Look. I grew up with cabbage patch dolls. I ADORE cabbage patch dolls. But wtf is up with their business lately?? Raise your hand if you’ve purchased a doll lately. Chances are the room is not full of raised hands. They are VERY hard to find in stores, and when you do see them, they are very specific looks and styles, that are hard to customize or change. If you want a 17-20” doll (like my childhood) you can order online. Those beauties are $69.99 flipping dollars. The ones in store (like Walmart or target) are 14” and range between $22.99-$45.99 depending on where you shop. They are limited release and if you miss out on one, people are selling them online for hundreds of dollars. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND why the cabbage patch people are focusing on adoptimals. No one has a flipping key from their doll, so that’s not a selling point. The little cutie mini plastic toys are cute, but I mainly think so due to my love of my baby doll that I used to feed are dress like she were real. I spend 6 hours today trying to find a 14” doll thatbhad medium blonde/ light brown hair and brown eyes to match my youngest child. I might have chipped in for the 20” doll, but I had already purchased one for my older two children and didn’t want a size discrepancy. (Jealously, you know). I could rant more about how they’re not being the best doll company they could be (they could rival American girl if they quit doing these bullshirt side projects) but I will bite my youngest for now. But the BEST part of dollies in general is dressing them up!! If anyone has any good 14” cabbage patch doll patterns, let me know, but in the mean time, here is what I have mocked up, as I was unable to search a good pattern out on Pinterest. My goal is to make these into pdf’s eventually, but as of now, they are jpeg photos of printer paper. If you can print this with no margins, it should be good. GOOD LUCK! 👍🍀
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6/20/2015 0 Comments Thank you, PinterestMy oldest has a Pinterest page. She found this and asked to make it. I said yes (of course) and she wrote a shopping list, and prepared it completely in her own. It's layers of whipped cream, Chocolate chips, Crumbled thin mints ( but we substituted mint Oreos), And chocolate pudding halelujia. Benefits of the internets. 6/7/2015 0 Comments Hedgehog nurseryI started my sons nursery decorations when I was pregnant with him, and begged my mom to buy this set from ikea. Vandring Igelkott. It was before I knew if I was having a boy or a girl, and I fell in love. But it was missing a mobile to match, and after all my searching, the closest i could find was owls. I had always thought it would be fun to make my own, but never got around to it. I've had another baby since, and she's already 10 months, so idk what lit a fire now. So I need to attach cord, make sure they're weighted evenly, and I'll be done. Here's how my sons room looks now. Wall quilt is from ikea Foot duvet is from ikea Green comforter is from target Plaid sheets on clearance at target Owl mobile from Walmart Sea horse soothe and glow from target Pillowcase is a remnant from a project, but it's a crate and barell sheet set. The wooden bed is ikea The clip lamp is 7+ yrs old and idk where it's from. 4/15/2015 0 Comments The way to my heartYou know you're loved when you're brought a tall iced coffee for no reason. It was delicious and made me feel happy 😍💟 4/15/2015 0 Comments MeatloafWhenever my 13 yr old has an interest in cooking, I try to take her up on it. She found a recipie for bacon meatloaf and she was excited to try it. Partly, because she was in the middle of making a sassy point about me not buying stuff I think, but she rarely actually asks for stuff. She just hints at it and then pouts when we don't do it. I don't know about you all, but I don't want to do things my child isn't enthusiastic about. So when I get a half hearted "I kinda wanna..." I acknowledge it and wait for more excitement. In any case, she did a good job, and I appreciate when she does stuff like this. Yay for helpful teens! 