Orange Flower Girl Dress

My brother got married last month and he and his now wife wanted to have their three nieces in orange. My three year old and my new sister in law's three year old niece had matching dresses and my challenge was to make something that coordinated -without seeing in person the other two dresses. This is a picture of the dress online.  My best bet around here was to find something at JoAnn's which can be pretty limiting. I found the only fabric that I thought would fit the bill. It was close enough. In fact, one of my sister in laws had offered to make ties and bowties for all of the nephews and she used this exact same fabric. It is a costume satin. I am glad that it worked out for the wedding, but it does not hold up very well. I had to wash it after the wedding and the dress now has a lot of nice little snags in it. I used my favorite little girl dress pattern for this. Simplicity 2767. I bought matching tulle to put on the outside of the skirt to match the others but decided that I didn't like the way it looked with this dress and because I knew that there was a good chance that the tulle would get ripped to shreds. I was right on that account. After the wedding Bella's dress had a hole in her tulle and I will now have to trim it or cut it off completely if she wants to wear it again.

Because I don't really care for the flowers in the pattern I wanted to try something different on this dress. I have been wanting to make some burned edge flowers for a long long time and this seemed like the perfect chance. One of my cousins recently directed me to this wonderful tutorial so I used that for guidance. It was so fun I ended up making a bazillion of these. I made a few for hair accessories for the girls and one for myself and several others I had intended on sharing with any of the girls in the wedding party that were interested, but it turns out my new SIL has a very talented sister who made cute flowery hairbands for all the girls. So I now have a lot of these laying around my house. Some on brooch pins like this one. And some on hair clips, headbands and bobby pins.  I'm not sure what I am going to do with them so maybe they will end up as gifts. I found some pink and yellow satins in the remnant bin the other day so i am excited to make some in those colors as well.

XO

Maren

Fabric Hair Rollers

Here are the hair rollers I made using this tutorial. I made them a little differently because I thought my way of doing it was a bit easier. I will tell you what I did differently after I show you the pictures. I loved that I could use my fabric scraps for this project.

This is after she slept on them all night and are a little loose.

This is right after I took them out and sprayed them

From the front

I wish they made her hair curlier. I am not sure if her hair is just too long or what. There are some tips found here on how to use the rollers. I might try to find some of the same mousse that she uses to see if it makes a difference and wait for her hair to dry a little bit more. Also I think Wonder Woman Creations made her curlers a little bit smaller. If I ever do this again, I would like to make them smaller. I still think her hair turned out cute. I have actually used them on my hair and liked the way it turned out as well. It was soft and wavy.

For anyone interested, here is what I did differently from the tutorial mentioned above.

Once I had my piece cut out and folded in half longwise, I sewed all the way down the long end and across one short end instead of just sewing part way. I then flipped it right side out took my disappearing ink pen and marked 4" and stuffed it to that line and then sewed it on the line to seal in the stuffing. I kind of bunched it all up too as I was sewing across the line to get the gathered effect. Let's just call that lazy gathering.

I then ran all of my curlers through my serger to serge the raw ends. Yay for sergers! Alternatively, I would have folded in the the end and sewed it shut. Then I sewed on the button. To make the button end rounder I stuck my needle and thread into one corner and  then the other corner and pulled it tight bringing the corners in and making the end rounder. I then continued to sew the button to the center of that end.

To make the button hole (I actually like mine better horizontal) I folded my unstuffed end up towards the button and using my trusty disappearing ink pen I marked exactly where the button hole should go and because I used a lot of different sized buttons I made my mark the same length as the button so when I did my buttonhole on my sewing machine I knew exaclty where to start and stop. I hope that is understandable without pictures. Basically I just marked exactly where I needed my button hole to go and exactly how long it needed to be. Then I got my ol' seam ripper out and cut open my button hole. Tada! Pretty simple.

XO
Maren

September Challenge

Hi! It's Maren here and I am going to post our challenges for this month. I can't believe it is September already!!

I am so glad that Celia included LeAnne's Trick or Treat Tote in the challenge last month because that is on my list to do before Halloween. I was scrolling through some of her tutorials and remembered that she also had a cute felt Halloween banner which would be another fun Haloweeny thing to whip up for a decoration this Halloween season.

Since I have girls I am going to post a few links of some girly things that I have been working on or that I have been thinking about working on. They are great for either the little girls in your life or for yourself.

First: Fabric Hair Rollers from Life with Monkey. Have you ever tried those pink foam ones. Well check out this little girl's hair using rollers from this tutorial. WAAAY better results. I think I will be wearing these to bed.

Second: Shirring. I have been hit by the shirring bug. And I have LeAnne to thank for this! She did a tutorial for a cute little summer dress and tipped me off on some patterns that were for sale on etsy. I manged to snag a few patterns before the shop closed forever and I really have enjoyed them. I'll post more about them later. I think that LeAnne did a great job with her dress tutorial and the great thing about shirring is it is so easy and so cute and so versatile. You can add wide hems of coordinating fabric, ruffles, different types of sleeves. wider strips for cap sleeves, ribbons, spaghetti straps etc. You can even make a top for yourself as well!

