Minnie Mouse Gift Set

A few weeks ago, I posted the Minnie Mouse shirt that I made for Gretchen. After completing the shirt, my mind continued to turn with more ideas to complete the look. If you want to see my original post, go here.

Gretchen is in love with Minnie Mouse, and I was a mother that swore my child would not wear character clothing, but she looks adorable in this shirt, and we've gotten several compliments when she wears the set.

The set features an applique Minnie Mouse with a pink and white fabric hairbow. The shirt comes with a detachable boutique bow for Minnie Mouse. The shirt can be worn with or without Minnie's bow and is easily attached and removed for washing. The set, also comes with a matching hair bow for your daughter, that features a Minnie Mouse ribbon sculpture on the side. I'm retailing this set for only $20.00! However, feel free to choose the shirt alone, shirt with Minnie's bow, or shirt and hair bow.

Above is a close up of the Minnie sculptured ribbon. If your daughter will not tolerate hair bows, the set can also be made with a pigtail set of sculptured Minnie clippies that will look like the one above, placed onto a lined alligator clip. You can receive 2 of these with the $20.00 set shown above.

I also wanted to picture the Mickey shirt that will match. I had a customer purchase both shirts for her twins. The Mickey shirt retails for $12.00. If your daughter likes Mickey more than Minnie, I can make the sculptured ribbon set above in a Mickey style- or you may choose to have 1 Mickey clippie and 1 Minnie clippie.

I can also make each of these designs in other fabric choices.

I love the way Minnie turned out, and I was so excited to complete an entire collection with the shirt and accessories. Most importantly, my little honey pie has approved it!

Shutter Love Tuesday: Summer Fun

I haven't participated in Shutter Love Tuesday (from Trendy Treehouse) in a few weeks, but when I went to check my facebook and saw the update that the theme was up, I decided to add a photo from this weekend.

Gretchen doesn't get to enjoy popsicles too often, but I love that she's going to take a huge bite of this!

Little Honey's!

I love getting pictures from happy customers, and wanted to share just a few of the work GG and I have done over the last few weeks. Miss Miriam is wearing her fast-ordered whie lace pillowcase dress that features soft pink ribbon and monogramming. Her mom contacted me on a weekend, and needed the dress by that Wednesday- thankfully GG was able to pull it off and Miriam looked adorable for her aunt's wedding!

Precious Brinkley! The bow was actually a gift for Brinkley- I went to school and church with Brinkley's mom and uncles- and GG and I put together a lot of our handmade items for her. Brinkley is just beautiful!

Addison is just as precious, and is wearing a complete ensemble from HPA! A friend of mine ordered the tutu, bling onesie, headband, and flower clip as a baby shower gift, and I was so happy when she sent me a picture!

If it weren't for these adorable babies and their happy momma's, my love of crafting bows and other pieces wouldn't be possible. I feel blessed every day when I get an email for an order. This month has been super busy with customers, which has led up to my much needed vacation! I'll be taking the month of July off to spend time with family, and I'll be back in August with very exciting new outfits and pieces!

(I'll try to blog a bit while I'm away though!)

Western & Girly Green Wipe Case

I've been wanting to make a wipe case like this for a while now, so when a customer wanted a "western" themed wipe case for her nephew, I was so excited! The wipe case features a bandana type material and a rope trim!

She also ordered this wipe case for a friend. The fabric is mint green with pinks, purples, oranges, and greens, and features a purple trim!

Zoo Trip

Last Friday, I took Gretchen to the zoo to meet with my friend Christi, and her son, Drew. We've made this an annual trip for the last 3 years and always have so much fun catching up with each other! It's also been fun to look back at how much they've changed since our first trip in 2008. Gretchen and Drew shared the wagon. They did very well, unless Gretchen decided to not keep her hands to herself! Then, they would walk or take turns.

Gretchen is 9 hands high! We tried to get Drew to stand with her, but she was too touchy for him!

We took their picture last year by the elephants. This year, Gretchen screamed because of these huge things behind her. Drew didn't seem to mind though.

This was the first year that we took their swimsuits and let them play in the sprinkler/water area at the zoo. Gretchen loved running through it, and crashed into other kids a few times.

Drew enjoyed watching the water disappear and squirt up again. I love this picture of him!

Drew was so calm and quiet, and Gretchen just ran and screamed!

We had such a great trip with them, and we're looking forward to a trip in the fall with them, and another annual trip next spring to the zoo!

