Geranium Flower Girl Dresses

My sister's wedding kept me pretty busy this summer.  After finishing some projects with Tracey it was time to figure out what the girls would be wearing.  I looked online, searched in-store...nothing was jumping out at me.  Where have all the cute things for little girls gone?

I had been dying to buy/make Made By Rae's Geranium Dress and this was the perfect occasion.  I had no time for drafting my own patterns and the pattern sewed up like a dream.

 

I lined the bottom of both dresses.   I used the lower half of a formal dress for Ellie's (no hemming!), and happened to have a pretty peach pillow case that turned out perfect for Ivy.

Word to the wise.  If you let uncles play with their nieces you might turn around to your daughter alarmingly high from the ground.  Luckily this time it turned into a great picture.

I think a few more Geranium dresses should be sewn before Christmas (they are so adorable).  But lets be honest, what I'd really love to sew next is a Washi Dress for myself!

An Arthur Halloween

This year I decided it would be fun to dress the girls as Ellie's favorite book series by Marc Brown, Arthur.

Initially I wanted Ellie to be Arthur and Ivy to be D.W., but opinions came out and we switched.  An Arthur costume for Ivy and a D.W. costume for Ellie.  I found the outfits and made some aardvark ears for each.  I may make a pair for myself and Corey to wear on Halloween-we'll be Mr. and Mrs. Read.

Quick homemade costumes are always great.  We spent a fun morning out at a Halloween festival, great time to sport our costumes a little early.

This spring Corey graduated and we spent a busy summer with family planning for a wedding.  We're now in our own space and I'll be playing catch up on missed projects soon.

DIY Play Kitchen

Here is the butcher block top play kitchen I made for my two girls' birthdays:

I had fun making this.  I wanted a smaller cabinet, but this is the best one that I found.  The tall cabinet door is the fridge.  Other than paint and two knobs, I reused or thrifted most things for the kitchen.  I did buy the dish set off etsy.  The plates and bowls are mini (maybe they were a dessert set?).  I've seen way too many cute princess dish sets turn bad once kids get them wet and rip the stickers off. 

My old kitchen cart had seen better days (and the drawer was falling to pieces), so I took the butcher block top, hardware, and scraps to help put this together.  I borrowed a jig saw from a friend to cut the sink and oven.

I love the oven.

I may steal these salt and pepper shakers from them.  They are hard, so if they don't play soft with them I will snatch them back happily!

Having their birthdays so close has it's perks.  I think every few years I may find a fun present to make them to share.

P.S. If you were at a loss when Google Reader announced it was going away like I was check out Bloglovin.  It's pretty similar to Reader. Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Coral Necklaces

I love the color coral. 

I mentioned I wanted a coral necklace and my mother-in-law gave me one of her mother's necklaces to use as a project.  I contemplated keeping it as is (it's so funky!), I wore it a few times but then the string broke I decided that I could take it apart.  My mother-in-law said the Egyptian style was popular at the time.  I used the pretty blue beads to make this necklace. Here's the original:

The coral colored beads were almost the exact size of candy Runts.  I haven't had Runts in years, they sound so good now!

I made this necklace with the clasp and gold beads from the original necklace.  I had bought a strand of small coral beads to lengthen the other necklace I made, and had just enough for another necklace!

Old News

Eons ago (or perhaps last spring) I made a skirt for my sister's wedding.  I didn't have anything on hand that went with her color scheme, so I decided to have fun with a bright yellow skirt.  I made it while I was still pregnant so I had to guess the size--consequently I have it pinned in the back until I redo the waistband as I was a little off.  It's a bit crazy to some probably, but I love it. 

Also, I ran across another mid-century enameled bowl.  I love the bold heart pattern.  Maybe someday I'll sell it (I sold the blue crockpot--which I now somewhat regret), but for now it's happily displayed in my kitchen.

New hobbies

Over Christmas my super fun mother-in-law decided to donate some beading supplies to me.  I've been practicing on a few small things and I finally made a new necklace.  I couldn't find beads the exact same color, so I chose a happy minty green to go with the vintage blue beads.

The green beads were so tiny!  They were about the size of a mustard seed.  Luckily they came strung, so I could pinch off a half inch of them at a time to thread onto the new string.  I have some pretty coral beads that will become a necklace as soon as I can figure out what design to do.

I also finally made my first wood project!  I've been wanting to make something for ages.  We got some tools recently so it was finally more feasible to do.  I made a new frame for my cheap full length mirror.

 Here's a closeup of the frame.  Very basic frame, but I was happy with my first try.  Much better than the plastic frame before.  Next up, mitered corners?!

Mending

Either my girls are hard on thier clothes, or clothes just aren't as sturdy as they were once made.  Or both.  I'm often finding holes in their clothes and I could easily throw them out and get new ones for cheap--but there's something fun about patching little clothes.  You can have fun with it.  I can't get away with this on Corey's jeans.

I did a little honeycomb patch on these jeans.

 And one more to cover another hole!

These got hearts.

 And I decided to have fun and try wool felt stars on these.  I'm hoping the felt holds up.

Only one knee needed mending, but stars on both knees are double the fun.