Wedding Bells are Ringing Flower Girls. Series #2

100% Linen Flower Girls Dress. This Princess Dress is perfect for a Flower Girl Wedding Dress, Pageant Holiday Dress, Easter Dress, and a Special Dress for her birthday Party or Heavenly keepsake pictures. The bodice is made out of high quality linen with linen under skirt and beautiful Offray ribbon to gather the wrist of the sleeves. Waist sash is ivory cotton. The skirt has 2 layers for additional fullness. The back of the dress has three buttons and a tie sash for a perfect fit at the waist. Absolutely Gorgeous!

The linen was purchased at http://fabrics-store.com in the color of "aluminum" that seems to no longer be available. Maybe try to have it dyed by request?

The pattern is by Olabelhe in "Clara" design available here: http://www.olabelhe.com/shop/Clara.html

This will be a series of items made for the wedding on Dec. 15, 2012 and there will be a free tutorial sometime during the series so check back often to see when it's posted.

Wedding Bells Are Ringing! Series #1

The invite may say 'optional,' but opting for high glamour has always won out. When that really ritzy gala or wedding comes your way, you’ll do well to slip into this chic dress that offers all the classic elements of elegance. To top it off, a rhinestone-buckle belt keeps you dazzling as the toasts mount and the sweets disappear. 

I made this dress for my daughters wedding rehearsal and dinner. The style is retro 60's and made from a ivory woven raw silk, which meant it had to be totally lined to avoid those embarrassing see through moments. Luckily I had an vintage belt buckle in my supplies and was able to make the belt using it. Over all it was a fairly easy dress to fit, at least easier than some others. 

This will be a series of items made for the wedding on Dec. 15, 2012 and there will be a free tutorial sometime during the series so check back often to see when it's posted.

Creating Custom Fabric, Wallpaper and Wall Decals

Have you ever spent days, weeks, months and maybe years searching for the perfect fabric or wall paper? You've wished you could make exactly what you wanted? Well, you can! There is a great little online company called spoonflower.com that makes it all possible. I have used them for a few of my sewing projects by making my own design on fabric. They have several different types of fabrics that you can choose to have your design placed such as, Basic Combed Cotton: Kona® Cotton: Cotton Poplin: Cotton Voile: Cotton Silk: Linen-Cotton Canvas:  Organic Cotton Interlock Knit: Organic Cotton Sateen:  Heavy Cotton Twill: Silk Crepe de Chine. 

At Spoonflower they make it possible for individuals to design, print and sell their own fabric designs. Can you imagine that someone might incorporate your designs in to their own creation or home decor? I have had two of my designs sell to others and am waiting for their results. 

So, how does it work? Easy! Create your design by painting or drawing it by hand on a bleed-resistant paper, then take a digital photograph of it or scan it. (If your design is larger than the scanner, you can scan it section by section.) If you’re Photoshop or Microsoft Publisher-savvy, you can style a design by scratch on the computer or manipulate your previously scanned images to achieve the perfect look.

Upload your design to spoonflower.com.

Select the amount of fabric you will need for your project(s).

Check out and anxiously await the arrival of your new, personalized fabric!

Below are some of my projects I've made using spoonflower.com. Now some of the fabrics below are copyrighted by their companies so I can not sell those. Keep copyrights in mind when making your fabrics. You may not profit from their logos. All of my items below were given as a gift.

Pink & Brown For Baby

This project was made for a friend of my daughters that is due to have her baby girl any day now. They have been such good friends since their college days in Gamma Phi Beta sorority . We went with that friendship theme and had fabric made by spoonflower.com to reflect the sorority badges and colors of the times, The fabric we made into baby shoes, baby burp pads and a coordinating blanket. The blanket is my own design by simply cutting a square and sewing around the edges and then top stitching around the edges for a cleaner, softer look.

Free baby shoes pattern here: http://stardustshoes.blogspot.com/2006/10/cloth-shoe-pattern.html

Free Burp pads pattern here: http://cloud9fabrics.blogspot.com/2010/12/tutorial-contoured-burp-cloths.html

Furniture DIY

Check out zulily! My new favorite shopping place. http://www.zulily.com/invite/sew4my3
I love zulily. Amazing daily deals for moms, babies and kids - up to 90% off! Sign up to see what great products and brands are featured today. So cute!

• 
  Grass Leopard Plus-Size Cowl Neck Dress
  $19.99

  original $89.00
• 
  Black & Cranberry Zigzag Surplice Maxi Dress
  $29.99

  original $115.00
• 
  
  Red & Tan Curving Stripe Ruched Surplice Dress 

  $24.99
  
  
  original $110.00

Graduation Rosette's on Rulers

These were made the night before my son's high school graduation by my daughters and myself. We used the cricut cartridge Ribbons & Rosettes. 

When he did his graduation walk, we yelled and waved these little attention getters in the air. LOL

Anyway, on with the craft. We used black card stock and red card stock (high school colors) on the cricut machine to make the rosettes and circles. We used fabric ribbons in red/black and cream plaid, also solid red and solid black. The stick is a ruler. Some heavy duty glue everything glue (including fingers, clothing, and other unintentional things). 

Gwendolyn copied some of my son's (Nathan) senior pictures on regular printer paper at home.

It took six 3" cutouts of the star design to make one rosette. One 2" circle for the photo to be mounted on and the same for the back of rosette. Make sure you cut the photo slightly smaller so the color of the circle shows a little. Make a total to three 2" circles. I mounted the ribbon in between the circles on the back for a cleaner look.

This project can be done alone but the extra set of hands really helped with keeping everything together so it could be glued.  That's it so give it a whirl!

Company Logo Baby Layette

This is a little layette that I made for one of the employees at my husbands work. I made the baby gown from a t-shirt bearing the company's logo. The baby shoes were made from the sleeves of another work shirt and the burp pads were made using fabric that I had printed at spoonflower.com. All of the items were combined in a small basket and presented to the employee who went absolutely nuts over the items. That really makes you feel good to know that they thoroughly enjoyed the gift!

All of the items were made using FREE patterns listed here:

Baby Booties pattern: 

http://stardustshoes.blogspot.com/2006/10/cloth-shoe-pattern.html

T-Shirt baby gown pattern: http://go.tipjunkie.com/hm/2170/thismamamakesstuff.com/tutorial-rockin-baby-gown-t-shirt-refashion/

Burp Cloth pattern:

 http://cloud9fabrics.blogspot.com/2010/12/tutorial-contoured-burp-cloths.html

I've Got A Notion!

What notion is your favorite and how do you use it?

I really like my hem clips. You know those little metal clips that look something like a clothes pin. I have not only used them to help hold hems in place, but have used them as extra hands for other projects as well. Glueing paper projects that need to be held in place, temporary fittings for garments and to hold patterns to fabric when marking. Gotta love those handy dandy notions!

PAINTING CLASS WITH MY SON