The Beginning of a Fashion Designer

Ever since my daughter was 4 she has let me know that when she grows up she is going to be a Fashion Designer.  She has asked many times for me to teach her how to sew.  But I don't really like people messing with my sewing machine.  A few months ago I found a decent brand new sewing machine on sale for under $50 and bought it for her.  I told her that it would be in her room but I wouldn't teach her how to sew unless her desk was clean so we could sew.  Well, have you heard that creative people tend to be messy?  That's my daughter.  (Well, it's kind of me too.  But this isn't about me!)

Yesterday she cleaned off her desk!!!!  So it was time to sew.  Most people choose to make a pillowcase as their first project.  But as I mentioned before, my daughter wants to be a Fashion Designer.  And a pillowcase isn't her idea of the perfect sewing project.  So I decided to start her off with an infinity scarf.

She chose a Disney fabric because, well, we are all slightly obsessed with Disney in this family.  Her fabric is a pinkish/purplish flannel with Aurora and Maleficent and the Dragon.  (It was already in my large Disney fabric stash that I'm hoarding at my house so I'm not sure if they still sell it).

After a long conversation about safety and all of that fun stuff, she helped me cut a piece of fabric to make it 12" x 60".

At this point we should have hemmed one side.  But we didn't.  I had to help her with that later.

She folded the right sides of the fabric together (long ways) and pinned it. (This made the fabric 6" x 60").

It was time to finally break in her sewing machine!!!  I chose this project because all she had to do was sew a somewhat straight line.

Here is where I slacked in the pictures.  I forgot about my camera!  So let me try to explain.  After sewing the long side together we turned the fabric right side out to make it a tube.  Then I helped her hem one side of the tube.  We stuck the edge that wasn't hemmed into the hemmed edge, pinned it and sewed it together.

She is so proud of her new infinity scarf and plans to make lots more! (It's almost a shame we live in Florida and have very little cold weather).

TBT - a tour of Cinderella's Castle Suite

In 2013 Walt Disney World in Orlando ran a promotion called 'Limited Time Magic'.  Each week, for 52 weeks, they did something special for their guests.  Sometimes it was a chance to do a meet and greet with a rare character or receive a free poster.  One day in October the Disney Parks Blog announced that for their next week's Limited Time Magic they were going to let 125 people tour the castles of Magic Kingdom - including Cinderella's Castle Suite and Be Our Guest.

Here was my chance ~a dream come true for many Disney fanatics!  They were planning to choose the winners by running a sweepstakes from 1-5 pm that day.  I had had crazy good luck in winning sweepstakes lately (that's for another post) so I decided to go for it.  I was a little nervous about winning it because 

1. I was pretty broke that week and would have to scrape together money for hotel and gas (we live exactly 2 and a half hours from my door to the Walt Disney World welcome sign) 
2. You couldn't bring anyone along on the tour and I know my husband wasn't crazy about me staying at a cheap hotel by myself.  I also felt slightly guilty that if I was chosen I couldn't bring my daughter.

A few hours later I received this email:

I was going to get into Cinderella's Castle Suite!!!!!  Thankfully we worked it out that our good friends would keep the kids Monday night and my husband would be able to come down with me. 

At 7:30 a.m on Tuesday, October 15, 2013 we showed up at the Magic Kingdom so that I could take my Castle Suite Tour (yes, technically it was touring both castles.  But it wasn't too hard to see the Beast's Castle so I wasn't as excited about that).

My husband, James, was going to wait out on the benches for me while I took the tours since they would be over by 9. When I signed in we found out only 12 of the 25 selected for the day actually showed up.  WHAT?!?!  I'm guessing that some people signed up thinking they wouldn't get it anyway...then they couldn't figure out how to quickly get a flight down, get off of work, or have someone watch the kids.  This worked in my favor.  They asked my husband if he had a ticket to get into the parks.  Thankfully we had just bought Annual Passes to Walt Disney World a month earlier.  So they invited him to go on the tour with us!!!!!

We were split up into 2 groups.  The group I was in was going to Cinderella's Castle Suite first.  SQUEAL!!!!

To make this trip better, our tour guide was Cathy Carver, who had worked on the design of Cinderella's Castle Suite.  They actually only gave her 6 months for the whole project!

When she unlocked to door we saw...not the suite.  Instead it was an office like room where the concierge stays. (They can't have guests coming down from the Suite after hours so those who stay there are set up with a concierge to get them whatever they need).  That's not to say it wasn't gorgeous.  Disney is just incredible with its details.  Notice the clock.  It is always at 11:59.  It never strikes midnight because the magic never ends.

 

 

Finally it was time to get on the elevator and head up to the Suite.  I had no idea even the elevator would be awesome.  Have you ever seen an elevator floor look like this?!

The elevator opened up into the foyer.

The floor was...wow.

The ceiling...it was incredible too!

And then there were the other details:

 

 

Finally it was time to move into the actual Castle Suite.  As you can see from the above pictures I didn't have a great camera so I apologize for the quality.  I have a DSLR now...I just need to get back into the Suite!

Here is the bedroom:

  

The bedroom had 2 double beds in it.  Both of them had the letter "C" above them.  One for Cinderella and one for Charming.  There were also beautiful columns, accessories and a frame on the wall that could turn into a picture, a mirror or a TV.  The Suite had all the modern conveniences.  They were just hidden so that it felt like you were in Cinderella's era.
 

 Next we walked into my favorite room.

 
 
 

There were gorgeous stained glass windows.  You can actually see them when you're looking up at the castle.  During the day I could look out the windows to see what was going on below.  But they had figured out a way that at night you weren't able to see out of the windows.  They wanted to keep the Magic Kingdom magical.

 

 

The last room we were able to see was the bathroom.  I have never seen a more fabulous bathroom before.  When we renovated our bathroom a couple of months later I could only wish it looked like this.

 See that blue ceiling up there?  It's above the bathtub.  You were able to turn off all the lights in the bathroom and then there was a button you could push to have twinkle lights come on in the blue area.  I imagine it would be like bathing under the stars.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to try it out.

The tub was surrounded by three gorgeous murals.

 

There was not any natural light in the bathroom.  This stained glass window actually went between the shower and the sink area.

So there's even a story behind the toilet.  They didn't want porcelain...too modern.  They didn't want gold...too flashy for cinderella.  So they toilet is actually made out of stone!

 So that was my tour of Cinderella's Castle.  I hope you enjoyed!  I hoping to one day be able to take me kids there.  They know exactly where the door leading to it is, lol!