"This year I want to be . . . "

I love Halloween. It isn’t my most favorite holiday, and I haven’t always loved it, but it is fun and has become a bigger highlight of the year since the girls came along. As they get older, Halloween gets better. I don’t get excited about the pumpkin picking or the trick-or-tricking, although I do like those things a bit. I don’t go overboard decorating, although our home has bats and skulls year round, so this should be the easiest holiday for us. And I’m not a big candy person, although I do have a sweet tooth. It’s the costumes I love. They don’t even have to be elaborate. I just love seeing my girls get excited about dressing up as someone or something else. For that moment, there are no limits. Whatever they want to be, they can be, and they are so happy. I love it. It’s better than the chocolate I steal from their buckets when they aren’t looking.

I’ve been sewing since I was a kid, and I’m a pretty crafty person, but I’m also a realist. When I was working full-time, I bought the girls’ costumes. Did I feel bad about that? HECK NO! They looked frickin’ adorable as an elephant and hot dog or as a dinosaur and kitten! And I didn’t have time to sew or craft. I barely had time to shop. I hate when parents feel they have to make a costume for it to be special or great or whatever. Not everyone can or wants to, and that’s totally fine. 

Cutest dino EVER!

Can you honestly look at this dinosaur and tell me she isn’t fantastic or that she is less loved because I ran to the store a few days before Halloween and bought her that costume? She wanted to be a girl dinosaur, and that’s what she was and she rocked it, store bought or not. The important thing is that my girls get their moment to express themselves and to be on the outside what they feel on the inside, without anyone thinking they are totally insane. OK, so people still think they are a little nuts some years (like this one), but not as nuts as they would seem if they showed up to school any other day dressed this way (which she did do....that picture wasn't actually taken on Halloween). So relax parents who buy costumes, and don’t let Pinterest fool you into thinking sewing is easy for everyone or that Halloween costumes MUST be handmade or totally unique or anything other than what your kid says he or she wants to be.

That being said, I do have time to sew the girls’ costumes, and sewing is easy-ish for me, so I have made the girls costumes the last few years. That’s a good thing because their requests have gotten . . . odder. I have been asked to make a cuttlefish, TARDIS, Tribble, and purple macaw among other things. Yeah . . . I don’t think Old Navy sells cuttlefish costumes. 

This year the girls – thankfully! – wanted simple costumes which were part homemade, part Etsy bought.  My older daughter really wanted to be Leslie Knope of Parks of Recreation, aka “grown-up Sofi!” My younger daughter wanted to be a TARDIS princess. She loved her TARDIS costume, but wanted something swishier and easier to walk in this year plus she had seen a really cool TARDIS hat on Etsy and wanted an excuse for me to buy it for her. So, without further blathering, here are the girls showing on the outside how they feel inside this year:

The inspiration.

Leslie Knope: blazer and blouse were just in her closet already, SUPER scented waffle necklace from Tiny Hands, badge from Uncle Jack’sDesign, and Lil Sebastian made by me and stuffed by my daughter.

TARDIS princess: black shirt and tights already in her closet, AMAZING hat from Hat and Mouse, skirt and cape designed by my daughter and made by me using fabric from Spoonflower (cape fabric HERE, skirt fabric HERE).

quote from here

Another Quick and Easy Fix - t-shirt pillowcase dresses or tunics

My daughters love their dad. A lot. Borderline hero worship. So when he gives them his old t-shirts, they treasure those things. Tato's old shirts are their favorite night gowns, lazy day dresses, snuggling on the couch after a bath gear, etc. They are a bit lacking in style, though. Here is a super quick, super easy fix to the style problem.

First grab an old t-shirt. My husband has tons, but only actually wears a few. Finding some to cut up is never hard here. If you don't want to cut up one of your own, thrift stores always have a lot to choose from. Bigger ones make longer dresses or tunics (my excuse for not cutting up my own).

Then just cut off the sides and top. You can cut it in a slight A line shape if you want. Be careful to cut straight, parallel lines or the finished product looks a bit wonky, but don't stress too much about it. The t-shirt fabric stretches and warps itself anyway covering mild imperfections.

