So, here’s the dress I made! I mean, here is my adorable child, all decked out in princess finery! Oh, forget it. I am mainly just seeing the dress. *laugh* With puffy sleeves and a beautiful neckline!

I started with the Cinderella dress found here, but I didn’t really stick with the tutorial in all parts. I used satin for the top instead of a knit fabric, and I did those useless little flaps totally differently–didn’t have enough of that pink to do it her way, so they’re turned and topstitched. The only thing I really had trouble with was attaching the skirt, in the end, and that was only because my stupid sewing machine hiccuped on sewing so many layers together. Let’s just say that I won’t be posting pictures of the inside stitching in that location. :) I also lined the inside with cheap pink cotton that I bought for a baby quilt once but then decided it was too thin to use. That wasn’t really part of the project, but I thought it’d be more comfortable and warmer that way. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad I went to so much trouble. She’ll enjoy playing with it now that Halloween is over… if I can stand to have her wad it up and shove it in her dress up box to get all crushed. ;) Oh, and gathering things. I have now entered a torrid love affair with the gathering stitch.I shall henceforth put ruffles on anything that sits still long enough for me to do so. M, you’d better hide your shirts, or be prepared for some awkward outfits.

M and I dressed up, too. That was kind of fun.. It’s been years since I dressed up. I am the Witch Queen. I thought the crown was hilarious, and also, I allowed my husband to hot glue it directly to my head. Well, to the paper thin hat on my head, of course. That is a test of love and trust right there, also an unwillingness to remove the hat after I’d already pinned it in place. One or the other. My face was even quite green, but the camera really refused to pick it up so mainly I just look like I need to get out in the sun a little more often. Much as always.

And M was….. I don’t know. M was M. He scared small children. Much as always. ;)

“She’s so pretty,” one of the men handing out candy said, “and you two are so ugly.”

Thank you,” I replied.

Only a parent would consider “you are so ugly” as a compliment.

It has been a real mess mostly since, but she’s enjoyed it and I love it that we made it for her. Anyway, this morning, on a whim, I decided that poor Barbie needed a place to sleep.  She’s had some Megablocks-covered-with-a-washcloth beds since shortly after the above photo was taken in October, but I reorganized the bookcase this week and created some better storage for clothes and accessories, and I think that inspired me. My child loves projects, so I thought this would be a good way to entertain ourselves on a fine spring Friday morning.  For the record, it was, at first, but then she got bored before I finished the parts she couldn’t help with.  Win some, lose some.

First, you start with a box. I used a Cheerios box, unfolded.  I thought that the side of the box would be a good height for the bed, and four inches would be a good width.  I determined this very scientifically, by grabbing a Barbie out of the basket and laying her down on the box. Measure four inches (or the width of your desired bed) on one side of the box and draw a line–let’s call it line A. Do the same thing on the other side (line B). Measure the width of your side panel–in my case, two inches.  Measure that distance from the lines you just drew and draw two more lines–let’s call them lines C and D.

Cut the box on lines C and D.  You should still have two lines, two inches inside the box.  Lay a long ruler down firmly on line A and use the tip of your scissors to score along it. You don’t want to cut all the way through it, just make it bend nicely in that spot.  Do the same thing to line B.

You should now be able to fold your box up into a smaller box. If you measured and scored correctly, it will fit together perfectly, as so.

Use hot glue to glue the box together.  If I’d had any masking tape handy, I’d have taped all around the box for extra strength, but I didn’t really feel like it was worth getting up for. I did know that if I left the box empty, it would be light and flimsy and easily destroyed, so it needed to be filled up.  What better to fill it with than some of the contents of my fabric scrap trash? Little odds and ends of various sewing projects.  This is the part that Evie got to help with (still in her pajamas, of course) and she thought that was pretty fun, but she greatly disagreed about several pieces of scrap fabric that I had placed in the bag. She’s an even worse packrat than I am.  The scraps made the box feel solid and even a little soft, like a real mattress.

She also got to pick out fabric from my flannel stash.  She decided on a blue for the sheets and a cheerleader print for the blanket.  I covered the box with the blue “sheet” using hot glue. This was quick and easy except I did “hem” the sheet using hot glue. I didn’t want raw edges visible anywhere.  Evelyn, by the way, had to be convinced that it was okay to glue the sheet down.  She wanted to be able to take it off and on, but I finally convinced her that this would just be the bottom sheet covering the mattress so we’d never have to see the Cheerios box.  If I’d been choosing fabrics, by the way, I’d have probably chosen something that matched the pink cheerleader fabric a little better but I just do what I’m told. :) Anyway, after the box was covered, I whipped up a little blanket for the bed and a pillow. The blanket is just turned and topstitched, two layers of flannel, with a bit of lace trim added. I even quilted the thing.