4/15/2015 0 Comments DIY hair cut: attempt 1So, I started with a long ponytail of straightened hair. All the tutorials I had watched implied that I could place the ponytail where I wanted it, snip that off and my hair would be practically done. There was also an impression that I could use one hand as a guide and hold my hair out to the desired length, trim it up with the other hand, and go around my head that way. Here's what happened: -the scissors weren't even close to being able to cut the ponytail in one go, so I had to make 4 passes, leaving striated lines on the ponytail nub. Once I pulled the hair out, I ran my fingers thru the hair and could feel for unevenness and where I wanted the length to be. The when I took my free hand and tried to snip the hair, I couldn't even come close to telling where I needed to cut. In a mirror, everything is reverse, and it was hard to navigate. If I tried to just move my arm up and look in the mirror forwards, it was still complicated to tell how far my hands were apart. And when I came at the free bit of hair, I kept snipping my fingers since I couldn't tell where they were. Mostly it was just light pinches on dry skin, but i got one good cut. And when I had one bit of hair that was established as a guide, I couldn't see it at all against the longer hair. Once they touched it blended together. So I enlisted my husbands help. It's not as "DIY" as I'd hoped, since I wanted to be able to do it entirely independently, but I had become flustered and he was willing. That's not a good description for it. He didn't reluctantly agree, he voulenteered. He said he would love to help me and he felt honored I trusted him to do it. It was lovely. Plus, the hair cut was partly a cleansing. Shedding the past and starting fresh. And him being involved made it even more meaningful to me. So I pulled my hair out and held it still. He snipped it. He found it easier to snip when it was wet, so we spritzed it periodically. The wetter it got, the curlier it got. After a while it was hard to know if we blended it well. So once we got it to a good even cut and we felt it was likely done, I straightened it once more. We have it one more pass thru and made sure it was even and blended. It turned out nicely. It definitely wasn't the smoothest haircut. I could tell there were some weightier sections. It didn't air dry well on its own. But it was free and I had fun doing it. I appreciated the experience, but I learned a lot about my limitations. -I can't hold my arms up that long -I can't tell how far apart my hands are when they're holding things and behind my head -just because I can feel a section of hair is too long, doesn't mean I can retain that sensation for the length of time it takes to bring the scissors up for the correction. 4/9/2015 0 Comments Balancing life with dreamsI have such good intentions. And a to do list the length of my arm. Part of the curse of the creative brain is when you're flooded with ideas that would be awesome if you had endless 1)time 2)money 3)focus. Life endlessly gets in the way. And if you manage to grip tight to one idea, the challenge becomes fighting off other ideas that either detract or distract. In addition, the ideas that often seem the best are the ones that don't mesh with who I naturally am, as an individual. I've had to come to terms with a few sad truths, and in doing so, it's made the projects I have started working on more fruitful. We need to be more purposeful in our decisions, and know when to force out those creative thoughts. They're a blessing, and a curse. A few of my inexcapable truths: -I'm messy. I want a clean house so bad, but to get it is a constant battle. I will never be a Monica Geller. I need to prepare myself, that even the simplest of maintenece, will be a struggle to finish. And I can't allow myself to slack even a little. -I'm cheap. If it costs a lot of money to get done well, I won't do it. Especially if it's something that has uncertain outcomes. I want some things to be splurged on, but even when I save up I can't pull the trigger. Nothing ever seems worth it. -I'm lazy. If I can't blog on my cell phone, I likely won't do it at all. If I have to leave the house to do it, there's even less of a chance. I choose the path of least resistance every time. I keep thinking I'll have motivation to prioritize whatever it is, but siting on my ass wins Every. Single. Time. -I'm shy. I want to be able to "put myself out there." In my head, I'm a dynamo. I'm confident and funny and loud. But in reality? I won't speak up in a group of there are more than 4 people. I won't dress up to comicon because I don't want people looking at me. Being the center of attention makes me shrink. But despite knowing all this, I walk through stores that don't exist. I watch movies that have never been made. I dance choreography that I wouldn't physically be able to do if I tried. I see all these brilliant, and funny, and beautiful things in my mind as if they existed. Sometimes it becomes so distracting that I forget to see the things in front of me, like two growing babies that won't be little forever. Like