Category Archives: dogs

May9

Spring fashion…for my dog

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new-collar

I thought my Belle needed to have some new accessories for spring. I made her a collar from scraps of Dorothy’s new dress. These collars are easy to make because I don’t make them adjustable, I just make them the right size to fit my particular dog. I stitch fabric onto 1 inch webbing, sew on a reinforced D-ring, and put parachute clasps at each end.personalized-collar

On the second collar I tried something new. Sometimes it is difficult to get Belle’s metal tags off the thick D-rings on these collars. I had a half-sheet of iron-on transfer paper for dark fabrics sitting around, so I printed Belle’s name and address (some of which I rubbed out in the photo) several times onto the sheet, clipped them out, and ironed one on to this second new collar. Now all her pertinent information is right there on the collar instead of dangling below. This will be the perfect collar for walks in the woods because she won’t get her tag snagged on sticks, and it will make changing collars easier because it can go right on without my having to change over her metal tag. I saved the other printed addresses for future collars.

Aug11

Painted canisters and a dog collar

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I feel like this is one of those instances where the final product looks much cuter in my kitchen than it does in this crummy picture. I should outsource my photography to someone with better skills! Disclaimers aside, I gave my kitchen canisters a little update. The sturdy glass jars where still in perfectly good condition after ten or so years of wear, but the metal lids were starting to rust. I used craft paint on the lids, then coated them with a polyacrylic sealer. The top of the lids don’t come into contact with food, nor do they need to be dishwasher safe, so I’m hoping this solution stops the rust and improves the look of them.I tried to get a picture of one of the lids in front of the curtains that inspired the design. In retrospect I could probably have stamped on polka dots in the same paint colors and it would have looked nice with less work, but I didn’t think of that in time.

Belle the dog was the victim recipient of another of my recent projects. I’m quite pleased with this one and foresee homemade collars to match every season and holiday in lucky Belle’s future. I purchased inexpensive parachute clips, nylon webbing and D rings at my local crafts shop. I sewed decorative fabric over the webbing and then assembled the collar. This would have been a more complicated project if I’d had to make the collar adjustable, but since I was only sewing it for one full-grown dog I just based it on the measurement of one of her other collars already adjusted to fit her. The whole project only took a few minutes and a couple dollars–now I have to figure out which of my camper fabrics to use on the next one!

Belle models her new collar.

Jun30

For my happy canine camper

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It’s a good thing we have supportive families. If my mother hadn’t come and cleaned my kitchen (thank you, Mom!) and my in-laws didn’t have my daughter for a sleepover, I would never have been able to ignore the rest of my life quite so thoroughly these couple of days while I sew for my trailer. It’s fun to get wrapped up in a project.

This morning I tackled the issue of Belle’s sleeping space. I made her a little doggie bedroll. It’s a quilted cover with sturdy upholstery fabric on the bottom over a core of 1 inch foam. The cover is removable for washing. She seems to like it.

It can be easily rolled up for storage when not in use.

Now if I can figure out how to build a mudroom on the front of this 14-foot trailer so I can wipe down her muddy paws before she comes inside…

Feb15

Training pants and a dog toy

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I did some sewing for the boy this week. At 23 months Worth is on the young side for potty training by today’s standards, but we’ve decided to give it a go anyhoo. He’s not potty aware or anything, but I figure even if we spend a month wiping up messes from the floor we’re still coming out ahead of spending another year waiting for him to initiate the thing himself. I don’t really buy the arguments that one should wait until kids ask to be potty trained. Like really? It’s the toilet, not the shaping of his ego or creativity or anything touchy-feely. I’m not going to beat him for making messes; I’m just his mother explaining to him that life without diapers is better. We’re taking a low-pressure, high-enthusiasm approach and it is going well so far. We’re letting him hang out at home in the new pants, encouraging time spent on the potty, and then putting him in dipes for trips out. On the first day he seemed totally clueless; on the second day he consistently told me when he was peeing, and today (day 3) he actually made it to the potty once. Dorothy and I danced, we cheered, we passed around chocolate cake. Seems like progress. Anyway, Worth needed big-kid pants for this experiment but I got sticker shock when I went to look for some. Then I remembered my sister-in-law Molly had made some for Maggie, so I decided to do the same. I used the same pattern she used and they were easy to make and turned out really stunningly adorable. I used some cotton knits left over from a recent scarf project (stay tuned for a blog about that one) and mixed up the colors. I made six pair and spent $0 on materials, since I was using scraps. That’s totally in my budget.

And while I was being so frugal I hated to throw away the long, skinny leftover shreds of fabric in those bright rainbow hues, so I braided them into long braids and then knotted the braid into a new toy for Belle. She seems pleased.

