I applied myself to the Elsie Marley Kids Clothing Week Challenge Spring 2012 with blazing ferocity, and the result is a cute little Southerny apron-style sundress! Even I was not expecting it to turn out so “country”, but that’s where the fabric led me. Seems appropriate, since we live in the country, after all.

This is the first actual article of clothing that I’ve ever made! I started with vintage handmade curtains, acquired from a friend whose grandmother had moved into a retirement home, and who graciously allowed me to ransack her attic and basement for fabrics and other lovelies. I was thinking about actually using the curtains; they were so pretty, but totally not my style. She already had the lace trimmed and the tie-backs ruffled, so I decided to hack them up and sew them back together in a new configuration, like the Frankenstein that I am.

I used one tie-back and half of one curtain panel, and lined it with muslin for modesty’s sake. I didn’t use a pattern, as they terrify me and my mother has yet to instruct me on the ins-and-outs of such exotic things. I took some measurements, made some plans and adjustments and poorly-drawn diagrams, and used a cereal bowl to cut out the curvatures of the armpits — because that’s how we do things around here.

I love it, it’s adorable and precious — but Nola is less than thrilled. The whole week while I was working on it, she would ask, “Mommy workin’ on my dress?” Yet every time I try to put it on her, she says “No! No! I don’t want to wear it!” Freakin’ 2-year-olds, I swear. We’ll see how much actual wear it will get before she grows out of it. Glad I didn’t spend the extra time installing those pockets I was contemplating.

Maybe I’ll bust out another panel and make her something a little less “contemporary” and a little more “active”, so she can do all those things that her impulsive two-year-old brain compels her to do — i.e. chasing the dogs, rolling in the grass, jumping in mud puddles, throwing rocks at *whatever*, kicking her brother, etc.

Oh, but definitely with pockets this time.

To celebrate, we had planned a morning-to-night birthday Saturday — with family in the morning, friends in the afternoon, and a couple friends staying over night. BUT THEN: Ear infection sneak-attack the night before the party. Arg!

At the last second, had to push the friends/sleepover party back a week (with lots of phone calls at 10:30-at-night to attendees’ parents, *awkward*). Luckily we kept the “family” party as planned, so it wasn’t a total destructo-bummer for the birthday boy, who had been waiting in great anticipation of epic-birthday-party-day. Still had grammas, grampas, aunt & uncle, presents and decorations — and I forced the dozen family members there to eat the 4-dozen cupcakes I had prepared for the weekend. Who doesn’t love a birthday cupcake brunch?!

The decorations were left up for the week (quite festive). Fresh batches of cupcakes were baked the following Saturday (thank god my best friend was here and graciously offered her help to frost them, because I was about damn sick of frosting cupcakes), and promptly devoured by the ravenous hoard of first-graders.

If you hadn’t guessed by now, the party “theme” was Super Mario Bros! *Sweeeeeet* I made 90% of the decorations myself, with the help of my trusty printer, resulting in a lot of scissor-blisters and deadened hand and finger nerves.

For the 4-foot character wall graphics, I culled some large images from the internet, sliced them up in PhotoShop and printed the pieces out — Toad was 5 sheets, Bowser a whopping 24 sheets, and the others fell anywhere in between. I cut out all the pieces from the sheets and glue-sticked them together (felt like I was in grade-school again!); hung them on the walls with good-ol’ double-sided tape. They were a big hit! (with the kids and the adults!)

Also mocked-up a papercraft question block template, printed and assembled and filled them with gold coins for the kids.

Gunner had fantastic fun with his friends, and the weather was gorgeous (78° in mid-March Iowa?!) which kept the kids entertained outdoors most of the time.

I was the most apprehensive about the sleepover, but it also went really well; barely any quarreling, no homesick kids, and all three boys were passed-out asleep before midnight without any problems. Overall, a pretty successful birthday. Not sure how we’re going to top it next year!

That’s my hand! I use it to make things! How appropriate! You can score one of the spankin’-new business cards if you come visit me at the Sycamore Craft Market in Iowa City on March 31st (hint-hint).

