Decorating for a little girl

Since moving last summer, I've wanted to decorate and make this house feel more like home. We've been in apartments since we got married (8 1/2 years) and we love being in a house now. We're renting, so we can't do a lot to it, but that doesn't mean we can't make it feel like our own place. My son's room is really the only one that felt done to me. I realized it was because his walls were decorated and he had curtains up. It's amazing how much those two things can make a difference.

Since my daughter's room doubles as the guest bedroom, I decided to do her room next. First, I rearranged her wall stickers. My daughter had helped put them up, and they needed some help. Wall stickers are great. You can find them at the dollar store. They stay up really well and won't leave a mark or peel off paint when you remove them. Perfect for renters. We have butterfly and flower stickers in her room. Her dresser is also decorated with wall stickers and we added a pot of flowers on top.

My son picked out a poster to help cover her blank walls. You can also see some of her artwork that she posted herself.

I decided that she needed curtains. She has blinds on her window, but curtains can add so much to a room. I had some fabric that I got for free a year ago. The butterflies and flowers matched perfectly, but the colors did not. They're a little too retro for the bright pink and purple floral room my daughter wants.

So I painted the fabric. I painted most of the butterflies and used fabric markers to add color to some of the flowers. We also added pink sequins -not something I'd normal choose, but they suit my daughter's room and personality. The sequins didn't make it into this picture.

We also have the brick wall problem. We can't exactly nail or drill into it easily. Luckily this wall has a portion at the top that isn't brick. So my son (with some help from me) made letters to hang from above. We painted them and added flower and butterfly gem stickers. We used strips of the fabric from the curtains to hang the letters. The letters were his present to his sister for her birthday.

It may not be the best decorated room, but it's tons better than what it was and we did it all for under $20. Most importantly, my daughter is thrilled with it. I'm hoping to add a few more things when all the spring and Easter stuff goes on sale. It's a good time to buy flower and butterfly decorations. And then on to the living room...

Broomstick Lace

Sorry that I haven't been posting. We had the stomach flu visit our house. Magically it hit a different person each week for the last four week. Now that everyone's mostly back to normal (normal for us anyway), it's time to catch up with everything.

This is my first (non-frogged) attempt at broomstick lace. It's done in Sugar N Cream and is on it's way to becoming a short sleeve shrug for my daughter.

There's a great tutorial by Stitch Diva.

While I do own a broom, I found it much easier to do it with my ruler. The video shows it with large knitting needles, but I don't knit and therefore don't own any knitting needles.

Just so you don't think I'm neglecting my son, I did make him something recently as well. He has had a blanket hung from the top bunk to keep his sister from bothering him at night. (They share a room.) The blanket was an eye sore and constantly fell down. So it's been replaced.

My mom bought this fabric for me two years ago and it's been waiting for the perfect project. It almost became a giant lizard at one point, but instead survived to become a bed curtain. It's hung with velcro so that it can be taken down easily. Eventually I'd like to add a few pockets for small toys, etc. Aside from the three needles that I broke trying to sew through two pieces of velcro plus four layers of fabric, it was a really easy project.

Dress Alterations

I showed up to drop my son off at preschool Thursday morning not knowing what I was getting myself into. Almost as soon as I entered the room, my son's teacher said she had heard that I can sew. This is because my husband works at the same school (he teaches Spanish and social studies). From experience, I know that people only bring up things like that when they need a favor.

After much searching, her daughter had finally found a dress for the upcoming school dance. So she tried to explain the dress to me and the type of alterations she was hoping for. The alterations I could understand, but I had no idea what she was talking about with the dress. Somehow it was assumed that I had volunteered for the job and it was too late to back out.

Did I mention that this was Thursday and the dance was Friday? With my husband in charge of the dance, as well as being the DJ for it, our household was already busy enough. So at 7:00 pm, I met my son's teacher at Joann's for my first peek at the dress and to buy the fabric needed for the alterations. I was home in time to put my kids to bed and start sewing at 8:00 pm.

At this point I've never seen the dress on the girl and my only chance will be at noon on Friday when she's coming for a fitting. So, I started with the most difficult part -bringing up the neckline. I had to match aqua fabric with a gathered black chiffon overlay. Sounds fun, doesn't it? The other part was too bad, just adding an extra three inches of the same black chiffon to the skirt. That part didn't take too long.

