Frozen Halloween

I haven't been doing much sewing lately, but I did manage to make two little Halloween costumes this year. Charlotte decided, after going back and forth a lot, to dress up as Princess Anna from Frozen. I knew there were patterns out there to make an Anna dress and I decided I was up for the challenge, though there were a few moments where I wanted to toss the whole thing into the garbage can and drive directly to the Disney store to be done with it.

But I persisted, and I'm glad. This is one of those projects that stands out as one that I'm most proud of. And it didn't hurt that the dress fit her perfectly and she LOVED it.

I made a few minor tweaks to the dress but stuck pretty closely to the pattern. For the cape, I used comfy fleece so it would be warm and sewed rick-rack around the edges. I skipped the collar and clasp and just added a ribbon to tie it closed.

Are you ready for Princess Anna, in all of her adorable-ness?

But I didn't stop there. Princess Anna would be lost without her loyal sidekick Olaf, so behold Baby Olaf:

That is one cute snowman :)

Happy (belated) Halloween!

~Stacy

Easter

I hope you had a nice Easter! We did--Charlotte was SO excited for it this year and talked about it almost nonstop for the past few weeks. She really wanted to do an Easter egg hunt, but apparently you have to plan three months ahead for those things since every one we looked into required pre-registration and was already full. No matter, Chad made his own egg hunt for her in the backyard on Friday and she was thrilled with it.

After she found all her eggs and was heading back inside she exclaimed "That was the greatest Easter egg hunt I ever had!" Easily pleased, she is :)

On Sunday she woke up to see what the Easter bunny had left her. He left a trail of eggs through the living room to her goodies--which included an extra special surprise this year: a Disney princess suitcase for her to take on our Disney World trip in a few weeks.

We spent the afternoon at my parents' house for a small Easter get together. I didn't make Charlotte's Easter dress this year--my mom did, 28 years ago! The dress she wore was mine in 1987 and she discovered it a few weeks ago when my mom was watching her. She insisted on wearing it over the next few days and it ended up fitting her perfectly. Add to that her "Elsa braid" and she looked like a sweet Easter princess :)

It was beautiful outside so we got to spend time out there for good part of the day. Charlotte had a blast chasing (and "catching") bubbles.

And we managed to get a good family photo taken--there aren't tons of these since I'm usually the one taking the pictures! And because I tend not to take any below the neck photos of myself while pregnant. I take one every other month for Chad's mom since she lives in Maine and doesn't get to see her grandbaby-to-be being born--but that's about it. I think I have about ten pictures of me pregnant with Charlotte and probably eight of them were taken at our baby shower. With this baby, I have maybe three. So here were are, in our last Easter photo as a family of three:

~Stacy

Fairy Godmother Costume

So Halloween is next Friday and I'm not sure how that happened. Thankfully I got my act together enough to make sure Charlotte has a costume.

This year was interesting, since she (mostly) gets the idea of Halloween and what it's all about--which meant she had opinions about her costume. Many opinions, that changed frequently. She had announced her decision to dress up as Dory the fish, Jessi the cowgirl, Cinderella, a bride, a dragon, a mermaid and, oddly, a donkey. The one that ended up sticking was a fairy godmother, so I ran with it (because any more time to think and she would've insisted on dressing up as Elsa or Anna, and I can only imagine how many little Elsa's and Anna's will be trick-or-treating this year). She was firm in her color choice for her costume: purple.

Next was pattern hunting. I didn't find any tutorials online that I liked so I looked at regular patterns and found this one:

I wanted a full length skirt and some type of jacket piece that she could wear over a long sleeved shirt. I went with this view:

My mom make the skirt, which was good for me and traumatizing for her. I wasn't about sew four layers of slippery tulle on top of a layer of slippery satin with a ton of gathering involved. No thanks. She would've been a fairy godmother in leggings if that had been up to me :)

I was in charge of the jacket/vest portion. I made it out of a sparkly satin type fabric and lined it with fleece for warmth. My hope is that she can wear layers of long sleeved shirts if it's cold out and use the vest as a jacket...fingers crossed it isn't too cold on the 31st.

The last step came this morning, when I made the hat. I used a large piece of purple foam and cut a half circle about 10" tall, formed into a cone shape, and stapled shut. Before stapling I took four strips of tulle and knotted the end a few times and inserted that into the hat. Lastly, I used a hole punch on both sides and tied ribbons so I can tie it under her chin to stay put.

I'm pretty excited about this costume :) I like that it's homemade and was (mostly) fun to make. Another bonus is the cost. If I add in my and my mom's time, the cost comes out quite high. However, since sewing is a fun hobby I am NOT counting our time. The overall materials cost was just under $20, which is fantastic considering the crazy prices stores charge for ready made costumes. I used a few 40% coupons at Joann's, which helped keep prices down as well. And she loves to play dress up, so I know the costume will get used beyond just Halloween.

I actually haven't tried this on her yet--I know if I do she won't want to take it off. So pictures to follow next week of her as Fairy Godmother Charlotte.

Happy Halloween!

~Stacy

The Fourth is My Favorite

I think the 4th of July might be my new favorite holiday. Especially when the weather is perfect and we have no scheduled obligations beyond those of our own choosing and we get to have fun with friends at a parade and there's a carnival in walking distance with rides and delicious food trucks and we can watch fireworks from the beach right after the sunset.

Which is exactly what we did. Move over Christmas, the 4th is where it's at.

Thursday evening:

And Friday:

If July were six months long it would still be too short.

Happy Fourth!

~Stacy

Memorial Day Weekend

Lovely :)

Next, we vacation.

Until then...

~Stacy