Repurposed Wedding Gown Redux (sort of)

Today, while cleaning up my girls' dress up box, I came across the dress S wore when she was a flower girl in her Aunt and Uncle's wedding. . . two years ago.

GAH! What a gorgeous kid! And yes, at not-quite-three, she walked down the aisle - and led the flower girl/ring bearer brigade - they opted for single file. I'm so proud.

Anyway, after the wedding, we decided to dye her dress pink for her Halloween costume. The jury's still out, but I think she was a Butterfly Princess (and her sister was a pumpkin - it was H's first Halloween).

Pardon me for a moment. . . I can't get over how young they were, and how long ago this was already! ::sniffle, nose blow:: OK, continuing on. 

Since Halloween 2013, the dress has been worn a handful of times during dress up, but was getting ratty and small (and less pink because it's been washed several times). Today, I told S that we needed to get rid of it, because it didn't fit either girl anymore.* She had a really tough time with that, so we decided to look around on Pinterest for ideas on how to upcycle it instead. I didn't find anything that really worked, until I searched "re-purposing bridesmaids dresses" - the flower girl dress/butterfly gown was about to become a throw pillow!

The process was pretty simple, though it did take me 2 hours to complete. I had some trouble with the flower - I apparently wasn't paying enough attention and had to restart a few times. You basically cut a strip of material (the tulle of the dress in this case), and start at the middle of the flower, gathering a little more before each stitch. 

Once the flower was done, I sewed it onto the pillow-to-be (a satin under-layer of the dress). You probably don't need to use an embroidery hoop for this step, but I found that it made it easier to work with, and eliminated the chance of sewing all the fabric together. I also added the silver ribbon from the dress after making a knot (Cause it was a wedding event - tying the knot? Eh? Eh?). To attach it, I stitched around the outer circle and then straight across. Hopefully, it'll hold (it is going to a 5 year old, after all. . . )

Next is the 8th grade Home Economics standard operating procedure for pillows: turn it inside out, pin all of it but a small gap, and sew around. Flip it right side out, stuff it, and stitch that small hole closed. Boom, pillow. 

I used the remains of her dress to stuff the pillow because I never actually have stuffing. I also thought it would be nice to use the entirety of her dress for this project. I still needed more stuffing though, so I pulled out some pieces of my wedding gown to finish it off (Sound familiar? Remember this post?).

And there you have it - a flower girl/butterfly princess pillow. S loves it! It was prettier as a dress, but I'm really trying to limit the stuff we keep for sentimental reasons. At least this is decorative and serves a purpose (I'm reaching, huh?).

*Normally, I don't tell my kids when outgrown stuff is leaving, because they act like I'm getting rid of an appendage, but since I knew she'd miss this one, I thought the conversation was worth having.

Christmas Crafts

Long time, no see, right? Yeah, about that. . . turns out I'm better at doing projects and taking pictures of the end result. I get busy with 10,000 other things and forget all about doing a tutorial. The good thing is that my projects are usually pretty self-explanatory, so a picture should do it today.

Anyway, we got back from our Thanksgiving festivities and pulled out all the Christmas decorations yesterday. Does anyone else out there wait until the turkey's at least cold before doing this, or am I the last one? Anyway, as a result, the girls have been playing with all the Christmas toys, which puts me in a very happy, cozy mood (hot cocoa, anyone?). We won't have a tree until Friday when we go out to cut one, and hubby hasn't had a chance to fall off the roof put up the lights, but everything else is just about ready. I've got two new ideas to throw into the decorating mix this year, which excites me a lot.

The first is a candy cane wreath that my Dad and glued a few days ago (side note: don't make this while visiting anywhere - the transport home is fraught with fear of broken candy canes). H got to some of it before it was hanging, so we had to fix it a bit, but the door is officially festive!

Second is something I've seen kicking around Pinterest a lot, and I finally got a chance to try it out. In theory, it will keep the 2 1/2 year old (and let's be honest, the 5 year old) out of the *real* ornaments since they'll have a felt tree, but in reality, I'm sure it's just one more thing for them to spread around the room (since I moved out of my parents' house, I've never had full control over the position of the ornaments - the first Christmas with my husband involved a kitten that actually stole and hid all of the candy canes, and it got crazier from there. My need for organization, luckily, doesn't extend to indoor evergreens.)

