Easter Outfits 2013

No, I didn't make my husband's suit (I wish I had that kind of patience!), but this is my favorite picture from yesterday that shows off my daughter's dress well. (I'll probably be enlarging this picture.) This is one of the first outfits that has actually turned out as gorgeous as I envisioned when I was planning it. I'm super-excited about it, especially since I made myself a matching one!

I am not photogenic. Not by a long shot. But I wanted to show you how our dresses matched. We both love them, so it's a win-win all around. I didn't take this picture, and the flash did funny things to the colors. My sweater does match my dress (at least in the daylight where I tested it). I actually knit the sweater before I made the dresses. My daughter already had a pink sweater that would work, so I didn't have to knit hers.

The idea for these dresses was born when I saw a similar ruffle and flower treatment done to a skirt in an online tutorial (here at Little Birdie Secrets). I simply used jumpers/sleeveless dresses as the base.

My own jumper is a fast and easy "2 Hour" kind of pattern (Simplicity #9830, if it's still available). It's as easy as they make it sound. Really.

I sort of made up my daughter's by using a bodice pattern from another dress I knew fit her and then changing the waistline and adding an A-line skirt that would fit it. I completely lined the bodice of hers, since it makes it really easy instead of fiddling with facings on small bodices.

I learned to use the ruffler attachment for my sewing machine! This Youtube video was fantastic. I bought my ruffler attachment at Hancock Fabrics at least a year ago, tried it, and couldn't figure it out to save my life. So I put it aside until I wanted to do these dresses and knew there was no way I was going to do all this ruffling the traditional way. I figured it out enough to get four strips ruffled, and that will have to do for now.

When I have more patience, I'll have to play around on my machine and figure out what was causing the rat's nest of thread on the back as I got to the end of the fourth strip. (Here's a great list of easy things to check when your sewing machine plays that trick on you, courtesy of About.com. Hint: It's not always the bobbin tension.)

You know I didn't go out and spend a fortune on this fabric, right? It was two sheets that have been sitting here for about two years, begging to be made into something really special. I finally figured out what would showcase them best! I'm especially thrilled to have a total materials cost of $6 for both dresses. That's how much the sheets cost at the thrift store where I got them, and I actually have over half of the striped one left. It has a gorgeous border on it that is waiting for just the right project to come along, too.

Bragging on my daughter's creation

You'll have to excuse a proud mother today. I just couldn't resist showing you what my almost-6-year-old daughter did over the weekend:

She made this hat for her doll using a Knifty Knitter!

Here she is, hard at work. She's left-handed, so at first she was wrapping the pegs backwards. But once I showed her the difference, she was off and running with it.

Yes, she did it herself. She even learned the special "knot" to wrap around the peg each time to keep the yarn from unraveling, something none of my Sunday school girls have mastered in the two weeks we've been working on it.

I did turn up the brim (put the loops onto the pegs) and take it off the loom for her, but the rest was all her doing. She has been playing with them off and on for the last week, so I was especially proud that she took the time to finish this one. She's already started another one since she has so many dolls that this will fit.

If you've never played around with Knifty Knitters, I'll warn you - they're really fun and addictive! I found the first round set at a thrift store really cheap. It was missing the smallest blue loom (the one my daughter used for these hats), but then I found another round set at a flea market a few days later that included the blue loom.

I must have made 15 or more hats already, a few in each size. It's a great use for the huge garbage bags of yarn my mother-in-law gave me, since you can use smaller balls of yarn for these hats. I can knit the traditional way, but I'll admit this is different and very fun. You really should try it!

You can make your own looms at home out of things you would usually throw away. Here's an example of one (a video tutorial), but I've seen lots of them.

Some day I'll have to round up the hats I've made and do a post about them. :)

Entertaining Children on Long Trips

Are you a parent that loves to travel but dreads entertaining restless children on extra-long vehicle rides?

In our family, we're blessed that our children love listening to Adventures in Odyssey CDs over and over and over and ... you get the idea. It's enough to tamper with my sanity on some trips. I love Adventures in Odyssey, but I really don't enjoy hearing the same episodes every trip.

So I was thrilled to find some boredom busters in Michaels' clearance racks this last week. Let me share them with you, along with some other ideas for entertaining kids on-the-go.

All of these items came out of the 70%-off clearance bins at Michaels. When I see a clearance bin at anything over 60%-off, I always dig through it for treasures like this. Unless noted, I paid $0.30 each for most of these items. You can't even buy a candy bar for that price anymore!

