Twin Storage Bed

 Can you believe we finally finished the bed? Hooray!
And hooray that she loves it and is sleeping in it just as well as she did with her crib!
Double hooray for the storage under the bed. Right now we're only using one side because we have to push it against the wall while she learns not to fall out of bed, but eventually there will be enough room for 6 of these bins on each side! Woot!

 My little girl loves her letter "E" for her name, so I added that on using my Silhouette and cheap vinyl from Roberts (only $1.99/ft plus you can use your 40% off coupon, so it's way cheap!)

Thanks to Ana White for the plans and to JCPenney for the cute bedding! I love it. Oh, and the storage bins were from Target. Yea!

Kid's Artwork Display

 I have a confession... I am a terrible mother who throws away pretty much everything my kids make because I can't stand the clutter. I have kept a few choice peices, but most of the time it goes straight in the garbage can after they're in bed.
I realized this was a problem when I asked them what they were drawing one day and they said, "A picture. But it's for grandma because she doesn't throw them away."
Ouch.
I really want to encourage my children to be creative and express themselves. I want them to develop their talents. Most of all, I want them to know that I value who they are and the things they do.
So we needed a solution. A place to showcase their artwork without clutter taking up my house.
And here we are.  A peice of wood and some clothespins. Brilliant.

See these adorable clothespins? Perfect for pinching fingers.

 Here it is in action! It was seriously hard for me to find pictures to put on there for display purposes because I had just thrown so much stuff out!

Repurpose: Girl's Ruffled Neck T Tutorial

Look at this adorable little T I made for my little girl yesterday.

It started with this men's shirt I bought for 30 cents last summer.

For a great tutorial on creating your own pattern from a shirt you already own, check out this from Ashley at Make It and Love It.

Once you get the pattern cut, sew the shoulder seams together. Then, carefully pin the sleeve peices on. It will look like this.

Sew the sleeves on, then iron the seam. It will look like this. (See how I was super clever and used the existing hem from the shirt for the hem on the sleeve? I did this on the bottom of the shirt as well. Just a way to make life easier.)

Flip it inside out again and sew. Start at the edge of the sleeve, then follow down the side of the shirt.

For the ruffled collar, I cut two strips across the length of the old T shirt. One was 1.5 inches, the other 1 inch. I did a gather stitch on each one, then layered the smaller peice on top of the larger peice and pinned.

Then I pinned this to the neckline of the new T. It's awesome because it covers up the unfinished edge of the shirt.

I wrapped and pinned all the way around the neck, then snipped off the extra. I sewed it to the shirt using a regular straight stitch and it was good to go.

Love that adorable little ruffle!

Getting ready for spring with some short sleeves. Can't wait for warm weather!

Make-up bags

My little girlies asked for make up for Christmas, and while shopping at Walmart one day I found a huge make up collection for about 10 bucks. I decided I'd split the contents between the two girls (and throw out the black lipstick).... but I needed something cute for them to keep it in.
Enter these bags inspired by Dana at MADE. (Have I mentioned how I love her?)

She filled hers with candy, I filled mine with little girl make up.

A sparkly purple bag for my little princess.

And a hip zebra print bag for my diva. (who swears her favorite color is black)

It closes with a zipper to keep it all inside, not all over the bathroom. I had a phobia of putting in a zipper, but this was so EASY! Maybe I'll try it on a dress someday.

 

They were so easy, I literally made the purple one Christmas Eve at 10 pm and still made it to bed before midnight. You should go check out her tutorial!
Linking up with Funky Junk Interiors, Sew Much Ado, Shanty2Chic, and Whatever Goes Wednesday.

Hooded Towel Tutorial

We had a problem at the swimming pool this summer: my kids could not manage to keep their towels wrapped around themselves and were FREEZING every time we left the water. Simple solution: Hooded towel.

Easy to make as well. You should try it.

Supplies: 1 bath towel, 1 matching hand towel, thread

First, cut the hand towel in half.

