Christmas Dresses

I decided to make Avery's Christmas dress this year.  I bought a pattern and fabric from Joann's.  This would be my first attempt to make clothing from a pattern.  For my bride's maids I  made makeup bags using an Amy Butler pattern (1st time EVER following a pattern).  They turned out well, but it was a little frustrating since I'm a sewing novice and don't understand all the sewing lingo. The dress pattern was a little difficult but I was able to figure it out by looking things up on the web.  I chose a pretty cranberry red taffeta, white ribbon for the waist and a pre-made white ribbon flower to pin to the waist.  I also added a top sheer fabric with gold and reflective specks to the skirt.

 

 

I think it turned out nice if you aren't looking real close.  After Christmas Eve, I had to bust Avery free from the dress!  The zipper had opened below the pull part and so it wouldn't zip down.  Me, Grandma and Papa all tried to get the zipper to budge, but it wouldn't.  Avery was getting more and more upset, so mommy saved the day...I grabbed both sides of the zipper and pulled with all my might.  The zipper broke open and Avery was free.  Not sure I'll fix the zipper.  The dress was only meant for Christmas and soon she'll out grow it.

Another dress! 

I went thrifting for some material to make some dresses etc. for Avery and I found a women's red sweater in nice condition.  An idea popped in my head!  I got the idea from three other crafty ladies from the blog world. FIRST, from Ashley (Make It and Love It) I took inspiration from her tutorial on re-purposing a sweater to a sweater dress found here; SECOND, from Disney (Ruffles and Stuff) I took inspiration from her Winter Wonderland dress that she made for her cutie and THIRD, from Dana (MADE) I took some inspiration from her Turkey Dressing Ruffled Skirt pattern that I had purchased.  And this is what I came up with. . . . .

Happy Girl!

I used a red T-shirt and a white T-shirt to make the bottom tiers of the skirt. Then I added some white chiffon to the white tier to give it some fun feminine fluffiness. (That's fun to say.)  Last I got the idea to use some of the ruffled chiffon and make snowflakes to attach to the front.  Not sure that idea comes across to others when they see it, but I still like it.  This dress was more comfy then her fancy-so-fancy Christmas Eve dress.  For some reason I think I liked this one the best.

Baby Snow Pants

It was a snow day. . . time for a crafty project. 

Avery needs to have her first experience with snow, but she doesn’t have anything waterproof.  That got me thinking, I have some old snowboarding pants that I could cut up!  I just received some really nice “new to me” snowboarding pants from my good friend Allison.  Thanks again Allison! So I didn’t mind cutting up my old ones.

My old snowboarding pants

I used a pair of Avery's sweats for the pattern and just cut it out around the crotch so that I wouldn't have to sew that part.  I sewed it all up in about 45-60 minutes.  I pulled the elastic string out of the old pants and made and elastic waist on the new pants.

Cute little pants

They fit!  Now we have to test them in the next soft snow.

Yay!  I'm proud of my little snow pants.

~Kristie

Mini Me Jersey

My husband and I like to watch a local hockey team play.  We recently purchased jersey's for ourselves and then realized we needed one for our princess. Avery comes to some of the games and needs a jersey too.   They don't sell jerseys small enough for her so I went to the fabric store and bought some fleece and felt in the team colors.  I found a sweatshirt that fits Avery pretty good and used it to make my pattern.  Rod offered to make the patches for the jersey. We designed it to look just like my jersey.  Rod did an amazing job with the details of the front patch.  I think her jersey turned out super cute!  We went to a game last night and got many compliments on it. Oh, and I also made a fleece beanie to match. I added a bow to the front of it so there would be a girlie touch to the outfit.  I tried to design my bow like the super cute hair clips  by Dana from MADE.




Here is Avery's jersey next to mine. 

 

I think we did so good with the details.

She's so suspicious of the camera, once it comes out, the smile goes away.

 

Dress rehearsal.  Had to do some adjustments on the neck,  it turned out a little too wide. I'm still just an amateur in my sewing skills.

Here we are at the game. Fun times and lookn' cute!

~Kristie

Let's give this a try

Soooooo. . . . . I'm going to try this blogging thing.  I had heard about blogs but never really knew what they were or what they were for.  A couple weeks ago I stumbled upon a blog from a mom who is super creative.  I love to be creative and was so inspired by this other mom.  She is a mother of two but finds time to do all these creative projects and post tutorials on them. From there I found all these other moms who do the same and I was addicted to reading their blogs, enjoying their personal stories and inspired by their projects.   So I decided to start my own blog and use it like a diary to document my family and place to post my creative projects.

 My hot husband with his creation.  We have a fun castle block set on our coffee table and this was his first design.

Our daughter and myself