Baa Baa Black Sheep

Over Labor Day weekend I spent the evenings sewing two stuffed animals for two different babies.

The first one was for a sweet little girl that was born a few weeks ago.  She is the first girl in a household full of boys.  I had seen the free pattern for a little sheep recently by Abby Glassenberg for Sew Mama Sew and had pinned it on Pinterest to remember it for later.  (I have a bunch of great free patterns for stuffed animals pinned on there!)  I figured this could be a great time to try out the pattern.  It looked like a simple pattern that wouldn’t take too long but is also super adorable.

I really enjoyed making this little lamb.  It was fun picking out the fabric and really making her my own.  The one that Abby made has embroidered eyes, nose, and mouth but I really wanted to use safety eyes.  And I just embroidered a little nose.  That is one of the great reasons to sew, you can customize things just the way you want them.  I also tied a ribbon around her neck to add some color.  I added a bell on the ribbon too which looks cute and is fun to hear ring but I told the mom that if she doesn’t want to hear it or worries that the ribbon is a choking hazard she can always just take it off and save it for when her daughter is older.

I hope the little one who received it will have fun playing and snuggling with her.

If you have never sewn an animal before this would be a great one to try.  It’s free,  so if you just completely fail (which I don’t imagine you would) you aren’t out money on the pattern.  There are good step by step instructions and photos which help you along the way.

Abby makes gorgeous patterns and in fact the other animal I made is one of  hers as well from her book Stuffed Animals.  I’ll show you that one next week.

And while we are talking about her patterns.  She just made one for Wild Olive.  It’s a free pattern for a flying squirrel and it is the cutest thing I’ve seen in a while!  I definitely have to find a reason to make one soon.

 

And So It Begins

Well, it’s that time of year again.  No, not back to school or the winding down of summer, it’s time to be making Christmas ornaments.  If I don’t start making them at least by mid summer there’s no way I can make them all in time so that they are ready for the rush once October and November hit.  With more homework now that my oldest is a big first grader (WHAT?!)  and with the birthdays of my youngest turning 2 at the end of this month and my oldest turning 7 in November, and with making Halloween costumes ahead of time so they can be shared on line in time, and Thanksgiving, and tons of family coming over to stay with us over the next few months, well, I just have to pretend it isn’t 100 degrees outside right now and get into the Christmas spirit.

One thing in my favor is that I am finally not pregnant, nursing, or dealing with the sleep issues of a newborn so I have high hopes that everything will get done earlier than ever this year.  I’ve gotten in a good pace these last couple weeks so I just need to keep it up so I can enjoy myself during the holidays instead of being holed up sewing.

This year I am introducing some new animals to my collection.  They are a whale, bear, dove, and sheep.  Plus my ever popular elephant and rabbit will of course be available.  I still have some of my classic shaped ones, octopi, and moons available as well.  My hope is to get them made and photographed to be listed this month.  There are some very organized people in the world who already started contacting me about ornaments back in July.  Wish I could be that on top of things.

I hope you all had a relaxing summer.  I loved not having the structure that comes with school.  We could keep the kids up a bit later if we wanted to go do something fun and not worry about waking up the next morning to be somewhere.  There were also no lunches that had to be made ahead of time and I didn’t have to wake the little kids up from nap to pick up brother from school.   It is nice having the house a bit quieter now that there is one less child in the house during the day though.

We did a bit of traveling this summer.  My husband is a youth and college minister at a church and so summer is his busiest time.  He is usually gone a good bit of it with going to camp and multiple mission trips and retreats etc.  This year though the camp had extra space and so the kids and I tagged along and stayed in a separate motel like room.  It was a bit hard at times trying to keep them happy with us all in one room.  And I didn’t want them to change the experience for the youth but we got in a groove and had a fun time.  I also got to go on a trip to West Virginia with the high schoolers which is my first trip away from the kids since my oldest was 8 months old.  We drove through Mississippi so we could leave the kids with my parents and then kept on going to West Virginia.  It is such a beautiful place.  Everyone was so friendly.  It is always so interesting to travel to different places and see how people are so similar but also so different.  And to also see if stereotypes are close to reality.  We helped one church paint their old sanctuary (with super high ceilings) that has now become a youth room.  They had told the youth 7 years ago that they’d paint those old paneled walls but haven’t had the chance to do it, so it was nice refreshing that space for them.  We also helped a tiny church in an old coal camp do a little backyard bible club for some neighborhood kids.  It was all a lot of fun and hard work.   I’ve missed getting to go on these things.  The kids had a great time too and got to see all their grandparents at some point which was nice.

