Dress Update

I did a little more sewing, and I *think* I have the final prices for the 3 dress styles I will be doing (I will have more styles in a bit, but only 3 for now).

The Yoke Dress that I posted before (see another version below...so cute for Easter, right?!) will be $35 for size 0-3 months to 3T.  Sizes 4T and 5T will be an additional $4.

Close-up of the sweet pink and white polka dot fabric...

The lined jumpers will be $30 up to 3T.  $4 extra for 4T and 5T.  The one in this photo (love this retro-ish pattern!  shown with brown lining) is typically for wear with a shirt or turtleneck underneath.  I haven't yet made the other version of the jumper with a higher neckline.

The pillowcase dresses will be $25 through 3T ($3 extra for 4T and 4T).  This photo shows one of my favs- red seersucker with navy blue/white polka dots- it looks black in the photo, but it's navy).

The shipping if you buy through Etsy will be $4.50, and $2 for each additional item.  

The great thing about all these patterns is that you can wear them as tops once they are too short for dresses!  Even at dress length they look so cute with leggings!

So for those of you that asked me about getting that red/blue rose pattern dress, I only have a small amount of that fabric so email me if you'd like to order one (or two!) so I can earmark that fabric for you (M, L and D).  I'll measure out the fabric on a first come first served basis- hopefully I have enough for all 3 of you if you all still want that dress!  If any of you want it shipped instead of picking it up from me, let me know, and I'll make a custom listing for you on Etsy in my store.

I have a lot more ADORABLE fabrics so I'm trying to make 1 dress of each so I can post them all.  I'm still not sure when I'll start listing them on Etsy because I have a craft show coming up so I may want to wait until after that.

It Smells Like Roses...and Brunch

I finally got serious with the dress making, and I whipped up a preview of what will soon be offered at Little Chicken!

I used my old machine so this one is just a sample due to threading issues (and a new member of Ella's extensive dress collection!), but I did finally take the new fancy sewing machine Gary got me out of the box and did some other projects with it- I love it!

Here are some action shots of the dress (you can see that it's a little big for E, as I made the sample a 24 month size).  She's modeling it with one of my favorite felt rose clips in red...



On Sunday, I had a fun day at Fashion Island for brunch with the girls to celebrate the soon-to-be new Baby B! We can't wait to meet her!!!!

I have a few new hair clips and diaper clutches that will hopefully be listed tonight! I'm always getting requests for purple flowers so I have 5 new clips in different shades of purple!


My model was not cooperating, which is why she looks like a ragamuffin in these photos!


I LOVE this new diaper clutch pattern- so cute!


I don't have the right pink color fabric for the lining so I haven't made any yet, but this will be the next diaper clutch pattern. :)

V-Day Weekend in Santa Barbara

We headed up to SB with my parents for Valentine's Day weekend.  It started like this (keep in mind that we were only going for basically 2 days, and this does NOT include the pack-n-play, stroller and several toys that were already packed in the car)...

It just cracks me up that once you have ONE baby, the amount of stuff you need to travel somehow quadruples???

We drove up Friday and went to dinner at Opal. Ella only napped 25 minutes in the car and wouldn't sleep again, but luckily she was still well behaved at dinner since it was a nice restaurant.

Saturday was our pseudo-Valentine's Day so Ella got dressed up in her heart onesie, red & white tutu and red & white polka dot leg warmers!

We spent the morning shopping at La Cumbre Plaza and State Street and then headed down to Henry's Beach after naptime (clearly it was gorgeous in SB this weekend)...

We collected shells and rocks...




After the beach we went to the Coronado Butterfly Preserve where the Monarch butterflies migrate once each year. It's quite a hike when you are carrying a baby, walking a dog and wearing flip flops!

You can't make out the butterflies because between the lighting and wrong lens I couldn't get a good photo, but there were thousands of them. The entire trunk of the tree on the left is covered in butterflies.


We went to dinner for "Valentine's Day" at Bouchon. We have totally turned into the those people that bring their baby to fancy restaurants! I wouldn't do it if we were home, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you're on vacation! She did great though, and the maitre d, who she had been flirting with all night, even presented her with a rose and said, "you were so good tonight!"  [However, I will say that at the time we left, every single table in the restaurant was taken except the two on either side of our table!!!]

