Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

My Daughter is 3. When we moved into our new house she wanted a pink room. This is our very first house I will add, and she is 3. It is a color she is going to grow out of! I was not about to spend $25 on a can of pink paint at the store. So I will teach you all a wonderful trick about saving money on your paint.

Every store has a mistinted paint section. It is just a matter of finding it. Lowe's usually has it by the paint counter. Home Depot usually has it right outside of the door of the contractors entrance. It is also sometimes called as-is . Well, Lowe's as-is is where we found her paint. I was not looking for a specific pink. I knew what kinds I did not want, like bright/florescent pink. Just something softer. To paint her room, we spent 10 dollars on paint, one can of as-is pink, and one can of as-is green. It is not my favorite room in the house, but it was for my 3 year old, and she loves it. So if you are not looking for a specific color, check there. Most places will also color match if you need an additional can of the same color. We had to do that with our office paint. It was as-is too, grayish from Fred Meyer. We also used as-is in the kids bathroom. I can of Blue from Walmart. Yeah, our house needed/still needs some painting, and it is painting on the cheep! So go check them out! It can be a gold mine. And check regularly. Some weeks there is nothing and others there is tons! Good luck!

Poodle Skirt Tutorial

Here's my first attempt at a tutorial, so please be gentle. :-) This Saturday our church is having a 50's sock hop dance, and what better excuse to dress up the kiddos?? I'll probably come up with something for Hubby and me too, but for now, here's a little bit of cute for you to try if you want. This can be adjusted for girls of any age and size...it's all about the measurements.

**Disclaimer: I have to apologize for the shoddy picture quality. It's a perfect storm of bad indoor lighting, the point-and-shoot being on the fritz, waiting for a new camera, and having to resort to taking still photos with the video camera. Ugh! Better photos to come in the future, I promise!

Step 1: Take measurements, waist and desired length. Typically poodle skirts hit just below the knee. In my case, the waist is 18" and the length is 9".

Step 2: Make your pattern. Take 1/4 of the waist measurement and add that to the length. Here, 1/4 of my baby's waist is 4.5", added to the length gives me 13.5". Now, here's a little geometry. Divide the waist measurement by 6.28 (remember the formula Circumference = Pi(3.14) x 2 x Radius? That's where 6.28 comes from). In my case, the waist (18") divided by 6.28 comes out to 2.866242". I'll round it up to 3" and ease in the fullness later. Use a large piece of paper to draw a "donut." From the center point of your circle, measure out this distance in all directions and draw a circle. From there, measure out the new length (13.5") in all directions and draw a large circle. I just measured a quarter of the circle and sewed 4 sections together so I wouldn't have to buy a big piece of material and have a bunch left over. If you do this, make sure you allow for 1/4" seam allowances.
Step 3: Cut out material. I used black felt so it would be stiff and stand out without having to add tulle to give it body. Plus it doesn't ravel, so I didn't even hem it. Pin pattern piece to fabric and cut out the skirt. Also cut out a strip 3" wide by the waist measurement (again, allow for a seam).

Step 4: Sew skirt sections together. Skip this step if you cut out one big donut shape out of your fabric. If you have 2 or 4 sections, sew them together to create the donut shape. On the right side, while holding the seam flat to one side underneath, top stitch close to the seam to make it lay flat, like this:

so it looks like this on the front:

Here's your donut!

Step 5: Attach the waistband. Sew the ends of the 3" strip together to make a tube and fold in half lengthwise; press. Pin the waistband to the skirt so the raw edges of the waistband match up with the top edge of the skirt. If the top of your skirt is a little bigger than the waistband because you rounded up after figuring out the formula, just ease it in, and it won't be a big deal if there's a tiny little pleat in the back. Stitch all the way around, leaving a 1" opening for elastic.
Step 6: Insert elastic. Cut a 1" piece of elastic to the length of the waist measurement plus 1/2" for the seam. Attach a safety pin to one end of the elastic and thread it through the inside of the waistband through the opening you created in the previous step. Stitch ends of elastic together and hand sew the opening closed.
Step 7: Embellish! What would this little creation be without a cute pink poodle? The one I made isn't elaborate...just a sillouhette of a doggie I drew. I attached it to the skirt using Heat n' Bond, and the leash is a length of tiny pink rick-rack that I sewed on using matching pink thread. The collar is made of a few rhinestones glued on using my favorite fabric basting glue.
Step 8: Make it stay put! If you're making this for a baby, here's a tip that will help keep the skirt in place. I can pretty much predict with certainty that this will ride up to Baby's armpits if I don't do something to keep it put. I took a pair of bloomers from one of her dresses and safety-pinned it to the inside of the skirt. That should do the trick.

