Princess Sminshess!

In the last couple of weeks, I've been doing a few projects that aren't for Elle Belle... what a novel idea :) A good friend of mine has a daughter just 6 weeks older than my Elle. She had a birthday party last weekend and I waited until the day of to figure out what we should give Amelia for her birthday (I'm never so last minute, but it's been crazy lately). Elle is really into painting these days, so I figured Amelia probably was too, and went by Toys R Us to find some painting supplies. They had surprisingly VERY little to choose from. So I picked up a set of brushes that have paint in them and decided to whip up an art apron. I haven't made an apron before, but I figured... how hard could it be?! "Not too" was fortunately the answer :)


The hardest part was that I wanted to use oil cloth and it was impossible to find. I ended up with "oil cloth" (in quotes). I don't think the cottonish backed plastic stuff people call oil cloth these days is actually traditional oil cloth... it's cheap plastic table cloth. But even that stuff was in really limited supply at JoAnns, I called 2 other local fabric shops and they described the 3-4 prints they had that wouldn't work. So, I litterally cringed as I brought the huge roll of Disney Princess table cloth to the cutting counter at JoAnns. I don't know why, but I have a thing for Princesses... an I HATE THEM! thing for them. Maybe it's that they embody my distaste for the commercial/branding/unoriginal. But, I do recognize that I may be the only one on earth who has a problem with them and that many girls in fact really love them... this gift after all was for Amelia... not me, and unless I expected her to be excited about looking like a picnic table adorned with a red and white checkered table cloth, it had to be Princesses.


I bought matching binding, and a small set of D rings. Measured Elle for length and width, made some cut outs to give it that apron shape, added a pocket, and finished it all around with the binding. Oh and of course... just cuz I can... embroidered her name.