I Caught A Bug

I've had a bit of the crafting bug lately, and have been having fun making lots of bows for my daughters. I gave some to a friend for her daughter's birthday yesterday, and someone liked them so much that they ordered a custom one from me!

It's a great sense of accomplishment for me, because I taught myself how to make the bows, and this shows that someone likes my stuff. I feel really good about it! I'm almost done with her bow, I just have to glue it together, and then I will post pictures sometime this weekend.

While I was out yesterday picking up ribbon to make the bow, I happened upon some really nice fabric. Now, I've had the sewing bug for awhile, but have never owned a sewing machine. I figured, if I want to make it so much, why not just sew it by hand. Am I crazy? haha.

Luckily for me, the fabric was practically ready for a dress, it just needed a seam. It was even hemmed already! I measured my daughter's chest and purchased the right size of fabric. I also got some matching thread, and coordinating grosgrain ribbon to make straps for it. It took me a few hours last night, because I had to do tiny tiny stiches, and I did double stiches up and down the whole length. I'm very very happy with the results. I am going to get some more fabric on Tuesday, hopefully they will still have some, and make tops for my older daughters.

All I did was turn the fabric inside out, and line up the corners, and stitch away. I did use some pins to hold in place as I was stitching to ensure an even line, but other than that, I did it all by hand.

Here is the finished product. I LOVE it!! What do you think?



The good thing is, once the dress is too short, I can use it as a top for her.

I've already hinted to my mom that I want a sewing machine for my birthday. I hope my mom pulls through this time.


Update May 28th: I was able to purchase fabric for my older daughters, black with a red cherry print. It is long enough for a dress for them, so I will be working on those dresses this weekend. The only setback to this fabric, is that it wasn't hemmed. That isn't too big of a deal, because I bought no-sew fabric glue to hold the hem as I am stitching it. It will just take more time. I'll post pictures of those as soon as I am done.

Thing 1, Thing 2 and Pippi Longstocking

Have I really not blogged since Monday? We've had a busy week. Next will be even busier, as my hubby is coming home and we have a ton of stuff planned. Plus we have THREE family birthdays! My hubby's is March 6th, the baby's is March 7th as is my sister's.

Today the three older kids celebrated the end of reading month at school by having character day, they got to dress up. Since I have twins, I sent them as Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr Seuss' "Cat In The Hat".

It was really easy actually...

I purchased stick on felt letters and two sheets of white felt at JoAnn's. Total cost: $3.50. Then I went to Old Navy and purchased two plain red t-shirts for $5 each. Next came Party City, where I purchased blue wigs for $2.99 each. The total cost for both costume was only $20. I wanted to do all red, but do you know how hard it is to find red sweatpants when all the spring stuff is in stores? I figured tops were just as good.

Please excuse the white-out faces. My husband and I do not like to post pictures of our children online.


I traced a plate onto the felt, and cut out the circle, then adhered the stickers as shown. I actually sewed the felt onto the shirts, but only used 4 small stitches. This way, they can re-use the tops and they are easily taken apart. I was hoping to find wigs that stood up more, but these will do just fine.

Notice the height difference between them? Our son "M" is almost 5 ft tall! His twin sister is much shorter than him, lol. She obviously did not inherit the tall gene from my hubby and I, though she could surprise us later on. There is almost 1 ft difference in height between them.

Our middle daughter wanted to be Pippi Longstocking. This was actually very easy as well. All I had to purchase was orange hair spray and an old dress from goodwill. Total cost of her costume: $9 (dress at goodwill was $6!! expensive. ugh.). I measured where her knees were and cut it just above that. The blue shirt is her brother's, we already had the tights, socks and boots. Her freckles are my eye liner. And the wire for her hair I already had from making beaded Christmas ornaments.

For the patches, I took out a few things from our own goodwill donation bag and cut them up. I sewed each patch on with 4 small stitches as well. I think she wants to wear the dress again, so the patches are easily removed.

Her hair wasn't that hard at all actually. I bent a long piece of wire to the shape of her head, and slipped the ends through her pig tails. Essentially I had 3 pieces of wire in each pony tail so each group of hair that I braided was nice and stiff, each pig tail got one of those bent in half pieces. I cut off the longer ends with with nail clippers. The extra wire helps keep the braids really stiff.

Please excuse the crude model, lol. You can see the middle piece of wire, that is the end of the piece that was shaped to her head. I took a longer piece, bent it in half and twisted it around the center wire. Then I slipped the extra pieces in the pony tail. The elastic around the hair helped to anchor the twisted wire so it wouldn't fall through the pony tail.





Next came the hairspray...self explanatory!



I loved all the costumes! I had a lot of fun making them, and I love being crafty, so that made this even more fun.