I am not a seamstress and have never sewn for anyone outside my own family. I can follow a pattern and make it look decent on the outside. The piece I added to the neckline ended up looking better than I had hoped on the outside, but was pretty ugly on the inside. I decided that if had a week's notice, I might care a little more about the inside of the dress. I had to do a little hand stitching to finish it up and declared it done at midnight. I had been in bed for all of 20 minutes when my little girl woke up. She has this amazing ability to wake up right as I'm trying to fall asleep.

I gave the dress to El Guapo to take to work so that my son's teacher didn't have to take her daughter out of school and drive up here on her lunch break for a fitting. She could try it on at school and still return it to me in time for any last-last minute alterations. Luckily it fit perfectly, because the sleepless night left me with a tension headache that lasted well into the afternoon.

She called to say thank you and that her daughter loved the dress. I was going to take before and after pictures, but I was more concerned with just getting it done. I was promised pictures since I still have not seen the dress being worn. Unfortunately, I probably won't be posting the pictures here unless I get permission from the mom.

So, the moral of the story... It may have been a hassle, but I remember being a teenager. In her place, I would have been eternally grateful to have the perfect dress to wear to the dance. Adolescence is difficult enough.

Halloween Costumes

Not only did I finish the 1 1/2 costumes on time, I was able to throw together a last minute costume for me as well. It's been years since I dressed up, and I realized that I was going to be the only one not in costume. So while my daughter was napping I crocheted little ears and a tail and I went as a lab rat. I got the lab coat from my dad a couple years ago (My dad is an immunologist and does skin cancer research on mice.)

The Phantom cape turned out really good, but not because of my sewing skills. The fabric was perfect for a cape. It was lightweight and flowy (not a real word, but you get the idea). I finished it while Hubby was at work so I tried it on myself. Capes are fun to walk around in with the cape billowing out behind you. I can see the appeal.

So here we are: Phantom of the Opera in the back, Batman, a lab rat, and our Butterfly Princess who refused to wear her wings. Taking pictures with kids is an adventure. What did we do before digital cameras?

My First Non-Crochet Related Post

Until now I have only blogged on crochet. Brace yourselves! This post is not about crocheting -no hooks or yarn involved. But it is craft related still. There may be more non-crochet posts coming up. I'm taking a little break from crocheting. Maybe it's time to catch up on scrapbooking.

Halloween is coming and I somehow volunteered to make 1 1/2 costumes. I'm pretty sure I did it willingly. In case you're wondering, the 1/2 a costume is a cape for my husband. Almost every year (since high school) he dresses up as Phantom of the Opera. This year he decided it was time for a new cape. I haven't told him that I'm going to charge him for it. I'm going to make him sing Music of the Night for me. He has a great voice and I love hearing him sing. My sewing talent in exchange for his signing talent. Sounds fair to me. I have to get started on it tonight since he needs it for Saturday and I still have to finish the other costume.


The other costume is for my 20 month old daughter. She's going to be a butterfly princess. Her room is decorated in butterflies and she was dubbed Princess Poopy Pants as a baby. So butterfly princess seemed perfect for her. I love when kids are too young to choose their own costumes. Buying a Batman costume from WalMart (for my 4 year old) wasn't nearly as fun.

We lucked out that nearly everything we needed for both costumes were on sale at JoAnns the day we went. The only snag we hit was that the pattern I wanted was only available for sizes 6-8. I need a size 2 or smaller. So then I had this brilliant idea to make it fit a 4 year old and a 2 year old. Sometimes brilliant ideas don't seem so brilliant when you start working on them.


I made the bodice more of an overlay that requires a shirt underneath and then it laces up with ribbon. It's a little obnoxious to get on and off, but it fits both kids. Yes, I made my poor son model it for me. I bribed him with candy to wear it while I hemmed the 4 year old length. Right now it's ready to go for a 4 year old, but I need to make a temporary 2 year old hem. I plan on taking the second hem out after Halloween and saving it for a dress up box when she's a little older. There's also a slip underneath that will make a great tutu for a ballerina dress up or future costume.


Here's what I have so far. It's a cute picture (even though she was sick when I took the picture), but it doesn't show a lot of the dress. There's gold ribbon around the sleeves and along the front.