Catching up

I realize that I need to do some catching up especially since I didn't get to join in on the bozin Christmas!  

Outfits I made for the kiddos!

Disney World

Universal Studios and the new Harry potter park 

Train

The interactive wands were amazing!! Kids had a great time with that, now taking turns with it was another matter!!

Halloween:  Bennett and matt were capt. America, Gwyn was Maleficent and I was katniss.

Bennett's 1st movie

Random pics

My birthday outing

This was a drive through light show by our house, it took us over an hour to drive through!! It was beautiful!

Christmas

I made Gwyneth a tent for her American girl doll, it came out do great!!

Happy new year!!

And a shout out to Aunt Debbie who made me the most amazing katniss cowl that I wear everywhere!!

Ok that was a lot of pictures!! Enjoy!!  Love to all!!

Christmas party

I know I owe you lots of posts from Disney & stuff but today is Gwyneth's Girl Scout Christmas party and I just had to share what I made!!! Pat's mom came out with a kids cookbook a few years back and I've been dying to make this, when I signed up for veggie tray I knew it was time!! 

It became a bit morphed during baking but it's still pretty fun!!

Box tops

Hello family!

Things are going well over here!  Weather is still in the 70's and still pretty green.  Gwyneth really enjoys school, can tie her shoes, knows the our father and is starting to read quite a few words especially colors.  She earns dress down days for every 20 box tops and Campbell soup labels so if you want you can mail them to us, e-mail me for my address. 

Bennett does mommy & me dance, gymnastics and swimming.  He is doing a great job following directions and mimicking the teachers (better than I expected!). I am trying to potty train but it's more of a communication issue than actually using the potty.  He will go on the potty if he's naked but if he has undies or pull up on he goes in there.  Sometimes he tells me and sometimes he doesn't.  We also do a story time at the library, keeping him nice and busy!

I volunteered to be the daisy Girl Scout leader for gwyns class.  It's crazy because of the catholic school, I have to do double the background checks and double the classes to get started!  I went to a leader meeting on Tuesday and am excited to get started!  We have a parent meeting on the 1st to get co-leaders and volunteers.  Yay for Girl Scouts!

We are going to Disney world end of October!!  It's our moving reward!  We will be doing the Halloween night at magic kingdom our first night.  Gwyn is going to be Maleficent and Bennett is going to be Superman.  I'll be making Gwyns but Bennett will be wearing a shirt with a cape I found at target.

Gwyneth and I went to NYC on Sunday to see the outfits from the American girl inspired project runway show and had dinner there.  She loves going there and playing with all the displays.  

 

Then we took a bike taxi back to the train station, she LOVED that!!

Hope everyone is doing well!  We miss you!

Contest is over

Well I didn't win but I can't believe who did!! 

It said they liked her attention to detail.  Thanks for voting and supporting me I had a great time putting my entries together and wouldn't do anything different. They were exactly what I envisioned and I gave it my best shot!

I'm a finalist!!!

My Bennett submission is a finalist!! I can't believe it! I am so stoked!! Of course it would be the one I threw together with fabric scraps over the one I did a trial run and planned for weeks but whatever I am honored to be in the top 15 out of 200 entries!!  Now please go on and vote for me, tell your friends too!  Vote #8, voting ends Thursday.

http://thecottagemama.com/2014/09/cottage-mama-sewing-contest-finalists/#more-52008

Sewing Contest

Over the last month I have been working hard to create my visions for a sewing contest.  A woman that makes patterns hosted a contest making her outfits for kids and I decided to enter!!  It was only the 2nd dress I had ever made and I also made a romper for Bennett.  I also drew matching outfits for all the dolls as well as made the doll bonnet, doll cap, Bennett's cap and the matching hair bows for Gwyn and her doll.  The contest will be judged by 2 seamstresses that host sewing shows on PBS on the sewing, details, photography and overall look.  There were a ton of beautiful outfits from a lot experienced sewers so I know mine are in the middle of the road but I had an amazing experience and I learned so much!  I would read the descriptions of what other women did and goggle the techniques.  One woman used her cricut to cut fabric carousel horses and sewed them all around the skirt, did I mention they were gold and sparkley?!  It is the one I believe will win, here is the pic:

Just gorgeous isn't it?!  

The hardest part for me was the photo shoot.  I spoke with a couple of my friends for tips and editing tricks.  I took entire photo shoots that didn't save to my camera and had to do them all over again.  Bennett pooped through his diaper and it was all over the outfit, let me tell you it was so awful that it was hilarious!!

We find out the 10-15 finalists tomorrow on her blog thecottagemama.com.  I would so thrilled to be a finalist even though I don't think mine are winning material.  There will be a public vote that counts for 25% of the final score so you can either check tomorrow to see if either of mine made it and/or I will send out another blog to let you know. The winner is announced on the 22nd.

The prize is a serger machine and a bunch of fabric bundles worth about $2000.  I would just love to have a serger, so cool!! Anyway, here are my entries.

I am very please with both of them and will probably frame them!

Breaking out the sewing machine finally!!

I recently bought Gwyn an American Girl doll off of craigslist and have been fixing her up, her hair is still not where I want it to be but I'll keep conditioning it and see how it goes.  Gwyn is insistant on having matching outfits for her, the girl and the baby!!  So I got started right away!! Here was my first set:

Gwyn was over the moon about these and really wanted to go to the American girl store so I booked a reservation next Saturday for tea!! Now I needed a fancier dress set so I went back to work and came up with these!!

I am so happy with how these came out!! 

The pics don't do the fabric justice.  Gwyn can't wait to go to NYC, it's all she talks about and she counted all the money in her piggy bank so she can buy her doll a pet!