more sewing

These are my February projects. I love Katelyn's picture-taking skills here. Yes she was laying in her bed sick with a cough and I made her take a picture of me! And I discovered I look really skinny from this angle when I suck in my gut! Sweet! Don't worry, I'm really not that skinny at all. But ANYWAY, this shirt is made from parts of 4 other shirts that were stained or too short. I'm totally wearing it for the 4th of July.

I just love the seams on the outside!
Next here's my latest pride and joy. Eric was cleaning out his side of the closet and he came out with a bag full of clothes... which I quickly confiscated and rummaged through and came out with several refashioning idea treasures!! One of which was this sweater I bought him years ago because he looks good in sweaters, haha.
I had seen a tutorial on makeit-loveit for a girl's sweater-dress, and this is what I came up with! Yay!
I was thrilled that I could make these amazing flowers out of bits of sweater, so fun.

And it looks great on Kate! (It looks cuter on her when her hair is actually done. :) )

Then Katelyn helped me make this skirt, and it was really fun for both of us.
The flowers that I just can't stop making!

and there you have it.

P.S. I know I have been mostly making things for Katelyn, but Whitney has more clothes than she'll ever need and actually, all these clothes WILL eventually be Whitney's! Awesome.

what's new

Whitney has decided she likes ground beef, asparagus, broccoli, and red peppers. Katelyn has decided she likes mangoes and some chicken (depending on seasoning). Hallelujah for expanding food possibilities!

I got so excited about the warm weather that I just had to get my hands in that soil. 6-8 weeks earlier than the last 3 years we've lived here I tilled my garden and planted peas, carrots, and onions. We'll see over the next few weeks whether that was a good idea or not!!

My crafting has slowed with the arrival of spring, but I've still managed to squeeze in a few creations. I'll post pictures soon. Probably the best part has been sewing with Katelyn though. She gets so excited about our projects, it's so cute. Last week we were making her a skirt and I was pretty focused on the task when all of a sudden she exclaimed "this is SO fun!!" and I looked up to see her smiling so big, her eyes shining, and I thought, "wow! what a cute girl I have! I'd better pay attention to her and appreciate her instead of just trying to keep moving to the next step to get it done." So that's what I'm trying to do.

I've been laughing a lot lately with Eric, just about random everyday things. We're in a good place right now.

I read the Gregor the Overlander series, fun. And Eric just finished re-reading the Harry Potter series. I love reading.

I started reading the "Little House" books to my girls at night, sitting in their doorway like my mom used to read to me and my sisters. To my surprise, they love it, I just thought they wouldn't be old enough yet to enjoy listening without pictures. (Eric still reads them regular picture books some nights too.) But it's been so fun, we're nearing the end of the second book, Little House on the Prairie. I loved those books when I was young and I'm so glad my girls can experience them now.

Katelyn had her kindergarten assessment today for the charter school here in town. We're really excited to try it. And she did awesome on the "test" of course. Probably the cutest part was when we were on the way there we were talking about things they might ask and I told Kate they might ask her what was her favorite thing to do. She thought for a minute and then said " I think I like hiking the best. And camping." So cute, I guess she really did love the hiking and camping we did last summer. I was so happy she said that, it made me feel good that our family activities really have been memorable and special for her.

Anyway, while we were at the school I found out they might have afternoon kindergarten, and I hadn't even thought about that as an option. So we've thought about it, and requested afternoon kindergarten. I guess I might as well enjoy one more year of sleeping in a little (aka the girls not waking up until 7:30 or so), at least not having to leave the house at 8 like we would for morning kindergarten. It will be our last year for MANY MANY years! So we're excited about afternoon kindergarten now. And school uniforms, oh my. But they said I can embellish the shirts with ruffles and such as long as they're solid colors. So I'm good!

Whitney is now night-time potty trained. That was RIDICULOUSLY easy. Easy as in I did nothing but give in to her begging to wear undies to bed, every night expecting to be up in the night changing sheets, and waking up surprised every morning! She's amazing.

Oh and I think we're on the down slope of Whitney's terrible twos- or whatever crazy emotional storm hit her a couple of months ago. It's been HARD but thank goodness I've had Eric to see me through. I called him many times at work to tell him what she had just done so we could laugh together and I could stay sane and not be so frustrated. I'm happy to report that she is emerging from this stage basically the same cutest little girl. I thought I'd lost her for a while! But her little brain is finally calming down and accepting reality occasionally. And she's the same little clowny, big-squeezing-hug-giving girl. I love her.

