Pillowcase

My little monkey LOVE LOVE LOVES trains... especially Thomas the Train. A few months ago one of his previous babysitters gave us a Thomas the Train comforter. I had also snapped up some Thomas the Train cotton material at Wal-mart around that time too, so of course I had to make him a matching pillowcase.

It was pretty simple, I just cut my material twice the width I wanted the pillow and several inches longer.  With the material wrong side up I folded what would be the open end down and sewed all across.  Then I matched up my open edges and sewed down one side, across the bottom and up the other side.  That was it, just trimmed my seams a little and turned it right side out.  Pretty basic!  

He was pretty excited, he even had to wear his Thomas PJ's for a picture!  :)



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Matching Game v2: Pink and Girly

Had another sweet little 1 year old's birthday party to attend this past weekend. After the fun and cuteness of the flannel matching game for my little friend Jack I was really excited to do a girl version. I already had hot pink flannel on hand as well as some adorable cupcake print flannel I've been just waiting for a chance to use. I made a trip to JoAnne's a few weeks ago in preparation and picked up a few more cute girly prints... although I have to say I had sort of a hard time finding cute girly pink flannel prints... But I found a few I liked. I did also decide to use my pinking shears on the edges instead of fraying them. I think it turned out pretty cute! You can see this post for the boy version and run down on how I made it.

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DIY toddler dress forms

I have been on a hunt for two months or so for some way to display/photograph my tutu's in a more dimensional way. Since I don't have 24 hour access to any baby/toddler girls I have bought countless "roundish" things from St Vincent's and Goodwill and every time I got the item home and put a tutu on it I just didn't like how it looked. This past weekend I started browsing the internet for toddler size mannequin. Needless to say the most economical ones are still more than I want to spend and 2/3 of the cost is shipping!

A quick look on Pinterest for DIY dress forms came up with a lot ideas for using duct tape and an actual person to make a form. And while I do have a toddler boy around the house something makes me think he would not be still enough to make a duct tape shape of him! However I did see one link for a dress form pin cushion that gave me the idea that I could just try to sew my own form.

 First step was a trip to Walmart (love that it's less than 5 minutes from my house and mine carries by the yard material!) for some muslin (2 yards, 3.98). While I was there I also grabbed a bag of stuffing (3.96ish). I didn't need it, but I way overestimated how much I would use and didn't want to deplete my stash at home (definitely wouldn't have). I also ended up grabbing a 18 month onesie on sale for $1.50.

I laid out the muslin folding it in half twice. If it would've been a patterned piece of material I would have had right sides together... I traced half the onsie on (so I would be more likely to end up with mirrored sides) with a disappearing ink pen.

I cut it out while still folded and laid it out flat to pin.

I sewed it leaving about 3 inches open on the bottom, turned it right side out and stuffed it.

At this point I tried a onesie and tutu on it and got really excited, because even though it pretty much just looked like a slightly odd shaped pillow.... it worked almost as well as I wanted it to... now for a base... I happen to live like two blocks from a thrift store so off I went in search of a base. These are the two items I came home with...

For this first dress form I had to go with the glass vase because my bottom opening was not big enough. 

I was excited enough about how it turned out that I made another one up soon after the first. Since I followed no pattern the second one turned out slightly different of course. I left a big enough opening to fit the wooden candle holder in for a base and I actually opted to put some velcro on the hole to help secure it onto the candlestick. I have to go back and do that with the first one, because I like how it works. I can still take the body off the base if I want/need to do something different.

And the finished, dressed products! I think they will work quite well to display some tutus at my next craft show.

I usually party at: Crafty Scrappy Happy