Halloween sunset

It couldn't have been a nicer evening for trick-or-treating here in Minnesota... no wind, clear sky, and relatively warm (50-ish). The sunset was quite stunning and unique!

(Click either photo to enlarge.)

Our favorite (well, actually our ONLY... but would still be our favorite even if we had dozens) little trick-or-treater was here, of course. I'll show you photos from her visit tomorrow!

Vintage doll clothes, part 4

My little assistant insisted on assisting (say that 3 times fast!) by putting the baby in the photo tent each time. She didn't appreciate getting her photo taken in the process, though. ;)

This is a little sunsuit or romper or whatever you want to call it (Courtney calls it a swimsuit). It seems to have very stretched-out-over-the-years elastic in the legs. It's made from scraps of fabric I'd used to make a shirt for Grandpa. There will be no modeling by him, although I could probably dig up a photo of him wearing it way back then, along with a pair of double knit pants and sport coat I'd also made. But I won't, even though he was pretty good-looking with his dark hair and sideburns. ;)

Did you notice how tan that baby was? Gotta be a sunsuit! Ha! (Or poor photo editing.)

Below we have blue jeans and a sleeveless shirt. I'd made myself a pair of jeans and shirt from those fabrics.

And here's another little dress. I don't remember that fabric, and maybe I didn't even make the dress. I'm just not sure. Jess's grandma had borrowed the pattern for a while and made a few things, so this might be one of them. Or maybe she gave me the fabric. Jess, do you remember?

I did make the bloomers, though. They go with the red dress. And the baby is crawling here to show them off. Or maybe she was tired of getting her picture taken.

Sorry, Baby Beth... we're not quite done yet, are we? One more doll clothes post coming up. Gosh, I wonder how many hours I spent making them! And how did I find the time to do it? Oh, yeah... there was no internet in those days. ;)

Today... this very moment... 5:00 p.m.

Courtney is here today, as I type, instead of tomorrow (she goes to get her flu mist tomorrow after school). She's fascinated, and very busy, with a new app I got for my iPad. It's called "Toca Tailor", and is one of a number of apps (almost all of which I have) from Toca Boca.

"Toca Tailor" is a fashion design app. There are 4 characters that you can dress up in unlimited styles of clothes, which you design yourself, plus there are some accessories you can add. Courtney is LOVING it! 

Here are a couple of samples of what she's done so far. The first one is a boy who looks like he's currently wearing his pajamas.

Then she added a winter hat... and a flower. :)

She prefers dressing girls, though. She really dressed this one up!

I was trying to get a better picture by not using the flash, below:

Courtney looks better, but the iPad... not so great. It's just not light enough down here in the basement.

Anyway, she's having a blast! And I highly recommend the Toca apps if you have an iPad or iPhone! (That is, of course, if you're willing to give it up to a child for a while! Or spend time playing with them yourself - ha!) They only cost $1.99 each, and often there are half-price sales or occasionally they'll give one away for free!

Hard water, part 2 (a.k.a. More crazy cats!)

This morning, sunshine and a bit warmer....

Even a bit of melting!

Yum! Best water EVER!

Hard water this morning!

25°F

(Not to worry... they had plenty of "soft" water to drink in the machine shed.)

And a couple hours later:

"This is just not right!!"

Rainbow looks rather unhappy, doesn't she? Another one had appeared before her, too, but left before I could get a shot. I don't know why they're so anxious to drink out of there today... I hadn't seen them there for quite a while. Must be because the sun is out for a change.

Halloween crafting with Courtney

About a week ago, Jess posted about some free printable Halloween paper dolls. They looked like something Courtney would have a lot of fun with, so we printed some of them on Tuesday. Here's how they looked:

Courtney went right to work and cut them all out. This is what she ended up with:

She decided we should make the bat first. He turned out pretty cute... for a bat!

Next we glued together the dolls. That photo bomb eye looks pretty familiar, doesn't it? I guess it's her "signature" on her craft photos.

Then the costumes were quickly put together. Here are some of them, plus the bat and a black cat. So cute!

Courtney started dressing up the dolls. This must be a princess(?).

A witch:

Even a mummy!

I guess this next one is a pumpkin... a polka-dotted pumpkin! Courtney didn't want to cut too close to the stem, for fear it would tear, so it ended up standing up straight. It's actually supposed to be curled when just the narrow stem is left, but yes, it would definitely tear off easily.

And finally....

(Those are hats, too, in case you wondered. Again, Courtney didn't want to risk tearing them, so she didn't cut too closely.)

Courtney loved all of them! Changing the costumes was lots of fun, but I think she was even more excited that they could all be stacked together, which made them very compact for storage, plus it helped to keep them from getting bent. Yay!

I was going to save this for my post on Halloween, but I thought some of you might have little ones around that would enjoy making these dolls and costumes ahead of time, too. There are also a lot of dress-up outfits that the dolls can wear. They all come from Mr. Printables, where there are all kinds of fun things to print for kids!

Vintage doll clothes, part 3

My little assistant is working hard here to get the next outfit on our baby model! Such a job to dress a squirming baby!

And here is My Baby Beth, all dressed in her vintage Christmas outfit! Do take note that the bow under the chin was tied by Courtney... all by herself!

Her outfit is made out of scraps left from Jess's Christmas outfit that year. (Too bad I didn't save that, too!) And below you can see how they looked originally. Also pictured is little brother, Nate... Courtney's daddy. Don't they look like a happy family? :)

The photo below has nothing to do with doll clothes. It does look a bit like Christmas, though. It's the view from our living room window a few minutes ago. Blech. I kept the picture small, 'cause I'm not ready for this yet. If you really want to, though, you can click on the pic to enlarge it and see the flakes coming down in all their "glory". (I'm betting Mark will do that.)