Teaching Tots- A is for Apple

I wanted to do this activity with Gretchen several weeks ago, but I didn't have any paint lying around the house for her to use! I finally purchased one tube of it at the grocery store, so we could complete this activity.

On our first Teaching Tots day at home, we colored the letter A and pictures of apples, and we had applesauce for lunch. Today, we expanded on this activity by painting with apples.

I cut an apple in half, and we talked about how apple starts with the letter 'a', and we talked about the peel of an apple, the inside, and the seeds, and how apples grow on trees.

Next, I gave her a plate of paint, and a 1/2 apple, along with a few slices of apples. She insisted on using the paintbrush, although, I showed her that she could simply dip the apple into the paint.

I think she had more fun putting the paint on the apple, rather than putting the painted apple on the paper!

She did get the hang of it though, and made a few apple impressions.

And, then decided that it would be much easier to just paint the paper with the paintbrush!

I haven't been brave enough to let my 2 year old paint, but she really enjoyed this activity, and stayed clean enough, that I didn't have a heart attack!

"Walk a Little Slower Daddy": A Father's Day Tutorial

Last week, Gretchen and I made DJ a special Father's day gift. But, because he reads my blog, I couldn't post it until now. So, I realize, that it's way too late for you to do this yourself, but it would also be a great gift for a dad's birthday, or even for Christmas.

Supplies: a small canvas, paint, paintbrush, sharpie, newspaper, wet wash cloth, and the poem found here on dltk-kids. I set out all of the supplies before bringing Gretchen outside, and I also put her in an old t-shirt and left her pants off since we were painting her feet. I layed out several layers of newspaper, so we wouldn't get paint on the porch. I sat out the canvas, paint brush, and a paper plate for the paint. I used washable crayola paint, that cost around $2.00

Then, I painted each foot, one at a time, and pressed it onto the canvas; one foot on each side.

I picked her up and took her to the water spicket outside with a wet wash cloth to wash off her feet, and we set her painting in the sun to dry.

Once, the feet were dry, I wrote the poem on the canvas with a sharpie marker.

I won't show you my husband's reaction to this present, because we brought his presents in the bed and woke him up! But, I assure you, he liked it, and will be taking it to his office to display.

Gretchen's Swim Lessons

Gretchen has been taking swim lessons for the last two weeks at our Y. We took the class last year, and I wanted to try it again with her since she is older AND because we will be headed to the lake and spending a lot of time at the pool next month. At the start of the class, the kids get to pick a toy. They have to throw it (well, I throw it for her) and then she "swims" after it.

She gets to practice jumping off the wall, by pretending she's Humpty Dumpty.

Then, she gets to climb out and jump again!

Sometimes, she does really good at paddling her arms and kicking her feet.

She gets to blow bubbles in the water.

We still need to work on floating!

Her friend Lily is taking the class with us. We spend our "free time" and some additional time letting the girls chit chat!

We've also started to dunk her under water! Thankfully, she doesn't freak about this too much!

Her daddy and I both LOVE the water, so this child doesn't have much of a choice! I think the swim lessons are helping to ease any fears that she might have. And, after every class, she says, "I want to try again!"

Teaching Tots- Sparkling Letters

Earlier this week, I posted that we made a sparkling fish using sequins, and suggested that you could read the book Rainbow Fish, for a literacy activity.

We also used those same sequins to finish our letter K and letter Q pictures.

I found this king picture on coloring-ws. We used the sequins to give him jewels on his crown.

And, what's a king without his queen? We glued sequins on her earings.

And, on her necklace. We also glued jewels on her crown.

Gretchen is loving the more hands-on rather than the coloring, but she will color a little bit. I place dots of glue onto her paper, because I'm not brave enough to give my 2 year old a bottle of glue and let her have at it!

We did these 3 activities (fish, king, and crown) while I was making dinner one evening. This kept her busy and I was able to finish an entire meal!

Teaching Tots-F is for Fish

Last night Gretchen worked on her letter F picture of a fish. We picked up some sequins earlier that day for her to glue on to the fish, as it's scales. I dumped the sequins into a plastic bucket, and added glue dots for her all over the fish.

She had a great time naming all of the colors of the sequins.

And, she has a sparkling fish!

If you want to expand on this activity, read the book, Rainbow Fish, or any other fishy tales.

We also cooked fish for dinner, and discussed where fish lived.