Coda

Normally, magic elves go back to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve. But we got special permission to keep ours with us a little longer, since Auntie J was coming just after Christmas for a visit and we wanted to introduce them.

So the mischief lasted a little longer. A “snowdrift” of styrofoam, reading a book about flower fairies on top of the tallest bookshelf, setting up the Star Wars and Littlest Pet Shop figures in the kids’ room…. On the last day the elves were thoughtful enough to bring a couple of giant Christmas pencils and set up the homeschool books for the day. They also left notes requesting that the kids pack up their clothes and items for their return trip.

Altogether, it was a wonderful visit. We are definitely inviting the elves back again (in fact, the kids want to invite a couple more to join in as well), though they likely won’t stay quite as long this time.

Christmas Eve

Ever since Halloween I hadn’t been able to find my little point and shoot camera. APPARENTLY the elves found it, because the next morning we found an interesting mini-tripod setup in front of the tree, and a ton of photos on the camera. Peeking into the frig, out of the microwave, eating their crackers, climbing in the tree, cuddling their kids – and even a couple on Santa’s boots. Clearly a busy evening – and what else would you expect for elves on Christmas Eve?

“Hope for the moment. There are times when it is hard to believe in the future, when we are temporarily just not brave enough. When this happens, concentrate on the present. Cultivate le petit bonheaur (the little happiness) until courage returns. Look forward to the beauty of the next moment, the next hour, the promise of a good meal, sleep, a book, a movie, the likelihood that tonight the stars will shine. Sink roots into the present until the strength grows to think about tomorrow.” Ardis Whitman

Adventures

The next morning when we woke up the elves were no longer in their bed. We’d been warned there would probably be mischief, hide and seek, and other unexpected adventures (some people call them elf-capades, but that sounds a little too much like an ice dancing show for me). But then – we opened the frig, and there they were! I guess they missed the cold.

Most days the elves’ main activity was hide and seek. We made them some clothes – pajamas shown here. Some of their other adventures included trying to untangle Christmas lights, stacking up all the Christmas movies (and bringing a new one – Elf), playing on the swing set and the tricycle outside, and getting out all the playdough in the house. They hid in cupboards and the silverware drawer. They started up the computer and were found playing Lego Star Wars one morning, found some tiny playing cards that I had as a child and were interrupted in the middle of a card game.

My son’s birthday is in early December, and so one day they brought a gift – toy reindeer (they also got out our claymation Rudolph dvd set – it stays in the Christmas decor box the rest of the year), and one day they brought little Christmas themed coloring books and crayons. Another morning they were waiting expectantly with a gingerbread house kit, and once they took all the cookie making supplies and stacked them on the stool in the middle of the kitchen (with themselves in the plastic bowl at the top of the tower).

The best thing was probably the night that my daughter’s friend slept over and brought HER elf Ginger with her – the next morning they were nowhere to be found. But what was that? Our car was all turned around and askew – NOT how we left it the night before. When we went out to see what was up we discovered a team effort – Ginger steering, Priscilla buckled in (no doubt navigating) and Mickey working the gas petal. (And boy, you should’ve seen the half-delighted, half-freaked look on the kids’ faces.) I told the elves that next time they took the car out they should really bring back pizza.

So as I mentioned before, I first saw these elf shenanigans on Marci Lambert’s Make Art Every Day blog. And it looked awesome. I checked out Elf Magic and ordered a couple of tickets for two elves to come visit us last year.

Arrival

Our elves arrived just after Thanksgiving as we were putting up Christmas decorations – they appeared on the doorstep in a basket with helium balloons. They brought magic snowflakes and elf sacks, as promised when I got their tickets. They also brought a little suitcase with some extra clothing, passports, and files on each of the kids, complete with a tiny elf-drawn sketch, likes and dislikes, and naughty/nice status. Also – blank paper to add notes as the month wore on. Which they did, weekly or so.

Their names were Priscilla Snowflake and Mickey McFrost. Judging by her loopy handwriting and abundant use of exclamation points, Priscilla was very excited about her visit. It turned out that Mickey was more cautious, having had a bad experience the year before while visiting a boy who was on the Naughty List.

