Repurposed skirt

I have been reading a lot of crafty blogs lately and have been so inspired to try out a few things!  The coolest thing I have learned about is that you can repurpose clothing.  I had an old knit shirt that I loved, but didn't fit anymore so I decided to give it a try.  I decided to make a skirt for a little girl out of the shirt. I laid the shirt out and measured 11 inches up the shirt for the length (The length will be more like 9 1/2 inches when finished) and cut across the shirt.  I purposely left 2 inches of shirt under the arms to cut 2-1 inch strips.

Picture #1 is the top of the shirt after I cut the bottom off. Picture #2 is the skirt part that I cut off.  I measured how wide I wanted the skirt and then cut a few inches off of the side. Picture #3 is the 2--1 inch strips (to be used for the gathered bottom)

The next step was to sew a gathering stitch down the middle of each strip. I gathered the first strip to fit on the bottom front of the skirt.  I adjusted and pinned the gathered ruffle how I wanted it.  After I finished the front, I did the same thing to the back.   After the ruffle was finished I pinned the side of the skirt, wrong side out and sewed up the side.


I didn't take a picture of the pinned skirt, but this is what the ruffle looked like
 

I sewed in elastic to make the waistband, and here is the finished product!   My model is in another state so I will have to upload pictures of her wearing it later.

Cherish the Moments

Another digital scrapbook attempt. I love this kit from Shabby Princess.  It is called Sweetie Pie.  Definitely a great choice for scrapbooking my sweetie pie nieces. :)  Fonts are from kevinandamanda.com.

Bandana dress

    I suppose I am like most crafters in that I go through phases of being inspired to create and work on multiple projects and then times where the ideas and inspiration run dry.  Taking my sewing machine out last weekend inspired me to look into and try a few ideas I had seen online.   Today's project is a dress...made out of two bandanas!  Pretty cool, huh?!?  I got the idea from a blog called Trey and Lucy,   She calls it the 15 minute dress.  This dress didn't take me 15 min (more like 40), but that is because I had to rip a seam out--I discovered that the people who sew bandanas don't necessarily sew them straight!  One of them was 1/2 inch longer than the other.  Still it was a very simple project and Tanya's tutorial is great!   

One of the really cool things is that this is a dress for little girls, but turns into a shirt for older girls.  My "model" is a second grader.  I made this (and another matching one) for my nieces who are 2 and 4 and on them it should be a dress.  

Burp Clothes

I have wanted to try making burp clothes using cloth diapers for a while now. I even bought the diapers a while ago, but just haven't had the time. A friend of mine is having a baby shower tomorrow so it was the perfect excuse to get out my sewing machine and give this project a try.

Really easy...I started by measuring the thick part of the cloth diaper and cutting flannel that was about 2 inches larger in length and width. I then folded the cloth under about an inch on each side and pinned. It got a little interesting because the cloth diapers aren't exact in their sizing or necessarily straight on the edges. I then went around and did a zigzag stitch around the edges. Some people add ribbon going down the long side, but I wanted to keep them simple.

The nice thing about these is they are cute, but also very handy :) The cloth diaper is very absorbent for cleaning up spit up and yet the flannel is soft for baby's face.

Ice Cream Digital Scrapbook

I have been practicing using My Digital Studio with photos I never got a chance to scrapbook. The kit I used is called Ice Cream Party from Shabby Miss Jenn.

Digital Hugs and Kisses

I got Stampin' Up's My Digital Studio for Christmas this year. What a fun program! It will take me a while to get used to it and figure out printing pages, so we will see how that goes. Here is my first attempt at a page.