Theme Days

End of the year means theme days for the ABC countdown.

Here's what we've thrown together:
B = Book Character Day
KL went back and forth between Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter and Rarity from MLP (she's an interesting mix, and I love it).
She settled on Rarity, which it great because I only had to make a skirt and a hair clip.
Here's the crafting:

We paired it with a white shirt and leggings, along with tall purple socks to try and imitate for tall purple boots. Then we used a little eye shadow to make the cutie mark on here cheek. She also kept her hair in a bun after washing it the night before so that her would be wavy.

Here's the comparison photo (apologies for the early morning quick shot before heading out the door poor lighting):

E = Eagle Day (AKA Spirit Day)
I love my little KL who is just a little extra. Along with wearing her school shirt, she also asked me to make her an eagle costume. (She probably comes by it naturally because I didn't even think twice about making it for her.) I followed the same pattern that I did for the parrot earlier this school year for jungle day.

 Here she is showing off her wing span <3.
And she smiled the whole time she wore it (at least that I saw), she spent the whole morning showing it off.


Edit to add a little cuteness, KO wanted to be Rarity too:

That's all for now,
Jo!

Shape Soft Book

My kids didn't let me sleep and I was super frustrated so I needed a little craft break this weekend.
I didn't really have the energy (or patience) to stand at the sewing machine and work on the Mario quilt and I was looking to try out my new hot glue gun anyway (nothing fancy, just not the old one).
So I settled on a quick and easy, no sew soft book about shapes.

I had a plan drawn out a while ago (when I first got into the idea of soft books) and so the first step was already done. As for the rest, I pulled out my felt, ribbons, and stickers and just kind of threw it all together as I went.

Here's the pictures:
(My plan was to be quick, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the cover, I contemplated using more stickers, or hot gluing ribbon or twine on to make the cover, but settled on just writing it.. because quick and easy, and the twins were waking up as I was working on the cover.)

 (The little circle on the triangle is a candy corn sticker.)

Quick run-down:
*I planned on the diamond being last, but I wasn't thinking and since it was blank on back I made it the first so the blank side could be the cover page.
*I finished it off with a simple tie binding, since there weren't a lot of pages (and again, trying for quick craft therapy).
*I spent a total of maybe 3 hours over the course of 2 days on this. (Seriously, just nap time plus a little finish up/clean up past nap time).
*I thought about having rectangle too, but the examples are really similar to square, so I went with just square.
*I got KK involved by making her look through the stickers to see if she could find anything to fit the shapes. I saw it as taking advantage of her, but she had fun getting to help out.
*Looking at these picture reminded me that I was going to use the star sticker (the silver to the left) as a shooting star and will add silver streaks with a Sharpie after I finish typing this up.


That's all for now,
Jo!

Cinderella Dress

We are in the beginning of our ABC countdown to summer for my big girls, and Tuesday (F) is "Favorite Character Day". It says to come dressed as your favorite book character. 

KK has decided she wants to be Princess Leia, and really just wants the hair. 

KL, after changing her mind a million and half times, decided on Cinderella. We may have gone with the typical Disney design but the story line came from a book originally, right? Plus, after a movie gets famous Disney makes a few dozen story books using the characters anyway. 

So here's what we came up with :

I used the same concept as the tutu I made for KO a few weeks ago. 

I know Cinderella's dress is all blue but Hobby Lobby only had white, black, and hot pink options for the bandeau (and I didn't have time to order one online), so we went with the white. 

To give the tufts I added 3 strands of tulle in middle and tied them to the back. To hide the knot I just tucked them under the other rows of tulle. 

Also different is the straps. I knew she wouldn't be able to wear it to school without some sort of straps. (Although, I already told her she will wear shorts and a shirt underneath in case she gets hot, or itchy, or tired of wearing a big puffy dress.) So we too a left over length (same as the skirt of the dress) and looped them the same way at her shoulders, and in the back they go through a hole and then I tied them together, so the shoulders could be adjusted, if desired or needed depending on how long it lasts. 

My biggest fear was that people would assume Elsa, and according to a Facebook poll, that's the first assumption everyone is making. But I've decided once we get a black choker on her it will be easier to tell. 

Here's the only in progress shot I took, it's poorly lit and wasn't planned on being added here, but KM was just too cute in it, and got very mad when daddy took it off for supper. 

But this photo shows why I decided on two layers instead of just one. The single layer was pretty see through and left a gap near the top of the skirt/bottom of the bandeau that the second layer (along with a little help from a small white strip that I weaved through the middle) took care of.

That's all for now, 

Jo!