The girls are currently attempting to cut more ornaments with their kid scissors, so I suspect I'll be helping them in a minute (it was hard enough to do with fabric scissors - I guess I need to oil them or something). H has already repositioned all of them, and they requested squiggly lines and snowflakes; so much for the circles and triangles!

Enjoy!

Gee, how do you really feel?

I recently shared this video (courtesy of  The Motherish) on my personal facebook page. In it, a mother finds her kids liberally covering themselves with peanut butter while sitting on top of the dining room table. The kids thought their self-led art project was absolutely hilarious (and, I'm willing to bet, so did most adults who watched the video).

While I have not had the (mis)fortune of having to bathe peanut butter kids, and have taken to heart the unwritten message of the video - make sure your pantry is sufficiently toddler proofed - the best part of the video is the mom's reaction.

She probably snuck away from her floor-based-and-food-free kids long enough to use the bathroom and switch the laundry, thinking nothing could possibly happen (a fatalistic attitude as well known as the outcome of the horror movie character going into a dark house alone). Maybe she brought her phone with her into the bathroom for a little facebook break (oh come on. We ALL do it!) and those quick 5 minutes became 10. Maybe she had to make a phone call. Whatever it was, she returned to a disaster.

But. . . she didn't yell. She didn't scream or swear. She didn't, in any way, show anger at her young children's natural curiosity and unbridled enthusiasm for peanut butter paint. She laughed. She turned on her phone's video camera app and filmed the mess, but she laughed. Let that be the lesson. We don't need to get mad at our kids' natural tendencies for mess because it's self discovery. It's also a LOT of fun.

I may have mislead you in the second paragraph, by the way. Sure, I have not cleaned peanut butter out of my kids' belly buttons (though my oldest once left the bathroom announcing there was a Cheerio in her butt), but my youngest has a tendency to get into diaper cream and petroleum jelly when no one is looking. The first thing she does? Shampoos.

I'm still working on getting this out of her hair.

It's a total mess every time she does it. We have to wash her, the clothing, the sheets, the other stuff in the diaper bag that she inevitably got into, and usually at least one wall. I'm sure one of these times, we'll have to wash a cat, too. And it's not even that I'm not paying attention. I mean, I'm not, for those few short minutes, but no one can keep their eyes on a toddler at all times and remain sane. In this particular incident, I was reading something with S when H got bored and wandered off. These things happen. I can't always control her need to destroy things with creams.

What I can control, however, is my attitude toward her need to explore this particular instinct. I could get mad about it. I could rant and rave and cry and throw things. But you know what? That cream-coated little vixen (and I say that with love) is going to mimic my behavior the next time she gets mad. 

I could also, after (or during) a particularly hard day, post a status update somewhere about how I'm so mad at my kids and that they are the absolutely worst in the history of ever, which is insane because they clearly did not get that behavior from me (when, actually, they did - how did I respond when they did something like cover themselves in peanut butter?) 

Let me clarify: I think there is a difference between the "is there a full moon" or "did my kid's ears fall off" post and the "I'm so tired of this crap/all she does is whine and cry and scream" post. The former suggests that you see the humor in the situation because you're the adult. The latter suggests that you forgot that your child is not also an adult.

Kids are, well, kids. They have kid sized brains and only know what they have learned in the number of years that they have been alive. They are not adults. They don't know and understand everything we know and understand because they have not been taught these things. They have what an adult would consider poor impulse control and an inability to harness big feelings like anger or sadness. The kicking and screaming? Not only did they learn that a huge outburst is acceptable and expected, but they also have not learned any other way to release that emotion. My almost five year old used to scream at the top of her lungs and throw things every time she didn't get her way. Now, she often runs to her room and slams the door. It's not fun to listen to, but she has extremely strong feelings about her sister taking her toys or not playing games the way she want them played. She needs to release that. We can't expect her to hold that in, nor should we want her to.

