Sewing Skirts and a Dress

I decided to make some green skirts for the girls for St. Patrick's Day.  Green is not a color they really have much of in their wardrobe.  Mostly pink, purple, blue.  I knew I wanted something festive for them to wear.  While getting some random items at Walmart, I stopped by the material and craft section.  I saw, to my amazement, the racks fully stocked with cute new designs and colors unlike the usual sad and empty selection.  I bought 3 half yards of coordinating greens. 

 

 I have made this type of skirt before following a tutorial and it really is such an easy and cute skirt.  The twins' skirts are different with the order of the prints.  For M's I didn't quite have enough, so one of the strips is much thinner than the others and I had to throw in a little be of another scrap fabric so there would be enough.  The skirts are similar yet very different, just like sisters.

I had D and T's skirts done by St. Patrick's Day so they could wear them to their Tiny Tots class.  M didn't get hers until a few days ago, but she didn't mind (I'm enjoying her lack of strong opinions concerning her wardrobe while I can!).

Last month I also had a quick sewing project, making a dress for little H's birthday.  Toddler M "helped" me with the pins.  I can sew with her in the room for a little bit while she is distracted looking through things.  But she has discovered that the sewing machine makes a loud beep when she pushes buttons.  Now she's tall enough to reach them, she usually heads that way before long and makes sewing difficult.  Still at least I can get a little done.

 This dress is one I had planned and prepped from when the twins were little and never got around to making.  I used store bought tank top, using the bottom half of it to make a ruffle. It turned out cute and was really fast to make, especially since I had already hemmed it two years ago.

Care Caps Needs Help

When I was new to Little Rock and before the kiddos nixed my free time, I volunteered with a wonderful group of ladies making care caps.  Once a month I went to the family home across the street from UAMS (where my husband worked and the girls were all born) to volunteer my time and sewing/pinning skills.  Care Caps is a non profit group that sews comfortable head coverings for cancer patients.  Mary started it to honor her sister after she lost her battle with cancer.  She goes to different locations with a trailer full of sewing machines and material.  Volunteers meet for about 4 hours and sew caps that will then be shipped to clinics all across the US and passed out free of charge to cancer patients.

 

It was a rewarding experience for me, both getting to be around such wonderfully sweet ladies that volunteer and helping people who have to fight such a horrible disease.  Mary sacrifices so much of her time (without pay) and keeps things running smoothly.  I continued to volunteer while pregnant with the twins (just moving from the sewing machines to pinning which I could do from a more comfortable seat on the couch).  Mary made two darling baby quilts for the twins which was such a nice surprise when I was half living at the hospital while the girls were in the NICU.  She is so giving.  After the twins arrived, I couldn't help any more.  But I did visit once in awhile (and slowed down production as the ladies oohed and aahed over the twins). 

 

Here are the twins on one of her quilts when they were 4 months old.

 

After nine years however the nonprofit is struggling financially.  There have been years where they dipped under and had cut back but now this is the second year in a row and they have cut back all they can.  The project takes about $28,000 annually to stay afloat, but fundraising efforts the last two years have brought in only $21,000 annually. Unfortunately, with the worst case scenario (“no donations”), Care Caps will end in June. 

 

If you are interested in helping out a wonderful small charity, this is the link for their donation pledge page.  They don't take credit cards unfortunately.  You'll have to mail in a check if you want to help out.  Another way to help if you purchase things from amazon.com is to go to smile.amazon.com and enter Volunteer America—1776 (which is Care Caps official name) under donation charity and then use the smile.amazon page every time you shop there.  Every little bit helps and would be much appreciated.

 

We're off to See the Wizard

Well, this is take two of this post since all those times I pushed save did not apparently save the last version. 

 

We carved the twin's pumpkins the day before Halloween.  I used the girls' shape toys as a template for some neat star and cross eyes. The little saws in those carving kits are cheap and easy to bend but they do a great job maneuvering around corners.  The girls were very proud to help carve this year. 

 



The Halloween costumes turned out great.  Oma was a trooper.  She made little H's Dorothy jumper, Big H's tinman tunic and helped me out a enormous amount.  They all look so adorable together.  We mommas also got to dress up this year.  I found some witch's hats at Target for my sister and me, and I wore striped socks like the Wicked Witch of the East.