So, we survived all that and now are settling into our new schedule of being in school.  And it’s to the grindstone I go with all these little ornaments.  I also just sewed two stuffed animals as baby gifts that I’ll be sharing here soon.  I already gave one away and next week will give away the other.  I was on top of things and actually got photos taken of them this time before I give them away.

*The picture at the top is a look at the inside of my little elephant ornaments.  It’s a view not usually seen by most.

 

So, did you have any adventures this summer?  Are you glad to be back in the school routine or hating it?  Have you done anything creative lately?  I’d love to hear!

The Nesting Spot…for Mockingbirds

A little mockingbird, which also happens to be the state bird, made it’s nest in the japanese yew by our front door.  We don’t use our front door most of the time so it went unnoticed for awhile.  And then when I did see the nest it looked empty from my angle.  My husband, being taller, could see that there were actually three little eggs nestled inside.

It was fun having the ability to watch the nest because usually the nests we find are all up high.  I took pictures of the eggs and the babies about a week apart.  About a week after I took the one of the babies I peeked again and they looked pretty much the same.  So I thought I’d come back in a few days to look again but when I did they were already gone!  Amazing how little babies can grow up so fast.  Although the days of having 3 little ones of my own can seem very long at times I am glad they won’t be leaving our nest so quickly.

The first picture is of the momma.  Some birds are very protective and aggressive but every time we came near she would fly up to a nearby tree.  It surprised me that she’d leave her babies like that but maybe she thought they were hidden better without her sitting there.  She’s definitely keeping an eye on us in that picture making sure we don’t do any funny business.

I also thought it was fun that her nest had three little blue eggs like my logo.

A Rainbow/Pony Birthday Party

Thought I’d share few photos from my daughter’s 4th birthday party.  We had decided on doing a rainbow birthday which I was happy about because it could be very simple to pull off and look cute. I prayed a ton for the weather to be nice since we’d have about 14 kids and having them outside running around would be much less stressful than being crammed in our house.  Thankfully, God was gracious and the weather was pretty perfect.  And crazily with the high being 80 that day, the next day it was wet and the high was probably 40.  It seems it is like that every year for my kids’ parties since they are in the spring and fall…one day it is lovely the next it is miserable…some years we get the good day and some years we don’t.  It makes it hard to know how to plan things.

I’ll go ahead and share the pictures here and if care to read more about the party and the simple ways I made it rainbow-iffic then you can read on afterwards!

This boy was refusing to ride the pony but finally got on.

It was better than what he imagined but he was ready to get off!

Tissue paper 4!

Rainbow mobiles to add some color.

Just made from streamers and embroidery hoops.

William enjoying his cake. Don’t know how that spider mask ended up outside.

Rainbow cake. Since I used a bundt pan each slice was rainbow shaped!

It was pretty impossible to get this girl to smile for the camera but she was having a great time.

Audrey got to ride Diamond up into the trailer when it was time to go.

Because we were doing rainbows, Audrey kept mentioning it was a Rainbow Dash party (which is a character from My Little Pony).  So, it morphed into being a pony party too.  I kept that part minimal or pretty non existent for the decorations but the Monday of her party I did see a picture of a child riding a pony on Pinterest and wondered why the idea of renting a pony to ride had never occurred to me.  I think it is because no one in our circle of friends has done that before so it wasn’t even on my radar.  Because it was unusual, it felt a bit indulgent, but really it cost about the same as doing a party at a jump house place which people do all the time around here.  The people we ended up using were great and very professional.  The pony was a little bigger than my original vision but it did allow for some of the older kids to ride which a shetland pony wouldn’t because there is like a 45 pound weight limit..or something like that.  This pony had over 100 pound weight limit. I just wanted something that wouldn’t be too huge and intimidating.  There were quite a few kids who were very scared at first but then loved it and the littlest ones seemed happy to avoid it.  But it was definitely a hit and worth the money.

