First Day Of School Shirt

So last week I showed you all the massively cute jeans I made for my girls. Well today I am going to show you the top!

Sorry to tell you though it isn't a tutorial.  Remember the Easter dresses I made my girls this year?  Well this shirt came in the pattern as well. 
I did make some of the same adjustments as I did for the dress as well.  I made the neck line higher and I made my own bias tape (once you start making bias tape you will never go back!)  But on this shirt I wanted the ruffle to be more ruffled than it was on the dresses.  I was happy with the look but it caused one problem: The ruffle that got wrapped under made a big poof.  So I found the spots where a ruffle naturally ends/begins and I tacked those spots down.  I used my sewing machine to tack down instead of doing it by hand because I am lazy like that. 
All you do is turn the feed dog on you machine off.  This way you material will stay in one spot under the needle.  Then I set my needle to do a slight zig zag.  And voila that spot is down for good.

This wrap dress/top pattern is one of the best patterns I have ever bought.  Totally worth it!
So a super cute shirt plus super cute jeans= one amazingly cute first grader on her first day of school.

Best part is:  For both my girls back to school outfits I spent $12!  Not $12 per outfit but $12 total!!!  You really can't beat that.
Now to wait a week to send the pre-schooler off and maybe some sanity will begin to return....

Girls Jeans with Ribbons and Ruffles

The first day of school is quickly approaching.  I like my girls to have a special first day of school outfit.  When my eldest was in preschool it was easy to find her something way cute for a good price.  But she grew up a little and went to kindergarten and moved into the big girl section of clothes.  I discovered something.  For the most part I HATE the big girl section of clothes.  (Is is just me?) My 6 yr old is still a little girl but they want her to dress like a 14 yr old slut. Sorry I am just not into that.  So last year finding a first day of school outfit was very very difficult and I only settled with what she got.

Not bad but I didn't love it.  So this year I am planning ahead of time and I have made her and her sister the cutest little outfits.  Today I am going to show you the jeans.

I LOVE them.  So if you want to make some too here's how you do it.

Start off by finding an old pair of jeans that still fit in the waist but not in the length.  Cut off the bottom of the jeans about 3 inches above where you want the bottom of your ruffle to hit.  I wanted capri length instead of pant length because it is still so warm outside.

Now decide how many ribbons you want to add and lay them out and play with them. See how many inches up the top of your top ribbon will be.  Now unpick that much plus a little extra for wiggle room.

Now get a length of ribbon to fit around your pant leg and pin it on.  Measuring of course to make sure it is even.

Now sew your ribbon on.  Make sure that you sew to the ends of the seems and don't sew the seems flat.

Now repeat with your remaining ribbon.

Now close those seems back up.  Sew down the line that is left from the original seem and then sew a zig zag down the edge. (Sorry the purple thread I used doesn't really show up well.)

Now that part is all done and you can add a darling ruffle.  Now I was researching how others added their ruffles and I ran across the most perfect tutorial at From An Igloo. it is so perfect I am going to send you over there.  Her tutorial makes the ruffle not only way cute but also a very good quality.  The only change I made was preference.  I wanted my ruffle a bit fuller so I tripled my measurement of the circumference of the bottom of the jeans.  My younger daughter's jean leg circumference was 10 inches so I cut my strip 30 inches long.  I thought it was perfect.

I am so happy with they way these jeans turned out. 

I hope you like them as much as I do.

Next week I will show you the shirt I made to go with them.  You should be excited.

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Easter Dresses

Yep it's that time of year for beautiful new dresses.  And what girl doesn't love a new dress?  I remember growing up my mom would always make my sisters and my Easter dresses.  It was always fun as a little girl.  So I am following that tradition and making my girls Easter dresses as well.  I love how they turned out.  They might be one of my favorite dresses ever!

I got the pattern from You Can Make This and it is very worth the cost.  I love that it comes in such a large array of sizes too.  This way I can use this pattern for years for all 3 of my girls.  And believe me I will use this pattern again and again.  It also has a pattern for a beautiful shirt.  Here is the link to the pattern.
 I love the details of this dress.

