Making a Flag For a Reunion, Camp, or Other Use

Princess Five is involved in 4-H through a friend. Princess Three and Five have friends that are siblings and they have a parent that works for the local 4-H office. 
 
They plan all the events and have included my girls which they loved. Princess Three ended up getting a college scholarship from 4-H due to service. 

Princess Five will have some stiff competition for that scholarship as there are many student in her grade involved so she has been working hard on doing leadership in 4-H hoping to get a scholarship but in reality, she just loves it!  


She goes to almost all the camps but something which she LOVED doing last year and has signed up again to do this year is be a Junior leader at a camp for fifth grade students that is several days at a nearby college campus. 

They give the teens a group of children and give them a theme and let them do all the activities, plan games, make flags, door hangers, handouts, etc. 

She had so much fun doing it last year that she applied to do it again this year. Funny that she was white tigers last year and ended up with white sharks this year. Each group gets a color and I think they pick the animal.


Last year she made the handouts and this year, she chose to make the flag and let her partner do the handouts. 

So, I thought I would blog about how to make a flag for camping etc. Make it about 3 feet tall and four feet wide. Make a fold on the left side over about 2 1/4 inches but you will need to fold the raw edge in and stitch it so that the edge doesn't fray. So, make the "pocket" portion about 2 1/4 inches as that isn't including the folded over edge. 

Make sure to stitch the top of the fold/pocket so that the flag pole has somewhere to stop. If you leave it open, the flag will just fall to the bottom of the pole. 

You will also need to hem the right side with a small folded over (rolled) hem so it won't fray while in the wind.

We used vinyl cut with a "Cricket" vinyl cutter however, she free handed drawing the shark fin and water from an image she found online. If you don't have access to vinyl, you can do the same thing with felt. Cut out the letters and designs you want and use fusible webbing that irons the felt onto the flag. 

She was worried the vinyl would peel of so she just used some Elmer glue on the edges of the vinyl to hold it down similar to modge podge. She used some sparkle glue on the shark to make it look wet and shimmery but you could also edge the vinyl with the glitter glue as well. 

When choosing fabric, don't use canvas as it makes the flag stiff and heavy and things don't stick on as well. I used a thick flour sack type muslin so that the flag wouldn't be see through in the sun and have some weight but not be heavy. If you have any questions, feel free to ask but watch the video first to see if your questions are answered there.  

A Different Kind of Memorial Day - Happy Birthday "Mom"

I was blessed to have two wonderful mothers in my life. I think many times people think that step-mothers are like in the movies. But, for the most part, they are just trying to fit in with the dynamics of someone elses family. They juggle not only their children, if they have them, but often work and taking on the new family responsibility.

I called her this week to sing her "Happy Birthday" with the girls and they had just gotten back from a 10 hour one way trip to support one of my sisters kids who was graduating from high school. She is willing to driven hours and hours to support her grandchildren. I think there was one year they have five graduations in three different states to attend. Here is a post where she drove down for Princess Fours Graduation. Here is one where she came down to Princess Three's graduation.

Here is one where at our annual lake camping a few summers ago. She and my dad pay for the group campground at nearly $200 a night.  

She is so willing to do anything I ask and is always helping. Here is a link to a post where they recorded themselves reading books for my kids and grandchildren. 

She is extremely thoughtful. If you mention something you like, she will look for it for you and try to find it for you. I saw some cute Mexican train domino holders she had made so that your tiles can stand and lean on them and she made me some for the girls and I which is time consuming. Here is a link to that post Here is a link to part 2 of that post.

Here is another example of her getting things for you if she can. I have a daughter that LOVES Sesame Street and we were looking for tickets for a concert with them and the Tabernacle Choir at Christmas one year and she got us tickets and not only for us but they picked up some of my nephews and nieces and drove them to the concert, then home after. She is always thinking of how she can do for our family and treats us as if we were her own.

I really think it is difficult in blended families as parents tend to favor their own. I truly have NEVER EVER felt like she has done that. She treats us as if we were her own. 

She worked most of her life and even retired after my dad retired. She isn't like some that will only spend "her" money on her kids. She and my dad pay $100 a month to each grandchild that choose to serve as missionaries anywhere in the world. The missions last from 18 months for girls to 2 years for boys. That is $2400 out of their pocket for each boy and $1800 for each girl that goes on a mission. 

