KCW Days 1-4: Adelaide's Wild and Free Geranium Dress

The first thing that came to mind for me when I learned that this week's theme is "Kid Art" was letting Adelaide loose with some fabric paint. She gets some art project fun, I get some adorable hand-painted fabric, and we get to collaborate on making something in the sewing room. Win, win, win.

She did an awesome job with her fabric painting (no bias here, nope, not at all). There was no end project in mind when I doled out the materials. I picked this mystery fabric out of the remnant bin at JoAnn Fabrics ages ago. It's got a linen-ish thing going on, but I don't know what it actually is. Looking at my stash, this is what seemed best suited for a three-year-old's experimental fabric painting. I really let Adelaide do her own thing with the fabric paint, though I tried to keep about three colors in her tray at a time to avoid having everything turn to brown from overenthusiastic color mixing. 

Her finished piece definitely had a border-print vibe, and my mind went straight to the Geranium Dress pattern. I asked her what she wanted to make with the fabric, and she didn't know, so I made the suggestion and she agreed. 

The bodice is some chambray from another project. It happened to match some of the paint perfectly.

Adelaide even picked the buttons herself.

As I've mentioned here before, Adelaide isn't one for fussy clothes. I have to make a real effort to not treat something like this too preciously or she will NEVER wear it. I have to check myself: what is the point of a kid having clothes if I'm going to get bent out of shape when they get grass stains or ice cream on them? I'd a million times rather her wear something lovely and stain it (or rip it) than never wear it. She's my rough-and-tumble, garden-loving girl, so if she can't wear something for all that entails, it's not worth making. 

So here she is, watering the garden in her brand new dress. Perfectly Adelaide.

Happiness is a freshly painted wall

We painted our walls! We have walls! That we are allowed to paint! And we painted them! I cannot get over it.

Adam and I are newbie painters, so my mom and sister came up for a weekend paint-a-thon, and I'm pretty sure I will have to rope them into doing so for all our future painting projects. (If you are reading this, you guys, I will resort to bribery or kidnapping if necessary.) It really went so, so smoothly.



So now the living and dining rooms are a lovely, peaceful shade of green, and I am very happy.

We used Benjamin Moore's no-VOCs Natura paint. So far, so good. The smell was minimal (like you only really smell it when it is fresh and wet and you are right next to it) and it went on very nicely. So, as long as it holds up reasonably well, I'll be a very happy camper.

Now I just need to sew some curtains and a fitted slipcover for the couch. Yikes.

Homemade gifts, part V

Okay, I promise that this is the last one of these Christmas updates...

For my sister Rachel, a painting.



I made one of these for myself years ago and have made several more since then. I think they're really fun to make because half the work is just mixing up different pretty colors, which I love.

I just draw out the name freehand with a pencil directly onto the blank canvas. Then I do the background color, saving some of the color I've mixed for any touch-ups that might be needed at the end. Then it's letter-painting fun time!

I use acrylic paints, which dry really quickly, so this is an easy project to get done in half a day or so. And did I mention fun?

These are the first two I did (one for me, one for my other sister). Mine is pretty sloppy! I've done a couple for my nieces that I really like, but you'll have to take my word on their awesomeness. I know you believe me.