 

Jan20

A winter wreath and some other projects for the home

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I never know what to hang on the front door after Christmas. Holly berries no longer seem right, but it’s definitely not time for spring flowers either. I decided to buy a cheap thrift store wreath and winterize it. The photo above is the wreath I started with, purchased for about $2.

I lightly spray-painted the whole thing white. The original colors still show through, but it looks kind of frosty. Then I added silver snowflakes (white ones from a craft store, spray-painted silver), a colorful bow, and a vintage bird I found at a yard sale last summer. I like that the blue gives a little color to my winter front porch but I still feel seasonably appropriate.This might not be the best photo of my new pillowcases but at least it shows them in action. The striped print, Robert Allen Kukula Pinata, coordinates with my new curtains (finally all finished!) in Kiki Pinata. I like that the boldness of the stripe and color anchors my sort of washed-out old sofa, but that it isn’t so matchy-matchy with the curtains that anyone is going to get seasick from all the flowers. The kids and dog obviously like them as well. It has been part of our daily homeschool routine for Dorothy to read a book or two to her brother, so that is what is going on here. I don’t actually want to talk about why my 22-month-old is sucking on a pacifier, and since this is my blog, well, I won’t.

Belle’s doggie bed was originally intended to occupy space on the second floor of our home, but it ended up being more useful in our main living space. The downside to finally finishing the curtains in this room was that the bed, covered in fabric to match my bedroom, now looked kind of clashy in the family room. I found a nice, washable fabric to make a new dog bed cover at Joann. It’s the Lisette brand but I didn’t see this print on the website. It looks like an Ikat print and is a color that should both match the room and the dog–so her hair won’t show so badly! Both the person who cut my fabric and the person who checked me out asked what I was going to do with the pretty fabric. It was kind of funny to tell them it was for my dog, but she should have pretty things too. Why not?

 

Jan8

After the holiday buzz

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I love that after-holiday feeling. As eager as I was to pull out the Christmas tunes after Halloween, I’m equally satisfied to have packed it all up now, returning to life as normal with a new zest. Doesn’t everything in the house look serene and uncluttered once the holiday decorations come down?

I guess I took a little break from blogging during all the whirl of celebrations, but here are some photos I’ve collected to share.

Belle got a new collar and tag in her Christmas stocking. Her collar came from this Etsy shop, and the tag (check out that awesome camper stamp!!) came from this one. Maybe I should be embarrassed that my dog’s accessories will match my camper but I’m not. Belle seemed impressed with it, but was more impressed with the chocolate she stole from our kitchen counter on Christmas morning. If I’d had to make that phone call to the emergency animal hospital before Christmas I might never have been so generous with the dog gifts! But it all turned out fine…nothing says “Merry Christmas” like inducing dog vomit. Oy. At least she’s nicely accessorized.

The owner of Stamped with Love also sent me this fantastic key chain, which I think speaks for itself. It’s stamped with the same words as our camper sign. I love it!

This is my favorite picture from Christmas 2011. My boy refused to let anyone remove his new shoes from his feet and he slept with his arms around his beloved new fire truck. He’s still too little to grant affection to Christmas gifts on any other basis than how much he loves them in the moment, and these wee running shoes and charming fire truck took the day. Dorothy’s favorite gift (I think), after all was said and done, was the new “pet” mouse Santa brought. We’ve been reading the Ralph the Mouse books, so I purchased a very cute toy mouse and stuck it in a real cage with a real rodent water bottle and clean shreds of scrapbook paper. The cage has a handle, so Dorothy totes the whole setup around with her. She loves it. It wasn’t a homemade gift, obviously, but I did feel like my creativity in assembling it made it more special than the ready-made gifts she has played with less.

These are the sugar cookies the children decorated at our New Year’s Eve celebration with another young family. I baked the cookies using Martha Stewart’s sugar cookie recipe, then iced them with plain white royal icing, then let the kids do the rest.

I put a shark applique on a plain white cotton tee as a birthday gift to a little friend who turned one on Christmas Eve. This felt like a useful and simple gift and I hope he likes it.