So, what all is there? I'm glad you asked! Here are the details:

• 2 rolls of Highlights for Children Hidden Pictures coloring paper ($1.88 each - 20 puzzles, 40% off) - I'm thinking of doing up a Portable Drawing Desk with these, which will also provide a place to store the rest of the goodies.
• 2 color-your-own animals, complete with markers ($1.50 each)
• velvet art door hangers (2/pack)
• funny foam sunglasses (3/pack)
• marker-by-number kit
• baked suncatcher kit (obviously not for car trips, but I did get it out of the same bin)
• velvet art bookmarkers (multi-pack)
• decorate-your-own yo-yos
• travel games pad
• finger puppets pad
• paper airplanes pad
• simple origami pad
• funny faces pad

I've been collecting goodies like this as I find them, so I have a sticker book in my stash, too.

I got this My Giant Sticker Fun Book at Ollie's recently for $2.99. I doubt we'll be using the CD at all, but the inside of the book was worth every penny.

These stickers ...

... go onto these "picture puzzles". What I really like about this is that the stickers are numbered, so even little kids can do this right. My kids may use the numbering system just to make sure they've chosen the right one before they stick it down.

Personally, I thought the whole idea of sticker puzzles was absolute genius. My kids love stickers, and they love puzzles. Combine the two, and they'll be entertained for a long while!

I have one more travel activity suggestion, and this one comes from Dollar Tree:

Hand puppets!

Unlike some of the cheap stuffed toys I've seen for sale, these are actually cute. I was especially impressed that they thought to include a boy puppet. They also have darker-skinned versions of these in both boy and girl versions (with appropriate hair styling), which is especially nice if you don't happen to be Caucasian.

Unless I miss my guess, my kids are going to have a lot of fun making up stories with these puppets and interacting with each other. Since there's a boy puppet, this can be a boys' and girls' activity.

So the next time you have to take a long trip with kids, check out your local dollar store, closeout store, and even the $1 sections in the craft stores. You might be surprised what treasures you dig up!

Of course, if you're like me and like to save money, just keep an eye out when things like this go on clearance - and then hide it somewhere that the kids won't find it!

Our Easter Dresses

How many of you remember the fun of a new dress for Easter when you were growing up? It seems this generation with its "blue jeans and t-shirt" church dress code is missing out on a lot more than they think. Our church people still dress up to come to church, and my daughter loves (mostly) every minute of it.

When I finished this dress several months ago, she called it her "wedding dress," probably because of the circle skirt and the fact that I kept it almost floor-length (to get the most wear possible from it). She usually protests when I buy her "poufy" dresses (her words, not mine), but she loves this one.



I had enough leftover from the sheet to make myself a half-circle skirt, and I love it as much as she loves her dress!

As you can see, these dresses could go with either pink or yellow. Since my son was wearing a yellow shirt, I decided we'd accent with yellow for Easter. However, the ribbon and rose are both removeable so we can go to pink accents if we want to. I would just wear my pink blazer in that case.

If you can get a close enough look at the rose pins, I made them using leftover satin ribbon from my daughter's dress ties. I made a pink and yellow one, and we'll alternate who wears which one depending on what color blazer I'm wearing.

I'm so pleased with how these turned out! Everyone commented on how pretty they were. No one could believe it when I told them I used a sheet.

I'm linking to Fiber Arts Monday, Whatever Goes Wednesday , Upcycled Awesome and

Braggging on my daughter!

Look what my soon-to-be-5-year-old daughter did in school today:



Yep, that's cross-stitch done on shelf-liner paper, and she did all but the top row of the capital "I" by herself. (I showed her how to do it on the top row, and then just watched and guided her when she asked, as she finished it.)

We're studying "I,i" this week, so I wanted to do some projects that went along with it. That's when I remembered the idea of cross-stitching with yarn on this shelf paper. It was featured on another blog, but I can't remember which it was (either Filth Wizardry or Dollar Store Crafts, I think).

To prepare, I just drew x's with permanent marker in the shape of a capital "I" and lowercase "i". She used a plastic, blunt needle, and I threaded it for her. Other than that, it's honest-to-goodness cross-stitch, and I'm completely blown away at how quickly she got the idea.



She was pretty proud of herself, and so was I! :)

Some of my favorite Easter pictures

Of course I took pictures on Sunday, and I thought I'd share my favorites today.

The first few are my daughter, who got all the photogenic genes for her generation and mine!





These first two were taken on the porch of our church, but it was so bright that she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. Not only that, but huge bumblebees were dive-bombing that beautiful tree behind her, and it was even getting to me! :) So we took it inside ...






I love these last two of her! I asked her to look out the window. I didn't tell her to look serious, but I got exactly the look I was after. I just love the natural light in these pictures!



