Well, we’re home and today marks the first day of my daughters ballet career.  I drove all over town looking for used ballet shoes ($17 for shoes she’ll wear for 4 weeks just seemed too much)- which we didn’t find.  Next on the list was Target for a black leotard- you can’t buy a simple plain one anymore- they all come with bows or sparkles and skirts attached.  Then it was off to the appliance part store to by a new Evap Fan Motor for the fridge that is no longer keeping all of the groceries I bought yesterday cold.

Despite the chaos I found myself up at 4am (I know, crazy!) researching new refrigerators, fan motors, living room chairs (really like this one over at Tar-jay) and queen bed frames.  I also managed to make my daughter a pretty skirt to wear to ballet class.

Let’s face it, when your 4 the best part of ballet is pretty sparkly clothes.  I admit I picked up a sparkly pink fabric first, but replaced it for this fun aqua with sparkly sequin like things on it.  I get so sick of dressing my daughter in pink sometimes, and I didn’t want her to look like all the other little girls in the class.  I wanted her to be cute in her own way (which in a few years she will fight- as I did when my mother wouldn’t let me dress like everyone else.  I always felt she wanted me to look too granola-y, when all I wanted was to wear keds and espirit like all the other girls).

The skirt was simple to make, I cut a strip of the fabric approx 35″ wide by 12″ high, hemmed the bottom and sides.  I gently gathered the top and then folded some satin ribbon over the gahters and sewed it into place.  I used snaps to secure it to her waist (i could have used fold over elastic, but I thought the ribbon would look nicer).  Then I tied a bow and hand stitched it to the waist band between the snaps.  Super simple wrap around ballet skirt!

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