In case you’re wondering, I ordered my business cards from Zazzle. Love-love-love Zazzle’s custom business cards! Excellent quality product, free double-sided printing and custom image uploads, super-easy-to-use design interface, and really good prices. Plus, you can use coupon code BIZCARD4LESS during checkout for 50% off your custom business cards!

In other shop news: I’m currently having a 2012 Calendar Clearance Sale in my shop, and all calendar items have been marked 50% off! Also, I happened to notice that Adel Zeller Handmade is sitting right at 199 sales — one more purchase to reach 200 sales! I’m thinking we should have a giveaway to celebrate!

She really is a happy kid, I swear!! Just seems like whenever I get my camera out she puts on her poker-face, lol. We found her a Cabbage Patch kid at Goodwill that I could not believe — excellent condition… with clothes on, even! So of course I had to make her new baby doll a blanket.

I knew I was keeping all those strip-scraps for a reason, and not just because I’m some kind of fabric hoarder… because I’m not… I also made her some fresh new pillowcases for her big girl pillow that she has now!

I put in some extra effort to put French seams on them, which easily doubled sewing time, but WOW was it worth it! So nice… I think I’ll put French seams on everything from now on… lol yeah right like that’s going to happen!

Nola also got a bedroom makeover “for her birthday” (not that she would really know any better, but that was my manic justification, anyway). Remember a-year-and-a-half ago when I was all like, “I’m gonna make Nola’s room all awesome!” with grandiose plans? Well none of that really happened until just recently…

Yes, those are the same Alphabet Wall Cards as mentioned in the original post, finally up on the wall! They are so wonderful, great quality, and create a nice large-scale effect that fills a lot of space (’cause empty wall space is what we had!) — and for less than $20, you really can’t go wrong. The Discovery Kids Lunar Phase Moon Lamp is pretty effing sweet, as well. I also got one for Gunner’s room, and now I’m thinking I need to get another to put in our (the “grown-ups”/parents) bedroom.

Lots of toy storage, with room for more (dear god please, not too much more). Plus a couple shelves dedicated solely to BOOKS — Nola’s absolute favorite things ever.

(Note the dotted-line silhouette in there where bunting will eventually exist.) The picture hanging at the end of her crib was drawn by her big brother especially for her! There’s also a sneak peek at the crib bumpers I’ve been working on (sheesh, by the time I get them finished she won’t be sleeping in the crib anymore).

I’ll be posting a blog entry with more pics of those when they’re all finished. The fabrics are “Fandango” by Kate Spain for Moda; and yes, they are now out-of-print — and now you know how long I’ve been picking away at this project. Diligence!

I adapted the pattern so there would be a box-style flap opening at the top, made Beemo red, put a “to” and “from” on the back in a readily-available area, added some hearts where Gunner wanted them, and the Adventure Time logo on the lid for good measure.

Last night was spent cutting and folding Valentine’s-themed BMO boxes and filling them with candy.

Twenty-four of them.

I now have blisters and papercuts. Worth it. Gunner is happy and my A.D.D. hyperfocus has been satiated for another day. Grabbed some quick photos of them this morning (I actually remembered to photograph one of the cool porjects I finished!) and packed them up and off to school.

I hope they are received well! Gunner has one of his own, too, of course — to add to his three other Beemo papercrafts of varying sizes. They’re like a little family now.

I know this is a really last-minute Valentine’s post, but if you’re looking for a quick and fun Valentine for the Adventure Time fan(s) in your life, you can download a pritable PDF of the box by clicking the image below!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

He’s got magnets in his mouth and buttons for eyes, so we can make some other facial expressions for him, too! He still needs a backpack, and Jake the Dog will be made sometime in the future. Mathematical!

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Frosty the Snowman (“Happy Birthday!”)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
• Jim Henson’s The Christmas Toy*
• Home Alone*
• Home Alone 2*
• Max & Ruby’s Christmas
• Thomas & Friends Ultimate Christmas
• Gremlins

We grown-ups even managed to squeeze in the vaguely Christmas-themed Die Hard, and the loosely-associated The Shining (hey, it takes place during the winter…)

There are a few more family-favorites to cram in this week:

• Santa Claus is Coming to Town
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol
• A Garfield Christmas (not sure why this costs $110 on Amazon… too bad for anyone who doesn’t have it, I guess!)
• Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas*
• A Christmas Story (we always save this one for Christmas Eve or Day)

Gunner shredded through the collection of 20-or-so Christmas children’s books in about three sittings. We’ve also been listening to Christmas with the Chipmunks, Fisher-Price Christmas Sing-Along, and my growing database of holiday mp3s, in the car and while decorating and such.

