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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Felicia is what my 3 year decided to name our tadpole, after mommy provided some "F" name suggestions. Mommy was shooting for Philipe or Fred the Frog!
Hopefully Felicaia turns out to be a female frog!
Felicia is very very small!
"She" is only approximently a half inch long from nose to tail.
If I can get some video clips to upload to youtube I'll be adding them to this post.
You can actually see the tadpoles heartbeat!
Very cool!
~Laura
March 29th 2012 Felicia is Growing!
It's probably not easy to see from the picture, but she has definitely gotten a little chubbier and I think her tail has grown some too! I haven't figured out how to upload some of my video clips yet, but I'll keep trying!!
Got one to work! You can see the tadpole's heartbeat!
~
Added on April 11th 2012
Felicia is getting bigger!
I will hopefully have another video to add that shows you that Felica got a few more tankmates. On Easter Sunday my father~in~law sent us home with several tadpoles that he had captured for us. Along with the additional tadpoles also came some planaria (I think?), a strange water bug and some mosquito nymphs. I've tried to remove any mosquito nymphs that I've seen. I'm not really interested in participating in a live presentation of their life cycle. I'm sure that there is much more life in that water than I can see.
Do You See What I See?
Look closer!
That darker line coming out from behind the tadpole's body and just below the tail is a teeny tiny leg forming!
We have had Felicia for approximately 4 weeks now!
May 3th 2012
It looks like a few of my tadpoles have sprouted their front legs!
Not all of the tadpoles have sprouted their front legs yet.
I'm probably going to need to let the frogs go soon after their tail disappear. They are so small that I have no idea what I could capture insect/wormwise that they would be able to fit into their very tiny mouths. Does anyone have any meal suggestions for these tiny little guys?
Felicia is one of them.
She actually is appearing a little deformed. I'm not sure if the curve of her tail will affect her metamorphosis into a frog.
The picture below is a picture of Felicia from above. You can see the curvature of her tail. That is the position that her tail stays in.
May 4th 2012
Felicia sprouted her front legs today!!!
Just another picture of our little guys.
Some sad news one of my tiny tadpoles that had sprouted its front legs also died today and I don't know why :(
May 6th 2012
More sad news: we have now lost a total of 3 froglets.
We still have several living and a few that still have not sprouted their front legs. One of them is so cute and is just about 100% frog or toad from all outward appearances. In the top picture you can see just a stub of a tail remaining. The bottom one shows how small he is in comparison to my thumb.
~
Felicia is looking more and more like a Leopard frog. My Husband thinks she looks like and alligator when she's peeking up above the water. What do you think?
May 8th 2012
Just wanted to share a few more pictures of our froglets.
Aren't they cute!
May 15th 2012
I've been eager to update this post with the great news that Felicia is eating very well! My little guys have eaten some as well. They Still worry me because I don't see them eat all that often and it is really tough to find food that is really small. I purchased a tube of flightless fruit flies that so far have only provide me with two flies the rest remains in the larval or pupa states. Wishing that the pupa would hurry up and produce me some more flies to feed the little guys!
I like to take and share pictures of our amphibian friends so here are a few more!
The little guys seem to think that they are tree frogs. Notice the one in the back trying to climb the wall of the tank!
Dinner time!
So far Felicia has not attempted to eat the little guys, which is of some concern. It is so much fun to watch her take notice of a cricket and watch it closely and then lunge for it when the time feels right.
Just finished taking the time to figure out what kind of frogs our little guys are... North American Wood Frogs! Wood frogs have a rage that spans way up into the northern parts of Canada and Alaska. They have this really cool feature that allows them to become frozen in winter which means no heartbeat! Then when spring arrives they warm up and their heart starts beating again! How cool is that!
