Dotty Pillow

I have been in dire need of some fun pillows to offset my vintage couches.  The room was looking a little too seventies for me. 

I have a few more to make.  I love using hidden zippers, it makes the pillow come together so quickly.  Hello bees!  I like adding silly details.

Coat Rack

As with any new space, we soon discovered that the coat closet was not in the ideal place.  Most of the time coats were littering the floor in the kitchen or draped on couches.

  

After much online pursuing (and a good sale going on) I decided on these hooks .  They only went to three, but I wanted five hooks.  So I decided to get all 'no.1' hooks.  Who wants to be 'no.2' anyway?  I think I will re-number them in the future, but for now I think it's funny.

This should have been an easy project, but I ran into a few silly things (I highly suggest buying your own screws, the ones provided were poor quality). It's not a real project unless you've been to the hardware store more than once right?  Despite the setbacks, I'm glad to have somewhere to hang my coats!

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.