Shirt to dress

In true "modify it" fashion, I took a simple shirt and turned it into a lovely dress. My biggest little princess loves butterflies. She spent a few weeks in June catching butterflies and she was dang good at it. Notice there are 2 on her hands.

She had a simple shirt that she loved, but it was just too short, thanks to her long torso. She always wanted to wear it but would spend the entire day yanking on it saying her bebo (thank you Sandra Boynton) was sticking out. Here's what I started with:

I found some scrap fabric I had, that looked to be just about enough...

I cut a piece that was about 1 1/4 the length of the bottom of the shirt (I would prefer 1 1/2 but I didn't have enough fabric). I sewed a tube out of the fabric and then hemmed the bottom. I ran a basting stitch through the top of the skirt and gathered it up until the skirt was the same size across as the shirt. With the skirt inside out and the shirt right side out, I put the shirt inside the skirt and pinned them together. I ran a stitch line around the entire thing hooking the 2 pieces together and then a went back and ran a zigzag line around as well just keep give it some extra strength. Flip the skirt down so both the shirt and the skirt are right side out and VOILA!

You could also trim the shirt, make the skirt more full, and add a sash to make an empire waisted dress...but that's another day of modification.

Any scraps can be used to make pinwheel hair bows to match. 

Water table

Ava has been begging for a water table. I know kids love water, they are drawn to it, usually the dirtier the better. Ava could play in the water or the sand for hours at time, combine the two and you'll never see or hear from her again. I broke down and went online to find our spoiled princess a water table. I found this at Amazon for $80!

Yes there were some that were less and many others that were more, but I refuse to spend more than about $5 on something she can do in the bathtub. We scratched that idea.

Today at the store she continued the constant plea for a water table. I broke down and bought her a clear plastic tub, about 18"x30" for $4.97. We raided the sandbox for some toys, and grabbed two color tablets from her bath stuff.

VOILA! Plus, she learned what happens when you mix yellow and blue...you get her favorite color EVER!

Modify that body!

Since getting pregnant with my biggest little I've managed to gain...well WAY too much. I never lost my "baby" weight from that pregnancy. Then I managed to tack on another 40 lbs with the littlest little. With some serious hard work and a very modified diet, thanks in a huge part to my littlest little's food allergies and sensitives. I'm very happy to be down those 40...I won't lie, 41 POUNDS! Now I just have 70-80 more to lose. Yes, I said 70-80 pounds. I have serious work to do. As much as posting this pictures makes my stomach turn, I'm going to do it.

Ok, here's the time for the dreaded before picture...

Well, there it is, but look at the pretty mountain in the background. I'll be taking pictures from this location along our nightly walk over my journey to the new me. Watch for the beautiful scenery change as well.

My loving husband put in his request for what he'd love his wife to look like. I'm going to do my best to look as similar as possible to this:

Addam is doing his best to keep me motivated so in doing so he decided to give me what I wanted as well. I have a slight obsession with firemen, they are just so pretty. So, we did some searching and found the perfect "fireman" body. This will serve as Addam's goal body. On the plus side, I get to look at Channing Tatum's nicely sculpted self until my husband's body matches.  ;-)

I will convince my wonderful husband to let me take a before picture of him as well. It may take a while to get that picture. But until then...

There is somewhat of a resemblance between my hubby (on our honeymoon 5 years ago) and David Beckham...that body would work too.

Anyhow, enough drooling. The goal is one year from when we really got serious about this entire thing. July 4, 2013....we shall see. I CAN DO THIS!!!

Sun Catcher Art

I ran across an awesome are project so we tried it out. They were simple things we had in our house.
Translucent pony beads and muffin pans (luckily the muffin pans were not damaged at all.)

My biggest little has been dying for some art projects of her own and this was one she could use all of her creativity on.

We arranged the pony beads as we saw fit in the muffin pans, single layer. It was actually more difficult than we imagined, but still with a little focus...yes by a three year old...it can be done. Unbeknownst to us, we could have left the beads turned on their sides and gotten just as beautiful of a result. However we didn't realize this going in so we were careful to have each one laying perfectly in the bottom of the pans. Once we had all of them just the way we wanted, and some just dropped in haphazard just for fun. We cranked up the barbeque grill. Yes, you read that right, the grill!

With the grill set to low, we set the muffin pans on the rack and shut the lid, crossing our fingers that we didn't light the neighborhood on fire. This can be done in the oven at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, but the fumes outside were pretty intense, I couldn't imagine that smell in the house...especially for 45 minutes. I checked them about every 2 minutes, at 6 minutes they were getting quite runny and by 8 minutes we had lit one on fire. OOPS! Don't worry, I quickly shut off the gas to the grill and blew out the flames. They weren't too worse for the wear. We let them cool about 20-30 minutes.

And now for the scary part, saving my muffin pans. They were completely cool, so I flipped the pan upside down and gently pushed on the bottom of each tin (think popping ice out of an ice cube tray). Much to my surprise them popped right out without leaving any residue in the pans. Notice the top left circle of the above picture, that's the one we lit on fire.

