Easter Egg Dress and Pinkalicious Cupcakes

I'm in a really good mood today.  Wanna know why?  SUNSHINE!!  Beautiful, warm, spring sunshine.  It's such a blessing from God.  It really lifts your spirits!  

And my little princess loves to sit in the sun.  This is my daughter who is growing up so fast, she registered for preschool in the fall today.  

I want to share with you a dress I made for her.  I just finished it last night.  It's made of an old t-shirt of hers and 4 old t-shirts of mine. 

 I call it her Easter Egg Dress, because it has polkadots on top and stripes on the bottom.  I don't know, the colors and the patterns really remind of an easter egg!  Don't you think?

And I also wanted to share my daughter's cupcakes.  No, she didn't make them herself, but she helped a little in the process.  She really wanted cupcakes the other day, so I agreed to make her some.  I asked her what kind.  She said pink.  (This reminded me of the Pinkalicious book, you'll know if you've read it.  So that is why I decided to call them Pinkalicious cupcakes.)  She wanted chocolate chips in them, so I added white chocolate chips into a chocolate flavored cake mix.   She wanted them strawberry, so I made frosting and added strawberry extract and of course, pink, to it.  And then, she picked out two of her favorite sprinkles.  So these are her Pinkalicious cupcakes:

 I liked her choices.  They tasted pretty good, too. 

Ruffle Pillow Tutorial

Okay people!  Today I am going to show you how I made this fabulous ruffle pillow.  It's super easy and kinda cute, right?  Yeah, I know, like every other craft blog has done a tutorial on a ruffle pillow, but here's my version.  I saw a pillow like it at Pier 1 over the weekend and immediately decided I wanted a ruffle pillow!  Except mine was free.  Nice.

Alright, here we go.  This is what you'll need:  A pillow form (or old pillow), an old sheet or any other fabric you like.  I wanted a monochromatic look, white on white, so I used part of an old white sheet.  You'll also need a sewing machine and coordinating thread.  (Sorry, some of the pictures have bad lighting, I was in my basement sewing room so that's what I get.)

 First of all, you want to measure your pillow form.  Length and width and cut a piece of fabric that will wrap around the pillow.

 The seams will overlap in the back like this, so make sure you left room for your seam allowance.

 Take some more fabric and make 3" strips at whatever length you can get.  I just did a bunch because I wasn`t sure how much I`d need.  The easiest way to do this is cut at the 3 inch mark and tear along your fabric.  The edges will be raw anyways and it`ll be as precise as you need it.  Also, this is assuming you`re using 100% cotton material.

 Now adjust your sewing machine to the highest tension and the longest stitch.  Sew along the center of your strips.  If your fabric doesn`t ruffle itself, than don`t backstitch at your ends and then you can manually ruffle it by pulling on your bottom threads.  

 Go back to your pillow base fabric piece and hem your short ends.  You can serge and hem, or do what I did and double fold and press then hem.

 And sew your hem like so.

 Now wrap the fabric around your pillow again and mark out the face of the pillow so you know where to put your ruffles.  I marked the top and bottom.

 Now you can start pinning your strips going up and down your pillow.  

 Here it is all pinned in place, ready to be sewn. 

 Sew along the center of the strips where you have sewn for the ruffling.  Sew down each strip, backstitching at the beginning and end of each line.

With your ruffles on the inside, fold over the ends, overlapping your ends slightly.  Pin your edges together.

While you`re pinning, be sure to tuck in the ruffles so you`re not sewing over them.

 Once you`ve sewn the edges, you can serge or zigzag the ends so they don`t fray. 

 Turn right side out and stuff in your pillow.

 And pretty up your bed or couch or chair with your new pillow!

It was so easy, I`m pretty sure I`ll be making one for my daughter`s room, too!  Go try it yourself.  Have a wonderful Wednesday!!  

     

Baby Boom

Good day everyone!!  My post today is about the latest baby boom going on right now.  Well, maybe not in your lives, but I swear I know dozens of prego's right now.  So in honor of them, I want to show you all these amazing redo's for baby.  The first one is over at Laura's Thoughts.  She shows off  her latest car seat and stroller makeover.  Um.. AMAZING!!!  She does some amazing work recovering baby items to make them new again and I'm so jealous.  I really wish I could've done the same when my boys were born.  Anyways, check this out, here's the before:

.. and after:

Gorgeous, right?  The fabric is so sweet.  This is one lucky little girl!  

