$5 Well Spent

Marshall and Shaylen love pretending and making up various and sundry scenarios to act out. When they play they sound like an audiobook:

"King Nate waved his sword in the air wildly." --Marshall

"The ferocious beast is after me!" she shouted from her ship. --Shaylen

"I am going to slay the wild beast, Your Majesty," said Nate loudly. --Marshall

It's so funny to listen to them play. They could really do this for hours. They do it with their Lego men too.

A while back, Marshall asked me if I could make him a cape. It would add to the effect of their adventures. I didn't have any material floating around that would be sufficient so I told him that I could maybe run to JoAnn's and see what they had. I happened to also have a coupon that I could use.

We went in to the store and looked at their remnant section, but everything was priced too high. At least, too high to make into capes! We then looked over in another section and they had the perfect colors for the twins. The material was on sale for only $2.50 a yard. Marshall picked out blue and Shaylen picked out purple. I used my coupon and got 20% off of my total purchase. Boy were the kids excited! I came home and as best I knew how, sewed up two adorable capes for "King Nate" and "Queen Sally."

I made straps to go in front so they could easily get them on and off. I had some industrial strength velcro that I sewed in and then placed an official looking button over it so that it looked like it was buttoned. They were just odd buttons that had been sitting in my sewing box for years. This was the best use of them ever! They even have a coat of arms on them.

Marshall has been using a painted dowel for a sword (or pointer, or flute, or flag pole...depending on the day) and wished he had a belt he could place it in so he didn't have to constantly hold on to it. I looked at his cape and discovered an opening where two hems crossed. I experimented and voila! the dowel fit in perfectly. I measured where it would need to go so that a bit of it hung out for quick grabbing and then sewed the end so the "sword" rested there. I repeated the process with Shaylen's and now they can walk around with their crowns and capes on and swords safely sheathed in their capes. (If you look closely in the picture, you can see Marshall's black dowel hanging out just to the right of his right hand. Their plastic bats are substituting as scepters. So cute!)

These capes have provided hours of entertainment already. This has got to be one of the best uses of $5! Remember my other $5 purchase that has also provided hours of entertainment? Well, it's still going strong. Who needs TV? Let kids use their imaginations!