Let's Pretend - Merida!

My daughter, Fiona, is four.  Those of you who have or at least know four year old girls know where this post is going.  Few things are more appealing for this demographic than princesses - and if you can dress up as a princess, life is just about perfect.

Fiona has gone through many different 'favorites' when it comes to princesses.  To start, she was named for a princess - her brothers chose her name because they were in a Shrek phase.  First they suggested Donkey, then Puss, and even Gingy, but when they asked for Fiona, we said, "Okay!"  Her first real fascination with a princess was Snow White.  I threw her a lovely Snow White party for her third birthday, but soon her focus shifted to Belle.  Her first viewing of Tangled put an end to Belle's reign, however.  Rapunzel's rule in our house was a long one - and one I encouraged because I really love Tangled as well.  Which explains why I went totally overboard with her fourth birthday party.  At some point, though, she switched to Tiana.  She was thrilled to meet her when we were at Disney in September, though you wouldn't know it from the picture.

But now we're gearing up for a Merida phase.  I scored Brave (Three-Disc Collector's Edition: Blu-ray/DVD) as a Lightning Deal on Amazon today.  Fiona will get that for Christmas.  She's already got the Merida dress from Disney and the Merida Barbie doll as presents from her aunt on her last birthday.  So she really only needed a hair accessory to go along with all her Brave stuff (though my husband is lobbying for permission to make her a bow for Christmas).

I decided to go with something simple for Merida's hair, even though it is extraordinarily time consuming.  I picked up a skein of thick, curly reddish orange yarn from AC Moore.  Depending on what kind you get, you might be able to get two 'wigs' out of one skein.  I set myself up with a good TV show and set to work cutting the yarn into approximately 3 foot lengths (I just eyeballed about how long I wanted the hair to be, then doubled it).  Once everything was cut, I just tied each piece of yarn onto a headband - in the middle so each strand made two strands of hair.

You've really got to tie on a ton of yarn to get it bushy and thick enough, but eventually it will look like this:

And I have to say, Fiona looks great as Merida!  Isn't she adorable?  You could easily add a ribbon to the top if you want, or adjust the length of the hair to whatever works for you.  Or if you don't want to bother making one yourself, you could just buy one from my Etsy Shop!

Craft Fair Fun

I've been experimenting with selling items at some local craft fairs.  Last weekend, I set up shop at a homeschool craft fair in Concord.  That was a mix of good and bad.. it was great to socialize and they had some great entertainment, but it was much more of a 'get together with friends and hang out' craft fair than a 'bring in a big crowd and sell stuff' craft fair.  Today's was much busier and was put on by a church in Beverly (so a much, much shorter drive for me).  The only bad thing was that set up started at 7am.  That was painful.

Here's my set up:

As you can see, there are a few new items.  The Rapunzel braids and the Merida headband were huge hits. The Merida headbands as well as a few new hairbows will be up in my Etsy Store tonight or tomorrow.

And speaking of my Etsy Store, I'm running a sale until the end of the month - 25% off all premade items.  I didn't realize how much inventory I actually had, and I really need to clear it out!