make-your-own-costume kid craft

Today is trouble-maker #2's birthday.  He's 6, and he decided he wanted to have a costume party.

So we sent out the invites:

When each kid got there, besides the traditional party games, present opening, and cake & ice cream, we had a craft set up (the brain work behind which was mostly my husband's.)

We told each of the kids they could use whatever they wanted from the table to make themselves a *new* costume, and at the end of the time limit, Xavier, the birthday boy, picked the winner.  (He, of course, went the political route and declared them all the winners.)  :)

The items on the craft table included a 10" x 90" strip of fabric for each child, paper plates, regular printer paper, card stock paper, neon pipe cleaners, foam star stickers, yarn, ribbon, penne pasta, crayons, colored pencils, markers, glue, tape, hole punch, stapler, and scissors.







Here is what they came up with:  (sorry about the stars over some of their faces, but not all these little sweeties are mine, so you understand.)

A starry-eyed cowboy.

This little guy made a myriad of accessories, including a gun and a map.

A shield and a whip.

This is an owl with wings.

A necklace with "princess wings."

Even my husband got in on the fun with his goofy ears and funky nose.

the birthday boy!!

In my unbiased opinion, I think Xavier's was the best of them all!  Happy Birthday, buddy!

end of school

I'm sure those of you with school-ages children are feeling the same way I am about this time of year.  Nostalgic, proud, and excited for the lazy days of summer.

We have a first grader and a kindergartner, and over the last few days, we attended each of their end-of-year productions.  Samuel's first grade music program was Thursday night, and Xavier's kindergarten graduation yesterday morning.  In looking at the pictures, I saw things about my kids that frustrate me at times, but today it made me laugh!

First is Samuel.  Samuel was blessed with my mother-in-law's smile.  He has a wide, pretty-lipped smile that makes me jealous much of the time.  Unfortunately, he is 7 years old, and smiles like this when I hold up the camera:

He tucks his lips in and it becomes a very forced excuse for a smile.  Hopefully he'll grow out of it, but someday I'm going to look back and be glad I have this picture to remind me of his "quirk."

Then there is Xavier.  When I sent him to get dressed this morning, I reminded him that this was his last day of school (and his graduation program,) and to try to look nice.  Let's look at what he picked, shall we?

Shorts and a t-shirt.  Not even a button-up or polo shirt, but a t-shirt.  And look where he is:

On the front row.

See the kids around him?

Yeah.

Mine was that kid that people look at and either decided we were dirt poor, or that we didn't care enough about our kid to make him look nice.  Xavier thought he looked nice, though, so that's all that matters.

Anyone else have a humorous experience at "graduation?"  I'd love to hear about it!  And yes, I'm shamelessly fishing for comments.

ruffle skirt

I wanted to make a cute skirt for myself, but didn't want to spend a lot of time.  So, I cut out a simple skirt from MADE, but before sewing it together, I did a little embellishing with some ruffles.

4 rows of them to be exact.

For anyone interested in ruffles, mine are 1 inch wide.  I cut them twice as wide as the skirt, and then gathered to the same width as the skirt using a long stitch running down the center of each strip.

I think it's cute, and I might make another one out of something a little lighter weight!

memorial day "crafting"

We have been finishing a bedroom, hallway, and two closets in our basement.  It's been a long slow process since we're doing the work ourselves.

Things are really coming together.  We've finished priming, and painting the ceilings and trim white.  Soon we'll roll the wall color, but yesterday we finished up the white by painting the doors.  There are 4 of them, and it took up a lot of the day, but I got them done!

It's not much fun to look at pictures of white doors, but I'm proud of them and wanted to show them off (and I'm hoping that by showing the progress I made over the weekend, it'll push me toward finishing other things up in a timely manner.)

And so, without further ado . . . my white doors!

Since I'm such a go-getter, while I was waiting for paint to dry between coats, I started taping off the ceiling.

And there you go--the sum of my "craftiness" during the Memorial Day holiday.  What did you do with your "extra" time . . . as if there really were such a thing?!

car seat re-cover

This little project was started before Graham was born, but got interrupted by his birth and didn't get finished until yesterday.

The carrier car seat we own had an awful plaid, lumberjack-ish pad with almost no padding.  So, before Graham came, I decided to redo the padding and sun visor in a gender-neutral, but much cuter fabric.  I got the pad done the week before Graham was born, but other things came up, and I didn't finish the sun visor right away.

Then, the weather here in Utah became extremely cold and rainy for the past two months, so it became unnecessary to finish the visor until recently.  And, while the weather here still is not sunny and warm, I refuse to believe that the wet, cold weather can last much longer.

I've gotten off topic, so without further ado, here is the car seat with new "upholstery."

Without a pattern for a car seat pad and visor, I wanted to make sure the new ones would fit, so I tore apart the old ones and used the pieces as a pattern:

Everything seemed to fit perfectly, and I was able to fix a few things about the old pad that I didn't like . . . namely that the top and bottom edge came off a lot because the elastic had been stretched out and wasn't holding the pad on very well.  Also, I used two layers of batting to make Graham's ride a little more comfortable.

Hopefully, I'll have time for more sewing over the weekend.  Have a great one!

dress to skirt refashion

A friend of mine approached me about a week ago and told me she bought a dress in the children's department and wanted me to turn it into a skirt.  Intrigued and slightly disbelieving, and agreed to take a look at it.

Turns out this thin friend of mine bought matching mother/daughter dresses: one for her five-year-old, and a size 16 for herself.  Looking at the dress, it seemed like the remake wouldn't be that hard, so I dove right in.

The dress started out with this pretty doily-like bodice, which is cute on a little person, but rather matronly on an adult waistband:

The first step was to detach the lacy overlay,

then cut the bodice even with the back (approximately 3 inches above the seam at the top of the skirt.)

I then serged around the raw edge, folded it over to meet the existing seam, pinned it in place, and sewed around, leaving a gap for the elastic.

I added elastic and sewed it shut.

Start to finish, the project took about an hour and a half and I think it tuned out beautifully!

It's nice to get back to being creative!  See you soon!

Linked to:

Blue Cricket Design

donut day

I've been a slacker.  I haven't been crafting much since Graham was born.  I've hemmed pants and repaired holes, but pure creation has been on hold while we finish a bedroom in the basement for the oldest two troublemakers to move downstairs . . . also, there's the adjusting to the newest troublemaker.

Graham will be two months old tomorrow, and I will begin crafting, sewing, and posting again next week.

For now, here are a few pictures of one of the sweet things we did today:  we had donuts with chocolate frosting.

See you next week!  I've missed you.