Our littlest superhero.

I was inspired to make Zion a little superhero shirt to play in around the house.  It was super simple and super cheap.  AND she looks super cute.  The only thing that I had to sew was the cape to the shoulders of the shirt. The "s" on the shirt and lightening bolt on the cape are attached using iron on adhesive.  A fun and virtually no sew addition to the dress up bin.

Rocking out, Bijou style

I spent a few hours working on a drawing this evening.  Fortunately, the girls are really good at entertaining themselves.  A little Grooveshark and free reign over their closets and they are happy campers.  As usual, there was lots of singing, dancing and imaginary concerts.  During a short break from drawing, I caught Bijou just hanging out on the couch like this...

Notice the sweet tattoo (They all had them.  Gotta love birthday party goodie bags), vest and black tutu skirt.   There's nothing like being dressed up by your older sisters.

Just another night in the David household...

Sometimes I feel like my children live in a fantastic musical.  There's an abundance of song, dance and fantasy around here quite often.  Tonight, the girls decided that we needed to have a fancy dinner.  Jena wanted to cook dinner.  She made whole wheat penne pasta and tomato sauce with broccoli and mushrooms.  Ashni wanted to add some gourmet flair, so she was in charge of plating (chopped fresh spinach and smear of sauce).  A pot of peppermint tea and a few dressy outfits later, the girls were eating Italian food with chopsticks!  As if that was not enough, they also decided that they needed to speak in pretend accents for the entire dinner. 

Little Girls' Bedroom Spoiler

The big move hasn't officially happened yet, but redecorating the little girls' room is in full swing. (I will post pictures of the whole room once the bigger girls have moved out) For now, I thought I'd share a few completed projects. The little workbench had been successfully turned into "Little Monkeys' Farm Stand" complete with shopping carts and specials chalk board. If you need to drop off some mail on your way to pick up groceries, there's this little mailbox on the way! Once you've mailed your letters and picked up your groceries, it's time to head home to make dinner (or maybe vacuum or take care of the baby). I am still stocking the kitchen with canned goods and such.

We finally got a bookshelf back in the room (we moved it out last year because Bijou and Zion kept pulling ALL of the books off and throwing them around the room). Now all of the books that have been stored are sorted and shelved. The big girls' books went on the big book shelf in their new room. The little house on top of the book shelf is a super simple little night light that I put together for Bijou (who is afraid of the dark). It's just one of those papier mache houses they sell at Hobby Lobby (about $4) and a battery powered LED touch night light with an adhesive back (about $5). It casts great shafts of light from the windows and door of the little house onto the ceiling and walls of their room at night.

This is the little workbench as it was when we bought it. Notice the curious little one trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing.

A couple of wooden boxes we already had and a plethora of felt food later, they have a cute little market stand.

I painted the black sheep painting for Bijou when she was first born. I think it works well here.

In closet playhouse, complete with vacuum for tidying up!

I didn't really have anything to stock the kitchen pantry, so I saved a couple of cans and glued pictures from magazines to the outside. I just used up some stickers we had in the craft cabinet for the words.

The night light after dark. Looks a little creepy here, but it's not creepy in real life.

And finally, my very sweet little Zion in front of her newly organized bookshelf!

Jena's newest obsession

I know that a few years ago (and still today) there was a HUGE American Girl craze sweeping the country. Fortunately, we lived on an island then and our girls were still pretty little so they A) had never even heard of American Girl and B) were too young to care. Besides, I am not a fan of most dolls because I think they are creepy (that's my secret phobia). On top of the dolls being insanely expensive (to me), they did not resemble any part of my daughters, so we skipped the whole thing. Until recently. A couple of months ago, we came across a doll at Tuesday Morning that Jena fell in love with. She'd saved up some money so we let her get it. It's from a brand called Karito Kids. It's along the same lines as American Girl (they come with a book, and some other things), but each doll is from a different country and actually LOOKS like she would be from that country!! Jena's first doll is named Ling and she is from China. She loves her, but really wanted to get Lulu, the doll from Kenya (which really resembles her). So on our last trip to Tuesday Morning, guess what we found. So, my mom shelled out $30 to bring Lulu home. Now, I still think that these dolls are CRAZY expensive (they retail for $99), but Tuesday Morning is an awesome place to get stuff for a bargain. Of course, now Jena is busy everyday sewing clothes and making furniture for her dolls. Soon, she's going to have to build them a house in the backyard because I don't know where to plans to put all of this stuff.

