Ella's Bed Canopy

Hello, there!


Today was a gloriously sunny day. We celebrated more of Ella's birthday with a mid-day treat at Yogurt Extreme. Second time in less than a week - ha! Then I did "gardening" out in the yard with the kids, which mainly consisted of pulling weeds while Ella hacked off the heads of the wilted daffodils. William seems to love gardening more than Ella has ever expressed. He generally likes to clean things, too, like sweeping the walkway for me and such. My little custodian... ♡

Anyway, I wanted to share with you here what I made for Ella's 4th birthday.
We have something of a tradition of making her gifts, rather than buying them. Let's see, in the past they've been....
1st = ...oh my gosh...nothing, I think! Ha!
2nd = learning tower
3rd = Princess tower (doll-sized)

And now the 4th!
A canopy for over her bed:

I didn't follow any kind of tutorial, but just sort of winged it after seeing various styles online.
It was made of the following materials (all found in the house already):

- wire clothing hanger
- colored tissue paper
- sheer curtain
- ribbon
- carboard/paper/crayons
- safety pins
- yarn
- ceiling hook

If I had to give steps, I'd say only this:

1) bend wire hanger into a circular shape
2) feed the tube at the top of the sheer curtain through the wire
3) decorate with paper tissue flowers and ribbons, attaching them with safety pins in a discreet way
4) tie yarn to four of the safety pins (relatively evenly), loop at the top, and hang on ceiling hook

From the center of the yarn, I hung the sun emblem from Disney's "Tangled". That way, it looks like  baby Rapunzel's mobile.

You'll notice I don't have any shots of Ella Rose resting on this bed fit for a princess. Alas, my efforts at sprucing up her bed to get her to sleep on it are not paying off...yet. It's only been a couple of days, and during daytime hours she'll proudly announce that she's going to sleep in her bed! Only to retract that once night falls. Le sigh~

Thankfully, her ever-wise preschool teacher, Ms. Christine, has offered to personally guide Ella Rose to bed independence and will be working it into her in-class birthday celebration coming up this Thursday, as well as providing us with some good guidelines to making the bedtime ritual something Ella Rose willingly partakes in.

Wish us luck~!

Oh! Ella's daddy also got her a nifty set of fairy wings:

And that is Ella's 4th birthday presents in a nutshell.

Aba so generously sent her a check to do with whatever she likes -- I am thinking of experience gifts! Namely, in the form of dance class or something :)

I hope I can keep up the tradition of crafting one useful/heartfelt gift every year and not fall into the pattern of inundating her with presents. So far, so good!

Until next time, take care and Happy Bed Canopies!!