To make it rainbow-y I hung streamers from the trees in our yard.  Our poor yard is pretty bare in March since everything is just thinking about waking up from winter so this added some nice color and was super easy.  Plus Audrey was able to help me with some lower areas.  We did this 20 minutes before the party started since it was super foggy and damp in the morning.

I had also made 3 of the easiest mobiles to hang from our pergola. I bought 3 embroidery hoops from hobby lobby and then just hung streamers in rainbow order from them.  The two hoops are what held the streamers in place and after the party was over I just pulled them out and can now use the hoops again for something else.  I tied yarn to the hoops and quickly hung them to the top of the pergola.  It was very simple but was very pretty blowing in the breeze.

I also used some foam core I had and drew a big 4 on it and cut it out.  I found tissue paper at The Dollar Tree that came in all the colors of the rainbow.  I cut the pieces in squares but didn’t worry about perfection and then hot glued them on.  Oh, and I figured out how big each stripe should be to make them equal and then measured that out and drew on the board since it would be covered up.  I did get burned a few times from the glue but it was a lot faster than trying to use regular white glue and I worried I wouldn’t have enough of that glue anyway.  I was very happy with how it turned out.  I ended up hanging it by a suction hook from our back window that had the table with presents, favors, and other stuff.

I also found a cute horseshoe game set at Hobby Lobby in their summer section.  It was originally around $6 or $7 but was on sale for 50% off.  All the pieces were different colors so it added to the rainbow and pony aspects!  And since it’s made from plastic I didn’t worry about anyone getting hurt from a rogue horseshoe!

My kids got a trampoline for Christmas and that was actually I think the biggest hit of the party.  The kids loved the pony but would have probably been equally happy just jumping the whole time.  We already had blueish/greenish ball years ago and I bought two more from Walmart for $2.50 each that were nice and big.  There was a yellow one with white polka dots and then a pink and orange one with a chevron pattern.  I threw them all on the trampoline to be bright and cheery while the kids jumped.

I almost forgot about the cake!   I kept it simple and bit of a surprise by buying a mix at the grocery store that had everything you needed to make it.  You could totally do it without it though by using your own food coloring.  I also ended up making two cakes so there would be enough for everyone.  I used my bundt cake pan so that when each slice was cut it’d be the shape of a rainbow.  After you make the batter you make six separate bowls of colored batter and then spoon them in one layer at a time.  If you don’t mess with it they stay separate and have nice bright rainbow colors inside.  I just frosted it white on the outside with some candles.  So it was pretty plain until I cut it and wowed everyone.  I had thought of putting one of her plastic ponies on it or next to it but ran out of time and decided it was fine simple.  I tend to mess things up, especially cakes, if I try to do too much.

And that was about it.  Some years I’ve gone a bit crazy with all the food options so this year to really try to keep it simple we went with pizza and some fruit.  The fruit was of course laid out in rainbow order of colors.  And somehow I didn’t take a picture of it.  I seem to always have grand plans of taking pictures and enjoying all the moments with everyone there but spend most of the time running around making sure it is all running smoothly.  Oh well, as long as everyone has a good time, then I am happy.  And I did leave out the pictures of all her friends because I hate to put them out on the internet without permission.

Next year’s party will definitely be more low key (or at least no horses). But it was fun making some great memories with the kids.

So, do you do birthday parties for your kids with friends and go all out?  Or maybe just a couple special friends?  Just family?  Have a favorite party that you’ve done in the past?  I’d love to hear!

Update on the Doll High Chair

Well, this is a bit embarrassing but I never gave an update to the doll high chair I bought back in December of 2011!  I’ve actually taken pictures of it twice since then to show you what I did but didn’t like the photos.

So, here is the before.

And here is the after.

I was so torn with all the great color options out there and many of you gave beautiful suggestions on here and Facebook.  But in the end I went with red because I felt it was a classic color that would go with the period of the piece.  I also like that it isn’t too girly.