Then, pin the half-hand towel to the center of the bath towel. Leave the unfinished edge at the top.

Sew that in place, then fold the whole thing in half again.

Sew the unfinished edges together. Flip it inside out, and voila! Hooded towel.

It would be super cute to embellish with ribbon or Heat N Bond an applique on there. I might do that when I redo their bathroom, each towel having their first name initial on it.

My new obsession

So, you all saw the summer dress I made using elastic thread? Well, guess what? The fun does not stop with one dress. The fun does not even stop with two dresses. I have been going crazy with this stuff, because it's easy and looks so darn cute when you're done.

A little top made from an old T shirt I picked up at a consignment store.

A cute little dress I made for our neighbor girl's bday. My daughter is modeling it, but really it was for someone bigger than her, which is why it looks a little odd. Seriously though, it only took me 2 hours to make this dress. Start to finish. That is rockin'!

My girls also got matching 4th of July dresses with elastic thread. So easy, so versatile. I'm making a skirt for me next!

Tutorial: Cinderella Dress Up

I can't believe this little lady is already four years old. I made her a sweet Cinderella dress up for her birthday this week, and I'm here to share it with you!

Here's what you'll need (to make a size 4T, adjust yours accordingly):

1 yard of satin-y fabric for main dress peice

3/4 yard of tulle or other special fabric for overskirt

30 inches of pretty ribbon, rick rack, silvery stuff for the place where the skirt and top meet

20 inches of 3/8 inch elastic

thread

I. CUTTING THE FABRIC

First, take a dress your child already owns that fits her well. I liked the empire waist of this dress, but you could also do a long skirt and full top (like a t-shirt) if you were so inclined.

Fold your satin fabric in half and cut through both layers, following the outline of your dress. It's a good idea to make your cut 1/2 inch larger than the dress to allow for seams.

I cut the skirt first, then did the top separately because I wanted the empire waist look. So, trace the outside edges of your skirt, then fold the top (white peice) down so you can trace what will be the top of the skirt. You should have 2 separate skirt peices.

Then, fold the sleeves inside the top and trace the top. Cut that out too, and you'll have 2 separate top peices.

For the sleeves, I held up a peice of tissue paper and traced the sleeve.

Then, I folded my fabric and placed the tissue paper on top to trace it. The fold of the fabric should be where the shoulder/top of arm would be on the sleeve. Cut this out, then do it again. You'll end up with 2 sleeve peices, each looking a little bit like a C.

Here's a picture of all my peices cut out. Once I had it all cut out, I decided I didn't think I'd make the neck opening big enough for her head, so I made it larger. As you look at your peices, you'll be able to think about that kind of thing.

Now, for the over skirt. You just want one HUGE rectangle here, that is the same length as your skirt peice. So, measure the longest peice of your skirt and make a straight cut all the way across. We'll gather it up later to make it poofy.

II. SEWING THE MAIN PEICE

Take your 2 top peices and pin the shoulders together, right sides facing eachother. Sew those together. It will make a little O in the middle once you open it up.

With the top peice opened up and the right side of the fabric facing down, pin your sleeves on. Start with the center part of the sleeve (where the shoulder of the top peice is), then work toward the underarm area. It's kind of curvy, so it doesn't pin perfectly. Just do a little at a time, then adjust it as you need to. It should look like this when you're done.

Sew the sleeves on.

Then, keeping the right sides together, start at the outside edge of the sleeve (where the arm goes) and sew all the way down the body part of the top.

Now would probably be a good time to zig zag all your stitches so the fabric doesn't fray. As you can see, it's a big fray-er. I also like to iron down all my seams after I zig zag. It makes it look so much better. Try it, and you'll agree with me!

Now we're going to make the casing for the elastic at the neckline. Fold the neckline down 1/4 inch and iron it, all the way across.

Then, fold it over 1/4 inch again and iron it down once more. Pin this in place as you go. This is called double fold ironing and is helpful when you are creating a casing, as well as when you don't want the edges to show (like for a hem).

