Comfy Christmas Outfits

Yeah, I don't even know what to say about my littlest in this skirt, except I love it! She looks like a perfect little candy cane with her big ruffles! :) I made this skirt by just doing a basic skirt with three tiers of ruffles. It's all made of jersey or interlock knit, except the white ruffle which is nylon chiffon like I used in these flowers.

Oh and this is one of the ruffly skirts I alluded to when I posted my Blinging Rudolph stocking (hmmm, Jessica if you're reading, I'm still waiting of a picture of my little LC wearing hers!)

And my big girl for a Sweet A Line Dress (pattern by Lil Blue Boo) with matching leggings and sparkly red shoes (her fave). I absolutely love the fabric on this dress - it's a Rudolph print and that SO incredibly soft! I hope this picture does it justice!

A couple more pictures ... I love this hairbow (just below). I made it years ago with a Martha Stewart tutorial. I has red jingle bells on top of white holly leaves & pink ribbon.

And that's a wrap! (I do have another Christmas'y dress but it hasn't made its way into the wearingcycle just yet!

Pin It

Sweet A Line Dresses - Scrappy Style

So it's pretty obvious I *may* be a little obsessed with Lil Blue Boo, right? Yes, yes I am! When she released a new pattern last week I of course bought it right away, and made 4. Yes 4. Here are numbers 3 and 4 ... still need to photog numbers 1 and 2 :)

I so love LBB stuff that I bought a box of scrap fabric a while back; who can pass up promises of those silk screened scraps? Well not me. I have been just waiting and waiting for a good idea to pop into my head for using my favorite silk screen scraps (the "when I grow up" print, and the paper dolls)! This is what I came up with and I couldn't be happier!

This pattern (like all the others) is great. Easy, easy to follow, and super cute. I've made sizes 2/3 and 3/4.

It's safe to say we "all" like the new dresses. Except the little ones said they were "freezing" on this particular day (it was like 65 degrees here = freezing) and so we had to zip back home for long leggings and coats ... oh and the photo session was abruptly ended when my models walked out on me! ....

Isn't it cute how the little one's dress back is a completely different - yet totally coordinating - fabric? I love that!

Oh and did I mention this pattern goes up to size 14 years?!? So, nieces heads up: you're getting dresses for Christmas this year! ;)

Pin It

Princess Dresses - Special Delivery for Disneyland!

So we started planning / booking our first ever Disneyland trip about a year ago, and last week - we went! And I'm happy to report ... it. was. awesome!

Of course, I needed to make the girls some special dresses for this big event and I went with the princess direction given that they are full on obsessed with the princesses! Favorites are: Sleeping Beauty, "Fapunzel," "A-yall," and Cinda-le-lla.

These dresses are pretty much a shameless copycap of Lil Blue Boo's princess dress from a while back; what can I say? I love her stuff!

I used some of the a-mazing new Martha Stewart paints to make these dresses extra special, and extra sparkly. These "pearl" paints are fantastic. Mix with the "fabric medium" per the product instructions and you have permanent fabric paint! Hooty hoo, the possibilities are endless w/ this stuff!

Warning ... this mixture (paint + fabric medium) seems runnier than other fabric paints I have used, but it dried and set just fine. And by runny, I mean the fabric puckered a bit until it was all dry. Heat pressing the paint to set it, smoothed it out nice and pretty.

Here are a couple pictures of the paint + fabric medium mixture.

To create the crown, I used my cheap-o silk screening method of choice: freezer paper stenciling (more here & here). I found thecrown in Microsoft Clip Art, and simply blew it up on the printer until it was the desired size. I cut with an exacto blade and pressed it to the fabric panel to create a stencil.

By the time I'm getting around to writing this post, I have washed the dresses and am happy to report that they washed up perfectly!

 

Oh, and for some added flair I added Jolee's Heat Fix Crystals (clear & hot pink) to the crown points. They bling - love it! (The crystals washed up fine too).

All in all, our trip to Disney was a huge success and I'm happy to have created a couple special outfits for the the occasion! ;) Needless to say, the girls liked Disney! (see below!)

Pin It

The Big "4" and a Freezer Paper Pictoral {DIY}

Somehow or another my baby has turned 4. I like having a number shirt for each birthday ...I didn't make a good one last year and was bummed about it! This year I wanted to make something simple (and fast and easy). I opted for the easiest thing I can think of: freezer paper stenciling!

I put a lavendar "4" on a brown tank and it was cute, but needed more. So I made a rolled flower with a little tuft of tulle sticking out. She loved it ...

There are thousands of tutorials on freezer paper stenciling (this one from Made is very thorough) but in a pictoral, here is the simplicity of it!

Draw or print design onto dull side of freezer paper and cut out with exacto blade (or scissors if you can).

Determine placement of your design on garment. If you're weird like me, measure to make sure it's centered. Once it's in the perfect spot, press into place. The freezer paper will adhere to the fabric and create a stencil!

Lightly paint in the design the FABRIC paint. I like Tulip's Matte brand. You may need to do a couple layers ... I did 3.

After the paint has dried (go overnight if possible), peel off the paper and heat set the paint in place (with a pressing cloth to protect your iron).

 

That's it! :) My girl's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, but we are having her "friend" party this weekend. She is ALL ABOUT scooby doo, so we'll be serving up some Scooby Snacks and I'm hoping to find time to make a Daphne dress for her! Wish me luck :)

Pin It

Lil Blue Boo Swap Dress - Hello Kitty Style

After all this time of making dresses from Lil Blue Boo dresses, I decided to finally participate in a Swap on the Lil Blue Boo Patterns page (on Facebook). All you have to do is tell the organizer what patterns you own and what type / size of clothing you'd like. In turn, you find out what someone else wants!

