The old blog has been pretty quiet this week. And it might have to stay that way a bit longer. I’m spending every minute of my day painting our house. The outside! It’s raining today, so I’m here with you, but tomorrow it’s back to covering myself and the house in paint.

I think it might have been raining when I made this May Day crown too. It definitely was a very chilly May Day, which was too bad because my friend had a fantastic party with a may pole and everything. The day before the party my kids helped me cut out some petals out of felt, then in the evening I sewed them all up into flowers. I put some on a crown for my son and made my daughter and myself these flower crowns. They were super excited to wear them and the crowns have found a permanent place in the dress up box. I was pretty happy with how they turned out too. I didn’t really use any patterns, but I did look at this, this, and this photo for inspiration. With some scraps and a stitch here and there, you can pretty much make any flower. Sounds like a good rainy day project…

It’s a little late for halloween pictures, but I had to take these after halloween.  The costumes were made in the eleventh hour and there was just no time for pictures, plus it was weirdly hot here so wearing wool wasn’t really that fun.  I used the Purl Bee pattern for the bunny hat and just changed the ears to make a cat and dog.  The kitty tail I just made up as I went along and as I went along I noticed I didn’t have any velcro, so I had to steal some off a bag. I used wool felt for the doggie and mostly fleece for the kitty and though the wool is wonderful and natural the fleece actually worked better.  It was a little harder to sew, but stands up better to kid life.  These hats are great for dress up, but I think next time I would use some elastic instead of the ribbon ties, or nothing (because really they’ll stay on just fine). Otherwise you’ll be tying and untying and freaking out that someone is going to strangle themselves.  This was actually the first time I made my kid’s costumes–I do think halloween should be a homemade holiday, but it can be a royal pain in the butt when your children want to be something different every other day.  Somehow my 3 year old decided what everyone should be and stuck with it for a week (I was to be a fairy and I did make the wings, but wire hangers are a lot harder to bend then you would think and I looked like a smashed fairy).  So even though they hardly wore the costumes on halloween, they are getting plenty of use these days.

I picked up two suitcases in the last few weeks.  The big one from the trash and the little one from the good thrift store (not the one with all the hipster employees that snag all the good stuff).  The big one doesn’t look so exciting, but it’s yellow with white polka dots on the inside.  I left it open in the sun for a couple days and all but a little of that old basement smell is gone.  They are both for dress up, which is big in our house these days.  Inspired by the book The Creative Family, I made a little area in the kid’s room especially for dressing up.

There hasn’t been too much action there yet, but my daughter tends to put absolutely everything on at once and that gets a little hot in the summertime.  A couple times I’ve found the little one sitting in the chair right in front of the mirror having his snack.  It’s pretty damn cute. These are old, trash picked mirrors and it’s probably a bad idea to have them in the kid’s room, but oh well.  Our house is so small I really have no choice but to always have my eye on the kids. They will crash and break and then we’ll put something else up. In the meantime, it’s bear slippers and tutus on your head (and nothing else).

I’m still working on things for the shop.  I made a few pairs of pajama pants out of pillowcases for the smaller set (sizes 3-6 months, 2-3T, and 4-5T).  Making pjs out of vintage sheets and pillowcases is the way to go.  They are so soft and so perfect for the summertime.  So hop on over and check em out.