eager little mind

I’ve had MADE’s market skirt tutorial in my list of things to sew for quite some time.  Why did I wait?  What an easy, cute and cheap project!!! Doesn’t the seersucker just scream SPRING!?

Market Skirt

Ignore the Hair

Please ignore the crazy Princess Leia buns, they started off higher up on her head.  Crazy kid.

So, I made a few changes… I knew if the white was see-through that it would bug me, so I doubled up the hem and the pockets.  It doesn’t have the same bouncy quality as the original tutorial due to the extra weight, but that’s ok.  I also topstitched the hem.  Oh, and I didn’t make the white hem a few inches wider than the seersucker.  I didn’t want to gather it only 2 or 3 inches, so I made it the same width as the skirt pieces.  The pocket is a hybrid of MADE’s pocket pattern, with Made by Rae’s pleated pocket instructions.  Total finished length for my 2T girly- 10 inches from top of waistband to bottom of the hem.  I adjusted the length of the skirt, but not the width.  My elastic piece was only 16 or 17 inches, instead of 21, so our skirt is a little more full.

I think total cost for this skirt was around $4?  I only used about 1/4 yd seersucker, some white cotton scraps and 2 buttons.  Not bad!

I have the worst habit of saving posts in my Google Reader to a point where they become completely unmanageable. Currently, I’m up to over 700 starred items. Some I want to keep, some I was just putting off reading. Time to do some spring cleaning. Here are a few links/posts I wanted to share:

-Completely in love with this studio tour, and home tour. Can I move in? I used to be a big fan of really saturated colors on the walls, but I’ve come to love the simple, clean white wall with lots of art and photos.

-Cute Fairy themed party.  Daphne has just started to like Tinkerbell, or Tinkbell as she calls her.

-Too many cute party ideas, not enough occasions… love these meringue message cones from Hostess with the Mostess.  You could stick a small rolled up invitation inside the cone for a summer ice cream party.

-Vintage inspired “travel” posters for all your favorite Star Wars destinations.  Love.  Love.  Love.  Do you think it would be too geeky to have one of these in your living room?  Not that I really care

-And another Star Wars link… free book Goodnight Forest Moon.  None of that old lady whispering shh, and bowl full of mush crap.  (Can you tell I dislike Goodnight Moon?  Dull.)

-Adjustable waist pant tutorial.  Going to be very helpful, since D’s no longer in diapers and her pants keep falling off.

-Very cute monster art tote tutorial for little boys, or little girls who like monsters.  Filing this away for future gifts.

-Oh, you know I’m a sucker for a cute headband.  But cute flower and feather headbands on a newborn?  So cute I can’t stand it.  Check out this post by Peekaboo Photos.  LOVE the peacock feather headband.

-Or maybe this vintage cat eye glasses onesie will just push me over the edge.  Hmm… maybe a shirt for Daphne.  Or one for me.  But that would probably look dumb since I do wear cat eye looking glasses.

-List of artist at this years Renegade Craft Fair in Austin, TX.  I soooo hope to be there.

-The IndieFixx penpal project that I’m a part of.  Love the idea of bringing back snail mail, plus it gives me an excuse to buy cute stationery.

-And I might have to make this for Daphne’s birthday party.  Alice in Wonderland skirt tutorial from Lil Blue Boo.

She did really well!! (And why didn’t I have this done months ago?)

Today I took my hair from dark brown (as brown as you can get without going black) to Scooby Doo Daphne orange, and finally back to maybe a shade lighter than my natural color. Why you ask? Well…

One thing that I’ve had to give up, since not returning to work full-time after Daphne was born, is having my hair professionally colored. I have a ridiculous amount of gray hair, which looks like someone threw some cheap Christmas tinsel icicles (remember those?) on top of a brown tree. It’s bad. And, dang it, I’ve got at least 30 years before I give in to the gray, or *gasp* go blond. So with the dark brown and the silver, yeah that sounds better than gray, I currently have to touch up my roots at least every 3 to 4 weeks. When I was having my hair highlighted, I had to get a touch up every 6 weeks. I’m lucky to get my hair cut every 6 weeks and shelling over a $1000 a year just to get my hair colored isn’t happening right now.

