Gracie's First Day

It's Gracie's first day of school today.  My brother and sister-in-law took the day off of work so that they could drop her off, and we're all a little choked up.  Gracie is excited, though!  She proudly wore her "Aunt-Laura-Loves-Me outfit, and I finished her blanket and matching pillow Saturday night and did some emergency sewing yesterday to finish her pink leggings for playground modesty.  (They took longer than expected because I accidentally sewed the ruffles to the wrong side on one half of the pants!)

We did a mini-photoshoot Friday so she could show off her new dress, and I'll be baking her the cookies I bribed her with today.  (They're to be her afternoon snack tomorrow after school.!) 

She loves the buttons on it!  And, of course, that makes tracking down three packages of vintage Pooh buttons worth it.  The Danford Mint made a series of pewter jewelry and buttons in the late 90s, you see, and I remembered the buttons (I actually have some of the earrings) and set out to track them down.  Took a few weeks, and I can honestly say it's the most I've ever spent on buttons, but I managed.

The bows are courtesy of ribbon obtained when My Friends Tigger and Pooh was still on Disney channel, and I found the premade bottle caps that I used for flower centers on etsy.  I was also lucky enough to have coordinating whipstitch piping in my stash--it's the same green as the vines on the print.




 

The piping was difficult because Nikki ran off with my piping foot, so I ended up having to restitch the piping seams by hand so we didn't have the gapping around it, showing off the twill tape.  She's wearing some tights and Sunday shoes in this picture that I happened to have laying around, but today she won't be.  She has plenty of casual Mary Janes and some white sandals, too. 

I'm happy, but I'm sad, too.  Our baby--all grown up and going to school!  Wasn't it just yesterday that I was making tiny baby clothes and she fit in just my two hands?