happy birthday princess!

Today my "baby" girl turns 4. I'm happy to see the excitement on her face as she wonders what the day will bring. But on the inside I'm sad that my little girl is growing up.

Happy Birthday sweet girl. I love you more than I can say...

i stayed up way too late...

Falling asleep on the couch before the kids usually means I'm up when I should have gone to bed and I'm wandering my house looking for something to paint when most normal people are in their deep sleep. Last night was one of those nights. While I don't have a newly painted wall or anything, I did have some more fun with my ball jars.

We've been in need of a new dish soap dispenser in the kitchen for some time and I've been refusing to purchase a new one. The old one was a hand made piece purchased at a craft show in Upstate New York so I didn't want to get just any replacement from Target or wherever. There's something nice about having unique things in the home that aren't found in every big box store.

That being said, I made myself a new dish soap dispenser somewhere between 2 and 3 am. (It's a good thing my kids are good sleepers.)

I used the existing pump from the broken dispenser.

Punched a hole in the ball jar lid...

Until I could get the pump to fit and then snipped down the tubey thingy...

And voila!

As if I didn't stay up late enough, I also found new ways to display candles in the bathroom using leftover dried berries from Christmas.

Okay, now I'm tired...

fun with jars

I finally got to a project that's been on my to do list for almost 2 years. I don't know what took me so long to get to it. It was so fast and easy and cost very little.

All you need are some old fashioned ball jars (picked up a case of 12 for 9.99 at my local grocery store) and whatever is existing in your pantry. I happened to have lentils, popcorn kernels, orzo, corn grits, and raw oats. I also happened to have a very eager helper.

So fun and easy and adds that homey touch. I'm sure these would make great storage solutions, but I'm keeping mine out for show. I love the colors and textures.

collars are for dogs...

It's been raining quite a bit in our neck of the woods. I'm not complaining though because with the rain comes cooler temperatures. I'm just not a summer gal. My Frye boots are begging to get out of the closet to romp in the beautiful colors of fall.

My latest sewing project has hit a bit of a wall. I had been inspired by a beautiful Tea Collection dress that the princess loves and thought I'd try to make a dress with a similar collar but add a ruffle bottom. The collar is nice and stretchy making it super easy to get the dress on and off. So easy that an almost 4yo can do it!

After a couple of hours of late night sewing, I proudly finished the dress but only to be told by my daughter that "only dogs wear collars." Apparently the collar area reminded her of a dog being walked and she wanted nothing to do with it. BIG SIGH. Determined to get the dress on her, I turned the "collar" into straps and now the front looks like this:

I decided to leave the back the way I intended the entire collar area to look. (Cute, right?)

She's still refusing to wear it so I think it's going to be gifted to her BFF. I tried.

**Update**

I bribed her with some chocolate and she not only agreed to wear the dress, she actually posed for some pictures. Success!!

Hello Again!

Well here I am again in the blogging world. A lot has changed since I retired my original blog over two years ago. Or maybe three? I've said goodbye to the corporate world, we've added a wee one to our family, and I recently busted out sewing skills acquired in junior high school. I'm hoping to share some of my sewing (and sometimes domestic) mishaps and triumphs with the blogging world.

I'm currently working on sewing projects to prep our little princess for her very first Disney trip. Because a Disney birthday trip wouldn't be perfect without the perfect outfits, right? :)

Outfit one is a re-purposing of a cute junk food minnie mouse shirt we picked up at Baby Gap a couple of years ago. It's getting a bit short for her but I want to get some more use out of it (and the many other shirts she outgrows so quickly). Not to mention, my princess generally refuses to wear anything BUT a dress.

How perfect is this for Disney?

I made a basic skirt without adding a waistband. I hemmed the bottom and gathered the top to a point where it was a perfect fit around the t-shirt and pinned.

And finally I sewed them together.

And now, we have our first Disney outfit! (I probably should have ironed everything before I snapped this picture, but I was too excited and my 22 month old was waking from his nap!)