They have always had one or two missionaries out but there was one point that they had 7 missionaries serving! That is $700 a month which is a mortgage payment or would be a payment on one or two really nice cars! They could have bought a nice cabin or vacation home with the money they have spent on missionaries over the years and it isn't like she has had many go yet as her children still have young kid and my siblings and I have many more children than hers so she has really sacrificed financially for our family. 

There have been other times that they "donate" to our families such a weddings, giving us cars and appliances and other items they could sell, but choose to give them to family instead. Before she gets rid of anything, she offers it to family.

She was always kind and loving to my mother and would always invite my mother to her home for Christmas dinners a tradition she started by cooking meals for my siblings and I and her kids. They also pay for our annual Christmas skating party and rent out the rink and provide lunch as well. 

I don't think our family would have half the traditions we do if she wasn't involved in the planning and execution. I am sad to say that the past few years, we haven't gone up to the memorial day picnic and ball game as I haven't had the best of cars for the past few years and it is always the last week of school for us so it is a crazy weekend. Her birthday and my sisters birthday are always around Memorial Day so we usually celebrate at the picnic. Once again, I am not able to go the 6 hour drive for the picnic as Princess Five and I are heading the other direction for a 4-H camp and I need to get my suburban running and serviced and we head out first thing Tuesday morning and I have had kids home all weekend so I need to get some stuff done before heading out. 

I haven't covered the half of what this amazing mother means in our family, to my girls, and her impact on my life! I am truly blessed to have TWO amazing mothers and will always be SO grateful for her in my life! I have written so many posts lately memorializing my mother with her recent passing that I wanted to take some time today to Memorialize my Other Mother! 

I LOVE YOU MOM! Thank you for all you do for our family and my girls! I could never repay or thank you enough for your kindnesses and generosity towards our family but I want you to know that I NOTICE what you do and I am GRATEFUL for what you do!  THANK YOU for what you do!  Consider yourself Hugged! 

Miss 1600 - Six Years and 1600 Posts

I somehow in the craziness of my life this past month missed my birthday on the blog! I started my blog six years ago almost to the day my mother died. It was so weird to look that up today. I journal each of my blogs daily and when I saw the 1600 post I thought I missed my birthday. I didn't remember exactly what day I started the blog but remembered it was near the end of school so I looked up my first post over six years ago now and laughed when I saw I was giving gratitude for a dehydrator I found. I think I can say that it isn't my only post about being grateful for dehydrators. 

I have FOUR going right now in my kitchen! They each have many trays and I will post next week more about that but it is after 2 a.m. and today was busy so I am just going to celebrate my big 1600 and six years and let you know that it has been wonderful being able to journal my world for my girls these past 6 years. The two youngest girls commented on how they like my blog as it has been mostly what they know and it is a journal of their lives. 

My internet is SUPER slow and I was on with the company again and this time, they hung up on me and never called me back and the repair guy never showed up so my guess is he doesn't know how to fix it but my internet is as slow as it has ever been taking 4-6 hours for a 3-7 minute video depending on the day and how much rain we have had. 

Here is a link to my first blog post ever. It was simple and so is this one! I am grateful to those of you who have stuck with me for those many years!  Happy six years!

A Little Bit Of Color - First For Princess Five

When I was Princess Five's age, my mother took me to get highlights in my hair. From that time, I got them in my hair regularly and then ended up doing them myself. I liked it because when I was young, I was a blonde naturally.

The older I got, the darker my hair got. My mother would comment on my hair color every time I would come home to visit asking if my hair got darker with each child. Princess Four and Five's hair has gotten darker as they got older.

Princess One, Four and Five have gotten highlights in their hair now. Princess Five wasn't sure she wanted them. We went back and forth many times but I realized her hair was processing much quicker than mine does so the top of her head went blonde very fast so I hurried and mixed more bleach and put it on the rest of her hair.

By the time I got the back done, I should have stopped the front because she didn't want any streaking. She just wanted a shade or two lighter. I liked her hair after I did it as it calmed down after she washed and dried it but I don't have a picture of that, I just have it while it was wet just after doing it before washing and conditioning it.

Princess Five cried at the few lighter streaks in the front and told me she wanted to dye her entire hair back so I went to the store and bought dye but then talked her into allowing it to go for a day and told her I would take her to the salon if she left it.

One, I didn't want her even more made at me and two, if they messed it up, she could be mad at them. Three, I thought she may get compliments on it or when the emotion of change wore off, even like it herself.

I told her NOT to say anything to anyone and see if they said anything. She was so freaked out that she slicked her hair into a pony and put a bandana on for school.

