Character Inspired Letters

I have this aspiration that my house will eventually look like a crafter's paradise.  Unfortunately, it looks like Chuck E. Cheese right before closing with toys and crumbs everywhere.  One of the things I've been planning to do is to decorate the doors of the kids' bedrooms and actually had time this week to make character inspired letters for all the kids.

Emmeline was the hardest since she had the most letters.  I was running out of characters.

Ninjago for Logan and Disney Princesses (of course..) for Simone.

They look really cute on the bedroom doors, but I'm a bit embarrassed to show off all the fingerprints on our doors.

What the What?!

Hello World...
Haven't been here in a while because baby #3 came and there went all of my free time.  It has almost been a year and it's time to me to dust off this blog!

My projects have been few and far between this year and to push myself, I entered the San Mateo County Fair earlier this summer.  I did the upcycling challenge where I needed to create something out of a bag of scraps.

The bag was pretty junky - small sample pieces of fabric, upholstery, leather, button, wooden pieces, ropes, paper.  I tried to incorporate as many pieces as possible and ended up making a mixed media cross body bag.  Extra scraps were used to make the bird design and the leather was used to made a matching card case.  Not too bad for a bunch of junk!

And the best part?!?!?! I won 2nd place!  This was the first time entering something and I was so surprised I won something!

Upcycled Sound of Music Drapes Dress

It's after Thanksgiving and that means Christmas is coming!  I love the holidays and all the special activities that go on during this season.  I've always wanted to take the kids to the Sound of Music Sing Along and this is the first year both kids can actually sit through an entire movie.  We went on Sunday and had a blast!  To get into the Sound of Music spirit, I made play clothes for Simone.  I wanted to make some for Logan, but he vetoed lederhosen.  I think it was the floral-ish print...

The best part was this dress cost me $0 since I already had all the thread and notions.  I got the fabric from FabMo, which is a great organization that takes leftover, unused, or sample materials and allows others to use.  Since these were sample sizes, I used two different upholstery fabrics that were in the same color scheme.  One of them actually looked like the drapes in the movie.  I made that fabric the center and made side panels from the secondary fabric.  I didn't have enough material to make pleats so I used some leftover elastic to cinch the waist.  Since this was basically a costume piece, I just used the serger on the hems and put in snaps on the straps.

I made the dress a bit big and am hoping Simone can wear it again next year.  To complete the look, I made headwrap out of the leftover fabric.  Luckily, Simone liked it and wore it throughout the movie!

Beauty and the Droid

After all the school parades, parties, and finally trick or treating, we are all Halloween'd out.  This was the first year the kids were actually excited about trick or treating.  Last year, I think we lasted about 5 houses before the kids got scared.  This year, my older and wiser kindergartener told us the spooky houses were fake.

Logan loves Star Wars and went as R2D2.  His costume was mostly duct tape, glow in the dark tape, and posterboard.  I followed this for reference.

Simone was Belle and I just made her a basic A-line dress by tracing one of her dresses for size.  I also added pickups and rosettes to make it look it Belle's dress.

I went as Mrs. Potts to complement Simone.  Unfortunately, Fred did not want to wear fur fabric, so I couldn't make him a Chewbacca costume to complement Logan.

Trick or Treat!

Halloween is coming up and that means it's costume time!  I was never into Halloween until I had Logan and Simone.  When I was a kid, I would put on overalls and say that I was a farmer.  Now, I love putting together costumes for the kiddos.

For the last 3 years, My dear friend, Amy, helped me put together Logan's costumes (i.e. she did most of the work!)  The costumes were pretty much the same - fleece hoodie and pants.  For the pattern, I just traced a pair of his pants and a hoodie to get the right size.  

Logan was Elmo in 2012.  The eyes and nose were styrofoam balls and we attached them to the hood with velcro.  I thought he really looked like Elmo when he was picking up candy :)

He was in his dinosaur phase in 2013 and here he is as a T-Rex.  We added a stuffed tail and also used styrofoam balls for the eyes.  We used felt for the teeth and claws.

Last year, he wanted to be Turbo the snail.  We used a headband and styrofoam balls for the eyes and wrapped it in orange felt.  We painted an old diaper box for the shell and duct taped it together.  I also added a glow in the dark necklace for the spiral.

This will be the first year that I'm making both of the kids' costumes and I'm really excited!  

Boy's Vest

We went to a dear friend's wedding this summer and it was a rare treat for all of us to get dressed up!  Logan hates dressing up and his nice clothes are only worn for family pictures and holidays.  I decided to spiff up his regular button down and blue slacks and made him a vest, bow tie, and pocket square.  I used about 1/2 yard of suiting fabric for the vest.  For the bow tie and pocket square, I used fabric that I already had.

I didn't have time to add a clip for the bow tie, so I just safety pinned the bow tie on his shirt.  It was little crooked, but it works.

I loved how he looked and loved that he kept his vest/tie on the whole time!

Summer Belle Dress

Simone loves Beauty and the Beast and, unsurprisingly, her favorite color is yellow.  When I take her to Joann's, she always requests to look at the Princess fabric, Hello Kitty fabric, and yellow fabric.  I happen to find a cute yellow fabric in the remnants bin and made a simple summer dress, which Simone affectionately calls her "Belle dress."  I wanted to experiment with bias tape, ruffles, and pleats, so I worked them into the dress.  It definitely looks homemade but I'm glad Simone it!  I'm hoping she can wear this as a tunic next year since I didn't put in a distinct bodice.

Here's a look at the details in the front.  I need to spend more time working with bias tape.

The back also had 2 pleats