Regardless how you teach your kids to handle their emotions, and regardless how you handle your own (unless you hit them. . . ), please reconsider how you decide to make that public. Because eventually, they're going to find out what you wrote, and ultimately, how you felt about them. If you want them to know that you called them little assholes, fine. But I know I would never want my girls to feel that way, because that is not at all what I think. I can still look in their wide, expressive eyes and see the babies they once were (and always will be, to me). I know, in the times when I want to check out of this motherhood thing because it's so hard to be responsible for such important people, that it's not their fault. They want love and attention. They don't care that you want to go work out, or need to pay bills, or have 16 loads of laundry and dishes to wash. They just need to know that you will be there for them, that you will love them unconditionally while they learn everything they can in this big, wide, and, sometimes, scary world.

And frankly, there are enough people who are going to cut down your kids. You shouldn't be the first. 

I Do. . .want to repurpose that gown!

Hubby and I have been married for 8 years. Eight long, short, great, stressful, happy, crazy, exciting years. We had a lovely wedding with all of our friends and family, and have very happy memories from it. We enjoyed planning most of the details for the big day (somehow, I lost my mind about the flower thing because it got overwhelming by that point, but they were beautiful! If your trust your vendors, tell them what you like and just let them be creative; that's my advice).

Of course, there was the dress. I knew when I saw it in the magazine (probably The Knot) that I loved it. It was different from every other picture I'd seen without being ridiculously expensive (whatever, ALL wedding gowns are expensive I suppose, but this was on the lower end of the inflated spectrum). Mom and I drove to David's Bridal and I tried it on - it was the one. That was good and bad, because it meant I tried 3 dresses on total which is no fun at all, but it took the stress out!

Anyway, here it is:

Maybe most people don't appreciate the uniqueness of this dress; it's been a few years and I'm not sure what wedding gowns look like these days. But I loved the gathers in the front and the corset back. All of the corset backed gowns were strapless, and I was concerned about having to adjust it all day (though, as it was, the straps were still a hair too long, but I didn't care).

And since we're sharing, here's the crinoline I DYED for underneath (ignoring, of course, my very ridiculous face):

Summary of above: we had a fantastic time and I loved my dress. BUT what to do with it afterwards? I had it cleaned (there was an incident with the chocolate fondue fountain), and I knew the bustle broke (hubby may have stepped on it during a dance). We had the dry cleaner preserve it by putting it in one of those allegedly airtight boxes.

And then we moved a bunch of times. It sat in my parents' closet for a few years, and eventually I took it to live in one of our closets. I couldn't open the box - what if that ruined the preservation process? Then we had babies and I could no longer fit into the dress if I wanted to. I tried to sell it, but that's difficult to do - you have to find a buyer close to that size who likes that style and doesn't mind secondhand wedding gowns! I didn't want to give it away either; it's value wasn't much, but it was still something.

So there it sat.

Then, a few months ago, after losing a considerable amount of weight, I looked at the box again. I took it out of the box, tried it on, and it fit! Not that I was ever going to wear it, but I was getting some ideas, and I needed to see it on one more time. That was fun, too, because my older daughter saw me, ran over to her room, and came back with her flower girl dress. Cue the "Awwwws."

Having gotten that out of my system, it was time. Time to repurpose the dress. Time to make it into something I could really cherish, instead of letting it sit in a box in the corner of a closet, forgotten and gathering dust. I admit, the first cut with the scissors was nerve-wracking.

Here's what I made:

Curtains for our bedroom:

Complete with our date embroidered on the side!

A pillow made from the bodice of the dress (and stuffed with some of the fun blue crinoline):

Tooth fairy pillows for the girls, complete with their initials:

A tutu (I dyed the tulle from the dress (not the crinoline) and bought a cheap leotard at Walmart):

I still have a significant portion of tulle AND train left, but I'm sapped for ideas at the moment. Thoughts?

If you have the guts to cut your dress, what would you make with it?

DIY Dresser Makeover

I suspect there is going to be a theme over the next several months. You see, we're expecting to close on a house in a few weeks (!!), and while it's not exactly a fixer-upper, it's not quite move in condition, either (as in, we have been told not to take any showers until we repair the bathroom). Since I'm cheap and we both love a challenge, we're doing a lot of the renovation and repair and repainting and ripping up carpet ourselves (we stop at replacing the electrical service cable - that will be left to the professionals). Anyway, since I have nothing but time on my hands and steady access to Pinterest, I got in the mood to revamp my daughter's dresser.

