Thrifted Romper turned into Frog Prince Perfection!

Lydia has a special birthday outfit to wear to her princess themed party, but what about baby brother? I had this romper with a frog on it, so I decided to embellish it a little to fit the party theme.

The first thing I did was trace the existing design onto a piece of paper. I held it up to a light so I could see the design through the paper. The biggest challenge were the small flies embroidered around the frog. I strategically positioned my embellishments to hide these details.

I double checked that my pattern fit before investing too much time or effort.

Next I ironed some Heat-n-bond to some scrap t-shirt fabric and cut it to shape.

I added a few more princely details, sewed down the edges and added some paint pen outlines and jewels. I predict that Joshua will be smothered in kisses in this outfit!

No Talking Until Next Thursday!

I had surgery today. Nothing serious, just a quick trip to laser off a polyp on a vocal chord. Not sure how it got there, but now its gone. The good news is I feel WAY better than I thought I might feel. (I tend to get REALLY nauseated after anesthesia, which is REALLY awful after throat surgery) So far so good! So, why I work on DIYing some new vocal chord tissue, here are a couple of projects from this week.

In addition to completing ALL the major "to do" items on my list (did I mention surgery was TWO DAYS before the big princess party), I found time to make a Cinderella dress for Lydia's American Girl doll!

The fun part, for me at least, was that I made it all from up-cycled clothing! The blue shiny fabric came from a night shirt I found at a thrift store for $2. The main reason I bought it, besides the price, was that patch of lace. It was a pocket on the nightshirt.

The hem of the nightshirt curved up at the side seams, so I used that feature as a design detail on the front center of the skirt.

I needed an underskirt, so I used one of Lydia's petti-coats. I just gathered it even tighter, which made the whole dress even more full.

In other news, the party provided a great reason to finish a few projects around the house, like FINALLY arranging some pictures in our dining room.

I saw a grouping of pictures that I liked on Pinterest and followed that pattern. The best thing was I made paper templates for each frame so I could move them around easily until I found a pattern I liked. Then it was SO EASY to mark the position for the picture hanger on the template and put the nail right through the template and into the correct spot on the wall.

Finally, I got this old window for $3 and the BEST PART was the openings are each 8x10! I turned 6 pictures into black and whites and sent them to Walgreens for one hour developing. The pictures cost way more than the frame, but it is so awesome, I don't care! Besides, I can't talk for a week so my husband won't hear the total cost from me!

Sewing a Birthday Skirt

So far, I have made a special outfit for each of Lydia's birthdays. I mentioned in an earlier post the fabric that I ordered to make a skirt.

I was trying to decide what colors of fabric to coordinate with the border print when I saw this skirt at a flea market.

I liked the pink polka dots a lot, but there was one problem....,

Can you see the big horizontal run in the fabric?

Luckily, the inside of the skirt is also pink polka dots, just in a reverse pattern.

The only problem was the seam, but I just cut it out and sewed it again so that the seam was on the new inside. I added the border at the bottom edge... Oh and I whipped up a little appliqué shirt design to match the skirt, and the birthday outfit is ready for the birthday princess!

Ready For Summer and a Princess Skirt Preview

The end of the school year is SO close I can almost taste it and this year I am SALAVATING at the idea of a break!  Lydia (and the big school system) have been out since last week, so it feels like we are a little stuck but summer is coming and I am getting really excited about having a little time to focus on making stuff (and cleaning stuff, and organizing stuff, and planning school stuff).

Of course I will also be devoting lots of time chasing to the kiddos, especially now that Joshua can WALK! Yep! He took his first solo steps this weekend after NEVER learning to crawl!  Aside from some baby-proofing, my most pressing project is making stuff for Lydia's birthday party.  I have scaled things WAY back and am mostly inviting school friends. We are having the party at our house and planning on the kids mostly playing on Lydia's new playhouse complex (blog post coming soon) so I'm not doing party games.  I'll have some fun with food and decorations, but for now I'm obsessing over what Lydia will wear.