The back side of both the blanket and the pillow is the complementary blue print to the bottom sheet, so it’s fully reversible.

Doesn’t she look nice and cozy? I am really happy with how it turned out. I didn’t spend a dime on this project and it’s pretty cute. It sure looks better than building block furniture, which I’m pretty sure is the doll equivalent of milk crate furniture. ;) Of course, she’s currently sleeping on a cardboard box so I guess that’s not really much better? ;)

Chella Mademoiselle was created on a whim today, when Evie decided she wanted to write on the big brown paper. We have previously had good results from big drawings like this, when she is so inclined, so I taped it to the kitchen floor and had her lay down on it.  I traced around her–in pencil–and then outlined it all with a permanent market when I finished. It is not as easy to trace an entire child as one might think, by the way, especially if one is no good at drawing.  Her head has serious problems but it looks a lot better than it did when I first started drawing, I can tell you that much.

Here we have the artist, hard at work.  I used the permanent marker to add some basic details like clothes, shoes, ruffles and a flower on the shirt and polka dots on the shorts.  Evie made the decisions about what I was drawing, though.  I have found that she isn’t really comfortable with filling in so much of a drawing without some basic guidelines. To be honest, she’s not a huge fan of coloring, although she says that she likes to color.  She bores with it easily and would generally rather be drawing or practicing her writing.

We worked on it before lunch and then finished it this afternoon. When she was done, I cut her out carefully, only severing one arm in the process.  Ooops!  That’s why she has a band-aid on her arm in the first picture, by the way, and why Evie is comparing her own band-aids to her twin’s. We used that poster-hanging putty to hang her to the wall behind her play table in the living room so they can play together. :)

I really love that picture. It was a fun project. She was pretty excited about it, and thrilled to show her daddy when he got home. I think that she would have enjoyed it more if she did like to color more.  It kept both of us entertained for a good while, though I had envisioned it requiring a little less attention from me.  Poor E, though, thought about her imaginary twin all day and then cried to her daddy at bedtime about how she wanted that girl to be a real girl, who would do everything with her, like play together and skip stones together and have lunch together and go to gymnastics together and apparently, Chella Mademoiselle would do everything Evelyn told her to.  From my experience with siblings, I fear she would be pretty disappointed by a real Chella Mademoiselle, don’t you think?

I was fairly happy with the results except that the contact paper wrinkled a bit.  I also found that taking photos of it with flash was hopeless, so this doesn’t really do it justice but as far as I can tell, the sun is not planning on coming back out until at least May so I gave up on getting a better picture.

Instructions

1. Collect leaves, pine needles and other bits of nature, as desired. I had thought of adding flowers but I was more interested in getting started than on planning more supplies. The native was getting restless.
2. Cut a piece of clear contact paper and peel the back off of it. Lay it down, sticky side up, on the table. Tape the corners to keep it from shifting. You’ll need a border to close it properly, so I also put a piece of construction paper, cut to shape, under the contact paper as a visual guide and told Evie to only put the things on the colored section. It worked really well.
3. Place leaves, pine needles or whatever you want on the sticky contact paper.  Try not to leave finger prints.  We started with the grass, and I gave it the basic tree shape while Evie continued to work on grass, and then we put the leaves on together.
4. When satisfied, place another piece of clear contact paper on top, thereby sealing your work.
5. Enjoy!

It’s not fancy kid art, but we had a good time making it.  :)  I think we’ll do more contact paper art soon because Evie found it pretty fascinating to stick her pieces down on sticky stuff.

While I’m still talking kid crafts, I’ll add that earlier in the day, we also made a Valentine Heart Lei, as per the instructions here.  I had everything cut out and ready when we started, which made it one of the least stressful craft projects we’ve done in a while.  She usually gets pretty impatient while I get out the supplies.  (Kiddo, if you take a nap every day like you did on Monday, I will have more time to set up crafts. You might want to give it a try. Please?)

Such concentration!

It turned out pretty cute, though I ended up untying it and hanging it on our fireplace instead of using it as a lei.

