Little Giggles

As frustrating as sewing can be sometimes it is always worth it in the end when you receive such beautiful smiles and precious little giggles as a result of your project. There is something special to know that a little piece of you is in that dress, or blanket or whatever the project is. It is no where near the same feeling of giving a store bought gift. If you have never sewn before I suggest just try something small. A blanket maybe. The sky is the limit for creativity.
It is a forgotten craft that I feel needs to be revived in our culture. We have relied too long on the stores to provide our basic nessecities. Lets take back our ability to stand on our own two feet. It is a great skill to have for no other reason that when you can't find what you are looking for in the stores you can produce it.
Well that is it my plea for women everywhere to pick up the needle and create!

Felicity Costume

The first costume of the 2010 Trick or Treat season is completely finished! Here are some photos of Miss Grace's "Felicity" dress.






This is the front view. I had to make a couple of modifications do to mistakes on my part. But over all I am pretty pleased. I really hope she likes it.

















This is the back view. The only reason this is up is to show the first real zipper I have ever put in!! Woohoo! I had to have my mother in law show me how to properly place one in. I am ashamed to admit that up to now I have tried to find every way around putting in a zipper and have even not done a pattern due to a zipper! Not any more!

So here it is: Costume #1 finished and ready to go! Now on to an ewok and to finish the tree.

Rainy Day Inspiration

A sister of mine posted a really awesome blog today on face book that is completely up my alley!

365 dresses in 365 day with 365 dollars

There is not for me to say on this so just go there and be inspired!

What to do with all the Saxon Math Meeting Strips

School is quickly approaching and for the most part I am pretty organized this year. Cadence is starting the first grade and Isaac will be doing pre-school (well as much "school" as a 2 1/2 can do).

In all my planning and organizing there was still one thing that remained to figure out, what are we going to do with all these meeting strips that Cadence will be doing each day? So after much pondering this is what I have come up with.

• I took the master copy of the meeting strips that is in the Saxon Teacher's guide and reformatted on my computer. This way it is just easier to print them out without having to deal with a copier or scanner. As soon as I figure out how to add a document file to the blog I will post it here for you to use.
  
• Next I cut out each strip to the same size.
• Then I found a scrap piece of wood from my scrap wood pile that was just a little larger than the cut strips and sanded it until it was smooth. Then I used left over spray paint and paint the block of wood.
• Next I placed a meeting strip on the wood and marked where I wanted the holes and nails would be.
• Finally I used 4 small nails (the heads need to be smaller than the hole of a hole punch) and hammered them into the wood were marked. After that I used a hole punch to punch all the strips to match the nail holes.

And this is the final result, a place to keep all those meeting strips. The great thing is she can set it on her desk and see the date all during school. I am still thinking of what to do just beneath the meeting strip.

The Making of a Tree

I know it has been ages since the last time I posted, but here I am. I have actually found a way (I hope) to help the blogging process. This big help is using an old camera for just blogging. That way I do not have to sort and weed through pictures every time I want to blog. Some of you out there may say "well why do you need to post picture?" Well, part of it is I am personally a very visual person and so my thinking is that there may be more like me out there.

Ok so on to making The Making of a Tree.......

So for those of you who may not know I enjoy making costumes. I enjoy the challenge and the wide range of creativity that comes with it. So when my 6 year old daughter asks to be a fall oak tree this year I was excited at the opportunity!

So I began researching and found some completely awesome costumes. Here are two:

Now this is a Tree Face
Magic Tree Costume

However, many of the ones I found and really liked as if they would cost an arm and a leg to make. Plus many appeared to be a little restricting in movement and being this is for a 6 year old who will be walking around, I did not feel a full trunk would be a good idea.

So I set out to develop a cheap, light weight nice looking tree costume out of nothing but paper, paint, tape and glue. And these are the result so far:



This is the front view. I was really awesome to watch Cadence's wheels turn as she thought of all the possibilities to enhance her costume.










This is a close up of the bird sitting in the tree. (Cadence has told me it is a robin)











So what would a fall oak tree be without falling leaves? If you look you can see the leaves dangling from the branch.










And finally, what would an oak tree be without acorns? We had so much fun gathering them!









I will try to remember to post the finished product. I will say I am glad to have this part done. With still having a "Felicity" dress to make for a friend's daughter and an ewok to make for my son and with the fair and school on its way in about a week or so, things are going to get pretty busy around here.