But I do hate coloring my hair at home. I just let my hair go about 6 weeks between root touch-ups, mainly because I was not looking forward to it. And also because I wanted to get enough root growth for me to tell exactly what my natural color is these days. Besides changing texture, my hair has really darkened up. On the chocolate spectrum of browns, I’m a dark chocolate. Or maybe it hasn’t really darkened up, I’d just been coloring it more of a milk chocolate for so many years I didn’t realize it until the last year or two. Who knows?

I was able to tell that the dark brown shade I had been using was an exact match to my natural color. That’s good, I guess. I’ve just heard several women lately talk about their “vampire” or “Elvira” hair after going dark brown and I started to think, “Oh crap! Is my hair too dark? It would be different if I wasn’t so pale. Maybe it is a little on the vampire side?” And my color was looking a little dull, and heavy on the ends ( I swear I only touch up the roots). So I picked up a box of Colorfix to remove the color in my hair, a low PH conditioner, a box of Medium Ash Brown dye and a really good after color conditioner.

Just so you know, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Don’t try this at home, hehe. At least without doing your own research. I’d used the Colorfix before after the time I accidentally colored my hair blue-black. (Oops!) It takes the dye out of your hair and leaves it this really freaky orange color. I went from Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands to Winona Ryder in 20 min.

Or you can do a slight color correction that takes it down a shade or two. Then I used Porosity Control conditioner, and applied the medium brown dye. Then I conditioned the hell out of my hair. The result? A little lighter than my natural color, not much. I’m sure it will fade over the next few days. Pretty even and very, very shiny and soft. The only thing I need to do is buy a toner or something that will counteract the red in my hair that’s there now that it’s a little lighter. I’m thinking Ardell Unred. I’m not completely sure that the Colorfix was necessary, since I wasn’t changing my color that much. I guess I wasn’t sure how the lighter dye would work on my hair, since the color was a little uneven, especially at the ends.

Any home hair color experts out there? Any tips? What works for you?

Have you seen the Ross sister’s Solid Potato Salad bit? If not, then you must see it. Stephanie Nielson linked to it and I watched the first minute and thought, ok, that’s kind of retro, kitschy, cute… Then my reaction changed to, “Um, that’s disturbing!” I’m sure to have nightmares about the 2:22 point, hehehe. And the finale? That’s just all kinds of weird, cool, bizarre, unbelievable. Here’s the clip. Enjoy:

Last year I made Daphne a pair of ruffle capris and I loved the way they turned out. Instead of buying a ruffle pant pattern, I just added a ruffle to a basic toddler sized elastic waist pant pattern. Worked great! Fit well through the seat and legs. I was very pleased. Here’s little D last spring:

This year I decided to go ahead and buy a pants pattern from youcanmakethis.com. I like e-patterns, since I’m not very good with keeping up with my printed patterns. Plus, I liked the idea of drafting your own pattern based on your child’s measurements, since commercial patterns seem to run huge. I chose the Easy-Fit Pants. They were very, very easy. The only problem I had was determining the size. Based on Daphne’s hip and waist measurement, I should have made a size 6 months. I knew that would never work, so I went with the size 1. They are great through the hips and leg, but the rise is too short. Didn’t think about that. Well, crap. She’ll be able to wear them, but they are definitely low rise pants.

Sorry for the crappy pics. I’m calling these her dandelion pants, even though the flowers on the fabric are mums. Mums aren’t very springy.

Modeling her new pants after bath time.

So, I’ll try the pattern again with a size 2 and might make some adjustments based on this great article from Sew Mama Sew on modifying pants patterns for kids.

And guess who is getting a hair cut this week? I’m excited to see what it will look like after being shaped up by a professional (and not hacked on by mommy’s sewing scissors).

Next sewing project (besides another pair of pants, hehe)- the Market Skirt from MADE’s tutorial. Stay tuned.

- You might remember that Daphne is really into Kai-Lan. And if you don’t know who I’m talking about, lucky you! Just kidding. There are worse programs on Nick Jr. So, after watching the Chinese New Year episode about a million times, we decided to take Daphne to Chinatown for a Lunar New Year festival. I fixed her hair in Kai-Lan buns and promised her we’d see a dragon. She was ready to go. Unfortunately for Daphne, we got there crazy early. And we’d have to stand around for an hour or two with a 2 year old who had missed her nap until the dancing started. Yeah. We bailed and went to see friends. Maybe we’ll try it again next year, or pick a different celebration to attend.

