Best of 2011

 

 1. The Bapron! Definitely the most popular post of the year. 2. Another guest post for Riley Blake! 3. The easiest (and most impressive-for-time-spent) ruffle cake! 4. Ric Rac flowers. 5. Scrappy keychains. 6. Vintage Heirloom Dress. (plus, Charlotte starts walking!) 7. Pleated Headbands. 8. Charlotte's button birthday dress. 9. Sadie's Jolly Holiday dress. 10. Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake Bars. 11. The Lovebird Tunic. 12. Felt Flowers. 13. Outfit a Day posts. 14. Jewelry making extravaganza! 15. Embellished cardigan. 16. Lots o' thrifting!

Man, 2011 was a busy year for me! You too? Weird, it's like everyone has a life or something...

I rounded up some of my favorite posts of the year, nothing special, just some of my favorite projects. What are you doing for New Years Eve? We're hunkering down at home, since Rory caught our flu bug a few days late. How rude of it to be late. It ruined our plans with friends, but oh well. 

Sadly it also ruined my plans to sew this week, but I've still got some fun things to share with ya, like a few-weeks-old outfit post and some new jewelry, plus a gift or two.

Like, did you hear that Project Run and Play is doing their pattern remix challenge with my Junebug dress pattern?! I am so, so honored, and excited to see the designs! They are having a sew along contest for readers, also!  I'm also doing a guest post for them coming up soon. Hopefully I'll have more time to sew this coming week, though I did get a circle skirt made for me, so it wasn't a total loss. :D 

Happy New Year!

Shabby Apple review and giveaway! plus a discount code!

***This giveaway is now closed. See the winner below!***

Hey, all! I thought I'd come out of hibernation (aka the whole family has been out for the count with a cold/stomach bug since Christmas) to give you guys (well, one of you!) a late Christmas gift: a fabulous giveaway from Shabby Apple!

They sent me a Waimea dress to review and I love it! The fit is great, and it cinches in on my (non existent) waist nicely...plus it's really comfy! I didn't even change out of it after church, and that's saying a lot!

 

Obviously I haven't gotten adventurous with how it's styled, but it's nice that it holds it's own as a dress...plus it needs no tanks or cardigans to keep it  modest. Gotta love that!  The dark navy did catch some lint, but not too much, and next time I'll definitely wear a slip...but other than that, I am sold. So happy to be a Shabby Apple-wearing gal!


Now how's about a chance to win your own Waimea dress? Sah-weet, cause that's why I'm writing this post.

To enter:

Mandatory Entry: Visit Shabby Apple on Facebook and "Like" them! Then come back here and let me know you did so!

Additional Entry: Look around Shabby Apple's site and pick out your favorite dress (or top 3, 10, 20...whatever!), then come back to this post and leave a comment!

(also please leave an email address with at least one of your entries so I can let you know if you win!)

I'll pick a winner New Years Day! Er...Jan 4th. Good luck!

The winner is.....Tina!

Nativity

I know, I know...I'm supposed to be taking a break. (I did say "more or less", but I digress) I had to show you guys this little Graham cracker Nativity that I made-usually I do a little cottage/country scene, and so when I announced something else was in the works there were audible gasps from almost everyone in the room.

SHOCKING.

Anyway, I had so much fun making this little scene, and thanks to my mom for buying the colored tootsie rolls, they made it so much easier! (I nuked them in the microwave for a few seconds at a time to make them more pliable.)

I think the kings were my favorites to make!

I first saw the idea on Pinterest, here is the original post. 

I wish I'd thought to get coconut and dye it yellow for hay, but alas I didn't. So they are literally in the "dirt".

 

Well, just had to pop in and share this, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, again!

Merry Christmas...and a Happy New Year! (and free printable tags)

Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing

  Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting

Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies

 Hey, all! I hope your days to come are Merry and Bright! 

We're gearing up for all the holiday traditions and family time, I can't wait! Also, I've been having a blast in my kitchen baking up some sugary delights...and eating more than my fair share! For our neighbor/friend gifts, I got some yummy peppermint taffy and wrapped it up with a sparkly ribbon and tag! Simple and easy. 

I made a PDF of the tags (minus our last name, of course haha) that you can download right here! Just punch out the tags with a 2" punch or with some scissors, punch a hole, and you're good to go.

So with that, I want to wish you a....

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year!

