Saturday, March 9, 2013

Funny kids!


The kids have said some funny stuff lately.
 
Mom and the Volcano
When Ken arrived home from work the other day, Camille proudly showed him her latest piece of art, which was of a volcano. Ken then asked her what she drew inside the volcano and she replied, "oh, that's Mommy!" Ken just nodded and said, "Wow! Tough day as a stay-at-home-mom, huh?"
 
The joys of TV
After sleeping in for a bit, I went downstairs and found that the girls had the TV on.  This is unusual as we only let them watch TV on the weekends and we supervise what they watch very closely.  I asked them what they were watching and Camille said, “oh, this is for your skin!”  Sure enough, they were watching a Cyndi Crawford infomercial for skin care!  Some days they’re way too funny!
Meghan teaches Mom about strangers
As we were leaving school after dropping off Camille, a mailman pulled up in front of our van.  I engaged in some small talk with him.  When I was putting Meg into her carseat she asks, “Mom, why were you talking to that mailman?”
I said, “well, he seemed like a nice man.”
Meg replied, “you know Mom, you can’t be too careful these days!”
Ah!  Important lesson from the mouth of an almost 3 year old!

Friday, March 8, 2013

Community helper vests-part 5 Police officer

Today's post is the last one on community helper vests.  Can you tell I had a lot of fun making these?  I have always been creative but never crafty.  I like sewing costumes because I can screw things up and it doesn't really matter.  Note:  I have no desire to sew real clothing.  Why go to all that trouble when I can buy it off the rack?  I do find sewing rather relaxing.  I live in a house full of talkers, but my sewing machine is loud enough that no one can talk to me when I'm sewing.  Ahhh...the bliss of silence!

The girls and I had fun taking pictures with the police vests.


Officer Camille says, "Don't talk on the phone and drive!"
 
Camille arrests Meghan, who clearly isn't taking the situation seriously.
Meghan learns she's going to jail, which Camille clearly likes!
 The police officer vests were made out of royal blue fleece, which is actually difficult to find.  I bought all the fleece at one store and couldn't find any more in any other fabric store.  The yellow stripes are made with yellow felt.  The patches were purchased off of eBay.  I hemmed the edges 1/2".
 
I used the following source as inspiration:
Source
 


Thursday, March 7, 2013

Community helper vests-part 4 Construction worker

I love the bold colors on these vests.  I actually made 10 of them because I miscalculated the amount of material I needed and was indecisive on whether to make the vests orange or yellow.
You might have noticed that these vests look a little big on Camille and huge on Meghan even though they were made for children their age.  We held Camille back from kindergarten this year (turning out to be an excellent choice, in our opinion...but that's another blog post...), but she is still the smallest kid in her class.  I made the vests with the largest preschooler in mind.  Also, we live in Minnesota so most kids go to school wearing bulky sweatshirts and sweaters.  Meghan will use these vests in the fall when she starts preschool, but she does not actually plot on a growth chart for her age yet, which means that 99.9999% of all children her age are larger than her.  I figure, as long as she is not tripping over the bottom hem on the vest, they're not too big.  Finding an "average" sized model in our house is not easy!

Both the yellow and orange vests were made with felt, as stated before, purchased at JoAnn Fabrics and 100% washable and dryable.  The stripes on the vests were also made with felt.


Orange store-bought binding was used for the trim on these yellow vests.

I just used a 1/2" hem on the orange vests.  Standard pre-made yellow trim available at our fabric store is not as bright as the yellow I used for the stripes, and I couldn't find a good match.
I used the following as inspiration for these vests:
Source:  Suble Tee Blog

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Community helper vests-part 3 Paramedic/EMT

For my friends in the medical community, yes I know that a paramedic and an EMT are not the same ;-)

 Camille and Meghan's poses seem similar in all of these photos, but they wanted you to know that they're administering shots in this photo.

These vests were made out of black fleece.  The stripes on the bottom are made from grey felt.  The patches were purchased from eBay.  Instead of using binding for the trim, I just hemmed the edges 1/2 inch.
 
I used this for inspiration:

Source

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Community helper vests-part 2 Mail Carrier

The girls handing out some imaginary mail.
The mail carrier vests are made entirely from felt.  The good news is that felt from JoAnn Fabrics is completely washable and dryable (on a low heat).  I made my own binding on these, which was really difficult because the felt was too thick to pin.  I ended up using binder clips to hold it on until I could sew it.  I do not think I will ever use felt for binding again.
 

These vests are probably my favorite.  They look very sharp and I was able to buy real USPS patches at this website.
 
 
 
Of course, now the girls are prompting me to make mail out of felt for them, too!
 


Monday, March 4, 2013

Community helper vests-part 1 Firefighter


In October I started making community helper vests for the preschool.  I finally finished them and am excited to share what I made!  I will try to share a new one each day.

The original inspiration for this project was this vest I saw on pinterest.  I was tired of my girls dressing up as princesses and thought something different might be fun.  Around the same time, our preschool was looking for parents to sew some items for their dramatic play area.

Source
 

Of course, I was raised in a family where nothing is done small.  We tend to get a little carried away.  So, one little sherriff vest turned into 30 vests of various types.

The first vest I attemped was a firefighter vest. I made my own vest template out of one of the kids' old t-shirts and got started.

I spent a weekend at my parent's house cutting out vests of various colors while my mom started sewing the vests together.  Here is the picture I used for firefighter "inspiration".

Pinned Image
Source

 
Here are my beautiful models!

My models
The girls thought it was a good idea to act out a firefighter holding a hose.
 
 
After visiting the firestation in town, I discovered that obtaining patches for the vests was going to be difficult.  I pondered making my own, but I really wanted the patches to look authentic so the kids could identify the various community helpers.  Thankfully, eBay came to the rescue and I found some inexpensive patches for sale.  The patches are not from our city, but they are authentic!

These firefighter vests were made with red fleece.  I made the black belts myself with black fleece.  The trim around the edges is simple black binding found in the fabric store.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another community helper vest!