$1.80 Polka Dot Dress Refashion

I found this woman's shirt on clearance at Kohl's last summer for $1.80, yes, you read that right, $1.80. Even though there was no way I could ever wear this shirt, I am just to old and not skinny enough, I knew I could refashion it into a dress for my daughter and who can pass up a dress for $1.80, not me that is for sure.

This was a fairly straight forward refashion and could really be done with any t-shirt you have, First off, this shirt had a shelf bra sewn in which my daughter didn't need so I cut that out. Then I marked along the side seams where I wanted to take in the dress a little. After cutting along the line, I pinned the sides together and sewed up the seams.

Then I cut along off the scooped neck and straps creating a straight edge at the top. Fold over a 1/4 inch and sewn creating a finished edge.

After sewing the finished edge, I noticed that the fabric had stretched slightly and just didn't look right so I decided to shir the top edge of the dress a little bit to match the existing shirring below. You could put in as much shirring as you want, I only did 2 rows.

For the sleeves, I had wanted to reuse the spaghetti straps that were originally on the dress however I am not  a huge fan of little girls in spaghetti straps, it just looks to grown up to me and when pinned in place it just didn't grab me so I decided to make a little ruffle sleeve using the fabric from shelf bra I had cut out of the top. The ruffle sleeve was cut out in a half circle, making sure to cut it larger than I needed because the shirring along the sleeve will bunch up making it a smaller. I shirred 2 rows along the flat edge of the sleeve and then pinned these sleeves to the top of the dress with the curved edges facing out.

At this point the construction of the dress was done, you could leave it this way and the dress would be cute. I however couldn't leave well enough alone and decided I needed to spruce it up. Out came my favorite crafting tool, the Silhouette craft cutter and some heat set vinyl. You could really do anything to spruce it up, I thought flowers along the bottom would be cute, but in the end polka dots won out, I just love them.

I wasn't able to get my daughter to model it for me, she was asleep but I bet a million dollars she asks if she can wear it to school tomorrow. Fine by me sweetheart, fine by me.

Please feel free to link to my posts but please do not repost pictures of my children, thank you.

Ballerina Tutu Bag

A few years ago a friend of mine was telling me about a bag she saw at one of her daughter Maya's ballet classes and after describing it to me she asked if I thought I could make it. I thought sure, I wish I had been able to look at the bag in person to get a better idea of what I would be making but she told me it was a bag that essentially looked like a little ballerina leotard with a tutu. With that description I set out to make a bag for Maya that looked like the one they had seen. My first attempt, I thought was very successful and it was wrapped up and delivered to cute little Maya for her birthday, never to be thought of again.  Fast forward to last week when I was cleaning/organizing  my stash and I came across 2 extra outer pieces I had cut for the bag and I remembered oh, that was a cute bag, I should make another one and blog about it so that is what I am doing.

I am sorry I don't have the time to write up a tutorial and post a pattern right now, we have a huge surprise brewing at our house this week that has taken up most of my time but I will if there is enough interest. So leave me  a comment if you would like a tutorial and I will contact you when it is ready or better yet, become a follower and then you will be sure not to miss it when it is done. Stop back by on Wednesday if you want to know what our super huge surprise is, there are a few crafts that are associated with it. Trust me it is a big one!

Corker Bow Barrettes

Have you ever seen hair bows for little girls and thought, wow those are cute but expensive for something made mostly out of ribbon that will inevitably get lost? No? Well maybe it's just me, remember I am frugal. Yes, frugal but definitely not willing to give up style. So when my daughter was old enough to start wearing bows in her hair, I decided I needed to find out how to make them. That was nearly 6 years and many bows ago. They are easy and fairly quick to make and now that my daughter is older, she makes them on her own with the exception of using the oven, that I help with. I wish I could remember where I learned to make these, but I can't. I definitely can't claim that I came up with the idea because they have been around a long time, this is just how I make them.