It was falling apart. The back was coming off, the fronts of the drawers were separating, and the knobs would not stay on. It's been moved to four addresses since I've owned it, and you can tell. Why keep it? Well, because new dressers made of actual wood (and not weird synthetic pressboard and toxic wood glue that may off-gas for eons - yes, I've been reading my books again) are an expense I don't want to have, especially since we're looking to replace/fix all of our dressers soon.

Plus, this dresser was my grandmother's, and I want to keep that memory alive. That is most of why I did this. However, that's not a good enough reason to keep it brown and broken, right?

I suppose we should have a before picture. I'm notoriously bad at remembering to take "before" pictures (it's a good thing I saved all the pictures of the house listing, so I at least have those when we change everything), but I knew I had this one:

I LOVE this picture, because it's from the day my husband and I brought our first cat home. Dante was a 5ish week old stray found outside the library building my husband was touring (he had just started in the Free Library of Philadelphia system, and was visiting some nearby branches to meet some people). Dante was young enough to still have blue eyes, and thought he was tough as nails (at least, until we adopted cat #2) - he's meowing in the picture.

Anyway, the dresser - it's stained brown. Here, it's still in good shape, but this picture is almost 8 years old! I took out the drawers, replaced the particleboard/pressboard/plywood/whatever it is (you know the stuff - when you buy Ikea furniture, it's the stuff you have to nail to the back), used a TON of wood glue to fix the fronts of the drawers, and then sanded it.

By the way: old, torn crib sheets are not good drop cloths. Use something with a plastic backing on it (or don't drip any paint). My next project is figuring out how to clean the wood floor.

Primer stage. I could have sanded the drawers (or used the spray paint remover stuff , but I ran out) and it would have made the painting stage go better. Also, that brown dresser in the background is definitely on my re-vamping list. I just don't have a vision for it yet.

Here was my biggest mistake. I figured I could sand it lightly and then go right into the painting. NOPE. Do yourselves a favor and take the time to use primer. This cost me a second trip to the Home Depot AND weird spray paint remover. I definitely had a headache during this process, because the fumes are nasty. Yes, I had a window open and a box fan blowing the nasty fumes out (I could have done this outside, but I didn't want to try to move the dresser downstairs and then back up. I don't perform miracles, after all). I also waited until the kids could watch a big chunk of TV downstairs so they wouldn't be anywhere near the project during the smelly parts, because hello, VOCs!

During the painting process, I was hit with some major inspiration. Originally, S wanted the whole thing pink (I'll give you a guess about what color we're painting her bedroom in the new house). I had some acrylic paint left over from an art project, and thought I could do accent colors on the front of the dresser. Then it hit me - SHARPIE! It would be permanent like paint, but with the fine tip and not needing drying time, it would be easier and more accurate. I'm REALLY happy with how that part worked, and I would definitely recommend it on a similar project. 

We just needed to add the pink "crystal" drawer pulls, and we were done. Of course, that lead to one of those ditzy moments in the hardware store. I couldn't use the screws from the original knobs on the new ones because they were too thick. The screws that came with the knobs were too thin for the preexisting holes (remember: YEARS of use). I didn't want to mess with wood filler and then redrilling, so I went to The Home Depot and asked if there were screws with larger heads. The guy suggested that I use washers in conjunction with the smaller screws. FINALLY I understand the point of washers. Look, when all your construction experience involved boxed furniture with prefabricated holes and the appropriate hardware for those specific holes, you don't ever have to trouble shoot like that. Well, now I have about 90 washers for next time I have this problem. 

Ready for the after picture of the most delightfully girly dresser in the history of ever? Here it is!

I am so happy with how this turned out, and I know S is thrilled, too! Having done this project makes me much more thoughtful about looking at our older furniture. I have a footstool that I got from Freecycle that I have already sanded and painted white. I need to pick some material to upholster the top, and that will be ready for the new house, too.

I know there will be more DIY projects coming up - wait until you see what I did with my wedding gown!



