New for Spring... if it ever comes!

I have two famous friends!  Laura Gunn has her own fabric line and she Patti Pinkston have their own pattern line!  This is the Baker Street bag in the Poppy Patterns line!  Isn't it stinkin' cute!It was fun to make... and then I added a little clutch for my chapstick, lotions, and other odds and ends from this tutorial (I made mine a bit smaller). 

I'm using my bag as a purse, but I've seen others use it as a church bag for their kiddos' coloring books.  It's a great size for piano books too!

What would you use this bag for?  And did you look at Laura's fabrics?  I love the poppy collection!  Oh the possibilities there!!!  The question is what WOULDN'T I make with it!

And on to the next costume!

As soon as I saw this dress ...I knew I wanted it!!!  It is from the new Alice in Wonderland as well.  It is when Alice grows huge and is in the Queen of Hearts' court.  They use the curtains to "clothe this enormous girl."

And thus began one of my more insane projects (and between you and me, that is saying something!)

I started with what I had.  I had a LOT of muslin and I realized that I could dye it for a few bucks.  I'd never done it before, but how hard could it be???  Well it wasn't extremely hard, but it was very time consuming as I had to sit there and stir it for 30 minutes (yeah, that doesn't sound long until you do it!)  That took care of getting the right colored UNDER-skirt.  Yeah, I know, you can't even see it.  In my defense, in the original plan in my head, you were going to see it, but plans change.  Luckily by this point I'd figured out my ruffle foot and whipping that skirt together wasn't too much of a headache.  But now we've come to the point in my saga where there was a REAL problem.  The over-dress.  Now the hunt began.  The hunt for The Perfect Fabric.  I soon (after several stores and many websites) realized that it really didn't exist, especially not in my price range (super cheap).  So I settled for some white mesh fabric and fabric paint!  I tried the spray fabric paint, but it was more expensive, I went through a whole can just on the bodice, and it bled more.  So, with a lot of masking tape, a foam brush and a lot of time I created my own stripey-ness!  And of course I added the little black hearts and white dots all over too!  Before I went all crazy with the painting I cut out my pieces so I wouldn't have to paint fabric that was just getting cut off.  I used a dress I had to make a pattern for the bodice and decided to do a circle skirt that I later sliced up the middle.  Then came the ruffles.  Oh the ruffles.  Yeah, I had to paint all those too.  I was getting really sick of painting stripes by this point!  Well, long story short (ha) I got the overdress made!  Yay!  Next came the poofy tulle skirt!  Let's just say there was so much tulle in my bonus room that it was sometimes hard to find me!  And P.S. you can't use a ruffle foot on tulle.  Grrrrrr.  So gather and gather and gather some more!  I then needed the rope belt (to complete the "curtains" look).  I found some piping cord that I already had, dyed it red, braided it to make a thicker cord, decided it wasn't red enough, painted it with Puffy Paint, made big tassels out of crochet thread, attached them and... BINGO!  An amazing rope belt.  Yes I know you are thinking I am totally insane.  It's true, I was thinking the same thing.  And here's the finished product...

Help us win a Contest!

I am going to enter Aerin's pictures in a costume contest through my favorite Hair Blog.  Here is info about the contest.  And Facebook is where you vote for Aerin!!!  You will need to "Like" the Hairstyles for Girls page in order to vote.  All of the pictures to vote on will be posted on Nov 1 and you can vote Nov 2nd - 8th.  To vote for Aerin, just click that you "Like" her picture!  Thanks friends!

 Go "Like" Nathan's picture!  <=Just click that

What have I been up to lately?

(Sorry to those of you who read my family blog too... you're just stuck with this post twice)

Well, it all started a long time ago (June) in a land far away (Texas) when I first saw the new Alice in Wonderland movie.

I promptly fell in love with all of the marvelous costumes that Alice wears!  So the wheels in my head started turning... and a massive project was born!


So now there were some decisions to be made:  who was to wear what?  were we going to match?  was I really up to all of this?

Well...

And, TA-DA!!

One costume down!  And one to go!

Isn't she the most beautiful little Alice you've ever seen???  My good friend Melissa took these pictures and did a fabulous job!  We had so much fun! 

Coming Soon:  My costume!

Lame Excuses and an Awesome Giveaway!

Sorry there hasn't been a new post to read lately. I'm having a hard time typing thanks to a bad case of tendonitis in my left hand. I've been rocking this sexy look lately.

I know you're all jealous of my velcro accessories!

I sustained this injury while hiking the Himalayas. My experienced guide took a wrong step and started to go over a cliff. In a brave act of sacrifice, I grabbed my guide and held him with just my left hand for over 30 minutes until more help could arrive.

What! You don't believe me?!

Okay, fine. It happened in the middle of a puppet show at work... in my defense, the wig that the princess puppet had on had to weigh at least 9 ounces.

Enough about that. Here's something super exciting! Bree Despain is having an incredible giveaway on her blog in celebration of the release of her new book trailer.



I would love to get my hands on this prize since she's giving away a bunch of ARC books that I'm dying to read. So, if you happen to win be sure to remember who gave you the hook ups!

Summer Reading Programs & At Home Storytime

We have been completely inundated with reading programs this summer! I know it's important to get kids reading, but it almost seems like overkill now!

Reading Programs we are participating in:
Library's program for kids
Library's program for adults
Governor's program
School's program
Local News Station's program
Church's program

See what I mean? Overkill. Luckily, we can mark the same reading time for almost all those charts. It's just getting ridiculous trying to keep track of it all.

With four kids it's been fun trying to keep everyone interested in all this reading. My oldest loves to read small chapter books during quiet time. But since she's the only reader in the house, we also get a lot of books on CD or tape to keep the other kids happy. We also do at home storytime. The key to a good storytime is to never ask the kids to pick the book. Getting them all to agree on one book is no easy task my friends. Instead, I pick 3-4 books and they all sit on the floor around my chair to listen. (Well, usually the baby crawls off, but we try and that's what counts, right?!)

I like to ask questions and get the kids involved in the story somehow. If it has a lot of repetition I make them repeat it with me. If the pictures are really important to the plot I ask them questions about what they see. When we're done I ask them to tell me what happened in the book so they learn to follow a storyline.

When we're done they each get to look at one of the books I read and then I have them color a picture, act out, or do some sort of activity that goes along with the book they have. It's a lot of fun and gives us something to do for at least an hour everyday!