Here is what you need:

• ribbon
• dowels or pencils, whatever you may have
• clips
• barrette blanks (found at the craft store in the jewelery making section)
• needle and thread
• felt
• hot glue gun and glue

First preheat your oven to 250 degrees, then secure your ribbon with a clip at one end of the dowel and wrap the ribbon up the dowel securing at the other end with another clip. When you have made a bunch of these, put them on a cookie sheet and bake them for 30 minutes.

When they are done baking take them out of the oven and let them cool. When they are cool you can take them off the dowels and like magic, they will hold that corkscrew shape. 

Now for how to make them into those cute little bows. Cut the ribbon to any length you want I usually cut mine into thirds. 

Next you need to heat the ends over a flame, this will make them melt slightly, preventing them from fraying.

Then you will find the middle of your ribbons and thread them onto a needle, piling them one on top of the other making sure that you are going through the pile of ribbons a few times to hold them into place. (I just have to tell you, I love photo editing software. Ha ha, you see the photo above, I had a dirty fingernail in it, yep I admit it but through the magic of photo editing, I was able to give myself a french manicure, gotta love it.)

Great you ask, now what do I do? Well, from here you can attach them to a barrette like I did or you can put them onto a clip or a pony tail holder. I'll show you how I attached them to the barrette from.

Take a piece of felt and cut out a rectangle that is about three times the width of your barrette and slightly longer than your barrette.  Then you are going to cut notches out of the four corners so that you can wrap them around your barrette. 

Take your corker bow and and attach it to the center of your felt using a needle and thread. Lay a bead of hot glue down the inside center of your barrette and wrap one side of felt onto this bead of glue. Lay down another bead on top of felt you just folded over and fold over the opposite side of felt being sure to push down hard. (I removed the center loop to put the bead down and then replaced it when I was done.) Then put a drop of hot glue on the short ends of your barrette and fold over the short tabs onto the glue. I really should have taken a picture of these steps, I just plain forgot.

Turn over and admire your cute new bows. Use your "em-agination" and make these your own, add a button to the middle, add a sew on jewel, really anything. These would also be really cute on a gift instead of a bow. 

Shirt to Shirt Refashion???

Refashion??? You be the judge, some may say no since this shirt refashion is very similar to the original it started out as, call it what you want, refashion or just repair doesn't matter because I love it and my daughter gets extended wear out of a very cute shirt.



Original shirt

So here is the story, my daughter received this shirt when she was 4 1/2 as a gift and I immediately fell in the love with it, loved the fabric, loved the color, loved the style. I however was very sad after just a few wearings my daughter got a huge rip in the front of the the shirt. I decided that even though she couldn't wear it in it's current state, I would put it into my "to do" pile and refashion it into a skirt. Well my daughter is now almost 8 and the shirt still sits in that same pile. "Procrastinator," yeah, that is my, I admit it. This weekend I was going through said pile and decided I needed to either do something with it or throw it out. It was definitely to short to become a skirt but I thought, I may be able to let out the gathered bottom a little and add a coordinating fabric in place of the ripped  fitted portion of the top and make it into a new top all together. Here is a little walk through on how this Children's Place shirt became this refashioned shirt.


First off you need to tear apart the existing shirt. I separated the gathered bottom from the fitted top. This shirt had a zipper which I also removed and saved for use in another project yet to be determined.

Next I used an existing shirt that fits to make a pattern for the fitted top cutting two pieces for the front of the shirt. Sorry I forgot to take  a picture of this step.

I then cut a long rectangle that is 5 inches in height by 1 1/2 times the length of the front pieces. Fold over one of the long sides of the rectangle 1/2 inch and sew down. Then start shirring the back rectangle. If you haven't shirred something before, here is a great tutorial on shirring by Ruffles and Stuff. 

Then you need to attach the back shirred piece to one of the front pieces at the sides, making sure that the right sides of the fabric are together. Then press open the seams. Pressing seams is very important, it makes the difference between a professional looking garment and a wonky looking garment.

Now take your second fitted top piece and the top piece with the shirred back attached and put right sides together. Sew these two pieces together along the curved arms and the chest area as shown by the dotted line, I added those lines, they are not the sewn stitch, pretty cool huh? Yeah, I thought so too.

