A Jasmine Yarn Wig

Princess Fierce wanted to be Jasmine for Halloween. She made up her mind in September and never wavered. I'm fairly confident the decision was based purely on the fact she wears a two piece outfit. I lucked out and found two complete blue and pink Jasmine costume including gold shoes at a local consignment store for under $30 for everything.

She wore the pink outfit to see Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream with her cousin. An excellent show if you can still catch it in your town. For the show I tried to style her short, thin hair in the best imitation of Jasmine's hair I could manage. She loved the result. But for Halloween I'd made the offhand comment that I thought I could make her a Jasmine yarn wig. After Disney on Ice she told me she hoped I could make one but if I couldn't she'd be happy with her hair this way again. Such a sweet girl.

I searched Pinterest and Google for inspiration but came up with only one other person making a yarn Jasmine wig. And she used a completely different method than I was comfortable with. I cannot crochet yarn into a highlighting cap. Nope. So I went my own way. I started with a pair of black girls tights from the clearance rack at Target. $1.50 for her wig cap. I put the waist around her hairline then tied a tight knot with the legs. 

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April Fools' Faked Potatoes

Need a quick prank for your kids tomorrow? I whipped this one up last year after the kids went to bed thanks to Family Fun magazine. You may have all the materials already if you're crafty. All you need are nude color knee highs or old pantyhose, batting, needle and thread. If you're anti-nylons like myself you can grab a cheap pair of knee highs at the dollar store.

Here are the fast how to steps:

1. Trim the knee highs/hose to an 8" length.
2. Stuff the center of the hose to your preferred potato size.
3. Twist ends and fold underneath, stitch in place.
4. Sew eyes by coming up from the bottom of the "potato" out the top then back in beside the same spot to the bottom, pull to dimple then knot.

I placed these on a baking sheet in the oven and called the kids for baked potatoes for lunch. They giggled like mad when I pulled them out of the oven. We then cut open the tops and I added a small square of craft foam butter. Thing Two still has his potato in his room a year later.

Now I need a prank for tomorrow...

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Boys Tee to Girls Dress

My two oldest are boys, boys with shirts I love. My youngest is my only girl, a girl with a funky fashion sense. I like to get the most out of all the clothes I buy my kids and low and behold I've discovered how to make some of those boy clothes go all the way down the line to my daughter and in a way her inner fashion diva loves. All it requires is taking the best tees the boys have outgrown, finding a yard or so of coordinating fabric and adding a skirt. The boys' best tees become her spunky play dresses.

My oldest in the Dark Side of the Garden shirt two and a half years ago.

It all started with this Darth Vader topiary shirt. I found this amazing, super soft Threadless Tee several years ago at a consignment sale for $2. My oldest son loved it. Then it was passed down to my middle son. But one fateful day he decided to see if scissors would cut cotton. His query resulted in a small nick along the bottom hem. I was sad to see this shirt go before its time.  So I decided it didn't have to go yet. My daughter liked Star Wars...I could do something with this.

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Recycle Crafting: Toy Horse Bedding

Princess Fierce loves horses right now. For her recent fifth birthday she received some toy horses and was using an old shoe box as their bed. Great imagination muscle but not the most durable bed nor could all the horses lie down together in the small box. Her older brother told me I needed to buy her a toy barn. I had a better idea that would cost me no money, look pretty in her colorful room and give me more much needed practice on my sewing machine.

I bought a set of Melissa and Doug wooden food for two dollars at a yard sale a few years back and knew one day the crate it all came in could be repurposed.

I rescued it from the basement and added a fresh coat of gloss red spray paint left over from another project.

Next I sewed "straw bed" pillows. Confession time: the original plan was just one large pillow in the box. But my measurements were off and it was too small. So I cut it into smaller pillows to not make waste. The pillows are a golden leaf pattern on one side made from a fat quarter I bought out of the Michael's clearance bin for 25¢ for some future use. The back side is a soft cotton yellow from an old sheet I bought for $1 at the thrift store, expressly for fabric use. They are all just lightly stuffed with fiber fill so they can be very flat and squishy.

Princess Fierce likes to use the smaller straw pillows for feeding her horse.

Everyone checking out their new crib.

Princess Fierce is happy her horses can now rest together.

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Recycle Crafting: Amish Puzzle Ball

This project is one of those things I came upon by accident. I'm attempting to build a plush TIE fighter from felt and I needed to find a pattern to sew a ball. My Google searches unwittingly led me to a link about an Amish Puzzle Ball. I'd never heard of such a thing but thought, "I HAVE to make one of those...but stuff it with plastic grocery store bags."

For weeks after when I would see fabric remnants at thrift stores I would consider their future place in an Amish puzzle ball. Then one fateful day my neighbor gave me her stash of neglected fleece. I spotted a cute fuzzy blue fleece adorned with fire trucks, police cars, and school busses that I knew would be the perfect complement to some vintage polyester I'd snagged for $1 the week before. And the best part, the neighbor had a newborn son...with a fire station adorned bedroom. Can we say kismet?

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