fabric dolls

When I found out we were headed to Spokane last February I pictured bringing three little dolls for my three youngest sisters, similar to the one I made for Madeline a couple years ago. I started right away with materials I had on hand but time got away from me and before I knew it we were gearing up for our next trip to Spokane, in JUNE. So I got a little more work done, but still wasn't finished. Two days before our month long trip was over I finished these sweet dolls and I'm so glad I got to see the way my sisters love them. They spent those two days carrying them everywhere :) 

And I know they still love them because my dad shared this picture (above) the other day. My sisters made a paper chain countdown for school and made one for their dolls too. 

The dolls were made using a pattern Ashley (from Make It & Love It) shares for free. You can see the tutorial here and the pattern pieces here. That woman is so talented!

I'm just so pleased with how they turned out :)

arm chair reveal - they're finished!!!!

^^ someday I MIGHT remember to take a decent, non-phone, before picture :) ^^

Don't you just love them!!! Ahh... I do. I know they're white, but I love white, and they're in our room so hopefully traffic will be kept to a minimum :) The wood is looking a lot more black, but they're just a dark brown. Probably could have done with one less coat of stain... Oh well. I still love them.

Eight months ago someone offered these chairs up for free. Having NO upholstery experience, but lots of desire to learn, I claimed those suckers and immediately began cleaning them.... And then ripping them apart. 

It has been a looooonnnnngggg slow process, mostly because we have no workspace, and pulling supplies and tools out and then putting them away each night doesn't leave much time for progress. Not gonna lie, Jeremy did most of the work. This definitely started out as a, "Sarah this is your project and I'm not helping." But Jeremy, wonderful husband that he is, cannot stay away from a project lol. And I love him for it. 

After a few months we both came to the conclusion that we were reading far too many online tutorials and not moving forward. We read lots of great reviews on the book Spruce, ordered it and oh man, worth every penny. Amanda Brown knows what she is talking about. If you're contemplating your first upholstery project, I'd definitely get this book.

SO there you have it. Two beautiful and comfy chairs for our bedroom. Thank you Jeremy! You're amazing. 

christmas cards

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! It was our first year sending out Christmas cards. I think having family pictures taken this year gave me the confidence I needed to go for it :) I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to stuff like this. Jeremy can tell you I designed about five different cards before coming up with this one. 

We ordered from mpix.com and while I was so very happy with the way they came out, I will admit the pearl finish probably isn't best for a card like this. It's so pretty but I felt it came off looking a little pixelated. Nothing awful though. And my other lesson learned was if you're putting a border around your own design (as opposed to a predesigned layout on a printing website) be wary that they  may be cropped a little funky and not how they looked in the preview! 

All in all though, so happy! I'm looking forward to carrying on this Christmas card tradition for many years to come :) 

a fancy birthday tea party

I never planned on having a birthday party for a three year old. I mean come on, that's pretty young. But as her birthday has been approaching, Madeline has continually talked about "her birthday party". I figured she'd be totally fine blowing out the candles with dad, mom & Luke watching, but she made it very clear she wanted her friends to come to the party. 

We sat down and I asked her what she'd like to do for her party. Without skipping a beat she responded,"A tea party".  My reaction,"A tea party?! How do you know what that is? We don't even drink tea!" But she knew what she wanted and (thanks to my Facebook friends for talking me into it )  we made it happen. I'm so glad we did, too!

The party really didn't cost much. Almost everything I already had or were leftovers from her 1st birthday & a baby shower I hosted a few months ago. I kind of struggle with stuff like this, birthday party's and halloween costumes, etc. Seems like every other week there's an article from the Huffington Post about how moms need to cool it with all that stuff. And while I agree it can get out of hand, pulling a cute birthday party together for my daughter is something that I REALLY enjoy doing. No pressure for you to do the same for your kids, but I loved making the invitations and planning out a little menu. I loved making paper crowns and helping the kids with a couple little crafts. It wasn't at all a chore and it wasn't me trying to "keep up with the joneses". 

Another factor was that Madeline eats this stuff up. She noticed when I got everything ready for the baby shower a few months back and she was SO SAD she wasn't invited. Seeing her mom make preparations just for her, putting glitter and jewels on everything, a lot of which we did together, did not go unappreciated. I highly doubt Luke will appreciate this much effort when he turns three ;) 

Our theme was kind of "things Madeline loves". Which is basically all things girl :) Fancy Nancy, glitter, tea party, frilly, dancing, pink, crowns... We just kind of threw it all together. I ordered two Fancy Nancy books that have a tea party theme. One is a story about her and her best friend Bree and the other is basically Nancy's guide to hosting a tea party. The books got here a few days before the party and we went through the books and I kind of let her decide what things she wanted to do. I didn't plan on glueing plastic gems to our ikea silverware, but that was the one thing Madeline really wanted to do. So we used a washable glue stick and they lasted just long enough ;) It was so cute to look over and see her flipping through the pages of the 'planning a tea party' book. She'd bring it to me and show me what she'd learned and we'd talk about it. I LOVE my GIRL! 

My other source of inspiration came from Jones Design Company. I seriously love everything that woman does! I pulled a few things from her daughter's past two birthdays, namely the invitations and the crowns. 

For food I just tried to make kid food a little bit fancy. Little sandwich triangles with the crust cut off, cantaloup cubes, cheese cubes on tooth picks, bananas, veggies with ranch, pink lemonade, heart shaped ice cubes and of course a pink cake with tons of sprinkles (or sparkles and Madeline prefers to call them :) ). Incase you're wondering, the cheese was the biggest hit.

The party itself was a huge success. It was a little long, three hours is a long time to entertain six three year olds. But since I was having parents drop their kids off, I figured it'd be nice for them not to have to drop them off and come right back. One couple even got a date out of the party, which I loved! 

Most importantly, the birthday girl had a great day. It was really fun for the two of us to prepare together. I'm not sure which she loved more, getting ready for the party with me or the party itself :) 

Happy Birthday sweet girl! Can't believe you're almost three! 

p.s. she's only wearing the teensiest bit of 'dark lips' (lipstick) ;)  When she saw me put some on she had to have a little, too. Thanks to her daddy for not making too big a deal out of it :)