To make cute little decorative flowers, cut circles out of the sleeves. About 2 inches diameter is a good size. You can cut any shape, but circles are the easiest.

Grab one more t-shirt in a coordinating color and cut off the bottom then a 1-2 inch strip just above that. Cut the ends to make the two drawstrings for the collar/shoulders of the dress. You can also cut some 1 inch diameter circles to be the centers of the decorative flowers.

Now the sewing starts. Sew up the sides stopping about 8 inches from the top. Fold over the top (wrong sides together) 1 inch and stitch 1/4 inch from the raw edge to make a tunnel for the drawstring.

The most time consuming part of the project is stitching on the flowers. A simple X in the middle holds them in place and allows them to flop and ruffle. Arrange them any way you like.

Attach a safety pin to one end of one of the drawstrings and thread it through one tunnel. Repeat with the other one.

That's it. An ugly old t-shirt is now an adorable pillowcase dress. On my older daughter, these are tunics which look great with leggings or capri jeans. On me, they are cute little tank tops. All in all, the whole project takes less than an hour making it another quick and easy fix for sure.

Quick and Easy Fix

Shoe tying is a big milestone.  It is one of the big boxes to check off on the kindergarten "to learn" list.  But then, meh, it kinda just slows us down.  My older daughter is always on the go, rushing out the door to get to school, church, hockey, or just to play outside.  She rarely bothers untying her shoes so she can just skip the retying part.  The problem is cramming her foot back into a gym shoe with tied laces.  It's kind of funny watching her hop and skip out the door trying to get her heel all the way in, but there is an easier way.  Just turn her gym shoes into slip ons.

The easiest way to get around the shoe laces is to turn them into elastic.  The elastic stretches to allow the foot to slide in, then retracts to keep the shoe snug on the foot.  It is a quick and easy fix requiring just a package of 1/4 inch elastic and a pair of scissors (oh, and shoes).

Start near the toe and thread a bit of the elastic down through the grommet.  Tie a knot to lock it in place.  Then go down through the opposite grommet, up through the one above, down through the opposite, and so on (ladder lacing).  When you get to the top and come down through the last grommet, pull the elastic a bit tight and tie another knot (you need to pull it tight so you have the space to work with for the knot tying . . . it should be relaxed but not lose once the knot is against the grommet).  Then slip the shoes on to test for fit.  If they are too lose or too tight simply adjust your final knot then trim the excess.  See how easy?

 

 

 

 

 

"I'm bored."

"I'm bored."

"I thought you were Yasya."

"I'm Bored Yasya.  Bored Yasya is bored, bored, bored."

While I love having my daughters home all summer, and I am not looking forward to early morning running around when school starts again, it is getting harder to fill the days with new activities.  The girls are getting bored, bored, bored.  Enter new art projects!  A project a day seems like a great goal, but trying to come up with new projects that a) don't require buying new materials, b) are easy enough for the girls to do with little help (just supervision), and c) won't add to the clutter in their bedroom can be tricky.  Here are two of the simple projects we have done over the last few weeks of summer which meet all those criteria.

Project 1: Dressing Up Dinos

My older daughter is a future paleontologist.  She loves dinosaurs and has since she was a baby (one of her first words was dinosaur).  After seven years as a dinophile, she has acquired a large collection of plastic dinosaurs.

My younger daughter is a nail polish addict.  It is rare to see her without decorated nails.  Over the years, she has amassed a large collection of nail polishes.  The latest additions to her collection were two bottles of color changing polish her grandfather gave her.

Combine those two loves and you get:

The girls each chose one of Sofi's tiny plastic dinosaurs and one of Yasya's nailpolishes and went to work.  This seems very simple, but painting tiny things with tiny paintbrushes can be tricky and time consuming.  The girls had to be careful to paint thin layers then let them dry before adding a second then third coat.

In the end, after about half an hour of careful work, they each had a new, customized dinosaur.  The dinosaurs which had just been sitting in the bottom of a large bin of extinct animals have new life and new importance.

