Shirred Sundress

I've been seeing a lot of smocked and shirred sundresses at the store lately and I thought, I bet I could make that. Also, quick note, a lot of stores market an item as being smocked but most of those are really just shirred. I was looking up how to do smocking and not only did it look way too complicated, it didn't really look like the stuff I'd seen at the store either. Anyway, I looked up some tutorials online and it looked way too easy, so I tried it and it really is that easy. First you need to get some elastic thread. Something like this...
Next you need your fabric. I had an old tank top that I never wear anymore, but I still liked the pattern so I decided to make a little girl sundress. To measure, you just take a chest measurement and then do 1 1/2 times that (plus seam allowance) for the width of your fabric. For the length you just measure from arm pit to where ever you want the dress to hit.

I just chopped off the fabric on the bottom half. The nice thing about using this shirt was that the edges and bottom hem were already finished, so I just had to finish the top edge.

After you have the top and bottom hemmed, you just start with your shirring. Take your elastic thread and hand wind it onto your bobbin. Don't pull it tight, just wind it normal. Load the bobbin into your machine. Use normal thread for the top. I picked a contrasting color. You might want to play with the stitching length on a piece of scrap fabric to see what you like best and make sure that the shirring is actually working. Then start sewing straight lines of stitching across the whole bodice of the sundress. Just start at the top...

And work your way down. You can space them out however you want. I just did to the side of the presser foot.

Do as many rows as you want. Obviously you will need more for an adult one than you do for a baby one. I did 10 rows. And Viola!

A shirred sundress! You can leave it like this if you want to. For a young child I decided that the dress needs straps. I kept the hardware from the original top so that I could reuse it on the sundress.

I think that it gives the dress some added interest, but it also serves a useful purpose, because if the child outgrows the strap length but not the dress, you can chop them off and add new ones. I thought that tying ribbon through there and having bows at the shoulders could be cute too.

I used some of the left over material to make straps. Double fold so there are no raw edges.

And sew up the middle.

I just pulled through the loop and sewed the strap to itself. Or you can just sew the straps directly into place on the dress.

And now you have a really cute little dress. And maybe I'm just really vain, but I feel like it looks just as good as the ones you can get from the store.

Homemade Decorating Sugar

This is a really easy way to make your own colored sugar sprinkles for decorating cakes and cookies. Buying the stuff at the store is so expensive, and it's ridiculously easy to do at home. It's so easy I almost didn't make a tutorial for it, but I figured I might as well share just in case you hadn't seen this already. All you need is sugar and food coloring.

Put desired amount of sugar in a bowl or ziplock bag.

Add food coloring one or two drops at a time.

Mix it up.

Keep going until the color is uniform.

And you're done. How easy was that? I was worried that maybe the sugar and food coloring would turn into goop, or that the colors would bleed once you sprinkled them onto your frosted goodies, but it turned out perfectly. Now sprinkle on your favorite baked good. I prefer mini cupcakes, they are cute and little so you can eat as many as you want.

Window Valance Transformation

Repurposing fabric-y things is my favorite way to use my sewing skills. This is a project I completed 2 years ago, but it's been sitting in a box waiting for Ava to grow into it. She has finally started to wear it, so I thought I'd show it off (no one can accuse me of being a show-off, however, as there was nothing to it).

Window valance...

...into skirt!

This is one of my favorite repurposing projects for the following reasons:

1. I bought this window valance on clearance at IKEA for $1.50, because I loved the fabric.
2. I love the fabric. Because it's home-dec weight, it has a fancier feel to it. But it's not too stiff for clothing.
3. The bottom hem of the curtain became the bottom hem of the skirt. Voila! The hem is done.

I didn't take many pics of the creation of this skirt, because it was so simple. I just made a casing for the elastic; left the original, larger curtain rod-casing intact (it's a decorative flourish!); and sewed together the ends of the valance into a back seam.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls

3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate
6 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter
2 cups peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract

In a double boiler, melt chocolate. In a medium bowl, mix together sugar, butter, peanut butter and vanilla. Dough will be loose. Form 1-2 inch balls* from the dough, pressing together so they keep their shape. When all dough is shaped into balls, dip them into the melted chocolate with either a toothpick or fork. Set on wax or parchment paper lined cookie sheet and cool. Makes about 50. Recipe can be halved.

