You guys should see the stack of sweaters I've thrifted this winter to refashion!  Eek!  And when I went in yesterday and they were having a $1/sack full sale I couldn't help but pick up more!

I am so bad about taking before pictures, so you'll just have to imagine that I haven't cut off the sides or the ends of the sleeves yet, mmmkay?

I pretty much just followed this FAB tutorial from Flexible Dreams - using one of Brylie's dresses to help me determine size, shape, sleeves, etc.  Mine even had a band of black at the end of the sleeves that I was able to use on the short sleeves for the dress!  It's the little things that make me happy ;)

So after I did the basic reconstruction (side seams and sewed on the sleeves - so glad I have some basic sewing knowledge! ) I had to decide what I wanted to do about these buttons.  Back in their day I'm sure they were great, but now, and for a 4 year old, yeah, not so much.  Not to mention that one was missing.  I just went with a basic button down the center.  Instead of putting buttons on the bottom pockets, I just sewed on a grosgrain bow - she's not going to need them anyway :) 

And there ya have it!  And adorable (and light this one is) dress!  I used a women's large sweater and turned out about a 5T.  I fully expect that by fall it will be too short, but I think it will be great with a pair of black leggings under it too :)

Can't beat a new (custom) dress for 10 cents for the sweater, 88 cents for the buttons, and everything else I already had!  I will probably take the big chunks I cut off and make her some fun hair accessories to match!  Oh, and did I mention it only took me about 20 mins?  Okay, a little more than that, but only because I had to make 2 trips to Walmart to get buttons (they must have slipped through the slots in my cart the first time?  Seriously, took me longer to make those 2 trips than it did to put this thing together!).  LOVE IT!

Linking up:

Gosh that ended up being a long title!

{remember, you can click on any of the pictures to make them bigger so that you can see details!}

Awhile back I purchased an ADORABLE pack of fat quarters (6 of them).  I didn't know what I was going to make, but I figured I could make SOMETHING with 6 fat quarters, even if I had to do some piecing.

Then this last week I spotted this Twirly Skirt tutorial and I knew instantly that's what I wanted to do!  Now since I had 6 fat quarters instead of a full yard I had to do some piecing but it all worked out :)  The only thing I didn't do was to make a tie - that's the beauty of sewing, you can do it as you please!

Anyway, it turned out ADORABLE and I LOVE the skirt (and it was SO EASY!).  Next was to find a shirt for my 4  year old to wear with it.  I knew I wanted to customize it to coordinate with her new skirt, but I also wanted it to be wash friendly.  In comes the white shirt - cheap, plain, and bleachable.........perfect!  Ok, now to make it coordinate and keep it bleachable, which meant it needed to be removable.  

Then I had a lightbulb moment!

I've really gotten in to bow making lately and have seen a lot of cotton baby hats with a little "tag" or "loop" if you will where the clip of the flower/bow slips in.  Of course!  I could sew a little tag onto the shirt so that I can not only remove the embellishment and wash the shirt, but I could also use it to customize with other outfits!  AWESOME!

All I did was to take about 2-2.5" of white grosgrain ribbon.  You can either heat seal the ends (with a candle or lighter - just enough to slightly melt the ends) or use fray-check.  Then I folded the ribbon into 3rds and did a quick sew job onto the shirt!

For the flowers, I wanted to make a few to make them interchangeable and also have at least one for her hair.  As of right now I just have 2, but I still have extra fabric so I'll be expanding on that ;)

The first one I made was a simple twisted rosette.  You can find hundreds of tutorials on making these so I won't bore you with the details.  {see the finishing steps for the flower below}

Then I decided to take a strip of the leftover pieced fabric to make a gathered, layered flower.  This is so easy it's almost sad ;)  

Simply take your strip of fabric, set the tension on your sewing machine to it's highest number, and sew close to the right edge - it will automatically ruffle itself!

Once you're done you'll have this pile of ruffly goodness.

It already tries to "flower" itself, it just needs a tiny bit of help!  

You have two options here - I chose to hand tack the spirals (around and around and around) with a needle and thread, but it would be just as easy to use hot glue!  I also decided to sew on a big ole button from my random stash.

To finish it off and make it wearable, you need 2 circles of felt (I think I used thin fleece - also non-ravelable), an alligator clip (I like 2 pronged ones) and some hot glue!

Your first circle will just be glued to the back of the flower.

On the second circle, lay your clip on it to see where the hinge of the clip hits and make a slit big enough to stick the TOP of the clip in.

It will look like this once you slip the top of the clip in.

Squeeze on some hot glut and slip that baby back in so that it's glued like this.

Then squeeze the hot glue all over that same side and glue it to your flower!

It's all ready to slip into the loop/tag that you sewed onto your shirt!

{do you know how hard it is to take pictures of your own hands doing things?}

Here's what mine looks like all together:

I'm hoping to snap some portraits of my dolly in it soon!

So she's got 2 flowers (right now) and can choose which one she wants on her shirt and which one she wants in her hair/crocheted headband/crocheted hat!  

I LOVE LOVE LOVE things that coordinate like this!  The only thing I didn't already have was the shirt - pretty cheap customization if ya ask me ;)

Hmmmmm, what's she going to do with that? 

Stay tuned!!!

In lieu of birthday gifts, our kids get mini-trips with mom and dad (no siblings allowed).  Last weekend we went on Jazlyn's trip - to see Romeo & Juliet ballet!  We stayed in downtown Denver (she's not stayed there before) up on the 12th floor (a big deal to her!).  Many of you know that I'm HORRIBLE afraid of heights (seriously, it's a struggle to paint the wall where it meets the ceiling!) so you can bet that I did NOT look out the window to take this (which, btw, had NO SCREEN!) but I did stick my phone out and snap the picture, lol!

To Jazlyn, the whole purpose of staying in a motel is to swim.  Well, this hotel only had a hot tub - OUTDOORS!  But she thought it was great.  Hubby and I FROZE (it was something like 22 degrees out) but she thought it was GREAT! LOL

They have these fun man and lady statues (?) in the performing arts complex in Denver.  They're quite large!

Front and Center waiting for the ballet to start!  While sitting in the middle was great for the view, it wasn't so great for getting in and out during the intermissions.  Ah well, she loved it, that's what matters :)

And last but not least is an visual update on the little one's burns.  They look AMAZING compared to a week ago!  Bandages are officially of, new skin is sealed and looks great, and infection is no where to be found!  Hooray!

Oh YES I DID!!!

Hehe, ok, bad pun.  But really, I loved making this cool headband for my daughter for picture day!  It was nice and easy (yah yah, bad joke) ;)  

Here's the fabulous tutorial:

Yeahhhhhh, well.........

There's not much on my phone this week (especially compared to last week!).

Our house has been consumed the last week by this:

and this

Yup, our 4 year old little girl had an accident involving boiling water and ended up with these horrible burns :(  And then a few days later it had started to get infected, so the dr had to scrub (and yes I do mean scrub in the literal sense) her burns to get the dead skin off.  By far the worst thing that I've had to endure as a parent.

The good news is these pictures were taken 2 days AFTER the scrubbing and show us (that saw it to begin with) how much better it's getting already!  All of that really really red skin is the new skin!

It's been a rough week's time and has involved LOTS of bandage changes, tylenol with codeine, and cuddles, but she's getting better quickly :)

Those are the two pictures on my phone!