Her best friend didn't even notice as I told her no one probably would as it isn't super lighter. I just wanted to give her hair some volume as when she was on stage for the pageant, her hair was the color of the background curtains and didn't show up well on stage.

Don't get me wrong, I love her hair color and all the girls, but if you are putting yourself into a pageant, then I figure you should do everything to make yourself stand out so melding in with all the other girls and the background probably isn't what you want.

This picture of her in the blue shirt is her hair naturally. It is beautiful and healthy but melts into the shadow behind her and I was only a few feet away. The picture they took for the first pageant, was on black and they wore black so you couldn't tell where her hair ended and the background or her shirt met.

It was HUGE for her to let me highlight her hair and she was really upset with me last night but I took her to a salon today and paid lots to have the top few streaks dumbed down so they wouldn't stand out.

They seemed to be fading anyway but I didn't want her upset and embarassed. Funny though, two women at the salon came over and asked her why she didn't like it before the lady colored it. They told me I did an amazing job pulling it through a cap as you can't usually get that even of color so I did feel good about what I did and if she ever allows me to do her hair again, I will have all the bleach mixed BEFORE starting to put it on and I will start in the long hair in the back as it took longer to process and then put it on the front hair or when the front reaches the right color, I will put on hair conditioner to stop the processing until the rest is done.

I think she could have gotten used to it in a day or two with it fading as it did but it was worth every penny to have her walk out of the salon feeling happy. They just left everything but put some toner on the blonde strips in front and on top to darken it up so it is more like her natural color near her face which made her happy.

I can't blame her. She is a hair virgin as she has never had it cut short, had bangs, layering or any type of color. Really, the only thing we have ever done is chop off the back close to her shoulders to donate to "locs of love" and that was the most dramatic thing that has ever happened to her hair.

I trimmed it about three inches the other night as well as she wanted it more even in the back and to remove the split ends that she enjoys playing with when board. She looked so cute tonight at her sterling scholar meeting that I snapped the top pictures as we left the school.

The beautician said, "After this, she will probably be like the rest of us and want her hair highlighted all the time." If she is anything like her mom, she may just do that!

Find Somebody To Love - Mom's Communications

My life has not calmed down at all since my mother died and her funeral and then cleaning out her house. I keep thinking things will slow but with all the girls getting new jobs and Princess Five finishing up her school year and then the pageant etc. My life is NOT slowing down.

I rush to try and get some yard work done in between sewing, cleaning, laundry etc. I have had one of the girls come home every weekend since my mothers funeral or we have been to their places. I wake tired all the time and when my mother lived with me, I gained more weight with the stress and not sleeping.

I am still going through my mom's stuff and had Princess Four clean out her room and stuff while she was home and she got rid of three big bins. Princess Five and I went through lots of her stuff this last weekend while Princess Four was home.

I am planning on taking the bunk beds to Princess One's when I head up in a few months for the birth of her second child and am hoping to also take up the smaller deep freezer that I have now that they have a house.

Life is crazy as Princess Four is getting ready to serve as a missionary and needs to get Dr.'s appointments, dentist appointments and Eye exams to make sure she is in good health.

Princess Two called last week to say she had another interview for a second job that she applied for before they created a full time job for her and her interview went well and Princess Three said she got offered another job last week as well. That is seven job offers / interviews in two months. Yahoo for amazing girls.

Anyway, nearly every day throughout the day, certain songs will come on and they aren't songs I really know well enough to sing the words but just a specific line will come into my head.

Last week an Anastasia song kept running through my mind for a week. "Have you heard, there's a rumor in St. Petersburg." I finally told Princess Five about it and she sang a line from the song that I didn't run through my head but it was exactly what I had been working on all week. "It could be worth a fortune if it belonged to her."

I have been looking up old stock certificates we found at my mothers and I felt like my mother was trying to guide me where and how to look online as I keep ending up on weird obscure sites I didn't know existed and have had a few no-sleep nights following leads on them. So, Princess Five was the reason I figure out that I think it is my mother trying to communicate as I shared about "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" playing and us seeing a rainbow a few weeks back where it was on Princess Five's shoulder. Click here for that post. 

A week or so back, Princess Five asked if she should sing, "Why are there so many songs about rainbows." for her talent song in the pageant. I thought that was so odd as I don't know that I have ever heard her sing it but as I shared, my mother sang, "Somewhere over the Rainbow" nearly every night to us and we sang it at her funeral.

