will be toasty though!

her own nativity

Elizabeth takes after me in that once she gets an idea in her head she has a hard time letting it go until she follows through with it.  Her ideas and projects often consume her, and I completely identify.  She developed an idea at the beginning of this week to make a nativity completely out of random items she could find around the house.

We have quite a supply of little wooden peg people and a basket of scrap cloth.  Most of her supplies came from these 2 places. (Don't you *love* Joseph's mustache and goatee! It's the details!) She also used cotton swabs, broken and glued into a rough manger shape then wrapped with cotton yarn.

Her shepherd is carrying a shepherd's hook made from modeling wax, and her sheep are pipe cleaners wrapped in raw wool and gently needle-felted.

But it's the details of the wise men that I think I love the most: using pinking sheared cloth to represent the crowns with coordinating robes, little balls of gold modeling wax wrapped in plastic wrap for a sack of gold, a metal brad pushed into red modeling wax for a bowl of frankincense, and wooden beads held together with metal brads to represent chunks of myrrh.

She's such a creative thing, that girl of mine.  And I'm so happy to see these bit and pieces of her imagination come to life.

PS. If you want to see a similar nativity made of peg people and felt, complete with directions for making your own, head over to the Magic Onions.