Gwen's Birthday Shirt

Allrighty, I've been super absent around here... get ready for a slew of posts...

Gwen turned 5 and her Mom wanted a birthday shirt like Catie's.
I think it turned out really cute.  I used fabric for the 5 and purple flocked, iron-on vinyl for the words.

Gwen loved it and the birthday was a success.

Chocolate Pants, Vinyl Detail

Catie's Pants out of Pants turned out so well that I decided I wanted to make another pair.

Once upon a time I decided to make a maxi skirt for myself.  I headed to to fabric store with my Mom and grabbed some brown jersey, my Mom asked if I was sure I wanted to use that fabric, I assured her it was perfect.  Surprise surprise, she was right and it wasn't awesome fabric, plus the skirt was a total fail.  Meaning I have had brown jersey hanging around so I cut up my awesome skirt to make these pants.

These pants are so close to perfect I'm incredible pleased with myself (pardon my self flattery).  Everything went so well and they fit great and she loves them, win, win win.

Catie had some old brown pants that no longer fit and they had this little pink hard on the hip and she loved that silly heart so I figured she'd like some white, heat flocked added.  I picked the scripty heart and I think it was a good choice.

The heart had a little heart cutout so I added that to the back, I'm pretty sure that's her favourite part.

So the pants fit well, they're super comfy and I'm resisting the urge to make her three more pairs of brown stretchy pants... a girl only needs so many brown pants.

My Little Pony T-Shirt

I saw this idea today and instantly loved it.  I like that it's a character t-shirt but subtle and not knock you over the head.  I knew I'd make one as soon as I saw it only at this house we have no interest in Star Wars.  We do happen to have a thing for My Little Pony.

I went online and found some photos of Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy and then using the Silhouette software I traced around the images.  This gave me the nice silhouettes.  I was going to cut out their cutie marks too but they were so tiny that I decided to pass.  I cut the image onto the pink, heat flocked vinyl and ironed it onto a plain white $4 shirt I recently bought at Walmart.

I just ordered this vinyl and when it came I didn't think I liked the colour, I was a little disappointed but once I ironed it and peeled off the plastic it turned out I love it.  Especially since the shirt already had that hot pink trim on the neck.

I think my favourite part are the delicate, adorable eyelashes that turned out so well.

Now Catie just needs to wake from her nap so I can show it to her, she's going to be thrilled.

Altered T

I've really been wanting a new T-shirt so when I found one at Old Navy for $10 I knew it was perfect.  I wanted something summery and light and I love the bright colour.  There was one slight catch though, I didn't love the way it fit.

Like lots of maternity t's this shirt has ruching down the side but for some reason they stopped the ruching 3-4 inches from the bottom.  This made the bottom sit funny and made the shirt look a little strangely long.  

I also discovered that my arms really weren't long enough to take a proper photo so if the difference doesn't look very big then go ahead and blame the angle of the photos.

She the little flare there right at the bottom?  It just wasn't very cute.  

This next photo shows it better.

To fix it I simply turned the shirt inside out and added a little thin elastic to the part that didn't have any, stretching as I went along.  It only took a couple minutes and made all the difference.

Here's the after but again, it hardly looks any different here because of the angle.

Here's a side by side to show you just how much of a difference it made.

The shirt is still just a little baggy but I think a turn through the dryer will make it just right. 

Yellow Dress

Not only did I complete an actual project but I made a dress.  Perhaps if you've followed my blog for a while and you've seen some of the sewing I've done you think this is no big deal, but I swear, for me this is a big deal.  I can look at a stroller to be re-covered and feel nothing but excitement but show me clothing and I get real scared.  My lack of experience shows up really quick too.

About a week ago a friend of mine pinned a picture of a dress and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Sadly the link wasn't a good one and it took you to a daily deals site where I couldn't find the original dress. I couldn't find any better photos so all I have is what you see above.  I thought about trying to re-create the dress for Catie and it took me the entire week to work up the nerve.  I finally went to the store, bought supplies and started with every expectation that somewhere along the line I'd fail miserably.  No pattern, no tutorial, just that photo along with very little clothing experience.  My only reassurance came from the many, many clothing tutorials I have read on the blogs I read and let me tell you, reading all those tutorials sure payed off.

