Super girl TUTORIAL

A friend needed a super hero outfit for her daughter, and she knew who to call.... SUPER SEAMSTRESS to the rescue!

I whipped together this outfit for her to wear in our local homecoming parade.

MASK

The mask I made in the same way that I did the cat woman mask, check it out HERE, but there are a couple of additions to this mask.

I changed the shape of the mask a bit to make it more super hero by shaping the top corners to a little point and by widening the eye.

I made a ribbon casing for the elastic and fed it through before sewing the mask because all I had was white elastic and I wanted it to be cute. I ironed 1/2" gross grain ribbon in half and sewed a very narrow seam and the 1/4" elastic fit perfectly.

I also cut out heart details to sew on the front and hot glued a rhinestone on for a little girly bling.

WRIST CUFFS

These are really easy to put together. Measure the wrist and add 2 inches. This is the length. Draw out a simple rectangle with a sloping point on one side.

I've found the easiest way to top stitch together two pieces that are the same shape is to cut out one shape, lay it on top of another piece of felt larger all the way around, top stitch together, and then cut away the excess on the larger piece. This way you don't have to worry about your fabric shifting.

After you have the cuff piece add on any embellishments and sew on a piece of Velcro on each end.

CAPE

To make the cape I used the tutorial HERE from moms rising.org. The tutorial was made by howdoesshe and she did a great job. I found it easy-to-follow. I did change a few measurements though because I needed a cape to fit a larger size child and not a toddler.

First I cut a piece of fabric 35 inches long and kept it folded in half lengthwise.

Then on one end I measured 14 inches and made a mark.

On the other end I measured 6.5" and made a mark.

Then you draw a line to connect the two. I did later decide that this would be a little too wide for my girl and cut off about 1 inch from this long side.

Now you use a plate 8 inches in diameter to make the neck. Place it 6" from the top and 5" from the fold and draw around it.

Now cut it all out 1/2" from your markings.

If adding an appliqué, do it now. I used the superhero alpha from planet appliqué.

Pin it all the way around. Use a lot of pins if using slinky fabric like my polyester knit.

Sew all the way around with a 1/2" seam allowance, leaving a hole for turning in the bottom of the cape. Clip the curves, turn right side out, press, hand sew hole closed, machine stitch on a piece of Velcro, and you are done!

 

Your little one will be ready to take flight!

 

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Cat woman mask TUTORIAL

A friend asked me to make a cat woman mask for her daughter so that her children could be batman and cat woman for Halloween. This is how I did it.

Gather supplies: 1/4" elastic, black felt, black sparkly fabric

Using scrap paper I adapted a basic mask pattern by adding a cat ear.

Fold felt in half, pin, and cut mask.

Measure your model's head from ear to ear around the back, then subtract 1 inch. Now cut cut your elastic to this length.

Roughly cut a piece of the sparkly fabric bigger than the mask, and sew the felt piece onto it using a narrow seam allowance. Sewing with the felt on top will be the easiest.

Don't forget to put the elastic in between the two layers at the corner of the eye. Go ahead and back stitch over the elastic area to reinforce the elastic.

As you sew around the mask keep your elastic out of the way making sure not to sew over it when you do not intend to.

Your mask should now look like this from the front.

Carefully trim away the sparkly fabric making sure not to cut the elastic, and you are done!

 

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A mountain of diapers

While writing a post about diapering my kiddos while they are standing up, I started thinking about how many diapers I have actually changed over the last 3.5 years.

So I decided to do the math.

I used these figures.

12 diapers a day for the first 3 months

8 diapers a day from 4 months to 12 months

6 diapers a day from 12 months to potty trained

2 diapers a day from potty trained to present date (for napping and bedtime)

I did not count the first 2 months for Snow White and 1.5 months for Cinderella because the bulk of these diapers were changed by the NICU nurses

I only counted day time diaper changes for little Belle (my niece whom I've kept since 2 months old)

 

Here it is:

Cinderella uses diapers and pull ups daily. In her 3 years and 7 months she has been changed 8,433 times!

Snow White was fully potty trained at about 2.5 years and only wears a diaper during napping and bedtime. In her 3 years and 7 months she has been changed 6,681.

Little Belle has been with me since she was 2 months old and in her 2 years I have changed her approximately 3,304 times.

Prince Charming has already been changed 2,356 times in his first 8 months.

Are you ready for this??????

That's a total of 20,774 diaper changes.




It makes me wonder how I've had time to do anything else.

I can't claim all of those diapers from my twin girls because my husband was a great help to me after he got home from work and my Mom came to visit as much as she could to help with the girls when they were infants, but the bulk of them I changed.

I only counted the diapers that would have been changed by myself from my neice, and my baby boy's diaper has rarely been changed by anyone other than myself.

All-in-all I think it's safe to say that I've changed close to 20,000 diapers in the last 3.5 years.

I feel like that's enough to put it at the top of my "skills list".

I may not be able to have an intelligent conversation about chemistry anymore, but I can change diapers and baby talk with the best of them.

 

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Unconventional diapering

When my girls starting pulling up and standing and before they could walk, I found an easier way to get them still long enough to put their diaper on. At this stage they were very wriggly and rolled right over when placed on their back, and since I had to do everything twice, I needed to save time.

