Father's Day: "Daddy Doll"

Happy Father's Day! I hope you had a wonderful day celebrating the dad's in your life. We did! The kids and I spent the week preparing to make this day special for their daddy. I made a doll to look like their daddy using this tutorial I found by Shwin&Shwin (a guest post on No Big Dill).

I asked each of my children what their favourite thing is to do with their daddy (I had to guess with Isla since she's not talking much yet). I took a picture of them doing their favourite thing with our daddy doll. I put the pictures in their Father's Day cards and tied the daddy doll on top of his present.

 Happy Father's Day!

New Upcycled Outfits

We are getting ready to move to a new house and I'm trying to get rid of things before we move to reduce clutter. I have several boxes and bags of old clothing in the basement that I've been saving in hopes of upcycling and it's getting out of hand. Recently I bought a couple of rubbermades and whatever wouldn't fit in them I took to Salvation Army. Of course my rubbermades couldn't quite fit all that I wanted to keep, so I quickly used up a few shirts by turning them into dresses for my girls. My go-to pattern has been the Sienna pattern by Lil Blue Boo. I've made this dress so many times I can almost do it in my sleep. There are many other patterns out there I want to try (check out my pinterest board), but when I'm strapped for time I pull out the Sienna pattern.

I used Lil Blue Boo's Knit Headband Pattern to use up my scraps

Happy Easter!

I hope you all had a fantastic Easter! We went to my mom & dad's in Saskatchewan for the weekend. Much of my family was there, including my grandma whom I haven't seen in far too long! It was so nice to get together with everyone.

A few months ago my mom gave Isla a beautiful blue dress. I thought it would work well for an Easter dress and decided to sew Anja a coordinating dress. I didn't have time to make anything for Eli and even forgot to pack him an outfit for church, but he was happy with the new shirt I bought him last minute.

And here are some pictures from our Easter Weekend.

Four Generations!

Anthropologie Inspired Apron

I'm starting an apron collection for both myself and my kids. I think our apron collection will make great memories for the kids as they are growing up to remember dressing up in aprons and baking with me. I love Anthropologie aprons, but if I'm going to have a collection of aprons my budget is not going to accommodate the Anthropologie price tag. Sewing in No Man's Land has some great tutorials for several different aprons. I really liked her "Sail Away Apron" but wanted to personalize it a bit, so I looked to Anthropologie for inspiration. I found an apron on their website that I also loved, so I decided to combine the two.

So, I think it turned out not bad, but if I were to make this same one again, I think the waist should be higher (like the one on the Anthro apron) to give it more shape. Or maybe it just needs to be worn by someone who has more shape!

I started to make a tutorial for the skirt part, but decided it's too much work and I'm not sure anyone will actually use it. But, if there is someone out there reading this that would like the tutorial for the skirt, let me know and I'll post it.

Anyhow, I now have two aprons in my collection (this one and one my mom made for me). I have enough leftover fabric to make some aprons for my kids, so hopefully I can get those done soon and post some pictures.

First lost tooth!

I'll begin by telling you a Walmart story. (I have had probably some of my worst parenting stories occur in this store). Two years ago, when Eli was 2 1/2, I had just finished buying all my groceries and we were about to leave. Eli was holding onto the shopping cart with one hand while walking and he tripped. His face swung into the side of the cart and there was blood EVERYWHERE. He started screaming and I tried to comfort him and see where the blood was coming from. After he calmed down a bit I checked him out and saw that his front tooth had been pushed in a bit. I quickly straightened it. (I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do, but I panicked.) We then left the store with a pool of blood by the door. (I probably should have found an employee and told them what happened, but didn't because I had a very hurt boy who I just wanted to get home.) In time his mouth healed, but his tooth began to turn grey. The dentist told me since it was his baby tooth, we didn't have to do anything about it and it would fall out eventually. But, if a bump developed above the tooth it would mean the tooth was infected and would have to be extracted. Well, a couple of days ago Eli told me there was a bump in his mouth and it was just above his damaged tooth. I made an appointment with the dentist for the next day. I wasn't sure how it would go since I had to take my two younger girls with us. The dentist was so good with him, and had his tooth out before he even knew what was happening.  And my girls were little angels. Anja was totally enthralled with what was going on, and Isla was so tired she was almost falling asleep in my arms. After it was all over Eli was very proud of his new space in his mouth. I have to admit I teared up a bit seeing my boy starting to look more grown up.

...A little extra $$ since the dentist had to take it out.

The IKEA Skirt

Dana from MADE has a tutorial for the most adorable skirt she calls The Market Skirt. I used it to make skirts for my girls which I renamed  "The IKEA skirt". I'm trying to decrease my fabric stash and found IKEA fabric I've been hanging on to for over six years. I thought the plaid pattern was perfect for Dana's "Market Skirt". She suggests using thicker fabric for the white bands and pockets and I just happened to have an old curtain from IKEA just waiting to be transformed. Today was cleaning day at my house and after the house is all clean I like to take the kids out somewhere fun. This not only preserves the clean house, but also rewards the kids for their help. Today I decided to take them to IKEA to play and thought it would be the perfect photo op for their new skirts.

I just happened to have two navy shirts in the perfect sizes for my girls laying around in my fabric stash. I chopped off the sleeves using Christie's tutorial from A Lemon Squeezy Home to finish them off. Then I used the extra fabric from the sleeves to girly-up the shirt with a ruffle.

Puppy Party

Our boy turned 5 in February. It's hard to believe five years have gone by since we first brought him home from the hospital. I loved him from the first moment I saw him, but had no idea how much more my love would grow for him as the years go by. He is such a sweet, kind boy. He's thoughtful and sensitive. His favorite things are Lego and animals. I let him choose his birthday theme this year and he wanted it to be about puppies. So this was the result:

A few weeks ago ELi attempted to draw a dog for the first time. Isn't it cute?! I couldn't resist including it in the party decor. I love the mix of capital and lowercase letters and the backwards g.

Of course the party started with a good old balloon fight initiated by the kids. I'm pretty sure this happens every time we have balloons in the house.

After the balloon fight, I thought it would be good to introduce a calmer activity and had the kids make puppy hats.

I used black eyeliner to draw the puppy faces.

Now those are cute puppies!

I was pretty impressed by my husbands balloon animal making skills!

I had some puppy colouring pages for the kids to colour.

Pet Shop. The kids got to pick out their very own puppy and puppy supplies: bouncy ball, collar with tag, puppy chow (coco puffs), puppy vitamins (gummy candies), blanket, and adoption certificate.

The birthday cake: baked in a (new) puppy dish and decorated with coco puffs to look like a bowl of dog food.

I wish I could say she was pretending to act like a puppy, but I think we need to work on table manners.

The party favor bags contained sugar cookies in the shape of dog bones.

It was fun, but now I'm ready for a bit of a birthday break!

Credit to all my inspiration:
cupcake flags and doggy bags: One Charming Party
puppy hats and puppy shop: The Crafting Chicks
cake: Max & Lucy
food, labels, and coloring pages: Hank & Hunt