Joy

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Claire's Costume - Flower Fairy


 Claire's Costume - Halloween 2012

It looks like we made it another year without a princess costume! This year Claire is dressing up as a Flower Fairy.  We knew she would be a princess or fairy of some sort - it just depended on what we could find.

 She was recently introduced to Peter Pan so she naturally wanted to be Tinkerbell but Josh and I weren't to thrilled with that since Tinkerbell is a murderous, jealous, betraying brat in the movie. (Yes,  I know, from what I hear she had a character transformation the new fairy movies but still - since Josh didn't want her to be that it was fine with me)

 As luck would have it I found this costume at Savers for $6.99.
  
It didn't come with wings or the other accesories so I made those out of some fabric I bought at Joann that matched perfectly.

The dress is a Disney costume and it had a ridiculous, plastic cameo in the center of the flower on the front of the dress.  I looked it up online and it was Rossetta's face.  I took it off and sewed a pearl/gold button in it's place. Instantly classier.

The wings were a small trial. 
  
We went through 3 pairs - Luckily all were from thrift stores so they only cost $2 or $3 a piece but it was annoying.   With the first pair, I thought they were too stark white so I tried spraying them lightly and from a distance with gold spray paint. 



Which did not look good at all.

Then out of desperation, I took a different pair of strange shaped wings that were too bright of a pink and soaked them in bleach water to try to lighten the color but the bleach didn't effect the color at all. 

We found the last pair of wings and I decided to try to dye them with rit dye to get them the right color. 

It worked beautifully!

I made a flower and sewed it on in the center along with a pearl button to match the front of the dress,


I love that this costume was so easy and looks great!  We have one happy Flower Fairy over here.

Joy's Costume - The Peacock

Joy the Peacock - Halloween 2012

I have known that I wanted Joy to be a peacock since last Halloween.  I don't know why or where I got the idea but I had a vision and her costume came out pretty close to my original plans.
Finding a leotard the right size and color proved to be impossible. I had kept my eye out for one for the last year with no luck so I knew I would have to make my own.  A few months ago I found this little gem at Savers for $5.99.
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Not only was it the right color of satin, it was also lined with a stetchy material perfect for a leotard.  
It was my first attempt to sew something so fitted.  I just winged it by combining the shape of a swim suit and onesie that we already had for a pattern.  I couldn't believe it actually fit!
 
I pain-stakingly took off the silver, flower trimming and reused it on the leotard to dress it up.
I made the skirt out of the satin dress material and the tail from tulle decorated with peacock feathers. 
The tail is attached to the leotard with a button so it can be removed.  Because we go to our church's harvest carnival, the costumes have to be able to withstand bounce houses and carnival games.

 I attempted to make little shoes out of the same satin dress but they just did not look right and Joy couldn't walk well in them so I spray painted her sandals to match.  At least she can walk with ease. (Which is a big deal when you are 1)


 Joy seems unfazed by her tail or her fascinator.  I was so proud that she didn't rip it off the entire photo shoot.
 

 This peacock has the most kissable face I've ever seen!
 

Claire's pics coming soon!



Friday, October 26, 2012

Pigeons Problems

One of the many things I won't miss about this house is its the pigeon problem.  I thought it was just our neighborhood but we recently met a friend who has the same problem in their neighborhood a couple of miles away.


We have pigeons nesting in the nooks and crannies of our roof, pooping, molting, mating, you name it, they are doing it, and it is gross.   Their favorite spot....


   and right below there favorite spot. (right next to our front door)
 

Feathers are EVERYWHERE.   No, one did not just die on our porch, this is what happens if I don't sweep for a couple of days. 




Although, dead birds are not uncommon by any means.

  Do they just die mid-flight I wonder? 

I realize that there are spikes and other bird deterrants we could install to discourage them but since we will hopefully be moving soon we aren't going to waste the money on it. 

I have been told by several people when I tell them my excitement of moving out of the bird sanctuary that "There are pigeons everywhere.... you'll have them at your next house too"  No. I know that birds are everywhere but this is out of control.   Every time we work at the flip house I keep an eye out for pigeons and have yet to see one.  So far just a couple of crows have been spotted.

Longing for the days of sweeping feathers to be over, and feeling slightly sorry for the next people who move in.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Boston House - Painting

 We have been painting this house for over a month and we are not nearly done.  It doesn't help that we can only work on Saturdays but still, it's crazy.  
 Every ceiling needed to be painted. My mom and I did the bedroom ceilings and our necks were breaking so Josh was the lucky one to paint the ceilings in the main family room.  I painted the walls in the nursery the same color as our current nursery and the light seafoam looked like this in the Boston house. 
  
Seriously, the green was glowing into the hallway.  This was the first of many paint choices that looked good in our current house, and in the store, but totally different in the flip house.  We got a greenish white and painted over the gross green.  Much better.

Claire's room we painted pink.
 We haven't totally decided on the master yet - After the green experience (and the pink is actually much darker than planned) we are putting it off.

It was discovered that the beams in the family room had gaps between them and the drywall ceiling that needed to caulked as attic insulation was falling through in a few places.  I also filled in any huge knot holes and cracks in the beams with caulk so when we paint them they will look nicer.  My mom did all the edging of the ceiling paint.
 My dad has been busy in the bathrooms. 
Master bath
 
He found that the wall in the guest bathroom was not built right and studs were too far apart so what should have been a couple hour job getting the shower ready for us to tile, turned into an all day project.  Yay!

 He was able to install the new kitchen window though!  It looks so much brighter to not have a dirty broken window with duct tape holding it together. 
 We can't do anything to the kitchen until we tear down the ceiling and raise it up to a normal height. The counters, cabinets, and floors have all been chosen though and ready when we are.

The pencil line above the opening shows how much higher it will be - I think it will open up the whole room a lot.

 This last weekend I started painting the beams.  It is a tedious and intricate job.  After past experience with painters tape letting paint bleed though, we thought it would be better to free hand it.,V e r y carefully.  I have found the it takes an hour per beam.  There are 8 of them.
 My mom painted the entire rest of the house a nice, neutral, creamy color (which took 3 different tries to get the right color.)
 
We have another week or two of finishing the paint but at least the horrors of wall repair are behind us. Hopefully this weekend the kitchen ceiling will come down!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Fall Leaves Craft

Ever since we did our fall tree paintings, Claire ahs been dying to do more crafts.   I have been wanting to try the wax paper/crayon leaves for a few years now and thought that she might be old enough now.  First we carefully selected some fall colored crayons.  We had to test the red ones to make sure they were really red and not "red violet"(obnoxious Crayola)

 Then we grated them on my spice grater.  Look out!  Wax is static-y!
 It was hard...
 Finally we had all of our fall colors so Claire spread them out on a sheet of wax paper....
 Then covered with another sheet of wax paper...
 and carefully ironed.
She loved looking at the melting mix of colors.
 After the wax cooled and hardened, we cut out some leaf shapes. 
 (Claire did one - I lost her after that)
I hung them with some fishing wire in the entryway.
 Joy was so cute when she saw them for the first time.
 Happy Fall!
(That was a lot of work for not very many leaves)