The pattern is a fairly simple pattern to follow but there are a few simple alterations I would suggest.
-First the neck line was a little low for me so retraced a neck line about 1 inch higher (I kinda wish I would have done 2 inches.)
-Also the pattern had the same amount of material going around my babies waist as it did for my 6yr old.  So I cut 10 inches off the width of the dress for her (before you gather it and sew it to the top piece.)
-I also cut 2 inches of the length of my babies dress.  Since she just learned to walk that much length would have been cumbersome to her.  For my older girls I LOVE the length!
- Now you may recognize this material from my Bias Tape tutorials.  Yes this is what I used my home made bias tape for and I love it.  But if you make bias tape for this dress your first stitch of sewing on the bias tape will show.  So I would recommend basting it on so you can easily unpick it.  (It isn't a necessary stitch for the finished dress)
-To make this dress a little more sturdy for rambuncious girls on the inside of the dress I did a button instead of a tie.  You can also do a button with a tie on the outside of the dress if you want even more security.
 -Lastly my middle child is rather thin so when I did the button hole on the inside I made it about 2 inches from the edge and the tie on the outside ties about an inch behind the side seam instead of right on the side seam.
So all of these were super easy alterations.  So it was fast and easy to customize this dress for each of my children.

I would highly recommend this pattern, it is beautiful!
My girls love this dress too.

(Sorry about the fuzzy spot, my baby got a hold of my camera and I didn't realize the spot was there until it was too late.)

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!And may your spring be sunny!

* Also don't forget about my 100 follower giveaway, last I checked we were at 74 so we need to get referring people so I can give away this awesome prize.  Go here for details.*
And here is another sneak peak.  It is reversable.  (Front side is floral and back side is the blue and white pattern.

Fairy Wings

So I have made fairy wings in the past using knee high nylons and hangers, and while I liked them, I didn't like them.  (here is my old post about fairy wings.)  So with my eldest daughter having a fairy birthday it was time to make some new wings.  This time I bought galvanized wire from wal-mart and cellophane paper (I saw this idea somewhere but again I cannot find where so if you have seen it let me know please!)  And I think they turned out pretty darn cute.

So here is what you are going to need.  Galvanized wire (the whole spool is like $3), wire cutters duct tape, cellophane paper and not pictured hot glue gun.

 And for decorations, lots of glitter and again not pictured ribbon. (Sorry I have just finished 2 of the busiest months of my life and my sanity did not survive. Hopefully it will come back soon.)

 First let me apologize for the close up pictures of my gnarly carpet, I have dreamed of new carpet from the day we moved in, but alas it is still a dream.  Now on to the tutorial. First I cut two equal lengths of wire.  I would guesstimate that I cut around 2 feet.  Then I shaped the wire into fairy wings shapes.  If you wish you can cut two more equal pieces of wire and shape them as well for the bottom, but I was running short on time and that got left out on these ones. Duct tape all your piece together in the same spot around the ends of you wires. 
Now cut out a piece of cellophane paper slightly larger than one of your wings.  Now piece by piece hot glue it onto your wire,

 Repeat with all your wings and trim the excess paper.  Now lay your wings on some newspaper and get your spray glitter and go to town.  I did about 7 coats.

 Now get a cute flower or something you like to put in the middle to cover up your duct tape. Glue that down.

 Then attach ribbons about "shoulder" width apart with hot glue.  Make sure your ribbon is long enough to tie around the arms into cute bows in the front.  And add any other decorations you would like.  I kinda wish I had some marabou to glue around the edges but it was late and the birthday was the next day so really fast and simple was my goal.

Now if you are doing a 4 winged fairy instead of a two wing fairy I have a tip for you on how to attach all the wings together.  But since I didn't make some I have to do a "paint" drawing.  So please promise not to laugh at my artistic abilities.
So as you saw in my two wings I just taped them together in the middle but if we were adding two bottom wings that would be near impossible to add them to that spot as well.  So what you are going to want to do is finish off you wire out from the wing.  So you have a line between all the wings.  The red line in the drawing bellow is that wire. This way you can attach all your wings to the same spot.  You will need more tape to sturdy it up and a larger center piece to cover it up, but they will still be simple cute.

