top is done

:-)

wish me luck

last week I bought a pattern and today I bought fabric for my first attempt at a formal dress for my Claire. 

This dress is going to be blue.

Wish me luck

big sewing news...

I'm going to attempt to make a flower girl dress for my daughter to wear in my sister-in-law's wedding!!

My plan is to make a couple "practice dresses" first to make sure the day-of dress will look professional enough (according to the standards of myself, my husband, and of course, the bride!).

Sadly, for you, I will want to keep the dress a surprise from the rest of the family, so I probably won't post pictures of the dress(es) until after the wedding. 

Well, I'm sure I'll post teaser photos ;-)

snowman shirt

Another pinterest rip-off.  This one originated from etsy seller: prissypeacockdesigns

To start you need:
~ a white t-shirt (see my paragraph about t-shirts here)
~ 2 buttons
~ black fabric
~ orange fabric
~ heat'n bond iron-on interfacing

I couldn't find any by-the-yard orange fabric I liked so I went with a very cute fabric quarter.  As it turned out, the thin cardboard from the fabric quarter was perfect to make a pattern (see above).

I'm not totally in love with the buttons - I wish they were a tad bigger - but they will do.  It looks like the original shirt was made using a button kit and fabric. 

I used different things I had laying around the house to trace for the mouth circles. 

The size circles you want to use will depend on the size shirt you're using.

I definitely recommend using heat 'n bond!  Simply iron it to the nose and mouth pieces, peel the paper off, figure out where you want the pieces on the shirt, then ironing those pieces to the shirt.  Once it's all bonded use a zigzag stitch to further secure everything.  I even used the zigzag stitch to attach the button eyes.

That's it.  It's an extremely quick and easy project.

Christmas Tree Ribbon Shirt

If you've ever been on Pinterest you've probably seen the original version of this shirt.  It's just adorable!  The original is from a blog called Paige and Brooke.  I just couldn't resist making one for my daughter.

I went to Walmart for the shirt.  It's been my experience that Walmart is a great place to get simple, plain shirts for things like this.  Sometimes the plain shirts have pockets and sometimes they don't.  If they do, don't be discouraged.  The pockets come off easily with a seam-ripper and you can hardly see any traces of where the pocket once resided.  When I went to Walmart yesterday I was surprised to find a selection of solid colored short-sleeved shirt, long-sleeved shirts, and even turtle necks.  The color selection isn't bad either - they offer the basics.  Oh, and the price =  $3.88.  I'm sure they go on sale for even cheaper from time to time but I rarely (almost never) shop there, so I can't say for sure. 

So, I bought a shirt.  I was originally going to buy a white shirt but they didn't have Claire's size, so I went with a beautiful red instead. 

As for ribbon, I totally cheated on my precious Joann Fabrics and I went to Michael's.  They had a cuter selection. 

The button is from Joann Fabrics.

To begin, gather all your supplies and try to decide the order in which you want your ribbons.  Not as easy as it sounds.  I can't tell you how many times I rearranged everything (typical Barbie....so indecisive).  I added some non-festive ribbons from my own personal collection, to see what works, but I ended up sticking with the classics: red, green, white, and silver.

You can kind of see there's a pocket on my shirt.  I just took my seam-ripper to it and had it off within a few minutes.

Next, I cut all the ribbon pieces to the sizes I wanted and I folded the cut edges under to help prevent future fraying.  (I did not fold under the rickrack).

Now for the hard part: lining all the ribbons up straight, evenly spaced and centered, then pinning them to only the top layer of the T.  I'm sure if you wanted to take the time to add double-sided interfacing to each ribbon you will have less shifting issues when placing and sewing the ribbons, but that's up to you.

. 

All that's left to do is sew each ribbon to the shirt and then sew the button on.  For the rickrack I sewed one straight line down the center, and for the other ribbons I sewing all 4 sides very close to the edge.

Ta-Da.  It's not perfect, but it'll do!

minnie

With only 9 hours until we leave for vacation (and only 7 until I have to wake up) I finished Claire's backpack!!  As of this morning I was going to leave her backpack the way it was and just finish it once we returned from vacation, but tonight, last minute, I decided to completely finish it.  All I had to do was the lining of the backpack, but that still took about an hour. 

I snapped a few quick pictures for now, but I hope to post better ones soon!

front

back

a peek inside

Now I'm off to bed.

If you're confused it's because I scheduled this post to show up later than I actually typed it.