Projects on My Plate

  • Veda's Birthday Party
  • Sienna's Birthday Party
  • Sienna's Pencil Skirt
  • Pencil Skirt
  • Wardrobe re-do
  • Floral Skirt for Mommy
  • Breck's Bedding
  • Sienna and Veda's Bedding
  • Apron

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Hats for the Holidays

Oh boy has this holiday craft show made me busy! I wanted to be over-prepared for this show, so I could have optimum opportunity at having multiple styles and sizes on hand, so people could actually buy the ones they wanted. I ended up making 35 beanies in the end!!! I decided to do a line of holiday hats, which actually ended up only being 3 different hats (multiple sizes though), since I kind of ran out of time to amke any other sets. I've still got some fun holiday ideas for next year, which I may end up doing for market next year in the fall. I also re-stocked on some of my original ones from the market. The show went reall well for the first week, I sold quite a few which was nice, and got some special orders. The next week of the show is on saturday, which they said is usually the more busy show, so we'll see how that goes! Anyway, the top few are just some new designs I tried, very similar to my others, with a little variance here and there. The last group are my holiday hats, some are actually the holiday line, and some are just fun holiday colors.




Here are the holiday ones, the ones with the tags are the actual holiday line, and you can read their names :)




This one was fun, I tried a new stitch pattern, and thought it was cute:

Friday, November 13, 2009

More Kitchen Goodness for the Bride-To-Be

Here are the next parts of my gift for the bridal shower I mentioned earlier in the apron post. They're all part of the same gift, so they coordinate.

The first are hot pads, pretty simple to figure out; 2 pieces of fabric with batting and binding, then a simple quilting over top.



Next are dishwashing gloves. I have also wanted to do these for a very long time, and I found the perfect excuse with the shower once again! I got the tutorial from Little Birdie Secrets.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Apron

Some of you may have noticed that I've had an apron on the to-do list at the top of my blog for quite some time now. It was never really a priority, so it just kept getting pushed aside for the last year and some. This is the apron I wanted to re-create. I saw it and LOVED it:



Well, I was recently given the perfect excuse to re-create this apron when one of my closest friends from highschool sent the invitation for her bridal shower. I'll probably eventually make one for myself too, but it's just not at the top of my to-do list right now.

Anyway, I didn't take as many pictures for this as I had first intended to do, but hopefully I can make it straight-forward enough to help you out, if you decide you want to make this.

First, you need to take maesurments. Take measurments from where you want the top to hit, to where you want it to hit near your knee. You'll also need a measurement of how wide you want it, which I got by measuring from just behind my left hip to just behind my right hip. This will be your widest measurement.

Once you have those 2 measurements, cut a rectangle of the 2 measurements (example, if the hieght measurement was 30 and the hip-to-hip measurement was 28, you'll cut out a rectangle that is 30"X28")

Once you've got your rectangle, you need to fold it in half length-wise and shape it like an apron. I don't have any exact formula for you for this part, but if you just look at the picture, I'm sure you can make it work.



So now you open it up, and you've got your apron shape. Now you need to hem the edges.

Next, you're going to cut another rectangle, but a much smaller one for the front pocket. This is just whatever your preference is. I made mine larger, and sewed down the middle to make 2 compartments. I ironed the edges in, and only sewed the hem on the top SEPERATELY, then I put it on the apron and sewed the other sides to the apron (the sewing to the apron becomes the sewing for the hem too.)



The next part is the neck strap. These are pretty easy and straight-forward. you just sew 2 strips about 2 inches thick, and attach them to the top corners of the apron. They only need to be long enough to tie a bow in the back.

Next was the trim for the bottom. The one in the picture uses pleats, but I decided to do a basic ruffle. For that, I measured twice the length of the curved bottom part of the apron, and cut a 3 1/2 to 4 inch thick strip that was the measured length. I hemmed it all up, then along the top, I adjust my sewing machiene to the highest tension and the highest stitch length, and sewed a straight line right through to the end, and came out with a ruffle.

I then sewed the ruffle to the bottom.

Next are the ties for the back. I originally wanted to do them longer, like the orignal picture, but I ran out of that material, so I had to make due with what I had. The ties that I did are both 45" long, and about 3 1/2 inches thick. You sew them up (which I did by just measuring 7 inches thick, and folding it in half then sewing one side, and turning it inside out and ironing flat), then sew them to the top of the bottom portion of the apron.