Of course it’s been so long now I can’t remember how much paint it took – either one or two cans.  I spray painted it slowly with lots of thin coats.  I also sanded it the best I could by hand before hand.  But boy was that a pain with all those little knobs. There seemed to be a little lacquer or sealer on part of it in the crevices which was really hard to get off so I just painted over it after having roughed it up and it covered it pretty well.

My daughter is finally at the age where she is enjoying playing with dolls and being mommy.  Last night she couldn’t go to sleep because she had taken a nap.  We could hear her awake until almost 10:30 and in the morning we discovered that she had been dressing all her stuffed animals, including the lamb in these pictures, with her doll clothes.  This is why we don’t let her nap anymore!

By the way, the little kitchen is what Santa brought Audrey last year.  We love it!  It looks so nice and is a great size.  We saw other kitchens that were really cute but when we saw the dimensions they were really short and didn’t seem like they’d would grow with a child.  We did have to put it in baby brother’s room because that was the only place it would fit, but he loves opening up all the doors and pulling out the play food.  I also love that it isn’t gender specific and doesn’t even scream kid so it’s easy on the eyes.

Gratitude

I’ve been wanting for months now to put down in words how grateful we were/are for everyone during our ordeal with Josiah in the hospital.  If you missed any of that you can read about it here, here, and here.  It has been so hard to wrap my mind around all of those events so it’s been difficult to truly convey our gratitude.  I started this post back on November 4 and then hoped to at least get it done for Thanksgiving and now here it is at the end of January.  Of course, I still haven’t written William’s birth story down yet and he’s now 16 months!  So, this is actually pretty good.

This was after he was extubated and was no longer sedated. He was just sleeping and had only a high flow nasal cannula in. This was a huge improvement from before and a couple days before we left.

Back on November 3, I read this blog post from A Bit of Sunshine and Rebekah had just been through a trial with her youngest son.  I am not always good with words but she said a couple things that really nailed it on the head for what I was thinking.  The first was when she said:

The text messages and phone calls and prayer chains, the warm meals that friends brought over that night, the tears of joy that baby Zeb is totally fine…those things “wrecked my heart for good” as I put on Instagram.

I completely understand what she meant by “wreaked my heart for good”!  We were so overwhelmed with people reaching out to us that it tore up my heart, but in a totally great way.  I was so amazed by family and friends and even those who we haven’t talked to in a long time who sent us cards, gifts, and money and came to visit and bring us meals while at the hospital and afterwards.  Our sweet friends took our other two kids in with their family.  Others drove the kids up to Austin so I only had to make the 40 minute drive (one way) once a day to nurse my baby instead of twice like I had been doing.  Josiah’s schoolmates, most of whom didn’t even know him since he is a kindergartner and this was 2 months in, wrote him cards and pictures and prayed a ton.  That was what we appreciated the most- all the prayers and words of encouragement from everyone.  One of the good things about Facebook is the immediacy with which you can get information out.  We were able to give most everyone updates throughout the day and even a couple times when we needed immediate prayer for certain rough situations people could find out about it instantly and pass the word on.  I know that people from all over the world were praying for our sweet boy and it is what got us through such a hard time.  The hospital has a free service where you can fill out a card online and it gets delivered to the room.  We left the hospital with a stack as thick as a novel along with all the other cards and signs to look back over and thank God for such caring people.

You wouldn’t know by looking at him now that he had ever had any problems.  Thankfully, he hasn’t had any breathing issues at all since we left and so hopefully when we go for a check up with his pulmonologist in February he’ll be able to lower his medicine dosage.

This was taken in December and as you can see is doing much better!

Another thing Rebekah said in her post was:

And during the ordeal on Wednesday we talked more about how amazing it is that through trials and attacks love suddenly floods to the center of all relationships. The silly differences and quips, the things that really don’t matter at all but keep us from being close to one another – they fly out the window and we cling to each other in hope. I have a new view on trauma, on inner trauma on the things we battle silently each day. How would we treat each other if we knew what was going on on the inside for our friends. Would we reach out differently? Would we love one another and listen more intentionally would we cast off our own need for acknowledgements and hurts in order to embrace one another in our humanity?