Some people would be driven to the brink of madness by all of this (like my husband). But it’s all very comforting and festive for me, and the kids have been having a great time. Holiday spirit all-around and no “Bah-humbugs” allowed!

Thanks to thundymac for the inspiration — I was looking for a good Christmas project and this was perfect! Also thanks to Hancock Fabrics for having the best selection of Christmas fabrics in town! (and for having them on sale for 50% off) I checked at least three other places, and ended up getting all these prints from Hancock.

Also thanks to Leah Day for her binding tutorial. It was super-helpful and the binding was done right this time! I almost decided to make this into a circle skirt for Nola, but I think next year I’ll rework it into a skirt for her and make another tree skirt from some fantastic Michael Miller Christmas prints.

Why haven’t I laminated all posters ever?! This is just about the greatest decision a person could make. No more tack holes. No more poster damage. Posters forever!! Pure awesome.

Then the mail arrived, including a very special calendar swap package from Emily of cute little life. It is a gorgeous letterpress calendar made by Old School Stationers, and I could not be happier! Thank you so much, Emily!

My order from Sally J Shim’s tag sale (which ended yesterday) also arrived. It’s fantastic, of course! I wouldn’t normally buy a blind-item fabric box, but I just could not resist this destash opportunity. I’ve got so much sewing to do!

I decided to hunt for some activity sheets online, to give him something to do while he waited patiently for me to clean up the kitchen and clear a space to put up the Christmas tree.  It took me a good half-hour to find all these great printable pages! Turns out it was a good time-investment, as these activities have come in very handy in the last couple days that he’s been home sick from school.

Well, to save YOU some time, I’ve combined these printable activity pages into a single downloadable PDF file! A nice, curated collection of mostly holiday-themed activities (there are three “off-season” pages at the end, but they were too cute not to include). All you have to do is click “print” for 16 pages of fun! Print resolution for these is set for 100 dpi, so some may appear slightly choppy/grainy, but my son didn’t seem to mind.

Click here to view/download the PDF

NOTE: When printing, in the print dialog box be sure to select the formatting option “Page Scaling: None” for best results.

Sources:

• Dot-to-Dot Christmas Bells [@DotToDotPuzzles.com]
• “Christmas [Tree] Connect the Dots” [©Disney FamilyFun]
• “What’s the Difference?” & “Super Santa Word Search” [©Kaboose Funschool]
• Christmas Tree Maze [©0to5.com.au]
• Christmas Word Search, Level 3 [©Christmas Online Magazine]
• “Hard Christmas word search” [©Kaboose Holidays]
• Christmas Scene Color-by-Number [@Fun 4 the Children]
• Dot-to-Dot Snowflake [©Calvary Kids Pages]
• Gingerbread Man Color-by-Numbers [@All Kids Network]
• “Pooh’s Super Sleuth Christmas Movie Activity Sheet” [@Kids' Turn Central]
• Connect the Dots Candy Cane [@SheKnows.com Kids Activity Center]
• Snowman Connect-the-Dots [@Vince Golangco]
• “Octopus Color by Number Coloring Page” [©Crayola Coloring Pages]
• Maiden Creek Watershed Association Seek & Find sheets [©Chuck Dillon]

Next time I think I’ll try the tie-method, as it seems a lot more simple. I went all old-school (à la le ballet), sewing together two continuous yards in four layers of each color, and bunching it with an elastic waist. It was less than dramatic at first, looking more like a netted circle skirt than a tutu. Then I used what I can only think to call the couture method to fluff it up: kind of a separating-rolling-smashing-twisting motion. After about 30 minutes of that, it is now puffy and fabulous!

I’ll hopefully get some pics of Nola modeling her Christmas tutu to post here in the next week-or-so. I tried to take a photo holding it up a little bit so you could see more of the underside layer, but I couldn’t hold my arm still enough.

