Peterson Family Pictures Fall 2010

Ummm 2010? Yes I know I'm a year behind but, Lorelai insisted on wearing this dress to church on Sunday. I get so many complements every time she wears it and yesterday was no different. It made me realize though that I haven't shared it with blogland.

Last year the Peterson clan wanted to do family pictures. Of course I was pregnant, just like the last time we did family pictures, major frumpy-ness ensued and I was not about to let that happen again! The girls are vastly out numbered but I was determined to work out a plan with my mother-and sister-in-law. Rachel loves green and I had this maternity dress..

Thus our concept was born! I wanted to make Lorelai a dress that would coordinate just right and when I went to Joann's I found the perfect print and this McCalls pattern was on sale.
Here it is

Photo by Emily

 Photo by Emily

Brett and I did our own little family pictures and a couple weekends later did more pictures with the entire clan. I had enough fabric left over from Lorelai's dress so I threw one together for baby Natalee. I found some ribbon at Beverly's that basically curled itself all I had to do was pinch and glue to get these fantastic over the top bows. Doesn't Natee look presh with her very enthusiastic grandma?

Haha, we worked so hard for smiles from the girls but it was mostly in vain. Here they are with Uncle Jared not smiling, but they are making the same adorable face.

I think we'll have better luck with the girls this year. Lorelai seems to have broken out of the non smiling faze. You can look forward to new family pics once Rach has the baby this August!

Come back soon though! Next Monday its the kick off for Wedding Week! Woohoo!

Awesome Ironing Board

I have spent my entire married life using a table ironing board and it is awful!! I can not believe I put up with it so long but I have finally invested in a full sized ironing board. A whole whopping 14$ at Wal-mart. If I had realized they were so cheap I would have bought one ages ago.

Fortunately I ran across this amazing tutorial just a few days before finding my board and was able re-cover it immediately.

I'd show my step by step but I think that the tutorial handles it amazingly.

I really liked the tip on sewing the curves.

This project was so fun and the icing on the cake was when my husband came home he said, "Oh and you found a zebra print one, no wonder you bought an ironing board". He didn't realized I made the cover myself. It's totally my favorite when that happens!

Mommy & Me Aprons

Desmond's birthday passed recently and soon we'll be going to Grandma Myrna's house to celebrate and eat cake with the whole family. Des asked me for a Transformers cake last year and I completely spaced. This year he asked again for a transformers cake and my guilt is making sure I don't forget. Lorelai told me a couple weeks ago, "don't worry mommy, I'll help you" and immediately I pictured us working on the cake in matching aprons...But we didn't have matching aprons.

I did have an old one and a bunch of fabric just waiting to be made into things for the kitchen. I gathered it all up and went to work. I used some muslin as my foundation and traced my old apron.

I guesstimated and made a mini version for Lorelai.

I pinned and sewed on the top.

Then, on went the waistbands!

I serged and hemmed three sides of each tier before gathering the top and sewing them to the skirts.

I added the neckbands last and I'm sorry I don't have any pictures because I did this part at one a.m. I used a snap stamping to pound in some snaps to attach the neck bands rather than sew the neckbands down. It is an awesome tool and much more fun than sewing in the snaps.

Here are some completed ruffles.

These aprons are perfect for posing for pictures.

They are also awesome for assisting disembodied granddad hands when making pancakes.

Hopefully they will also do the trick when the time to make the long awaited Transformers cake.

Gymtastic Gymnastics!

Look at that little cutie! I can't believe it was over a year ago I took this pic at Lorelai's first day of mommy and me gymnastics. She switched to the preschool class after ten months and really really loves it. She reminds me through out the week that we need to get her leotard and go to gymnastics on Sunday (it's on Monday).

She has two leotards one that fits and one that does not (the one in the above picture). It always seems to happen that Monday comes around and we can not find the leotard that fits and then it is one hour of wedgie-ville, population: Lorelai. So I decided to take matters into my own crafty hands.

A little while back my aunt gave me some leotard fabrics to find something to do with. My first crazy thought was to make one of the fabrics into a skirt for myself. Total bomb. 

But fortunately for Lorelai (not so much for me) the skirt was large enough for me to cut out a leotard. I traced the pattern off of her swim suit and went to town.

Lorelai stayed entertained while I worked by playing with play-doh and chatting my ear off. She really is good company.

The first thing I did was sew the crotch seam. I did that because I thought it would be the most difficult part.

Then I stitched up the shoulder and side seams and let her try it on.

It was looking good.

