1 1/2 Hour Toddler Dress

This cute little dress you see here is another project I finished in time to take to my granddaughter on my latest trip overseas. Notice the sand sculpture on the right side of the photo? My grandson and I created that sand gecko one morning.  I laughed when I came back to the beach later that day and saw that others decided to embellish our creation with a little seaweed on it's head! Now back to this simple dress....

In an hour and a half, I turned a men's button down dress shirt into this cute toddler dress.  Grab a men's shirt and have a little fun dolling it up for your favorite toddler!

Supplies needed:  

1 men's dress shirt

1/3" wide white lace

3" wide lace x 3 1/4 long (for pocket)

Single fold bias tape about 8"

Thread

Pattern:  Holiday Dress by Stitched by Crystal (bodice - add two inches to the length of the bodice).

Cut 10 - 12" from the bottom of the shirt up - depending on the length of your toddler's waist to knee measurement plus 1/2" for the seam allowance. 
1 1/2" x 8" rectangle cut on the bias for the skirt placket

Cutting basics:

Once you have cut the skirt from the bottom of the shirt, cut out the bodice and the lining as follows:

After cutting everything out, you'll embellish the buttonhole placket by adding 1/3" wide white lace, stitching along both edges.  The lace adds a lot of charm to this dress.

Next, pin the 3" wide lace onto the right side of the bodice (the side with the buttonhole placket. Turn all edges except the top under 1/4" to form a nice pocket. Sew the pocket in place next to the edges.  For the bodice sewing details, see Stitched by Crystal's instructions.  

To the top center of the skirt, you'll need to add a placket.  I found a good tutorial on how to do that step at Sew Sweet Patterns.  Once the placket has been added, gather the skirt and pin it onto the bodice.  The skirt placket needs to be lined up with the button placket on one side and the buttonhole packet on the other side.  

Baste the skirt to the bodice.  Once happy with how that looks, trim the seam to around 1/4", restitch this seam with a finishing edge and iron. Hand stitch the bodice lining to the bodice enclosing all the seams inside - which gives you a nice finished look.  

Now, on the outside of the bodice, topstitch 1/4" from the seam's edge.  Guess what, you're finished!  How long did this dress take you from start to finish? 

The best part of making this dress is that it looks like you spent a lot of time creating it, but you didn't because the buttons, buttonholes and skirt seams were already finished for you.
  

Now is all you have to do is sit back and enjoy whatever sun is left in your part of the world!  xoxo Grandma

Linked to: Threading My Way

Dress Into a Romper in 30 Minutes or Less

This sweet little butterfly dress was a hand-me-down from a cousin.  When my daughter asked me to make this little girl some rompers, I remembered seeing a post on turning a dress into a romper at Make It & Love It. I wanted to try my hand at doing the same thing.  The only problem was, I don't own one of those snap attachment tools that you need and didn't want to buy one. I really don't want anymore stuff!  Never fret!  I figured out how to make it without one!  So this tutorial will show you how to make a romper in 30 minutes or less without that tool. 

First you'll cut a semi-circle from the middle bottom of the dress.  Then you'll want to add the ruffle to the legs.  If the hem is wide enough (this one wasn't), simply add elastic the width of the calf plus 1" into the existing hem.  If your hem was only clean finished like this dress, add a casing around an inch above the hem by sewing bias tape, then add the elastic and you'll have cute ruffled legs.

Now, in place of that little snap attachment tool you'll need to purchase some snap tape.  Snap tape is simply tape with the snaps already in place.  How convenient, right?  All I did was finish the edge of the cut semi circle and then sewed the snap tape to that edge.  Make sure the snap tape edges line up so the bottom will snap together properly.  

And that's it. Really. That's it. Pretty simple, eh? Yea for super easy projects!

That's really all there is to this refashion.  In 30 minutes, I had this cute romper to take my granddaughter.  Two weeks my husband and I headed overseas to visit this adorable girl and her family. I got in some grandkid time, and she got some cute new clothes. Win, win.   

Enjoy this simple project!  And if it also leads you somewhere exotic to drop off your finished product, then I'd definitely love to hear about it.  xoxo Grandma

Classic Lace Dress For a Newborn

I just got back from another trip to visit family. This time I got to meet my newest granddaughter and play with her big sister. Before I left on this trip, I made this black lace dress for the new little one.  

Some of you may remember this post about how I made the dress her big sister is wearing in the photos below.  To make this newborn black lace dress, I used all the scraps left over from big sister's dress. Here they are wearing their coordinating dresses. Aren't they lovely? 

For the pattern, I used the free pattern I created from the post, "Gap Knock-off Tie Dress & Ruffle Bloomers" (this post also includes a tutorial on how to make this newborn dress). My daughter requested sleeves be added to this dress, which meant I needed to create a sleeve pattern.  If you'd also like to add sleeves to this simple newborn dress, get your free pattern here.  This dress is super easy to make and so versatile too.  I also added a little slip to the dress and a two inch ruffle using literally all the black polka dot fabric I had left.

I love using this pattern from Made for the diaper covers. Though, I have a recommendation: make the elastic shorter. For this two week old darling, I should have made the waist and leg elastic two inches smaller than the pattern suggested. This baby was over 8 pounds when she was born, but she's thin and long.  My conclusion is it's always such a guessing game figuring out the size to make things for newborn babies.  