Note: Yes, I know I replaced a component that I already scoffed at above, but I figured replacing the backing, even though there may be weird toxic glue involved, would be better than an entire new dresser. Of course, painting the whole thing and using the paint remover spray completely negates the eco-friendly part of this project, but there has to be some redeeming part to it, right? At least it was cheaper than replacing the dresser - considering that I had to buy the paint twice and get paint remover, I'd still guess this came in under $30 total.

Parenting with Reason

All we can do is steer our children to the path, and explain as much as we can along the way.

Hum. . . it's been far too long. I bet you thought I went away for good, huh? Sorry to disappoint, but I just had the worst case of writer's block, and then I got busy, and then the kids needed breakfast, and then. . . oh who am I kidding. I'm just a crappy blogger!

Anyway, I do have something to say today, so let's just live in the moment (or, as S told me yesterday, "Life is Life." Seriously, where did she come up with that?!)

So, I try really hard not to yell at my kids. I try to be patient while they learn and grow and discover things at what sometimes seems like turtle-like speeds. It's hard, because all I want is for them to clean up the toys or put their shoes on or go potty before we head outside, and it Takes. So. Long. for any of that to every happen. Most days, it's fine. Most days, I give the 10 minute heads up that we're about to do something different, or at least give them a run-down of the things we want to accomplish for the day. Most days, I remember that yelling doesn't help at all. Ever.

Then there are the other days. The days where someone got up too early, or I have 10,000 loads of laundry to finish, or there is shredded cheese EVERYWHERE and I need to clean before the ants find it, or I have assigned myself 16 different projects that I have never attempted before, or there's some document that the mortgage company needs before they approve the application, or there are just a bunch of interesting things to read on the internet and I'm feeling particularly lazy. Those are the days when the fighting and nagging and crying and potty accidents seem to happen. Eventually, I totally lose my shit and start screeching at the girls (never a screamer - I think I'm more of a screecher). It's bad. They both startle and start crying, and S, my teenager in disguise, screams at me and stomps off, slamming doors (and, if she doesn't get a reaction from it, slams the door at least two more times). I'm even starting to notice H stomping off and slamming doors, so I know the teenage years are going to be interesting.

Of course, as soon as all of this is over, but before we've all made up, it's so silent you can hear a pin drop. It's the perfect backdrop to mull over my remorse at losing my cool yet again. It's the opportunity to feel the mommy guilt rise up and wash over me; the realization that I have once again not been the bigger person and gently guided my beloved children through a difficult transition.

More so, it's the realization that, yet again, I got so preoccupied with my "to do" list that means nothing to anyone else in the house that I forgot to mother my precious children. The fighting and nagging and crying and potty accidents? They are because I have left them to their own devices for too long. They just want to be loved and comforted, and the "just one more minute, and then I'll play" has happened too many times that day.

* * *

About a week ago, we invited some friends over for dinner, and they have a little girl S's age. We opted to grill kebobs, and it seemed like a good idea to let the kids prepare their skewers (which, lasted for about 4 pieces of food before they got bored with it, but that's not a surprise). To an adult, it goes without saying that you put the food on the skewer, grill it, bring it back inside, take it off the skewer, and then eat. No one thought to explain all of the steps to the kids, so there was a lot of confusion about why the food was cold, and then why it was hot, and WHERE WAS THE STICK!? We forget that kids don't have the knowledge base to understand the whys for our behavior or our rules (and let's face it, "because I said so" is a sucky thing to say, even though I admit to having used it more than once).

I know someone else that has been rather vocal about her daughter's behavior. Based on what she says, it would seem that the girl is unable to meet her mother's expectations, ever. She's probably a little older than S, and is constantly getting into trouble for something or another, usually "outrightly defying" her parents. That just makes me sad.

Without going too far into the details of this particular relationship, out of respect for their privacy and my not knowing ALL of the details, I do feel like we place too many expectations on our kids when those kids don't understand the reason for the expectations. "Go play by yourself; I'm busy right now" doesn't make sense to the kid who doesn't understand what needs to be emailed to someone today. "Please clean up your toys" makes a lot of sense to an adult, but to a kid, it means they can't readily access what they want at any given time. "Don't touch the cat food" is boring and no one wants to do that, especially if it means the cat isn't going to give you the time of day. There's a reason that kids ask "why" questions all the time. It is really in their best interests to explain the reason for the rule!