And last but not least, one of my own favorite Christmas gifts was a bit of a long shot. Some time last fall before Rob injured his heel we concocted a plan to acquire family pogo sticks this Christmas (with the exception of Worth, who has just perfected jumping on his own two feet). I don’t remember now what made us think this was a good idea. In any case, Rob got a pogo stick but can’t use it until his physical therapist and surgeon allow him to do so (maybe March?), Dorothy got a pogo stick with a nice, wide, detachable base to ease the learning curve but is still a bit of a stretch for a novice pogo-girl in chilly weather, but  me, well I’ve gone pogo crazy! I love it. I thought I’d never be able to get up on the thing, but it turns out that pogo jumping is rather like riding a bicycle; the muscle memory of the skill perfected as a young person followed me, forgotten but not gone, into my adulthood. Jumping on the pogo stick is the most fun exercise I’ve gotten in recent memory. It’s intense and makes the legs burn, but it’s so fun and thrilling I barely notice. I’ve been adding sets of pogo jumps to my day before and after our evening dog-walk, and the increase in heartbeat makes the whole endeavor more worthwhile, health-wise. If I’d just lay off the sugar cookies (see above) maybe I’d lose a few pounds too!

I hope your holidays were wonderful!

Aug30

A lemonade stand

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I’m afraid I haven’t done a single thing crafty or blog-worthy (with the possible exception of some newly invented cookies, but I forgot to photograph them so what’s the point?), but I’m posting anyway because Worth doesn’t feel well and won’t get off my lap, and if I’m going to sit here captive I may as well do something. So here is a random post about things that have been going on! The neighborhood kids had lemonade stand in my front yard. Unfortunately their accounting was almost as bad as their spelling, so it is unclear if the enterprise earned money or just annoyed the neighbors.

Worth got his first favorite pair of shoes. He tried these on at an outlet mall on the way home from an out-of-town wedding last weekend and we couldn’t even pry them off his feet to pay for them so we just snipped off the tags and he wore them home. He kept cooing over them and touching them and giggling in his car seat.  Hilarious and cute. I love that we finally found shoes he’ll actually keep on, plus they are mercifully easy to clean. The adorable t-shirt was a gift and I love it like he loves his shoes.

This was a picture that appeared on my blog back in June of Belle on her homemade dog bed…

and an updated snapshot, two months later. I’m glad kids don’t grow that fast! (And a disclaimer, Belle is not allowed to play with the kids’ toys ordinarily, but she has a deep and abiding fondness for this little knitted animal. She doesn’t eat it–she just plays with it and loves on it and since it seems to be no worse for wear as a shared toy I allow it. She’s just a baby too, after all, even though she’s more than doubled in size!)

Jul15

Hazy but never lazy summer

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Where does the time go? I’m offended that Target has back-to-school things out. In the meantime, we’re enjoying the heck out of our summer, in and out of the pool, playing with the dog, partying in the back yard, getting sunburned in spite of best intentions, still removing wallpaper occasionally but not doing too much crafting. There will be time for cozy indoor creativity later. Dorothy and I have been churning out cookie bouquets in the kitchen, however, since we all need to be in the air conditioning sometimes. I let her color on old CD adhesive labels, which we then stick to the plastic-wrapped cookies. That seems to be a good way to use those labels up as well as artfully decorate our goodies. Empty cans that used to house bottled coffee drinks make perfect small vases, and the link to cookie recipe we use is here. This bouquet went to a four-year-old friend with a birthday this week.

Vintage linens on the kid table, with flowers picked from the garden in a mason jar, all ready for a group of happy friends–does summer get any better than this?

And Miss Belle, who I think may actually have doubled her size since we adopted her, sporting her new Etsy collar with flower. She is growing strong on food from dishes sold by this store, and her sweet engraved tag came from here. These dog goodies were beyond my homemade ken, but I love being able to buy someone else’s creative works instead of the same old stuff from the big box stores.

I also have a happy update on my car woes. It seems that my car is fixable! I may only be in my ugly, gas-guzzling rental for one more week. I’m going to have to do something nice for my car when I get it back. Maybe a homemade trash can? Or new cover-up rugs for the floorboards? I’m so excited. There’s nothing to make you appreciate the status quo like having it temporarily compromised.

Jul5

The garage door and an accidental nightie

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Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend! We took the puppy to the celebration at Crescent Hill. We thought the pet-friendly event would be nice socialization for her and that if she got too sidetracked by the sights and the smells I could just carry her. That plan worked okay except I failed to anticipate the mobs of children and old men who would want to stop and pet the puppy. So we made our way slowly through the celebration and really that was just about perfect. There was enough time and puppy love to go around! My kids were also looking pretty cute in their patriotic hand-me-downs. (I [heart] generous friends with older children!)