Surprisingly things went very smoothly.  I used my seam ripper a shockingly small amount of times and the end result is pretty darn good if I do say so myself.  Two major changes I made from the original, I knew immediately that I wouldn't use ricrac.  Some of you may disagree with me here and that's cool but I think that nothing makes a piece of clothing look more homemade than ricrac, the only exception being if it's sewn into a hem so you just see the cute wavy part.  Anyway, I knew I would replace the ricrac with piping which would mean some extra fabric piecing but I love the look of piping so it was worth it.   I also used less buttons, but not on purpose.  I debated at the store between big and little ones, went with the big and they ended up being too big to fit 6 like the original.  Turned out I loved three even more though.  Okay, enough blabbing, here's the final photo.

The bodice is fully lined so no seams show, the skirt is lined with some white satin that I had on hand to keep the dress from getting stuck on tights and diapers and such and there's a zipper in the back.

Here's a close up of the bow, buttons and piping.

The zipper is not the most beautiful you've ever seen but it works.  If my skills were a bit better I wouldn't have needed the hook and eye at the top but sometimes you have to make compromises and I'm sure my next one will be even better.

I love the really wide hem and I think the piping gives it such a sleek look.  Sorry but there is no way I have the skills to post a tutorial for this dress, especially since I really made things up as I went along.  But hey, if I could figure it out so can you.

And a couple of photos of how cute Catie looks in it and some honesty about how I really feel about the finished project.

I think the dress is just a little long.  I would have liked the look of the dress if it was slightly shorter but it's far too much work to change and it's okay as is.  I also really wish I had moved the straps in a little further, they sort of slip off the shoulders, again not worth the effort so they're staying as is.  It's possible that bow is a bit large but I enjoy it anyway.

What really matters is that Catie loves it.  She put it on and looked in the mirror and started to spin.  I actually tried it on her a lot of times at different phases and she never fought me which is a huge indicator of how she felt about the dress.  I'm calling this a success.

  Linking To Monday - C.R.A.F.T., Making The World Cuter, Polly Want a Crafter, Simpsonized Crafts, Sugar Bee Crafts, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, The Girl Creative   Tuesday - All Things Related, Creative Itch, Domestically Speaking, It's Sew for You,  Ladybug Blessings, Sassy Sites, Today's Creative Blog, This & That, Topsy Turvy    Wednesday - Blue Cricket Design, Me and My Bucket   Thursday - A Glimpse Inside,  House of Hepworth, It's Sew Stinkin Cute, Lemon Tree Creations,  Somewhat Simple, The Train to Crazy, What Allie's Making Now   Friday - Creation Corner, Finding Fabulous, Tatertots & Jello, The CrEaTiVe CraTe

Regular to Skinny Jeans

So it's no surprise that it's now winter which equals snow and I've quickly realized that it's far easier to put Catie in boots than regular shoes.  Boots require skinny jeans though.  Catie has one pair but they're kind of distinctive so I feel like she can't wear them very often.


I didn't want to buy new jeans so I pulled out a pair of her old pants that fit except they were a little short.  I forgot to take a picture so here's an old one of when they did fit.  You can imagine they'd be super dorky too short but skinny jeans are acceptable if they're a tad short.

I used her new skinnies as a guide to turn those old jeans into these.

Now they look like this

They're kind of extreme skinnies but they look great with her boots and if I hadn't had some tension problems it would have only taken 20 ish minutes.

They turned out so cute and were so easy I may just make another pair. 

Sweater to Sweater Dress

Ages ago while I was in the thrift store I picked up an off white sweater that I had intended to turn into a sweater dress for Catie.  I shoved it in a drawer and sort of forgot about it until Thursday when I read this sweater to sweater dress post from Make It and Love It.  I was re-inspired and immediately got to work.