- Did you catch the Project Runway episode with the little girls? Ack. Total cuteness. Did anyone else think Amy’s scalloped pants looked like one of Joel Dewberry’s Manzanita fabrics? And I thought it was hilarious that the guest judge said that blue and orange are not complementary colors. Let me just whip out my color wheel. You know, I think that’s exactly what they are.

- We’ve been working on a re-branding project for the photo biz. New name, website, logo, marketing materials, etc. It will be unveiled soon! I’m happy to say it’s more of a collaboration between me and my husband, whereas the old site was more his thing. Plus I hated the old name. Hated. More on that later.

- Daphne has been making her toys “fly” for quite some time. But now they are all flying IN SPACE!! She threw her underwear in the air the other day and said, “Flying panties in SPACE!” I’m not 100% sure where she got the space idea. Maybe she was in the room when my husband and I were watching a Discovery channel DVD set about the space program? Well, and she’s watched a lot of BSG with us. We might have to take her to NASA when she gets a little older, since it’s about an hour away.

- Speaking of Daphers, that girl has been wearing me out. Last week was just crazy. She was moody. Her sleep schedule was off. She’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming. Mommy wanted to scream. She had expressed interest in sleeping on her twin bed, but after a few rough nights I decided to put her back in the crib. Maybe the potty training and big girl bed was just too much for her at the same time?

- I’m looking forward to more Jenny time this week. I need to get caught up on my correspondence, sew up a bunch of things for Daphne and get started on her baby book. I bought a few digital kits at Two Peas in a Bucket (like Peony Place Skylit). Now just to find enough time…

How was your week?

From the latest American Girl catalog:

AHHHHHHHH!!!!! This is almost exactly like the bike I had as a little girl. But I had a sparkly blue seat and no red, white and blue things on the wheels. Oh, and I think the wheels were blue too. But the main bike color and basket are the same. If I had a ton of money to throw around on frivolous things I’d buy this $80 doll bike and put it on a shelf in my craft room some day. So cute!

- We had free passes to see a preview of Shutter Island last night. It was pretty good. The people watching was pretty good too, since the theater was inside the loop and not out in preppy Suburbia. I had my first real life sighting of the stereotypical hipster guy wearing skinny jeans and eyeglasses bigger than his face, which contrasted nicely with the pre-teen boy sized Members Only jacket he was wearing. Seriously? The sleeves barely made it to mid forearm.

- During hard economic times, occasionally I’ll see articles or news segments about bartering for goods and services. I’ve never done it, but I might have to look into it after checking out Knock Off Wood’s blog. Holy Crap, people!!!! It makes me want to go to Home Depot and buy some lumber. I’m not sure how far I’d get since the only tools I own are a Dremel and a jigsaw. On the plus side, I’ve seen just about every episode of This Old House ever made, and many episodes of New Yankee Workshop. Unfortunately, I’m a klutz and would probably cut off my hand. And my husband has zero interest. So….. will trade photography and sewing skills for a few knock-off Pottery Barn Kids and Land of Nod pieces.

- We went to Costco today to stock up. I love Costco. I picked up two Hanna Andersson dresses for Daphne, $13.99 a piece. One dress was even something that I wanted to buy her last year and wasn’t able to. Score!! Especially since they were probably $30+ retail. The HA pieces I’ve bought for Daphne over the last two years still look brand new, even though I’ve washed some of them 100 times. This tunic dress/top, in particular, has had everything from chocolate milk to spaghetti sauce spilled on it, and was worn constantly last year (and even some this year) and still looks new.

So YAY for cheap Hannas!

- I think I need to work on my amigurumi skills, because my nephew Oliver needs a Star Wars Amigurumi set:

From Etsy seller lucyravenscar. So stinking cute.

- I learned this week that apparently it’s crazy to carry 11 tubes of lipstick around in your purse. You mean, everyone doesn’t do that? We had one of those mixer games before my Wednesday morning mom’s group and you got points for a bunch of random things in your purse. Everyone thought my lipstick collection was hilarious. All MAC, and all different shades- berries, pinks, bronzes, peaches. Cause you never know what you’ll need, right? Is that really crazy?

- Daphne has been crazy fussy this week. I have no idea what is going on. Here’s one of her rare smiles today:

Have a good weekend, everyone!