There you have it! I hope this makes sense and that it's something you'll want to try. Maybe put it in your back pocket and pull it out to make for Halloween. Let me know how it goes! And, also ask any questions you might have so I can clarify and make future tutorials even better. Thanks for letting me share my project with you!

Pink Lady

My grandma, Janet Dorothy Wells. 1980-ish.

January is the month of my Grandma Dorothy's birth. This year, she would have been 95. I was looking through old photos recently, and I realized that in almost every photograph and memory I have of her, my grandma is wearing something pink - a brooch, a dress, a necklace, a flower in her hair ... and she was definitely the kind of lady who wore flowers in her hair.

Grandma Dorothy's life always seemed to me to be full of adventure. When her father died, for instance, leaving her mother alone with 10 young children, the family got up in the middle of the night and left New York to avoid being split up by the state authorities. Her mother told them they were going to be gypsies. At least, that's how the story goes. She loved to tell other stories, too, about wearing out her dancing shoes at the Inwood Park Dance Hall in Cincinnati, and how she met my grandfather. In the years before she died, Alzheimer's disease took her back to that dance hall many many times, and her inward world was full of words like "beautiful" and "wonderful." She was one of those women who could get away with calling anyone "Honey."

She was also full of advice. She taught me that "to be beautiful, you must suffer" whenever she had the job of brushing my hair; and to "always keep the ring; it's what you get for your trouble." But my all-time favorite: "Just because you told the boy you'd go to the dance with him, doesn't mean you promised to leave with him."

Grandma also had plenty of sorrow, and she was far from perfect. But she was gracious. Always kind and gentle. She saw beauty in everyone. Truly. In everyone.

And so won't you join me, one day before her birthday month is over, in wearing some pink? In honor of women like Grandma Dorothy. And if there's someone in your life that this post makes you think of, please do leave a comment and share him/her with the rest of us!

Sweet Pink Day Dreams

I feel like I have been doing a lot of this lately...dreaming instead of doing.  I believe that it's partially my broken sewing machine's fault, partially my budget's fault and the rest is just because I have been so...well...careful with my time I guess.  I don't want to bore you with the details of that right now because today is about my day dreams!  Dreams for valentine's day prettiness, hopes of getting some of my Sadie's scrapbooking done and most importantly day dreaming about a future room I can't wait to make true. 

I NEED A SEWING MACHINE FAST! 

There...I vented and now I am back. Having a little girl makes for one awesome excuse to use pink.  If I wasn't so obsessed with blue lately and trying to please my pink hating husband I would paint our entire room pink (jk).  It's Sadie's room I can't stop thinking about and I can hardly stand it!  I get butterlies just thinking about it.  This can't be normal.  Anyway...Let me show you what's been floating around in my head, keeping me up at night. I know. I have issues.  Mark reminds me of this every time I end up on the computer late at night searching for that inspiration and motivation to create. 

First I saw this quilt...yum right?

photo credit

I love these colors...all of them! I love the little scalloped details and the soft look it has to it.  So, I have started to collect fabrics that I thought would be perfect.  I have not found them all yet but I do have a pretty good start just staring back at me as I drool.  I really want to sew!

Here is some of my collection so far. Blues, greens, oranges, but mostly pinks! I was just drawn to the fun pink patterns.

I wanted to do her walls this pretty light aqua blue color with some sort of tree on one of them and then I found this picture and tutorial on how I could do it myself! Crazy huh? Isn't it so cute?  I sound like a teenager talking about an outfit but I really love this idea! 

tree mural tutorial

  I can't wait to try this!  I think I'll add some little pink buds to the tree though.  Have any of you done this sort of thing before?

Then I created this play kitchen for Sadie which some of you have seen on my personal blog.  It has an old vintage feel to it and my hope is to carry on that feel throughout the room without making it feel grandmaish. I love how it turned out.

Today, when I saw this picture my mind began to race...

kellymccaleb tumblr

Wouldn't this be cute on curtains? Not the sweatshirt, of course, but the fun details: the ribbon and the embroidery and the vintage looking flowers. Yikes! I could go nuts thinking about this. I literally get more excited about ribbon and fabric and frilly fun things then I do on my own birthday or for Christmas morning. I might have more serious issues then I thought. Do they have obsessive creative therapy?

Well...that's enough for now. There is more...there always is but I will save it for another time. Pink just has a girly effect on people. It’s funny how this color has such a feminine connotation. I'm just happy I am a girl and I don't have to pretend I don't like it!

Oh!  And there will be a pretty pink chandelier hanging over head.