 

M's onesie, that I dyed, didn't look great and it was a little chilly, so she ended up in a brown First Thanksgiving bodysuit turned inside out.  She didn't really want to cooperate with wearing the lion's mane I had knitted around her face (and I don't really blame her), but she did keep it on when I set it on top of her head while trick or treating so that was something at least.  I drew a cat's nose and whiskers on her and she looked absolutely adorable.  But then she does even when she is not dressed up as the Cowardly Lion. 

 

Miss D loved being Glinda the Good Witch of the North (and yes, she says the whole title every time someone asks her what she was for Halloween).  The costume turned out really well, but if I had had more time I would have tried to make some big puffy sleeves out of tulle like Glinda had in the movie.  I did get a little bit of pouf in the peasant top but much less than I was hoping for. 

I made the peasant top of the dress using this tutorial.  Oma came for a visit the weekend before Halloween and by the time she left, all that was left to do was sew the body of D's dress together and hem it.  I cut out the material and pinned them, she sewed it together and made the casing for the elastic while I took care of the kids.  Then while she held the baby, I threaded the elastic through the casing, gathered the skirt and sewed it to the top and made a tutu.  Oma checked the length on T and hemmed hers while I nursed Baby M.  It was a great tag team approach that made it go by so fast. I am so thankful I wasn't stressing about these costumes trying to finish them at last minute.  Thank you, Oma!

I had hoped to sew the tulle material into the dress seam so it was all one piece but it would have taken more time and planning to figure out how to do that.  So instead I made a separate tutu to wear over the dress and pinned it in place with safety pins.  It is nice now because they can play in their costumes at home and take off the tutu when it gets in the way.

 

For the crown, I (for some strange reason) thought that two paper sized sheets of pink felt would be enough, silly me.  Luckily, I was able to find a little more from previous craft project and was able to sew together a sturdy and pretty decent looking crown.  First, I sewed all the pieces into a cylinder that fit her head.  Then I folded that in half, wrong sides together and top stitched along the fold to make it sturdy.  I used the handy star shape toy that I had also used on the pumpkins to trace stars on the felt and then I sewed just inside the line I had made.  I trimmed everything from the line out to complete the shape. I had bought some spray on glitter but the can jammed almost immediately, so sadly only a small part got any glitter.  If I had not waited til last minute, I could have gotten more glitter or something else shiny to glue on it. 

Oma and I made T's dress the same way as D's with orange cotton.  The only difference being that I didn't gather the sleeves with elastic.  I love all the colors in her tutu and the sunflower clip I bought to go with it.  Oma also sewed a few fall leaves on the top.

 

Her hat was an interesting mess but it looked great.  I also only had two sheets of tan felt.  I used their current sun hats, that are a little snug, for sizing since they were asleep when I made it and it turned out a little too small.  I just sewed all the scraps together after cutting out the brim, which made an interesting shape but turned out pretty flat due to lack of materials.  I twisted some yellow tulle leftover from the tutu and sewed it to cover the seam and sewed a few puffs on with fall leaves to look like straw.  Then I made cuts on the brim about an inch an a half in and a centimeter wide so it would look more ragged. It was too small and also too short but looked good perched up on top of her head anyway.


 

 

The costumes all looked so great together.  We only made it to about four houses in my sister's neighborhood because of tripping, falling into a rose bush to avoid a little sniffing dog, trying to eat the candy--wrapper and all--and anything else you could think of that would slow a group of pre school/toddler/babies down.  But they enjoyed it and got to watch Wizard of Oz afterward.  So all of the pink for Glinda's dress and the slippers being red instead of silver like in the book finally made sense.

Next year we'll have to come up with another great theme and hopefully I'll have my act together a bit more and get everything done ahead of time.

 

Halloween is Coming up Fast!

I have made very little progress on the Halloween costumes because we have been busy painting, cleaning and moving.  I have managed to pull my sewing machine out of the box it has been in the last 6-8 months.  However, I don't have a table to set it up on unless I put it on the dining table.  I really want to avoid that, but it may come to it if I don't find a good table at a yard sale soon.

I had started resizing a boys long sleeve shirt I got at a thrift store for T's scarecrow costume but she didn't like the color and it took so much effort to get her to try it on to size it that I gave up and scraped it.  Instead I will do a dress in fall colors and forget trying to make it look like on the movie.  It just isn't worth the effort to make something she doesn't want to wear anyway.

I finished dying baby M's onesie and it didn't turn out as well as I had dreamed, though it was pretty close to what I expected.  I'm thinking of buying pants and a long sleeve shirt anyway since it might be chilly enough.  She also yanks her lions mane off at first chance so that will be fun to deal with too.

