Strawberry Shortcake

So for Halloween this year, Ava wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake (pretty funny to me since I loved SS as a child growing up in the 80's but apparently she has made a comeback).  I looked around online but could only either find frilly & country versions of the old Strawberry Shortcake or hideous satiny versions of the new Strawberry Shortcake.  And they were all expensive! 

So I did what I do these days...I decided to make her a dress myself.  Of course what I originally envisioned is not what I actually made but that's because 1) Ava really wanted Strawberry Shortcake fabric she saw at the store and 2) when you don't use a pattern, things don't always turn out quite like you want(i.e. it's not as bubbly as I imagined and it a bit shorter than I wanted --good thing there are tights!).  We went with the newer version of Strawberry since that fabric Ava chose was of her instead of Straberry circa 1980.

Anyways, Ava loves the final version (she actually hugged it to her chest and kissed it when I gave it to her) so that is all that matters.  I decided to make a bubble dress that she could actually wear more than just on Halloween, bought her a really cute strawberry crochet newsboy hat off Etsy & some green striped tights.  On Halloween I promised her we would spray her hair so it would be pink/red so she will really look like SS then.

Here is Ava modeling her new costume (which I can now not get off of her!)

 "I love my dress!"

P.S. Someone is excited.  Something tells me she may wear this a few times before Halloween!

Rosemary's Baby Gifts

This past weekend I headed down to Houston to throw my best friend Rosemary what I like to call a "non-shower" baby shower.  Basically, me & another friend of hers took her to lunch and spent a day shopping and having fun instead of having an actual shower.  We did bring gifts and I did want it to feel kind of like a  real baby shower so I made a diaper cake in addition to putting together a little gift basket.

 Close up of her gift basket which includes blankets, towels, washcloths, stuffed lamb, handmade onesies & burp cloths and a handmade dress.

My version of Dana's Warhol dress.  Since Rosemary is from Lewiston, ID, I decided to make her daughter a special little Idaho dress out of some old t-shirts we had saved.

And a close up of the diaper cake.  My friend Michelle made an awesome diaper cake for one of her friends and passed along this online tutorial to show me how it was done.  It really was SUPER easy and I highly recommend making one this way as opposed to the ones I've seen that use rubberbands.  It took around 15 minutes!

I was going to post all these photos last week since everything was done but thought that Rosemary might check out my blog and see them.  Sure enough she told me this weekend she was looking at my blog to see what I might have made her...sneaky girl!

Another Book

Sorry it's been awhile since I have posted anything.  I've actually not been doing too much crafty lately since I was sick for awhile.  But that is going to change as I have some projects coming up in the next few weeks including some baby shower stuff and a Halloween costume for Ava.

I did make another book a few weeks back for my brother-in-law's 40th birthday.  He loved the book I did for my niece Griffin last year at Xmas and said that he would love to have one.  Right then and there, I decided that I would make him one for his milestone birthday.  Of course I did not make it until days before but the end result turned out great and he, my sister and their kids loved it! 

Here are most of the pages (Please excuse poor photos...I was sick while taking these and did not have the patience to get the photos just right.)

Cover

 And inside!

Too bad the laminating causes such a glare.  But definitely needed to be laminated since small children look at it!