Pillowcase Dresses...

The mom of a friend of mine bought a super cute dress for her 5 year old granddaughter at a hair salon for little girls as a reward for great behavior at school.  The dress is very cute, but very expensive for a 5 year old.  So, my friend brings me the dress to see if I can replicate the dress for less.  I track down my measuring tape and jot down what I'll need to take some coordinating fabric and turn it into a detailed pillowcase dress.  I didn't even take a picture of the original because the ones I made turned out just like it.  And now, the requests are rolling in, so now I am contemplating selling these gorgeous dresses... I'll keep you posted!  Here are the pics!

Ode to Shanty2Chic...

If you haven't happened upon Shanty2Chic, you MUST check them out.  My friend Sara sent me the link to their blog and all their unique creations and links to other great projects.  I saw one project from a post in December and was totally inspired to try to replicate it.  It is a wreath hanger, and although I am not a seasonal decorator (only for Christmas and it is very minimal compared to most,) I loved the idea and finally found a good reason to make one.  I finished this one to donate for a silent auction that will be held this Thursday night for an amazing ministry.  

Instead of a wreath, I chose to hang a sign from 1-1/2" wire ribbon, both from the Hobby Lobby and both on a 50% off week- SCORE!

For directions on how to make the wreath hanger, click here for the Shanty2Chic site with detailed instructions and pictures.

I did purchase an extra spindle and hook to go with my 2 pack of finials so I could make one more for myself or to give as a gift, but I have a feeling I will be making a few more.

And the 2 Shall have 1 Room...

Whittaker and Harper, ages 4 and 1 respectively, have begun to share a room. Part of their Christmas present was a new room painted and new bedding and decor. I had fallen in love with a bedding set from Pottery Barn Kids quite some time ago, but was not in love with the price and the entire set was gone in a flash. Thankfully, I had taken some screen captures of the bedding before it disappeared in order to replicate it at some point. So, Christmas 09 has turned into sewing central. I can tell you that I have purchased all my material and supplies for a total of $150 which would not have even bought 1 complete bedding set from Pottery Barn. So, without further ado... here is the inspiration

(above is the Austin Bedding from Pottery Barn that inspired my replications below)

(click on the back of the pillow sham above to see the detail of the stitching I used on the middle seam, since I have incorporated some baseball fabric, I wanted it to mimic the baseball seam stitch. Little details like that I'm now able to pay more attention to as I am getting better with my sewing skills. Not bad for not having a pattern?!)

(I made the W out of felt, wanted to mimic the chenille Letterman letters that are on Varsity Letter jackets. I printed out the letter from Microsoft Word using the Princeton font. Glued the white felt to the gold using fabric glue, used wonder under to adhere the gold to the plaid and then went over it with the red stitch on the sewing machine and outlined it with red stitch.)

(I used a denim knee patch for this- then iron on flocked white letters- W for Whittaker who was born in 2005- then did the outline red stitch on the sewing machine.)

(On both of these, you can see the baseball fabric that I used for their sheets and pillow cases. I made their pillow cases with the same type of opening in the back, more like a sham- mostly to save on the amount of fabric- I didn't think I had enough to do 2 standard pillow cases.)

(Below I used a product called Art Wear that I bought several years ago when I made some onesies for a baby shower. I used a font called School Spirit, printed it on the Art Wear Paper and went over the letters in a black Sharpie for it to be nice and dark. The backing on the paper comes off to iron it on to whatever surface you are working with- mine was light gray fleece. I used Wonder Under on the other side of the fleece to attach it to the sham and then outlined it with the red stitch on the sewing machine. I switched to the single foot to make it easier.)

(I'll post the final pics once everything is complete and the room put together, I'm very pleased with how it is looking so far- it's hard work, but those 2 boys are so worth every bit of it!!)

Rearranging Our Bedroom

From time to time, I just have to rearrange the furniture. But, I really love how our bedroom looks now.

Queen of the Bling Revealed

The canvases on the left were done by my friend Ralonda's 3 year old niece, just the hot pink on white canvas. I forgot to take a picture before getting started to turn these into something she could hang in her office to go with her hot pink, zebra and "bling" decor.

I taped off the edges and painted them black for a little visual stabilization and then began the first one, which was also the last one that I finished.









Ralonda's tag line (Queen of the Bling) just had to make it on there somewhere. I needed some inspiration to get it to coincide with the other one. A simple "google" search of images of "bling" brought up a picture of "bling H2O" and I just fell in love! The other inspirations for the canvases came from Hambly and their incredible line of products.




I used a few stencil elements here and there and a lot of free hand and filling in the black with a new favorite acrylic paint called "Black Sequins" that has just a hint of sparkle.

I really loved how they turned out and that Ralonda gets to have the artwork of her most precious 3 year old neice hanging in her office.

Queen of the Bling

Just a sneak peak until the delivery!

"big" shirts

A friend of mine who is having a baby tomorrow, wanted to make some "big" shirts for the older two siblings to wear when they first meet Baby Noah at the hospital. She ordered some iron-on letters from "Once Upon a Design" on Etsy.com, but wanted some help getting the shirts completed. Together with a suggestion from another friend, we got a few supplies and here are the finished "big" shirts.

For the little miss who loves her sparkle, just added some iron-on "bling" to the letters from Etsy. For the little man, I added some brown and white gingham f

abric using WonderUnder to iron it on and added the Etsy letters.