Project 2: Wall Art Quotes

I am becoming a bit of a Pinterest addict.  The quotes I find are some of my favorite pins.  For this art project, I let the girls browse through my board of Quotes and Such (I did cheat and only show them ones which were appropriate for children and didn't let them browse ALL the pins) and find the quotes they liked.  The criteria was they had to pick a quote that will make them feel happy or inspired, something positive.  Sofi, of course, chose a dinosaur trying to sing, "If you're happy and you know it."  Yasya picked a science quote.

Then the fun began.  An old pad of watercolor paper was pulled out and each girl was given one sheet.  Then they used their inexpensive watercolors, the kind in the little plastic tray, and they got to work painting a background for their quote.

Years ago I had taken a watercolor course at the community college and learned a few tricks.  The girls felt very grown up and like real artists learning some new ways to use their paints (even though what I passed on to them is hardly major art skills, it was new to them).

A lot of thought went into what they would paint, and we had some interesting discussions about the quotes.  Yasya chose to paint space and had some pretty cool explanations of what everything was, then she blurred things together, "cause that's how it is."  When the paint dried, the girls used Sharpies to write the words on their pictures.  In the end, each girl has an original piece of art to decorate her room and something to inspire her whenever she looks at it.

"Mom, I want to make a book."

Back in the day, I worked in the gift shop attached to a photography studio.  We sold all sorts of picture related things - albums, journals, scrapbooks, frames.  We also sold kits for making scrapbooks and journals and hosted a variety of crafty classes.  That was a long time ago, and sometimes this old brain of mine forgets that I used to make things other than hats.  Thankfully, I got crafty kids.  Crafty, AMBITIOUS kids.  Crafty, ambitious kids who assume their mom can make anything.  They remind me from time to time that I used to be a crafty, ambitious kid, too, and then my little grey cells get moving and drag up memories of old favorite projects.  That is what happened this morning.


While sipping my coffee and watching a nature show about cobras with my older daughter, she suddenly turned to me and said, "Mom, I want to make a book."  I have no idea what about cobras in India inspired her to make a book, but that's how life works around here.  I watched the cobras eat another snake for a couple minutes, then my brain booted up (maybe it was more the last drops of coffee and less the snake eating snakes) and I remembered how I used to make my own books back in high school.  When the show ended and the snakes were all happily settled in their new sanctuary, we headed around the house to round up supplies.

If you want to make your own book, this is what you need:

• Scissors or a paper slicer
• Stiff cardboard (the kind included in packs of craft paper works well)
• Pretty paper to cover the outside
• Paper for the inside covers
• Paper for the actual pages
• Spray adhesive
• Hole punch
• Marker and pencil
• Ribbon to bind it with
• Anything else you can think of to make the cover your own

The first step is deciding how big you want your book.  Cut two pieces of cardboard that size (my daughter decided 4" x 6" would be just right).  Then decide how you want your book to open.  Cut 1" off along which ever edge will be the binding on both the front and back pieces.

Use your hole punch to make holes along one strip.  

To make sure your front and back covers will match up, use a marker to copy the holes onto the other strip and then punch them out.  

Cut your inside pages the same size as the front and back covers, trace the holes onto the edges, and punch them out as well.

Cut two pieces of cover paper slightly larger than your front and back covers (I like to give myself 3/4 of an inch on all sides).  Spray with adhesive then lay a cover piece and holey strip down.  Be sure to leave a slight gap between the pieces to allow the book to open and close. 

 First fold the corners over, then the sides.  Repeat for the other cover.  

Cut two pieces of lining paper slightly smaller than the covers (I like to trim off 1/4 inch from all sides).  Spray and place down covering the edges of the outer paper where it has wrapped around.  

Use a pencil to  poke through the holes (if you run your finger along the edge, the holes become more visible as little divots).  

Add whatever you want to the front then sandwich all the pieces together with the pages and use a ribbon to bind it all up.  To make threading the ribbon through the holes easier, wrap tape around one end.

Some fun variations are using fabric instead of paper (use fusible interfacing and an iron instead of spray adhesive) or cutting up magazine pictures to use as interior pages.


My daughter decided to use her new book to write a story about a shark named Eliza.  I can't wait to read it!