I started letting them pull up and hold onto something, and I changed their diaper from the back while they were standing.

It is really easy to do, just:

• Pull down pants
• Remove diaper
• If it's a Dirty diaper just have them lean over a bit so you can see what you are wiping (this really works better when they got older)
• Open up new diaper
• Align the diaper at back waist
• Pull between legs and up the front
• While holding the back with one hand, use the other to pull open one tab and connect it to front
• Connect other tab
• Adjust the first tab if needed to ensure a good fit

 

Now I used only disposable diapers with them and still do during naps and bedtime, and yes we still diaper them standing up. My husband has it down to a science. He says, "spread 'em" and they do this sumo wrestling stance that looks hilarious. He pops that dipe on in a second, and if they need diaper rash cream, he caulks 'em with the full strength desitin. I say caulk, because that's what we call it and it is literally what it looks like because he does not use his finger to apply the cream, he just squirts it out of the tube right onto the bottom. Yes, it's a bit wasteful, but hey he is putting on a diaper isn't he?

On a side note...

Over the last 3.5 years, we've both done our share of caulking with desitin, caulking to prep for painting (we remodeled our entire house 2 years ago and caulked all the baseboard, crown molding, and door facings ourselves, and then I painted, ahhhhhh the nightmares), and caulking in the bath (we've put in 3 bathroom countertops, all of which I have been in charge of caulking or siliconing and I have also siliconed a bathtub).

 

Now that my son has reached that wriggly stage and I wish I could change him standing up, I'm looking for an easy way to pop a cloth diaper on his bottom. But.... He isn't pulling up yet. He loves to roll to his left and even get up on all fours while I attempt to change his diaper. He is super strong at 25 pounds and almost 8 months old. So finally the other day I just decided to give it a try...And after some practice, I can now change his cloth diaper while he is up on all fours. I've even wiped up dirty dipes this way. It is a bit trickier using cloth diaper covers with a pad folded prefold laid inside, but with more practice I'm sure I'll master it,or at least make it until he stands up.

 

My mom still thinks it's very strange that we diaper our kiddos this way. What do you think? Have you tried any unconventional methods yourselves?

 

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Dunns Falls

 

We went on a road trip over the weekend, and on the way home we stopped by Dunns Falls south of Meridian, Mississippi.

It was fun for everyone.

 

Here are a few things we liked about Dunns Falls:

• It is easy to find, just a few miles off hwy 45
• It's cheap, only $1.50 per person over 2 years
• There is an old water mill to tour filled with neat historic artifacts
• There are swings for playing
• Lots of steps to climb, but not so many that a 3 year old couldn't handle it
• Tiptoeing in the cool water
• Fun photo ops
• Finding the "small" waterfall
• A quick trip, we easily saw everything in an hour, or we could've packed a picnic and played for an hour or two more
• There are rocks to add to our collection

 

 

Things we did not love:

• A wasp nest in the mill building, no one was bitten though
• Slippery rocks at the base of the falls, but by carefully guiding the girls there were no slips
• It got a bit hot for the baby
• The falls weren't as impressive as I was expecting, but we are glad we stopped

 

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How I got all these clothes for $10!

I recently made a purchase from thred up.com. I am always looking for a great deal on children's clothing and thred up.com is a pretty good place to find one.

Sometime last year I registered with them to receive $15 free credit on my account and it's been sitting there ever since.

Little Cinderella started looking for a mysterious red dress lately that I guess she just imagined she had, so I decided to check and see if I could find one for her. Right now she loves to wear a fancy dress around the house all the time.

I found this one and knew she would love it, and she does!

Here is Snow White in her favorite dress from the thred up box. Another "fancy" dress.

I also got all these items.

 

When my cute thred up box came in the mail the clothes were wrapped in tissue and sealed with a sticker. We were so excited to open it!

Everything looked pretty good, except this dress. There was a sticker saying it was flawed.

It was flawed, but it said I would be refunded the cost, so no prob.

Another item also had a sticker, but i saw nothing wrong with it.

I noticed one dress I ordered was not in the box, but an extra pair of jeans was.

I emailed to check on it, and was told they would send the dress and I would be refunded for 3 items in my box that are flawed. I still only see 1 flaw, but okay.

A week or so later, the other dress arrives. NWT!

So here's the break down:

I filled my cart with about $50 worth of clothes.

In total we received 7 dresses, 1 coat, and 3 pairs of pants.

• The initial $50 purchase was shipped free with a coupon code I found online.
• $15 credit was applied.
• Approximately $25 was refunded.
• I paid $10 for all these high quality clothes!!!!!

WOW!!!!!

Now that's frugal mama shopping at it's finest.

Pumpkin

Little pumpkin, A.K.A. Prince Charming, Little Boy Blue, and my 3rd born has now reached 7 months old. He's still just the sweetest little baby. He has 6 teeth, loves to play in the bath, can almost crawl, and smiles all the time at everyone.

Here he is in his pjs waiting for mommy to finish taking pictures of clothes so he can snuggle in for the night.

His other love (besides mommy) are Gerber puffs. He gets so excited when I get the container out of the cabinet!