Okay please stop laughing at my drawing now.  Thank you.  As always if you have any questions feel free to let me know.

"LOVE" t-shirt

So Valentines is right around the corner and my girls are excited.  They love the pink and the hearts and the cupcakes.  But who can blame them? So I am making them matching LOVE t-shirts.  And to make it even better I am using polka-dots, hearts and glitter.  What more could a little girl want?  Oh I know, how about 3 shades of pink?  I know it sounds overwhelming, but I am kinda a simple gal myself so it's perfectly perfect. At least I think so.  What do you think?

 So if you want to make a little girls dream valentines day shirt without going over the tops here's what to do.
First you will need a pink shirt from off the clearance rack :) Sewable heat bond, fabric, glitter bond and fabric glitter and freezer paper. (Also sewing machine, thread, iron and letters to trace)

 Start by tracing your "L V E" backwards onto the paper side of the heat bond.  Iron that onto the wrong side of your fabric. (I have two sets traced because I am making more than one, you only need to trace it once)

 Cut out your letters and pull off the white papery part and place them on your shirt and find where you want them.  make sure you leave a space for your heart "o".  Once you have them where you want them iron them on again. (high dry heat for about 8 sec)

 Now sew around them with a cute applique stitch on your machine.  or if your super woman do it by hand.  The first stitch I chose I hated so I had to undo it and start again with a new stitch.  It was much better.

 Now take your freezer paper and cut out a heart.  Now iron that onto your shirt (again about 8 sec.)
Place something inside your shirt where you are going to be adding the glitter so we don't "bond" the front and back of the shirt together. Now take your glitter bond and the little "make up" applicator it comes with.

 Get a good dollop of band onto the tip of the applicator.

 Now spread that inside your heart.

Pour glitter all over it. Then wait. 

 After 2 hours you can begin to remove your glitter.  I shook it onto a piece of paper so I could then funnel it back into my glitter container. And pull your freezer paper off.  Voila!  Now you have a super cute shirt. (make sure to wait 72 hrs before washing and wash it inside out as well.)

 I know my girls love them! I am pretty happy with them myself.  If you have any questions let me know.

Tutorial Review {PettiSkirt}

Today's review comes from Make it and Love it.  It is her super cute and amazing petti skirt.  I made one to send to my aunt and I made some for my monkey children for Christmas (they don't know that though, they think they are all for my aunt.)  So here is how mine turned out.

 Aren't they cute!!!  I am pleased with them.  But I must admit that they are the most time consuming project I have ever encountered. But they are totally worth it.  So to help you keep your sanity here are tips for you.

 1- Buy the chiffon on the rolls. Yes you could probably do it cheaper to buy it not on the rolls but cutting and sewing strips and if it's something you have to hem you will go crazy by the end.

2- You won't quite use all the chiffon on your rolls so I suggest (especially when sewing your ruffle) to cut a 15 inch strip and then place with the tension on your machine until you find what will make it be a 5 inch ruffle.  Not having to gather that much will really save you a lot of time.  Also when you have to gather by hand your material twists more which then requires more time to untwist and sew.

3- You will notice as you sew that your chiffon curls a little on the edges. If you make sure that the curl is down it is easier to uncurl from that direction as you sew.

4- I wanted to make one of mine a bit bigger than what she suggested so I figured it would be cheaper to make the satin top longer than it would be to buy wider chiffon. So I cut it 12 inches instead of 8.  It worked, but I think if I had to do it over again I would buy 6 inch instead of 5 inch chiffon and cut the satin at 10 inches. (scroll up and look at the pink and green one again and see what you think)

Total Cost: about $15 but I know totally understand when I see these for sale for $50+.

Total Time:  It's hard to say.  But as I said earlier this was the most time consuming project I have done yet. It is worth it in the end I promise. If I had to estimate time I would say 10 active hours.  (well my first one was closer to 14hrs but I got quicker as I went so pay attention to those tips!)