This is me with my daughter. We didn't match perfectly, but it's close enough to know she was mine! :)



And then my son, who wasn't totally sure about posing beside these artifical "flowers" inside the church.



And one of the best smiles ever from my husband and son. I had just gotten them to laugh, and I love these smiles! (My husband thinks his smile is a little too big, but I think it's perfect

So there is your little peek into our very traditional Easter Sunday. I hope you enjoyed it!

My Christmas gift: A Netbook

My husband has quite the sense of humor. Good thing for him that I also have a good sense of humor! :)

He kept asking me what I wanted for Christmas, and I really didn't know what to tell him. I wanted a laptop or Netbook, but we never spend that much on each other for Christmas, and we hadn't yet received our Christmas bonus. In short, I knew it wasn't going to happen. So I just told him, "You can give me money toward a laptop or Netbook."

So, being the good-humored man that he is, he made his own "Netbook" to give me for Christmas. Check it out:














Good thing for him that he included that last page, right? ;) Seriously though, I got a good laugh out of it. Isn't he a genius? He made it all by himself! I knew he was up to something when he kept coming into my craft room looking for things and asking how to use those brads.

(And yes, he did give me a little toward my laptop savings, as well as a brayer!)

A kids' Thanksgiving craft

Yep, you guessed it - another house! Sorry about the quality of these pictures. I took them after the sun had gone down, so I had to lighten them a bit for you to see better.

My kids wanted to make their own houses like I've been making. I plan to let them make gingerbread houses, but I wanted to save that for December. So instead, they made Pilgrim houses and Pilgrim "dolls" to go with them.



Before they started coloring, I mentioned that Pilgrims wore plain-colored clothes, mostly black and white or brown. Well, my daughter took me quite literally and colored that one on the far right completely black - until I noticed and explained that their faces and arms were a regular color. :) So the hat and boots look right, but the rest of him? Well, let's just say that the kids say he's blind (since you can't even see his eyes). Seriously, they came up with that themselves.



Here you can see the house a little better. My son is a great colorer! (Not that my daughter isn't ... ) I don't know if you can see it or not, but I glued the cut-out Pilgrims onto mini dollpins so they'd hold up better.



And here you see that the box is actually functional. The Pilgrims fit inside so they don't get lost. We'll be making another Thanksgiving craft that goes with this, and it should fit inside, too.

In case you're wondering, I assembled the actual houses and let the kids glue on the doors and windows.

In case you'd like to make some of these, the Pilgrims are free kids' coloring pages I found here.

"Baby Animals" for My Kids

My daughter just had a birthday, and my son will have one within the month, so they have been receiving birthday money. A few weeks ago, they saw FurReal Friends at Wal-Mart and wanted them desperately. I think they liked the idea of bottle-feeding puppies! At any rate, we're used to thrift store prices, and there was no way we were going to just buy a $12 toy on a whim. (There's nothing wrong if you do, but our kids have plenty of toys already that we've gotten for much, much cheaper.)

We told the kids to start saving their money until they had enough. That way, they learn to save for special things. They have been trying to think of every possible way to earn money, and they finally earned enough. Added to that, they both had $3 birthday club gift cards to Toys R Us (free from the store) and my son's came in the mail yesterday. So we were convinced to go see if Toys R Us had them for a better price, after the gift cards.

Sure enough, they did. (Surprise, surprise!) But I was especially surprised that they had more than the usual run-of-the-mill puppy and kitten. They had a chipmunk, brown bear, chimpanzee, parrot, duck, kitten and two kinds of puppies. Both of the kids changed their minds about what they wanted when they found out that the dogs don't actually open their mouths to be fed. So here's what they got:

A chimpanzee for my little girl. Out of all the FurReal Friends, this and the baby beagle are my favorites. They are the cutest!

And a chipmunk for my son. It's a boy thing, I guess. He and his daddy both agreed on this one, while I tried to talk him into the baby beagle. :) He's happy with his choice, so I am, too!

Lots of excitement at our house!

This past weekend brought lots of excitement to our house! A few hours before my daughter's 4th birthday party, my son's first tooth fell out. (He's had a few pulled, but this was the first that fell out all on its own.) Please excuse the slightly gross picture, but my family will want to see the missing tooth! :)



We had my daughter's 4th birthday party with our close friends. She wanted a Hello Kitty theme, and you didn't hear me complain. I think this was the easiest cake I ever decorated, and I didn't need any special pans or even decorator icing (which is too sweet for my liking).



It's a little hard to see in the picture, but you can get an idea of what her homemade party hats looked like. I made them all basically the same, except the birthday girl's had glitter on Hello Kitty's dress, as well as a number "4". (By the way, it's incredibly easy to make your own party hats. Just cut out a half circle from cardstock, wrap it into a cone, and decorate!)



