Meet Betsy the Kitty

Last year, my kids and I were walking though a high-end boutique in the city with home goods and also the cutest little kids/baby section full of cute little clothes, toys, and decor. My middle kitty-loving gal found a little knit cat that was both adorable and very expensive. She begged and begged to let me let her use her hard earned money to buy it, but I just couldn't justify the price for what it was. She quietly put the kitty away and we moved on to another store. 

Fast forward several months... Her birthday was approaching and I was trying to come up with ideas of what to get her and I remembered the cat. I found a link online of where I could purchase the cat, but again- the price tag was too high for me to justify buying it for her. I was talking to my mom about it and showed her the cat and she said "That's cute, but I bet you could make one even cuter." I wasn't so sure I could pull it off, but I decided to try. (She plays the role of a mom well and always has faith in my abilities- even if I don't have faith in myself ;)

Like I said, the original cat was knit, so it was all one piece. I wanted mine to be similar but with my flair- and obviously made with fabric instead of yarn since I don't know how to knit! ;)

I used freezer paper to draft my pattern. I like using it because it's large paper on a roll, but also because once I draw a pattern on it, I can iron it to the fabric and cut the pattern out effortlessly. All in all, the pattern I drafted worked out pretty nicely- only a few moments in the construction that I was scratching my head with the design. ;)

(If I were to make the cat again, I wouldn't make her head so wide, or her neck so long. The peter pan collar was an afterthought to cover up the long necked awkwardness! Is this a giraffe or a cat?!? haha)

I used linen fabric (found at Joanns) for the body of the cat and embroidered the face with DMC floss. For the bow and collar, I used Liberty of London Betsy floral in gray. Robert Kaufmann Chambray for the dress, and some scraps for the placket and dress detail. 

I didn't calculate exactly what the project cost since I had a lot of the supplies on hand, but I can tell you it cost roughly less than 1/4 of the price of the cat in the boutique- plus it was made by momma so it's extra special. ;) 

I named her Betsy because of the Liberty of London Betsy floral  that I used to accent her outfit, but my daughter named her Buttons- which I think is very fitting as well. She's already a very loved little kitty!

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo, Ashley 

Costco Playground Makeover

After returning home from deployment, my husband was able to take a couple weeks off. It was so much fun to spend all of that time together after being apart for so long. One of the things we did during his time off, was a playground makeover.

I had seen a couple ideas on IG of playground makeovers by Kirsten Krason and Jan Scarpino that are so amazing and had me totally wanting to make a custom playground for my kiddos. I thought for sure that I would pitch the idea to my husband and he would roll his eyes and say no way, but he was the exact opposite- SUPER EXCITED about it.

We headed to Costco and picked up the Cedar Summit Lookout Lodge playground set. It wasn't everything that I wanted in a playground set, and I really hated the green canopy, but my husband thought he may be able to make it into something I would love, so we bought it. (Plus it was $999 which was considerably less than the $1400 one that I had my eye on.) 

 We got it home and started making plans. We had leftover paint from when we built our home 3 years ago in our basement so that was covered. After a stop to Lowes for some extra wood to create the pergola instead of the canopy, we were good to go. 

We started by building the main "house part" that would be gray. Next, we primed it with Kilz primer. I am not gonna lie, about midway through painting the primer by hand I was second guessing myself and our decision to paint the playhouse. Holy Moly! It was a lot of work just to build the playhouse- plus painting it all was so much work. After we primed the main part, we got wise and used a paint sprayer for the rest of the main playhouse. 

Like I said, we used our leftover  Sherwin Williams Outdoor paint that our builder used on our home. 

(Gray: SW Dovetail Gray, White: SW Snowbound, Blue Door: SW Delicate Delia, Black Roof: Tricorn Black)

After we got the main part of the playhouse painted, we figured out which pieces would be the "deck and pergola" pieces and primed and painted each piece separated in our garage since the weather turned bad. There were a handful of  random pieces that needed to be painted gray as well. Then we primed and pained the roof black, and primed and painted the door blue.  All in all, we used one coat of primer and then two coats of exterior paint on every bit of the playground. I also used black spray paint to paint the door hinges and handle.

My husband made some adjustments to the construction of the "deck and canopy" portion of the playhouse and added the pergola he designed instead. It turned out even better than I thought it would. I was a little nervous that we would get it built and it would look like the pergola didn't mesh well with the overall playground design, but I totally think it looks like it was meant to be that way all along. He did such a great job!

I opted to leave off the clock and telescope, just because I wanted a more clean, fresh look. I didn't want to put on the plastic grill/sink but my husband and kiddos made an executive decision when I was out running errands one day.... haha! After some rain storms and the sink constantly full of yucky water, I may sneak out there and remove it when they aren't looking. 

All in all, I am just so happy with how it turned out. I love that it matches our house perfectly and that it isn't an eyesore in our backyard. In my little fantasy world, I would totally string lights on it and add a wreath and flower box to the window, but for now, I'm restraining myself and realizing that after all- it is just a playground. Maybe one day though. ;)

Thanks for stopping by! Hope this little project sparks some fun ideas. It's amazing what a little elbow grease and paint can do!

Have a great day!

xoxo, Ashley

DIY Sofia the First Amulet of Avalor

I know that I post about sewing most of the time on my blog, but today I thought I would share a different sort of project that I did with my little girls last week. It was a lot of fun... They absolutely loved it!

So if you are a mom/aunt/grandma to a little girl, chances are you may have heard of a darling Disney TV show called Sofia the First. We are big fans of this show at our house. My little girls love Princess Sofia! (If you aren't into letting your kiddos watch TV, there are lots of darling Sofia the First books- like this one. I think it has the cutest combination of illustrations and fonts I have ever seen in a book. I absolutely love it!)

In the books and the show, Sofia has a magical necklace called the "Amulet of Avalor". It helps her do all sorts of things.

 My youngest daughter got a Sofia the First dress and crown for her birthday last year, but every time she pretended to be Sofia, she says "I need an amulet... I can't be magic like Sofia unless I have an amulet." So we decided it would be a fun project to make our own Amulets.

 We headed to Joann and went to the jewelry section. I got a large bag of assorted chunky plastic purple beads that looked like "jewels" according to my girls, some purple tear shaped medallions for the center of the necklace (they came in a pack of 3), and some elastic cord to string the beads so the necklace is stretchy. 

I let them string a few practice necklaces to get a feel for working with the beads and then we talked about patterns and stringing our beads in order to create the design of what we want it to look like. It was a lot of fun and was good practice- they had fun making a game of guessing "what bead comes next in the pattern?". 

After we had the beads strung on the elastic, I tied the elastic with a square knot and put a dot of super glue on the knot so it doesn't come undone and slid a bead over the knot while it was still wet. 

I am so glad that we made our own amulets instead of just going and buying one. It was such a fun and easy project for us to do together. We made an "Amulet of Avalor"  for each of my girls to keep and a couple to give to their friends. After we were all done, they had the idea to use the leftover beads to make mini necklaces for their bitty babies to wear. So fun watching them create!

Have a great week!! 

xoxo, Ashley