Well I better go I have one more to sew before Christmas.

Flamenco Skirt Tutorial

So we are just going to ignore my absence here of late and power forward :)

I have my first paying sewing job.  My aunt wants me to make some dress ups for her grand children's Christmas presents and I am having so much fun.  I am also excited because I came up with this skirt on my own and I LOVE how it turned out.  So I am going to share it with you today.  So here we go a little girls flamenco skirt.

Materials Needed:
2/3 yd of stretchy material. (I used Lycra you know the bathing suite material :)
1/3 yd of 2 pieces of material for ruffle
3/4 inch elastic
3/4 inch ribbon
matching thread
So I am making this around a size 6.  So I took 2 measurements: hips and waist to knee. A 6 yr olds hips is around 23 inches and the waist to knee is about 12.  So I added 2 inches to the hips for seems and movement and I added 1 inch to the waist to knee for a casing and cut out a piece of black Lycra 25X13.  Well to be honest I cut it on the fold so it was 13 1/2X 13.

 Now I measured 2 inches over from the side seem and 1 1/8 inch down from the top and I made a white chalk mark there a little less than 1 inch long.

 Then on that mark I made a button hole.

 Then I went ahead a made a 1 inch casing at the top of the skirt.  No need to leave a bit open though because that's what the button hole is for.

 And then I measured out 18 inches of elastic and 2 18 inch pieces of ribbon and sewed the ribbon to either end of the elastic.  Here's a tip.  I cut out a piece of bias tape and wrap it around the elastic because sewing straight on elastic is a pain.  This helps dramatically.

 Now thread your elastic/ribbon through your casing and you get this cute top.  (Make sure to seal/fray check the ends of the ribbons)

 Now I cut strip of the Lycra that was 5 inches by 52 inches.  Sew the seems to make it into one circular piece and sew a basting/gathering stitch at the top.  Now gather that and sew it onto the bottom of the skirt.  (If I make this skirt again I think I will shorten the main skirt by two inches and add two inches to this piece.)

 

Next take a piece of material you want to add for color.  Cut one of them 3 1/2 inches thick by the width of the material. (3 1/2X45ish) And do that 3 times.  So you should have 3 strips that are 3 1/2 inch's X45 inches.  Sew all those together to make one large circle piece. Hem one end and baste the other. Gather is up.

Repeat this step with another piece of material but make it 5X45ish.  

Gather the pieces to fit the bottom of the skirt and sew them on.

Tip: Both of my color pieces were light weight so I basted them together and gathered them at the same time.  This was quicker and easier than individually but can only be done if your material is light weight.

 The skirt is really cute at this point and time and it is very tempting to call this a regular skirt at this point.  But to make is a flamenco skirt we need to do one more thing. This is really simple but it is kinda hard to explain so stick with me and hopefully it makes sense.
You have at this point 3 levels of the skirt. 1- the main skirt 2- the black ruffle and 3- the color ruffles.  Fold up layers 2 and 3  and pin them about 2-3 inches away from the seem in the front of the skirt. (on the opposite side of the bow)

 Now at the distance you have the pin over start at the bottom of piece 2 and baste it to piece 1.  So you start at the seam of piece 1 and 2 and sew up to the seam of piece 2 and 3.  Now gather that stitch.  I found that since this was such a small gather it kept wanting to go flat so I grabbed the pieces of string at either end and tied them in a knot to hold.

 Now for a more permanent hold put your machine back to its regular stitch and sew over the gather.  Make sure you back stitch at the beginning and end.  Now let the ruffle fall back down and voila you have a super cute flamenco skirt.

 I had my DD try it just to check on the size, and I love it.  So does she and now she wants one too.

 I tried to get her to make a sassy face for this picture but I am pleased to announce that my 5 yr old can't make a sassy face.

Well I am happy with it's results.  If you have any questions or need any clarification let me know.  Writing a tutorial is much harder than reviewing one :)

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