baby carriage

I spent the week home with Audrey, and I'm afraid my computer time got devoted to a little cloth diaper obsession I have going right now (and I know a lot of you--particularly my most beloveds--are rolling your eyes at me, but I'm encouraged with innovations...).

I have rather a backlog of great Marian craft artist photos, but have decided to stay current rather than try to play catch-up right away (a problem I used to have with my junior high journaling: I'd want to write, have a little guilt trip about not writing for 5 months, and fill pages with a dry little logbook items instead of passing on the passion that brought me to the little book in the first place).

Marian is dying over all things baby right now, filled with daily angst that she can't "hold that cute little baby right now." The main Marian-driven project of the weekend was making a baby carriage for her favorite stuffies (today it held Lambie, Bunny, and Achoo). When Audrey & I arrived Friday night, we were greeted with this sketch:I love how she's using sketch lines for some of her drawings when she wants to be careful of her dimensions. I hope she keeps the clear-lined drawings in her repertoire, too, though: they have a lot more spontaneity and character. When she sketches, sometimes she gets hung up on accuracy and loses a bit of charm. I'm sure I'll see plenty of changes in her style (age 6 & all), and I'm sure I'll stay nostalgic.... The pig on the side was her original decorating plan: lots of wee piggies and apples. Each side got just one in the end.

We decided to use a Vivonex box (her formula comes in packets that come 6 to a box, 6 of which are in another box, which is then shipped in another box. It drives me crazy.) for the base to start with a bit of stability (the box lines on the sketch above are mine), and add cardstock sides. She chose to make the wheels from one of the cardboard hospital meal trays I saved for crafting purposes because "I really like the texture" and the handle from a stick that's been floating around our room since I brought it home from a hospital walk (I hadn't been outside for awhile, and I kept it next to my bed for 3 weeks).She was delighted with the result, and decorated it with ephemera gleaned from postcard artist ads in the goody bags we scored at the Art Star Craft Bazaar on Saturday. After an overnight drying, we loaded it with stuffies this morning. I'm afraid she ended up a bit disappointed, though: "I thought it was going to be big enough for me to push it standing up!" She hasn't given it the time of day since. Tomorrow I'll try to put in a good word for it ;).