birthday dress part 4

Conner's birthday is in February, and in each of the following months we celebrate one girl's birthday a month.  You may remember dresses for March's Tinkerbell, April's ladybug, and May's Minnie.  (They each got matching purses too.

This June we finished the cousin birthday celebrations with a Princess.  Being the typical little 3-year old that she is, she wasn't really in the mood to model during the party - she was more interested in running around with her cousins.  So, for now - this is the picture of the dress.  Hopefully I'll have a cute picture of her in it soon.

Belle is my favorite princess so I picked some yellows for her special dress.

It's the Olivia Paige dress designed by Samantha of The Handmade Dress.

I also made her a matching purse and included some hair clips, hair ties, and a Belle necklace.
Happy 3rd Birthday, G!

just keep swimming...

I've been spending some of my crafting time this past week on a different project - but I promise I do have a dress to show off tomorrow too.  May I introduce you to our very own aquarium?

The kid's bathroom was originally painted all white, and had a blue and white striped bathroom curtain.  It had duck deco and although cute at one time, I was getting a little tired of it.  Curious George & the ducks had to go!!!!  I didn't even do a before picture.  I'm sure you can envision an all white bathroom.  This is definitely a darker bathroom now, and since it's all interior the pictures are a bit dark too.  We're discussing ways to change the lighting a little.  We will probably end up changing out the fan to a light/fan combo and will leave the fixture above the mirror.

We were definitely inspired by Nemo - he and his friends are swimming all around us.  The cabinet above the toilet was from the previously all-white bathroom, and we decided to leave it as is.  Check out the awesome tie-dye swirly shower curtain!

Sit down on the toilet and have a conversation with Nemo and his Dad... or make faces at the pufferfish in the corner by the tub.  We decided not to redo the {ugly} brown linoleum floor, tan toilet, tan shower, and tan sink.  Instead, I'm just pretending that it's sand in our aquarium.  Can you pretend with me?

Above the kid's towels are pictures of them looking in the Caribbean Reef aquarium at the Shedd.  We went this past weekend {they LOVED it} and Abby can't stop saying "fish, fish, fish" when we go in there.

Of course I had help painting.  He was eager to help with the orange cabinet and he helped a little with the first coat on one of the blue walls too.  He thought the roller was tons of fun!!!  Most of the painting I did after the kids went to bed.

The front of the cabinets - do they look like they're missing something?  Ha.  Yeah, the cabinet doors aren't painted yet.  But I just couldn't wait to reveal it all to you.  So imagine blue cabinet doors with orange handles.  I lined the inside of the {ugly} dark brown cabinet with white contact paper to lighten it up in there a little.  Toys on the right, TP, bubble bath and Clorox wipes in the tub on the left.  Drawer on the left - band aids and nail clippers.  Drawer on the right - some of Abby's hair stuff.

The mirror used to be just dark wood around the edge - another orange accent now!
Silver towel rods and faucet were also leftovers from the previous bathroom design.

Dory (the forgetful fish) is full of reminders for the kids on the chalkboard speech bubble.

There's even a place for other fun notes to each other, reminders for the day, whatever inspires them!  Just to the left above the white hand towel is a picture of Conner meeting Crush at Disney World ("Turtle Talk" at Epcot).  I forgot to include that in the picture, but it's just another fun touch to the bathroom and a reminder of our trip.  I wrote "just keep swimming" on the chalk board because that was a line from the "Finding Nemo: Musical" we saw at Animal Kingdom.
We did consider putting some kind of fishing net or fishing boat on the ceiling, but for now it's just blue like the walls.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!


{linked to this party}

happy father's day

We love you!

chucks and tie-dye

We've been busy flower shopping, weeding, playing outside, enjoying our small Farmer's Market, celebrating a friend's retirement, and pigging out on chocolate with friends.
Most importantly - we've been tying our new shoes!!!

Although I couldn't find my dreamy turquoise shoes... I am loving my new bright blue Chucks.  The kids are so cute in theirs too.  I'm just feeling so summery and funky and ready to go on an adventure!

Today the humidity was stifling, so I decided it was a good day to tie-dye.  We put on our grungy clothes, got out the tubs, and got to work.  We clothespinned, rubber banded, dipped, drowned, and colored.

Abby was quite nervous about it all and just wanted to peek in on what was going on.  No touching on her part.

Conner really got into it and was concentrating so hard!  He was definitely intent on getting every white spot covered after the first one opened up to a lot of white.

We had so much fun!  The big piece of fabric is actually a shower curtain... there's a bathroom redo underway and once I get going on the painting I'll share more.  I'm so excited about it and can't wait to see it all come together.

What have you been up to this week?

scalloped extension

Remember the scallop top I did last year? And the "vintage" ones I posted here?  Well... time to do a little something different.  I extended the line and made it into a dress that's a little more the length I like.  My mom and I have noticed that not only did women's skirts rise in the 70s - little girl's dresses were a lot shorter back then too!

Still the same cute shoulder ties!  I used a red, yellow, brown and turquoise floral and it's completely reversible to a yellow dragonfly/floral design.  I used the red color for topstitching so it's a nice contrast when it's flipped to the other side.

lil blue boo knit dress

I've got to get going on more serger stuff so I decided to buy myself a knit dress pattern.  It is the oh-so-popular Lil Blue Boo Recycled Tshirt Sienna Dress by Ashley of Lil Blue Boo.  It was easy to follow and had lots of good ideas for ways to change it up.  Her blog is chock full of other embellishments, stenciling and decorating tips.  I got my husband to clean out a couple of old tshirts from his closet and I got to work.  I did find the pattern a little short for my taste, but add a ruffle on the bottom and it was set to go!

One of the best parts is this dress was (basically) free!  The discussion continues in our house whether I should have done the seams on the outside or inside.  What's your vote?

On my next one I'll probably do them all on the inside and we'll see how it looks.  I have a tshirt with dolphins on it ready to become a dress!
School's out for summer now though - so we'll see how my crafting life holds up as we attempt to do a lot of the activities on our list too!!!!

staying friends

Conner has been going to preschool this year with a lot of kids from all around our town and the neighboring town.  Most of them will not be at his elementary school, let alone his middle school or even high school.  He's very concerned about not seeing them again, so we decided to make him his very own "business card".  (It helps that mommy and daddy each have their own business card.)  I just made them using a digital pic & a label template in Word.  Then I printed them on cardstock and cut them.  He's going to bring them to school and pass them out before the last day.

(obviously I blocked out his last name & the rest of our phone number in the screen capture, but you get the idea)

Making & keeping friends is such a tricky thing... I've made contact with a few of the moms already anyway - but I like him being proactive about maintaining friendships that are important to him.