Twirly Dress

Ava has a thing for her "twirly" dress. I bought a pink dress on sale last year at Target and these days it is all she ever wants to put on. That or her brown and pink polka-dotted twirly dress. So 2 weeks ago, I took a look at it and thought, "I can make that." Essentially it is 3 gathered stripes of fabrics sewn to the bottom of a shirt.

So I found a toddler Hanes undershirt I had laying around as well as 3 coordinating scraps of fabric (that were long enough -- this was key). I took a look at the undershirt and it was not very girly so I added a casing in the armholes and elastic to scrunch them up and I turned down the collar and sewed it so it was a little more girly.

It turned out really cute and I am pretty proud of myself since I made this without a pattern! Can't wait to try this again with a more fitted tshirt for the top part but all in all, it is cute and more importantly, Ava has a new twirly dress that she loves!

Happy!Twirl!

Jump!

Tutus

I have a bit of an obsession lately...tutus. Partly because I think they are so cute & girly and partly because Ava & her friends are a bit obsessed with tutus lately too. I guess when you are 3 and go to dance once a week, you decide that dance class should really be a fashion show for all your crazy tutus, hair accessories, costumes etc. But luckily for me (& Ava's friends), I figured out how easy it is to make these no-sew tutus.

Last week, I whipped up a little purple & black number in less than 30 minutes...

so this week I decided to make not only Ava a new tutu, but also her friends Sydnee (in green) & Sienna (purple).

Needless to say, they were all pretty excited with their tutus and matching hair accessories. And I spent less than an hour making these girls really, really happy. Mission accomplished. Now I can't decide how many tutus for Ava is too much (is there such a thing?).

Redoing Vintage Bedroom Furniture - In Progress

Weekend 1 complete on this furniture project. Yeah!! We were able to strip the furniture, sand it and prime it. We accomplished a lot more than I thought we would in those few days and I am thankful to my in-laws & hubby for their help (both with the furniture & babysitting our daughter) so that we can work on this.

We will still have to go down to Conroe to work another weekend (at least) to finish the project but I am already pleased with the results thus far.

Furniture after stripping the varnish off:
Rudy, hard at work with the paint gun:

Me, working...and not looking my best!

After being primed:

Redoing Vintage Bedroom Furniture - Before

Here is the second furniture refinishing project I am working on. Once again, I enlisted help from my father-in-law, Rudy, to help with this project. My mother-in-law, Jeanie, has had this bedroom set since she was a girl and we are redoing it for Ava's big girl room.

Eventually it will be white, but here are the before photos. We had to strip off the varnish, sand them, prime them and then we will paint them.

Chest of drawers:

Headboard & Footboard:

Stool:

Vanity:

Top of vanity (that holds mirror):

I love the way this vintage furniture looks...fairly simple yet will be perfect for a little girl's room. Still trying to decide if I am going to use the vintage hardware or not. Leaning towards yes because I love the little doorknocker style and the floral design on the knobs. Just wondering if I should paint them hot pink to be a little girly/funky or if I should just do them a bronze or black or something more neutral.

Another Griffin Picnic Dress

One of my favorite dress patterns...this time done in some nice knit material I found for like $3.50/yard at Hobby Lobby. So girly and cute. Ava wore it layered over a long sleeve tee and leggings but when she got home from school, it had warmed up a bit so she was wearing it as a dress.

Ava modeling...this is what happens when I say pose for me. Although really there were like 20 more of her doing various dance poses for me.

Necklace Inspired Shirt

I've been wanting to try this for a long time now...doing a shirt with a fabric "necklace" on it. I was originally going to wait until I had a stained shirt that could only be saved by doing this but ended up not being able to wait until that time.

I used fabric scraps I had laying around and hand embroidered in between. It turned out really cute, but I think next time I will make sure it hangs more like a necklace. Even with this slight mistake, I still think it is adorable. Ava, of course, had to put it on right away. She sure knows how to make her mom happy. :)

Vroom!

One of my good friends is set to have another baby boy in the next few months. I've been whipping up several onesie/burp cloth sets for him but decided that her older son (who is 2.5 yrs old) also needed a little something.

He's really in to cars and other boy stuff, so I decided to make him a muscle car t-shirt and to make his baby brother-to-be a coordinating van onesie. I think they turned out really well...I love the striped shirt and was happy to find it at Target as it makes the toddler shirt extra cute....now I'm on the hunt for more patterned shirts that can be appliqued.

Ava, of course, wanted to model AJ's new shirt before we sent it off, so I decided to take a quick photo...she told me she wants a car shirt in pink so I'm guessing she'll get one sooner rather than later.

Ruffle Heart Tee

I've been experimenting lately with all sorts of ruffles...and in the process decided to make a simple little heart tee for Ava the other week.

This is not using long ruffles but rather material cut in circles and then folded in half twice and sewn on real close together to get an all over ruffly effect. Turned out pretty cute although I wish it was a bit more heart shaped. But Ava loved it (she declared it "beautiful") and I was able to recycle yet another old shirt that was headed for goodwill.