Thank goodness for the low-light setting on my camera. Considering this is what it looks like outside today:

Now I’m off to do more holiday house-cleaning!

Hooray.

And, it is AWESOME (just as I suspected it would be).

I knew deep down in my heart that soon enough Mike Patton would be crooning out some holiday tunes.

Thank you, John Zorn.

Christmas is now complete.

The winner of the Wooly Wooly fingerless gloves is:

Comment #40

Elaine of clothedmuch.com

She also has a wonderful blog — you should pop over and check it out!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway!

Stay tuned for another giveaway coming in December!

This giveaway brought to you by:

A word from the crafters: “Wooly Wooly Company is a cottage industry run by sisters and their daughters. Together we create one-of-a-kind pieces from recycled wool sweaters that we felt and shape into purses and accessories. Felted wool is an artistic, durable medium and our unique approach to pattern-making enables us to create a 100% original design for each piece. We also recycle vintage findings, including old buttons, silk scarves, blouses and leather. Our product is not only the perfect combination of style and functionality, it is also eco-friendly.”

You can find Wooly Wooly items for purchase on Etsy, as well as at some seasonal venues and locally-owned brick-and-mortar shops around Eastern Iowa!

• Creative Iowan — Nov. 15 – Dec. 29 @ Coral Ridge Mall, Coralville
• Thieves Market — Dec. 3 & 4 @ Iowa Memorial Union, Iowa City

• The Shop Next Door (Cedar Rapids)
• Lincoln Wine Bar (Mt. Vernon)
• John’s Grocery (Iowa City)
• Campbell Steele Gallery (Marion)
• Catiri’s Art Oasis (Amana)

Giveaway Prize: One pair of felted wool fingerless gloves from Etsy seller Wooly Wooly. Approximate “Youth” size, or maybe Adult Small. My 6.5-year-old son is the “hand model” in the photo, he wears Youth Medium (8/10) clothing, but has larger hands for his age group (measure 7″ circumference around knuckles, open-palmed).

Entry period ends on Saturday, November 19th, 11:59 pm CST (any comments posted after that time will not be eligible). Contest is open to residents of the United States and Canada ages 18 and older.

Winner will be chosen on Sunday, November 20th using the random number generator. I will notify the winner via the email address provided with the winning comment entry. Winner will have 48 hours to respond, and if I don’t hear back within that time, a different winner will be selected.

There are plenty of opportunities to enter! For each entry option you should post a separate comment (each comment is one entry). Comments are the entries; so if you don’t comment, I won’t know about your entry activities! Also, be sure to leave your email with each comment! You do not need to post your email in the comments section, but you must enter your VALID email address in the “Email” field of the comment form (it will be hidden from public view for privacy).

Comments on this blog are moderated (thanks, spambots), so your comment(s) may not show up instantly, but only after being approved. I will be notified about comments throughout the days and will get them posted as they qualify.

Easy Peasy! one-time entries

• Leave a Comment! (one entry)
Everybody gets one “free” entry — all you have to do is post a comment!

• Blog This Giveaway (five entries)
If you have a blog, post an article about/including this giveaway with a link back here. Be sure to leave five comments for your five entries for this option, and include a link to your blog post. Note: You’ll need to change one small detail for each comment, or WordPress will not post duplicate comments (maybe add numbers 1,2,3,4,5, to distinguish each comment).

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Thanks and good luck to everyone!!

This giveaway brought to you by:

I made the costumes for both kids this year and actually finished them. Several stuffed animals (and one leather handbag) were sacrificed to make Nola’s barbarian costume. Her boots were the cutest part, but you can’t really see them in any of the pictures. Nola the Destroyer!

Gunner was a viking warrior — quite fitting with his Norwegian heritage. He also had awesome boots, and a sweet “fur” cloak with a wicked medallion clasp, of which I’m totally jealous!

Both kids won 1st places in their age groups at our local Halloween party costume contest! (I really had to futz with this next picture; Nola’s face was totally washed-out for some reason)

I have to thank my mom for working so hard making all my awesome Halloween costumes when I was growing up, and thusly inspiring me to work hard to make my kids’ costumes. The torch has been passed!