Then I came across this over at Craftomaniac.  She shares a tutorial of a high chair recovery by Jeanene from A Queen Bee's Hive.  She transforms this:

Into this:

No more corny or kitschy patterns on your baby items!  I've GOT to learn how to do these transformations, what an improvement!  

So if you've got a bundle on the way or if you know of someone who is, check out the links so you can do a makeover of your own.

That's all I've got for today.  Enjoy!!

Felt Necklace

Have I ever mentioned how much I love felt.  I do.  I love it because you don't have to sew it and the projects are ENDLESS and EASY!  That's the best!  So here I have yet another project having to do with felt.  

I found this idea online here.

They're originally made by a company called moufelt on etsy, but they don't seem to sell them anymore.  Although, they do custom orders, so it's possible they'd still make it.  But the idea appealed to me and I had to try it myself.  Plus, I they list these necklaces between $34-$72.  Not in my price range.  I'm a cheapskate.

Mine didn't turn out quite as pretty.

But I still like it.  So I decided to show you all how I made it.  In case you want a colorful felt necklace, too! :)   By the way, these are totally baby friendly!  They can't pull them off and break it!

So take some felt in your choice of colors.  I just used crafting felt, not wool felt like they used, but it's what I had on hand and it's a great way to use up scraps.   

You'll need various circular objects to trace (I have a thread spool, a plastic bead jar and a button), wax thread, a large embroidery needle, scissors and marker.

 Cut out circles out of felt in your 3 different shapes, I did about 3 of each color in each size.

 Arrange the circles to how you want them to look on your necklace.

 Thread the wax thread onto your large needle (it may take some convincing), and pinch your circle in half to thread through along the top like this.  Don't go to close the edge otherwise the felt can be pulled off your string.

 Do this 5 times.  Measure out the length of thread you'll need.  I didn't use any fasteners, so I needed to be able to pull it off my head.  My length was 24", but again, you'll need to be sure it can slide over your head.  If you wish to use fasteners, you can make it whatever length you like!

 Very colorful and fun, don't you think!? 

Thanks for stopping by!  

  

Spring Decor Inspiration

Today I bought a small bunny figurine to decorate for Easter.  It has made me want to put up some darn cute Easter decor!  Like the amazing spring wreaths out there.. I have to make one.  Check out this one from Barbwired.

So soft and pretty, right?  Very springlike and reminds me completely of Easter!  

Or on a more earthy tone.  How about this gorgeous wreath at A Diamond In The Stuff.  So pretty.

And if you don't like wreaths, how about some garland for your mantle.  Look at this amazing creation posted on I Heart Naptime made by Jo-Anna from A Pretty Life In The Suburbs.  It's so darling!!

Well, I must go and make some Easter decorations, since I am definitely inspired!  Hope you are too!

Enjoy your weekend!

Skirts for Spring part 3 & Ruffle Headbands

Good day to you all!  I have yet another installation for my Skirts for Spring.  This one is for my daughter again.  She received a cute little dress from Hawaii, it was given to her from her grandparents last year who went away on holiday.  The dress was adorable, but didn't fit her well.  It was baggy on the top and sagged down her chest so the fit was not very flattering.  I wasn't fond of my sewing machine so much last year, so I wasn't able to make any adjustments.  So I made it into a skirt for this spring/summer!  Check out the before (sorry, bad lighting, the picture was taken at night):

All I did was cut below the waist seam and made a seam for an elastic waistband, added the elastic and here's the after:

I love it so much more now!!  And she looks so sweet in it.  I think it's perfect for summer!!  I would've had a picture of her in it, but it was naptime.
Plus, since I had extra fabric, I was able to make a super cute ruffle headband that was shown at Funky Polkadot Giraffe.

Kinda fun, huh?  Yep, they were fun to make too.  So I made another one.

Possibly for me?

But I did do something differently.  She made her's interchangeable, which I loved.  Instead of using glue, though, I used velcro.  Since the rough part of velcro catches on felt, I just sewed both long sides of the velcro on another piece of felt.

Now it's got the gap you need.

And it slides nicely onto your headband.  Now I can interchange them with other clips, too!  

So go make some super easy and super cute ruffle headbands!! And have fun!

Have a great weekend!