So far, I have made something for Lydia to wear that matched the theme for each of her parties.  There was the dress shown above for her Butterfly 1st Birthday party, a fun dress for her Alice in Wonderland Tea for Two party, there was an up-cycled dress for the Three Under the Sea party, and then a custom tee shirt and Paris themed skirt for last year's Four and Fabulous party.  This year is all about PRINCESSES!

Lydia LOVES Cinderella and she actually already has a Cinderella costume that I made for her.  I have a feeling she will want to go full dress up for her party, but I want her to have something new and something that is more of a normal outfit.  I started searching for "princess fabric" online and fell in love with a few options.  I ran them by Lydia and she picked her favorite.  it's from a Riley Blake line called "Happy Ever After."

She loved the print of houses and castles because it reminded her of Cinderella's story.  There is even a clock and a pumpkin shaped carriage!  It even comes in a version with a blue background, the color of the sky..... AND of Cinderella's dress!

 Perfect..... except that I failed to notice that this fabric is from 2012 and sold out on most sites!  Ooops! How do I not check this stuff BEFORE showing it to Lydia?!?  After some frantic searching, I found a place in Austrialia that wouldn't ship to the US and a place in England that would. The fabric has been ordered and  has been listed as shipped.  Here's hoping it makes it in time!

 

While I wait for the fabric to arrive, I have been playing around with photoshop to look at a few possibilities.  Mostly, I realized that if I wanted any of the coordinating fabric, I might need to search it out as well and couldn't afford to wait.  I definitely want to use the landscape print as the border of the skirt. 

There are some other cute prints with princesses and one with princess dresses that are designed to coordinate. Honestly, I was more excited about the idea BEFORE I made these digital mock ups.  I think I have decided that I can find lots of prints that are a little less busy, maybe a dot or a stripe, and find them here locally after the border print arrives. I am pretty sure that I am making a skirt, so that still leaves a shirt to find or create, so stay tuned.... and wish my fabric happy travels across the ocean!

Up-Cycled Apron from a Thrift Store Dress

One of the three categories for the Miss Biscuit Competition that I entered was "sportswear", which at Biscuitfest meant an apron. I had a cute apron covered in tea and coffe cups, but I wanted something new and cute and it needed to match my biscuit plate hat!

The picture above shows my outfit, next to my competition. I don't want to brag (OK maybe just a little) but I think I look GOOD! Consider that I have yet to stop eating like a pregnant gal so NOTHING fits, and I am very proud that I made an apron that was figure flattering. It was so pretty, easy, and inexpensive to make. Here's what I did!

I went to Goodwill during lunch. I wanted a dress that could become an apron. I had no idea what I wanted my apron to look like so there were LOTS of possibilities. It was fun just to look at colors and patterns and not worry about the size. Basically, you want a skirt that has some fullness and a top that can cover your top in an appropriate way for an apron. The picture above shows my dress after I cut up the back seam. It was simple white cotton with large woven dots and a built in lining.

Once I had my dress, I went to the Internet for ideas and drew a simple sketch to guide my sewing. Below is the apron after I cut the dress into 2 parts at the waistline. If the dress had been any longer in the waist, I would have just left that part connected and sewn a waist band with straps right on top of the dress. This dress was small and the top was fitted, so I needed to move the top part up some.

I also wanted a scalloped hem. The first attempt had too few scallops, so I changed that later. I also added a yellow trim. At $3 a yard x 3 yards, the trim cost TWICE what my thrift store dress did, but it was SO worth it. I loved the detail AND the trim folded in on top and on bottom so I just inserted the raw edge of the apron and top stitched the trim, saving a lot of time and trouble.

Here is the new, improved scalloped hem with the yellow trim. Below is the apron top getting attached to the waist band sash.

You also can see the black piping detail that I added. This was in my original sketch. I didn't have any trim when I first dove into this project, but I did have a black t-shirt!