So, this week comes around and I have the song, "The Sweet Escape" come into my head. It wouldn't stop as I was trying to sleep so I looked up the words as I don't know them other than a few chorus words and I realized that my mother was trying to tell me she was sorry for what she put me through. She is now VERY aware of my crazy life being a single mother and all the stress of having to clean out her houses over and over and sorting pallets of hoarded papers just to find the treasures. Sorting and scanning for years! Here is a link to one of the many posts on the summer I spent sorting. Here is a link to one of the MANY days I spent all day scanning her stuff and another where I did two weekend road trips scanning stuff. The sad part is, there are months and months left of scanning and sorting and I have bins full of cassette tapes, reel to reel tapes, videos that need transferring over and about 20 bins of news articles and letters etc that need sorting and scanning with a few bins of pictures as well. I calculated the other day that I spent a full year of my time sorting, scanning and being away from my family for my mother due to her illnesses and hoarding.

So, when this song kept running through my mind, after looking at the words, I knew she was trying to let me know she was sorry and trying to apologize. I don't feel like she needs to as I know she wasn't in her right mind but I know myself and I know if I put my girls through what I have had to do for my mother and her stuff, I would try to tell them "Sorry" as well so I just said a little prayer letting my mom know I forgive her for anything she felt she needed to say "Sorry" for as I know she did her best. Here are the words that stood out to me from that song.  And at the end, "waiting for you to save me" as I saved her life several times over the years. Here is a post about the first time.

If I could escape I would but,
First of all, let me say
I must apologize for acting stank & treating you this way
If I could escape & recreate a place that's my own world
& I could be your favorite girl (forever), Perfectly together
If I could be sweet, I know I've been a real bad girl
 I didn't mean for you to get hurt (whatsoever)
I've been gettin' a little lazy, waitin' on you to come save me

Then, yesterday and today, the song "Find Somebody to Love" kept running through my mind. I thought perhaps my mom was trying to tell me she was going to try and find me someone to love but I am quite happy single. I know that it doesn't matter what I want in my life sometimes, God has his own plan and if finding and being with someone is in my "cards" God will make it happen so I really have just not worried about it for many years now. I posted about an experience where God had a man text me by accident and we ended up dating so if it is "meant" to be, it will happen. Here is a link to that post

Of course, after two full days of "Find Somebody to Love" going through my head, I looked up the lyrics because I only know those exact words and none of the other lyrics. I actually started crying when I read the lyrics because so much of it is true in my life right now.

Each morning I get up I die a little
Can barely stand on my feet
Take a look in the mirror and cry
Lord what you're doing to me
I have spent all my years in believing you
But I just can't get no relief, Lord!
I work hard every day of my life
I work 'til I ache my bones
At the end I get down on my knees
And I start to pray
 'Til the tears run down from my eyes.
Everyday I try and I try and I try
But everybody wants to put me down
They say I'm goin' crazy
They say I got a lot of water in my brain
I'm OK, I'm alright
I ain't gonna face no defeat
I just gotta get out of this prison cell
Someday I'm gonna be free, Lord!

The reason I cried is the first two lines. I wake up so tired every day after little or no sleep due to the parasites and my feet are so sore and painful that I can hardly walk. I have such deep cracks in my feet that I put balm on them nightly with bandages but still, all day I can barely walk. Two nights ago, I woke all night long with my right foot cramping and muscle spasms due to parasites and every time I would try to sleep on my back, the cracks on the heels of my feet would hit the bed and I would wake in pain.

Then, I get to the second verse about working hard until my bones ache and I was just talking with the girls on Sunday about how mowing the front lawn and edging was all I could take as I went to mow the back, I remembered how a few weeks ago I pushed myself to do more than I felt I should and it took me two days to recover.
 
That event reminded me of another time God used a song to let me know things are "OK" in my world and I am blessed with different things. Here is a post to that day.

I have people online telling me I am crazy that I think I have a parasite that isn't a human parasite and some days, I hate looking at the internet just because I don't need that negativity as it is "crazy" that I have a parasites no one knows about yet. I get it! Doesn't mean that people have a right to be mean. So, YES, I did feel that the song was perfect about how my life is now. My feet hurt, I am tired, my bones ache, sometimes I do cry, people do call me crazy but in the end, "I AM OK, I'm alright! I ain't gonna face no defeat" I know God will see fit to let me out of my "prison cell" and I will be free of these parasites! He has let me know that it will happen, I have that faith! So, I do feel like my mom is speaking through music as that is how she lived her life. She LOVED music and used song lines to speak to me all the time. In fact, I listened to a voice mail I saved from her on my birthday a few years back. She sang, "Happy Birthday you Babe, How old are you now? You've raised Five sweet daughters, etc" She always spoke to me through song and still is!