P.S. I'll be taking a break from blogging (more or less) til the beginning of the year... See ya then! 

S's Christmas dress

So yes, the girls dresses are a lot alike this year. They are both also pretty simple. I had no brain functionality to get anything else done, forgive me. Hopefully my clothing design part of the brain switches back on after the new year!

Sadie's dress has a simple pleated bow around the neckline.

 

She really likes this dress-I pretty much had to pry it off of her body, she wanted to wear it until Christmas. Yeah, that would have ended well. 

 

...and the girls together! awww.

Here's how I made the bow....tie. (har har)

I cut two long strips 3" wide.

Then folded them in half lengthwise and sewed diagonally down one end, then continued sewing down one side.

Turn the strips right side out (I use a chopstick to turn them), and press with an iron.

Then I tied a bow with the ends to figure out where to place it.

Then I pleated the strip around the neckline, pinning each pleat down.

It looked like this. ta dar

Then I sewed down the middle of the pleats, and made sure to back stitch securely a little ways away from the bow. Then you're done! (with that part. I used the Charlotte dress tutorial for this one also!)

I Heart to Sew pattern review and giveaway!

***This giveaway is now closed, see the winner below!***

Have you been to the I Heart to Sew shop yet?

Alisha, the shop owner, has some adorable kids clothing patterns available! She sent me the Little Day Out dress pattern to review for you guys.

I love how it turned out-the fabric makes it a pretty groovy dress. ;)

The pattern pieces were easy to piece together and cut out, the hardest part was choosing fabric. (the things I go through for you guys.) The examples she has are made with the front panel piece being  a coordinating fabric, but I couldn't really find anything I liked, so I stuck with the same fabric all over, except the bodice.

The sizing for me was a little off, I cut out a size 1, planning to make it for Charlotte, but it ended up in Sadie's closet, as you can see. So it's a bit on the big side, but you could compare the pattern pieces to others you have to figure out the size that would work best for you. I like that she includes long and short sleeves in the pattern, also.

Other than that, the dress came along smoothly, the front has pockets-which Sadie loves. Those were a cinch to put in. Until I got to the zipper. She recommends using snaps, but me in all my wisdom decided on a zipper since I had one on hand. That.....thing...took me something like 1.5 hours to get it in correctly. My fault entirely, my seams were probably not exactly the same on the bodice, so it didn't line up perfectly.  Still...grr. Just wanted to vent about that dumb zipper for a sec.

 I lined the pockets with a coordinating scrap I had-a fun little surprise.

 

Alisha is giving away 4 patterns of their choice to one lucky reader! Yay!

To enter:

Have a look around her shop and leave a comment here telling me which is your fav pattern!

Additional entries:

1. Follow the I Heart to Sew blog.

2. "Like" I Heart to Sew on Facebook.

Leave a comment for each, and please leave your email address with each entry! I'll pick a winner Wednesday, Dec 21st!

Good luck!

(tomorrow I have Sadie's Christmas dress ready to post!)

The winner is....Natalie!

jewelry organizer

I found this idea on Pinterest-using a thread organizer for necklaces and rings!  I got it at Joann's-40% off, plus a 20% off total purchase coupon, so it was only $8. Sah-weet! And it fits all my necklaces, and it's so nice to get them off my dresser.

The layered look is only nice when they're not tangled.

outfit a day: fall

So like I said before, these posts will be a bit less frequent-but I am still going to do them! Just not every day...it's a lot of pressure to get dressed every day, you know. ;)

I wore this outfit way back on Thanksgiving-I thought it was very fall-esque! Plus the dress is nice and loose. ;) All the better to hide the food belly, my dear.

Dress: thrifted:-$5
Top: Downeast-$10
Cardi: Target-$15
Shoes: (which you can't see anyways) gift from sis in law-$0
Necklace: Vintage, Etsy-$8
Ring: (which you can't see anyways..lol) Target-$4

Total: $42

I wore this out to the tree farm to get our Christmas tree! yay for Christmas.

Tank: Downeast-$10
Top: thrifted-$4
Belt: thrifted-$3
Jeans: gift from sis-$0
Coat: Old Navy-$20
Boots: Old Navy-$25
Earrings: made by me-$3

Total: $65

weeeird face. Thanks to my sis for taking these pics-isn't it nice to see a background other than my front porch/backyard fence? I agree.

Off to church I go! I wish I had a cute corner like this at our house, luckily my parents house is only a  mile away!

