WIP Wednesday- Royal Gifts

My crafting time the past few weeks has been used doing one of my favorite things- making gifts for children. Admittedly, it's usually around 2AM the night before the child's birthday party... but who's complaining? I'm happy to take the quiet time that I can to meditate with my hands and create something special for the child in mind.

It occurred to me that I never posted photos of Matteo's birthday crown (the only craft that got completed during that crazy time), but here it is...
...and bless his heart, he loved it more than the gorgeous felted crown that I had bought for him on Etsy :).

Matteo had a special friend at school last year, a wonderful little girl who I will call "M". Her Baba had mentioned to me that M had commented on Matteo's "dreamy brown eyes" during dance class and I had already been in LOVE with M's sweet nature that we decided on the spot to pre-arrange their marriage (JUST KIDDING!... kind of). ANYWAY, it was M's birthday recently and she had mentioned to me that purple and red were her favorite colors... so I had to make a crown befitting such a lovely potential daughter-in-law (ok, I'll stop)

...Can I just share this photo of the two of them? At party last summer, her Baba and I were trying to get a photo of them together and when asked to smile, we were met with the following responses:

"I'm eating"
"I want to play"

This picture just makes me giggle

A few months ago, I made a really truly wonderful friend, Nicola. We had initially met on our local parents network when she so kindly took a play structure off of my hands. I fell in love with her daughter, Lala who is 5 and hoped that we could get together again. Life being as it is, we didn't cross paths until months later when I realized that a parent/friend from Matteo's preschool is good friends with Nicola and thus a friendship was born. Nicola writes a wonderful blog about natural living, motherhood and frugality and it's been truly a treat to have a blogging friend who is also a friend that I see regularly (we always seem to be at the same yard sales :D). She is also my hero as she actually gets PAID for her writing, as she does a column for the Examiner on Frugality.

We were honored to be invited to Lala and her brother, Finn's birthday party last weekend and I was so excited to have the chance to make the Princess and Pea set that I had seen in so many wonderful blogs!

I used a "previously loved" Plan Toys Farmhouse girl and gave her a makeover by unbraiding her hair and making a new outfit for her with felt and some trim

Used the rest of my Good Folks stash and felted a pea...

I am slowly, but surely, getting back into the swing of things... starting to think about holiday gifts, a few more swaps to catch up on, and my adorable boys- Nico and Luca's- birthdays coming up in November...

So glad to be back WIP' ing (sounds naughty doesn't it ;}?)!

Thanks so much for joining me!