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.

They’re giving a couple away right now, though! You can enter to win one at Not Just a Housewife, Decor Chick, A Bowl full of Lemons or Remodelaholic. Just maybe… :)

Nothing too fancy, but I like it.  A couple of pieces of scrapbook paper and some Mod Podge… a really easy project, and one that I worked on while Evie was doing a crafting project of her own. She’s funny about Mommy’s craft projects. She approves, in a general sense, but she has no vision about what I’m going to do. I told her that I was making something to put in her room, and she looked at the container like I had suggested that I was going to wallpaper her bedroom with boogers.  She always loves it when it’s done, though.  On the other hand, if I attempt to do something that strikes her as interesting, she will quickly lose interest in what she’s doing and try to take over what I’m doing instead.  :)

The container with headbands on it. She doesn’t have that many, truthfully, but what she does have is now organized and she’s worn them more often now than she ever did before. There’s a lid on top, creating an area inside for her scrunchies.  Evie was thrilled when I put her in charge of putting the headbands on.  Being “in charge” of anything is a big deal to a child her age.

Anyway, at Rite Aid tonight, I received a lovely comment that I took as a compliment. One of the cashiers kindly remarked, holding the huge stack of coupons that I had used, that this shopping trip must have taken me hours. I was pleased by that because you know what? IT DID. Compiling that many coupons and making notes on that many deals takes time, not even counting the time it takes me while I’m at the stores themselves. We had a short conversation about how useful a saving-money hobby is compared to other hobbies that I’ve had, and then I waved goodbye and headed out the door.

It was later, in the car, that I realized that I actually appreciated that an outsider recognized just how much time and effort that I spend on couponing. I enjoy it–less than I did at first but it’s still like a giant game to me. There’s often a bit of implied “you must have so much free time on your hands if you can do this because I just don’t have time to fool with coupons” vibe when people talk to me about couponing that drives me crazy.  It’s in part to the way that I shop that I am still able to staying home with my child.  I spend maybe ten hours a week on it, averaged–more this week but less last week.  It evens out.  But hey, compared to working 40 hours a week (or 37.5… hey, I worked for the state) I figure it’s a bargain at twice the price. ;)

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. ;)

My husband, M, and I have this nasty little habit of buying pumpkins and then procrastinating on carving them, so I had pumpkin carving on the agenda for tonight. Just as well because Evelyn wouldn’t have had it any other way. So, as soon as dinner was over, we broke out the steak knife and the pumpkin carving tools.  Since Evie is just three (and already upset that she wouldn’t be the one to wield the knife) we decided against any of the elaborate pumpkins that we have done in years past.

Like the first year we carved pumpkins together, on our first Halloween as a married couple.

M’s turned out so well that anyone could see the resemblance. Mine.. not so much, but I am going to blame  that on the photo I used as a template and not on my skill as a carver.

Five years later, we gave self-portraits another stab. I think mine is a tad more convincing in this batch, don’t you think?

Alright, who agreed with me? Agreers will be taken out and whipped directly following this post.

That is a sentence I have never used before.

Anyway, we didn’t want to get into the whole fancy pumpkin thing this year, due to the impatience of small girls.  I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out anyway.

One of them was drawn by Evie and implemented by M. The other was both designed and carved by M.

Can you guess which is which?

Yes, the happy one was designed by my budding artist. I love his little crooked mouth. And don’t you think the angry pumpkin sort of favors M in some way?  Another self-portrait in the media of pumpkins!

And, if you were wondering what I was doing when all this pumpkin carving was going on…. I was cleaning out the centers, of course.

Because moms always seem to get all the yucky jobs. :)

(That’s okay. We also get to skim the best candy from the trick-or-treat loot.)

Happy Halloween!

]]> http://morethanalittle.com/2010/10/27/pumpkiny-goodness/feed/ 0 http://morethanalittle.com/2010/10/24/happy-birthday/ http://morethanalittle.com/2010/10/24/happy-birthday/#comments Mon, 25 Oct 2010 03:18:58 +0000 Kisha http://morethanalittle.com/?p=992 Just a quick little note to say happy birthday to my most faithful reader… my daddy!  :)

Love you!

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? :)

This is my desktop background right now. Isn’t M a cute Viking? We took a day trip to Sigtuna, which is one of my favorite places. It’s a manageable drive outside of the city and yet it’s a small town. I have always said that’s where I’d want to live if we moved to Sweden. We wouldn’t, of course, but it’s a nice daydream. Anyway! We went on a Viking boat. It was touristy and silly but a lot of fun. M was the official steering dude. Is there a word for a Viking boat steering dude?

We ate almost every single meal (outside of breakfast) outside. Lovely! I am not a fan of eating outside at home because it’s far too hot here, and the humidity is terrible and the bugs are even worse. It’s great in Sweden. In the summer, anyway. :) These are my in-laws, along with Evie and my niece, Whitley, who was with us.

There really aren’t that many pictures of Evie and me. I try to stay out of pictures as much as possible. :) Still, it’s nice to occasionally see that I was there, too. Anyway, this was just before we went on a boat tour, I think.

Nice scenery picture from the boat tour. We were meandering through Stockholm. The boat tour was pricey but very enjoyable, even for the natives.

We went to Skansen, which is a zoo and open-air museum. Evie’s favorite part was the section with rides, of course. She got to ride her very first ride by herself, and she LOVED it. :) We have about sixty different pictures of her lookiing exactly like this. :)

While we were there, M won four kilos of Toblerone chocolate in a carnival game of chance. No one was more shocked than him.. except maybe Evie.

I can’t resist a second photo of the Toblerone. You’ll also be glad to know that inside, there were a bunch of individually wrapped bars, easy for distribution. We sent some home with my niece, left a bunch with my in-laws and M took most of the ones we brought home to work. Like we really needed four kilos of chocolate laying around the house.

This one was taken while we were out shopping. I had been dreading this day because I knew Evie would HATE all the walking and shopping, but she ended up staying with her Farfar and Farmor for the first time. :) She had a great time, we had a great time. I wasn’t sure how it would go, or even if they would WANT to keep her by themselves, but they did and it was really nice, from the sounds of it. I think they all enjoyed it, and I know it was good for them in a bonding sort of way.

Here we all are at the royal castle, Drottningholm. This is taken from the back… I chose this one because I wanted to tell a story and make sure you all know that inside, I am still twelve years old. So anyway, we are walking around to the backside and my father-in-law is pointing out the guard stationed at the back, keeping out the tourists, and he tells me, “We’re not allowed to see the royal private parts.” And I didn’t so much as quirk my lips because I didn’t want him to think he had said anything WRONG, linguistically, but inside I was dying. No, I imagine that the royal family doesn’t give acess to their private parts to just anyone. I think we’d have all heard about that in some sleazy tabloid otherwise. :)