Gearing up for Kids Clothes Week

The Elsie Marley Kids Clothes Week challenge will be here soon. I'm preparing. I bought a Japanese sewing book with amazing stuff in it. There is one shirt with a Peter Pan collar that I've got my eye on. The body of it will be the circles and the collar will be the orange polka dots.

Or maybe I'll do it in this double voile with the cranberry as a collar. At the moment, I'm in no mood for buttonholes. Plus I need to finish the Jump Rope Dress. And I need a clothes week challenge for me! Who's in?

Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress Sew-Along

I have been busy working on the Jump Rope Dress by Oliver + S. I've made the patterns before and own several but this one seemed challenging so I was afraid to get started. Due to the success of the last sew-along, Sew, Mama, Sew decided to host another one. A couple of bloggers are writing up step-by-step tutorials with photographs. It's been really helpful. It's not that I couldn't do it, but it's nice to actually SEE it in full color. This is my finished placket. It's perfect (as far as I'm concerned) and how crazy that the dots of the fabric are lined up in the center like that. I would not have been able to do that so well if I had actually tried. This will help me when I go on to make the shirtwaist dress I've been gearing up for.

This is the collar in progress. The directions in the pattern are super easy to follow. It's almost like she is teaching you to sew instead of telling you how to make a garment.

This is my machine basting of the sleeve seam. I hate basting by hand and I hate basting by machine but it really does save you time in the long run. I need to get over that.

Here is the fabric. The polka dots are Amy Butler and the rest is Lizzy House from Castle Peeps. A little bit of solid in there too.

Organized!

I finally found the perfect storage system for the office. That room does so many things, I knew I would need to tie everything together. So this is the wall I've shown before but the new cabinet is on the left. This room is my office and studio, Aaron's office, and Zadie's downstairs playroom (see our DIY play kitchen on the right).

This is the new cabinet. I needed it to be in that "maple" color to match Aaron's Jonas secretary desk and the "wood" of my Robin desk, both from Ikea. I also was hoping to find something that would double as a coffee table as this room is also our guest bedroom. The couch is a pullout (um, from Ikea via Aaron's sister and an impulse As-Is buy that obviously worked in our favor). The cabinet is not high quality but it fits and it works. I HATE the green bins and will re-cover them or put them to better use in the basement if I find something more beautiful.

Here is the top of the other wall of storage and use. The metal bins are from Lowe's and the gorgeous floral bins are Liberty of London from Target. The pink baskets are from Big Lots (you gotta check them out around Easter). The pink polka dot basket is from Michael's and I can't believe how perfect it fits.

This silver shelf is an old Ikea Billy that is still in good shape, surprisingly. I got the metal wire baskets from Target recently. The brown fabric-covered bin is a Martha Stewart box that I scored at TJ Maxx for 4 bucks (ha!). The cardboard photo boxes are from Michael's too. I still need to get another one to replace that ugly plastic bin with the blue lid but I'm not going to make a special trip out that way. I also need to buy one more binder. The cardboard recycled ones are from Office Depot and the two brown ones are from Target. I think I'm going to spruce them up with some ribbon.

I am loving my space. The photos are heavily tagged in flickr if you wanna know what goes where.

Travel tips: Marking the map

So this is an awesome tip courtesy of my mom. It's also the last of the tips for the week. Super easy but I don't know why I had never thought of it before. Just get a map of the place you're going and mark all the places you want to check out.

As you can see this is the Manhattan bus map. We put all the places from a travel book we bought (and Aveda because I needed some shampoo) so that we could see where they were in relation to each other. This map also has the Subway stops just in case. But I like to take the bus while we're in the city so that I can check out all the cool architecture from the windows. I'm also a spatial person and I get super turned around using the Subway. I'd much rather walk than go underground.

I used this trick on our more recent trip to NYC and noted all the shops I wanted to check out in the Garment District. I just printed out a map image from the Google maps search I did of the most central location and made sure it had all the other streets on it. When the day was over, I just recycled the paper.

