Fairy Friends Knit Fabric Dress

I'm finally sewing more again and it feels so good!  Partly because I need a mental break from everything else right now and partly because it's slim pickings from stores thanks to the 'rona ridiculousness.  Less selection, more hassle filled shopping experiences and smaller budgets mean a lot of us have to get more creative with clothing the kids.  The good news is that it's forced this fabric hoarder to actually turn to my stash more regularly.  Prime example: this Fairy Friends Knit Fabric Dress.

 I'd bought this knit fabric from a custom fabric group called MK Designs a few years ago and had been hoarding it big time.  I just loved the colors & original fairy design and the quality was exquisite.  Finding the right project was hard, as I didn't want to waste any bit of it since it was kind of pricey.  I did a whole post about buying fabric from custom groups here.

I wanted to mix it with a quick sew project to make something for my daughter's 11th birthday.  She's now at the tricky tween stage & size so coming up with the right item was key.  I decided to repeat a pattern hack I'd tried before when I made this Boden Style Dress:

You can see the full how-to in that post, but the gist was I took this knit fabric top pattern, the Provincial Top Pattern by Terra's Treasures (now called New Horizons):

 

And extended it to make an A line dress, made a casing neckline instead of lettuce edge shirring and added longer sleeves with cuffs to turn it into a cute & comfy dress.

  

The elasticized neckline makes it easy to wear and also adds pretty shape to a basic design.  It also means you can totally sew the entire thing on a regular sewing machine using just straight & triple stitches:

I used the patterns biggest size (girl's 10) and the full length of my fabric (which was a yard with a few bonus inches).  Despite this being an incredible, versatile pattern that I've used many times, it doesn't look like Terra offers it anymore:(  Maybe with some requests she will again.  Alternatively, a basic girl's pleasant top pattern could be used.  

Since the original design only had short & 3/4 sleeves, I extended the length.  I'd planned to do an elastic casing for the sleeves to have them gather at the wrists.  Of course I realized after I cut them that I should have factored in the neck to shoulder measurement too, since raglan sleeves include that. Mine were going to be a bit short.  What to do??

I grabbed some rib knit I had (that thankfully was the perfect shade of turquoise) and cut some extra long cuff pieces.  I made them 10 in long by 8 in wide, since my sleeves were 14 inches around.

I folded them in half width-wise and stitched along the long side.

then I folded them length-wise, matching up the raw edge,

then pinned the cuffs and sleeves in quarters to evenly stretch the cuffs enough to stitch them to the sleeves.

It gave a nice gathered effect and, at her current size, she can wear them either extended or fold the cuffs up.

Since I made it below the knee and the dress has a forgiving gathered style, it should fit for quite some time too, so an afternoon's sewing was well worth it. 

Most importantly, it was a great way to finally use this precious fabric and she just loves wearing it.  Big win for this mom! 

DIY Flower Garden Birthday Party

Last week my daughter turned 10, so it was extended family party time.  As my only summer birthday kid, it's hands down the easiest one to host, which means doing themes is more fun (and almost always requested). 

My goal for this party was to make it pretty, but not break my neck.  I was determined to use as much as I already had in the house so I wouldn't have to spend a lot on single use things or have lots more stuff to store.  Amazingly, it actually worked - nearly everything was reused from parties past!

I had a couple of jumbo faux flowers that I'd bought years ago to use for photoshoots for my shops.  They'd just been sitting in the corner of my craft room, so they were perfect to put out as table decor.  I added a few giant tissue paper flowers to fill things in.

Smaller foam roses were from last year's Sewing Themed Birthday.  The beautiful branch and floral frame was from our Fairy Garden Birthday the year before that.  My husband had made it from fallen branches in our backyard to use as a photo booth frame and it had been too beautiful to toss out.  I'm so glad we saved it!! 

Pretty pastel paper straws in a mason jar served as extra functional decorations too:

Some galvanized tins I've used for past parties served as a perfect mini planters.  I added some faux flower stalks and felt dirt. 

I had some mini silicone baking pots that I filled with Raisinets to make edible dirt and threaded some silk flowers onto round suckers to make flowers to "sprout" from them:

At the eleventh hour I decided to make some modeling chocolate roses.  I only had orange candy melts in the house, but it worked out great since there were some orange flowers on the party plates.  