We drove home on Sunday and even had time to stop at the Camarillo Outlets- whoo hoo!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Skincare

I have very recently become obsessed with skincare.  Or more accurately, obsessed with preventing wrinkles and looking young.  I'm not kidding, this is the combination of products I am either currently using or recently tried but didn't like:

 I believe I have $crewed myself by doing (or not doing) two things:

(1) Laying out in the sun.  I remember very distinctly Tracy and I laying out WITH OIL every single day of summer.  Alternating between her pool, my pool and the beach (32nd Street yo!).  This could not have helped matters, although I'm sure I had a much higher vitamin D content at that time.

(2) I have never ever been into lotions and potions, and in fact, only started using face lotion daily within the last month!  I know, awful, but I've always had very oily skin and have been afraid of lotion on my face.

The ONE good thing I've done is [tried] to keep my face out of the sun since I've been 18.  The one thing I remember my mom always saying to me was, "I never put my face in the sun after 20."  This is probably one of the reasons she looks so young, but she also has olive skin, which I do not. :(

So, my obsession started after Ella was born when I noticed big bags and dark circles under my eyes that I couldn't control.  After trying different under-eye gels, lotions and concealers, I noticed I also began to have fine lines under my eyes...GROSS!  Apparently, according to the esthetician at the Guerlain counter, this is because my under eye area is severely dehydrated and dry causing lines that are further enhanced when the makeup cakes into them.

What is a girl to do?  I think I need a VERY hydrating under eye cream (probably with no anti-wrinkle ingredients because those tend to dry you out), a VERY hydrating night cream and then a regular oil-free daytime lotion, possibly with anti-wrinkle properties.  If anyone has the magic cure, feel free to share!  Especially if you have a SUPER hydrating lotion...I don't care if it has oil in it and is greasy, I just need something for my under eye area over night because it's starting to peel!!!

16 Months Old

My baby girl is 16 months old today! I've been doing mini-updates so there is not much new to report.

She is definitely entering the "terrible two's", but after some change in our attitudes, working on redirecting and rarely saying "no", she seems to be much better behaved! We still have the occasional sit on the floor and whine when I don't get my way behavior, but it has been greatly reduced...still no full blown tantrums! Yay! And still never a meltdown in public (I'm so dreading the day that that happens).  She really just gets cuter everyday- I'm so in love with her personality.  She makes the cutest faces, and her smile makes me melt.  The other day we were listening to a little hip hop in the car, and I said "dance baby!" so she started GROOVING in her carseat!  The people next to us at the light probably thought we were crazy both dancing in the car. ;)

She still isn't talking a ton, unless you count saying "dadadadadadada" over and over talking a lot! She loves her daddy! Everything else she says is fairly infrequently and reserved mostly for when you ask her to say it (if she's in a good mood). Although we *think* she has said lots and lots of words, she will say them once and never again so we're not sure if she really said them. Her words are:
*dog
*Rylee (ra ra)
*mama (she'll say it once if you ask her to, and then when she realizes she said it, she says "DA DA!")
*down
*Popple
*moo
*belly
*hi
*hello
*bye bye

She will also try to mimic the sound when you say a word she doesn't know.  Many times, we've said things like, "say bush" and she'll say "ush" so at least she's trying!  Still in a size 4 diaper, 18 month clothes, and probably between and size 4 and 5 in shoes.

I bought her a really cute Valentine's Day tutu, but I couldn't find a shirt I liked, plus I prefer tutus to be worn with onesies since shirts won't stay tucked in.  So while she was playing outside today, I whipped this up to wear for V-Day! I think it turned out pretty cute! I intended on making hair clips with similar felt hearts for V-Day, but of course I didn't do them in time. I need more hours in the day. :)

Are You Ready for some FOOTBALL?!

I am not a football fan, but I love me some Super Bowl Sunday because it means football is over! ;)  I kid (not really).  This year we invited a few of Ella's besties over for a football playdate since neither the babies nor [most of] the moms wanted to watch football.

We created a gated off play area on our driveway (why we did not think of this sooner is beyond me- best.idea.ever.) so as to provide access to all the fun big toys like the slide, picnic table, lawn mower, buggy, etc.  This also created separation of kids and football, which turned out to be a good thing because there was A LOT of yelling going on inside!

I did this mostly to try out my Cricut Expression cutter for the first time (which btw, I love and highly recommend).  You will note I tried to incorporate both Packers and Steelers colors!


The kids had a blast...





Now on to seasons with more fun things like baseball! ;)