This little tip also worked exceptionally well when we spent a day in Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. There is a lot going on in that small area but with the toddler in tow, we couldn't check out everything so I mapped it all out beforehand so we could make more informed decisions once there. For that day trip, I just used a trolley map that I found online. I actually think this is a brilliant idea and now you can see where I got my smarts from.

Travel Tips: Taking it home and making it yours

I kinda think that shopping is the best part of traveling but don't tell anyone I said that. When we go to new places, I LOVE to see what they are selling -- from the supermarket to the convenience store. And more than anything, more than anything, I love outdoor markets, artisan fairs and farmer's markets. Oh, and more than that, flea markets -- but I rarely find them when we're traveling. I think you can learn more about a place and its people by the stuff they sell. That's probably not the case with outdoor markets near cruise ship ports and stuff like that but it's still fun to check them out.

The picture above depicts a little vignette on the mantel in our shared office/studio. The painting is from St. Martin. We love artwork involving figures holding large weapons. Who doesn't? The plaster wigwam is from a little trip Mr. Lemon and I took just a couple of months after we started dating. We stayed in Number 11 of the Wigwam Motel. The mask is a vejigante piece from Puerto Rico. What makes it great is that we actually met the artist and got to talk to him at this amazing festival held yearly in Barranquitas. The cement door is not from a trip but sure looks good there. We got it at Crafty Bastards a couple of years ago.

We try not to buy a bunch of crap when we're on vacation. We try to pick out something special like local art or a traditional craft. When we come home we incorporate the stuff into our daily lives. We went a little crazy in Mexico and picked up the boxes because they were so awesome. The bottlecaps are from cool beers Mr. Lemon imbibed (his favorite travel activity is definitely beer). He had the little skeletons before we met. I made the Lovers book. It is about us. I included the doorway in the shot so that you can better see the layout of the house. That yellow paint is from the kitchen. You are looking out our office door into the living room which has the kitchen doorway off of it.

These fruits are painted coconuts that I got shortly after we bought the house. We had the retro/fruity vibe going on and I was way too excited when I found these. They are from a different trip to Mexico for work.

These amazing puppets are from someone else's trip but they rock. This is the mantel from our living room. It is identical to the one in the office. You can see from this photo how tall they are as that is the ceiling there in the upper left corner. And the painting on the right is from our honeymoon trip to Belize. How fitting. Even though all these items are from different corners of the globe, they all work together because they are so "us."

I went to a million thrift stores with my friend Sandi last week and I kept finding all these souvenir plates and spoons and toothpick holders. Wow. And while I think they're all beautiful for their kitsch value, they're just not the things you hold on to -- and certainly not the things your kids are going to hold on to when you die, right?

Special thanks to Mr. Lemon for putting up with my need to do so much shopping on trips.

Travel tips: Beware the Chupacabras

Around here, we take our souvenirs to the next level. While in Puerto Rico this Summer, we decided to check out some gift shops near the rainforest since the rainforest was closed due to the tropical storm hovering over us for several days (yeah, yeah, you've heard it before). I hadn't really liked any of the t-shirts in the shop until I came across this AMAZING chupacabra design. Unfortunately, they didn't have any in Zadie's size but it hit me that I could buy the largest one in the shop and cut it up to make a dress.

I used this pattern that I bought off Etsy and didn't really have any problems with it. I made the size 3t. If I were to make this again either larger or smaller, I would make sure that the width of the shoulder seams on the bodice matched the straps. They are spot on for the 3 but as the pattern uses the same strap, it won't be even with all sizes.

The dress is a great fit and should also work next year. I liked how it has a self-lined bodice so it's very soft on the inside. I purposely added the black panel and off-set the image just for visual interest. I don't really like centering things (if you hadn't noticed). The rest of the fabric is from old t-shirts we have in the stuff-to-repurpose bin. I also used my machine's J foot and did faux serged seams for the skirt. That's an amazing technique and I plan to post about it.