A lot of people are saying that a tattooed Barbie® is inappropriate for children, and I admit they are probably right — seeing as you have to be at least 18-years-old to legally get a tattoo. But this particular tokidoki® Barbie® Doll costs fifty dollars (and is apparently sold out, by the way), so I doubt that anyone is actually giving this to a child to play with. It is more likely to be kept in its box on a shelf as a collector’s item.

Unfortunately, there are many “trolls” out there, using this as an opportunity to get out the ol’ soapbox and shake fists at the sky about the degredation of society as a direct result of self-expression through the act of body modification. Comments like, “Get full sleeve tattoos and tattoos all over your face and try to get a professional job to prove me wrong” and blah blah blah. Thankfully, I’m seeing a lot of intelligent replies from teachers, doctors, white-collar professionals from nearly every spectrum, telling their own stories of being (many times heavily) tattooed and getting along just fine in both the workplace and society-in-general.

I stumbled upon this “controversy” this morning via my local TV news channel’s Facebook page, which posted “MORNING BUZZ: Some parents are upset over a new, tattooed Barbie doll. What do you think?” and so I added a few of my own comments to the fray.

THIS IS AWESOME! I used to draw “tattoos” on my Barbies myself, lol. And I love the pink hair (also used to “dye” my Barbies hair, with markers). But… why is there a cactus on a chain?

Also, you’d be surprised who you’re working with and around and coming into contact with every day, who have tattoos that you don’t even know about or ever see! I was having blood drawn once and the tech saw my inner forearm tattoos and complimented them and we started talking about it and after he was done drawing blood he took off his lab coat and rolled up his shirt cuffs and he had FULL SLEEVES (that’s total tattoo coverage) ON BOTH ARMS! It was sweet!

There’s a lot more tattoo acceptance now-a-days — in case you couldn’t already tell by the mainstream release of a tattooed Barbie. It’s not the 60s anymore, when only sailors and Hell’s Angels had tattoos. I’ve never had anyone make a negative comment when they see that I have tattoos, in fact quite the opposite; people are interested and give compliments and ask questions. Personally, I see tattoos as more of a gateway to conversations with people, rather than a social blockade. And a lot of tattoos are easy to cover up for job interviews and other working situations, if needed.

Easiest solution: IF YOU DON’T WANT YOUR KID TO HAVE A TATTOOED BARBIE, THEN DON’T BUY THEM ONE! How about some parental discretion?

I don’t have time to follow this thread today (I have Halloween costumes to make!) so hopefully I won’t get railed-on by trolls!

Needless to say, I would have no problem if my daughter wanted to get a Barbie® with tattoos or brightly-colored hair. It wouldn’t surprise me at all, in fact, considering that both myself and my husband have visible tattoos, as do many of our friends and relatives. I do, however, have a problem with paying $50 for any Barbie® Doll! She’ll just have to draw tattoos on her $10 Barbie®s and color their hair herself!

There are other parents signed up to provide snacks, drinks, cups/plates/napkins, “prizes”, and to donate supplies for the games, which is really nice that I will (hopefully) only need to worry about planning and gathering and executing. It’s a short time slot as far as holiday parties go, so we shouldn’t need much. Maybe three-or-so “stations” with fun activities, then send everyone home full of sugar!

I would prefer to avoid the standard “monster hands” (a.k.a. hairdresser gloves filled with stale popcorn that all children have touched, probably after picking their noses), bobbing for apples (a.k.a. let’s shake our heads like dogs and spray water everywhere and why would I want to eat an apple when there’s ten-tons of candy laying around?!), and the gross-out-fake-outs (cooked spaghetti as worms, peeled grapes as eyeballs, etc.). There’s not enough space for a “haunted” hallway, themed relay-type races, or other large-movement activities (sorry, toilet-paper-mummy game!). So after searching online for ideas, I think I’ve settled on three pretty solid and entertaining activities for the party. I hope they go over well with the kids!

