Mini Bathroom Reno

The linoleum in Chey's bathroom has been peeling up at the bathtub edge since we moved in. I kept "meaning" to fix it, but like so many other things, I never seemed to actually get around to it (nor did Dale). A couple of weeks ago, I turned to Dale and told him that it was ridiculous that we couldn't seem to fix something so minor (but that could save us thousands of dollars if we fixed it BEFORE the bathtub ended up in the Living Room due to rotten floors). It's our most expensive investment, shouldn't we take better care of it?? That did it for both of us. We decided to replace the linoleum with tile and while we were at it, we decided to paint and do some other minor fixes.

And we rock.....

Before: This picture is from when we first bought the house. You can barely see the yellow walls and lino

After: The walls are a nice mint/sage green

We geeked it up and  hit the Calgary Comic Expo this weekend (It was Crazy Busy! Fire Marshals shut it down on Saturday and they stopped selling tickets shortly after we arrived on Sunday Morning). I even made (yes, made... as in forced, although they were quite happy about it) the kids don their Hallowe'en costumes. I wanted to show them off in a place where people would appreciate the work.... and I was right. Several attendees asked if they could take the kids' pictures (Chey was Yoshi and Eli was Link). Eli's, in particular, was a hit. Probably because he looks like Link in or out of costume...... The cosplay costumes were amazing! Everything from several other Links (Eli's was the best, of course), pikachu, Freddy Krueger, Dr. Who, Zelda, Midna, ghostbusters, Dr. Arliss Loveless (the dude with the wheelchair from Wild West (his was one of the BEST)), various super heroes, barbarians and knights and many other characters that I am not familiar with. 

We even came across Midna (Link's Helper in Twilight Princess). 

 Even though it was uber busy, I thought it was fun (stressful, but fun) and we will go back next year.

Yoshi is ready for Hallowe'en!

For some reason that I still cannot comprehend, I've decided to make BOTH kid's costumes this year. The kids were very decisive about their costume choices and neither chose a costume that is readily available this year (Chey's choice was available a few years ago, but I couldn't stomach the Ebay costs for a cheap Yoshi costume that is now collectible because it is no longer available).  I do a have little experience in costume making (I am not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, but I mostly know which part of the machine the thread goes through). I made an Eeyore Costume (from a pattern) for both Eli and Devin when they were babies (which Chey also wore when she was old enough).

Eli on Left and Chey on Right at around 1yr old

And two years ago, I made Eli and Devin both Pikachu costumes without a pattern. It didn't seem like it could be all that complicated.... and they turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

The success of the Pikachu costume gave me the confidence for this year's challenge.... Yoshi (From various Mario video games by Nintendo). As you probably know by now, my daughter may look like a sweet, pretty angel, but girly she ain't..... She has always disliked dolls, barbies and princesses. Sharks (because they can kill you), Dinosaurs (because they can kill you) and Bugs of all sorts are much more her style. Our last Hallowe'en (we missed last year because we were in Egypt...I cannot believe that was a year ago already!) she wanted to be a Dragon (in the above picture) and required me to be a princess so she would have something to Kill (I'm trying not to worry about her obsession with killing. Really, I'm not... much)

Here's a little mini-tutorial on how I did the body. I used this same method for the boys' Pikachu Costumes and it can be used for any costume with a blob-like body.

My Inspiration was this picture

First I folded the fabric (I use fleece for two main reasons.... One is obvious. I live in Calgary. It might be warm(ish), but it might be -20C... I need something that is warm and can be layered underneath. The second reason is probably also rather obvious.... I'm not a great seamstress and fleece hides a multitude of cutting, sewing and other unnamed sins, plus it doesn't fray.... perfect!) and laid it out so that the open fold was in the middle and enough of the folded fabric was on either side to go out past arms and legs.

Then I had my victim lay spread eagle on the fleece and literally, cut her shape out of the fleece (I'll admit my first attempt was too small, I forgot to compensate for the cold weather argument mentioned above).

I sewed on his front patch (with extra white to wrap between the legs and continue the white up through the bottom of the tail) and then sewed up the seams of the body, added elastic for the arms and legs and wrangled a tail stuffed with quilt batting onto the body. I then sewed up a circle for his saddle and stuffed it with batting and edged it with white fleece. I decided to attach the saddle to the costume by sewing on straps so that it can be worn as a backpack. I felt the weight of the tail and saddle combined would drag down the back of the costume and cause an endless stream of complaints stemming from strangulation issues from the drag..... it worked like a dream!

It's not perfect, the hat was more of a challenge than I had planned for.... and I didn't really plan for it... I just kind of sewed stuff on and then plopped it on Chey's head and tucked and sewed until it fit..... I still have a tiny bit of tweaking (the tail is bugging me), but


I think Yoshi turned out alright......

One down... one to go.... and Eli's is going to be AWESOME! You just wait!