crooked house

Getting Ideas for Sylvie's Birthday Party

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Party from Sweet Paul on Vimeo.

We've been planning this Wizard of Oz party for months...

Snow White and the Leaf Monster

Sylvie wearing her Snow White false eyelashes, which she now begs to be allowed to wear everywhere. No, I don't let her.

And here is Snow White with her good friend, the Leaf Monster. What, you've never read that one?

Fairy Costume

The Halloween costumes are out in the grocery store already and once Sylvie caught a glimpse of this one, it was unlikely we'd be able to leave the store with our good moods intact. But instead of fighting her on it, I caved immediately -- it was only 14 bucks -- as I know it will get a lot of wear before and after the one big day. The problem will be getting the thing off her, to wash it. (Cross your fingers it doesn't fall apart in the machine.)

Our Paper Moon Photos

A very kind artistic friend made this paper moon backdrop for us last year and we've only just gotten around to using it. (It's actually not paper -- it's made out of a sheet of sparkly felt and some kind of synthetic silver cloth I found in the remnants bin at the fabric store.)

I can't exactly remember when Will and Kate were married, but we put this together at that time and  this hat is the one Princess Beatrice wore to their wedding.

Do you recognize the Dowager Countess's hat?

Now that we've used it, I'm selling off all these old hats and costumes and this backdrop to make room for more Halloween stuff! Cheap! (My piles of past projects are ridiculous.) Let me know if you're interested.

Find of the Century: Sylvie's Tea Party Dress

We found Vivi's Indian tea party dress for ten bucks at Kinder Klozet, a local children's consignment shop. The owner Lyn's good friend is from India and her father sends his granddaughter TEN fancy Indian dresses every Christmas. The tags were still on this one.

We were going to have her dress as Alice in Wonderland and I had a special blue full tutu skirt made for the occasion, as well as an apron just like Alice's, but Vivi took a dislike to the expanse of the skirt. (The outfit probably cost $100 in total and she preferred the $10 one -- take note, other mothers with Ideas.) I'll try to get a photo of her in it later, when she's up to it. She even has a pair of white gloves to go with it.

One Day, My Child, You Will Be

A bishop, a boxer, a bullfighter. Eric Maloberti imagines what the future may hold for his three-month-old daughter June.

And of course, DON'T MISS Lotte Time Lapse: Birth to 12 years in 2 min 45, which makes me want to weep.

Alice in "Underland" Shoes

Vivi has officially switched her allegiance from Dorothy to Alice, as evidenced by the fact that she now wears black Mary Janes all the time instead of ruby slippers. She's also been toying with headbands. Time to purchase a blue dress with a white apron coverall. Do you think she got all those cuts and bruises falling down the rabbit hole?

Boobie Beanie

You can purchase these boobie beanie baby hats -- or the pattern to make one yourself -- on etsy. You know, so you can protect the delicate sensibilities of those who are offended by public breastfeeding. God forbid anyone should happen to glimpse a bit of breast as it nourishes an infant.

Sylvie and The Wizard of Oz

Sylvie discovered The Wizard of Oz a few days ago and the movie has been on constant replay in the crooked house ever since. She identifies very strongly with Dorothy and often refers to her as "Sylvie." This morning she was wearing her (too-large) "ruby slippers" -- she has taken to calling them that -- with her night gown when I remembered that the dress I bought her this summer for her second birthday looks a lot like Dorothy's. Up till now, she has absolutely hated this dress and refused ever to put it on. I think we're going to be seeing a lot of it from now on.

Luke's Lego Minifig Costume

He wanted it to look exactly like his minifig character in Lego Universe and he's very pleased with the result. I'd like to print out the Lego logo and glue it to the front of the body but Luke's not having any of that.

We took some inspiration from these extremely handy fellows but simplified, simplified, simplified. The fancy costumes they made -- they're practically perfect replicas -- took 40-50 hours each to make and required the use of a variety of power hand tools. Ours took probably 4 hours, tops.

For the mask, we used two sheets of yellow craft foam, taped together with yellow duct tape. Luckily, the tape and the foam were the same perfect colour. The  most finicky part was using said yellow duct tape to fasten a flat circle cut frome the same kind of foam to the top of the mask. We ended up using the glue gun as well and just fiddled a lot. The eyes were a bit fiddly, too -- they needed to look like minifig eyes but they also needed to be in the right places for Luke to see through them. We marked the positions of his eyes with a pencil and used an exacto knife to cut out circles. (Note: NOT while Luke was wearing the mask.) The smile was drawn on with a sharpie marker.

The little round connecter on the very top of the mask and the hands were both made from little round craft boxes we found at Walmart for two dollars each. For the top, we just covered it in the yellow duct tape and hot-glued it on. For the hands, we cut out the bottoms of the boxes, snipped a section out of the sides, covered them in yellow duct tape, and taped them to the backs of fingerless gloves that Luke keeps tucked inside his sleeves. (We had a pair of red mittens that would have worked better but Luke insisted that he will need his fingers free to select his Halloween treats.)

We purchased two cardboard display boards, one in red and one in blue, and simply cut out a front and back from the red in the correct shape for the body. We hotglued two strips of red fleece, cut from an old blanket, to them for shoulder straps. The body fits him like a sandwich board. (The cardboard display boards  each cost $11 at a craft store -- if you wanted to save money, you could just use any old cardboard and paint it.)

The legs are also glued to a strip of red fleece that wraps around Luke's middle and is fastened in the back with a couple of safety pins. If I had to do it again, I think I'd make the legs out of one piece of cardboard instead of two, as they tend to get kicked out to the sides as he walks.

When Luke isn't wearing his costume, Sylvie likes to put on the mask and walk around intoning "I BE ROBOT. I BE ROBOT." We have no idea where she picked this up.

It's been a busy couple of weeks for minifigs -- a mysterious 8-foot-tall one recently washed up on a beach in Florida.