Christmas also came and went since last I dusted off ye olde blog, and it was great.  My daughter is three and she felt very, very strongly about getting a fish for Christmas. A real one, with no batteries!  :)  It’s so much fun to have a child old enough to appreciate the magic of the holiday season.  I personally spent the entire month of December trolling Slickdeals and forcing my child to do a ton of crafts and help with Christmas baking. She did not seem to mind much, as crafting and cookign with Mommy are two of her favorite activities…but I will say that she has not been as enthusiastic about crafting after Christmas as she was before. I think we both appreciated a little break from all the engaging, enriching activities.

I feel a bit giddy tonight because I had some excellent drug store shopping. The most interesting thing that I bought was six 1.5 quart containers of Edy’s ice cream for $.94 (total), making them almost sixteen cents a piece.  Have a Rite Aid and a Wellness card (free)?  You can do it too!  Just buy six containers of ice cream, assuming you can find them in stock. Pay $2.99 x 6 = $17.94.  Receive six $2 UPs (which print on your receipt) and one $5 Up. If you’re not a regular Rite Aid shopper, immediately tear those coupons off and spend that $17 on something in the store that you need that’s on sale. Rite Aid prices are murder if there’s not a sale.  You could actually spend that money on more ice cream, but you will only get the six $2 Ups, not the $5.  My store actually had plenty in stock, which was somewhat shocking. I also bought twelve packages of pads, making me look like a walking stereotype for PMS. :)  The manager came to the front and hovered over the cashier while I was checking out. I wonder if he thought I was going to get violent or something?  I don’t know.  The whole trip worked out to be $17 of profit and I just really love days like that.

Evie was pretty excited to get started. In my head, when I was going to do this project, I was going to be in charge of coloring the rice and then presenting the whole thing to her when it was done. DON’T DO THIS! I have no idea why I didn’t think about it being a fun activity at first but it was a lot of fun for both of us. As a matter of fact, Evie says that this is one of the most fun activities that we have ever done. So… it’s worth coloring a batch of rice even if you don’t want to do the full ten pounds and live with the inevitable ongoing cleanup. The rice can be used for art projects (glue them down to make a pretty picture) or put them into a tightly sealed bottle to make a shaker–add tiny items to the mix to make an I Spy game–or any number of things.  We put it all in a tub for her to play with. She’s got a fairy/Little People/SpongeBob village going on in there right now. :)

Supply List
rice
food coloring
rubbing alcohol (possibly optional)
ziploc baggies or lidded containers

1. Dump some rice into a baggie or container.  We used baggies.

2. Add some food coloring, as desired, and an optional splash of rubbing alcohol (a teaspoon or so.) It depends on how much rice you use and the color you’re going for on how much you’re going to need. You can always open the bag back up (CAREFULLY) and add some more until it’s the right color.  Some people say that the alcohol is completely optional, and others say that it helps set the color.   I found that a little bit over the drops of food coloring made it distribute more easily.

3. Squish and shake the baggies until the color is distributed somewhat evenly. Some variation in color looks nice so I didn’t worry about getting it all perfect. Evie loved doing this. Make sure the bag is closed before you start shaking, as I found out to my woe. I had blue rice on the table, floor and in my shirt there for a while. :) My small helper found that pretty awesome.

4. You can either spread the rice out on baking sheets or paper towels and allow to air-dry for hours, giving it a shake every now and then, or you can put it in a 200 degree oven for a while.  If the rice is in a thin layer, it won’t take too long for it to dry out (fifteen minutes, maybe). If you are tempted to put one color in a loaf pan because that’s the only thing that will fit on a shelf with the giant baking pans that you have… it probably isn’t really worth the trouble. The loaf pans with their thick layers of wet rice took forever to dry.

I don’t know if the alcohol actually does set the color better or not, but I did find that I could use the smell, or lack thereof, to determine if the rice was dry or not. The smell evaporates with the liquid, so if I got it out of the oven to check and it still smelled like a doctor’s office, then I knew it wasn’t ready yet.  It’s difficult to feel by touch because of the warmth of the rice, but you can also tell if it’s dry by stirring it with a fork. Wet rice has a certain resistance to being stirred. I also found that it was more important that I stirred the rice halfway through than the length of time I actually baked it.

My child has a tendency to get a little…junky with her toys. I had to clean out a bunch of ribbon and a glass and a large hairbrush and a few other random items that her rice box “needed” before I could take a picture. :)

The rice is a lot of fun to Evie but I’m not so sure that SpongeBob is too happy about it. He looks stressed.

Anyway, it was a fun project, and Evie loved telling everyone about it. Oh, and we put a handful of plain rice in the box too, because–as Evie said–white is a color too. ;)

I’m (more than a little) happy with how it turned out, though!