I love the Chupa's glowing red eyes in the drawing. It reminds me of our very own mothman. Just in case you need a gentle reminder, we are huge fans of the yeti around here. My own obsession dates back to (roughly) 1983 and a papier mache project gone terribly awry. El Chupa Cabras is another of the cryptids. He originated in Puerto Rico in the mid-1990s. Some fascinating stuff. We were lucky to avoid him (probably because of all the rain).

But one of the reasons I love to travel is to learn about stuff like this. And although I knew about the chupacabras, I didn't know he was from PR. Whenever we go someplace new, I make sure to read fiction by local authors and I get as many guidebooks as possible to learn the history of the place. And buying a shirt like this and making it work really adds to the whole experience. I will keep this dress forever. I would not have kept the shirt forever had we bought one that fit.

Watch out or the Chupa will get ya! This one's female and her claws are sharp.

Travel tips: toddler in tow

We have flown twice now with our toddler and while we're by no means pros, we have certainly learned a few things. It pretty much comes down to snacks and keeping busy.

The first flight we took started out great but then we had airplane issues and were trapped in the Charlotte airport for an entire day. On the way home, we were lucky enough to spend an entire day in the airport and then a night in a fabulous Charlotte hotel. The joys. But luckily we were pretty prepared with snacks and toys (and extra diapers -- I learned from a friend to pack more than you think you are going to need. She learned the hard way).

For the 14-month old, the best thing we ever bought was a Doodlepad. At the time, she wasn't drawing much but she LOVED it when we would draw for her. She liked making animal sounds and had a blast naming the animals that we sketched out.

I picked up this guy from the local toy store and he has been beloved ever since. It was nice to have something new for her to play with but I made the mistake of bringing only new toys because I thought the novelty would do the trick but I think it would have been nice to have some old favorites as well.

I brought along a couple of wind-up toys and cars, a favorite book for bedtime, and of course her crib entourage. I made this cloth book and finger puppet sack, Katy Kitty, and picked up finger puppets at Old Navy on clearance. The handmade toys have only recently become beloved so I could have done better.

She was 2 this Summer when we went to Puerto Rico and having learned from last year, we brought along a couple of her favorite toys and the Doodlepad again. This year she is drawing on her own so it is getting some great use.

I made this lego sack and we surprised her on the plane with it. She is a huge fan of legos and loves to stack so we figured it was a good time to "upgrade" to the smaller pieces. We left all the tiny tiny ones at home so they wouldn't get lost. I also picked up a few activity books with stickers and a few new sheets of stickers. Twistables are something new that I've just discovered. Amazing. I also got all girly and bought a tiny Strawberry Shortcake doll. I actually think it was for me but Zadie loved the comb and her dress.

In the picture above you see those chubby little fingers playing with beads. I picked up a huge tub of beads from Michaels with a coupon and a pack of pipe cleaners and they really kept her busy. She loved stringing the beads on the plane and especially in the room. Since a tropical storm hovered directly over our vacation rental for 3 days (did I mention that?), I was so glad to have these. I just brought along a smaller container of the beads.

OK, snacks. I won't go on and on but I absolutely love these pouches of smashed fruits. We just discovered them and they are amazing. We keep them on hand for the car or for special treats. If you order from Amazon and subscribe, you save an extra 15%. There are several brands but when I bought them, Plum had the best price in the organics. That seems to have changed.

I also brought along all of her favorite snacks and had way more than necessary but I'd rather haul a couple of pounds of tiny cookies and crackers through security than deal with a meltdown so it was well worth it.

We stashed all of her toys and books in a backpack. We have a yeti from our awesome friends in Canada but how cute is this bee?

For both trips I spent way too much time packing a getting ready but I do think it paid off. We had two great trips by airplane but we also use some of these same toys and bring loads of snacks if we go somewhere in the car.