And then I got really "lucky" and found the perfect party favors at Walgreens:



I didn't have to do a thing to them, and they matched perfectly! My kids have been bugging me to buy them one of these marshmallow pops for ages, but I wasn't about to spend $1.25 on one, unless it happened to be for a special occasion. :) It certainly didn't hurt that I was able to use some extra Register Rewards to help pay for them!

So now you see what has kept me busy for the last few days. Never fear, though, I just discovered two more card pictures on my camera that I haven't shared yet. Apparently, I took pictures of them right before the party and just forgot about them in all the excitement. I'll share them in the next post.

Lowe's Build and Grow workshops

My son went to his first workshop at Lowe's this morning, and he was thrilled with it, too! If you'll pardon the goofy expressions on his face, I'll share a few pictures of the project. [If you have boys, you'll recognize this stage: see how many goofy faces you can make before Mom pushes the shutter button on the camera. Please tell me they grow out of this!]



He got: goggles, an apron (with a clear pocket to hold a nametag), the project (a drum and drumstick), project instructions, a certificate of completion, and a sew-on badge for his apron. Again, that's pretty generous for being free!

He was especially excited that he got to bring home the goggles. Of course, he's supposed to remember to bring them back in the next time, but I'm sure they'll have more if he forgets.



Here you can get a better picture of his apron. It's quite nice! I'm debating how best to sew the patches onto it. And speaking of patches, here is the one he got today:



I think I'm going to start by sewing them onto the pockets. I measured it all out and decided I probably have room to sew about two years' worth of patches onto the apron, if I "plaster" them on there pretty close. :) That should be sufficient for awhile!

He really enjoyed the workshop. My husband took him and said that he's already getting better with a hammer and nails. Last week, my husband had to set the nails. This week, my son did it all himself. Not bad for an almost-six-year-old!

So the verdict is in: the kids' workshops are a success, and we'll be attending them as often as possible. It's great for homeschooling, too, since I can count that as our art class for the week ... and I don't even have to deal with a mess! [I love to craft, but I don't necessarily love the mess of crafting with kids.]

Home Depot kids' workshops

My son went to his first Home Depot kids' workshop this morning and came back as happy as can be. See what he got and made?



He got the certificate, apron, pin, beanbags, all the wood to make the project, as well as a sticker to decorate it once he paints it (at home). Here's a better look at the apron and pin (the pin might still be hard to see, but it's neat!):



He was done with the project in just 45 minutes, so it doesn't take all morning like the posted hours suggest. (That's a good thing!) He got to use a real hammer, nails and glue. He reported that the hammers are just the right size. They're real, but "not heavy like Daddy's". :)

Since I was expecting it to take all morning, we went ahead and let him paint the beanbag game this morning. He chose Home Depot orange. Surprise, surprise!

He and my daughter are already enjoying playing with the game.

Next week we'll try out Lowe's kids' workshop!

First day of first grade!

Well, the first day of first grade was a success ... and fast! We were finished in about an hour. Of course, there is no seatwork and no reading class the first week, so that explains why it went so fast. That, and the fact that it's all review for the first little bit anyway.



My little man seemed so big doing these "little kid" activities. He's great with coloring, can count way past the "5" we did today, and had no problem with the "thinking cap" activity in math class (even though we've never done it before).

It's always nice when they ease kids into learning. That way, they don't get overwhelmed and give up.

I can't wait to get our Pizza Hut Book It program materials. I expect it to be a huge hit at our house!

One more thing before I forget ... We're planning for my husband to take my son to Home Depot's kids' class this Saturday. They're making a bean bag toss game. I've heard rave reviews about them, and you certainly can't argue with free! He's really excited about getting to work with "real" tools and make something. I'll let you know how it goes. And if it goes well, we'll try Lowe's free kids' classes later in the month.

No pictures yet!

Sorry, but I didn't get any pictures of the newly-organized rooms yet. The day was full today.

My husband and I took a few hours' date and went to some thrift shops in search of a few specific things. (We came away with some great bargains, but more on that in a minute ... )

When we got home, my husband decided to mow the lawn. I had a migraine, so the kids went out to play on their bikes on the parking lot. My husband can see them while he's mowing, so this shouldn't have been a problem. (You know this is going somewhere important, right?) Well, it was a problem. I should have known my little girl would get into some mischief, but this about cost her life! She went to the pond to look at the bullfrogs she's been hearing, leaned over a little too far, and fell headfirst into the pond!

