$2 Pretty In Pink Dress

Here is another $2 dress that I bought at the same church thrift store as my red dress.  The things I loved about this little pink number were the cute little polka dots, the beautiful pleated skirt, and the light and airy fabric.  The things that I could live without are the shoulder pads, the belt, and that 'weird sleeve thing'.  Because of these flaws, I proceeded with the mutilation (errrr, I mean, mutation) of this dress...

Let's just skip to the end of the story and see the side-by-side 'before' and 'after' picture.  Wow!

When I started ripping this dress apart, I wasn't planning on making it a spaghetti-strap dress.  I slowly removed a piece at a time, until I liked it.

Step 1:  Remove the shoulder pads.  I wasn't planning on playing tackle football in my 'new' dress.

Step 2: Rip the seams and remove the sleeves.

Step 3: I took off about 4 inches from the hem.  I used the scraps to make the straps for my dress. Scrap straps!

Step 4:  After making all my cuts, I tried on my dress again.  The neckline just wasn't flattering.  So, I chopped it off.
The front of the dress was a button up.  So, I removed all the buttons and sewed up the front.
I sewed the straps to the dress and also took in the sides.

 

Here are photos of my new and improved 'Pretty In Pink' dress!  (The white leather Nordstrom belt is from Goodwill.  I think it was $3.)

Red Dress Makeover

I stumbled onto a new blog the other day called 'New Dress A Day'.  The writer goes to thrift stores and purchases the most hideous outfits and turns them into the most amazing creations!  I was quickly inspired!

I found this red dress at a church thrift store for $2.  The first thing that caught my eye was the bright apple red color.  I also fell in love with the little square pattern.  It really makes the dress 'pop'!  After finishing the dress, I realized that it had pockets, too.  (What a bonus!)

Some things I didn't like about the dress was the long length, the too matchy-matchy belt, the long sleeves, the 80's shoulder pads and the loose fit.  It kind of reminds me of the witch in the Wizard of Oz.

Here is a side-by-side photo of the 'before' and 'after' dress.  It took only one evening to complete this dress makeover.  Although, by the time I got to hemming the dress, I got a little lazy.

Here is a close up of the beautiful fabric.  Love the squares!

Step 1: Rip out those 80s shoulder pads.

Step 2:  Shorten the hem so that it hits slightly below the knees.

Step 3: The top was a little droopy.  So, I pinned it up at the shoulders for a tighter fit.

Step 4: I wanted to take the sides in a bit too.  I just put the dress on and pinned it in.

Once I had everything pinned where I wanted it.  I took it to the sewing machine!

Here is a picture after I cut out one of the sleeves.

  

I also bought a gold belt ($3) and a scarf holder ($1.50). ...whoa, it just hit me, that the belt was more expensive than my dress!  Geeeez.

In the picture, you can see that the belt is missing the face.  So, I decided to use the scarf holder to cover it up, until I can find a permanent fix for the belt. 

I love my $2 dress and can't wait to wear it somewhere!

Monogrammed Pillows

I bought a couple of rocking chairs on Craigslist a couple of years ago.  Since then, we've repainted the exterior of the house.  So, my brown rocking chairs and pillows no longer match the house.  This is a craft emergency...

Here is a BEFORE picture of the rocking chair.  To the right, you can kind of see the four pillows. 

Step 1: Stain the rocking chairs with a nice black stain.
Step 2: Sew new seat covers to wrap over the old seat cushions.
Step 3: Sew new pillow covers to wrap over the old back pillows.

Somewhere between Step 1 and 2, a light bulb went off.  After sewing the seat covers, I had enough leftover material to do something great...something awesome.  I wanted to use the leftover material to add a monogram to the pillows.

Step 3a:  Iron fusible interfacing to the back of the leftover seat cushion material.
Step 3b:  Cut out the monogram letter. I cut out an Old English 'A' using my Silhouette.

Step 3c:  Sew the letter to the pillow fabric using a zig zag stitch.  Make sure the letter is in the middle of the pillow.

Step 3d.  Continue sewing the pillow covers.