I drilled some small holes and tied some string on them to hang with a few thumb tacks on the window frame.

They turned out quite well, if I do say so myself.

This one is by far my favorite, though the pictures do not do it justice.

I foresee these as grandparent gifts in the future. I can only imagine the things we are going to find to melt into them. HA ha ha. I would imagine one could use just about any metal baking dish to create different shapes and sizes. But be warned, this was tedious in the small circles of muffin tins, an 8" cake pan just frightens me. I do think an angel food cake pan would make a fun sun catcher wreath....just a thought.

Tulle Wands {tutorial}

Killing time and not cleaning my house (you'll soon learn I will do just about anything to avoid cleaning my house), I was floating around Pinterest...the serious time-suck that it is. I found adorable Tulle Fairy Wands. Ava happened to see over my shoulder and NEEEEEDED one. So, in true time-killing fashion, I proceeded to find all the supplies to make one. I managed to find everything I needed in my sewing closet and didn't need a trip to the store. I used dowels from the little fabric flags that were handed out at the 4th of July parade, we had plenty of ribbon and hot glue, and I had a left over scrap of white tulle from making a veil for a friend last summer. Going off of just a picture, I was simply winging it. And this is how it went:

Supplies: About 14-20 6" squares of tulle, satin ribbon, upholstery thread (emboidery floss would have been better), a 10-12" small dowel, hot glue gun.

I cut 14 roughly 6" squares.

Tied thread around each one individually.

Stacked 2 in an x pattern and tied them using the tails from the original tie.

Once they were all paired, I kept tying them together until they were all connected into one fluffy ball. I hot glued a few strands of ribbon to the end of my dowel and tied them on to secure them. I put a big blob of glue on the end of the dowel and a big blob right at the knot of the strings holding the tulle together to ensure the strings wouldn't come untied over time. I stuck the 2 blobs together and tried my darnedest not to burn my fingers...I never succeed at that.

I then wrapped the dowel with the remaining ribbon and tied a larger ribbon on the opposite end of the dowel for more frill.

Voila! I gave it to Ava and this was her reaction!

She then proceeded to wave the wand in my direction and say, "POOF, now you disappeared!" Nice kid!
This took me about 45 minutes from start to finish. I was feeling pretty proud of my creativity. Then I went to the computer to upload my pictures and decided to google "Tulle wands" and came up with tons of tutorials. And many that were MUCH easier than my way. I wanted to try a different version just for fun (still haven't managed to clean the house, remember). I gave this tutorial a try:
http://themodesthomestead.blogspot.com/2011/11/tulle-fairy-wand-tutorial.html
Yep, much easier! I made 2 more wands in about 20 minutes while talking to my sister on the phone and directing her through Denver traffic.

Of course I had to modify it, so I added some ribbon into the tulle before tying the rubber band around it. It added some extra frill and color. We shall see what my little princess thinks of these when she wakes up.
I think I've just discovered some party favors for her Fairy birthday party!

Death to Garden

The first summer we lived in the mountains I really wanted a garden. Living in a tiny condo that had an afterthought of an 8'x8' deck, I managed to find a way to convert some flower boxes and tree stakes into tomato cages and had my little garden. I quickly learned that tomatoes need a LOT more sunshine and heat than our mountains were willing to offer. So my tomato cages became sugar snap pea homes for the second summer and with a much larger more sun exposed deck in our new house they did wonderfully. This summer I decided to branch out and plant green beans and peas, they were growing splendidly in the house and were taller than Ava when I put them outside.

The afternoon sun and wind on the deck were really taking a beating on them so I moved them to the back yard, being as we actually have a back yard now. For 4 weeks they grew wonderfully, Ava and the neighbor girls enjoyed quite a few snacks from those plants. Yesterday I looked out the back door to see if they needed water and this is what I found.

After all the hard work, growing these things from seeds (planting twice because the first ones just wouldn't grow), the deer decided to have their way with them. I assumed after 4 weeks of being in the back yard they were safe, apparently not. I'm heart broken! At least the peas, basil, and parsley are still safe on the front deck from the pesky deer.
We then went for a walk after discovering the sad bean plants. Walking along and Ava says, "YOU BAD DEER, YOU GO AWAY! DON'T EAT OUR PLANTS!" I look up and this guy is standing in front of us. No I don't know if it was this specific deer, but this would be proof of a domesticated deer. I did not zoom to take this picture, it was taken from about 10 feet.

Modify this body

A little about me; after 2 babies and very little exercise I find myself weighing almost 80 lbs more than I'd like. A few serious looks in the mirror and some not so lovely words from my daughter I've come to the realization that I need to modify my  lifestyle. So a serious lifestyle change is in the works and weight loss will be a wonderful side effect. To start, I've asked a dear friend of mine for support and a long distance shoulder to cry on, she graciously accepted my challenge. I've started by walking 2 miles a day and it's going well thanks to the support of my husband who walks with me and helps "push" me up those hills. Luckily changing my diet won't be too much of a challenge simply because 5 months ago I went through a serious diet change due to Aria's food sensitivities, but that's another post. More to come with the progress of this as well. I'll get a "before" picture posted soon.