Anthro Inspired Snow Scene

It's no secret that I spend a little too much time in our local Anthropologie. I try to slip in by myself whenever possible, but it's fun even if I have to bring the girls, because they love it too!

Last time we were there, Lissie kept pointing out the little deer-and-trees-in-a-cake-stand-displays scattered around the store. She really, really wanted to buy one, but they weren't for sale. And who am I kidding? They probably would have been out of my seasonal decorating budget anyway!

Here is a picture of one of the ones we saw at Anthropologie:

This is really simple and cheap to put together if you already have a cake stand. Which we do. Remember our terrarium? It didn't do well (but at least it didn't stink the second time the plants died!).

And on the bright side, that meant that our cake stand was available for seasonal crafting.

I'm pretty sure we have a plastic deer, but I couldn't find it, so I bought one at Michael's, along with some gold paint, fake snow, and tiny trees. I borrowed one of the larger pieces from our set of tree blocks, but you can buy those at Michael's too.

I painted the top of the deer gold. You could definitely skip this step, but we like things shiny.

Holiday themed snacks are always a plus when doing something like this.

All you really have to do is arrange everything in a pleasing manner on the base of the cake stand, and sprinkle it with fake snow. Ours is obviously not to scale, but all of the taller trees were too tall.

And, the finished product. Easy peasy. Even with two sticky handed little helpers.

Moving Out

Not all of us. Just our oldest. As I suspect it always is, it was a move of mixed emotions: excitement, sadness, relief, and even a little regret. But at 20, it was time for her to leave the nest.

She's renting a room in a house with a family, so I feel good about that. At least even though she's not with our family any longer, she's with a family. 

Now, what will we do with this empty, empty room?

KCW

Well, kids' clothes week has been kind of a bust around here! I haven't done any sewing, but I did get some lovely fabric in the mail.

Maybe I'll sew tomorrow.

Baking Soda Apocalypse

Last night, the girls got into the big bag of baking soda I keep in the kitchen for cleaning. It all started innocently enough, with scooping from bag to bowl keeping them occupied while I made dinner. They even swept when they were done.

When we thought they were done.

 We didn't know that Maxine sneaked a tin full of baking soda into the playroom.

I don't know what she was playing, but with everything covered in white dust, it looked like a crazy post apocalyptic scene, right down to the discarded household objects and clothing.

Happy (Homemade) Easter!

Every year, about a month before every holiday, I make the same ambitious declaration: "this year, I'm making all of the gifts." We're kind of laid back about holidays, and gift giving, so it never seems like that big of a task. So I put it off until the holiday is four days away, realize there isn't any time to make most of the things I'd planned to make, and place a bunch of last minute Amazon Prime orders.

But not this Easter. Not because I planned better, but because Easter falls on a Sunday. And since it was Thursday when I realized that Easter was this Sunday, there wasn't time to order anything. So I was stuck.

Fortunately, I wasn't a complete slacker this year. I'd already made this little Popover Sundress for Maxine,

and another Lazy Days skirt for Lissie.

I was planning to make fabric buckets for the girls to serve as Easter baskets, but I've never made one before, and they looked too complicated to tackle for the first time with a looming deadline. Instead, I used this tutorial to make a little Sleeping Beauty drawstring bag for each (little) girl.

Ariana, the cat lover, got a little Owl and Pussycat bag.

We filled each bag with a few goodies. I didn't mean to do so many little dolls, but found the gnomes while Ariana and I were making the butterflies. The little purses came from different grandmothers. Do all grandmothers collect lots of tiny purses, or is it just the ones in our family?

Pastels for Lissie, and lots of red for Maxine. It's her favorite color. Had you noticed? Lissie's purse was bigger, so Max got the baby gnome. She loves it, as predicted. Let's not discuss the "branch with berries" I embroidered on the belly of one of Max's gnomes. At least we know why that one was packed away with the craft supplies!

There was a little surprise for everybody at the top of the stairs too. Ariana stayed up late and made a bunny for each girl, and left them there with a little note. Lissie noticed right away that the handwriting was not mine or Brad's, and decided it must really be from the Easter bunny. I wondered if she would also notice Ariana's trademark "X" eyes, but she didn't seem to make the connection. She was thrilled to finally know whether the Easter bunny was a boy or a girl. Who knew it was such a burning question?