It is now becoming a bit of a joke for me as whenever I sit for a minute, a song line will come into my mind and I start to laugh or smile as I know my mother is still around, just not in a way I can see. Perhaps it is all in my mind but really, even if it is, I don't know the words to these songs so it would be hard for me to come up with them just when they were needed.

I do know that my mother always hoped I would find somebody to love and perhaps, she will be instrumental in that someday~An aside, I just realized that "Queen" sings that song and my mother was a Beauty Queen. So, it is from Queen to me!

Pageant Mom - I'll Never Understand It

I had a first in my life this week. I was a pageant mom. It was a huge learning experience for me.

Princess Five felt like she wanted to do a pageant. I have asked each of my girls if they wanted to do a pageant when they were in high school and most of them said they didn't want to do it.
 
Princess Four wanted to do it her senior year but she was also doing sterling scholar, speaking at graduation, and a bunch of other things so I talked her out of it as I felt like we didn't have the time to actually do it. 

Many people called me over the years asking if I wanted to put my girls in the "Little Miss" type pageants, but since I grew up with a national title holder Beauty Queen as a mother, it wasn't something I wanted to promote in my girls. 

I have been to several National Pageant Reunions with my mother and most of the pageant Queens are VERY self centered and I found that I didn't want my daughters to think that their worth was their looks as that can change at any point in their life! 

Looking at myself, I have always been able to be thin but, due to health, I have gained 100 lbs and can't lose it no matter what I do so if my value was on my looks only, I would be in trouble. I still struggle with the weight issues but I KNOW I have worth.
 
When the girls are near graduation, I figured their worth is already established so I haven't worried about it as none of them wanted to do pageants anyway. 

So, having Princess Five compete in a beauty pageant this past week was new to me. I would have thought I knew everything to know about pageants but really, I learned that pageants aren't what they used to be and that it is all in what the judges are told to do and what their personal opinion is. 
 
Princess Five didn't win but is already signed up to do another pageant in June as they both had the same sign up date. I don't think this was her happiest experience in the world but as she met tonight for pictures for the second pageant, I can see that she has already learned a few things in the way she got ready for this meeting verses her first meeting with the other pageant. 

It should be interesting to see how this one goes. I was frustrated that for her talent, I called the stage crew over a week in advance telling them she needed a wireless transmitter for her guitar and a body mic. She got there for her practice, no transmitter and the cord didn't work. Next day, cord and no transmitter and the mic was popping and hissing. They special ordered the transmitter overnight. I never got to see her do it on stage and the first time they had the transmitter was the dress rehearsal. She gets on stage to do her talent and you can't hear her. They turn up her mic, she can't hear the guitar and there is feedback. They turn them both down and you can hear part of her regular singing and part over the speaker. 
 
Yes, I feel like a pageant mom wanting to go and yell at the tech crew! I didn't do it, but venting about it in the car, Princess Five asked me to stop being a pageant mom and I had to remind her SHE wanted to be in it! We both took a second to rewind and it was fine in the end but I will have something to say to the tech crew before the next pageant! 

Watch out for Pageant Mom! ;-)    

Making Hair Bows Out of 1950's Shoe Clips

Princess Five was home this weekend to support her sister in a contest she was participating in. 

She cleaned her room out last time she was home and found these little 1950's shoe clips that she had picked up somewhere and wanted to make hair bows from them but we never did. 

She asked if I would make them into hair bows for her while she was home so we did it. I first took tin snip metal cutters and cut off the shoe clip poky metal. I then snipped them metal under the center of the bows so that it wouldn't catch on her hair or scratch her scalp.

I show in the video how I cut them but you can also see in the picture how I snip it and pull it out from under the center of the bow. 

After I pull out the metal, I take the base of the hair clip and slide it under the middle piece of leather. Depending on the size of the clip, you may have to undo the middle piece of the bow and glue the metal base of the clip under the center piece and then glue the center piece over the base piece of the clip.

To get the clip apart, you just use your fingers to push apart the back hinge of the clip and the moving part will pop off. Then take the spring piece out of the center and the part that is left is the base piece you want to put under the center piece of the bow. You can see it in the video and picture.

After you have the metal piece under the center of the bow, use a hot glue gun carefully and glue that piece in the center so the bow doesn't slide back and forth on the metal base. Basically, put hot glue between the base piece and the bow right in the center. Be careful not to touch the glue gun to the fabric as it can burn or melt the fabric depending on the type of fabric. 
 