I'm now working with the kids at church (Primary 1st counselor) instead of the teenage girls (Mia Maid Advisor). It's been a big change but I'm really happy. I miss the girls, but the kids are pretty fun and I get to work with some amazing women. It'll be good.

Well, I think that's about all that's new.

January crafts

And here's what I have been doing in January! Crafts! My first sparks of inspiration came from www.u-createcrafts.com and www.makeit-loveit.com. And I went from there! The first thing that got me excited was re-making old clothes. I love to sew, especially without a pattern when I'm just making stuff up, just going for it and seeing if it works! So this was perfect for me.

Sewing projects:

First was this dress for katelyn, made out of pieces of 2 of her old stained shirts and 2 of my old shirts that were too short. Oh and some tulle and ribbon.

I love the japanese sandals, the "American", and the star stamps I put the brown fabric.

Then I took more old stained shirts and created this ruffle shirt for Whitney.

I made myself this shrug- I had cut off the bottom of the white shirt to make ruffles on another shirt, which did not turn out well. :) So at least I got this out of it.

flower detail

And my favorite, this was a pair of pants that had a hole in the knee, so I cut them off and made a skirt and added ruffles. And I LOVE it!

Home Decor: I love this frame I bought in Mexico for like a dollar, but I wasn't using it for anything, so I came up with this little ribbon-and-stuffed-heart deal. I was going to hang it on my front door but I didn't want it to get wet.
This is one of three panels I bought at Walmart a couple of years ago for $10 total. We don't like it anymore so I had considered giving it to DI.
But instead I got this idea from makeit-love-it.com and now we have this wall hanging. I need to find a different middle fabric though. I love it close up (see below) and it's this cool fake leather, but on the wall it's too dark and boring.
close up of the middle brown
And my old/new/forever favorite, flowers!

I've had these shoes for about 10 years and never really liked them. But I rescued them out of the DI pile for this! Left is before and right is after! These are just clipped or pinned on, I still want to try to make a ruffle instead, or mod poge some fabric on (see makeit-loveit) to cover the whole ugly color of the shoes. Eric thinks it's the ugliest color on the planet, and I almost agree.
I made little flowers for this necklace, and more big ones for a belt, and it was suggested to me that I make a ring. So I will!
And my newest excitement, last night my friend heather showed me how to make the rosettes she sells on etsy, woo-hoo! I never thought I would love tulle and flowers, but here are the girls and I in our new flowers!



Ah, so much fun...

new "portraits"

So last week I decided to be creative and take some pictures of the girls around our neighborhood. It was over 40 degrees, the warmest day we'd had in a while, so we got dressed and went for it. I didn't get any good ones of them together, but they did pretty well individually. Oh and they made up their own poses for the most part. They didn't like many of my ideas. :)

Then I tried for the first time to enhance the colors a little bit on our super low-grade photo program, it was pretty fun! and it really made a difference, changing them from a dull winter day to a little more bright and exciting.

So here are my masterpieces! The first ones are by our neighbors' fence.

I like her expression best in this one. That's my Katelyn!

let me remind you they came up with their own poses!

Then we went to this sweet old garage door on a shed on the outskirts of town- so cool and thanks Melanie for the tip! You can see on some of these I enhanced that blue a little more than others! :)

she really wanted her boots to show :)

another of whitney's poses. to be fair, it was quite cold in the shade. 40 degrees or less.

love these next two!

our last location, I had to tell them to laugh to get them to smile because they were tired of it, so this is what I got!

overall, I'm very happy with the results. I have tried taking pictures of them myself in the past, but this time I learned that location and color enhancing really do make a difference!

Now I just need to learn to shoot better and not get the ugly concrete floor or random edge of my neighbors' house in the picture. :)

shutterfly is giving me free stuff if I post this! Love them!

Classic Hot Pink Birthday 5x7 folded card

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sharing a room!

We are now the proud owners of BUNK BEDS!!

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Murray!

The girls have wanted these for a while, and Eric and I decided it was time for them to start sharing a room.

We are NOT pregnant right now though!

I just wanted to put them together before they started thinking they DESERVED their own rooms or something. And so far it's been GREAT! I keep waiting for the excitement and new-ness to wear off, and for them to realize that they got gypped out of their own rooms.... but we have actually had LESS fighting this week than we did before (no more "get out of my room!") and Whitney has actually been sleeping BETTER (she has only come into our room once out of the last 8 nights- before it was like half the time) and we made Whitney's old room into our "library", it's perfect!

They have stayed up a few times talking, but honestly that's the best part about having a sister, isn't it?? So I'm really happy they can now enjoy giggling at night together.

We love the new bunkbeds and this new phase of Katelyn and Whitney's lives :)