"Stop touching the flowers" is hard for a kid; they want to touch what's pretty! "If you pick the flowers, they will die" made a huge difference with my older daughter, and now she respects plants much more.

I'm not advocating permissive parenting; rather I think it's important to have boundaries that your kids will respect, and I think it's important that they hear the word "no" once in a while (however, if all they hear is "no," I think they will become defiant teenagers because they've been taught that everything they do is wrong anyway).

I do, however, advocate a relationship where your kid feels like a full member of the family and they, in turn, understand why the rules are what they are. It's very similar to my experience with high school math, where I found I could more easily do assignments if I understood WHY I needed to carry the one or find sine (Ok, I still don't know anything about sine). I refuse to believe that a preschooler is maliciously defiant; I think it's more that she doesn't understand the reason for the rule. That's not an issue of respect, it's a part of growing up and understanding their world.

And you know what the simple truth is? You decided to bring that child into the world. It is now your responsibility to be their first teacher. To that child, nothing else on your to do list matters but them. Sure, the rest of the list is important, too, but your child should not constantly be on the back burner. Take the time to explain things. Play with them. Be patient while they figure out the in-between steps you don't always think to explain. Sure, some days you get to do your other stuff first, but explain that you need time, and take story breaks.

After all, they're going to grow up modeling your behavior. Make sure you are who you want them to be.

Spring Cleaning: Get Rid of that Unwanted Wall Art!

Friends, I have something really exciting (to me) to share with you. It's a discovery I made yesterday, and I want to shout it from the rooftops! I FOUND A WAY TO GET CRAYON OFF OF WALLS!

This is all borne out of my need to start Spring Cleaning, despite the 6 inches of snow unleashed upon us a week ago. I'm not one to miss an opportunity for warmer weather - the heat is off and I have a window cracked to let in the fresh air (it won't last long, I'll be cold soon enough, and the house will be closed up again).

Well, Spring Cleaning and the fact that H's birthday party is coming up, and we should make the house guest-ready. One component of that is figuring out how to deal with the little Picasso-esque works of art. All. Over. My. Walls. Seriously, almost every room of the house has been crayon, marker, or pen tagged by my soon-to-be 2 year old. I should own stock in Magic Erasers!

Yesterday, after burning through my last Magic Eraser, the entirety of which I used on one picture, I realized there HAD to be another way. I mean, let's be honest, does anyone really understand what sorcery is involved with those things? (Yes, I realize they are technically a sponge, but why does it drip down the walls in the exact color of my paint? And why is the wall always a little discolored where the eraser was? What exactly is happening here?!) I Googled a little bit, and came up with something way cheaper, definitely eco-friendly, and just as effective. It requires a little extra work at the end, but I have been pleasantly surprised with the results. Ready? Here's our before artwork, with lots of different elements:

Get a rag wet, dip it in baking soda, and rub those walls.* The wetter the rag (not sopping, but gently wrung) and the more baking soda, the less you have to scrub! It's been amazing thus far, and is working on both new and old art.

A quarter of the way gone:

I say it takes a little more work at the end, because it does leave a baking soda residue on the wall and the floor underneath, so you probably want to get a clean wet rag and wipe everything when you're done. I'd also recommend not attempting your entire house all in one shot, though it is very satisfying to see clean walls.

Clean, white wall (with my shadow)!

Once I do have clean walls again, I'm going to (hopefully) be more aware of the location of all writing implements, as well as just hope that H is almost out of this phase. Here's another reason to not base expectations of the second kid on the actions of the first: S never really did this, so I never expected this (of course, H does it now to get a reaction from us, I'm sure).

 * As with any cleaning product or method, you'd be well advised to test this on a small, unnoticeable spot first, just in case you remove paint or stain your walls further. I skipped this step because our walls were a horrific mess, and, as it's a rental, they will need to be repainted upon our move-out anyway.

Have you tried this? What did you get off the walls?