Thankfully, we were blessed to come through the ordeal with a great outcome.  God had mercy on us and healed our son.  But being in that situation gave me a glimpse into what others go through when they have a loved one that is sick or have some kind of trauma happening in their life.  It has shown me just how important and appreciated small gestures are to those in pain and has made me want to be more purposeful in being there for others.  I have often wanted to do things in the past but haven’t always had the best follow through.  Hopefully as time passes and the traumatic feelings and memories fade I won’t lose the desire to reach out to others in their time of need.

And as Rebekah says in the quote above, we should also think about those around us who may be battling something quietly right in front of us.  It is so easy for me to be wrapped up in my own little world and pass others by without much thought or get annoyed when they act unfriendly, but do I stop and think about what might they be going through and how I can help make their day better?

I also cannot write this post without giving praises to the nurses, doctors, respitory therapists, and other staff at the hospital including the women who worked so hard at keeping the rooms clean.  They were all simply amazing.  I have always had so much respect for people in those professions but after seeing what they do day in and day out I am an even bigger cheerleader.  We were able to go back to the PICU a few weeks ago and see some of the staff that worked with us and thank them.  I know it can be a very discouraging job at times and they often don’t get to see the kids all the way healed since when they leave the PICU they are going to a less intense room in the hospital.  So I hope our visit gave them some encouragement.

So, to sum it all up.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We are forever grateful for all the love and care from all of you.

It’s Good to be 35

Well, it happened.  I turned the big three five.  And of course life feels no different than when I was 34.  But I thought I’d pass on some goodness to you guys to help celebrate.  So, for a week you can purchase all the prints in my shop for 35% off using the code below!

Picture Source

I’m going to temporarily take the ornaments and the bulk sales listings out of the shop so that people don’t try and use the code for those.  But they’ll return when this sale is over.

This has been a week of sick kiddos but it looks like they are on the mend.  I took my little one to the doctor to confirm Roseola which thankfully is no longer contagious.  Hopefully he’ll be back to himself soon.  And after listening to my daughter’s cough the Dr. thinks she might have had RSV which apparently has been going around.  So as you can guess I haven’t really left the house in a while.  But I have gotten lots of great snuggle time in, so that’s been nice.

Okay, enough about that.  Please pass the word on about the sale!  Valentine’s Day is coming fast and a sweet print might be just the thing to show someone how you feel!

P.S.  For those of you who don’t follow me on Facebook, I post sales there that aren’t  mentioned anywhere else!  So, it’s a smart idea to “like” my page.

Baby Names of 2013

Okay, it’s that time of year again.  The time when I look back at all the ornaments I made for babies born last year to see what the naming trends were.  Now, just like last year though there are a few older kids sprinkled in that I included.  But it will still generally show a peak into what the latest fads in baby names might be.

baby ornament names 2013

Click on the link above to see the full list of names.  I tried a couple different ways to get my list on here and some failed and then this link popped up for my last try…so that’s what I will stick with for now.  Maybe by next year I’ll know a better method of quickly putting my list on here and keeping it readable.

The names that were seen the most were:

4 TIMES EACH:

Henry

Jack

Jackson

Oliver

3 TIMES EACH:

Alex

Avery

Ella

Ellie

Madeline

Max

There are also several that came up twice.

Also, of course most of the names are from the United States but it is always fun to see names come from around the world as well.  This year I got my first order from Denmark!  Canada came out in full force and the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and France also represented as well.

Take a look and see if any of your favorites are on the list.  Any trends you notice?  Any new names that you see?

Take a look at again at last year’s list to see if anything has changed.

DIY Megatron Transformers Costume

http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/File:G1-Megatron_1301774239.jpg

I had told myself I’d get this post written before Thanksgiving.  Well, it technically is Thanksgiving right now, but I still haven’t gone to bed yet so it doesn’t count, right!?

The last costume this year was Megatron from the Original Transformers cartoon.  He is head of the Decepticons (bad guys) and transforms into a gun.  You can see the Peter Pan costume I made here and the Tinkerbell costume here.