That was bad enough, but for some reason, my husband didn't see her. It's a good thing she had the presence of mind to stand up because neither of my kids know how to swim - and so have no idea how to hold their breath underwater. She isn't known for having much "presence of mind," so I'm grateful it finally kicked in! My son saw her and ran to get my husband, and they all descended on the house. I answered the door and was greeted by a crying little girl with green pond scum clinging to her new shirt.

Motherhood is never boring, is it? I'm just glad she's alive, and I hope she learned her lesson. I know I did - never, ever let that girl out of my sight for a second!

So ... you can imagine I didn't get any pictures of the kids' reorganized rooms. I also didn't get any pictures of our great thrift store finds. (I really need to bring my camera back downstairs!) But I'll tell you about them anyway:

• Rival electric food slicer, model 1101, looks to be new in the original box (with Styrofoam packaging still in place!) - $6 (I have an older, mostly-plastic slicer I got for free at an auction a year or so ago, but this is much more user-friendly.)
• Presto Salad Shooter #02910, looks like new in the original box - $4 (My cheese shredding blade broke on my food processor a few months back, and I desperately wanted a replacement.)
• Fisher-Price Kid Tough digital camera, without USB cable BUT we just bought a similar camera from a friend and it came with a cable - $5 (Now I can give both of my kids their own digital camera for Christmas and avoid the fights about whose is whose!)
• Discovery Channel Robotix CyberArms, complete in the box with instructions - $1 (I'm thinking about giving it to my nephew who has been wishing for some Lego MindStorms. It's not the same thing, but it's a little similar!)

Those were the biggest finds of the day, but we got some other really nice things, too!

I'm busy organizing!

After nearly a week of creativity, I've been bitten by the organization bug. I finally hit on a solution to our kids' toy clutter, and so I'm making it happen in the next few days. (I'm taking off Sunday, though.)

I got quite a bit done tonight, and I'm excited to see what more I can do tomorrow! I'll post more when I get the chance, and possibly have pictures to show.

On another exciting note, my daughter decided she wants to be a big girl, so she's going on the potty now. We took a special mother-daughter trip today to get her "big girl undies", and it's a good thing we got a 10-pack because I have a load of undies to wash in the morning already! :) It's okay, though. She's learning fast, and I'm glad that she's finally interested.

I've taken the approach with my kids that they'll learn when they want to. My son pretty much trained himself in three days and hasn't even wet the bed since that time. It required little to no effort on my part, but it was extremely effective. I figure my daughter will do pretty much the same thing. She has been taking herself to the potty and everything, which is exactly what I want. The goal is to train her - not me! :)

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Back from vacation - photos!

We got back yesterday around 4:00 in the afternoon, thanks to Memorial Day beach traffic. (It would have been much sooner otherwise.) I had to unpack and then bake cookies for a bake sale, so I'm just now getting a few minutes to share some pictures with you.

We had a great time and enjoyed ourselves immensely. There were several days that we just sat around in our pajamas all day (something we never do!) reading or listening to Focus on the Family Radio Theatre CDs. That's my idea of vacation!! :)

As you can see by the pictures, our accomodations were top-notch. If you're looking into buying a timeshare, we're extremely pleased with Massanutten Resort. We didn't do many of the activities, but the place is loaded with them. We enjoyed the chair lift rides to the top of the mountain (breath-taking views that I'll share in another post), mini golf, and playing basketball and ping pong at the recreation center. But let me show you our accomodations! (Please disregard the fact that they're in no particular order. The main entrance was by the kitchen/dining/living area.)



The master bedroom - these will soon be upgraded to king-sized beds with pillow-top mattresses.



The other end of the master bedroom that leads into the attached full bath.



I liked the little desk, although I didn't sit at it to write. I preferred the table over by the window because of the view.



This is the kitchen/dining area. There is a buffet server in the corner (you can't see it in the picture), and I was able to unpack all my craft supplies into a drawer so I could craft until dinner, put my supplies away, and then get it all back out afterward if I wanted.



Here's the living room with the gas fireplace. I think they're planning to make these electric fireplaces in the upgrade, too. The balcony beyond the French doors was screened-in, which was perfect for me (the bug hater).



This is the room the kids slept in. I was surprised that they actually slept in these beds most of the night every night, so my husband and I were able to have our entire queen-sized bed to ourselves. It feels a lot bigger without two little kids in bed with us! :)



This is the other side of the kids' room.



And here is the jacuzzi that we thoroughly enjoyed. It turned out to be in its own separate bathroom instead of inside the master bedroom like I was originally thinking. That's okay, though, because it was absolutely perfect! (Disregard my reflection in the mirror.)

I'll post more next week, but I thought I'd let you know we're back!