Tea Party 1st Birthday - On A Budget

This weekend we celebrated my little girl's 1st birthday with a homemade tea party.  I'd seen some amazing parties on other blogs, but wanted to come up with my own style, make the stuff myself AND still pull together the whole thing for under $75.  Yes, welcome to Crazyville, population: me.

I am still sane enough to state what I hope is obvious: this took time to put together.  Usually when you see a jawdroppingly gorgeous party they leave out the part they were up until 3am for a week making it and that it still cost a bunch.  I've got 3 kids at home and limited time & money, but by starting to gather supplies and make the crafty bits little by little in advance (when I had 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there, etc.), I was able to do all this stuff at a reasonable pace.  It made the actual day a lot less stressful and I got to bed before midnight.   So enough boring talk, let's roll out the party!!

To start, I made these teapot invites using my Cricut & Sure Cuts A Lot software several weeks ago.  You can read more about them here.

Here's a little tour of the actual party:

I used yardage of cotton fabrics for the table & cart coverings (bought on sale for under $2.50/yd), so they could be reused or made into sewing projects later.  The pink flowers were silk ones I use to decorate in the house in the spring.  All the trays, glassware, china plates & teapots were things I already had, but went together easily.

I made a gift bag with some of my favorite print papers & spare ribbon:

Birthday banner made with my Cricut, SCAL & some ribbon:

To hold the banner, we used conduit pipe wrapped in crepe paper (credit to my husband for that idea) and topped with these little doodads:

I made little tea sandwiches and used my Cricut to cut out little teapot signs for the refreshments to tie them to the theme.

Since it's a tea party, even though it was 90 degrees, we had to have tea!

And several kinds of treats.  Like this cookie cone (made with the tutorial from Prudent Baby):

Cupcakes with matching wrappers (using the Cricut & SCAL):

And of course a cake made with my personal favorite, modeling chocolate:

How did she like her first taste of cake? Let's see how she started (wearing her last minute added DIY teapot party hat, of course):

And this is where she ended up:

And her "What?!  Haven't you ever seen anyone enjoying their cake before?!"

And the birthday girl had to have a tea dress, so I'd made this for her to wear (which had to be changed moments after the cake photos:

In addition to getting some wonderful gifts (including several gorgeous handmade ones from my crafty aunt), she finally saw the quilt I made for her in this post:

We even got a somewhat decent picture of us together (where Mommy doesn't look quite as exhausted as she feels):

Would I want to do this for every birthday?  Ummmm, no.  But for a memorable first birthday, for my last baby, it was definitely worth it!

Sharing this with my fave link parties too so check them out here!

An August Craftastic Monday Link Party

So much to post about, but so short on time!  We just celebrated my little girl's 1st birthday, so I am BEAT!!  The good news is as a result, I have loads of crafty goodness to share this week.  Remember that the Craftastic Birthday Link Party will be open until 11:59pm on Tuesday, so there's still time to link up all your great brithday-themed crafts.  Just click here to get to the party page.

We had over 100 links again last week.  Woo-hoo!  Let's see some of the fun goodies that were shared:

Tricia from Leafy Treetop Spot has some fabulous ideas & crafting advice for making these adorable booties from faux leather.  As a vegetarian with a baby (and therefore in need of good non-leather shoe options), this was a real find!

Elisabeth at Twelve Crafts Till Christmas shared the first part of her doll bassinet tutorial.  My daughter got a few baby dolls for her birthday, so this is also perfect timing!

 

Check this adorable little guy that Heather at Dragonfly Designs made using the modeling chocolate info from CraftShare here at Sew Can Do (I'm so honored!!):

Ok crafting superstars I want to see what you have got for us!  If you've created something fun (sewing, baking, decorating, papercraft or anything else crafty), link on up! The rules are simple:

• As long as it's crafty and made by you it's Craftastic. Just add the link to your specific post (not the main page of your blog).
• Include the name of your Craftastic creation, your blog name & a pic of your project.
• Grab my party button & put it on your post or blog to share the party with everyone.
• Check out some of the other great links and share some crafty comment love.

This party is for sharing your own fun craft ideas & homemade projects (not promoting products), so please no giveaways, linking up another party, Etsy shops or online stores.

I leave the party open until 12pm EST Thursday. As usual, at the end of the week I'll be featuring some of my favorite links, so please remember to add the Craftastic party button to your post or blog so I can consider featuring your project:

<a href="http://sewcando.blogspot.com"><img src="

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac133/cerise422/sewcandoPARTYbuttonworking.jpg"/></a>

Mixing & Matching Patterns

I love little matching sets, but since it's rare for me to find a single store pattern that has exactly what I want, I usually cobble together my own, like this one I made a few weeks ago:

The top is a fabulous free pattern called the Gymboree Top courtesy of Kristen over at Fiddlehead.  A few of you longtime readers may remember I made a few of these a year ago just before my daughter was born, so she could wear them as dresses:

They STILL fit!! And making them is fast & easy, so it's a definite favorite.

For the bottoms, I used a vintage diaper cover pattern from the 80s (man, does saying that make me feel about 100 yrs old!).  It was Simplicity 7109 circa 1985 (later patterns with this # are for something completely different). My mom gave me a ginormous box full of old patterns she had & this was one of them.  There were loads of good ones, so I won't be short of projects for a while.  I loved how they snap up both sides:

It's fully lined with the same fabric, was pretty easy to make and fits great over a cloth diaper too:

Fun little ensemble with free patterns - can't go wrong!