 LeAnne also did a great tutorial on shirring. I am so glad that she included a picture of what the elastic thread should look like. Months before I started shirring I picked up some elastic thread at JoAnns because I knew at some point I wanted to give it a try. My thread was on a plastic spool. I kept hearing that it has to be on a cardboard one. I went back to JoAnns to find the stuff that I needed and could NOT find it. I even asked someone and they were pretty clueless as to what I was even talking about. The label on the thread I got said it was meant for shirring so I used it. And it worked. However, The first day my daughter wore her dress I noticed that some of the thread broke and now I will have to go back and do it again! Not Fun. So I will be finding another way to get the proper elastic thread. Just a word to the wise.

Third: I have really been wanting to make my oldest daughter some cute flower hairclips/headbands to wear to preschool. I love these kinds of projects because they don't take a lot of time and you can make a whole bunch in one sitting. Here are a few tutorials. These flowers can be used for anything - brooch, clip for a purse or bag, gift topper etc. No sewing machine necessary! (sorry I was not able to get any of the pictures up - but go ahead and click. You won't be sorry)

Felt Peony
Felt Flower - the scalloped roll method
Felt Flower - the glue method (love the button center)
Satin Flowers - the candle method - I soooo want to do this one
Rolled Fabric Flower
Fabric and Paper flower roudup from Little birdie secrets -I love the painted newspaper flowers. It would be a fun one to do with  kids to give away to someone special (Mother's day, Valentines day, birthdays etc)


 Recipe: Triple Layer Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I love fall desserts and I love this one. I made this on a couple of different occasions. Once for my son's first birthday and now that I have an October birthday I think I am going to make it for my baby's first birthday next month. It is very yummy. I have done it with three layers, but it would also be yummy as cupcakes or made in a regular old cakepan. Delish!

XO

Maren

Felt Hair Clips

I signed up to make a donation for our Young Men and Young Women acution for their scout camp and various activities. Last year I made some felt hair clips so I decided to do the same thing this year. I also made a crochet beanie which I will show you later.  Here are the clips.

I used this tutorial for the rose clips. At first I didn't realize I was supposed to cut down the lines on the larger petal so my first attempts (the red rose) were a little sloppy. I finally figured it out on the pink one. I love the template for the clip covering in this pattern too. The clips stay right inside. I used to glue the little felt "sleeping bags" to my clips but since my glue gun is junk and since Bella isn't exaclty easy on her things the clips kept falling out. No falling out with these ones. My favorite clip is the layered circle rose with the clear vintage button as well as  the clip with one of my all time favorite vintage poppy buttons on it. I made a few duplicates for Bella! These are my favorite hair accessories because quite often I am in a hurry to do Bella's hair and this is the easiest thing for me to do. I just pop one of these in her hair to keep her hair out of her face. Also, one of my favorite projects because it is so fun and they work up pretty quickly (and I love working with felt :)

XO
Maren

Maren's Headbands

So I am finally posting my headbands from last month. I hadn't posted them yet because I still am in search for the perfect headband and I want to try a few different styles. However, I am not sure when I will get to it so for now here is what I have done.

The white/blue/brown/green one was made using this quick 10 minute headband tutorial.

The other two reversible ones were made from this tutorial. The black/red one is the narrow version and the pastel one is the wide version.

I had really wanted to wear them on days when I wear a ponytail, but I find that they tend to work better with my hair down (or in pigtails). I still have to bobby pin them behind my ear to help hold them in place. But still really cute and I like them. I am going to try doing some with jersy knit and leave long tails so I can tie them. I think those would fit really well. Can't wait to find some time to experiment more with that.

Anyways...Since it was headband month I decided it was time to make Lou some more headbands. So I whipped up a few. I know some people are morally opposed to HUGE floral headbands, but I love them. Every time I have Lou in one I get stopped in my tracks so people can ooh and awe and perfect strangers tell me how cute Lou looks in the headband. It has happened so many times that Hubby who is usually oblivious to anything crafty that I do has actually taken note - hey my wife made something cool! Maybe we can make some money off of this. ha ha! Anyways, I also love them because when I have Lou Lou in one of these headbands I don't have people calling her a "he" or asking me if she is a boy or girl (even when she is wearing pink!).

These are the big ones. The white one is my fav.



These are a bit smaller.





And I made one for Bella, but I think the headband is too small so I am going to take the flower off and put it on an aligator clip.



XO
Maren

March Challenges

Seasonal craft
Easter/spring day baskets and/or eggs: Tutorials and inspiration

Square basket
Bunny Basket
Another Bunny Basket
Patchwork basket
Fabric covered eggs

Self Craft
Reversible Head band

Child Craft

Embellished onsies for girls
Tie onesies or shirts for boys

Recipe Recommendation

Oatmeal Pancake Mix
This came from one of my favorite food blogs. I made this up this week for the first time and it was great. Makes pancakes a piece of cake...hehe...on a busy morning. I stored the mix in my fridge. It makes a lot, so I suggest if you're not sure you'll like them, cut the recipe in half. I do think they're better with buttermilk as opposed to the half yogurt/half milk combo. I tried it both ways. Since I always forget to buy buttermilk I did as she suggested and bought a large thing of buttermilk and am freezing it in one cup freezer cups.