My oldest could not commit to a costume idea this year.  He changed his mind every hour.  Finally, he was pretty set on being Megatron.  I was really hesitant to do it because he only wanted to be the “old school” version and all the premade costumes from the store were for the newer cartoons.  And the DIY ones I was seeing were to be made out of boxes which would be too cumbersome.  But, I finally gave in when I saw these two versions here and here that looked more comfortable to wear.  I was so ready to just buy anything from the store though since the hospital time got us so behind but he had his mind set.

It wasn’t hard to make but it did take a lot longer than I expected. I also ran out of duct tape the night before Halloween and then a big flood came and I was trapped at home and couldn’t get to the store to buy more.

Let me pause here to say a huge thank you to Judy who saw me comment on Facebook that I wouldn’t be able to get to the store to get the supplies I needed and within about 10 minutes delivered to my door foam, duct tape, and ribbon!  What a miracle she was!  The costume would not have been finished without her help.  I just couldn’t believe she had the supplies I needed and happened to live on this side of the low river crossings.

The whole thing is made from foam, cardboard, duct tape, masking tape, hot glue, and elastic.

First, I made the chest and back pieces.  I cut two pieces of cardboard after measuring the width of his shoulders and the height of his chest.  I hot glued little pieces of  cardboard on it to give it dimension to give the appearance of buttons.  It also made the cardboard stiffer because the piece wasn’t completely flat so it kept it from bending at the creases.  I carefully laid the tape down so as to minimize lines showing.  I put black electrical tape on the lines going vertically.  The red, blue, and yellow buttons are masking tape that I colored with marker.  I found an image from Google of a Decepticon symbol and put it in Photoshop to color it purple because it was originally black when I got it.  I used clear packing tape to put it on and keep it safe.

I ended up using the duct tape for the shoulder straps. It kept it very flexible and light weight. I put two pieces of tape facing each other and then taped that to the back of each cardboard piece.

I used an old tube from a paper towel roll and covered it in duct tape to use for the gun barrel that comes up behind Megatron’s back. I put a bit of foam around the top and covered with tape as well just to add some interest and make it look less like a tube. It did make that side of the costume a bit unbalanced but it didn’t lean too much as to be a problem.  As you can see below I also used smaller pieces of cardboard underneath the tape to create texture and make it look more robotic.  I just used more duct tape to carefully lay over the tube to hold it down on the back.

Next, I made the arm bands and legs bands. I wanted to give him a bit of a boxy look to make him look more robotic but not compromise his movement. At first my plan was to make the foam go all the way around his arms and legs so it would stay on easily but when I made the first one it ended up being too tight and too difficult to cover with tape. So, I tore off the back piece of foam and then just used duct tape and elastic to help hold it on. So, it wasn’t as neat looking as my original version but it did the job and he liked it.

I measured the length and width of his arms and legs to figure out the size I wanted to make it all.  I then made a paper pattern so I could hold it up to him and test the size before cutting into the foam.  I traced the pieces with a sharpie on the foam and cut them out.  Next, I hot glued the pieces together.  The glue didn’t want to stick at first but if you hold them together carefully while the glue cools it will stick.  The tape also doesn’t like to stick very well to the foam but once it was overlapping with more tape it stuck well enough.  All of this was a bit of a surprise and part of what made the process take longer.

One tip on covering the foam with tape was to cover all the vertical edges and ends first and then use big pieces horizontally across the front and back to cover up all the little pieces of tape to make it look nice and neat.  It was hard to get it to cover corners well but I just cut the pieces of tape smaller and carefully laid them in place.

On Megatron’s right arm is a big black barrel that I guess is the gun sight.  So I used another paper towel roll and covered it in black electrical tape.  I then laid about 5 strips of black tape across the barrel and onto the arm band to hold it on.  And then to hide that tape and to secure it better I laid duct tape going down the length of the arm.

I tested out a couple ideas for holding the arm band on and ended up using the duct tape again by laying two pieces on top of each other and then taping them to the inside back.  This helped hold it onto his arm well.  On the arm band with the scope I added a couple pieces of elastic but it probably wasn’t necessary.  I also put a piece of elastic (the white one) at the top of each arm piece for him to put his hand around.  It started to come off on the one arm band during the Fall Festival so I just yanked it off and never put it back on.  I could’ve fixed it but didn’t seen too necessary so I didn’t worry about it.  That’s why only one of them has it in the photos.  I also just noticed in the photos that his hands are pulled in a bit and hidden but normally they are sticking out so you can use your hands.

