Back To School Dress {The Great Pinterest Challenge}

Have you heard of The Great Pinterest Challenge? I read about it on one of my daily read blogs, Honeybear Lane. You pick out one of the [many] things you've pinned on Pinterest, recreate it, then enter it in one of four categories (Recipes, Sewing, Home Decor/DIY, or General Crafts).

Then Facebook users vote on the pictures and you can win a really great prize package!

I love that it provides some motivation to get a project done! As soon as I read about it, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Sewing, of course. I had recently found this dress:

and thought it would be so cute to make for Kiki for her first day of preschool.

And here it is:

Obviously, I made a few changes. I prefer peasant dress-style to pillowcase dress-style. I like that the sleeves give Kiki a bit more coverage when it gets colder. Also, the apple print I found had some hot pink in it, which I really liked because it added a little spunk to the dress.

And, I had to make a matching headband!

The deadline for submissions in the contest is tomorrow, August 19th. But I think it may be a monthly thing, so if you want to submit something, you can always try in September.

Even if it doesn't win, I think it will be really fun for Kiki to wear when she goes off to school! (But I still want to win--please go vote on Honeybear Lane's Facebook page (You must first "like" Honeybear Lane, then you can vote by "liking" my picture) starting Monday!)

I'll be linking up here!

Teacher Appreciation {Quilted Wall-Hanging}

Teacher Appreciation week is coming up in May (AND the end of school--it has flown by!), so I figured it was the perfect time to make something handmade for my son's teacher. I've really wanted to make a quilt for her before Finn even started school, but I decided to pace myself and my patience paid off!

I've had the idea for this floating around in my head for awhile. I knew I wanted something with this sort of layout and size, but when I saw this at Moda Bake Shop, it sort of inspired me to get moving on putting this together. I didn't use their pattern at all, but it obviously has its similarities.

I especially love the back and binding. The rainbow colors worked well together. I hope she likes displaying it in her classroom.



I will be linking up to these great parties!

Time for School

Finn started preschool this week. It's been great! Once he got in the classroom, he started playing with the toys and I don't even think he noticed when we left. Trying to get information about the school day is like pulling teeth, but from what little he says, it seems like he likes it! Yay!

School Time

Mentally, August has been hard. I have to prepare two kid's birthday parties and deal with the fact that my kids are another year older. On top of that, this year I had to get used to the idea that Finn is going off to school.
I wanted to label his backpack (still a big Batman fan, you see), so I used the Sizzix that my aunt passed on to me to make a cute laminated label. (It looks a lot cuter without the last name letter blacked out--would you believe that in a class of 10 there are TWO Finns?!)I've never done this whole teacher thing before, but I'm no dummy. I know I need to be on her good side. Therefore, I plan on bearing gifts the first day. Something for the hands, probably lotion or sanitizer. Here's the packaging that I've already made up:

Excitement to freaked out ratio: 50-50