It's the perfect season for a cuddly long sleeve dress and it ended up being a quick job that turned out even better than I had anticipated.

It looked like this the first time around but the neck was kind of gapey and it was also pretty boring.  I added some elastic to the neck and some silk flowers to the front. It was also pretty see through so I made her a quick slip (I won't show it to you because it's functional but not very pretty).

She loves it and looks so cute in it.  I'll admit that I'm more than a little proud to exclaim, "I made it!" when any one even sort of comments on it.

 


Linking To Monday - C.R.A.F.T., Making The World Cuter, Polly Want a Crafter, Simpsonized Crafts, Sugar Bee Crafts, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, The Girl Creative   Tuesday - All Things Related, Creative Itch, Domestically Speaking, It's Sew for You,  Ladybug Blessings, Sassy Sites, Today's Creative Blog, This & That, Topsy Turvy    Wednesday - Blue Cricket Design, Me and My Bucket   Thursday - A Glimpse Inside,  House of Hepworth, It's Sew Stinkin Cute, Lemon Tree Creations,  Somewhat Simple, The Train to Crazy, What Allie's Making Now   Friday - Creation Corner, Finding Fabulous, Tatertots & Jello, The CrEaTiVe CraTe

Jeans to Capris

I picked up these jeans for Catie a while ago and I'm pretty sure they were defective.  The size was 18 to 24 months but they were ate least 2 inches shorter than her other pants of the same size.  

It turned out to be for the best because there was a while when these were the only jeans that were a good length on her but while the waist is still fine it didn't take long for them to be too short.  I loved the style of the pockets on them so I couldn't bear to get rid of them and she's in need of shorts/capris.  She's a busy girl and I see lots of knee scraping in her summer so I thought capris would be a better choice.


I used another pair of capris that fit her to determine the length I wanted them to be.

I then used this awesome tutorial from Crap I've Made to hem them.  They look so good that unless you look close you can't even tell they've been hemmed.

She looks super cute in them and they're perfect for summer.

Old Sweater to New Sweater Vest

Little Jack is adorable and squishy and looks like an old man.  He's perfect and lovely and in need of an outfit to be blessed in.  His mother didn't want a girly, white outfit and I had just read Made's tutorial for a sweater vest.

Side note... do you ever notice how after you learn a word for the first time you start to see that word everywhere?  It's the same with craft ideas, I see it somewhere and it's not too long before I have the perfect application for it.

So I had the tutorial and the reason to use it, all I needed was a white sweater.  I went to Value Village and found this.

 The front is pretty girl but the back was perfect.  Since Jack is so little I could make the front and back of the vest out of the back of the sweater.

I used an old shirt of Catie's as a pattern and followed the tutorial and in a surprisingly short amount of time I had a perfect little vest.  It really came together so quick, I started and finished in the morning all before nap time.  Here's a front view

And the back.

Now I just need to try it on Jack to be sure it fits.

I'm considering making some black pants to go with it, Brad has an old suit coat so I could make some black dress pants.  Adorable hey?

Catie's Christmas Dress

I don't know where this Christmas dress tradition came from but I'm not one to go out an buy Catie a fancy dress that she can only wear once or twice.  Lucky for Catie she has an Aunt who works at an awesome second hand store and found this dress for her.

It fits her really well and has cute silver threads that run through the dress, it also has a little crinoline underneath to give it some shape.  The ribbon though I just couldn't get on board with.

It's that fuzzy, velvet ribbon and I thought it made the dress look like it came from Walmart (it does come from Walmart), so I did what I do best and pulled out the seam ripper.

Using some raw silk I created a new sash that has tails hanging down the back.  I think it's a huge improvement and look so sweet now, not over the top Christmas either (which is what I was going for).

and the back

Here she is modelling.

I'm pretty sure her shoes won't fit by Christmas.

This back shot was ridiculously difficult to get.  Normally when taking pictures of Catie all I get is her back but today she would not co-operate, I finally got this crummy shot.