After our low-key Easter morning, we headed out to the country to visit some friends.

The bow and arrows were not an Easter gift, but Lissie just got them this weekend. She recently became interested in archery while reading Robin Hood, and my father happened to have a youth set that he bought years and years ago for Ariana. Ariana never used it, but Lissie has been having a lot of fun with it!

Maxine got to hold the quiver,

and help collect the arrows.

She didn't seem to think it was nearly as fun as shooting them!

Fortunately, there were lots of other fun things for a three year old to do.

So everybody was happy.

Wolves!

This morning I was serenaded by a couple of wolves in pajamas howling at the dining room light fixture.

I can't imagine missing moments like these because Lissie was in school all day.

To Market, To Trash Can

 I have a confession: I hate this skirt.

It was my second time using the Market Skirt Tutorial and after the first one went together so smoothly, I expected to breeze through this one. That did not happen. First, I cut the red fabric to the dimensions of the bottom ruffle, and the bottom ruffle to the dimensions of the red fabric. And then, I had half of the skirt sewn together before I realized it.

I went to cut more fabric, but didn't have enough of the red I originally wanted to use, so I had to find a different fabric. I used my rotary cutter to cut the pieces, and when I got to the white piece, where the length was folded in half, I cut the fabric in half. Fortunately, I had enough white to re-re-do those pieces. But still.

I also ripped out every single seam on this skirt at least once, and most of them twice. It may or may not have spent time in the trash before I went up to bed and realized I couldn't let a skirt defeat me. I dragged myself out of bed, fished the skirt out of the trash, and finished it. In the middle of the night. There may have been wine involved at this point. That's how I explain the awful, crooked topstitching--and this was after I ripped out the botched first attempt!

And Max? She hates it too. I bribed her with chocolate chips to get this picture. She insisted on putting the skirt right over her jammies, and wouldn't even let me brush her hair.

And when I asked her if we could take a picture where she wasn't holding the doll, she insisted that she had to hold the doll, because it was walking on her. And yes, that is a plastic doll from the eighties TV show She-ra: Princess of Power. My only defense? It's vintage.

And so is the one photobombing this picture:

Fabric is Riley Blake.

One More Lazy Days Skirt

Here's another Lazy Days skirt that I whipped up a while ago, then waited a week for enough sunshine to take pictures of. I've had this Heather Ross fabric for a while now. At least a year. It's so pretty and hard to find that I've been kind of afraid to use it, but what's the point of having pretty fabric stashed in a cupboard?

I decided to go with a simple pattern that I've made before, so there was no chance of messing it up. And I think it worked. I'm really happy with the results. I didn't have any ribbon that looked right with this fabric, so I did a regular hem. It looked a little too plain after that, so I sewed a simple lace trim two inches from the bottom.

I think it adds just the right touch.

The best way to get Lissie to smile, of course, is to tell her not to smile. So this is her "serious face." I love it.

Easter Color Matching

I can't seem to find it now, but I swear I pinned a similar activity last fall, which was trees cut out of green paint strips. I don't know what happened to it. But fortunately, it popped into my head a few months ago when I saw this bunny shaped hole punch on clearance at Michael's.

I bought it, and somehow managed to not lose it while waiting for Easter. I also managed to remember to grab extra paint sample strips last time I was at the paint store. I know some people think it's wrong to take extra paint strips, but I buy so much paint that I don't feel bad about it.

I got Eastery pastels in a few different shades.

Lissie and I punched the bunnies out sideways along the edge away from the text. Max did a few, but the hole punch was too stiff for her to manage easily.

Maxine is pretty good with colors, but some of the gradations are subtle, so we only did one or two cards of each color for her.

This is more for the younger kiddos, but I wondered if Lissie might enjoy sorting the subtler colors, or all of the bunnies from cards of a single color. She didn't. Of course, I can't guarantee interest at any age. Maxine thought that a making "bunny stack" was a better way to use these guys!

I have a feeling that these will be popping up in crafts and couch cushions for months to come.