Up~Cycled Challenge on PR&P

This week's challenge was to create an outfit from recycled or organic materials.  This challenge had a rough start in the beginning to the point that I had lost enthusiasm for the project, but then I came across an old shirt of mine and sparks began to fly again.  I had started to make a ruffled dress from one of the green shirts but it just did look as great as I wanted it to.  I still have it and I will probably finish it off and let my oldest use it as a night gown or for dress~up play.  

The items that I used for this project were an old pair of my mom's jeans, an old shirt of mine and 2 shirts purchased from Salvation Army (they were both 50% off their ticked price).  

 The elastic for the waistband was even up~cycled from a pair of mens underwear!!

 Here is the finished project being modeled by my two lovely assistants!

So what do you think? 

Oh and guess what next weeks challenge is:  A Color Challenge. We have to pick a color and make an outfit based on that color.

If you would like to see what other readers of PR&P have done with the challenge check out their Photos of the Up~Cycle Challenge here.

~Laura

Sportswear Challenge

I recently came across a blog that challenges readers to make different types of clothing for children.  Which I currently seem to have great interest in.  So I was thrilled to be able to participate and allow creative juices to flow!  Their most recent challenge was to make sportswear and the only help they gave was a wikipedia definition of what sportswear is.  Which wasn't all that clear to me so I did some more research and found out that a woman named Coco Channel was an influential fashion designer that was one of the first or the first to create sportswear.  I tried looking for photos of some of the original fashion designs which originated to the 20's and 30's.  

Sportswear is clothing that was designed to be more comfortable and looser fitting but still a polished enough look that a woman could wear the clothing to work and then to watch a sporting event.  At least that is my understanding of what sportswear was originally.   

I really liked the pants that I was seeing in the older photos.  They were wide legged and some had cuffs at the bottom.  I liked the cuffs.   Hence I made pants with cuffs.  The top was much more complicated the 20's tops seemed to have a dropped waist line but some of the 30's fashion photos had the pants sitting higher above the waistline.  So I decided that I liked the dropped waistline.  

The two older photos to follow are just a couple I found on my search to find out what sportswear was.  

The photos can be found at here: Sportswear Photo Link.

Drum roll please..... 

Here are two pictures of my girls modeling my finished outfit for Project Run and Play's Sportswear challenge.  

If you are interested in participating in any of their upcoming challenges check out their blog at http://projectrunandplay.blogspot.com/

Some info on how I made the outfit:  The pants were made after tweaking a pattern that I already had.  The top was a different story.  I decided to go with a dropped waistline look and thought that a tie off to the side would look nice.  The top was pieced together quickly (Wednesday night to be exact)!    

What I would have liked to do differently:  If I knew how to put pockets in the pants I would have done that.  The pattern did not have pockets :( and I wish that I had taken the time to actually make a pattern for the top.

So what do you think?  

~Laura

Where in The World is Geoffrey (the giraffe)

The girls and I recently read the book titled Flat Stanley.  I had heard about children sending out their own  Flat Stanleys to various places and teachers using this project as a way to study geography and improving writing skills, etc.  I thought that my girls might enjoy learning a little geography.  

So instead of making a flat Stanley, we decided to make Geoffrey the giraffe.  My oldest has a thing for giraffes.  

We would love to see Geoffrey visit each of the 50 states at least once and whatever country we can also get him to.

As of this past Monday, April 16th 2012 we have sent a Geoffrey out to Honolulu Hawaii, Foster City California, and Karlsruhe Germany.  I will be sending one out to Richberg, South Carolina very soon.  I don't want to send out more than Four Geoffreys at a time. I would like to have some time to think of activities and read books on each of the areas/states/countries that Geoffrey visits.  What a lucky giraffe Geoffrey will be!  I wish that I could see all of these wonderful places myself, until then I will have to live vicariously through a paper giraffe!

Stay posted I will be updating as our giraffe visits and share some of the activities and books that we read along the way.

~Laura

A New Family Tradition

We started doing a devotional prepared by Noel Piper titled Lenten Lights, Eight Biblical Devotions to Prepare for Easter on Sunday night.  We technically should have started on Saturday night~oops!  This is the first year doing something like this as a family so I assume that we will tweak things to improve upon what we did the year before.  I got the idea to do a special devotional during Holy week from a blog post I accidentally came across on A Holy Experience's blog.  Ann keeper of A Holy Experience's blog also mentions the 8 devotionals put together by Noel Piper.  The devotional can be found here at Lenten Lights.  The Devotional shares the symbolism of the seven candles, which is this "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it". John 1:5 But for a while it seemed as if the darkness was overcoming.  I'm going to share some pictures during our first night.

~Laura

It's Holy Week! And I'm determined to not let it sneak up on me!

Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: "Hosanna to the Son of David! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!' Hosanna in the highest!" ~Matthew 21:9

Today is Palm Sunday!  

I've been feeling like I need to make sure that this week doesn't slip right past me and I be unprepared to celebrate on Easter Sunday.  Too many of my past Easters have snuck up on me.  I don't want to get buried under a mountain of Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies and miss out on remembering and meditating on what Christ did for me.  

I recently came across another individual's blog and was encouraged to be better prepared for Easter Sunday.  I'm also wanting to help my girls focus more on the cross and our risen Savior and not so much on the Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies.  So we, as a family plan to do a daily devotional during this Holy week, starting tonight! 

I can't wait!

Now I want to share a couple of my pictures of the Easter table centerpiece that I put together.

Do you think I need to trim the grass some more?

~Love, Laura