Sew around the casing, leaving about an inch or so open so you can slide your elastic through later. (Note: you'll be using a safety pin to get your elastic through, so make sure you have a safety pin small enough for this. If not, make your casing larger.)

See the spot I left open?

On to the skirt. With right sides together, pin the two sides of the skirt together. Sew each side.

Then, do the double fold iron method to create a hem for the skirt. Fold over 1/4 inch, iron, fold 1/4 inch, iron, and pin. Then sew your hem. Zig zag your stitches again on the sides of the skirt. Once again, iron those seams and you'll be impressed with how professional it looks!

III. GATHERING

If you haven't tried gathering, you need to. Especially if you have little girls who like things to be poofy. It is so simple and makes it look extra fancy.

When you're going to gather something, you want your gathering fabric to be wider than whatever you're going to sew it to. In my case, my gathering fabric was 60 inches, the width of the bolt of fabric I purchased.

Before gathering anything, you'll want to fold your fabric in half, with right sides together. Pin and sew this, creating a tube. This is your skirt. Now would also be a good time to zig zag your seams and to hem the bottom with the double fold iron method.

My hem:

So, the first step in gathering, set your seam length on your machine to as large as it will go. In my case, that's a 4, but it might be different on your machine.

Then, pull a lot of thread (6 inches or so) out before you start sewing. This will help later.

Sew in a straight line, using the edge of the fabric as the guide. Leave a lot of thread at the end of your line here too.

Then, sew a second line as well, using your first line as a guide. Again, leave yourself lots of thread at both ends.

Now you have 2 lines of thread. Take the top of each thread (the part that did NOT come from the bobbin) and gently pull. As you pull these strings, the fabric will sort of bunch up. That's what you want it to do. If it gets stuck, gently pull it further along. You want to gather the whole fabric this way.

See it bunching up?

Once you've got it all gathered together, it should look like this, in a tight little circle.

Then you want to pin it to your skirt peice. You want the right side of your overskirt on top of the right side of your satin skirt. As you pin, you'll have to open up your gathers a little bit to make it fit onto the skirt. That's okay, it's how you make sure it ends up the right size. Just try to keep the spacing even so that it doesn't end up totally gathered in one place and totally loose in another place.

Once you have all of that pinned, you want to sew it together. IMPORTANT: Sew underneath your lowest row of gathers. Otherwise, you'll still see the the gather threads, and the gathers will likely come undone.

IV. FINISHING

Now you've got 2 main peices: the top and the skirt/overskirt. Keeping right sides together, pin the top to the skirt. I feel like a good way to do this is to sort of tuck the top into skirt, making sure your seams line up.

Sew all of this together, trying to stay on top of the line you sewed to join the overskirt and the skirt.

When you get it all sewn together, you'll have a lot of fabric on your sewn side. I just trimmed this off so that it would not bother my girl when she wore it. Then I zig zagged it, and ironed the seam.

Zig zag baby!


To finish the sleeves, do the double fold iron method on them as well. I made my hem on my sleeves tiny, but you can do it however you'd like.

To finish your neckline, pin a safety pin to the end of your elastic. Use the safety pin to help you guide your elastic through the casing you created.

See how it comes out the other end and the neckline is now all bunched together? Cute!

Pin the two ends of your elastic together, overlapping them at least 1/2 inch. Then sew that, using all means in your power to make it strong. I usually try to make a rectangle on top of the elastic, but with elastic this thin, it's kind of tricky. I just sewed a few straight lines next to eachother.

Then, close up the casing by sewing it as well. Your elastic is in place!

The final touch is to add your ribbon/embellishment. Simply pin it to the top of the dress, covering up the seam between the top and the skirt. Sew it on. I used a zig zag stitch for this embellishment thingie, but you might want to use a straight stitch if you're using regular ribbon.

Voila! A dress fit for a queen. Or a princess, as the case may be.