I realized on the morning of the 4th that I didn’t really have anything red, white or blue I felt like wearing. I thought of some cute cherry fabric in my stash and I had just enough time before we were to meet friends at the celebration to whip up a new tank top. Unfortunately, even though I altered the pattern I’d used to make pajamas recently the tank was still too loose and poofy for me to want to wear it out in public.  I made do with a plain white t-shirt instead and will sew sleep shorts to match this tank, now an accidental nightie instead of day-wear.  Oh well, new pajamas are nice too, and I doubt I would have wanted to wear cherries on many days besides the 4th anyway.

This project is one Rob and I have worked on together over several weekends. Our detached garage was looking decrepit, with peeling paint on the door and a rusty old light. Rob sanded the door and we painted it in white with the gold in the grid to match our front and side entrance doors. Then Rob sanded and sprayed the light fixture red and that really perked it up, making it look like a garage that really belongs to us and our house instead of an afterthought stuck in the back yard. I think I’ll use red on some shutters on the side of the garage as well. The colors are consistent with what we’ve been doing on the side and front porches. I actually need to finish up that front porch and blog about it–the UPS woman made my day recently by asking where I’d purchased my (homemade) chair cushions in the front! I love giving this old house new life.

Jun30

One unhappy event and a dog bed

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A nostalgia photo: me with the keys to the only car I’ve ever chosen for myself, March 2008. 

It’s been an eventful week. Dorothy’s at a drama day camp, we had a nice visit from Aunt Stephanie, and, unfortunately, we had a car accident. Belle seems to like riding in the car so I’d taken her with me to pick Dorothy up from camp. We were almost home when the light turned green for me at an intersection and I drove forward. Unfortunately, Mr. Wears-the-Same-Color-as-His-Sports-Car-With-Vanity-Plates thought that his red stoplight did not apply to him and he zoomed through it–and right into my car. I honked/swerved/braked and all of that, but the impact (to my front passenger side) was still pretty fierce. My back got quite a jolt and the pup hit the floor. Thankfully, the kids seem to have come through the crash just fine, safely secured in their correctly-installed car seats and Worth still rear-facing. The pup picked herself back up with no ill effects, and I’m hoping my sore back is a temporary issue. My car, however, is not so fine. The impact sent us on a little half-spin that seems to have made one of my rear wheels tilt toward the center. Not good. I drove the vehicle the remaining blocks to my house at about 5 mph, with my father-in-law carefully following behind, but the conditions deteriorated such over the course of the short drive home that I’m quite worried about what’s going to happen to my beloved car. It shakes and trembles, screeches and takes jolty little nose-dives to the left without any input from the driver. I’m trying to remember how grateful I am that all my humans (and one canine) are still in one piece, but I’m also pretty upset about the car.
My mother has been sweet to loan me hers until we can come up with a better interim solution, but it’s a lousy feeling to be without my wheels. My car has the hitch, so there will be no camper-towing for a while. I’m also almost ridiculously fond of my car (I get gently made fun of for this sometimes) and it makes me sad to be without it. My car is just such a great fit for my life–there is a perfect spot or feature for all of my little people, gadgets, or travel-related needs. It’s not too big and not too small. Up off the ground but not towering. I spent many hours researching and reviewing cars after my old Civic was crashed (along with, unfortunately, my right arm) back in Dorothy’s infancy, and I’ve always felt that though nothing can make up for a right arm that never got back full range of motion and always knows when it rains, getting to pick just the right vehicle for me while my husband was still in law school was a nice consolation prize. My fingers are crossed that the damage isn’t as bad as it seems, and that maybe I’ll be back on my own wheels soon.

 
Ok, enough of my whining. Belle needed a special comfy place and I’ve made her a dog bed. I used two standard-size pillows that I hooked together with snaps along one long side of each. This way the pillows can be detached for easy machine-washing. Otherwise I think a well-padded dog bed for a pooch the size that Belle will be would not fit in the washing machine. The bed is located in the hallway right outside the bedrooms of our human family members. I used leftover bird fabric from the curtains in my bedroom, machine basted to an old flannel sheet for added body and sturdiness. The bottom is just cut from a thrifted sheet, with overlapping edges for easy removal. Belle seemed to know exactly who the bed was for and plopped right down. I’ll have to take regular photos of her on it as she grows, to record her growth as her puppyhood speeds by. She’s a sweet little dog. 
I’ve been reading up on puppy training since we’re such dog novices. I love this book, written by a group of Eastern Orthodox monks who raise and train dogs to support their community. I hadn’t expected to enjoy reading about puppy training, but was pleasantly surprised when I fell quite engrossed by this bit of puppy prose. They take their dogs very seriously–I sometimes wonder if some of their very serious anecdotes and advice are a bit tongue-in-cheek?–and present all of their information and recommendations thoughtfully and thoroughly. I recommend it to anyone sharing a home with a puppy.