Big sister sure loves her little sister.  She's constantly kissing her and saying, "cute baby!"  This grandmother thinks these girls are both pretty cute! Especially in these classy, black lace dresses. -xoxo Grandma

Linked:  USS Crafty

Lions and Tigers and Bears - Oh My, What a Refashion!

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! This was a fun refashion project!  If you'd like to have some fun with old tee shirts, this is the refashion for you. Gather together five old tee shirts: yellow/gold, orange, brown, white and a small piece of black. Or whatever color combination suits you best.  

Next, you'll want to download the free pattern for your lion, tiger and bear here.

Now grab some scissors and cut out around the outside lines of the patterns. Pin the patterns onto the appropriate tee shirt scraps and grab a Clorox bleach pen.

 Follow the instructions found here. Once the design has bleached through the fabric, wash the bleach out with soap and water.  When the fabric has dried, you'll need an orange and brown permanent marker, a paint brush and rubbing alcohol.  Let's start with the lion.  Take the brown permanent marker and lightly outline the lion's details.  Add a little marker for shading around it's ear, nose and tail. 

Now, time to play with your tiger.

Using this technique, you'll draw details onto the tee shirt fabric by adding a little orange and brown ink to the areas as shown above.  Don't laugh, but I drew on my fabric upside down and realized it when I went to add the stripes. It didn't really effect the outcome except I had to re-bleach a couple of the areas.

Use a glue stick and small shapes of black knit fabric which has been cut into tiger stripes.  To make the tiger stripes, just cut a bunch a random shapes that have a point on one end.  Glue the stripes onto the bleached tiger shape using the glue stick. Press the stripes in place.  

Using a really small zig zag stitch, sew the stripes onto the tiger. I fluctuated my zig zag stitch from 1.5 to 2.5 wide.

And here's a close-up of the bear which was bleached right onto the fabric of the bottom layer of the dress:

For the pattern, I used a peasant dress style, Simplicity 2377.

Between the animals, I machine embroidered a leaf design and then the words, "OH MY".  

The brown knit tee shirt I used had a sheer chiffon fabric as an overlay. I used that fabric to make the sleeves. The only thing I changed from the original pattern was to the bodice area. It just hung really baggy on my granddaughter, so I made a casing which allowed me to take that area in with elastic.

The headband was made from 1" stripes of the remaining brown knit tee shirt. I found a good tutorial on how to make it here.

Knit dresses are super comfortable. As we walked around the yard taking photos, I couldn't help myself and chanted to this cutie, "Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!" She's never seen the "Wizard of Oz" movie yet, I'm not sure how a four year old would deal with the wicked witch or the flying monkeys... which really scared her aunts and to this day they hate that movie! What do you think, is she too young for this movie? We'll probably hold off. For now. -xoxo Grandma

Linked to:  USS Crafty, Project Run and Play, Craft Gossip

It All Started With Butterfly Leggings - A Refashion

This project all started when I saw these adorable butterfly footless leggings at the store the other day. Aren't they the cutest thing?  I immediately knew I needed them... or I should say, I immediately knew a certain granddaughter of mine needed them. Once I purchased them, I had visions running through my head of the adorable top I could refashion to wear with these fun leggings. That, of course, lead me to this fun refashion.

A while back, one of my daughters gave me this blue and white women's button up shirt to reuse. It turns out, the colorful butterfly pattern and this cute stripped top coordinated perfectly. Here's how the child's tunic looked after the refashion:

If you'd like to refashion a button-up dress shirt into a girl's tunic, here's how to transform it:

• Cut the sleeves from the shirt.
• Fold the shirt in half
• Cut a new neckline using a shirt that fits the child.

• Cut two, 1 1/4" stripes of fabric.  Sew these together at a diagonal and press.
• Cut down the sleeves to fit your child.
• Sew the sleeves back into place.

• Sew the seam tape around the neck's opening. 
• Topstitch along the bottom of the seam tape.

• For extra pizzazz, cut out a butterfly shape from white fabric.
• Machine embroider the butterfly shaped fabric onto the shirt.

• Draw the embroidery details using a water soluble pen.
• Pull out some embroidery thread and stitch away.  It took me three tries before I got the butterfly to look like I wanted it to.  So don't despair, stitch and unpick if needed.

• Next at the waistline, add a belt loop to each side of the tunic by doing the following:
• Thread three strands of embroidery thread through a needle, pull the thread to the middle and tie the thread so that there are six strands of thread knotted at the end.  

Through the wrong side of the tunic, push the needle into the center of the side seam.  Make a loop that goes loosely around the belt.  Then stitch loop chains all around the thread pulling the thread tight after each loop.   

This is how that belt loop will look before you tie off the threads. The loops keep the belt in place quite nicely.

This belt was also refashioned from one of my old belts.  I cut the length of the belt down to about four inches larger than my granddaughter's waist. Then I reshaped the end of the belt into a new point. Finally, I added five new holes using a hole puncher, called a Crop-a-Dile, which will punch through anything!

Out of the two fall outfits I made for this little girl, this is my personal favorite. 

Of course, this cute girl's favorite part of the outfit was the candy bracelet. Within about 15 minutes of driving us around her new state, when we went to visit last week, she had this bracelet entirely consumed! Oh, how I love this girl! xoxo Grandma

Linked to Straight-Grain, Threading My Way, Creating My Way to Success, Project Run and Play, Totally Tutorials

You also might like these Fall outfits:

Teacher's Pet Dress

Falling For Denim

Designing Boys Shirts

Oh Matilda!