Now just cut all your threads and you're ready to get cookin' you cute little homemaker, you!


Thursday, November 5, 2009

Super-Easy J. Crew Re-fashion

I was looking around on J. Crew, which, if I had to pick a store that I think defines my taste in clothes perfectly, it would be that one. Anyway, I was looking around and found this beautiful shirt:



I really liked it, among others on the site, but I decided I wanted to re-create, with a few differences. I wanted to combine this with another idea I have seen around that I love. I love when clothes have an artsy feel, and I LOVE shirts that are painted, or look like they are! So for this shirt, I decided to use the same concept and design, except I wanted to have the stems painted.

I used acryllic paint for the stems, and if you do this, make sure you put cardboard or something in between the front and back of the shirt, to prevent bleeding through on the otherr side. You have to let it dry a couple of hours, just to make sure it is set. I free-handed it so it looked sloppy and hand painted.

Once the paint was dry, I cut two 24X1 inch strips of satin, and two 5X1.5 inch strips as well. I pleated the shorter strips with an iron, and evened out the edges, then sewed down the middle. The longer strips become the petals, and the pleated sqaure becomes the center.

I hand-stitched the petals on the shirt by just folding the strip back and forth over itself in a circle pattern. I stitched it on the shirt in the middle, then stitched the pleated center on.
(Sorry I don't have pictures of the process, I couldn't find the camera until after I finished.)

And there you have it!!!


And here is a close-up of the flowers with the pleats.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Craft Gossip Feature!!!

Wow! What a week! The How-To Gal e-mailed me tonight, and let me know that the tutorial I wrote up for her blog ended up getting featured on Craft Gossip as well! Thanks Craft Gossip, and thank you How-To Gal for making it all happen!

Here's the Link to the feature:

Craft Gossip

P.S. Hopefully I'll get some more stuff up this week, I've had a lot of projects I've been working on lately, just none of them are done!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Featured on The How-To Gal!!!

Big thanks to The How-To Gal for featuring my shirt refashion! Check it out here, and be sure to check out all the cool projects she's done!



Halloween Costumes

Sorry I posted this so late, but it's been crazy with projects lately, and I have just been so busy that I didn't find time to post these as soon as I wanted. I suppose you can remember this post for next year's Halloween though!

Anyway, Breck went this year as the Mad Hatter. It was a fun costume to put together. Here's what I did:

What I used:

Foam hat from JoAnn's, Michael's has them too
Feather Boa
1 yard Crazy fabric
Boy's White Shirt
Boy's Vest
Boy's Pants
Boy's Wing-tip shoes
One of my old button-down shirts
3x5 card

For the hat, I made a band to go around it, using the fabric. I hemmed the edges, then pleated it, and hot-glued it to the hat. I took the feather boa and hot-glued it to the end of the hat leaving a little space in the front open. On the back of a 3x5 card, I wrote 10/6 which is what the Mad Hatter has on his hat. It's an old-fashioned price tag.

I made the bow tie by cutting two 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 rectangles and sewing them together, wrong sides out, but leaving a little space so that I could turn it right side out. Stitch up the hole once this is done. I ironed it flat, then sewed a little band around it to gather it in the middle. I then sewed a longer band, and attached it to the bow tie. Then you put velcro on the tips of the band.

The Jacket was an old shirt of mine, that I took in the sides, and cut up the length in front to look like a "tailed" jacket. It was of course, complete with tails in the back. I trimmed the edge of the collar, to give it a more jacket look than a shirt, and ironed it down, to give the jacket collar effect as well. I put a faux pucket and kerchiff on the front too.

The rest of it was just his normal dress clothes, though I put the shirt collar up, and ironed the tips down to look more like a mid-1800's collar.

Sienna's costume was fun.

Here's what I used:

1/2 yard white fabric
Blue Dollar Store onesy
Blue Tulle
Elastic
White Stockings
Black Mary Janes
Black ribbon

The Apron was the main thing that I made for this. I didn't use a pattern, I just looked at the picture of Alice from the Disney movie. I couldn't find an apron for a little girl like that, so I just took measurements of Sienna and where I wanted everything to hit, and it was actually pretty easy!

The skirt was a tutu, so check out my tutu post from last Christmas to see how to make those. I'm pretty sure most people know how to make those by now though, so you probably don't even need to get instructions.

Then I put black ribbon in her hair, put on her stockins, onesy and shoes, and she was ready to go!






*Note* 2-year-olds may not like a big hat with feathers...
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