Christmas 2017 Gift Two: An 'Ever After High' Pillow Sham

So, as you might recall from last year's Princess Starla cape post (which honestly, I had to go and re-read the gifts I made for the kids last year), ever year I ask my daughter what she would like for Christmas.  This Christmas it was, "Oh mom!  I want an Ever After High pillow!!!"  She then dug out her Kindle and showed me what the logo for "Ever After High" looked like and told me all about her favorite characters, again, for the millionth time and everything about the universe in great detail *laugh*.

What she originally wanted was an actual throw pillow with "Ever After High" stuff embroidered all over it, which I would have been willing to do, but looking at her bed, I just shook my head and asked her where she would put another throw pillow.  She has stuffed unicorns she uses as pillows along with the throw pillow I made her last year and three pillows sharing the head of her bed (with her stomach issues she finds sleeping elevated helps her feel less panicky about going to sleep).  I could just see at least a few of the things currently housed on her bed ending up on her floor every night if I added another thing to the head of her bed.  So, I came up with the compromise and asked her if she'd like a pillow case embroidered with some "Ever After High" stuff instead.  And she actually agreed!

I wish the pictures had turned out a bit better of this pillowcase as it actually came out really nice.  It now takes the great place of containing one of the biggest pieces of embroidery I have ever done (the lady's face is the main logo for "Ever After High"), but also cumulatively between all three main "pieces" the pillowcase definitely takes the place of being the biggest piece of embroidery I've done to date.

The "Ever After High" logo is this...

So, I decided to break down the elements of it a bit, redo them and put them more to the daughter's taste.  So, started the giant girl head in dark purple for the outlining (instead of all black, which I thought would be pretty boring and not to the pink and purple loving daughter's tastes) and then I took the image of the lock, kind of, and turned it into a ever after high locket or something similar.  And then I made a quill with an ink well and in the background I wrote (in my truly bad hand writing, so please forgive me) "Rewrite Your Destiny" as the entire point of "Ever After High" is the children of fairy tale characters are trying to find their own way in the world and wondering if they want to take after their parents or do something different.

I apologize for the bad lighting in some of the photos.  Not only did I change the position of my sewing table so it's not under the best light in the room, but I'm also taking these pictures after the kids are in bed, and in this case I took it WAY late as I washed and dried it before I took said photo to make sure I didn't have any touch up work to do once the pen was washed out of it.

So, there you are.  An "Ever After High" pillowcase.

Total Time to Make Gift:  A long time.  I think if I added it up I'd be at about 18 hours or so to get all the embroidery done.  That was a big head to fill in with pink and white (yes I'm one of those people who will fill in white on white to make something look even...I'm OCD that way).

Total Cost to Make Gift:  Nothing in the current time.  My step mom gave me a TON of embroidery floss over the years (thanks Rox!!!) and it has been wonderful to have so much to work with.  The pillowcase was actually part of my gift stash of pillowcases that I had put aside to embroider later, so I didn't have to pay anything for it now (as a result I'm excitedly making a bunch of pillowcases for the house this year and giving them as gifts to the kids and husband ;).  I think originally the pillowcase cost me .50, so I suppose I could call it .50 cost overall for the gift.

So, there you are folks.  Gift two down.  At least I know the daughter likes it as she managed to come into the room right after I took the photo because she had some profound thought about the Berenstain Bears and kept begging me to let her have the pillowcase early *laugh*.  So, onto the next gift!