Travel Blocks

When I was gathering pictures for my pretty picture wall, I realized that I have a slight obsession with architecture.  Here are few pictures from Buenos Aires to illustrate what I mean.

As I look at the pictures, I can still hear my hubby asking, "Why do we have to go all the way over there for you to take a picture.  I can see the building just fine right here!  And don't you have enough pictures of buildings already?"  (It's true.  I have lots and lots of building pictures).

So yes, maybe I did go a bit over board.  Even the ground didn't escape my camera.

It seemed a pity to just have them all stashed away on my computer, so I decided to make some blocks for the kids to play with.

Click below to see how they turned out!

A Pretty Picture Wall

 I was first inspired to make a picture wall after seeing this post a while ago.  It seemed a perfect solution for the many blank walls that I didn't quite know how to decorate in our small house.

 I decided that I wanted to do a "favorite places" wall but with the main premise being that all the pictures had to be from one of the trips my husband I took together, or a place that meant something to us.  They didn't have to mean something to someone else, in fact I preferred pictures that didn't "scream" a particular place.  The important thing was that we would recognize each picture and know where it was taken.

I bought wood at Lowes and asked them to cut it into 8x8 squares and painted them with some leftover grey paint.  Then I had my pictures printed on 8x8 sheets at Costco.  I used mod podge to attach the pictures to the wood, and then used a little mod podge to cover over the photo, giving it a matte look.

It took me a while to finally finish the project (the wood pieces sat in the garage for months), so I was quite excited to finally finish them and hang them up in our bedroom this weekend.  Lu enjoyed helping "paint" with mod podge too, so we both had a good time doing the project together.  Using wood pieces was much more affordable than doing canvas too.

What do you think?  Do you like using wood backings instead of canvas?

The Easy Rapunzel Dress

When I told my oldest that we were going to go to Disneyland, her immediate concern was that she be properly dressed.  What does that mean?   Well, to a 3.5 year old it means having princess attire. She quickly (and politely) asked begged me to take her to the fabric store so that we could pick out some fabric to make her a dress.

Figuring that buying a dress at Disneyland would be rather expensive, and since I don't usually make things like this for the girls, I figured that maybe it might be fun to oblige.

At first I thought that I'd make T shirt dresses that resembled princess dresses.  They'd be comfortable after all.  After our last trip to Disneyland I was amazed at all the kids that thought wearing a fancy princess dress to the park was a good idea.  But no, this wasn't what my little snugglebug had in mind.

That's right, my kid wanted to be "that" kid. Why?  I still don't get it.  I don't remember ever dressing up to go to Disneyland. 

Of course I could say no, but I really didn't want my little bug sulking through Disneyland where lots of other kids' mommies let them dress up.  Disneyland was supposed to be a VACATION.  It is supposed to be fun.

So I decided we had to come up with a more comfortable dress that would meet my daughter's shiny-frilly requirements.

That meant using the right pattern.  To my daughter's dismay, that meant NOT the Rapunzel one in the fabric pattern book at Joanns.  For my daughter, a comfortable dress has 1) no tags 2) no zippers or buttons and 3) is about knee length or a little longer.  Her absolute favorite dresses have elastic around the neck and arms. (BONUS:  These patterns are much simpler than the Disney approved ones.)

We picked out fabric that was 1) machine washable and 2) not scratchy.  My older daughter was over the moon excited about being able to help pick it out.  My little one grabbed the fabric when we got home and held it up to herself and asked "me?"  as though she wanted to make sure that she too wouldn't be left out.  So yes, I had to make two dresses.

I am very happy with out the dresses turned out.  Keep reading below to see how I modified this simple pattern from simplicity into these great Rapunzel dresses.

The Lots of Ruffles Skirt

I made this skirt simply because the fabric was practically yelling out to me 'make me into something for Lu!'  Lu absolutely adores the little dolls on the fabric, and she loves her new skirt too. 

If you're interested in making your own ruffle skirt, there is a great example here. It's not exactly the same as the way I made mine, but it is pretty close.

The Snugglebug Project: Meet the Bookworm

The Snugglebug Project has so far been a lot of fun in our house.  Both of my kids really love the paper dolls, and Lu especially loves coloring them in.  She loves making up stories about the Doodlebug and the Stinkbug, and she's insisted that they need another friend.  So without further ado...

Let's meet Cora.

Name: Cora, the bookworm
Lives with: her mommy, daddy, and little sister
She likes to: read and play dress up
Special talent: Cora creates worlds of fun because any story she read comes true.  She even has a pet dragon.
Favorite color: red
Favorite food:  the pizza her daddy makes
Her bedroom:  Has a hammock in it where she can swing back and forth and read all day by the window.  She also has a big mirror where she can dress up as all of the people in her books.

Lu told me that Cora dresses up as a princess lady bug.  We came up with this princess ladybug dress.

But she's not just into wearing fancy dresses.  She loves to dress up as a superhero too.

Altogether she has three adorable outfits.  I think she might be my favorite yet.

Interested in the colored in version?  You can buy my (colored-in) version of the doodlebug in my Etsy store, or in my brand-new Craftsy Store.

Keep reading for the printable paper doll that your kids can color in to make their own bookworm, as well as pictures of Lu's bookworm.

Until Next Week...

Hi Friends,

Did you have a good week?  We had a great one.  The weather really is warming up here and it's so nice enjoyable to be outside.

I've been playing around with Sketch book pro, and app that lets you draw on your tablet.  I made this cartoon using it.  I love the possibility of going digital, but I think it's really going to take a bit of time to get used to the difference from real drawing and painting.

After a bit of thought I've decided I'm going to take a little time off from my comics.  I'd like to focus my time on a couple of projects that I'm working on right now.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!  I'll see you back here next week!

"Sunflower" Bird Feeder

Tomorrow my kids are having an art group with their friends, and we're going to read about sunflowers and make this "sunflower" bird feeder.  We did a test run today just to make sure everything went as planned.

Here's how we made them: