Hedwig Baby Owl No-Sew DIY Costume

Lottie dressed as little Hedwig to go with her big sister, Hermione.

After looking at many, many baby owl and Hedwig costumes on Pinterest, I found this one and knew it was the one. Her tutorial is here.

The main fabric is some cheap white polar fleece that was left over from the Max costume I made Leo a few years ago.

Birthday Mini Marquee

Today is my birthday. It's one of those milestone ones, too... ;) So, this past weekend we had a party, and I used it as an excuse to make my own light-up mini-marquee sign. The tutorial is from Oh Happy Day.

Their instructions are brief, but it worked just fine. The hardest part was folding the strips that you then glue to the sides, but once I got my system down it wasn't too bad. I used the same lights, and the same quick-dry tacky glue, as Jordan recommended. I found I didn't even need to reinforce with tape, which was nice because the few places that I did add tape were too shiny once spray-painted.

Stuffing the lights in was frustrating, but nevertheless successful.

Popcorn and Cranberries Garland

Shiny Ball Ornament Wreath DIY

Last night a couple local mama friends and I had a glittery craft night to make Christmas ball ornament wreaths.

There are lots of different techniques for this kind of wreath online, but this is how we did it. We worked loosely from this tutorial, but didn't take the caps off our balls.

Crafty Chloe Doll Bed

It's no secret that I love Heather Ross—her fabric, her illustrations, her patterns—so, it's no surprise that I ordered Crafty Chloe for Louisa as soon as it came out. The book is FANTASTIC. And, it inspired me (and Louisa) to do a little crafty crafting of our own, for Lou's twin friends who celebrated a birthday last weekend.

At the end of the book Chloe gives her friend Emma a doll bed she makes out of a clementine crate. There are instructions from Heather (via the Martha Stewart Show) on the Crafty Chloe website. We decided to give the twins their own copy of Crafty Chloe and a homemade pink doll bed, just like Emma's.

A Preschooler's First Valentines

This year was Louisa's first time having Valentine's Day at school, which is something I always looked forward to as a young student.

Decorating mailboxes and giving and getting valentines from all your classmates is just so exciting.

There are so many great ideas out there in blogland, but we went the classic homemade doily-construction paper-stickers-sequins route this year.

It was a lot of good practice writing each child's (and teacher's) name on the back of their valentine. She mastered R and N, both of which she used to avoid, thanks to Dorothy, Nora, Ethan, and others.

She and her classmates gave us an impromptu performance of a couple "love" songs at pick-up time, including "Love Is Something If You Give It Away," which is absolutely adorable (you can watch them sing here).

Here she is with her "mailbox," eager to go read all her valentines at home!

Glitter

Martha Stewart knows glitter. This year we made these stars out of mat board (from the December 2011 Martha Stewart Living). 

Pumpkin Place Cards

For Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house, I made pumpkin place cards based on this tutorial on Oh Happy Day.