For our lunchtime spread I wanted to keep it easy prep-wise, so we did a sandwich making station.  I already had a flower shaped tray to lay out the meats & cheeses and some nesting flower shaped bowls for the other fixings (which we use all the time for salads & chips).

I made some pasta salad and a fruit salad to complete things.  The healthy foods, meant plenty of room for the treats after.

Our kids love having a birthday piñata, but I didn't have a bunch of piñata-useful materials on hand to DIY one.  I found this flower one on Amazon that was fairly inexpensive.

It held up great - the birthday girl, plus 4 teens got to give it some good whacks before all the candy fell out:

I worked with our local bakery to design this beautiful flower basket cake to go with everything else I'd put together.  They've always done a great job on cakes and everyone loved all the delicious frosting flowers and the faux basket sides.

 Apart from the cake, candy, paper plates and piñata, everything was a repurpose, which kept things inexpensive and easy, but still turned out beautiful.  My daughter loved her party and already said she thinks she wants another flower garden party next year.  If she does, it'll be even easier next year!  

Looking for more party ideas? 
Check out these past party tours:

   

 

DIY St. Patrick's Day Hair Ribbon Accessory

Today I'm sharing a super simple project for St. Patrick's Day:  DIY Hair Ribbon Band and a recently learned lesson about letting go when life throws your plans out of the window.

I always LOVE the idea holiday themed shirts and outfits for kids, but after so many years as a mom I've realized it's a bit like throwing money out the window.  Holiday clothes rarely fit for more than one year and the seasons for them are so short, you get maybe a couple weeks of wear (if you're on top of the laundry and the kids don't fight you about wearing it a lot) and then boom! It's over and time to pack it up.  

This year especially, with St. Patrick's Day and Easter being less than 2 weeks apart, it feels extra insane.  It's also pricey when you have several kids (I'll soon have 4!).  A hat or hair accessory, however, will last for years, doesn't get outgrown and potentially works for multiple kids over time.  It's also cheaper.   WIN! 

Adding to that, I'm in the final weeks of my 4th pregnancy and there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get to everything I feel needs attention.  Being busier than ever and more worn out than ever is not the ideal combination.  When just going up the stairs is exhausting, you've gotta adjust the priorities.  Lots has been put on hold and I feel really unproductive. 

Yet, despite lofty goals, it's got to be about the easy right now.  I've been trying to do a few simple projects just to give myself some moments of craft enjoyment (and being off my feet), but nothing that stresses me out, takes loads of time to do or takes away from daily needs.

This hair accessory is a way to still have some holiday flair, but only takes a little time to put together.

Materials:
- Assorted ribbons
- St. Patrick's Day Buttons & Charms (these are from my shop HERE) 
- Hair elastic
- Lighter, hot glue gun, scissors, ruler

This set of buttons & charms from my shop made this project really simple. I still had a bunch left to make a second one or to use to embellish something for my guys:

I scrounged my stash for various green and gold trimmed ribbons and cut several to be around 11 inches.  They didn't need to be exact since staggering them looks better:

I ran the cut edges under a lighter to heat seal them to prevent fraying.  I used my open shamrock charms with my thinnest ribbon and looped the ends around them and then put a dab of hot glue to hold them:

To keep the shamrock buttons facing up (instead of turning sideways) I pulled the ribbon upward and put a little more glue between the loop and the button back to keep it straight.

I layered them together and pinch in the center.  To attach them to the hair band, I wrapped a one inch piece of the widest ribbon around the center of the ribbon pile and the hair elastic, rolling it up and leaving a little tail:

I trimmed down the tail and heat sealed it and dabbed a line of glue before I rolled it closed:

Then I glued on my big Happy Saint Patrick's Day button over the seam and the hair band was good to go:

I'm grateful for simple wins like this right now.  I'd anticipated having all our baby stuff ready to go a month ago so I could focus on spending time with the kids and getting to a few long neglected craft projects before life really gets crazy, but my daughter's accident early in the year and other issues threw my whole plan out of whack.  Seeing this project done makes me feel a little more on top of things and at least we've got a hint of the holiday in the house!