It turned out better than I imagined!

T-shirt makeover

Every year the girls are given school t-shirts.  As with most t-shirts, they are usually too big and too 'blah' for my two little divas.  So, every year, I try to pimp them out.  I didn't sketch out a game plan, I just started cutting away.  In retrospect, I think next time I'll surf the web for a design before I start.

1.  Here is the t-shirt before in its original state.  It's cute...but we can do better.

2.  Grab a shirt that currently fits your child.  We will use this as a template so we know how much to cut the shirt.  I just lay the shirt on top and make a guesstimate.

3.  Cut the shirt based on your template.  (We will add shoulder straps and ruffles using the extra material.

4.  Turn the shirt inside out so that the fronts are facing each other.  Sew the sides of the shirt together.

 5.  After the sides are sewn, it should look like this.  This picture just shows you that the sides of the shirt has been stitched.

5.  Use your left over fabric and cut 1-1/2 inch strips.  We will use these to make the ruffles.   You will probably need four strips.  (Two strips for the top of the shirt.  Two strips for the bottom of the shirt.)

6.  Baste stitch down the middle of the fabric strips.   Then gather to make cute little ruffles.

7.  Use the leftover fabric and cut two strips from the sleeves.  We will use this to make shoulder straps.  It will also give us a based to sew the ruffles on.

8.  Sew the shoulder straps onto the shirt.
9.  Sew the ruffles around the top and bottom edges of the shirt.

 

Here is the finished t-shirt.

Here is a picture of last year's t-shirt makeovers.  The one on the left was converted into a dress.  The one of the right, had two layers of ruffles on the bottom.

Hello Kitty Shutter Shades

Have you ever stepped outside your house and thought to yourself, "Self, dang it is hot out herrre.  If only I had a pair of cool shades to not only block out the sun but make me look cool, as well!"  

Problem solved.  Nothing says cool like Hello Kitty shutter shades. 

I made a batch of these for my daughter's 5th birthday party.

Here are the supplies:

- 12 pack of white shutter shades from Oriental Trading Company

- 1 spool of red ribbon to make the bow

- 1 spool of thin red ribbon to tie the bow

- 1 small sheet of black felt to make the whiskers

- glue

1.  Fold the ribbon in the shape of a bow.  Then tie the little red ribbon around it to secure it in place.

2. Cut the black felt into tear drop shapes.

3. Glue the black felt to the sides of the glasses to make the whiskers.

4. Glue the bow to the corner of the glasses

5. Step outside and show the world what a cool kitty looks like!

 

Ultra cool kids wear them upside-down, too!

Silhouette Cameo Fabric Ink

I love my Silhouette Cameo.  There are so many projects you can do with it.  With this machine you are only limited to your imagination.  One of the very first projects I tried with this machine was using the fabric ink stencil.

I started off by downloading a couple of pictures off the internet.  The Silhouette Cameo comes with an application that allows you design anything you want.  So, I imported the images that I downloaded into the application and started designing away!

Once I finally settled on the designs that I wanted, it was time to cut out the stencil.  The Silhouette Cameo also sells stencil paper.  (I hear contact paper works just as well, too.  I'm looking forward to trying this because it is much cheaper than Silhouette's stencil paper.)

All you have to do is feed the stencil paper through the machine and...VOILA! Sit back and watch the magic happen.  The machine cuts the stencil out for me while I'm sipping my coffee and playing Words with Friends.

Then I stuck the stencil on the shirts and painted away!  Once it was dry, I ironed over the ink to let it set.  Here are some of the finished products!

I dug through the girls' drawers to find articles of clothing that I could use for this project.

 

Below is a shirt that I made as a birthday gift.  As you can see, the Silhouette Cameo can make some really intricate cuts!

Glitter - The Bacon of Crafting

When it comes to food, bacon makes everything taste better.  In the realm of crafting, glitter makes things look better!  When in doubt, cover it in glitter.  It's great for newbie crafters, too, because it will cover up any imperfections.

