{fleece hat \ polka-dot top \ green pants \ yellow jacket \ backpack }

Wearing handmade isn’t always fashionable. Especially when your mother never bothered to “Gymboree-it-all-up” so everything matches.

And this is what happens when she picks her own outfits (which is pretty much every day now):

Bonus points to the first person who can correctly identify that thing tied around her neck.

I’m sure many of you have even better pictures of your self-dressed children hanging around!

Elliot seems incapable of throwing his clothes down the laundry chute without sticking his ENTIRE HEAD into the chute to watch it slide down. One of these days he is going to get stuck and we are going to have a problem.

I love our laundry chute. We didn’t have one at the last house and now that we have one I realize how much easier it makes cleanup; when your kids LOVE to pick up their clothes because of the reward at the end (getting to put it in the laundry chute!!! what else?) you have a much cleaner bedroom floor. It makes me a little sad that they don’t seem to be putting them into very many new houses. It is a…

It’s not too late to shop online for the holidays (or heck, for yourself)! I’ve been working on updating my Made By Rae sellers lists (they’re listed below) so I thought I’d showcase a few of the great items available from the talented group of indie crafters who are licensed to sell things with my patterns! From time to time I get requests for ready-made items from one of my patterns, and since I don’t have time to sew them up myself, I always send people over to the sellers lists. Supporting these shops is a great way to give handmade, especially if you don’t have time to sew it yourself!

1. Toddler Airplane Backpack by Zaaberry 2. Tutti Frutti…

When we were out in Seattle a couple weeks ago it dawned on me that my dad is a crafter too…just a different kind. I really wanted do a blog post about him and share his amazing craft with everyone!

This is my dad, Marv. He used to be a research chemist, but now he’s retired. Since the time I can remember he has always had more hobbies than I can keep track of. Trains, trees, birds, drawing, piano, classical music, seashells, sailing, racketball, running. When you start to go through the list, it’s really an impressive amount of interests for one person. About eight years ago he picked up a new, pretty amazing hobby: violin-making!

See that thing in his hand? That’s his most…

With all the travel our family has been doing lately, I completely forgot to tell you about a couple of other blogs I’ve recently been featured on. First, Prudent Baby featured my Cheater Quilt Bind-off Tutorial as part of a Quilting Series in November:

SEE THE PRUDENT BABY POST

{a sampling of great projects from Prudent Baby}

If you’ve never been to Prudent Baby, it’s definitely worth a look. TONS of great tutorials and projects over there! I feel like every time I’m there I get “lost” for hours, do you know what I’m talking about?

I also recently wrote a post…

Just in time to help you put the finishing touches on your Christmas list…

Made By Rae gift certificates!
Easy to order using our Gift Certificate Order Form, we send a Paypal invoice, and then email you a printable (and personalized!) PDF gift certificate upon receipt of payment. You can then print it out and put it in a card or forward it directly to the recipient. The gift certificates can be purchased right here for any dollar amount over $10.

Handmade Kids Wardrobe Class – January and February 2012
For those of you who are local and are interested in taking our Handmade Wardrobe for Kids class, Karen and I will be teaching the course again next January and…

I think this might be it for me so far: Mt Rainier, Mt Hood (I think? off to the far right in the second pic?), and Mt St Helens, all peaking out from the clouds on our flight from Seattle Monday afternoon. Breathtaking!