For the legs I ended up just making a front piece and a foot piece.  I covered them with duct tape and then used a strip of tape to attach the two.  That allowed it to hinge and just rest on top of his foot.  I thought about leaving the foot part off altogether, and in fact now that they just play with it at home we did take that part off just to make it easier for them to walk.  I ended up adding elastic but then tying to behind his leg so he didn’t have to slip it over his shoes.  My original idea was to use gray ribbon but I didn’t have enough of it and with the flood couldn’t get more so I just went with what I had.  The perfectionist part of me just had to ignore that it was easy to see it.  Note: All of these pictures are showing the lines and layers of tape much more than in real life.  But it is helpful for seeing how I laid the tape down.

Lastly, I made the helmet.  It is pretty comical looking because of its size but I was using what I had.  We  bought foam years ago for a mattress pad for a baby bed and there was still some left over.  It was 2 inches thick so it made the whole head piece really large.  You could make it much thinner though by just using skinnier foam.  I will write a post about how I made the helmet soon because I actually did take some process shots of that.  The kids love the helmet though and it still gets worn a lot.  There has never been any questioning by them of the size.  I love that about little kids, they don’t care that it isn’t perfect or exactly like the original.  They are just happy to have something to help them imagine being another person.

And finally, as the base of the costume I bought a gray shirt and pants at Target.  Thankfully, they had both that were plain and so I didn’t have to go searching all over the place.  He’s worn both at different times already so I’m happy that that money wasn’t wasted.

Over all I was very happy with how it came out and thrilled that he loves it so much.  He already started saying he wants to be another transformer next year….uh, I don’t know about that.  Even little sister wants to be one too.  So glad we have a year to decide.

DIY Tinkerbell Costume

Well, these posts are taking longer than I’d hoped, but now that we made it past Josiah’s 6th birthday party I’ll try to speed things up.

I’ve already written about my littlest Peter Pan costume here.  Now it’s time to talk about Tinkerbell.

While Josiah took to the last second to make a decision on a costume, Audrey knew from the beginning that she wanted to be Tinkerbell.  I figured it would be easy enough since she looks like her.  I think she turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!

I wanted to try and make something that looked like the actual Tinkerbell from the different movies, not just a green tutu dress that is Tinkerbell inspired.  I looked around the web for tutorials or pictures to help.  I did find some handmade costumes for sale that looked like I wanted but didn’t find any tutorials.  Ken and I were at JoAnn’s and I was looking around at all their green fabric to see what could work.  I wanted something comfortable.  I found some green knits but nothing quite light enough.  Then I saw another pretty fabric that was a shimmery and looked like leaves because of the texture of it.  In the newer Tinkerbell movies her dresses are made of leaves so I liked copying that.  The fabric was a bit sheer though so I bought the knit fabric to go under it.  I figured extra layers would help keep her warmer in this minimal dress as well.

I used another sun dress that she has as my reference for size.  I made the under layer first.  It is very simple with just front and back pieces.  I cut it long so that I could cut the bottom later.  I really didn’t want to end up with it being too short.  The top layer I made using four pieces.  I really just made it up as I went and kind of winged it.  I was inspired by this.   I did use her measurements though.  I also had to try both layers on her a couple times and take in the sides or make other adjustments to make it just right.  After getting the two layers the way I wanted I put them on her again to measure how much tulle would be needed for the straps.  Tinkerbell’s dress doesn’t have straps but we’re not doing that on a 3 year old.  I did want to give the illusion a bit though so I bought a quarter yard of nude colored tulle for a few cents at Hobby Lobby.

Note: You may notice a crease in the different parts of the dress.  I’m assuming that is where it was folded on the bolt.  I prewashed both green fabrics and am surprised it didn’t come out.  I really wasn’t paying attention to it and didn’t notice it until I was finished.  I don’t know if that kind of fabric can be ironed or not.  If you know tell me in the comments.  But really, it wasn’t too noticeable in real life.