Sharing this with my fave link parties too so check them out here!

Craftastic Monday Keeps Partying On

I wanted to start off this week by saying thanks for all the positive feedback on my Re-Tee Dress Tutorial.  It's great hearing how many of you are planning to try it and all the sweet comments on my little model.  I'm constantly amazed at how well she poses & tolerates putting on all my crafting designs.  She's definitely my best creation of the past year:)

Lately I've been racking up the crafting hours getting ready for my little girl's 1st birthday this weekend, coming up with some fun, new hat designs for my Etsy shop & trying to get set for the new homeschooling year to start in September.  Lots of fun, but it's definitely work too!  Stay tuned for upcoming posts on all of these very soon:)

Last week's party really showed a lot of creative ideas from scratch.  Here are a few that I thought rocked the party:

Nikki over at Mums Notebook had the great idea to take a mannequin pincushion & her fabric scraps and let her daughters play with them to make their own fashion creations.  I would have spent HOURS playing with this as a kid:

I just love this gorgeous card by Jingle of Just Jingle.  The colors, the 3D design, the cute words, the butterflies - ohhhhh so pretty:

And this clever door decor made from foam circles, ribbon & flowers by Ashley of No Apology Crafts.  Summer's almost over (can you believe it?!?), so I'm loving thrifty & pretty fall decor like this:

Ok crafting superstars I want to see what you have got for us!  If you've created something fun (sewing, baking, decorating, papercraft or anything else crafty), link on up! The rules are simple:

• As long as it's crafty and made by you it's Craftastic. Just add the link to your specific post (not the main page of your blog).
• Include the name of your Craftastic creation, your blog name & a pic of your project.
• Grab my party button & put it on your post or blog to share the party with everyone.
• Check out some of the other great links and share some crafty comment love.

This party is for sharing your own fun craft ideas & homemade projects (not promoting products), so please no giveaways, linking up another party, Etsy shops or online stores.

I leave the party open until 12pm EST Thursday. As usual, at the end of the week I'll be featuring some of my favorite links, so please remember to add the Craftastic party button to your post or blog so I can consider featuring your project:

<a href="http://sewcando.blogspot.com"><img src="

http://i893.photobucket.com/albums/ac133/cerise422/sewcandoPARTYbuttonworking.jpg"/></a>

The Re-Tee Dress Tutorial

Before summer ends I wanted to show my new favorite DIY baby dress.  I call it the Re-Tee Dress.  Why?  Because it's made with an old t-shirt & just a 1/4yd of cute fabric.  Recycling at its finest!!  It's super easy, oh-so-cheap to make and looks very cute on.  So here's how to do it:

You'll need:
1/4 yd of cotton fabric for under 12 months, 1/3 yd for under 24 months, 1/2yd for older
1 old t-shirt or onesie
1/2 yd Decorative elastic (or stretchy ribbon)
The usual sewing notions (measuring tape, iron, scissors, pins, marking pen, etc.)

Step 1 - First you'll need to make the stretchy top part.  If you've already got a onesie or t-shirt that fits baby, cut the body section into two strips, lengthwise, that are each 4 inches high & skip to the next step.

If you're using a larger t-shirt (I used an old one of my husband's), measure baby's chest area all the way around, add 1 inch for seam allowance and then cut two large rectangles from the t-shirt that are that long and 4 inches high.  Fold them in half like this, right sides together and stitch down the open width side so you have two tube-like pieces:

I then cut trim the raw edges with pinking shears so they look pretty & won't fray.

Step 2 - Take your 1/4 yd of fabric and with right sides together fold the same way, with the selvedges meeting and sew them together with a 1inch seam allowance like this:

Press the seam open & topstitch if desired.

Step 3 - From the elastic/ribbon, cut your two shoulder straps.  7.5 inches long works for around 6-12 mos, adjust length as needed depending on size/age.

Step 4 - Take the tee-shirt tubes and put them right sides together & lining up the seams so that they are meeting in the middle of the back.  Sandwich your elastic in between the right sides about 2 inches in from the side edges of the tubes and pin like this:

Since the elastic is in the middle of the fabric layers and wrapping from one side to the other it should look like this on the unpinned end:

Sew 1/2 inch seam allowance all the way around the pinned end of the  "tube" so both fabric & the straps are all stitched together.   When you open it up it should look like this:

Step 5 -  About 3/8 inch from the raw edge of the top of your skirt piece, do a baste stitch (**if your print is directional make sure you are basting the right end!!).  Pull the threads to gather like this:

Step 6 - Insert your skirt piece into the tube so that both raw edges meet.  Make sure that the back seams of both pieces line up and pin all the way around, adjusting the gathers as necessary:

Step 7 - Carefully stitch 1/2 inch seam allowance all the way around, removing the pins as you go:

Flip right side out & press seam downward.

Step 8 - Fold up the raw edge of bottom of the skirt and press fold with iron.  Fold over again as much as desired for the hem length and then stitch in place.  I left mine long so it would be a sundress style.  Now you're done!

TA-DA!!  A cute & comfy little dress with little cost but a lot of style!!

 Sharing this with my fave link parties too so check them out here!