Finally

It's been a super long time since I've made anything. Between the move, fixing up the new house, and just an overall gray period I just haven't had the motivation.

What better excuse to get started again than a birthday. Finley's best friend Jude has a baby sister that was having a birthday party so I decided to make her a little doll from this book. It was hard deciding which one I wanted to make because they are all so darned cute.

Since I haven't made any dolls from the book before I thought it would be best to make Finley one first just in case I jacked it up. I also decided to make a kid sized baby sling (pouch style) to go along with the gift. This is where I am glad I decided to make one first for Finn too. As you can see from the photo below I made it just a tad small. It was a bit tough trying to stuff the doll in there.





























I don't have a picture of the bigger one but adding a few inches made a huge difference.

I do have a picture of the 2 dolls sitting together and I can say that I am really happy with how they turned out. I could use a little practice hand stitching the legs and arms on but you don't see that mess unless you lift up the skirt.

The one on the left is Finn's and the other is the giftie.




















I don't want to jinx it but I think I may be inspired to make some more stuff in the near future.

A Bit of Progress

4 months in and I am proud to say we are making a bit of progress. We've moved all of the random boxes out of the house and into the garage. There's still some painting to do but we are taking it in stride and doing what we can.

Our bedroom is coming together more and more everyday. We still need a headboard and a couple of more pieces of art on the walls. I plan on making a fabric covered headboard as soon as I can find some fabric I like. As for the art I'm not completely sure what I should make yet.

Here are a few pictures I took a while back. Since these pictures were taken Matt has finished painting and installing the closet cupboards, I hung the curtains from actual curtain rods instead of just tension rods, and our handy man replaced the duct vent when he redid the air and heat ducting a couple weeks ago.



























































































































My dresser

















































You see I found a solution to my necklace storage problem. $19 at Urban Outfitters





























My Maia Dogwoo shrine. Morbid I know.




















Matt's dresser. Those are all my chapsticks not his. I have a slight chapstick problem. My favorite is lip smacker Dr pepper. It gives just a tint of color and shine.
















































Sorry the photos are all such tight shots. At this point I don't own any wider lenses.

To Barbie or Not to Barbie?

Back when I was still working part-time and my wonderful sister was watching Finley for me it came to my attention that Finley really enjoyed playing Barbies with my niece. The first thought that came into my somewhat feminist mind was, "Heck no! I don't want Finley playing with barbies!" The more I thought about it, though, I came to the conclusion that I was being way too silly. I mean what is it going to hurt if she plays with Barbie? I was secretly hoping that maybe she would just be like me and want to cut their hair off and draw weird make-up on their faces.

Since Finn didn't have any Barbies at home at the time, I did what any loving mother would do, I went down to the Goodwill hoping to find a few for her to start out with. Much to my luck it appeared that a collector of sorts had either died or decided to give up their Barbie habit. On my first trip I not only scored one new in the box gem, but two new in the box gems.

If you know me you won't be surprised at how happy I was to find these out of the ordinary "Barbies". The bad thing is that it started a slight obsession to find funny and weird dolls for my daughter.

Here are a few pictures of our current collection.

The whole bunch.

starting at the top left
one of those guys from twilight, Drew Barrymore from Charlies Angels, Cameron Diaz from Charlies Angles, and Vanna White in her Aspen outfit

starting bottom left
Chuckie Cheese Barbie (i know she isn't famous but she does have pizza, tokens, and tickets),
Donald Trump (the great thing about this one is he talks when you push a button on his back)




















Here are a few closeups.

Would you like some tickets and tokens?





























I still need the Lucy Liu doll to complete this set. Also, they are a tad creepy in that their bodies are a little too real.




















The famous Donald. He is a little stiff but says funny stuff like, "I should fire myself just for having you around," and "Brand yourself and toot your own horn."





























My personal favorite and Finley's newest doll, Vanna White. This is no ordinary Vanna, this is Aspen Vanna, complete with florescent ski suit, goggles, skis, and poles. I am a bit disappointed that we didn't find Vanna goes to Italy, Vanna goes to Spain, or all American Vanna.





























Check out the great insert in Vanna's box. If we had the workout equipment all the dolls could use it to get fit.








































So if you guys run across a great Barbies remember to think of me. I mean Finley.