Be careful not to burn yourself with hot glue. I used one of the other clip pieces to push the metal clip onto the bow while the glue cooled.    
 
Once the glue is cool, you can replace the spring bar piece by putting the one side in the clipping side first and then the back open side. 

Once the spring piece is in the center, you can put the last top piece back in by sliding it through the center and forcing the little hinge pieces into the holes of the base piece. Just watch the video to see how it came out and reverse the process to put it back together.         

You can pick up clips for not much at craft stores. I bought a bunch of packages when the girls were young and still haven't gone through them all. It has been nice having the handy for when I need them though. 

Fixing Button Holes that are Loose and the Button - Unbuttons Itself.

Princess Five needs a "Business" attire type suit for her "on stage" interview and her interview with the judges. Several people have given us different opinions and so I took Princess Five shopping for a suit and we actually came up with several skirts and two actual suits. 
 
One of the suits is white but the bottom is a bit snug so we mixed the top of one suit and the bottom of another suit together and came up with something we all liked. Of course she hasn't worn the suit anywhere, so we were just having her try it on for the interviews and it was then that I realized the buttons keep coming undone.

We didn't realize this when she tried it on but it could be a serious problem onstage in front of the entire town but my sister shares what she does to fix it. I remembered that I have done this same thing in the past on pants buttons but I don't usually wear button up shirts so wouldn't have that problem on shirts. 
 
There are two things you can do to fix this problem. One, is to take a thread the same color as the fabric. You whip stitch the bottom of the button hole stitching the bottom of the hole up so that the button can't "fall" out but has to be forced out. 

Make sure that you measure the button so that you don't sew it up so much that you can't get the button in and out. It only takes a few whip stitches to tighten up the button-hole and this alone can help keep the buttons from coming undone. 

The other problem sometimes with these type of shirts is that, even thought the button holes are tight and the buttons hold, the fabric gaps open at the chest allowing unwanted attention in that area so I opted for BOTH solutions. 

I fixed the button holes and then I attached snaps in between the buttons where there are gaps to keep the fabric from gaping open. Hopefully, it will still look natural and not stiff in that area but I have had to do this before so I think it will be fine. This is just a very soft fabric that doesn't hold shape so I will have to have her check on stage to make sure it looks natural.       

I made a video of how I match up the snap front and back. I sew on the one side and then lay the garment flat and line up the garment and make sure you have good placement on the opposite side of the snap before sewing. 

Altering a Dress For The Talent Section of the Pageant

Princess Five is doing a few beauty pageants. One will be this week and another in the near future. I am doing my best to use what we have but what we haven't had, Heavenly Father has a way of providing. 

We tried on about 30 dresses for the evening gown portion and in the end, she is going to used Princess Two's prom gown. 
 
We didn't even try it because Princess Two is very thin and tall and most of her clothes don't fit the other girls but in a last ditch effort, we tried it on and it fits. Her black winter ball gown is beautiful but they told the girls not to wear black since they are against a black curtain. 


She thought about wearing her prom gown but it is a pale color and she would look washed out on stage so we are going with the Salmon Pink gown. It isn't pictured here but is more pink that this dress. 

This dress is one I picked up a few years back at a second hand store. I thought it was so cute and it was $12. I don't like to spend that much on a dress if I am not sure one of the girls will wear it but I thought it was so pretty and it is home made so I bought it. 
 
It isn't the best sewing job I have ever seen but the design is amazing. It is a bit small for Princess Five's rib cage so I had to make a small triangle to cover where the zipper doesn't quite zip up all the way on the back. 

I matched the "V" in the front and cute strips of the tule off and sewed them on gathered. I can't believe the amount of time this dress took for someone to sew. There are so many aspects to this dress. The angles on the skirt even are so amazing. 

There was an extra piece of tulle on the dress as well. I don't know if it was a "tail" or just extra or a belt of some kind but I am SO grateful that it was there so I could just match the salmon color fabric and then use the extra tulle for the sleeves and the back insert piece. 
 
I bought 1/2 yard of fabric but it was a huge over purchase. The sleeves didn't take much and the insert didn't use much either. 

I love that my Father in Heaven helps me when I need it. I would never have been able to match that orange / salmon tulle but God is Good and I was able to alter the dress to fit her so hopefully it will add to her adorable singing and playing of the guitar. She is getting good at picking instead of strumming. The fact that she can sing, dance and play the guitar is amazing!