I love to hang up children's names on their room wall.  I think it is a great way for them to recognize and learn to spell their name.  For my youngest daughter, I wanted to hang her name up in her room.  And I wanted the name to be covered in glitter.  Off to JoAnn Fabrics we go...

JoAnn's sells paper mache letters.  They are brown and boring.  They are just screaming, "Please, oh, please dress me up!"  I couldn't say no.  So, I picked up all the letters of her name.
I also picked up some pink glitter that came in a sprinkle container, glue, and a paintbrush.

When I got home, I laid down a piece of cardboard to try to contain the glitter madness that was about to ensue.  I took one letter and covered it generously in glue.  Then I sprinkled it with the pink glitter.  I repeated these steps for all of the letters.  Once they were all dry (about 30 minutes), I did a once-over and touched up any bald spots.

 Below is the final product.  (Notice the stenciled Hello Kitties that I did on the wall.  That's a post for another day!)

The Little Mermaids

This is a sewing project that I did a few months ago.  I can't remember what made me want to do it, but I'm 'sew' glad I did!

I went to JoAnn Fabrics and picked out two fabrics.  The blue fabric was made of swimsuit material so they could actually wear this in the water!  The purple fabric was for their little flutter tail.

I came home and the fabric sat...and sat on my sewing table...
Then one fine Saturday, while the girls were napping, I whipped these together!

Luckily, swimsuit material is stretchy.  So, there was plenty of room for error.  I just took a pair of their stretch pants and used it as a template.

I sewed the sides together.  Then gathered the tail fabric at the bottom.  I added a halter strap so it could be adjustable.

Below are pictures of the finished products!  It's little restrictive to walk in them.  However, I tell them, 'Like Ariel, if you're on land, you use your walking feet!  So, you have to hike up your fin!'  This works on perfectly, because they hike up the mermaid fin, it converts into a dress!

They've worn these to 'Mermaid' and 'Princess' day at school on a few occasions now.  And they love it!

The Fork in the Road

For months now my husband has been pushing me to start blogging.  I've been putting it off for several reasons:

1. With all the things on my to-do list, this was last on my list.  I'd rather spend my time starting a new craft project than write about an old craft project.
2. I'm a software developer,...well, documentation is just not our specialty.  (Man, those tech writers sure can whip up a well-articulated doc in seconds!  I'm so jealous.)
3. I didn't know what I would benefit from starting a blog.  With all the blogs out there, would anyone want to read mine?

Well,  I've finally done it.  I've started my blog.

So, what now?  There's so much I want to tell you.  Why I'm starting a blog now...Who I am... What cool projects I've been doing...  This may be all too much for my first blog post ever.  So, I'll have to hold it all in and slowly spoon-feed this information to you.  In this first post, I'll just talk about why I'm starting a blog now.

The reason I am starting a blog now is because there is a fork in my way.  I've been strolling down the path of life, doing the IT thing now for 14 years.  Every Monday through Friday, I sit at a desk and hunt and peck away.  In the evenings and on weekends, I sit at a craft table and sew and glue away.  As of late, I've liked my computer desk less and less and my sewing table more and more.  And here is where the fork comes in.

I am planning on taking a couple of months to just think.  Think, think, think.  I've got some questions that I need answering:

1. What do I want to be when I grow up?  When I was younger I was just focused on graduating and getting a decent job in a growing industry.  I never asked myself the full question:  "what do you want to be when you grow up that will make you happy?"  But in your 20s, do you REALLY know what is going to make you happy in your 30s and 40s?  I don't think so.
2. Am I good enough at crafting to turn it into a full-time gig?  There are so many crafty people out there (and that is an awesome thing!).  But, what can I bring to the table that is different from them?
3. Should I stay in the profession that's fed me for the past 14 years?  IT has been good to me.  I've met lots of wonderful people in this field.  And I can write a mean HELLO WORLD (inside programmer joke).

These are all questions that will take me some time to answer.  Until then, I plan on posting past craft projects that I've done and more about me!

I hope you've enjoyed my first ever blog post!  Comments and suggestions are welcome!