My plan was to use this bookcase as a…well, bookcase. Evie’s plan is to use the dollhouse as a dollhouse. This is the first day that she’s had it in her room. Guess who won? :) Maybe when she gets bored with it, I can steal a few rooms for books and pretties.

A few notes on the Barbie action in the house. I tried to subtly point out that horses do not usually go IN the house, but Evie not-so-subtly pointed out that PIPPI’S horse is in the house, so that blonde Barbie therefore became Pippi. I put the couple in the yellow room, but to get them to stand up, I fear that girl is touching her friend inappropriately. I’m sorry for ruining what should be a G-rated photo. I gave Evie all of my Barbies from when I was little, and therefore, she has a huge collection of them… but unfortunately, most of them look as if they just stepped out of 1985. The Rockers were having a little reunion there in the pink room. The reindeer? It is apparently a kitchen table. Oh, to be three again!

Anyway, we’re also halfway done with building Evie a twin-sized bed, also with plans from that site (though that project was put on the back burner while we left the country for a while this summer and then started remodeling our bathroom).  I’ll post about it when it gets done, too.  :)

Oh, and I almost forgot. This is inspired by Pottery Barn’s dollhouse bookcase. It sells for $399.  I don’t have an exact estimate of how much this cost me, but if I recall correctly, I had about fifty or sixty dollars in materials. :)  Frugal and crafty. What’s not to love? :)

Today, a stroke of brilliance, if I do say so myself.

1. Measure medicine(s).

2. Add a wee bit of orange juice to any unpalatable liquids. I suppose you could substitute any other kind of juice that your kid likes, but orange juice is a special treat in my house.  (The one on the left that was given the OJ treatment was a homeopathic multi-symptom cold medicine that Walgreens gave away last month. Thanks, Walgreens!  Not much is recommended for children Evie’s age anymore but this is for ages 2+ and it really seems to help her.)

3. Cut a couple inches of straw to fit into the cup. Bendiness is optional.

4. Hand your child a miniature beverage with a miniature straw.

5. Slurp slurp all gone!

Okay, I can’t guarantee that it’ll work for your kid, but mine L-O-V-E-D it. I think it gave her both an appealing package and enough control over the medication event that she didn’t resent taking it. I thought the Tylenol would be too thick for the straw but it worked out great.

“Evie, can you bring me four different kinds of flowers?”

And.. the hunt was on.  She finally found four different flowers so I asked for one blade of grass.  (She brought me a handful…)  I asked for a twig, a vine, a leaf, a dried leaf, something green.. whatever I could think of.  It kept her busy for a long time, and when I finally ran out of things for her to look for… I started telling her to do things instead.  Run around the tulip* tree three times! Go touch the fence!  Run over to the white door! Run around the tulip tree! Stand right there and jump to touch a dogwood branch! Spin around four times! Run around the tulip tree!  (That one was her favorite and she requested it a few times. “Say, ‘run around the tree!’” she would instruct me.)

*It has tulips planted around it. It is not a variety of tree that produces tulips, no, although that would be awesome. Tulips are my favorite flower.

Anyway, that is my parenting hint of the day.  She loved it, and it was great fun for me, too. As a bonus, she was so worn out when I took her in that she wanted to go straight to bed instead of taking a bath. (She is a bit of an insomniac so her desire to go to sleep is always celebrated.)

Incidentally, I also do a minor version of this in the grosser public bathrooms.  Can you touch your head? Can you rub your belly? Can you stand on one foot? Can you point at your knee?  Anything to keep her from touching the toilet or running her hands over the trash can.

Try it!

In other news, I ordered that paper I talked about from Staples Monday morning. It arrived Tuesday, as did an email that said my $32 rebate is being processed.  Talk about easy!

And yet… anyone who has ever had a two year old knows that shutting them out of the action rarely goes well.  So I herded her into the living room and shut the kitchen gate and explained to her that she needed to stay right there just long enough for us to sing the ABC song and then she could come back in.  Now, I have tried putting her on the other side of the gate when she didn’t want to go before, and it usually prompts a fit.  Telling her that she could come back in a minute never worked because “a minute” is not really a construct she understands.  But, the length of the ABC song?  She knows that.   She was totally okay with standing there while I sang to her and she watched me put dinner in the oven.  Before the song was even over, I was back to her and opening the gate again.

(I also do this while brushing her teeth, and I think that there are probably a lot of other times it would be helpful.)

So.. next time you need to do help your small child be patient, try it and see if it works for you.