Next I thought I would tackle matching Avelyn and Beh-be blankets.  Avelyn was torn between a bright pretty floral print and a borderline hideous 70′s style owl print.  It was cute but I think if you stared at it too long you might have some sort of fready deaky acid flashback so we went with the flowers in the end.  If I had a sewing machine (HINT HINT HUSBAND) I could have sewn the blanket together and in theory had a much better end product, emphasis on the “theory” since the only two things I have sewn in my entire LIFE are a dog pillow and a piece of scrap fabric on which to practice my dog pillow sewing skills.  It was just shy of a travesty but the dog didn’t care.

Avelyn’s blanket was a no-sew endeavor.  Two pieces of fleece tied together on all four sides.  Thus far she has not spit on it or thrown it in the trash so I call that a success.  When I finished it last night I told hubby

“I wish I didn’t HATE everything I make once it’s done.”

“Yeah.  ME TOO.” 

Poor Hubby.  I wonder what it’s like to live with someone as crazy AWESOME as me.  Probably rad. 

I haven’t finished Beh-be’s blanket yet but I did hand sew and stuff a pillow for her.  How much you want to bet that Beh-be won’t even say thanks?

On the agenda for the next few weeks:

1. Avelyn’s Christmas stocking
2. Food made of felt (I’m kind of into felt these days, in case you haven’t noticed)
3. Christmas cards
4. Snowmen (of the not-made-of-ice variety since we live in Texas, and it’s currently in the 70′s)
5. Decorating cookies
6. Ornaments
7. Finger puppets
8. Whatever else I come up with along the way. 

With Avelyn growing up I finally have an excuse to make all these fun crafts I’ve always wanted to do.  I hope she will enjoy it as much as I do and if not, there’s always cookie bribery.  This having kids thing is too much fun.

Do you have any fun things planned for the holiday season?

is this little BABY from last year??

NEITHER CAN I.  GAH!

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The Peacock was the last idea I had for a costume, after a few superheros, a fairy or two and a spork.  Okay, maybe the spork was never actually thought of until just now but how awesome would a spork costume be?  I’ll have to file that one away.

So, it started with an idea.  An idea that went a little something like this:

I should start by saying that I have a lot of grand ideas.  Lots.  However, I tend to get caught up in the details and obsess about getting everything just right so many of my ideas never come to fruition.  Also hindering my creative outlet is the fact that a) I had no children until 18 months ago and b) I was in school during most of the last 18 months and had no time to do anything artistic.  I should also say that I have waited my whole life to have kids to do art projects with and make costumes for like my mom did for my siblings and I.  I get my creative gene from her.  (Thanks Mom).  It’s one of the few genes I will claim out loud she gave me.  (Ha ha. Sorry Mom).  I’m not sure if I ever wore a store bought costume in all my years of trick or treating; she made them all.

Foil Head (kidding), Can of Paint, Shaggy Dog, Snowman

Granted, I was not appreciative of all of them.  After all, as Annalee wrote just today, there is something so wonderful to a child about that awful vinyl store bought costume all your friends are wearing.  And when you’re the only kid wearing a city trash clean up bag the size of Rhode Island you might feel a little jipped no matter how long it took your mother to shred that bag into a Shaggy Dog.

So anyway, I love making things with Avelyn, and I LOVE coming up with her costume ideas.  In fact, two weeks ago we took a cue from the brilliant SAJ and recycled a few giant diaper boxes and cut out cardboard Halloween shapes and painted them.  We had a black bat swinging in our kitchen window, a friendly ghost with rosy cheeks, a cackling witch with bright green skin and my favorite, the spooky house.  I really wanted to take pictures of the whole process and the final product and share them with you but that would have taken time away from the fun we were having, which seems a whole lot more important.  I only have three photos to show for it.  It is a super easy, super cheap and really fun project to do with kids and it’s recyclable when the holiday is over.  You do the cutting and let them do the painting.  (And yes, as you can see I did most of the painting this time around, but I swear to you that Avelyn painted the whole pumpkin all by herself, you just can’t tell from this distance.)

(First round of painting, Our giraffe playing in front of the spooky house, Breakfast with the ghost)

Back to the real Halloween.  I planned to have the costume finished two weeks ago so we could have her pictures taken.  That didn’t happen.  I wanted it to be perfect and I figured if I had two weeks until Halloween then why rush just for some crappy portraits?  We take better photos anyway.

My biggest problem when it comes to making anything is 1) I don’t have a sewing machine and 2) I don’t know how to sew.  Although I’m pretty sure the latter problem could be easily rectified if I just BOUGHT A SEWING MACHINE.  KEVIN.  HINT HINT.  (I say that but I will probably buy one before Christmas because I still need to make Avelyn a stocking and I have big ideas.  SURPRISE!)

So, I knew exactly how to make the tutu but I thought long and hard about how to make the shirt.  I came up with several ideas

and in the end settled on the last one.  But the Top/Right image is just so darn cute I may have to make her that shirt to wear in her regular wardrobe.  How adorable would that be?

It really was not difficult, just a little time consuming, but that could be because if you haven’t picked up on it by now, I tend to pay attention to detail.  Like, a lot.

“Hello, my name is Jennifer, and I am a detailaholic.”

I’m not kidding when I say that.  I believe it’s all in the details.  I feel most happy when my floors are vaccummed clean, my child is always color coordinated (when I dress her), my kitchen countertops are always crumb free and wiped clean, and I’m not ashamed to admit my gift wrapping skills are superior to most.  That doesn’t mean I judge you by my standards, I just have a nervous NEED to have it this way at my house.  I also organize my Skittles into piles by color so I can make sure I have the same number of each and eat them in order ending with red, of course.

Just so you know, I’ve always been this crazy.

Back to before I told you I was crazy, I glued two colors of large sequins together to make the multidimensional green feathers at the base of the peacock body and glued them all individually to a white long sleeve shirt.  Then I glued green beads between all the sequins and cut out and backstitched three layers of felt by hand to make the “peacock eye” feathers and glued them to the shirt.

I put some peacock feathers and some blue feathers in her hair and that was it!  I am really proud of the final product.  For one she looked adorable (no more than usual of course since she is always stunning) but she also won first place for best costume at the party we went to!  Double proud!

Costume test run: nothing fell off the shirt.  SCORE!

Five minutes at the party and she’s already hitting the bottle. My Little Lady indeed.

This is definitely being printed and framed.

I would love to post all my favorites but I already uploaded them all in the Fallness folder on Flickr, and there are only about 30 of them so you really have no reason not to click over and view them here.

I hope your holiday was as fantastic as ours!

Someone’s turning ONE this

Saturday. And I’m alllllllmost ready.