a husband who works hard all day to provide for us, and doesn't have the luxury of wearing sweatpants all day. Like a teenager on the cusp of becoming an adult and moving away, that I should appreciate while she still has a shred of respect for me. My life is so much richer than I give it credit for. I need to remind myself to take a step back periodically. I'm not even talking about making great art, (which in itself is a crushing task if that's what you start out working towards), I'm talking about making or doing ANYTHING. I keep seeing funny little videos on YouTube, or comical/cartoonish photoshop creations. And all I can think is "do you know how many HOURS of work that fart joke took??" Knowing what's worth putting the effort into and what's not is my struggle. Knowing when to focus on the creative vision and when to focus on a productive and functioning family is another struggle. I'm always saying to myself "if you have 2 hours to spend on a doodle, you have 2 hrs to work out." Which turns in to "if you have time and energy to work out, you have time and energy to tackle the dishes" which turns into "aw man, I hate dishes. I guess I'll just sit around in my sweatpants." So here I sit. Fat, in a messy house, with nothing to show for the last 2 hrs. This doesn't seem like the best solution, but it's my 'go-to' logic. I need to find a better way of balancing all the things I want to do, and find a way to get the motivation to do it. 4/6/2015 0 Comments Fort structureYou're never too old for a giant, awesome fort. The issue just becomes making one big enough to fit in as you grow older. My oldest specially requested a fort in her room, but we wanted to make it especially roomy and cozy. I hoped to make it so she can sit on her bed and still watch tv. The solution? creating a multiple clothes line structure over her bed to pin sheets to. I decided to just screw into the wall, because ain't nobody got time for concerning yourself with consequences. We put 4 screws up, then used rope with slip knots to make a cats cradle zig zag of rope. Here's the issues we ran into: -The screws ripped out of the drywall when excessive weight was applied to certain sections of fort wall. -the screws didn't always hold the rope well, depending on the size of the screw head and the angle we put it into the wall Other than that?? It was awesome. We hung sheets and curtains and light weight quilts from it and she left the fort up for over a month. She wanted to do everything in the fort. We even had Christmas lights up for a little bit. I might try getting some dry wall hole reinforcer thingies to solve some of the issues. The other idea I had was to just get her a 4 poster bed, which would pop into a fort as quickly as anything. #forts4life #myfortisbetterthanyourfort #lifeinafort 3/10/2015 0 Comments Baby advice I agree with!This bitch has got it going on! LOVE this post! I agree with it all!!!!! http://modgblog.com/2011/08/23/5-steps-to-get-your-baby-to-nap-for-a-long-freaking-time-every-day-of-your-life/ I also liked this one: http://alphamom.com/parenting/baby/toddler-napping-problems/ If you can't tell, I'm working on improving nap times. I have taken on a boarder during the day. A precious little 14 month old who wants to be rocked to sleep while eating a bottle. And when I do get her in the crib, she sleeps 45-69 min. I then have the option of letting her sleep up to another hour in my arms. Where as this may work for this only-child at home, when she's at my place she's just one of three. And not even the cutest one (but a mother should be biased for her own children). I feel like I'm being held hostage, between being utilized as her personal portable arm hammock, or suffer the wrath of 60 minutes of shrieking followed by horrible behavior the rest of the day. I know what has to happen. I have to pick a routine and stick with it. But I have to narrow down what exactly will work best, then be strong enough to replicate the pattern daily. One downside is her parents are very tuned in to her cry and don't want her to fuss, ever. I don't think they're sticking with a schedule at bedtime it on the weekends. I LOVE SCHEDULES FOR LITTLE ONES (1 and up). I think it makes them confident and secure. 3/9/2015 0 Comments Not just for carsMy son likes to test what will slide down this ramp. He's put blocks, Legos, spoons, crackers, socks, coins... Basically anything you can think of that a toddler could get his hands on and test. This is what I get for keeping the potatoes on a decorative cart in arms reach of a small child. |
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