More doll clothes next week. Tomorrow will be another fun craft session with Miss C!

The costume

I came across a tutorial for a cute little nurse's outfit here. I thought it would make a good Halloween costume, and Courtney and Mommy agreed. Below are a couple of badly focused photos (because of the cloudy, dark day) of how mine turned out.

It was simple to make. I added a lining because the fabric (from an old shirt of Grandpa's) was pretty thin. I don't know why the pockets look so crooked... they're really not, as you can see in the pics of Courtney wearing it.

Here she is, with the hat I made to go with it. I used online instructions for folding it, but I won't even mention where I found them, because both sets that I came across had mistakes in them, so it took me a little trial and error to get something that really looked like a hat. It's just made out of paper, with the cross colored in marker.

It was "silly socks" day at school. Hmm... the sleeves look a bit silly, too! ;)

How 'bout a silly face to go with them?

I tightened up the chin strap elastic after taking these pics, so the hat fit down on her head better.

She went after the many cats that happened to be around, but I think they all got away. She made use of the pockets for keeping her hands warm, I guess (as if the sleeves weren't enough - ha).

She has a little doctor kit that she'll be carrying with her on Halloween, and her other grandma, who really is a nurse, is letting her carry her real stethoscope! She might wear her real hat, too, if it fits, although it doesn't have the red cross on it. I guess which hat she wears remains to be seen. It may even have to be a winter hat, from what the forecast sounds like. Brrr!

Vintage doll clothes, part 2

Every baby has to have lots of sleepwear, right?  Here's my little assistant, diligently assisting by putting on one of the sleepers.

This hooded sleeper (sleep sack?) is closed at the bottom to keep the toes secure and warm.

This next one is just a nightie with no hood or any closure at the bottom. I think it also has some very stretched-out elastic at the cuffs. ;)

Goodness, that baby has a case of bed head, doesn't she?! Courtney combed it (with a cat brush) at the beginning of the photo session, but the further we went, the messier the hair got. We didn't have time or the inclination to re'do' it with every outfit.

The last sleeper has elastic at the bottom. Still keeps the toes warm but is much handier for changing diapers.

That's it for today. More daytime clothes next time! But if I'm lucky, maybe I can squeeze that Halloween costume in first. We'll see how our photo session goes this afternoon.

Vintage doll clothes, part 1

I was going to do more than one outfit per post, but I'm running behind this morning, so I'll start off with just one this time. It's made out of double knit, scraps from an outfit I'd made for an adult. Gotta love double knit... no wrinkles even after being crammed in a duffle bag for years!

Nearly every dress has matching bloomers, too.

That's it for now. To be continued.......

P.S.  I whipped up a quick ("quick"? haha... as usual, it took longer than I expected it to) Halloween costume for Courtney over the weekend. I delivered it last night, as it was needed for Show 'n Tell at school today, but since Courtney had a wet head and was in her pj's, I took no pictures. However, she's bringing it back tomorrow for a slight adjustment, so we'll do photos then!

A portent of things to come

Courtney had yesterday (and today) off from school, so she spent the entire day with me for the for the first time since school started - hurray! We had such a busy day, and we still didn't get in everything we wanted to do. But we did work on something for you to see... the long-awaited dolly fashion show!

It was a longer process than I thought it was going to be. I'd forgotten just how many outfits I'd made for Jess's baby Beth way back when! Courtney did all the dressing herself, so that added a lot little to the time, too. Here's a video of one of her dressing efforts. Be sure to turn up your volume, because what she's telling the doll is pretty cute. And watch all the way through, because you don't want to miss the ending!

At least she let me take the outfits off, so that helped time-wise. Here's the stack of most of the outfits after we got done. 

Actually, they looked a lot like that before we started, too, since they'd been stuffed into a duffle bag. So prepare yourself for a few wrinkles in the "fashions". We'll start the parade down the runway from the photo tent next week!

A box

Last week on her blog, Jess posted about a custom box template generator. I thought it sounded like something Courtney might like to try during our "craft time" on Tuesday. (Just for the record, she would make ALL of our time be craft time if she could!)  

She thought it sounded great, so I set up the template so it would just fit on a sheet of paper. I'd gotten cardstock out but forgot to put it in the printer, so our first print was on regular paper. I printed another one on cardstock, but told her maybe she should make a practice one first on the regular paper printout.

She went right to work, and she really did some elaborate decorating. In fact, she got so busy decorating that she forgot this one was only practice, and she was kinda bummed about having to do it all over again for the "real thing". She redid it, but didn't take nearly the time she did on the first one. You know how it goes... like when you write someone a nice long email and then accidentally delete it... and the rewrite just never comes out the same.

I didn't get pics of her final box, but she left the practice one here for me to keep, so since she worked so hard on it, I thought I'd show it to you. Here's the box!

She had used some little rulers and things with templates, making all kinds of shapes which she then decorated. Below is a collage showing every side. Click on it to enlarge and see it better. I especially like the top center one where she made those shapes into faces and then added bows at the tops. The kites are cute, too, as is the little bug (butterfly?) in the bottom right.

It kept her busy for a long time!

The size of the box? Very SMALL! Look:

Today there's no school, so she'll be here all day. I hope I have enough "craft" ideas lined up to keep her occupied! Hopefully I'll remember to take photos to show you what we do.