Pin the Face on the Pumpkin

Classic! Gunner suggested this one. We’ll separate the kids into groups for each “station”, and I thought we could have some Jack-O-Lantern face shapes cut out and as a group they would be blindfolded one-at-a-time and each would get a different face piece to place, and see the Picasso-esque end result!

Beanbag Spider Toss

“We were looking for a different take on the bean bag toss, so I made a game out of a cardboard box, some fabric scraps, and fabric paint. Basically, kids throw spider beanbags into a ‘web’ with holes. Web Box: The easiest way to make this is to spray paint the box black, paint on a web with with 3-dimensional fabric paint, and then go back and cut 5 or 6 holes between the webbing, evenly spaced around the spider web. Spider bean bags: Cut two circles of black fabric and 8 little spider legs for each spider. Pin circles right sides together, pin top of 4 legs to each side (right and left sides) of spider body, remembering to pin the top of the leg to the outer edges to be sewn (don’t pin the foot there). Stitch around edges, leaving a 2 inch opening for turning. Turn the spider body right side out, making sure all of the legs have been stitched on correctly. Fill with dried beans and slipstitched closed.”

Pop the Treasure Balloon

“Supplies needed: At least 2 balloons for each child, Enough ‘treats’ for each balloon to have one. Add the ‘treat’ inside each balloon and blow up. Tie the balloon. Dump all the balloons on the floor and tell the children how MANY they may pop. The children must pop the balloons by sitting on them and bouncing. Treat ideas: spider or other types of rings, candy, mini balls, anything small that will fit inside a balloon.”

Be sure to check out the linked pages above for more of the “runner-up” suggestions, including Pumpkin Bowling, Yarn Spider Web, and Bugs on a Log. If you have some great ideas for kids’ Halloween party fun & games, I would love to hear them!

Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure there are some shitty cops out there who would punch your grandmother in the face for no reason. But for the most part, they are average citizens (just like you) who are working long hours at a stressful job (just like you) for a paycheck to provide for their family (just like you) and would like to make it home at the end of the day without a trip to the hospital (just like you). The police are in fact there to protect you from yourself, protect other people from you, protect you from other people, and keep the situation from breaking out into a riot. Because when large groups of passionate, similarly-minded people congregate en mass, as peaceful as their intentions may be, mob-mentality will rule — and it only takes ONE black sheep to get the herd running off a cliff.

BY ALL MEANS, PLEASE KEEP POSTING VIDEOS showing that there are people in this country standing up for what they believe in, and not just believing what the government and corporations and the media are feeding them! Exercise your rights! (they’ve been getting a little flabby lately.) Stand strong for those of us who cannot or will not be there! But please, please, don’t go posting bullshit, inflammatory videos, that clearly show you being an ass, acting in a way that would get you arrested anyway, even if you weren’t part of a mob of protesters. It’s disrespectful, and diminishes the extremely important message that SOCIAL and POLITICAL CHANGE during this tumultuous time is necessary for America to recover from the malicious devastation that occurred in the financial sector.

HOLIDAY SCHEDULE 2011:
Starting in September, I will be diving into holiday-season preparations! Custom orders will be considered on a case-by-case basis from September 1st thru November 30th. No custom orders will be completed during December into January 2012, but feel free to contact me and I can schedule your custom order for delivery in February.

CHRISTMAS DELIVERY CUTOFFS:
Beginning December 1st, all shipping methods/prices will be set to USPS Priority Mail. Orders must be received by DECEMBER 16 (continental U.S. only) for delivery by Christmas. International shipping may still be available on some items throughout the 2011 holiday season, but there can be no guarantees for holiday delivery unless orders have been received by November 20th.

Because.

You’re welcome.

…fantastic organic cherry tomatoes, carrots, and “purple” onions; the BIGGEST cantaloupe I think I’ve ever bought; some Noble Bee milk thistle honey; a pretty new dishtowel and some handmade soaps; a sweet onion roll, and the most important and delicious thing of all: KRINGLA! Ran into lots of friends and some family milling around, saw lots of cute dogs, and the kids were actually pretty well-behaved the whole time.

The kids are off with the grandparents for the rest of the afternoon, which means much needed break. Now its time for a delicious lunch and maybe a nap, then out to see Conan the Barbarian. THIS DAY IS AWESOME!