I have bought all of the material to make D and T's dresses and have started cutting out T's.  I'm hoping to start sewing them in the next couple nights.  I definitely need to start by the weekend.  I'll probably have to put in some late nights to get it done without interruptions.   

So I am a bit sad and stressed about these costumes.  At least I got a couple pumpkins and some pumpkin butter at Trader Joe's this morning, so thing aren't all that bad.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

 

I came up with this year's family costume theme solely because I wanted to dress up my belly bump.  Since the girls are conveniently still at an age where they don't care what their costume is as long as they get to dress up, we were all good to go.  Anna was a last minute addition to the group photo since I could not find a little stuffed Snoopy for T to carry around with her.  Her costume consists of herself with a name change, but she does look a lot like Snoopy so it worked!

 

The costumes themselves were much easier than last year because I used store bought clothes and just added to them.  We already had black tights for them to wear.  I sewed a felt zigzag to T's yellow top and used fabric paint to put black stripes onto D's red top.  The tutus, as shown in a previous post, I made early on and didn't have to stress about them.  I had a hard time finding solid yellow and red socks, so I ended up with some yellow Sponge Bob Square Pants socks and had to use hot pink ones that we already had.  The color difference of the pink wasn't that noticeable though. 

What I put off to last minute and literally finished seconds before leaving for the Family Fun Fest were the felt shoe covers.  I never got around to making them for the girls' costumes last year and I was determined to do them this year.  They were really quick and easy to do luckily.  But, because hand, foot and mouth virus closed down the girls' Mother's Day Out program, I unexpectedly had the girls with me all week leading up to Halloween and had very little time to work on them. 

I used these basic directions on how to sew your own shoe covers to create a pattern.  After testing it out on the first one and making a couple minor adjustments, they were very quick to make.  The directions called for using elastic ties in the back which seemed a little messy to me.  So instead I put both Velcro and snaps in the back because I wasn't sure which one would hold better.  Occasionally one came loose while we were out, but they held together pretty well.  I added the faux laces while eating dinner, right before we left the house.  So I am happy they turned out as well as they did. 
 

 

They were all set to get some treats.  D has been hanging onto her duck blanket a lot at home, which is why I decided she would be Linus.  So we gave her a blue blanket to carry around and she thought that was great!  





 

For my costume, I made a pumpkin out of felt and stitched lines on for the curves of the pumpkin and the veins of the leaves.  Then I embroidered Welcome Great Pumpkin onto a rectangle of felt for the sign.  I pinned it on my green maternity shirt with safety pins and was good to go as the pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin.

 

 

The costumes turned out great and were not too much trouble to make.  Even though we did not go out trick or treating on Halloween this year, the girls still got a lot of use out of them with all the activities we did.  It was a busy week but we had a lot of fun.



Tulle Skirts

I've been wanting to make these tulle skirts for the girls all winter long.  Compared to this summer, when they had a million cute dresses to wear, it was all pants for winter.  I figured it would be nice and easy to toss a little tulle skirt on over their pants for a more feminine outfit.  I finally finished sewing them (although I have to fix one because I was sloppy with my stitches). 

 

They were relatively easy to make.  I used 1 inch elastic, material for the waist band to cover the elastic and 1/2 a yard of tulle.  I folded the tulle in half and gathered it along the fold.  I cut a rectangle for a waistband, folded it in half and tucked the elastic inside before sewing the gathered tulle to it.  After it was all sewn I trimmed the tulle skirts a bit making the edge scalloped so it looked more like petals. 

Now of course, it is warm and the girls are in cute summer dresses again.  But hopefully they will still fit in them next year and if not I can always pull them apart a bit and fix them again.

Birds of a Feather #2

The costumes were basically finished on time for Halloween.  Although I didn't have time to make the felt shoe covers I had envisioned or fix the mistake I made on one of D's wings, the costumes still turned out really cute.

 

 

These are pieces of D's owl coming together.  I used two strips of the tan material for the wings and tied them with brown, tan and off-white tulle like a tutu.  I spaced the tulle loosely though so it wouldn't be too puffy.  I cut the owl feathers from felt.  I hot glued the pieces together and then stitched the spine of the feather in using the stem stitch and 4 strands of embroidery floss.

 

 

  I wanted the wings to be removable because we would be in and out of the car seat.  I attached the wings to her shoulders using snaps and around her arms with tan hair ties.  And this is where I made a mistake, although you can't really tell that one wing is backwards. 

