Mammoth Caves KY

We made the 2 day trip to KY to visit the Mammoth Caves last week with Matt's friends from high school and it was an amazing vacation!! Our cabin was darling and the kids were in awe of the caves! Gwyneth said this is awesome mom!!!

Then we visited another cave that just opened in 2006, cub run.  Breathe taking!! It felt like we were on a different planet!

The Lorax!

Things I learned about driving in the mountains:

1. There are not enough rest stops for a "potty trained" Bennett, outfit 1

2.  Curvy roads and hills make Bennett car sick, outfit 2

All that in the 1st 4 hours!!! I got kids dramimine for day 2 and back and no more issues!!!!  Thank goodness our cabin had a washer & dryer!!

Fun with inspiring books

I've been helping a friend out by watching her girls because her nanny went back to school so I have been doing fun crafts relating to books.  What a blast!! 

We have done a Mo Willems piggie & elephant, there is a bird on your head by making a bird nest hair clip.

Today we did Rosie Revere Engineer and Iggy Peck Architect.

Marshmallow poppers out of "garbage"

Buildings out of toothpicks and marshmallows. 

Gwyneth took it further with grapes by building a church!

She is still building with mag formers and other such things!!

Valentines for my Daisy Girl Scouts

I found this cute printout to make miniature Girl Scout cookie boxes and wanted to make them for my Daisies for Valentines Day. We just made cute little shoe lace necklaces with beads to represent the petals and I told them they were for swap pins.  I knew these needed to be their 1st pin!  So I printed them on card stock, cut, folded and taped them together.

I stuck a safety pin through a corner and used removable glue dots to stick them to my Valentine.

Now onto the Valentine!

I searched for something already made but the Girl Scout Valentine printables were old and used old names for the cookies.  I didn't care for them so I made my own.  Click here for the pdf.

I think they came out absolutely adorable!!  Enjoy!

Valentines 2015

My daughter said she wanted to paint her Valentines this year so I told her I would find something while she was at school.  I searched for painted cards and hearts and I just felt there was no way she was going to do 21 hand painted Valentines!!  As I was searching I came across the cutest idea of putting a party favor paint set on the printable Valentine by Armelle.  I showed my daughter and she was in love with it.  The paint set is only about 2"x1", perfect for sharing!

The pdf and instructions can be found here.

Every year we also send our Valentines to our cousins and this year we finally have 2 boys celebrating their 1st Valentines Day!  I made up my own pdf and added a printable iron transfer tie by ChickadeeDigital.

Click here for my pdf.  

For the iron transfer I bought the paper at JoAnn Fabrics but I think you can get it at Walmart, staples, office max, Meijer, etc.  Depending on the kind you buy you will either print it normal or flip the design.  Follow the directions included in your pack. I typed up the iron transfer & washing instructions and printed it on the back of the Valentine.   I also wanted a smaller tie so I only printed it at 87 percent, which got me around 7 inches instead of 8.  The file I used prints on one page:

Lastly, I cut it out and then used removable glue dots to adhere it to the Valentine.  I honestly can't wait for our family to receive them!!!

Tea party dresses for my daughter and her American Girl

We are going to visit the American Girl store in NYC next weekend and I really wanted my daughter to have a great dress with a matching one for her doll without spending an arm & a leg.  I found this pattern free online by joining the the group The Cottage Mama Pattern Group on facebook.  It was a great tutorial and a quality dress!  Only step I did differently was use my ruffler foot, I set the top lever to 1 and the bottom one to 4 and it was a perfect fit.

Then I made the doll dress from allthingswithpurpose.com's pattern with the cottage mama's tutorial.  Only thing I would change next time is to make the bodice a bit bigger, it was pretty snug to pull on.  I also used the ruffler foot here with the top lever at 6 and the bottom at 4.  It wasn't a perfect fit but I was able to just scrunch it in no problem!  My daughter was thrilled, now she wants one for her bitty baby!!

Here is the link for the doll dress:

http://allthingswithpurpose.com/2013/01/basic-dress-pattern-for-american-girl-dolls/

Rescuing an American girl doll and her wig/hair

So we rescued/adopted an American girl doll, Rebecca, off of Craig's list and she wasn't in all that bad of shape.  She was dirty and had some scuff marks on her face that I cleaned with my Norwex enviro cloth.  That cloth also saved bitty baby numerous times, it's great because you only use water.  I also sprayed her body with Norwex mattress cleaner and she smells like new!  Now for her hair!  It was still curly but felt like it had been hair sprayed, since there were pink & blue streak spots I assumed it was colored hairspray.  It was dull, stiff and fraying at the ends.  I searched hundreds of blogs and you tube videos but was unsatisfied with the recommendations.  Some flat ironed, steamed, used oil, or fabric softener and I wasn't willing to take those risks.  I tried to wash & condition her hair with regular stuff like I did for the my little ponies, it got the color out but was still dull and fraying, not soft at all.  Here is what it looked like:

Not bad but I wanted it to feel like new for my daughter.  

I read about the downy dunk but I don't even use softener on my clothes and it just sounded like the wrong thing to do.  So I went to Sally's and bought Revlon wig shampoo and dual conditioner for synthetic hair for $8 each.

I put cool water in a bowl with the shampoo and soaked for about 10 min, using my hand to wet close to the scalp. Be extra careful not to get water in her eyes, they can rust. Then rinse with cool water.  For the conditioner you can use it as a spray or a soak.  I soaked her hair for 10 min by letting the ends soak and again just using my hands to wet the hair close to the scalp.  Do not rinse after the conditioner soak.

Then I towel dried it, combed it through in sections and set those sections in sponge curlers.  Tip:  never brush your doll's hair without spraying with water first.

Once it was fully dry I took out the rollers and her hair was soft and shiny!! Here is the final result:

I still think the ends are a bit fried looking but they are way better and I will probably try to spray them with the dual conditioner instead of water for a while.  

I don't know why there are no posts about using this conditioner for wigs! I hope this helps for those of you that are as nervous as I was to use products that could potentially wreck your dolls hair.

You can also curl your daughters hair while she's waiting!!

And since it takes longer for Rebecca's hair to dry I made them matching outfits to wear to the American Girl store!

Satin/Lace Applique Flowers

I had a blast making these applique flowers. I layered Satin then lace and embroidered over it. I love the sophisticated look it gave to these embroidery designs. I also couldn't resist throwing in some handmade flowers with a matching button for a center. The gray fabric is moleskin and it was tough to work with, the fabric was stretchy and kept puckering. I had to take apart the zipper part 4 times. Next time I will use some woven interface to keep it from stretching. I am extremely happy with the result and so was my friend!

More patterns I drew up

The crayon and marker rolls aren't my original idea but I did make my own pattern. My 2 yr old loves them and can put them away herself. I've made a few of these for friends as well, I recently started embroidering names on them!

My sister found a purse on Etsy that she liked so I drew up a pattern for her and this was the result, I was very happy with it!

Starting my own designs

I made these for a couple of friends and have gotten so many requests for them. I haven't had time to make any right now seeing as it's Christmas time but hopefully I can get some on my etsy page soon...