Crafty Mommy back from haitus

Yes, I've already done two posts today, but since both topics aren't related in the least, I figured I'd just do two separate ones.

Crafty Mommy took a hiatus for a while. Frankly, I forgot I had a sewing machine, except for when I would trip over it going into the closet. So a few weeks ago, my husband mentioned that we needed new bath towels - specifically the hooded ones for the boys because he felt like the toddler-sized ones from the store just aren't really big enough. I had purchased one for B last year at a craft fair that was made with a full-sized towel, but that sucker cost me $25, and I wasn't quite ready to dish out $100 on hooded bath towels. So I went to the wonderful world known as Pinterest because I figured how hard could they really be? And they aren't - one full-sized towel, one hand towel that you cut in half (so technically you could make two towels with two full-sized and one hand towel), and whatever embellishments you want to put on them.

I started off with a trip to Joann's to check out their appliques. I found a handful that I liked - an elephant and a giraffe to keep with our African family theme, some duckies playing with sailboats and some cute little "monsters" that would let me do something a little more colorful. Then off to Target I went to get towels to coordinate with the appliques. My husband works for Target, so between his team member discount, the discount for using their store branded debit card and an additional discount they were offering using their Cartwheel app, I bought four full-sized towels and three hand towels (two of the towels were brown, so since I only needed half a hand towel for each one, I only had to buy one brown hand towel) for probably about $12.

This weekend I sat down and completed the task - sew half a hand towel to the long end of the bath towel, then fold it in half and sew the hand towel across the top to make the hood. Easy enough. The appliques I bought were all iron-on, so that was pretty easy, too. I debated grabbing a sewing needle and thread to reinforce them, but after ironing them on, they seem fine. We'll see how they hold up after a couple of washes. I may need to reinforce them a bit after they take a trip through the spin cycle.

So here's the finished product. Four towels for probably about $35 instead of spending $25 each to buy them from someone at a craft show or on Etsy. Pretty easy and I would even consider making these as gifts at some point, and I'm FAR from the expert seamstress.

Sneak peek at B's photo shoot with Step 2!

So when we started out on this toddler modeling journey, we had no idea what to expect or where we'd end up. It only took six weeks for B to get his first request from Step 2, a national toy company located about 40 minutes from where we live. The shoot was for a "gender neutral" kitchen set that they are rolling out in time for holiday shopping. And even though they spent about 20 minutes taking photos, they also took photos of two other toddlers prior to B's turn, so we really didn't know if they would end up using his photos or not. But late last week, our Agent got her hands on the first official photo released by Step 2, and our little B is there!

What's amusing about the photo is that it is of both him and the little girl that they shot just prior to him. And they never actually took a single photo of the two of them together, so they either photoshopped him into a picture they took of her, or vice versa. But in the end, it really doesn't matter. Chances are that since this is the first photo to be released, it might actually be the photo that ends up on the box - I'm assuming boxes need to be designed and in production months before the product so that they actually HAVE boxes to put them in when they come off the assembly line. So I'm taking this as the first sign that my kid's face is going to be on the box when they hit store shelves in a few short months. I'm going to walk into Toys R Us in a few months and quite possibly see my child on display. Or maybe not - who knows. 

So here you go - my baby :-)

Our little one Byron & friend having a blast for Step2! What a cutie. #print #ckmtgmidwest #ckmtg #clekidz #cutekids #childmodel #adorable #babymodeling

A photo posted by CleKidz Model & Talent Group (@theckmtg) on Jul 27, 2016 at 11:18am PDT

Yea, we did it!

So back in the middle of May, we signed a contract with The CLEKidz Model & Talent Group for both of the boys. And since then, we've basically been sitting around and waiting. And waiting. And waiting. I'm not a completely patient person, especially when I started seeing other kids that got signed at the same time as the boys being hired for jobs at Zulily and Carter's/Osh Kosh. I will be the first to admit that a little bit of jealously started creeping in - why didn't they want MY kids?? But I kept reminding myself that it's seriously only been a month and we've got a one-year contract and their chance would come eventually. Patience, my dear.

Well, our time finally came.  And by finally, it's only been about six weeks since we signed, so "finally" actually happened pretty quickly - I keep reminding myself that some of the kids may never get a call and it's nothing against the kids - it's just that they don't exactly fit what the clients are looking for and that's no one's fault. Wednesday afternoon I got an email from the agency saying that Step 2 wanted to use B for a photo shoot. I think I went into a mild panic attack. Step 2 is a quick drive east on the interstate that we literally live right next to, so it's a convenient place to start. I quickly emailed the agency back and told them to book it, and shortly after that I got an email with all of the details that we would need for the shoot - date, time, directions, extensive wardrobe request, etc. His shoot was going to be for a new kitchen play set, so they wanted lots of options to choose from including pants, long sleeved shirts, polos, t-shirts and shoes. Basically bring along his entire wardrobe with the exception of shorts and anything with big logos on it. So I spent a good hour Thursday night ironing most of his wardrobe. Lots of little tiny pieces of clothing that otherwise never see an iron ....

This morning we got up, I gave B a bath, dressed him up in a nice polo shirt and jeans,and headed out the door to Step 2. I seriously thought I was going to throw up, but B eased my mind about 15 minutes before we arrived when Uptown Funk came on the radio and he started dancing in his car seat in the back seat. We got there about 15 minutes early, and when we walked in the door we were greeted by the very friendly staff that works there and shown where the playroom was so he could get acclimated. They were still setting up, and there were two other kids there that were scheduled ahead of him. They went through his wardrobe, picked out an outfit that they thought would work best with the play set and backdrop, and they got to work with the other two kids. They told me that they would probably overlap them - when one of the other two started getting fussy, they would probably swap B in for that one so they could keep things moving. They were quite active, and I was worried that B wouldn't do very well in comparison. But on the other hand, they were a little hard to keep focused on the set. They worked with the other kids for about 15 minutes, but instead of swapping B in, they sent the other kids home and B got a photo shoot all to himself. And I couldn't have been more proud of how he handled it. He was such a trooper. He was very mellow, followed instructions and did what they asked him to do, and when they needed a little bit more from him (like um ... a smile instead of being so darned serious like he always is), he even let one of the staff pick him up and swing him through the air like an airplane so they could get him to giggle and smile for a quick shot. By the end of the shoot, he was giving high fives and fist bumps. And they all just kept commenting about how calm he is and how well he was doing. One of the guys working there told me that if this is what he's like to work with, we can pretty much plan on getting a call every couple of months to bring him in for projects. That was an exciting thing to hear.

So our first venture in the toddler modeling industry went very well as far as I can tell. The new play set is due to be released probably in November, just in time for the holiday shopping season. The photos could end up being used for just about anything - their web site, product ads, packaging, who knows - and the set will be released primarily to Toys R Us but will be sold at pretty much every major retailer that carries their line. I can't exactly wrap my mind around the fact that my child has now done a photo shoot for Step 2 and who knows where I'll be seeing him pop up. But in the meantime, I'm just going to be proud of my baby and how he handled himself today and wait for our next opportunity to pop up. And when November rolls around and your out toy shopping, you just might see my kid on the box of their latest kitchen play set :-).