One of the things my swap recipient said she wanted was Hello Kitty. I'm sure she said something else too, but when I saw Hello Kitty - my decision was made! I LOVE Hello Kitty and I have no idea why...but I remember being obsessed with HK when I was a kid. Like obsessed.

Anyhow, I had seen this black HK shirt at Target a while back and thought it'd make a super cute Halloween'ish (or not) dress. I paired it with orange for Halloween, but added some pink to make it not exclusive to Halloween. I'm so obsessed w/ how it turned out, I really (really) wanted to keep it. It's a size 4 ... my oldest just turned 4. So ... I may need to see if Tar-jay still has this shirt & make another one!

I hope the recipient loves her new dress!

Pin It

Hawkeye Ruffle "Butts"

How cute are these? So cute I ALMOST wish I had a little hiney to put them on!

A friend recently had a baby girl and her family is huge Iowa Hawkeye fans, so she wanted Hawkeye Ruffle Butts for her daughter's newborn pictures. I cannot wait to see the pictures!

I wanted to use fabrics other than solid black and gold ... I love the gingham fabric with the polka dotted ruffles. The black and white is a woven (that super lightweight kind of slippy stuff - I cannot remember the name right now!) and the gold is knit interlock.

I used Made's Perfect Diaper Cover tutorial ... I just added two ruffle strips to spruce it up a little!

front view

Close up of the hot pink serged edges - a little girly pop!

Looking forward to seeing the pictures of baby girl in her sporty ruffle butts!

Pin It

Can of Worms

Warning - picture overload! So recently, I bought some pants for my daughter and loved them so much. I looked at them for a while and thought, I bet I can make those. So I gave it a whirl.

It worked! And now I've opened a can of worms in realizing that I can re-create storebought pants! Now that I understand the basic construction of pants, I get it. There are 5 pieces: 2 front pieces, 2 back pieces & a waistband.

Pin It

Upcycled Iowa Hawkeyes Dress aka "Go Awkeyes"

When it came time to box up, donate or otherwise get rid of "baby clothes" I had a really hard time getting rid of things. I mean my 'babies' were practically babies together at only 14 months apart, so I coped by keeping PLENTY. This particular onesie is one of the little treasures I just couldn't part with :) And, now I'm so glad I kept it.

I debated turning it into a doll outfit, but ultimately I decided to UPCYCLE it for the girls! It was so darn small (0-6 months) that I had to cut and patch it ... I'm pretty thrilled with the turnout. I've been on a fabric shopping spree lately and had this awesome black / yellow / white / grey number on hand. I like the overall turnout.

Pin It

Morrison's Dresses (A Gift)

You know, I gotta say that I love Facebook! I credit this social media frenzy with helping me find a friend I hadn't talked to in a long while! Seeing our updates and pictures of our kids, it helps with the now cross-country distance between us! :)

Long long friend has a daughter about a year older than my oldest and apparently she is majorly into her American Girl doll and wanted nothing more than to match her! :) When asked if I could make something, I couldn't do it fast enough! Here's what we came up with ... plenty girl, plenty comfortable and perfectly matching to her doll.

(Seen here on a Pottery Barn Kids doll but should fit her AG doll just fine)

Pin It

Preppy Apple Outfit

I've been making so many of these dresses lately, it's almost embarassing! Perhaps someday soon, I'll get around to taking pictures of them and posting :) You know what else? Making clothes = fabric shopping, and I've been doing a lot of it! Double :)

I recently discovered Girl Charlee as a GREAT resource for purchasing really cool knit fabrics, AND they are super affordable. Here in blogland, I kept hearing about "french terry knit" and was curious about it. Soon as I got to wondering about it, Girl Charlee listed this ridiculously cute apple fabric in a french terry - sold! This fabric just screams "back to school" to me, with all those cute apples. The apple core is a Heart on here, so I picked up this cute ribbed cotton trim to coordinate.

Beret Close-Up

The dress is made from Lil Blue Boo's Sienna Dress Pattern in a size 3 with a couple modifications: (1) changed pattern piece for neck trim into one piece about 75% of neck opening, and (2) added wide trim to arms and bottom, and (3) made this a "bubble" dress by making the trim piece smaller.

Pin It

Another Comfy Outfit

Now that my serger is back, I just cannot get enough of sewing stuff up for my girls. It seems to sew so much faster and the seams are just SO NEAT!  Did I mention it tears through multiple layers without a hiccup!

I stocked up on even more knits after I discovered this site  (Chez Ami) as a place to order cute knits at really affordable places! I had a little trouble ordering online, but a phone call to them cleared it up quickly. :)

Fabrics Used ...

Top: Jersey Knit - Turquoise Multi Butterfly Dot from Chez Ami

Shorts: Knit Cafe Dot Green City Weekend by Oliver + S (the waistband is Modal Spandex from eBay)

Square Top made with the free Square Top Tutorial by Lil Blue Boo. My daughter is 2 yo, so I used a 26" square for her. It worked great! The Shorts were made with the "Perfect Shorts Pattern" from Lil Blue Boo. I may be obsessed with these shorts - they are SO FAST to make & work up adorably.

She makes quite the model posing up on Daddy's tablesaw (don't worry - she was supervised!).

It was hard to get a picture of the hot pink waistband on her, so here's a close up of them without the model.

Pin It