Dress: thrifted-$3
Cardi: Ross-$10
Belt: Target-$15
Shoes: Payless-$12
Ring: Made by me-$2
Earrings: vintage, gift from my bestie-$0

Total: $42

I fell quickly in love with the print on this dress-but when I tried it on and showed my sister, she scoffed because, it was basically a mumu...a huge sack! But then when I told her I would belt it, of course, she still scoffed. (mostly because I was holding my hands in place of a belt...not the best example) 

Anywho, the moral of the story is...buy those (cute printed) sack dresses and either take them in or belt them, cause they can still be cute! I'm thinking this would work up to a certain point for a maternity dress too-just belt it above the belly. (that is NOT an announcement, lol!)

 

Alright, for clarity's sake, let's just say you can be grateful I cropped my mug out of this one. ;)

Tank: Downeast-$10
Top: thrifted-$2
Cardi: thrifted-$5
Jeans: Gift from sis-$0
Scarf: Old navy-Gift from bestie-$0
Jeans: Old Navy-$25
Earrings: Prize for winning One Month to Win it-$0

Total: $42

Excuse the fact that Charlotte looks scared to death of my smooch, and focus on the fun printed scarf! The earrings are stacked flat pearls, which you can't really see in this pic, but they're cute!

I kept wishing for navy heels when I put on this outfit for church, Rory wasn't helpful in commiserating though. Boys.

Top: Downeast-$10
Dress: J Crew, thrifted-$3
Cardi: Old Navy-$8? got it a looong time ago
Belt: thrifted-$2
Shoes: thrifted-$6
Necklace: Etsy-$5 (store is closed now)

Total: $34

I got this pretty little number on the same thrifting trip as when I got the navy blue printed dress above. I had to squeeze into it (pretty sure it's a size smaller than I normally wear, no size tag, but it is J. Crew!) but I made it work. It's sooo worth not breathing properly for 3 hours, right?

C's Christmas dress

***Check out the winner of the Modern Fabric giveaway here!***

Ready for some chubby legged (and cheeked) Charlotte goodness? OH, and her Christmas dress. Yes, I got it done, and although it's fairly simple, I love how it turned out! I really wanted to use red fabric this year, since I'd done green all the other years. (all 2 of them har har)

I went with a simple bodice and embellished it with some big circle flowers!  I also ruffled the skirt piece and sewed it on top of the bodice bottom. I'll show ya how I did those two parts below...for the rest of the dress construction, I basically used the Charlotte dress tutorial!

I haven't decided if I'll make her anything for her hair, lately she's been pulling things out in 5 seconds flat anyways. Maybe I should try some duct tape...

Ahhh this picture is too cute! I'm sorry, but those cheekies? man alive.

Alright, so anyways....here's how I did the circle flowers and skirt!

Oh, and the red fabric is Ruby by Bonnie and Camille for Moda, from my fab sponsor, Lily Bella Fabrics...and the green is from Hancock Fabrics...no manufacturer on the selvage.

I cut out lots and lots of 2" circles. (with my Go Baby...I adore that thing!)

Then, just like the felt version, I folded the circles in quarters.

Then I tacked down just the tip of the folded circle to the center of another circle. (I used my machine but you could hand sew them if you want to watch a movie or are an over achiever or something)

Keep doing that, overlapping the folded circles a bit. I used 6 folded circles on each bottom layer of "petals".

It made a nice fullness. (is that sentence even grammatically correct? Let's move on...)

Then I tacked down another folded circle on top of that layer, and also one across from that one. Fluffed it up, and it looked great! You could add as many as you wanted for maximum fluffiness.

Then I sewed each flower to the bodice by sewing along the edge of the bottom circle.

Tip: If you want 5 flowers like Charlotte's dress, sew them on after sewing sleeves on, that way you won't catch any of the petals in that seam.

For the skirt, I cut a piece 13"x 54" (for a 18-24 mo size) It's folded in half for this picture. Then I serged the top and bottom of the piece.

Then fold the top down about an inch and pressed it with my iron.

Then I sewed two gathering stitches across the top of the skirt piece.

Then I gathered the skirt to fit the bottom of the bodice. I gathered the bottom string a little more than the top, this made it look nice because the top part didn't flop around so much.

Then I top stiched it on the bodice, along the bottom stitch line. Insert your invisible zipper, hem it up, and you're done!