Monthly Archives: May 2020

A Dress was Reborn

Hi, sweets — Remember you told me that you no longer liked the orginal flower dress and wanted Hello Kitty drawn by me instead? So, I did the old trick. I took off the tutu part and cut a blank T-shirt. On the other hand, the yellow flower looked really good, so good that I decided not to discard the top entirely. Instead, I cut it out, sealed the edge, sew it to the back of the blank T, and drew a stem and two leaves. On the front of the T, I drew Hello Kitty in ballet leo and slippers with wings, a bow and a heart-shaped wand. This blank T is really good for transferring images from paper to its fabric. I just searched pinterest, found the image, laid it under the front part of the T, and transferred it on the fabric. The result? A comfy pretty little girl’s dress, reborn and loved again 🙂

You loved this dress so so much until you outgrew it. So, by your request, it’s another dress put in the ever-growing time capsule 😀

Little Mermaid Dress

Hiya sweets — This dress has been your all time favorite until you outgrew it a couple of months ago. You reluctantly said that I could put this dress in your “Time Capsule” for you to look at when you grow up.

I found adapting white T-shirts into dress tops and then add a skirt part a really fun way to make dresses for little girls. Sometimes the stores just don’t have what you fancy. And not all moms have time to make or are good at making dresses from scratch, yours truly included LOL.

So one day I went to Target and bumped into these simple basic T-shirts. They come in different pastel colors and are so versitile. This dress is a good example of what can be done 🙂

Basically, I just cut the bottom 1/3 or 1/4 from the bottom (depending on the design of the dress) and use another piece of same color cotton cloth to make the skirt part. For this particular dress, I just drew the designs with fabric markers. There are different types of coloring that can be used on fabrics. This particular set is for drawing on light colored fabric. There are also glitter glues for fabric. Many stores have them, for example, Target, Meijer, Michaels, etc. For the dark pink tie-die frills, I just cut from another dress that you absolutely hated and wouldn’t put on. The rest of the fabric from the unwanted dress can be stored away for later use. So this way, I not only created something new, but also revived something unwanted.

You were so proud of this dress and wore it very often. It looks really woreout now LOL. But that’s what makes me feel proud and happy, too! :)))

Love always,

Mommy

New Dress for a Doll

Hi, sweets — This is one of your first dolls. You like the original rock star dress, but would like a fancier look for this doll. So, mommy made this spring looking flowery dress. All hand-made, down to every stitch. It’s relatively hard to find Asian looking dolls or dolls with Asian elements such as black/dark brown hair. So, whenever I see an Asian looking doll, I almost always snatch it for you. Now you have quite a few Asian looking dolls, along with blonde dolls, African American dolls, red hair dolls, brunette dolls… You enjoy the multicultural feel of your little “tribe” of different colors and sizes.

I hope you grow up to be both comfortable in your own skin, well rooted in your own culture, and embracing a multitude of cultures. You certainly do now. My sweetest, keep loving who you are and then, and only then, give the world the same love you’ve been giving yourself. Your love is and will always be genuine.

Love,

Mommy

First Piano Recital Ever

Sweetie, this was when you were 5 and your first recital ever. We love our piano teacher! First time ever of everything is just so precious. Even though now you can play so much more proficiently, for me, this first recital piece is to be treasured forever.

Love,

Mommy

What a semester!

Or… What an academic year! Totally planned to update as much as possible, and then I (mommy) got a new teaching position at another university, spent last summer prepping lessons and the whole entire academic year busy teaching. As a result… our blog became slower than these turtles. LOL.

And on top a busy schedule working for two universities and a weekend program for little kids, Covid-19 happened. We had to switch everything online for the rest of the semester. It wasn’t too difficult on the technology front. However, it did take a much longer time — everything had to be uploaded to Canvas; simple things that could be done quickly face-to-face took much longer to accomplish electronically. I did enjoy using Zoom, though. Can’t imagine if this happened 10 or 20 years ago. We would have all been much more lost than now.

S started e-learning via her school Canvas roughly the same time that I started teaching exclusively online. We are so thankful to her teacher. She has been doing an amazing job, as amazing as her face-to-face classes. In fact, all the rest of her teachers, including her library teacher, are simply just amazing!

My semester has ended (I’ve got good reviews from students despite everything that’s happening) and S’s is going to end in a few days. So, now I have a bit of time (finally) to get on our blog again and start putting the long promised posts up here. There’s so much I’ve got to do together with S (we were not able to have much mommy-daughter time, given the circumstances; and she has been so reasonable and patient with us as far as a 6 yo goes). So… we’re still taking baby steps here, but we are definitely moving forward (just like everything else).

Hope everyone is well! Stay healthy and safe,

Ally