I pinned the two layers together and the tulle in between them as well.  I also tried it on her to make sure I was putting the straps in the right place.  The dress is FAR from perfect if you look at the seams closely but I try not to worry too much about a costume that will only be seen a few hours.  After it was all pinned I sewed two  rows around the top and backstitched over the straps to make sure they were extra strong.

Finally, I put it back on her and just needed to measure how much to cut off the bottom to make the skirt with the cutouts.  I debated sewing the layers together or doing other things but ended up just not worrying and just cutting the two layers to match (although they often lay in different positions when she moves).  I just kind of eye balled it.  I was afraid that the top leafy layer was starting to fray so I did a zig zag stitch close to the edge all the way around just to keep it from fraying too far.  I kind of liked the added detail.  Knit doesn’t fray so I left it alone.

Surprisingly, the hardest thing for me to find was the wings. I looked everywhere….at least twice.  Finally, I ended up accidently seeing at the 11th hour that a local gift shop was selling Halloween accessories and I popped in to find that they indeed had angel wings for only $3.50!  I had been seeing every type of wing imaginable in my quest for good Tinkerbell wings but they were every other color of the rainbow.  I also saw some really awesome fairy looking wings but they were around $18.  Um, no.  Can’t do it. You may be asking yourself why I didn’t just make some.  Well, I could have but I really just wanted to keep this simple and not go through the trouble of trying to form coat hangers and get the panty hose to work etc.  I just figured this would be an easy short cut. Who knew it’d be so hard?  But in the end the angel wings (with halo) worked great.  They definitely looked more to me like fairy wings than angel wings.  I did bend the corners of all four wings though to make them a bit more pointy and fairy-like.

Because there was such a large piece of cloth in the middle of the two halves I wanted to disguise it a bit so it wasn’t so obvious that it was fake wings on her back.  I wanted them to look like they were just coming out of her dress…you know, like a really fairy would.  I also didn’t want to use the arm straps that came with it because that would detract from the look.  I didn’t want to cut the straps off though so that when Audrey plays with them later at home she can just slip the wings back on.

So, I used a scrap of fabric leftover from cutting the top dress layer and just wrapped it around the middle a few times and then safety pinned it down.  Then I just slid the straps under the cloth and they stayed put.

I safety pinned the wings to the back of her dress.  I actually didn’t do this until we got to the Fall Festival because wings and car seats don’t mix.

Tinkerbell wears huge pom-poms on her shoes.  These are super easy to  make.  I grabbed some white yarn that I already had and cut out a piece of cardboard to wrap it around.  Choose the cardboard width to be half the diameter of the finished pom pom.  There are tons of tutorials online on how to make them.  Here is one.

At first I had trouble figuring out how I would attach the pom poms without hurting the shoes.  But then I had a flash of brilliance and remembered some barrettes I had bought long time ago to use for something else.  Thank goodness for hoarding supplies!  I simply used another long piece of yarn, tightly tied it around the center of the pom so you couldn’t see it and then tied it to the barrette.

Then all we had to do was clip it to the top of the shoe.

I had been going back and forth about what she should wear for shoes.  Tinkerbell wears green shoes but I don’t see those often and wasn’t sure how to make them.  Finally, I decided that she could just wear some brown mary janes that she has but I was staring at her new gold shoes and thought that even though they aren’t true to the movies, they were fairyish and would also be comfortable for lots of walking.

And I think they turned out pretty cute!

At the last minute before we left I finally had a chance to look up how to do a sock bun. I had heard of them but hadn’t never seen how one was actually done before. I watched the first youtube video that popped up on Google and it looked very easy. I found an old sock that had no mate, cut it and started wrapping it around Audrey’s hair. First of all, it is always hard for me to pull her hair back because of the way her hair lies. It does not like all going back in one direction. Lots of lumps happen. Second, her hair is still very thin so it really wasn’t enough to fully cover the sock and it kept trying to slide out all night. But I just kept tucking it back in and it looked good enough. For someone with fuller hair this is definitely an easy way to get the Tinkerbell hair look.  Oh, and this photo shoot was done after Halloween so her hair was done quickly just for the photos.  It actually was a bit better on the actual night.

Okay, well, about wraps things up. If you have any questions please ask! I hope to get the last costume written about before Thanksgiving. haha!