ribbon tie dress and taggie

This dress pattern I made I am in love with.  It is so easy.  I dress can be whipped up in 10 minutes.  Only basic sewing skills are needed.
You just sew the size fabric you need in a tube with the ribbons in the seam on the top.  They sew about an inch down when it is right side out for the elastic to run through.  I added the band of a second fabric on the bottom for fun and the flowers as accessories.
I made this dress for my little niece and I love how it turned out.  The fabric was chosen by my SIL for her nursery, but then she went a different direction, so I told her I'd find something to do with it.

The flower on the dress and the hair flower are just 6 circles of felt folded in thirds and glued in a circle with a fabric covered button in the center.  Again, super easy.  You just have to know how to hot glue!

With the bit of fabric that was left and finding some cute ribbon scraps in my stash I made a little taggie for her since all babies love tags.  I think it turned out so cute and made me want to make one for my little girl, even though she is way passed this stage!

freezer paper stencil tutorial

My friend taught me how to use this and I am SOOOO addicted now it's so easy.
I use it constantly since it is so easy to make stencils with my Cricut.
So here's my best attempt at explaining how to use a freezer paper stencil.
First of all. Always make sure that the SHINY side is down. That is that side that will iron on to your fabric.
When making a stencil you want to keep all the "negative" pieces. If you were going to cut out a fish, you don't actually want the fish. You want the outline and "negative" pieces (the pieces you would usually toss).

A good tip is to first iron on the outline. Then when that is in place it will be easier to then add the inside pieces and iron those on all at once, or one at a time.
After you have it ironed on slip a scratch piece of paper inside your shirt so that when you are painting it the paint will not bleed through to the back (yes, I learn this the hard way!) :)

Then simply make sure you are using a fabric paint. They come in all sorts these days. There is normal to shiny, to matte, to glitter, to dimensional....
If you use regular paint it will stay on your fabric, but will make for a grainy look after washing.
You can buy a bottle of "medium" that can be added to a color of regular craft paint to turn it into fabric paint. I love the stuff, just didn't have any on hand to picture it. It can be bought at any craft store, or even Wal-mart.

I apply the paint right on to the fabric. Saves time, paint, and a mess.

Paint it evenly. Eliminate brush strokes. They can be visible, but usually after a few washes disappear.

Use a blow dryer to speed up the process. I am the most impatient crafter and usually end of botching my work due to lack of patience. The blow dryer and me understand each other! :)

When it's dry simply peel off the freezer paper and Yeah!

You can then do other layers, things....

Remember when doing words, you don't want the actually letters. You want the outlines and all the "circles" and such that are inside them. So make sure you don't loose them. I usually just keep them on my sticky cricut mat until I actually iron them on. This saves a lot of time.
You can go all kinds of crazy with this, but here's just some quick basic shirts I made for a family vacation:

diy zoo, sea world, and disneyland shirts

I am so proud of myself for pulling these together (and on time too)! :)
We are going to have a blast on our upcoming vacation. I just had to whip out the old crafting supplies and come up with some cute shirts for the occasion.
Wal-Mart had these shirts on clearance so most of them were a buck! Come on, right? You can't beat that (especially at any theme park!).
Freezer paper, fabric paints, fabric, a little ribbon, and iron on adhesive.....
Zoo shirts:
Images-Create-a-critter
Font-Zooballoo
(the animals were done with fabric, applied with an iron on)
The bow was $1 at Wal-Mart in the baby section.



Disneyland shirts:
Mickey silhouette-Plantin Schoolbook (3 circles together)
Font-Cuttin' Up
The Head band is made of 3 twisted spirals glued together. I then glued those onto some cute elastic and backed it with black felt.


Sea World shirts:
Shark-Zoo Days
Fish and Jelly Fish-Create-a-critter
Font-Cutting' Up
Headband (not yet pictured) is made up of with painted sea shells glued on.

disney shirts

My good friend Rebbecca was taking her family to Disneyland for a week since her husband was coming home from Afghanistan, so I just had to make her two little girls some shirt for the occasion. I really LOVE how they turned out. I didn't have a Disney cricut cartridge, so I just used circles to make the Mickey silhouette and then sewed a ribbon bow on to make them look like Minnie.

Making these shirts reminded me of our fun Disney world trip we took and the fun shirts I made for the trip. It all started with the "big brother" "little brother" shirts since we get twin comments daily because our boys look so alike and are the same size.

Those lead to the Mickey tie-dye shirts that I loved. It was easy, cheap, and fun. I just penciled a Mickey silhouette on the front and back. Then I gathered those circles and tied them tight with rubber bands. Then I dyed them in black die (I didn't leave them in long enough!). Then let them dry, took the rubber bands off, washed them and then used freezer paper with my cricut to do the lettering.

And those lead to the fact that their uncle would be having a birthday while we were there, and I just had to make him a cheesy shirt to wear! :) I am most proud of this one. It was a little tricky to make my boy's faces, but well worth the effort. I did it my taping a piece of paper to my computer and tracing the shadows of a picture of them that was on the screen. I them razor cut them out on freezer paper and ironed that on the shirt and painted over it. I was very impressed with myself! :)

dressed to impress {in less an hour}

Saturday night was a nice quiet night. We got our kids to bed and took some time to do the things we love to do....which means I didn't work on the piles of unfinished projects I have...I started a new one! :)
I have been intrigued by the "pillow case dress" but have never made one or knew how. So, I decided I was going to figure it out.
I got a dress the size my daughter is in. Got a piece of material,doubled it the width of the bottom of the dress and sewed in into a "tube". I put some ribbons in the top seam where I thought they would need to be and sewed them up. I then sewed another seam about an inch and a half below the top seam for the elastic.
I then snipped a little hole in the inside and inserted it. After pulling it through and seeing the finished product, I decided it needed a little more, so I finally tried out this cute new felt flower I just saw on a blog.
I am so happy with how it turned out. It was so fast (less than an hour, flowers included) and the results were terrific!

I think I might attempt my first tutorial with this soon. I had a few friends at church express their desire to make one....just don't hold your breath for it! :)

homemade (just like her)

Little girls are so fun to dress up. I have had fun with my new little one and have made a few cute outfits for her.
This was her first outfit for church. It was fun to make. I consulted with my good friend Aymee, who is a crafty queen. (and yes, her outfit was made out of her left over material from her room!)

I got this cute outfit from Children's Place and had to make a little cupcake shirt to go with it!

This one was made with iron-on jewels that I got from Wal-Mart. I was a little wary of them at first, but they haven't come off and I am loving them. Easy, cheap, and they stick! I thought it would be perfect for her ruffled jean skirt.

And here is her blessing dress that my mom made her, complete with french knots! It turned out so beautifully. I LOVE IT! I made a cute headband to go with it, and the bracelet was supplied by Chloe's girl cousins.