Embellished Onesie...

A few ruffles and buttons and I have the first of many embellished onesies for our little girl. Total cost: $1.80...
Onesie - $1 thrift store purchase
Ruffles - Old t-shirt
Buttons - 80 cents

Even included making a matching flower to clip on a headband.

$4 Ruffled Shirt

So I only managed to take a cell phone pic of this, but it'll do.

A short little tutorial would go something like this...
I grabbed a $4 t-shirt from Wal-Mart and an old grey shirt from my closet that never gets worn. I cut the old shirt into 4 strips, the length of the shoulder to the hem. I needed 4 since there are two making the "U." A man's t-shirt would work much better.
Gather the strips using either the basting stitch way, or my cheater way, and then place the ruffles where you'd like, making sure to follow the seam line of the shirt.
I did take the Wal-Mart shirt in AFTER I sewed on the ruffles causing them to separate...mistake. So note to self, take in the shirt before if needed.

Dress Make-Over

I found this dress at Target a couple weeks ago on sale for $9.98, marked down from $40! I could not pass this deal up, even if it was a size too big and little too short. It was just so darn cute!

Before (w/ my doggie in the background)

I immediately knew I wanted a ruffle to lengthen the dress, but all I could picture in my head was a pleated hem, so I got to work.
I was really excited about trying to make a pleated hem, because I always wanted something like this around the bottom of my wedding dress, but never found one.

I took in both sides, and ripped out the existing hem. I then hemmed the blue fabric first before ironing and sewing in the pleats. And just an FYI that I am SO glad I thought of before sewing anything together. I washed my blue fabric because I had an inkling that it would bleed. Boy did it bleed, the sink looked like grape kool-aid!

Once the pleats were in place I attached them to the dress using the old hem as a reference point.
I was saving this dress for church this weekend because I thought it looked very patriotic, and I am so excited about the way it turned out. The pleats give it almost a 40's look, which works great since I love anything vintage.
For the patriotic touch, I threw together a button bracelet that I will post another time.

After

Fabric Phone Case

Out of necessity comes creativity...that was the case for this project.
I get tired of all of the music on my IPod so I usually just listen to Pandora on my phone. I had an old IPod holder for running, but I needed something for my phone that I could strap on my arm when I go for a run or walk the dog. Since I still had the IPod case with elastic strap, I only needed something to hold the phone.

This was also my first attempt quilting, and tried for a chevron design. It's a little wobbly, but not too bad for a first try.

Here are a few pics of the process...
*(on a side note, I'm really NOT a Lakers fan...but the shirt was cheap, comfy and vintage looking with Magic Johnson's name and number on the back, so I bought it and wear it around the house).

Another Shirt Refashion

I came home from work the other night tired of wearing the same old thing. My friend was recently in a wedding in Hawaii, (so jealous!) and her bridesmaid dress had this awesome pleated collar. I decided to re-create the collar on one of my many plain shirts I wear to work.

I have never been a fan of this shirt. The supposed V-Neck was always stretched and wonky when I put it on. It always managed to show bra straps no matter what tank I put on underneath, and lately when it has been worn, the neckline has been hidden behind cardigans and scarves. It was time for a change.

The update was actually much simpler than I anticipated. After cutting a strip of fabric about 2" by 40" I began to pin and overlap the fabric about every 1 and 1/2 inches. With all of the pins in place I sewed one seam down the middle, making sure to grab the shirt, and a seam on each of the shoulders to tack down the green fabric.
Since the fabric frays really bad I used a lighter to seal in all of the edges.
I also trimmed up some of the pleats that were poking out.
I absolutely love the new neckline and for FREE I have a new awesome shirt to wear to work...and lots of other places.

Rouched Sleeve Tutorial

I bought this shirt last year, and after one wash, it went from long-sleeves to awkward-sleeves. I have tried to wear it a couple more times by either pushing or rolling the sleeves up to more of a 3/4 length, but the material stretches and by the end of the day they are falling down.

I have seen a lot of rouched-sleeve cardigans and thought it would be an excellent fix to my very awkward length sleeves. This fix seriously took less than 20 minutes and was super easy. Tutorial below, for those of you who have had the same problem as me.

Such a horrible look!

First I was going to lay the sleeves out and get an exact measurement of the center, but then thought, what the heck, I'm free handing this. I threw on the shirt and with a piece of white sidewalk chalk drew a line from the shoulder seam down the center of my arm on both sides.

I then started from the opening near the shoulder (I started at the wrist on the first sleeve and it gave me some problems) and put in a few stitches to start.
To gather the fabric I made sure the needle was down and raised the presser foot. Once raised I would take 2 to 3 inches of fabric and push it in towards the needle and put the presser foot back down and sew. As soon I stitched down the scrunched up fabric I would raise the foot and repeat.
Here are a few pics of the finished product, this shirt will be getting a lot more use this summer.

My husband accidentally took this picture before changing the settings on the camera. I liked the washed out look though because it showed the detailing of the sleeve.

***I'll be linking this tutorial up at *These Parties*

Hand-Crafted Christmas: Checkbook Covers

Here is part two of my "made from the heart" gifts, haha. My mom really wanted a new checkbook cover once she saw the one I made, so I figured, hey I'll make them for both moms. Again this was one of my first attempts at ruffling, and I never realized you were supposed to pull out the basting stitch when you were done. Oh well, hopefully no one will look too close!



A definite benefit of my Hubby working at a bank is that he was able to snag me a couple of those plastic checkbook covers for me to cut apart.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Hand-Crafted Christmas: Sunglasses Case

So here is part one of the intense (well at least for me) sewing I did while I was unemployed. Because of the unemployment issue I decided to make as many gifts as possible. I took the sunglasses case idea from this awesome tutorial over at My Blond Ambitions and made a couple for sunglasses and two smaller versions for reading glasses. My mom and sister gave me these really cute tags that have my name on them and I finally got to put them to good use! These little pouches also gave me the chance to finally try making a ruffle. I have been so intimidated by ruffles that I have refused to try and instead would pawn off the task to my mother. I really don't know what I was so terrified about, yes they take time, but they aren't nearly as challenging as I made them out to be.

The details

Head Warmer Re-Do

My husband and I went skiing/snowboarding this weekend and since it was going to be sunny and in the 50's I wanted to wear just an ear-warmer rather than a hat. The only ear-warmer headband thing I had was white and blue and didn't fit well. Apparently I have a small head, cause a really cute hat at Target didn't fit my head either.
Anyways, I grabbed a brown sweater out of my closet that hasn't been worn since '06 and got to work. I began by ripping out 6...SIX different seams on the original head warmer. I guess Old Navy wanted to make sure that thing lasted.

I then lined it with the brown soft sweater material and threw a flower on the front. I really like the crochet head warmers out there, but this was my free version.

The little leaf things got all crumpled from my goggles.

Yep, that's my hubby.