Diaper and Wipe Holder

 I wanted to make a gift for a friend who is having a baby soon.  I have this diaper/wipe holder that I use all the time.  Pampers sent it to me with some samples when Charlotte was born.  It's big enough for a small thing of wipes and a couple of diapers.  I toss it in whichever bag I'm taking or in the stroller when we are going out and I know I have the essentials.  I used my ugly one as a template.  I bought some fun fabric that I thought the mom would like.

 I had the most fun with the embellishments.  I don't know if you can see it, but there's some beading on the flowers and embroidery around another part.  Matt donated some magnets to the cause for the closure.  I used some canvas to hold them in place.  I wish I had better pictures.  I snapped a couple really quick before I wrapped it and headed out the door this morning.

Pants for Eleanor

Eleanor doesn't wear pants, except for leggings under skirts.  She is a bit picky about leggings.  They must be tight around her ankles.  I didn't know this requirement when I bought her four pairs of leggings on sale at Target.  Instead of taking them back, I decided to do what my grandma would have done- alter them.  I used a pair of pants that fit her well as a guide, pinned and sewed.  It was quick and easy.

The sewing machine messed up on the hem of one leg.  I had the bobbin in wrong.  I'm always messing up the bobbin.

Ponyo

This year for Halloween Eleanor decided that she wanted to reuse an old costume.  She is going to be an octopus, as she has been for the last three years.  I'm pretty sure this is the last year the costume will fit.  We were trying to figure out a costume for Charlotte.  Eleanor suggested Ponyo.  We thought this was a great idea.  I decided to make the costume of Ponyo as a fish instead of as a girl.  I stopped by Joanne's one morning and spent about six dollars on red and white fleece.  I used a dress that Charlotte had to trace a pattern for the dress part.  It took about an hour to make the pattern, cut the fabric, pin it together and sew it.  I didn't hem anything.  I struggled for a while trying to figure out how to make the pants/bloomers.  I thought some pants would be really easy, but I didn't have any elastic.  Finally I decided to use drawstring.  I found a cord that I had bought for another project long ago and the pants were done.  This costume took less than two hours to make and I think it turned out super cute.

Butterflies

I went to Target this morning to get what I needed to hang the butterflies in the girls' room.  I wasn't sure if I liked the frame with the glass, but I tried it that way first.

But then the frame fell.

And broke.  (You can barely tell in the corner.)

So, I rehung it without the glass.  I like it much better.  Also, it is much lighter so if it did happen to fall again, it is less likely to harm a child (or me).

Making a Space, or My First Project

This is what I started with:

Junk.  Everywhere.  I had mostly ignored this area for the first few months after we moved.  After Eleanor started school, my days suddenly became a bit emptier.  I started finding the time to do things that were not required for day to day living.  This area still needs a lot of work, but it's getting better.

Since I now have a work space, I've been thoroughly enjoying working on some other projects.  This is something that I've been working on for the girls' room.  I found some butterfly templates online, cut them out and used them as patterns to cut out colorful butterflies out of magazine pages. 

I glued the butterflies to a canvas.  I'll take a better picture after I hang it.  I think it looks really fun.

The Beginning

I'm kind of impulsive.  I seem to love to commit to various things and then say, "What was I thinking?  I can't make a dress from these pieces of ribbon in the next four hours."  More often than not, I'm committing not to someone else, but to myself.  I see a piece of fabric and think, "I could make something wonderfully delightful out of that."  Or I get an idea for decorating Eleanor's (and hopefully eventually Charlotte's) room and start without realizing how much time and energy (and money) would be required to finish.  So, my goal with this public format is to curtail my impulsive nature and give myself more focus on the projects at hand. 

Some of the projects I have in mind include, but are not limited to:

• unpacking the last four boxes from our move (five months ago)
• organizing the girls' room
• decorating the girls' room
• repurposing found materials into usable objects (vague I know)
• finishing the tshirt I started for Eleanor
• washing dishes
• dying some white clothes that were recently given to me

 My first project (which I hope to add pictures for soon) is my office area.  This space has been hugely neglected since we moved in to this apartment in May.  I use the phrase "office area" loosely, as it is in reality a corner of our bedroom.  I want a space to pay bills, work on arts and crafts, write letters, watch hulu and eat ice cream.  I need space away from little hands so I can remember that they and I are not the same being.  I need space to be me.  Anyway, this corner in our bedroom has basically just been piled with boxes and junk that needed to be dealt with (papers to file, clothes that the girls had outgrown, pencils from our wedding???).   Today I sorted through most of it.  I thought about my goals for the space and envisioned calmness.  I sorted through boxes and piles and organized.  I have a stack of papers to file, a stack of thank you notes from C's birth (one year ago!) to mail, and some things to hang on the wall.  I want to take the awful apartment grade blinds down and put up some curtains so it is easier to access natural light. 

For now, I'm going to pack Eleanor's lunch and snacks, hang up the load of laundry that's in the washer and then go to bed.  Tomorrow is Eleanor's short day and I'm hoping to have something fun for us to do during Charlotte's afternoon nap.