Oh Christmas, how I love you! I am super sad you are already over. I plan and wait and prepare for this season ALL year long and then it is gone in the blink of the eye. SAD DAYS!!!
Now, on to the good stuff.
For the past few months I have been slaving away on a quilt for my mom and an amazing doll house re-do for my favorite little Rylie. I am not sure how I decided upon these labor intensive gift ideas....but I did. Of course once I settle my mind on something it must be done and I am so excited to show off my handy work!
I spent many long and sometimes torturous hours on these projects and I must say, I am pretty pleased with the outcome.
My mom's quilt was a true labor of love. I can honestly say that my first true quilt experience was met with blood, sweat, and tears. Oh how many hours were spent unpicking and re-sewing that blasted quilt!
Then, today when I gave my mom the 90% finished quilt (I still need to bind it) she opened the box and with and excited face said, "It's a quilt?". I lost it. I started crying like a freaking psycho. My mom was so worried that she said something wrong, but in reality I was just overwhelmingly relieved that it was over. That I had finally accomplished getting this quilt as good as done and to my mother. Who knew quilting was so darn emotional?!?
Really though, am I the only one on the planet that has done this? It was kind of pathetic. Any way, here she is. Ta Da!
On on a side note, Freyja seemed to really enjoy the quilting experience. Every single time I pulled it out to work on she immediately came over and laid right on top of it. Freyja just really wanted to contribute.
Now, on to the doll house.
I had originally planned to construct a dollhouse from scratch after I saw an amazing DIY one on a blog. After cutting the frame for it we decided it was massive! Don't get me wrong, it would be freaking awesome, but we had a bit of a space constraint to consider. So we scrapped that idea and I moved on to plan B. Refurbishing my vintage Barbie dream house from my youth. This was a pretty darn cool house. It had window shutters and doors that opened and closed. Plus three separate buildings to play in!
The only problem was, it was HIDEOUS! Really, really 70's, and not much to look at. However, I saw potential, like I usually do, and figured a few coats of spray paint should do the trick.
I started with the roof and used a textured, shimmery black spray paint to imitate shingles. Then I chose a nice stone grey for the floors and a white for the walls. I originally was planning on painting the trim and doors purple, because that is Rylie's favorite color, but in the end I went with mine...aqua. I also had to think of something to do with these plastic sleeve things that went over the columns of the house. They were discolored and cracking but kind of necessary. I opted to reinforce them with duct tape and lucky for me, they make all sorts of colors these days.
After that task was done I wanted to camouflage the duct tape so I sprayed them with a textured stone spray paint. These pillars turned out to be my favorite part of the house. They are SO COOL!
Here are a few close ups of the details.
Next, I had to furnish it...of course! I had gotten a bunch of doll furniture on ebay and repainted it for the house but I needed a dining table and chairs as well as some side tables. Thanks to the good 'ol web, I made some tables out of a candle stick, craft board, votive holders and coasters. I basically spent like $8 because the coasters were on clearance. I also found a great tutorial on how to make chairs out of wire hangers. They turned out great!
I had so much fun putting this house together that I really wanted to just keep it! Unfortunately I knew I wouldn't get as much enjoyment out of it as little miss Rylie.
After ripping off this fabulous wrapping job, Rylie immediately when to work playing.