New(er) Play Kitchen for the kids

So, I might be a little obsessed. I'm not sure why. Maybe I was deprived of a fabulous play kitchen when I was child and have repressed that memory and it is resurfacing as this play kitchen obsession that I seem to have. Who knows. Anyway, I found this kitchen at our local Goodwill on Sunday (yes I spent my Mother's Day at Goodwill). I forgot to take pictures before I took the doors off the microwave and oven. Ooops.



(I'm thinking that this is pretty much what the one I bought would have looked like new. It's very.....pastel.)



Granted, it already pretty cute, but I'm not really a fan of cutesy things. So, I decided to put my style into it. A couple of cans of spray paint, some new hardware, a little creativity and a jar of Mod Podge later, this is the new kitchen the kids have in their room. I had a piece of wood cut at Home Depot to make a refrigerator (that part was missing when I bought it). This kitchen was much more expensive from start to finish than the last one. This one cost around $50 total (I generally like to keep my projects under $20 because I'm cheap). Now I just need to replenish the felt food supply.

Brand New Dollhouse

I've been getting taunted daily by all of the modern dollhouse that making an appearance on the internet lately. I love them, ALL of them! So I woke up inspired today and determined to build a fabulous modern house. Fortunately the temperature today was a fantastic 60+ degrees. Now, we don't own power tools (or any tools really except for a hammer, several screwdrivers and a Dremel), so building this house was a brain teaser. I had some scraps of wood that I swiped from the Home Depot throw away bin and a collection of various Home Depot Kids Clinic projects that had been mutilated by overzealous children. I figured somewhere in all of those random pieces a dollhouse lurked. I would say it was more like doing a logic puzzle than actually constructing anything. I did not cut any of the wood, but I did have to use the Dremel to shave of a few millimeters from a couple of pieces. Originally I was going to sketch out the different pieces and try to put a design on paper, but that didn't work out so well. So, I just winged it!

The big girls helped dismantle some of the pieces. Jena pulled out the nails and Ashni sanded all the rough edges.

These are the pieces that we had to choose from. There were lots of nails, but fortunately no trips to the ER for tetanus shots.

Here it is pretty much completely constructed. The white door on the front slides. I used some pieces from a message board that had a track to slide the white board in. The door is actually a piece of the white board.

Jena helped out a lot. She's good at getting her hands into tight spaces and she's very enthusiastic about creating things. She was out in the garage pulling out nails before I could even get out there.

Completed paint job. The little trees came from out bush outside. It smells very piney. The little planter is from a perpetual calendar that we made a couple of months ago.

Notice the sleek modern fireplace complete with photo of Miles Davis!





The kids couldn't wait to furnish their new house. So now, they have this house with the living room and dining room and they've put all of the beds in the barn that we found yesterday.

We have retired the cardboard dollhouse. It hasn't been discarded, but it has been relocated to their closet. I'm sure it will still get plenty of use.

Reduce, Reuse, RECONSTRUCT

I am a big fan of cardboard and its many uses. My favorite use right now? Fabulous and virtually free toys for the kids. Because the phrase "starving artist" in heavily weighted in truth, awesome toys can be beyond our financial reach. The solution, my friends? If you can't buy it, recreate it. To date, we've made a lovely kitchen for Bijou complete with sink and oven. She was in desperate need of a place to prepare her array of felt food (I was beginning to miss my pretend meals). It took weeks, but the girls and I finally finished the cardboard dollhouse. AND because I've gotten so much positive feedback, I've decided to complete my illustrated instruction book for both projects. Honestly, I've tired of retyping instructions in emails over and over again. Here are some pictures of Bijou's kitchen (and food) and the dollhouse. Keep and eye out for the instruction books coming soon! At some point I would like to be able to construct a few pieces of cardboard furniture. Keep your fingers crossed.

The dollhouse in its skeletal stage. It's all held together with packing tape and Elmer's.

A fresh coat of yellow picked out by the girlies.

Sandpaper and black construction paper make the shingles on the roof. Shutters and doors added.

The kiddos trying their hand at interior design. Their choice of wall treatments is questionable.


The kitchen. Complete with fridge, stove, oven and sink. The lovely shelf above the stove is cut out of an Ikea catalog.

The living room sofa and more Ikea home furnishings. We are particularly fond of the green lamp.

The completed front door with handle and porch light cut from a home furnishings magazine

Blue bathroom on the third floor.

The family is all moved in and ready to play!















Some pictures of the kitchen, as well as pictures of the felt food I made to go along with it. Some of the food is new, the rest is transplanted from the cardboard kitchen we had in St. Croix.

Some day I will master the blog format....unfortunately it will not be today, blah...