Lazy Afternoons

I think that every parent of small children knows what I'm talking about when I refer to the "dead zone" of the day. Finding something to do in the zone between afternoon nap and dinnertime can be a bit of a challenge for us. With two birthdays in seven days, a dance recital, school getting out, and a husband who is out of town for the week, this "dead zone" has been a real challenge for me and the girls this week. So, let me introduce you to my new best friend...the bubbler. Target, Bartells, toys stores all carry these little gems. They're essentially buble guns, but I'm trying to refrain from using the word "gun." It seems that Caroline may get a mild allergic reaction to bubble mix, so I have to stay away from the mouth bubble blowers because her lips get all inflamed, so these little fan blowers work like a charm for us and keep the girls completely occupied and happy. Anyway, this is how we spent our afternoons this week and it has worked out pretty well for us. Plus, I've been having a great time with my camera and the bubble hour, and this picture has made me really happy. I've mentioned that I got a new camera (a Nikon D3000) and it has been a real treat to play around with it. Although I bought the "Nikon D3000 for Dummies" and have studied it (kind of) closely, I still have no idea what I am doing!

I also have to put out a little shoutout to little Miss C who celebrated her 2nd birthday today. We enjoyed a good time at the park this morning and then a little lunch at Luna Park Cafe, complete with milkshakes--yum!
Okay, now it's time to get down to business. About a week ago I mentioned that there was a new dress coming up and here it is. As a nod to Wimbleton and summers spent on the tennis court, here is a girl's tennis dress in bright pink. I normally don't do much hand-stitching but it seemed like a hand-embroidered string area on the racket was exactly what was needed on this project. Let's hope this one is a winner!

Your Birthday is a Wonderland!

I am still recovering from Saturday morning's 5th birthday party for Kate. The forecast for the weekend had looked terrific until about 48 hours before the actual party when it suddenly shifted to a much crummier prediction. Still, I tried to remain optimistic that the we would be able to turn our backyard into a wonderland for the party. I remained optimistic (or "in denial" is probably more realistic) right up until waking up Saturday morning and seeing rain. It then became a mad dash to set up indoors. Kate's preschool teacher was generous enough to loan me a little table and ton of little chairs, so we were able to set up a long table in our dining area and I hung the Chinese lanterns above and it looked quite festive (I think!). Throughout the week, Kate and I had worked on making tissue paper flowers that were supposed to conjure up the Garden of Talking Flowers in Alice and Wonderland. She loved working on them and it was a great way to incorporate her into party planning. As you can see from the picture above, I had made her a dress so that she could be Alice and she was really pleased in her costume that was complete with a circle skirt and crinoline underneath so that she could get some twirling action going!
We had Sally the Great from Giggleworks, a company that she owns with her husband, come to do a magic show and balloon art and she was terrific! She had them all laughing within the first minute of her show--I was terribly impressed by how much energy she brought to the show and the magic tricks were fabulous. Her ballon art was also incredible and all of the kids absolutely loved it! Here is Kate with her Alice in Wonderland balloon...

and Henry with a T-Rex balloon and Jack with Spiderman on his shoulders...and Claire with a dolphin! There were so many incredible balloons and the kids were mesmerized watching her create them.
Now, I'm off to work on my recovery by eating a leftover cupcake! (Psst: The toppers were part of the fabulous packet that I mentioned in an earlier post from PaperAndCake.)

Biker Chick

Every year I make the girls each a dress for their birthdays; this tradition began with Kate's first birthday. Since Caroline is in love with bikes right now, I thought that it would be fun to incorporate a bike somehow into her birthday dress. I had been keeping a look out for a cute bike print but wasn't seeing anything that seemed right for her. While reading the Etsy Merchandising Notes for June, I saw the mention of the Tour de France--aha! I decided to combine Caroline's dress with a little shop merchandising and make a yellow dress in honor of the Tour leader's yellow jersey. I should have made a trike applique since Caroline loves her little Kettler but decided to go with a girl's bike, complete with banana seat. I used Amy Butler's Love print for the bike applique. After lots of different sketches and putting it together initially with little rick rack handle streamers, I discarded that detail for a simple outline. I'm really pleased with how it came out and was delighted to see how excited Caroline was this morning when she tried it on for pictures. Unfortunately the photos came out pretty dark, but with a better forecast on the horizon for this weekend's weather, my fingers are crossed for a better photoshoot within the next few days.

I'm continuing my sporting theme, and will have a new dress to show in the next couple of days...

Birthday Party Planning is Underway

When K and I went to Disneyland in April, K's princess obsession was interrupted (a little) by discovering Alice in Wonderland. It helped that she loved riding on the teacups! When we got home, she announced that she wanted her birthday to be a mad tea party inspired by Aice in Wonderland, and this sounded like a fun idea to me so we started brainstorming. I found this darling birthday pack on Etsy from PaperAndCake and our planning took off. We used the invitations from the pack and I plan to use the cutouts on the cake and on goodie bags.

We also decided to try our luck on a backyard party. Given Seattle's weather this spring, this is seeming like a bold plan but we will hope for the best. We got an Alice in Wonderland book and K has been studying it carefully every day for details. She noticed the Chinese lanterns on the tea party page in the book and remembered the lanterns from the Teacups ride at Disneyland and wanted to get some for the party. I did a little online research and ordered some from Luna Bazaar, figuring that we can hang them in K's room after the party. She also wanted to use real teacups but I chickened out a little on the vision of smashed china all our back patio. One of our neighbors has some teacup and teapot garden art so that inspired me to look into glueing stacks of teacups together. After seeing this on Etsy, K and I took off to some local thriftstores in search of mismatching teacups to use as garden art. So now we have a bunch of teacups, Chinese lanterns, and a cute un-birthday partypack. Normally I wouldn't really get so into all of the decorating for a kid's birthday party, but K is really into it and it's keeping her engaged--plus, she has some great ideas! Next up, costumes...

A Dress Just Right For the Pacific Northwest

I really wanted to create a whale dress for this summer and spent a lot of time thinking about different designs, but never really settled on something...until the grandmother of one of our little friends ordered a special custom dress. I met with my little 6-year old client and ended up with an orca whale dress concept. This was absolutely perfect because orcas are frequently spotted off the beach a few minutes away from us here in West Seattle. In fact, a few years ago, I dropped Kate off at preschool and took the dog for a walk along Beach Drive. As we were walking, I absent-mindedly looked offshore toward the water and instantly saw the tall black dorsal fins that are distinctive of orca whales. It was so exciting to see a pod so close to home and I was thrilled to have serendipitously seen such an iconic example of Pacific Northwest wildlife.


So anyway, back to the dress. My client really wanted a blue dress, and I immediately remembered having seen this Michael Miller print at Fabric Crush in Wallingford. It seemed just right for this orca whale dress because it was geometric print that reminded me of sunlight refracting through the water. I then studied images of orca whales, sketched some out, simplified the coloring on the whales a little, and designed the applique for the whale. After some sewing, voila, the dress was complete but it seemed like it needed a little something else. Hmmm. A few years back, I bought some really cute sailboat ribbon ago at Esther's on Bainbridge Island and I thought would look cute with this little marine-inspired dress, so I used it to create a coordinating handbag. So, now here is a Pacific Northwest-inspired ensemble!