For Valentine’s Day, I got Chris the latest Chris Ware collection, “Building Stories.” It’s an amazing package of graphic art/comics/I don’t even know what to call it — all in different formats. We are long-time fans of Chris Ware. His work is meticulously designed, and we were pretty awe-stuck by “Building Stories” just looking through the package. Anyway, this giant book/box needed wrapping, so here’s what I did. It’s pretty self-explanatory. I always love a project that uses what I already have around.

Next, I used my valentines for Chris and the girls as an opportunity to play around with Illustrator. Though I took a class on Illustrator years ago, I am very much a novice with this software. Use it or lose it. I’ve lost it. Frankly, I was pretty pleased with myself for being able to make a heart shape with the pen tool. Baby steps.

As soon as all the girls are in elementary school, I’m hoping to finish up my half-completed degree in graphic design. I have a feeling pottery is going to require a day job, and jobs for editors (my pre-child career choice) are few and far between these days — not that graphic design is booming, but I enjoy it. When I took my typography class, we were using rub-on type. Rub-on type! Do they still do this? It’s not like we didn’t have computers then … Anyway, until I’m back in school, I’ll continue to make little projects for myself like this. Practice practice.

Sidenote: Check out the new button in the corner of my images. It allows you to pin the image to Pinterest, so pin away! Just be good and give credit where credit is due. Speaking of which, I got the ISLY Pinterest WordPress Widget from Melissa Esplin here. Thank you, Melissa and Chris (her husband who made the plugin).

We always do a craft or two as one of our advent calendar activities. Last night the girls made marshmallow wreaths. (Instructions here.) I came across these on Pinterest. (Of course — where else?)

Here’s how it went. The girls were able to complete these fairly independently, which is my main concern. So thumbs up on that count. But the instructions said you could use full-length toothpicks on a flat foam wreath. When we did this, the toothpicks were way too long, and went completely through the marshmallow by quite a lot. There was no way the girls were going to be able to partially skewer the marshmallows, so we cut the toothpicks in half. This created a ten-minute lag during which the children ate half the marshmallows. So Chris had to run out and buy more. Then while he was gone, Elise decided to roast a marshmallow on the advent candle and set it on fire.

So, stabbing! Fire! Fun holiday times!

No, really, this was a pretty good craft for the girls. I tried hanging the wreaths before setting in the refrigerator overnight, but marshmallows kept falling off. So I refrigerated them and hung them this morning. The marshmallows are still falling off. So, fingers crossed for no toothpick ingestion. Happy fun Christmas times!