 

T's peacock turned out lovely, and was easier than D's since I copied it from someone's tutorial (see first costume post) except for the hood.  The blue material was also easier to work with than the tan for some strange reason.  The ball point needle thread would not loop correctly on the bobbin thread with the tan material. I had to switch back to the standard needle which made the whole process frustrating. 

 

 

To avoid more problems on the sewing machine, I hemmed both skirts by hand.  I probably should have made the skirts shorter but didn't not want to risk making a huge mistake when cutting it again. 

   

T wore black tights and D off-white and both wore bright pink shoes when we were out of the house unfortunately. I will just have to edit my memory to include the felt shoe covers that were never made.  At least inside they were just in their tights so the pictures look okay.

 
I was afraid that they would try to pull bits and pieces off of themselves and each other and not keep their hoods up.  But they actually liked wearing the costumes.  D did chase T around a little, giggling and pulling her tail, but the tutu held up well.  Anytime either of their hoods would fall back, D would cry in protest and try to set it to rights again. 

We went to the library for knitting and quilting to show off their costumes and on Monday at knitting they were joined by their buddy dressed as a little green alien.  I would have liked to take them over to a couple of the neighbors' houses for Halloween but Kevin didn't get back until late.  Trying to manage both of them and the steep drive way was not happening this year.  Next year will be fun though.

Birds of a Feather: Halloween Costumes, Early Stages

After asking everyone on Facebook for good story character costume ideas for the girls, I naturally decided to go with something entirely different.  Thank you to everyone who contributed ideas though, I may use them in the future. 

 

I saw this beautiful peacock costume on Pinterest and decided that the girls should be birds.  T will be the resplendent peacock (and we'll just ignore the fact that the male peacocks are the colorful ones, not the females).  And D, since she now says "ow"  and "hoo", will be an owl. 

 

The base of both costumes will be the same, just different colors.  Following the peacock costume tutorial I made a shirt pattern from one of the girls 2T shirts I bought for the fall and winter.  It was my first time making a pattern from one of their existing shirts and I'm very proud of  how well it turned out. 

 

It was also my very first time really sewing with a stretchy knit fabric.  Although the stitches are a mess, the shirt actually turned out great.   I needed to buy special ballpoint needles to work with the fabric which helped a little.  I think having the special foot for my machine would also be helpful but I haven't gotten it.  Perhaps I should, since the knit fabric turned out so well, I may want to make more cloths for the girls and myself out of knits.

 

 

Here is T's shirt all done except for the neckline and hood. I decided to go with a hood for two reasons:  I think the hoods will be less annoying than a mask and if they pull them off, at least they are still attached.  They won't get lost and I won't be bending down to pick them up every few seconds. 

 

I haven't sewn D's shirt yet but it is all cut out in the tan color and pinned.  I still need to decide how I want to do her costume's feathers and tail.  I think she should have the nylon tulle and felt feathers as wings instead of a tail like the peacock, or maybe with a smaller tail.  I'll have to play around with it and see what looks good. 

 

I drew the pattern for the hood by getting ideas for the rough size and shape online. I cut out and sewed a mock up that turned out too small and had a funny bulge in the back. But it was easy to fix.

Now T's shirt is finished except for the neckline.  I have also cut out the peacock's beak and tail feathers out of felt.  I'll need to sew the tail feathers together, sew them to the ribbons and attach them to the half tutu tail.  I also have to cut out and sew the skirt.  And get going on D's owl.  Lots to do and a little over one month to get it done.

Growth Chart

I thought I would get this post up before all the craziness ensues.  Tomorrow evening Kevin's family, my mother, my sister and her little boy are flying in to have a birthday bash for the girls a month late.  Don't ask why; that is just how this whole crazy birthday party day evolved over the months.  Wish I knew then what I know now.  I would have planned it much better, but I'm sure it will all turn out fine nevertheless.

Then a week from today, the girls and I are flying to California for three weeks.  We will miss Daddy but it will give the girls time with their grandparents.  I need to start packing but I've been so busy getting the house ready for company and planning the birthday party that packing hasn't happened yet.  I did manage to pull out the suitcase today though, so that is a good start.

I have almost finished both growth charts.  I still need to embroider numbers on the ruler portion of both and sew something to hang both by.  I also need to finish the binding of T's.  It is about a quarter of the way stitched down and shouldn't take long.

D's growth chart

This was my first time machine appliqueing and it sure does make that part of the project come together quickly.  Mistakes come faster too though so concentration is a must.  I got the idea for this project and the patterns for the flowers from the Fons and Porter website.  I also made one for my nephew for Christmas that had only one flower, a caterpillar and a grasshopper.  I was so rushed to finish it in time that I did not get any good photos of it unfortunately.  But the grasshopper looked really cute.