*For hearts, roll out a chunk of dough that has been pressed together to keep its shape and cut out with a cookie cutter.

Oreo Cookie Suckers

16 oz. pkg. Oreo Cookies (I used DoubleStuf)
24 oz. pkg. Plymouth Pantry Almond Bark, could also use chocolate flavor
Decors for decorating
Sucker sticks
Sucker bags and ties

Break up almond bark into smaller chunks and place in microwave-safe bowl.  Melt on high for 60 seconds, stir. Repeat in 15-second increments until smooth and melted, stirring each time. Dip a sucker stick into the melted almond bark. Carefully separate an Oreo (I used a twisting motion to avoid cracking) and press the coated sucker stick into the center of the frosting. Put the cookie back together and press carefully.  Let dry for a few minutes.

Hint: If the cookies crack when you separate them, don't freak out. Just press the cookie back together.  The next step will cover the crack and you won't even notice it.

Hold the cookie by the sucker stick and dip into the melted almond bark, covering both sides. Lay on cookie sheet lined with waxed paper. Sprinkle with decors before it cools and hardens. You can also drizzle a different color of melted almond bark or chocolate from a ziplock bag with a corner cut out. Let the completed suckers set until hardened.  Wrap in sucker bags. Here's the tutorial where I got the idea.

Makes about 33. Enjoy!

Applique Onesies

To make this applique onesie, I started with a plain white onesie. I thought it might be fun to get something a little bit fancier with a ruffle neck, but this was all I could find.

Next, you have to decide what shape you want. I got this shape from the Silhouette digital store. You can also just do a google image search and see what you can find. You just need something you can trace. I used my Silhouette to cut out the shape, but you could just use paper, pencil, and scissors if that's all you have available. Cut out the shape you want to use with paper first and check the size on your onesie to make sure you like it.

Once you have the right size cut out your fabric, and some iron on adhesive interfacing. I used Heat'n Bond.
Then just follow the instructions on the packaging to iron to fabric.

Now, if you're just using pencil and scissors, you can trace your shape onto the interfacing and cut it out. Make sure you do the mirror image of whatever you want to cut out. For most shapes it doesn't matter too much, but for letters, you definitely want to make sure it comes out the right way. If you want to use a die cutting machine, this is how to set it up.

Make sure you cut your fabric a little bigger than the shape you want to cut out. Place the fabric face down on the cutting mat. Using painter's tape, tape the sides of the fabric down so it doesn't move around while cutting. You might want to do a test cut to make sure that you're using a hard enough pressure to cut all the way through the fabric. I actually set it up so that it would double cut the shapes to make sure it got all the corners and details.

Then pull out the shape. You might want to have the scissors handy in case you have to trim a few parts.
Then follow the package instructions to iron the shape onto the onesie. Now, the package says you don't have to sew after the adhesive has been ironed in place, but I don't trust that, and I think the stitching is cute. You can use what ever stitching you want. I used a straight stitch here, and it's not the best since this was my first try. Just go really slow. I think I might try some different stitching next time. Maybe a zigzag or blanket stitch.

And here is the finished product.

How to Design Your Own Blog Background

I like to spice up my blog every once in a while with a new background. There are quite a few websites I've found that I like but I'm always looking for more. I have really specific tastes so I don't always find exactly what I'm looking for. I've also had some problems with spacing, so even if I like the background, the middle part is either too wide or too narrow for the text on my blog. I've started just making my own blog backgrounds. If you have problems with this too or you just want to get creative, you can use this tutorial to design your own blog background.

There are a lot of places out there where you can buy (or sometimes get for free) digital scrapbooking stuff that you can use to design your backgrounds from scratch. Here are just a few websites:

http://freedigitalscrapbooking.com/

http://store.digitalscrapbookplace.com/

You can find a lot more just by searching for "digital scrapbook" on a search engine. If you're not confident in your creativity, lazy, or don't have a lot of time, you can just start off with a blog background someone already made, and then just edit it for your own use. This is what I usually do. My favorite places are:

http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/

http://alliebrownslayouts.blogspot.com/

http://scrappinblogs.blogspot.com/

http://www.shabbyblogs.com/backgrounds.html

For my fall background this year, I started with this background from shabby blogs.

