belated valentines

So, since I last posted I have been sick twice, not once but TWICE. First the flu, then after about 3 days being well, a cold settled in. This has been the absolute worst winter of my entire life as far as colds and flu -- usually I get one or none. This year, it's been 2 a month at least. I will be thrilled when spring gets here!! In the meantime, just trying to stay healthy and getting a few things done here and there. (And by the way, if anyone has a sure-fire immunity booster or cold and flu fighter, please let me know about it!)

This year, Emily was so into Xmas that she didn't want to see it go...so the small pink tree became a Valentine tree (all it needed was a few hearts and a red garland) and she and I made Valentine heart-pocket-things to replace our stockings. She picked more Aranzi Aronzo designs to glue on and they came out great (no pics though, how did that happen?) We stuffed valentines and little gifts into everyone's hearts and the homemade highlight of Emily's gifts (the real highlight, I have to admit was a set of Hello Kitty cookie cutters) was this set of felt heart-shaped sugar cookies. With icing! And sprinkles!! I want to eat them.



So, our valentine's day was pretty great, especially since it fell on one of the few days this winter that found all three of us in good health. I hope yours was great too!

The Secret Of The Hidden Dress!

We had a lot of things go missing this year. Some turned up, some didn't...but one of the most frustrating near-losses was this dress! But...at least the story has a happy ending:



I bought the fabric right before or after Emily was born, thinking I'd make a little dress (it's the out-of-print and actually hard to get Alexander Henry Flora de los Muertos print). When I finally had time to sew, I decided to hold off since she was growing our of her clothes so fast. This spring, I finally cut it out, found matching leggings and got ready to sew it together for the warm weather. Then....it vanished! I looked everywhere, on and off for months. I re-opened packed boxes, checked with people I'd shipped things to, you name it. I finally decided to write it off and spent months tracking down just 1 single yard of the same fabric to re-do the dress. Before I could cut it out -- Evan found the pieces of this one! I'd packed them all up (I keep projects I'm working on in ziploc bags to keep from losing pieces) and the whole bag had slipped behind the china cabinet in the dining room. Yay!! And luckily, a generous enough pattern that it'll still fit this year. I put it all together, made some matching buttons and at last...the hidden dress comes out of the shadows!

the brobee dress has a friend!

Emily has been asking for a "real" muno dress ever since I designed one for her Animal Crossing character. Finally I figured out how best to do it and let her pick out a dress pattern and fabric color for the base. Muno is appliqued with raw edges out of knit fabrics (the black is actually from a t-shirt that was too big!). She loves it, and it's super-cute on! Unfortunately for me, she immediately listed off for me the 10 or so characters she wants dresses of, including a Yo Gabba Gabba character that's been seen twice for mere seconds!! Yikes!! I told her, maybe later.....

(update: I've finally finished up a Yo Gabba Gabba dress how-to entry, if you're looking for tips on making your own, check it out!)

cool find: felt slippers

Emily, who grows like a pernicious weed, recently grew out of the slippers she got just a little over a month ago. Sadly, I couldn't get them in a bigger size (they were pink, with scottie dogs, and she loooved them) as slippers are pretty much selling out everywhere at this point. So I went slipper hunting on Amazon and turned up these adorable felt slippers!! Here are just two of them:






too rich for my blood ($64 for toddler slippers? Maybe if she didn't grow out of everything every 4 months!) but how incredibly cool! The company's own site is a bit glitchy for me, but it looks like the slippers have different designs on the right and left slippers - too bad amazon doesn't have photos of both.

(And what did I get her? She picked out some fleece slippers with penguins on them. Very cute and a better price for something she'll only wear for 3 or so months!)

birthday food!

No, not the food we ate, but the food I made! My mom got Emily a basket of Haba play food for her birthday, and we got her a bunch more to complement what my mom sent. I decided she needed more play food and delved into the world of felt food. (I have actually had a Japanese craft book with patterns for felt cakes for a while but had never attempted any.) It turned out to be incredibly easy, and fast -- I did all these in a couple hours the night before her birthday.

thumbprint cookies, not actually something we eat around here but they're like cartoon cookies or something. you know they're cookies:



farfalle! this is Emily's favorite pasta shape (other than, say, pumpkins or penguins):



farfalle with (Haba) mushrooms, ala Emily:



and the reusable shopping bags I made for her to keep all the food in:



I had a yard of this Paris street map fabric and had never found a good use for it. For some reason it struck me as perfect for shopping bags, I don't know why. In any case, cute and she loves them.

All the food was a huge hit, Emily has been making "stew" (her recipe includes bananas and a loaf of bread, and she laughs hysterically when we go "bananas?! bread?!") and pie and pasta with mushrooms ever since she opened everything. And I want to make more, more more! At least the felt cookies. So cute and easy!

hope yours was happy!

This year's holiday season was pretty intense as it was the first year Emily was fully aware and into it. We started off by putting up the tree with her help:



I think this was her favorite of the ornaments:



she claimed my small pink tree as her own:



we went to our zoo's annual Christmas celebration, which was a lot of fun. We saw a ton of animals, including reindeer; Emily petted a rabbit, a chinchilla, a snake and a monitor lizard (!); we got hot chocolate, brownies and toasted marshmallows; Emily made a snowman ornament:



decorated a cookie:



and saw Santa, who gave her a little teddy bear. She helped me make stockings using designs from Aranzi Aronzo's Cute Book:



and we went to Mitsuwa to get our pre-ordered Christmas cake:



on the way home, we happened upon the Ridgefield Fire Dept getting ready for their Santa run! Santa came over and talked to Emily and gave her a candy cane. She was totally beside herself.



And while her dad was the Swag Lord of Xmas, she and I did pretty well too. We then made it through her birthday (yesterday) and are looking forward to another night out with friends tonight!

Hope your holiday season was/is as merry as ours!

happy holidays!!