Anyway, we tucked them into bed (used a shallow Amazon box with some of the airfilled packing material as a mattress; we had a candy-cane striped fleece blanket as well which I later sewed into two sleeping bags), sprinkled them with the magic snowflakes as instructed, and set out some crackers and water (their favorite snack – the crackers are crunchy like North Pole snow and the cold water is like melted snowflakes). As you can see, when we awoke the next morning they had also gotten into a leftover muffin…

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. – G.K. Chesterton

art of all kinds, books, church, dancing,
ears, friends, grandparents,
husband, indoor plumbing, joy, kids,
legs, music, new house, oxygen, pumpkin pie,
quilts from my grandmother, random anecdotes overheard, siblings,
taking pictures, umbrellas with cheerful designs, van,
warm wool sweater, extended family,
yellow, zing

You?

We found the Pikachu suit at Goodwill. Both my kids being Pokemon fans, there was some discussion over who would get to wear it, but my daughter conceded in favor of her former idea, a blue fairy, courtesy of her dance recital costume and some wings and a wand from Walmart. (Exactly the right color too!)

Meanwhile we needed to finish out the Pikachu costume, so I bought some fleece in the appropriate colors and started googling.

Shockingly, I didn’t find an actual pattern specifically for a Pikachu hat (seriously, I was actually a little surprised). But there are plenty of tutorials out there for fleece hats, and even hats with ears added. I mostly used this one and a couple of reference pictures.

Here’s the finished product:

When I do it again (my daughter is begging for a fox hat), I will probably alter the height of the triangles a little – my kids and I have freakishly large heads, I fear. Also, be sure to cut the band the right way – I cut mine along the non-stretch and had to pick it out and replace it. Whoops.

All of us – plus an aunt and a friend.

(I am a pioneer, in case you can’t tell from the folded back bonnet.)

Blue fairy.

Ash and Pikachu!

However, I also felt moved last year to make an elf and share it with A’s best friend (and her mom), so here’s some pictures of that.

I used this pattern here, on Make Baby Stuff. (Elf Magic elves are about 10 inches high, very little, can wear Barbie doll-ish sized clothes. This pattern came out 16? 18? 20? inches high and much bigger around. Later I made some clothes – crochet shawl, used a knifty knitter loom to make a dress – for her.)

I think it came out awesome. Best face I’ve ever embroidered, that’s for sure. And I’m frankly in love with my pointy ears there.

The trickiest part about the pattern (besides doing the hair, which is not actually tricky, I just dislike doing it) is sewing it with the legs and arms inside. Beware stuffing your appendages too firmly! At least if you widen them like I did – I feared they would be too skinny as-was, but it was a bear sewing the thing together. Next time I may leave the bottom open instead of the head – it was that skinny neck causing the issues. Also I sewed the arms too far down – they should be right below the neck really. Elves are apparently not proportioned like us. I used all remnant fabric, yay! But the peach colored one particularly is a bit on the thin side. Don’t know exactly how to fix that, short of using different fabric… double the layer? Light interfacing? Both? We’ll see. I plan to make a few more of these (ragdolls, not elves), so I’ll have to try different solutions.

Similar to (or at least, inspired by) this one by Kerflop at Balancing Everything. Just not as pretty.

Sorry I don’t have lots of actually good photographs of this. Not this time. I will have to mostly describe.

I sewed simple pockets of remnant fabric. (I used some medium weight interfacing on them, then visited a friend’s house to use her serger on the edges.) At the moment they’re (obviously) just pinned to a cork board with index card labels. (Maybe I’ll cover it with fabric eventually?)

Here’s an example of the chore cards:

I used my digital scrapbooking supplies to make cards (particularly this kit here by Jacque Larsen and Kate Hadfield). (Pamela Donnis also has some cute stuff, and some premade routine cards that could help with this perhaps.) I made a new 4×6 document and made the color part in the middle 3×5″ in case I wanted to cut them down and use them in conjunction with 3×5 cards. Which I haven’t yet, and probably won’t bother. And I printed them all as 4×6 photos (cuz hey, 6 cents per print on Winkflash, can’t argue). I can also use 4×6 index cards with them, if I just want to write something on.

Now to find a place to hang it, and actually use it!