Leia asks to sew every day she's here.
We always go over sewing safety, then I turn her loose to sew whatever she wants. She usually plays around with the different stitches on my (gulp) good machine, sewing straight lines on fabric from her own bag of scraps.
But this time she branched out, making blankets for the beanie babies she and Leanne got from Mickey D's.
Don't you love how baby elephant is tucked so cozily into the Ark?
And the second best part of all this? Right after watching a budding quilter-in-the-making? The girls worked together on this for over an hour without bickering. It's a sewing day miracle!
I may have gotten a tad carried away planning 4th of July crafts for the little girls. I'd forgotten that Leia was leaving Tuesday night for her mom's family reunion, so we tried to cram all the fun into one day so she wouldn't miss out.
We freed the lady bugs, tie dyed shirts,
drew on the driveway with chalk (ok, maybe not so patriotic, but it was fun!),
made magic wands
tutorial here; I used duct tape rather than washi tape
and drew on the driveway some more after naps.
Whew!
Leia's practicing her curtsy.
Even with that, I still had projects left,
so when Leanne came over on Thursday,
she and I painted fireworks with glitter glue.
We had such fun with the first batch of tie dye, I decided to do it again so Leanne could join the fun.
Right after Tuesday's ladybug freedom parade, we filled the dye bottles with water and the girls shook, shook, shook to mix it all up,
while I wrapped rubber bands around damp shirts in the girls' chosen designs.
Probably should have tightened the top more. . .
Not many pictures of the painting process, but the girls had a blast.
We left the shirts to soak overnight, then I washed them Wednesday, adding a cup or so of vinegar to the first rinse/spin cycle to set the dye. Have to remember that next time since it's not in the directions.
And the results? Awesome!
In all the pictures below, Leia's shirts are on the left;
Fronts
Leanne's are on the right.
Backs
Marie wanted a red, white and blue shirt for Leanne to wear on the 4th, so we did those first,
Fronts
then used the remaining dye, plus the yellow that came in the kit, to make the second set of shirts.
Backs
And this time, Leia knew the green color was coming; she told Leanne "watch this" and then explained that yellow + blue = green. So proud of my little monkey.
More accurate color for the patriotic shirts.
While we were at Osh on Monday, Leia spotted the ladybug display. . . . Want to guess what came home with us? And you know what? It's the best entertainment value ever for the $6 I spent!
Leanne wasn't sure what the crawly things were and, at first, didn't want any part of them.
But whatever "HayHay" does, Leanne must do,
so they were soon happily hunkered down, watching the ladies wander out of their container and into the well-watered area we had prepared for them.
Leanne drew the line at actually touching the ladybugs - or letting them touch her -
but Leia couldn't get enough of them crawling around on her fingers and hands.
I expected most of the ladybugs to fly off -
which is what's happened when I've released them in the past -
but they must have liked their new digs;
they were still around
late into the afternoon.
This turned out to be a great summer activity that both girls loved. Maybe I can repeat it in August, when they're starting to get bored? Something to think about.
