Ember Costumes and Crafts

Our Elementary school has a yearly "Book Character Dress Up Day" that my boys LOVE to participate in...which means I have another excuse to get crafty and do some simple costumes! They have both been really into the " Dog Man " graphic novels, and so I offered to make a Dog Man outfit for James! Jack, predictably, wanted to be Calvin (again).   I was proud that I did't have to buy a single thing for this outfit! I had some blue fleece is my closet from Jack's shark costume and some yellow from a never-made idea to have the boys be Finn and Jake from Adventure Time.  For the hat I used some heavyweight iron-on interfacing to give it structure, and attached the floppy yellow dog-ears to each side. The badge is just zig-zagged onto the front. There's no lining or anything fancy.  The shirt is a Minecraft shirt that was the right color. I turned it inside out and basted the badge onto the front with a long running stitch so that I could ea

This past weekend I went looking for some more fabric to make hexes for my quilt that would actually match better, and I had NO LUCK. Instead, I spent too much money on some absolutely beautiful fabric to make a dress for Rosemary. Then, because the fabric was so beautiful and expensive, I thought I should make a mock-up first so I don't mess it up. But I am lazy and I hate making mock-ups, so I decided to make a practice dress instead! Everything in this project came from my stash; some fabric I had from Joann's a fat quarter I nicked from one of my fat quarter bundles, and tulle leftover from who knows what, buttons from my tupperware full of buttons from estate sales, and lining from random scraps in my closet. Yay me! Even the clip and felt I used to make the matching bow were from my drawer of random junk.  And it turned out WONDERUFL! If I do say so myself, it doesn't actually look home-made at all. I didn't use a pattern, just drafted a little something

Reading Starsight by Brandon Sanderson As usual, Sanderson delivers! This is a sequel to Skyward which came out last year and it is just as exciting and surprising as the first one. It's a quick, exciting read and I highly recommend this series if you are interested in reading Sanderson but don't want to try and get through one of his longer more intense series like Mistborn or Stormlight Archives, or if you just prefer sci-fi to fantasy. I read a lot of sci-fi in the past year and Starsight definitely ranks highly in comparison. Fate of the Fallen by Kel Kade Oh man this was terrible and a struggle to finish. The plot had so much potential, but the writing was just so bad. There was a lot of times when something cool would happen...off page. Or something boring would happen, and then the characters would meet someone new and recount what just happened in a very boring way. Even one of the more interesting dynamics of the main character talking to someone that no one