Doll house redo and felt star garland

 Just random things I forgot to blog but are crafty.

Wool Felt Star banner. 

I saw this on createdblissfully last May and loved it. But no hand sewing for me.  It's been hanging for some time now and never blogged. I guess because it's just two pictures and that's not very exciting.

This too has been done a while ago. I know I say that about everything. Almost everything. Some things I blog right away and others sit...anyway, if you remember, I got the girls this barbie house in the states at a garage sale. I love it and I don't have a problem with how big it is but I do have a problem with how the furniture doesn't fit! You can see in the picture (here) that the furniture technically fits but they have no where to move around and the bathroom had to be two rooms because the vanity and tub and toilet don't all fit in one room. Had I known this I wouldn't have bought it and shipped it back! They rarely played with it. So I cleared out the bookshelf in the playroom, "wall papered it" and "carpeted it". I do have to say for the record that I know it's a crap job and I totally plan on changing it and making it much better when we move back to the States and have access to more stuff. But for right now it's ok and they play with it. I was thinking I might print out wall paper from that Heather Ross book . Wouldn't that be cute?? 

I used my Silhouette Cameo to make faux rugs. This is vinyl in three colors (above) and one for the living room carpet. I used thick spongy shelf liner for the "wall-to-wall carpet" and the vinyl stuck perfectly to it. I used some scrap booking frames to make frames for the walls and had the girls color in pictures.

For the bedroom I cut up the back of an Emily Strange calendar. They look like album covers don't they??

And lastly, zippers. I bought a bundle of zippers from etsy of various sizes but all above 16" and although they are cheap, I don't always need 16". I usually end up cutting them to a smaller size. But I feel horrible throwing out the left overs which can be quite a lot (see below) because usually it's colors I can use again so I found a bunch of zippers for 1 euro and took off the heads. I then threaded them on the left over zippers. Now i have some zippers with different color heads but I like it. And no I did not have success with every zipper I tried this on. Some I could not get the zipper head back on like this pink one. I have no idea why.

I love these girls so much. I want to squeeze them and hug them all the time. I love when Ava gets in my bed in the mornings. She is such a cuddler and doesn't mind if I breathe on her. BUT she is the devil and we've been having a really really hard time at night putting her to bed. She just won't sleep. She does the usual of getting up to get a drink, tell me something, etc. So after too many nights of screaming at each other and me giving it a lot of thought of what will work for us, for her  (Emily doesn't need incentive to get in bed and be good. She just is) I came up with a plan. After I told her it was night night  and the crying started, I took her into the kitchen and filled a tiny bowl with 5 M&M's (nema-nums). I told her that if she went to bed with no more crying, no getting up , no playing, no talking, etc. she would get the 5 M&M's in the morning with her breakfast. But every time she did something she wasn't supposed to I would put one M&M back.   I drilled her over and over while getting her ready for bed saying what happens if you come down and talk to me? what happens if you play? and What happens if you're good? And so on. She answered correctly and seemed to understand. She went to bed last night with NO problems. NONE. Holy cow it worked! For months years even we have had problems with her. Not always super bad and not always making me want to pull my hair out (sometimes she only comes down stairs once). But last night not one peep from her. This morning she woke up in a good mood (presumably because she actually got a lot of sleep!) and asked if I remembered about her M&M's. The reason I bribed her with M&M's is because they are her favorite. She LOVES plain M&M's. But I am stingy with them and she only gets 3 maybe every other night after dinner or she is particularly good. They are special to her. Cross your fingers this can continue to work for us. Jon thinks I'm going to have a heart attack from our screaming matches so this had to work...or I will find something else to bribe her with. A pony?

Sooo over my photo taking.