The tale of the three princess dresses

Once upon a time, three little girls were invited to a princess party. Alas, they had no princess dresses to wear to this princess party. So a good fairy decided to try and make some dresses for these three little girls. The good fairy only had 3 days to make these dresses, and so she raided her stash for some suitable fabrics and trimmings, and got to work. Many doubts entered the good fairy's mind as she worked on the dresses - how was she ever going to get them finished on time. However, luck was on the good fairy's side, and with a few hours to spare, the dresses were completed. 

Pattern: Princess Dress from Little Lizard King

 And the princesses lived happily ever after ;-)

A quick crafty overview of the past few months...

I've been suffering from crafting ADD the last few months - I start a project, only to stop and start another one, and so on and so on. Plus the baby creating and working and two other little boys have left little time/energy for finishing things. And then there is the whole taking photos/blogging of the actual finished projects :-) But here are a few things I have been able to finish:

A baby girl outfit for a friend's baby shower. This is a combination of the Little Lizard King "Elizabeth Claire" pattern, a scalloped skirt tutorial and the "Diaper Cover" pattern from MADE.

A card to go with the baby outfit:

Toys for my boys - This is the Kinder Boys pattern by Ric-Rac (I haven't quite finished all the clothes for these yet...)

A MiniHoot using this tutorial

My youngest son's 2nd Birthday Cake (from Australian Womens' Weekly Childrens Cake Book)

3 zippered hoodies for my eldest son using Burda 9822

And the occasional card making - this is the mothers day card I made for my mum and mum-in-law.

Christmas Goodies

Warning: Picture heavy post...

So here's what "Santa" made for Christmas this year for some of the family members...

Top and skirt set for a 4 year old - the buttons and ribbon I used for trimming were actually from Stampin' Up (The free Ice-Cream Parlour bundle that came free during the year)

Ballet Neck Toddler dress from the "One-Yard Wonders" book - I made two of these for my 5 and 6 year old nieces:

Top and skirt - I can't find the tutorial I used for the skirt, but its very similar to this skirt here.

Shorts made from the Champion Cargos pattern by Make It Perfect:

The Junebug Dress by Craftiness is Not Optional:

A Mommy and Mia Apron from Sew Much Ado for my sister:

Kids Messenger Bag from One Yard Wonders:

A freezer-paper stencilled shirt for my brother:

And some Stick By Me goodies...

This one is a tile bought from Bunnings which I've stamped with Staz On in and Fifth Avenue Floral stamps from Stampin' Up. I had to be so careful not to smudge, but I'm really happy with how it turned out :-)

And a block set with the Stick by Me stickers:

And the biggest thing I learned from all this... if you want a handmade Christmas, you probably have to start in June! :-)

Birthday presents for the nieces

In the lead up to Christmas we have several family birthdays as well (from the end of November to the beginning of February we have 12 family birthdays from both sides). Here's what I made for the three nieces birthdays.

This first one was for a 4 year old. I found some shirts on clearance at Target for $2.86 (I bought some for my husband as well :-D), and intended to make a Shirt dress from MADE. However the material was a slightly thicker polyester and when I tried to make the shirred Shirt Dress the fabric didn't shirr that well. So I made a simple skirt instead, and took the pocket from the shirt to applique onto a plain white t-shirt. I've sewed up the buttons on the front of the skirt for modesty reasons :-) and added a broderie anglaise border to make the skirt a little more girly. The felt flower is cut out using the Big Shot.

The next set was for my little 1 year old niece. Its a simple shirred shirt and pair of shorts. I added a ruffle to the shorts to make them more girly.

The last dress was made using Simplicity 2320. One of my 6 year old nieces had been asking her mum for a "rainbow" dress, and I had this material left over from a trolley cover my mum made for me. I think it fits the bill of a "rainbow" dress :-)

Getting ready for Sunday :-)

My boys needed new shirts for church, and after searching for an inexpensive white shirt for my eldest son I decided to face my fears of sewing a button-up white shirt and actually give it a go. (I've been having issues with my automatic button-hole foot... ending up with buttonholes that are way too big for the button and lots of unpicking...) And to my surprise, it turned out really well :-)

Then I tried making a tie using the toddler tie tutorial from Lil' Blue Boo. And things didn't go so well with that. As you can see, its a bit too long for my boy, I used an interfacing that was a little too thick so the tie is really stiff, and I didn't hand sew the top (I did the elastic version) so now the tie has pulled out from under the knot. Oh well. It only took me about an hour or so from start to finish to make the tie so I know what to do next time :-)

And for son No 2 I appliqued some tie shapes onto onesies - the easiest way to wear a tie :-)

Make it Perfect Afterglow shirt

Sorry its been so long since posts! I've been so busy crafting (and with life in general) that I haven't had time to blog!

Anyway, one of my nieces recently celebrated her 5th birthday. I had been eyeing off the Afterglow pattern from Make It Perfect for a while and luckily The Oz Material Girls had it on sale! I found some material from my stash (I'm pretty sure my mum had used the same material to make one of my sister's a dress when she was only about 3 or 4 :-D), and voila!

The pleated detail is a bit hard to see in this photo (sorry, it was taken in the afternoon of the night before the birthday...). I shortened the pattern to shirt length, and added a pleated frill on the bottom. Below is the picture from the front of the Afterglow pattern so you can see the pleating around the neckline a bit better - I think mine turned out ok :-)

Hope the birthday girl liked it!

A present for my niece

I've been bitten by the sewing bug in a big way lately. (I've borrowed my mum's overlocker which is helping!) One of my nieces is turning 3 in a couple of weeks, and the dress I had bought her turned out to be too short. So I decided that I could probably make one. I found this pattern from MADE and thought it looked easy enough to do quickly in the limited time I get for sewing. I'm so glad I did. The pattern explains shirring so well that I've become a little addicted to it because of its ease and how effective it looks. For the bodice I cheated and bought a girls t-shirt from Target ($4 on sale) and sewed the shirred dress onto it. Then added a couple of yo-yo's and buttons and a row of broderie anglaise to the hem. I'm so glad with the way it turned out. I hope my niece likes it too!