Another donation of Hair!

After much fussing and fighting with Claire's hair and my suggestion that she get her hair cut and donate her hair to Locks of Love, Claire finally said okay! I had purchased a Living Social deal for a hair cut at Claire's favorite hair cutting place as they cater to kids. We haven't been in forever because they're expensive and the results have been less than great the last few times we've went. I've been cutting the kids hair at home with equal or better results. But I figured this would be pretty straight forward. What could go wrong? Famous last words.

Before! Every time I see this picture, I cry a little bit.

Measuring. Apparently not doing a good job at it! She said we needed to make two pony tales because Claire's hair was so thick.

Cutting. I want to yell "STOP!" I had a bad feeling from the beginning when she seemed so unsure. I should have just walked out, but Claire was so happy.

Two pony tails in her hand. One is long enough for Locks of Love, the other is not. Boo!!! The good news is they are plenty long for Pantene's Beautiful Lengths hair donation program, so we are donating them after all!

After what seemed like the world's longest hair cut and more frustration on my part (I kid you not, the hair stylist wasted another 2-3 inches in trying to get it even and even then it's still shorter on one side than the other), Claire was finished. When I first saw this picture I thought Claire looked a lot like Eleanor! She likes her hair, although she's upset it's shorter on one side as well. She wants me to fix it, but at this point, we're just going to let it go. Her hair grows pretty fast and at least for the next few months we shouldn't have the same brushing, washing hair issues that we've had for a while now.

Happy Birthday Macy!!

Happy 11th birthday to our sweet Macy!!!

Happy Halloween!

May you be happier on this evening than my own little Rapunzel!

Is this a blog about the fair or what?

Well it is, but I've been busy okay?? Since we entered well over 50 items this year, I will just point out some highlights. Just for the record, we did not receive ribbons for every thing that we entered. I also did not win Homemaker of the year, but I did get a lot of red ribbons. Next year if I can turn those into blue, I may finally win that prize. Then again . . .

Here I am in the Home Arts building with my dear friend Kunni. She is one of the superintendents of the Home Arts building. She's grooming me to take over some day in the distant future. She's won homemaker of the year. She's coaching me on what I need to do to accomplish that too. She's the best.

Me-Fabric tote bag-2nd place.

Eleanor-no bake cookies-First!

Me-Alice in Wonderland dress I made for Eleanor. Entered it as a dress, not a costume-first!

Ben-Computer altered photo-first!

Me-Fall/Winter Attendant's Dress-First and champion in bridal wear.

Adult Costume-first and Champion with a grand champion ribbon thrown in for good measure for the Adult Leisure wear category.

Me-Children's costume birth-7-First and champion with Grand champion ribbon thrown in for Children's everyday wear. Yes, Claire wishes she could wear this everyday. She has the hair for it!

Eleanor-garment made by child 12 and younger-first place plus champion for special classes-her first purple ribbon!!

Me-child's skirt-first

Trent-Banana cupcakes with Caramel frosting-3rd!

Me-smocking-bishop birth-6x-second. Gathers too tight, but they liked my cast on flowers.

Me-Black and White photo-humor-first. My first blue ribbon in photography ever. None of my other pictures even placed.

Me-crocheted Barbie dress-first!

Me-felted bag-2nd. The first time I've felted!

Ben-7 layer chocolate cake-2nd!

Me-Old MacDonald-first for hand puppet. Cow-first for animal best representing the fair.

Me-Old MacDonald's friends-2nd in group of animals 3-5 items.

Macy-blueberry preserves-First! This is against adults, they don't have a kids division! First time ever making preserves.

Eleanor-Lego scene-first. If you look closely you can see it's an outdoor theater and they are watching Harry Potter which is also Lego.

Claire-Mr. and Mrs. Snowman drawing-Honorable mention.


And finally my placemat. It won the most votes for senior day! I lost to the most over all vote prize by one vote, but I'm okay with that. The winner was truly deserving. As I've said in the past, never under estimate the power of a Washington Redskins' fan. Oh and I also won for most placemats made-198 total. :) Next year Christmas stockings for soldiers. Feel free to send any fun fabrics you may have collecting dust my way!

Happy Birthday Eleanor!

My sweet middle child is now 9! Happy Birthday Eleanor!!!

Old MacDonald Had a Farm . . .

The Fair started today. Yes, despite my lack of posting, I have been busy sewing a few things here or there. I will post with my entries and ribbons after I find out on Monday. I didn't have time to take pictures of everything and I deleted some due lack of sleep. Anyway back to what I was saying-the Fair started today. That means entries were all due today as well. I would like to share one special group of items I entered in the Animals, Dolls and Toys division.
Meet my friend Old MacDonald and his farm. Are these not the cutest things you have ever seen? When I saw the patterns for these fun puppets on-line a while ago on Craft Gossip I knew I had to make them. Larissa at Just Another Day in Paradise provides the pattern and instructions here. The problem is I decided at 9:00 pm last night, I really needed to make them for the fair. Well I actually had been planning on making them, but life had gotten in the way and they were pushed to the back burner. I had the energy and the time so I went to work. 6 hours later you see the above results.

Here's Old MacDonald. The only think I wish I could add is a green hat. I'm pretty sure that Old MacDonald drives a John Deere and would wear one of their hats. Larissa doesn't have a pattern for a hat. If you visit her site, you'll see I embellished a bit on Old MacDonald. I had to for the fair judges and all!
Here's the back. You might notice I don' t have a cat puppet. That's because I had maxed out my entries in the Animals, Dolls and Toys division and I either had to cut another cat out (I had one ready to go already) so I could enter two puppets as a pair or leave it out. By 3:00am I decided that I needed the sleep more than I needed another ribbon.

