Fashion for a vacation...........

Never thought much about what clothes I did or did not need on a vacation to the Caribbean.  I just figured some shorts and t-shirts.  A bathing suit, a cover up and a couple of dresses.  However after being there and I learned such a lot.

First a two piece bathing suit is the way to go.  Bottoms and a tankini/long top.  Have you ever tried to wrestle taking off a wet bathing suit to go pee?  I thought I was going to do myself a mischief trying to get it off.  Then it wasn't much better trying to put it back on!!

As things seem to take forever to dry, despite the heat, a couple of bathing suit options is the way to go, so you don't have to put on a damp suit in the morning.  Same goes with cover ups.  I actually used a shorter t-shirt type dress as a cover up and it worked a charm.

I will say it obviously doesn't matter what size you are and I saw all sorts of shapes of people wearing the skimpiest of bathing suits.  The amount of old guys with HUGE beer bellies wearing speedo's was mind boggling.....LOL

The amount of young ladies wearing the skimpiest of bikini's taking 7,000 selfies of themselves by the pool while trying not to get wet was also mind boggling!!  Just between me and you; I may or may not have encouraged youngest grandson to splash as much as he wanted to with his toys while they were doing that!! 😜

I had a pair of croc sandals that I used for pool shoes, but wasn't keen on them.  I did end up using my birkenstocks but didn't like getting the footbed wet.  I have a couple more pairs of croc sandals so need to see if they will work.

I was told to pack light and I did and it worked a charm.  Daughter-in-law had some lovely vacation dresses, so I may have to invest in a couple more.  Overall though, other than some shorts I think I may just use what I have..........

Do you have clothes that you use exclusively for vacation?

Barbie Clothes.........

Nitara was given a few Barbie Dolls from a friend, but very few, if any clothes with them.  So her mum gave me four of the dolls, so I could make some clothes for them and give them as part of her birthday gift.  One of the Barbie's I am keeping as my model; however I have discovered that not all Barbies are built the same.  Some have bigger bosoms (if that could be possible😕) and some have bigger butts than others???

Anyway, got her a bag of clothes made and here are some photos:

The strapless dress pattern is from here and it is such a great pattern and very easy to do.  Just follow the instructions, though I did alter it slightly as my Barbie's bosoms were a tad bigger so I increased the bodice size to 6 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches.   I did not put straps in those dresses as these are for a five year old, so wanted to make them as easy as possible to put on.  I was given some Lycra swimsuit material and that is the best for the little leotards, and tube dresses.

The leopard print jacket pattern is from here.  Pretty straight forward and I made a matching skirt by sewing a tube and putting some elastic in the top.  I found a scrap of fleece type fabric in one of the scraps bags I bought at Fabricland.

The two tutu's are just netting with elastic threaded through the top of the waist.  I will never win an award for precision, but I bet the girls (made a set for Nora as well) will love them.

By the way I bought this set from Amazon and the quality was rubbish.  The dresses were awful, I am just hoping that they shoes and other accessories are okay, as then it was worthwhile ordering them.

I will continue to make dresses for them as it's fun and I have a few ideas of my own I want to try out.

By the way despite washing all the Barbies hair and dousing them with conditioner their hair still looked like a rats nest, so I found some pony tail bands and just put their hair in a pony tail.  I am getting too old for this brushing a Barbie's hair lark!!!

In no particular order.........

I am back to knitting the baby blanket..........can you guess what dd is having!

 I picked up the February issue of Simply Knitting and it came with the knitting notebook and it cost me nothing as I had a $10 gift card.

 When Our Little Munchkin see's her baby sister for the first time, she will give her a present and I suggested this would be great in a newborn size to bring her home.  Dd agreed, so need to pick that up at Wal-Mart, maybe later on today.  They had onsies on sale for $1 in baby sizes, so I picked up a couple the other day and will look for more today.

 I bought these via a friend, free run/range eggs.  Quiche will be on the menu this next week for sure now!  Menu planning is on my to do list today as well.

Finally finished the baby quilt, so one down, one more to go for this month.

What we women do.......we must be crazy.......

So as you know we are going to a black tie dinner dance (see this post) I got the dress a while back and last week I picked up the shoes and an evening bag. I really like the shoes and I can see me wearing them again and again. I also got them on sale for $39.99, was pretty pleased with the price. Here is a photo:



The evening bag, although nice, is actually pretty useless as I am one of these women who haul around a huge handbag everywhere I go, and it has everything but the kitchen sink in it!! I'll be lucky if I can get a cell phone, a lipstick and a couple of credit cards in this one. The strap comes off which I think will be better, and I paid $19.99 for it, so I guess that wasn't too bad. Here is a photo of it:


So now for the things we women do part of the post. Now I have to admit, I don't have the most perfect of figures. I have a "full figure" with curves and "wobbly bits," in fact a lot of wobbly bits. So as this dress I have got would look a whole lot better if my "wobbly bits" didn't wobble, I decide to go out and buy a pair of SPANX. For those of you who don't know what SPANX are here is the photo of the contraption:



Now I am no expert on this, so I go by what the instructions tell me and buy the size applicable for me. When I get home I try them on. After much struggle I get them on. Now if I weren't such a shy individual I would have taken a photo with my SPANX on, however that would only have given you all nightmares for the rest of your life.

Suffice to say, yes my wobbly bits don't wobble, how can they they are so constricted none of me wobbles. I pray and hope I don't have to use the bathroom much that night. As although it's supposed to be easy to go to the bathroom with these on, I am guessing it's not as simple as they think. They reckon you can disco dance with these on.........you've got to be joking, as I am all wrapped up like a mummy, so unless there is some sort of mummy dance, that too will be out of the question. I never tried sitting down with these things on. I guess I should try them on again and try sitting down with them on, as I can't stand all night???

I had better get a lot of compliments that night on how good I look, that's all I can say. Oh and I suppose I had better shave my legs and underarms, as we are at the braiding the hair stage ;0)