She's such a crack up. I turned under all the raw edges and sewed a zig zag all the way around.

And it was done! We took it to class yesterday to try it out.

There are some necessary adjustments. It fits just like her swim suit which apparently isn't quite right for gymnastics because can you believe it? We still ended up in wedgie-ville! If I make another leotard (if? psh When!) I will make the neckline higher, the waist a little tighter and the leg holes a little bit smaller and hopefully that will contain those cheeks!

The funny thing of it all is SHE doesn't really notice/care about the wedgie. She was just excited that she had a new leotard and I'm sure she wont mind another, or ten.

Summer 2010Summer 2011

D is for Desmond

This is my little brother Desmond. Today was the last day of school for him and now he has to suffer through twenty four days of summer vacation before schools comes along just to end it. You see, Desmond l.o.v.e.s. school, because he has just about the BEST teacher ever. We all adore teacher Kathy and we are so grateful she'll be teaching him again next year.

So to show just a small token of appreciation for the miracles she and all her teacher aides manage with Desmond I decided to make some cookies inspired by this post. The first night I cut out and baked the cookies.

The second night I was attacked!

Apparently I had some dye on my fingers when I itched my cheek. That night I put on the first layer.

In the morning I added the second layer.

That night I put on the final touches.

 Other than my feet in the picture can you see the difference between these cookies? 

The stems! When I mixed up all the colors I forgot to make brown. Grr. I also didn't bring brown dye. Sure you can mix a bunch of colors to make brown but I think that always ends up so ugly. As I was staring into my parents cupboard wishing my brown dye would teleport over from my house my eyes landed on this...

 PERFECT. Desmond's teachers are all women and hardly any women out there would object to the addition of a little chocolate, ha ha. I figured it was such a tiny part it wouldn't matter if it tasted a little different.

 I bagged up one apple, ruler, "D", and a couple of gold stars for each teacher and printed a picture, the one at the top of the post, of Desmond for each of them.
They were so gracious and loved their cookies. It was a great day.

For information on autism you can follow this link.

Happy Fourth of July Part Three- The Clothes

Each new holiday automatically means a new, usually made-by-me, outfit for Lorelai and after seeing this inspiration on Pinterest I was raring to go! More about this later. After I had whipped up something for Lorelai I was thinking about her getting to wear it to out ward 4th of July party and to my parents ward on Sunday and it hit me... What would Kent wear? My sweet baby boy is no less deserving of something special made for him to wear. So the morning of the party a midst the cookie dough, and cake making, I whipped up this bad boy. This is my first ever article of boy clothing and I attacked the project with out so much as a pattern! I am a super beginner at making boy clothes so this is in no way a tutorial, I'm just sharing what I did.

First I cut out a front and back piece making the back about two inches longer than the front. I took some red scrap fabric from one of my old shirts and used it like bias tape along the neckline. Then I put front and back, right sides together and sewed up to the armpit. Then I folded over twice to sew the hem. I like to put two seams. I think it makes the work look more pro. I finished it off with the sleeves. I just eyeballed it and cut out some simple sleeves before attaching them I folded the back piece over the front and then basted to create a should. Then I sewed on the sleeves. To make the shirt even more legit and last longer I serged all my seams.

I'm afraid in the end this is the best picture I got of the shirt in action. Forgive me and enjoy.

Now for Lorelai's dress I had a lot of fun. I only spent $5 on materials! I de-boed (that's ghetto speak for stole) two of my husbands dindgey shirts and grabbed some material I had one hand and whipped up a self proclaimed masterpiece!

First I cut the shirts into 4" strips and made the ruffles. For the skirt I cut out a big rectangle twice the width of Lorelai's waist and 14" long. Then I cut out a big diagonal.

I lined up the triangle over the ruffles then folded down the top to make a casing for the elastic. The ruffle stuck out way past the bottom of the skirt so I cut one off and added a little lace. I used the excess ruffle for embellishment on Lorelai's shirt and called it an outfit!

Once again I fumbled the photos. I didn't get the pictures done before the markers came out so just pretend that is a perfectly white shirt, thanks.

This is Lorelai's go-to pose for pictures.

 I decided I didn't like the ruffles as a bustle and much preferred the senorita look with the ruffles opening up on her hip.

This was after Granddad gave her suggestions.

She came up with this on her own.

Oh yeah!
Every complete outfit needs a hair thing!

My gorgeous all-American girl showing off her curls!

Did that look like a $5 dress to you? 

I hope you enjoyed this 4th of July mini series. More projects will be coming soon!

I'm linking up at Lady Bird Ln