For each growth chart, I painstakingly marked the ruler lines and then machine sewed each of them line by line with two strands of thread (pink/purple for D's and pink/orange for T's and dark green/bright green for cousin H's).  The ruler starts at 2 feet which is the level I will hang it at and goes to over 5 feet.  I plan to use a fine tipped sharpie to mark the girls' progress.

"3" for 3 years old or for 3 feet tall

I used felt for their names.  Had I planned ahead it would have been out of another colorful material, but I added their names much later (I've been working on these since last fall) and had felt on hand at the time. 

Labelled so there is no confusion.

My goal is to finish them and hang them before we leave for California in a week.  Having family around to watch the girls will hopefully give me time to work on them.  But I have a lot to do and not a lot of time.  I hope I make it.

4th of July

Happy Independence Day!

We were hoping to BBQ and it would have been nice to see some fireworks but we are not doing either today.  So sad, I know.  Kevin should have had the day off since he is in the clinic this month but he got scheduled on-call.  He'll be back today at 7pm so BBQing is out.  Last year the girls were still in the hospital, but we had a great view from their room. We were able to see the fireworks over the capitol building.  The girls go to sleep at 7pm so no fireworks unless we can see them from our house.  Between the hills and the trees, I don't think that is likely.

So instead, to celebrate we've done the next best thing.  I dressed the girls up in their 4th of July outfits and took pictures. 

 I have learned to not wait for a good shot.  Usually I see a great shot where they are both looking at the camera or doing something cute and I press the button too late to get it.  So now I just take shot after shot after shot without waiting and hope that a few of them turn out okay.  I took 50 photos of them today.  About 5 turned out really well and another 8 were acceptable.  D's smile in the above photo was the only one I got. 

I almost got T to smile, almost but then she changed her mind.  Her expression in this one though is so adorable.  Just want to squish her chubby cheeks. 

The bows were gifts from the girls' Leila but the rest of their outfit I made.  I took two 18month onesies which ran really small in size . . . the girls stopped fitting into them lengthwise at 11 months.  I made ruffled the sleeves out of patriotic scrap material using this tutorial: Ruffled Sleeves Tutorial.  For the matching star applique, I used some techniques I learned with quilting.  I had to sew it on by hand since the onesie would have made turning around the edges difficult on the machine.  Perhaps next time I do an applique like that I will make a tutorial.   

D as a young Rosie the Riveter. 

 The skirt is a handkerchief cut down the middle and sewn up the sides (which I thought was very clever of me).  For each outfit, I cut a onesie in two horizontally right above the leg openings.  Then I gathered the handkerchief skirt in two spots, one at the top and one about 2 inches down.  The top gathering I sewed to the bottom snap portion of the onesie.  Then I sewed the next gathering to the shirt part of the onesie. This extended the onesie by a little over an inch.  I also didn't have to make diaper covers that matched because the onesie still snaps down. 

Since we are not going any where today, they will instead get to wear the outfits tomorrow and be very patriotic for story time.   I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July.

Small Projects

I have been getting small projects finished although my larger projects have been either languishing (still need to resize the butterfly squares of baby quilt #2) or progressing very slowly (their growth charts are getting there and I will have photos soon). 

But in the mean time, here are the Father's Day gifts the girls and I made for their Daddy and their Pho Pho.  Scrub caps with the girls handprints and name (great gift for doctors that spend a lot of time in the OR).   I had planned to post these on Father's Day but got a bit overwhelmed with the girls birthday planning and photos. 



I thought taking their footprints was a messy process.  It doesn't even compare to handprints.  Dara managed to grab the strings of one of the caps while I was trying to get Tess' prints and got paint splotches everywhere. 

Tess didn't like the feel of the paint on her hands and started crying.  She is much more sensitive to sensory experiences than Dara is.  I think I need to start doing more sensory activities with them so she doesn't get upset so easily with the different textures. 

You can also see where Dara got some paint on her fingers of the hand I wasn't printing and started grabbing the scrub cap.  I touched up the handprints using a tooth pick with the white paint and tried to cover some of the wayward splotches with black paint.  But Dara's left handprint on my husband's cap was just too messy so I left the white splotches as is.  Their chubby little handprints still look cute, even if it they are messy. 