I liked the owl, but I wanted something with leaves too.

Now, one big problem you're going to run into with some websites, is that they protect their backgrounds from being stolen by only giving you a small version of the picture when you click on it. You can get around this by going through that code that they give you to copy and paste into your blog to get the background onto your blog. There will always be a part of the code that says something like "background image". Look for that and then the link right after that will be the link to your image.


Copy and paste the entire link into your web browser and then from there you can right click on the image and save it to your computer.


Next you want to open the image in what ever editing software you are most comfortable with. I use Photoshop. And I'm not even that good with Photoshop so don't be too intimidated.

Now you have to decide what you want to do to your background. I usually add really simple things like foot prints and flowers.

I just search for images online and then save them to my computer. Try to look for clip art, because the back ground is white and they are easier to work with. Once you have the image open in Photoshop you can change the color, size, transparency, etc. You can even use the image as a template to cut out that shape from your background or from another cute pattern and put it onto your background.

Here is an example of changing size and color. I opened the feet in Photoshop and changed the color. You can click on the pictures and make them larger if you want more details on what is going on. I basically just added some blue in the color balance.

Then I made them a bit lighter.

You can use the magic wand tool to select specific things. This is a lot easier than using the lasso tool, you just have to play around with it a bit to get the hang of it. Also you can hold down the shift and alt key to add or subtract to what you've already selected. This makes it so if you make a mistake you don't have to go all the way back to the beginning.

Then just copy and paste into what ever you want.

Then use the free transform operation to make the shape smaller, or tilt it, or move it. You can either press ctrl t, or find it in the tool bar like I've shown here.

And as you can see on this background I've already added some cute little feet on the sides.

Another thing you can do with the shapes you find is use them as a template. Here is an example of this. I started with this cute pattern.

Then I copied and pasted that flower shape over the top of it. Then I selected the outline of the shape.

Now, comes the trick. You have to make sure and select the background, your pattern, as the active layer. Then you copy the selection.

Now you have that cute flower shape, and it's in a cute pattern too.

Now we just have to get the center. I used the replace color function to make the flower the same color as the purple in the pattern.

Then I selected just the middle part.

Copy and paste it on top of the flower and there you go.

Now, back to our fall background. I wanted to add leaves so I just searched for leaves in an image search and these popped up.

I selected parts of the image that I wanted to take over to the background.

I pasted them and then used the free transform tool to move them where I wanted them.

Then I just started adding a bunch of them. I selected different sets of leaves, made some bigger and some smaller, and even erased parts of some of the leaves to give them a faded look and give the background texture.

Next I put the background onto my blog (I'll go into that a little more in a bit), and the white part in the middle was a little too small and the words were spilling over onto the sides. So I opened the background up and added an inch to the width of the canvas.

Now there is some white space to the side.

So I used the free transform tool and scooted the whole right half of the background to the right. This works really well because the middle part is white. If it isn't you can try to patch it up by using the rubber stamp tool or something to fill it in.

And now I have a cute fall background.

Now in order to get the backgrounds onto your blog you need them to have a url, or a web address. If you already have a site to host them, just use that. If not you can open up an account with Photobucket or some similar site. I use Photobucket. Just upload your photos and then copy and past that url into the html code that you're using for your backgrounds. On Photobucket it has a spot that you can just click and it copies the direct link to your clipboard.

If you've never used a special background before and you don't know what I'm talking about, you can click here and read a tutorial on how to put cute backgrounds on your blog.

And that's it. Now you can make custom backgrounds for your blog. When you get really good you can try making them from scratch. Don't forget to make yourself a cute header too. You can use more of the same stuff from your background, or you can do something completely different like I did for my fall header.

And headers are even easier cause you just upload them straight onto your blog.

Good luck and have fun!