I cut strips of the shirt lengthwise. Then pulled on them until the ends curled in a bit.

Then I stitched them in place. Below are some different views of the finished apron. Not bad for a thrift store dress and a few hours during lunch!

Upcycled Shirt Sleeve Button Bag

I saw a list on Pinterest of baby games that were appropriate for each month of baby's first year. Joshua is already 10 months old, so I'm a little late, but I skipped to his part of the list and read about a "button bag" game. The idea is simple enough. Put REALLY big buttons (note: small buttons are a chocking hazard) into a bag. A younger baby will enjoy putting items in the bag and pulling them out. Eventually, an older toddler will enjoy sorting and counting the buttons.

Neat idea, but i wasn't planning on making one today. But then we ended up in the studio this morning because Lydia wanted to craft something. And I was wearing Joshua in the Moby wrap because he still has an ear infection and feels crummy. I was just hoping to clean up a little while Lydia played around when an old t-shirt caught my eye. The shape of sleeve made me think of the button bag game idea.

All I had to do was sew the sleeve shut at the cut edge where it used to join with the shirt. I now had a sleeve sized bag!

Adding a drawstring was as simple as cutting a little hole in the seam at the top of the bag, the part of the sleeve that was once the edge. I needed to be careful not to cut all the way through, but other than that it was easy!

Then I ran a ribbon through the sleeve hem casing and I had my draw string bag!

Three simple steps, a few buttons from my stash, a project so easy that I could finish it even with a cranky baby strapped to my chest!

I think the cranky baby approves!

The Fish Shirt

Joshua has this cute summer button down with fish all over it. Well, actually, it has fish bones all over it. So, really, Joshua has a shirt covered in the remains of dead fish! For some reason this bugged me a little and I decided to add an accent to, literally, bring more life into the design.

I cut a simple fish shape out of scraps of t-shirt fabric.

I played around with a few ideas for the layout. The first two are more of a striped pattern and the last one is more random.

In the end I went with the random layout. I sewed the fish in place and then added a little fishy face. Now their are a few happy fishes in that fish graveyard! Survival of the fittest, I suppose!

Our Chalk Walk Art

So the morning of the chalk festival I showed Lydia my idea for drawing her holding up a piece of paper and then letting her draw what was on the paper. We apparently had creative differences!

While I got dressed, Lydia drew a picture of her design, a rainbow with our family under it. She was very specific that she would draw the people and PJ and I would draw the rainbow and write all the names.

I still wanted part of the finished artwork to be realistic, so I asked Lydia to pose for a photo like she was drawing the rainbow.

Here is my quick sketch of my idea incorporating both of our designs.

I arrived early to get the realistic part finished and to get everything ready so that Lydia could get right to work when she arrived. Below you can see multiple shots of the progress on our design.

Something that I read suggested starting with a detailed part of the design, especially eyes if possible, to draw in public interest. So, I quickly drew the face and got the eyes and smile detailed as soon as possible.

The hair is only a start, but the face is coming together. She's not as smiley as I wanted and she looks to old, but she looks human so I'm happy!

Next I added more shadows to the face and started putting in the shirt color.

In order to draw the arms and hands I needed to start the rainbow shape that the girl would be drawing. I knew Lydia could do the rest of the rainbow so I stopped with the red.

The legs and hair came together quickly. It all felt like it came together quickly, though, because I was enjoying it so much! PJ showed up with Lydia and they immediately got lunch. I kept thinking it was only 10 am when it was probably much later.

It really got fun once the family showed up. By then the crowds had picked up and having a picture of a little girl drawing and a REAL little girl drawing got lots of attention.

Once the rainbow was finished, Lydia started on her drawing of our family.

I love the details like our red hair, the glasses on me and PJ, the fingers on our hands, and the three hairs on Joshua's head!

Before we knew it, we were finished!

I added some fake chalk to make the drawing more realistic and we added some white chalk writing around the top to fill the empty space.

I am a little sore, slightly sun burned, but VERY proud of our family!