Leonardo da Vinci Costume

I was just going through my blog drafts and saw that I had never published the rest of our Halloween costumes. Here's the second one. One more to come!

My four-year-old wanted to be Leonardo da Vinci for Halloween and he wanted his little sister to be the Mona Lisa. Here's how his costume turned out. It's based on the sculpture of Leonardo da Vinci in Florence, Italy.

The sleeved cape is vintage--it belonged to my grandmother.

The hat is a large felt circle with stretched elastic zig-zagged to it. If fit just perfectly, but I would have liked it bigger since it shrank in the wash.

For the beard and hair I took a length of fleece long enough to go all the way around the cap (and a little extra, just in case). It's about 8 inches wide (the length of the hair/beard). I left one of the long edges intact and cut strips to about 1 1/2 inches from the edge for the hair portion. For the beard I cut a mouth whole about half and inch from the edge and cut the beard hairs up to about another half inch from the mouth hole. The I sewed the wig to the hat from one ear to the other, leaving the front unattached. It fit snugly to his face, but was a bit stretched out by the end of the night (and covered in candy-yuck!). A few more stitches will fix that when it's needed.

I tied a paintbrush into the hair over one ear.

And here's my handsome Leo. The name tag helped with recognition.

Soon to come: Mona Lisa!

Xmas Gifts 2: Football Fan Blankets

My brother-in-law is a huge BYU football fan. So for Christmas I went in search of his team's fleece to make him and his 18-month-old son matching blankets. While I didn't find the right team fleece I did find this fabulous minky football fabric that is even better. I lined the back side with fleece for thickness and made my own logo on the front out of the same.


This blanket was for my nephew. It's about four feet, square.


Here's the blanket for my brother-in-law. It's about 6 feet long, maybe longer.


I only had to cut the "Y" out once. I used the reverse for the baby's blanket.


He looks pretty happy about the gift, don't you think?

Xmas Gifts 1: Monsters, Inc.

My 5-year-old son made these Mike Wazowski softies as Christmas gifts for his brother, his cousin, and even one for his uncle and aunt. Okay, so I helped a little. I was amazed at how long he was able to concentrate. He worked on these for a few days in a row, for several hours at a time.


First he drew pictures of what he wanted the toys to look like. Next I cut out the fabric, according to his specifications. The bright green is fleece (leftover from the Little Green Alien Halloween costume) and the rest is felt.


My monkey helped with the machine sewing by pressing the pedal. As you can see, we had a good time.


Next, time for hand sewing. I really wanted this to look like it was from him, so I had him do the stitching around the circle by hand. I got him started, but almost all the stitches were done by him. I think he worked on it for about five hours one day. Yes, I am beaming.


Next, the stuffing.


MONSTERS! One is stuffed, one is not. The monster in the middle is my son.


Proud Parent


Next we started Sulley for dad. Unfortunately, Monkey One lost some of his momentum so Sulley is still only half complete. Hopefully soon I'll be able to post pictures of him whole.