Did I mentioned I embellished a bit on Old Mac Donald? Case in point-my Old MacDonald is wearing Levis-red tab and all. The pocket stitching is a bit off only because I didn't draw my lines first and I was having trouble seeing well by 3:00am.

I also love how the back of this horse looks.

So there you have it. One project done. I plan to give these to Kate's preschool teacher when school starts in September. I hope the kids have as much fun playing with them as I did making them. Now to go get some sleep. Did I mention I didn't get to bed until after 3:00 am? :)

International Night!!!

Ben's school had their first annual International Night and I hosted the England table seeing as my grandmother was born there and my grandfather's family came from there and all of Trent's ancestors too. I've usually shared the England table at our elementary school's multicultural night with someone who is actually from Britain, but I was on my own at the middle school.
In the top two pictures the kids are filling out a form with a list of different well known British authors, buildings, etc. There was a drawing for whoever got them all right. They won a basket of British goodies and the latest Harry Potter DVD. Everyone seemed to enjoy this interactive way to learn more about England!

This game is called, "So You Think You Know English". I made it for the Elementary school multicultural night, but it was a bigger hit with the Middle school crowd. On the left are 14 British words and in the bag on the bottom were 14 of the equivalent American words. You had to match them up and then lift the British word side to see if you matched them all up correctly.

I had a display of popular English foods and treats. I made the lemon curd myself although I didn't temper the eggs well enough and it had little bits of egg. A bit embarrassing, but still very tasty. I also had real clotted cream! Very rich and yummy. Tastes a bit like butter, but better. I would love to try it fresh!


I served homemade scones (Recipe found here.) Chocolate chip were the favorite. I also served Ribena, a black currant drink, which I learned is a popular drink in England. It goes back to World War II. More interesting info on Ribena here. I would have served tea, but having a grandmother who was born in England does not make me a good tea maker. Mixing Ribena with water was much more my speed.

Finally I dressed as Jane Austen. I've always wanted a pretty dress like this and this was my excuse to make one. If you're interested in finding out all the particulars on what I went through to make the dress, click on my pattern review on the side bar. You'll have to become a member of pattern review, but it's free.

Happy Birthday Claire!!

This crazy girl of mine is 6!!! Hard to believe she'll be in first grade next year!!.

Amigurumi Giraffe

Behold my third Amigurumi project. The first one I can't find (it was a fish). The second one still needs to be sewn together and stuffed (hopefully sooner rather than later). This one I needed to finish for someone at church who is about to have a baby. Since she earned her masters in Japanese studies, I thought she would appreciate it. I got the pattern from the book "Creature Crochet" by Kristen Rask. It was part of a kit that I bought from Barnes and Noble in their "cheap books/kits" section at Christmas time. I really like the patterns and they are fun to make. They're also fast which is nice for someone like me who likes a quick project!

Alice in Wonderland

My son's middle school put on a fabulous production of Alice in Wonderland last weekend. The school puts on a wonderful spring musical every year, but this year I got to help with the costumes! I made 5 (yes, that's right) versions of Simplicity 3878 for the mean, I mean, main flowers in the musical. The worst part of this whole thing was the cutting out and marking. Lots of pieces and cutting out things is never something I enjoy. Oh and the tulle. There was a million yards of tulle required (or so it seemed). I soon started referring to the dresses as Tulle monsters 1-5.


On an interesting side note, my son was not in the play, did not help with the play, but he did watch the play. After working on the dresses for many days and having our small house covered in tulle and satin, one of the dresses lay, almost completed, over a chair. Ben saw it and said, "What is that?" I said, "One of the dresses for the Alice in Wonderland play". To which he said, "When did you start making those?" Nice that my son is so observant. :) He thinks he would like to help on the play crew next year. I'll be happy to help sew some more.

For more info on the pattern and construction, click on my pattern review found on my side bar.

Silent Auction Sewing

Our school's silent auction is this coming up Saturday and I've been busy making a few things to donate.

First we have this lovely bag. What? You don't see a bag?

Here it is all open now. I made five of these, but one kind of got messed up so we kept that one and donated four. I found the instructions here. One change I made was to serge the edges and just turn them down and stitch instead of binding with bias tape. Saved time and money. I also made an insulated bag with directions from here. I forgot to take a picture, but I used the same material as the folding bags. It looked a little something like this (but more blue):

(I made this one as a Christmas present)

Here we have the class basket for Claire's class. The theme was "Let's Pretend". I made all sorts of great things for this basket. The masks I made using or adapting patterns from here. The capes I made using a pattern I found here. I had a lot of fun with this basket!

Every princess needs a cape and mask!

Here's Claire modeling the crown and the cape. I didn't have thread that matched exactly for the top stitching which didn't really matter around the edge of the cape, but really stuck out at the neck where I sewed the velcro, so I glued some jewels there to cover it up. Looks like I planned it all along! Claire woke up with very sore, puffy eyes on this day, so she didn't want to model the mask. I made the crown by tracing a foam crown I had from Michaels that cost a dollar. I added rhinestones and jewels to make it fit for a princess.

Love this mask!

Batman!!!

I love how this one turned out!!!

I made this set twice. Once for Eleanor's Class basket "Cooking with kids" and another set for Claire's basket. I got the pattern for the hat from YouCanMakeThis.com. I don't remember where I got the pattern for the apron, but if you google child's apron, you will find lots of ideas!!!

Can't wait to see how much money everything brings in. I hope lots!!!