I saw this project on Pinterest and thought it would be a great idea for the girls' and my summer travels in CA.  I got a hand towel on sale at Target and made the tie out of the same material I'm using for the growth chart binding.  It was really fast to make; the tie took the longest but shoe laces or ribbon would be an easy no-sew alternative to the tie I made.  I have slots for our tooth brushes (even Kevin's for future trips), tooth paste, dental floss, my deoderant and then a large slot at the end for anything else I think I need.

Rolled up, it makes a nice and convenient bundle that protects your toothbrushes.

Got to love Pinterest!

Family photo

We took family photo's for a Mother's Day present for my mother and my mother-in-law (and for me!).  I love the photo of all of us.  Both girls are smiling--never a guarantee--and it is still so exciting to get family photos of my family that includes more than my husband now.

I made the girls' outfits using the little girl's crossover pinafore pattern over at Smashed Peas and Carrots.

It is a super simple pattern, looks adorable and can be worn as a shirt when they get bigger.  What more could you ask for?  Plus, even though you can't really see it in the picture, one dress is the reverse of the other so the girls' coordinate nicely.  The diaper covers are also the reverse of the dress which gives it a nice contrast when you see their bum.  I got the diaper cover pattern from http://www.danamadeit.com/2008/07/tutorial-the-perfect-diaper-cover.html.  (Did I mention how much I love tutorials on the internet!)

I really wish we had gotten one of the two of them both smiling but this turned out to be the best one.  They are at least not crying and both girls are looking at the camera. 

I made the felt flowers for their headbands using the tutorial over at Jones Design Company, http://jonesdesigncompany.com/tutorial/flower-pin-tutorial/.   I cut the felt out while watching the girls and then glued them really quickly with the glue gun during nap time.  They are easy to do and look so great.  I plan to make more in a variety colors and for me too. 
It is so fun making things for them!

Mother's Day Tote

This year I am celebrating my first Mother's Day as a mother.  Mother's Day has always been a bit special to me.  I was born on Mother's Day and my birthday has landed on it a handful of times since then.  So for my first Mother's Day, the girls are giving me a tote with their feet print on it (they made them for their Leila and Oma too).

I had planned to actually sew the tote my self with a square of fabric that had their feet print on it.  Then I saw these totes at Michael's and realized how much time that would save me.  They don't look as good and are not as sturdy as if I had made them myself but my time these days that is budgeted for crafts is minimal so I had to make due. 

It was pretty easy and inexpensive to do.  All you need is a tote, non-toxic fabric paint (one bottle for the feet and the other for the writing), paper towels, a piece of cardboard, and a baby.

 

I did it while the girls were in their high chairs to keep them from moving too much.  Place a piece of cardboard on the inside of  the tote where you want the foot print to go.  It will give you a firm surface for the print. 

Using the paper towel, swab the the foot with paint. You want it well coated but not too thick.  Line up the baby's foot where you want it on the tote and press it firmly all at once.   I started out placing the heel down and then rolling the rest of the foot down so they would spread out their toes more.  Unfortunately that caught too much of the heel and made the foot print longer than the actual foot is.  So press the whole foot at once, even if they curl their toes in a little.

Then write the date or how many months old the baby is with paint that has the nozzle and let it dry for four hours.  And that's it.  All done except for the clean up.  For the most part, the paint comes off easily although the girls did had black paint under their toe nails for a day or two after.

Baby legs!

A pair of baby leggings are perfect for cool mornings and make diaper changes so much easier than pants or tights.  Especially now that the girls are sqirmy wormies and don't make putting on pants an easy job for mommy.  To save money and because I like to sew, I bought some socks at a dollar store and make some leggings using the tutorial over at Everything Your Momma Made and More. http://everythingyourmamamade.com/2008/01/21/make-your-own-baby-leg-warmers/

The girls look adorable in them of course (not that I'm bias or anything).  But I did discover a problem not mentioned on the tutorial.  It is one I should have realized if I had really thought about it.  If you get sock with a pattern that has a right side up and then you sew them so the top of the sock is now the bottom of the legging, then you wind up with leggings that have upside down patterns.  For example, the poodles on Tess' leggings are running upside down in between pretty pink bows that are also upside down.  (Except of course at the top of one of them.  That is right side up because I was not paying attention as I pinned.  I could of course say I was busy paying attention to the girls playing instead and there is a pretty good chance that statement would be true.)  So now I know to purchase socks with no right side up pattern and we'll be good to go.  The next ones I'll make have a cute pink, tan and black argyle pattern and will look nice anyway you look at it!