With the pieces attached, clip your corners and snip the curves before you flip it right side out. This will help to made the pieces lay flat and the edges to look very square.

 With the top flipped so that the right sides are facing out, iron the fitted top part and top stitch around the curved arms and across the chess, making sure to leave the sides open.

This is what you should have so far.

Next take the gathered bottom of your original top and turn it inside out. Then turn your fitted top and turn it inside out and put it inside of the gathered bottom, pin and sew around so that you attach the two pieces, making sure that you only sew through one layer of the fitted top.

Turn the garment right side out and press this seam down. Now turn  it inside out again and press the bottom edge not attached to the gathered bottom and the sides under a 1/4 inch and sew these pieces down, making sure to capture the gathered edge under the turned edge so that the inside looks nice and neat..

Next I cut the tie back pieces off of the original shirt and used these as straps for the new shirt. Sew in place and you are done. You could add button if you want, I still may.

Put the dress on and step back and enjoy your work, Here is my cutie enjoying her shirt again. Please feel free to link back to this post but please don't use my pictures without permission, especially those with my children in them. I know these steps may be hard to follow so if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Girls Dress Refashion

Spring is coming, Spring is coming, Spring is coming, never mind that we got snow and had well below freezing temperatures this week. I just know that it will be here before I know it so I am preparing for it now. I couldn't sleep the other night so I decided to do a little Internet window shopping and came across this little ditty which caught my eye, not only because it was cute but because I thought, I could make that. The inspiration dress is by Juicy Couture and while very cute at $88.00 it is definitely more than I am willing to spend on a girls dress. Time to use my "em-agination" and figure out how to make this myself.

I decided that this dress was a perfect candidate for a clothing refashion. "Clothing Refashion?" you ask, well let me explain. A clothing refashion is when you take and existing piece of clothing that is not longer wanted and turn it into a different item that is. In this case I took an X-large men's polo shirt and refashioned it into a girls dress.

Here is how I did it, not really a tutorial just an explanation of the process. First off, I began by removing the collar of the shirt using a seam ripper.

Second, I found an existing tank top that my daughter owned to use as a pattern for the top of the dress, because it didn't have the skirt, I had to free hand an a-line skirt on the bottom. I wish I had have done a more straight skirt rather than the a-line just because that would have recreated the inspiration dress a little better. For the pattern I used a paper grocery bag that I cut apart.

Once the pattern was drawn and cut out I folded my polo shirt in half and pinned my patten down and cut it out. I left the shoulder seams intact just because it was one less seam to sew.

At this point I sewed up the two side seams and added bias tape made from a ribbed knit around the neck and arm holes.

I then cut a 2 1/2 inch strip of white ribbed knit for the belt. I then ironed the edges over 1/4 inch and added 2 button holes for the tie. Then pin this around the waist of your dress and top stitch around the entire waist of your dress.

 Once the belt is top stitched into place I attached two 8 inch pieces of cording/rope to a length of elastic just smaller than my daughter's waist. I then fed the cording and elastic through one of the button holes in the belted middle of the dress using a safety pin attached to the cording to pull the entire length of elastic around the dress and out the other button hole.

Most of the time, I try to use and existing hem when refashioning clothing just because it makes for one less thing to do, unfortunately, this shirt was just a little to long to do that with so I had to cut off the existing hem and create a new one. for this hem, I used an overlock stitch to hem the dress, (similar to the look of  what a serger would produce) and left it at that. I however may go back and create a traditional hem to this dress because it still fills a little long on my daughter and my husband says it looks unfinished. We will see, depends on if my daughter will really wear it, right now, she is a little luke warm on the dress. Hopefully when we get warmer weather, she will warm to wearing it. I think it will also look very cute with an added white t-shirt underneath. Here are a few more pics of my daughter being a goof in her dress, please feel free to link back to this post but please don't use my photos without asking, especially one's with my children in them.

And a final comparison of the inspiration dress (on left) and my dress (on right), definately not perfect recreation but that is not what I was going for, I simply used the Juicy dress as a jumping off point, all in all, I am satisfied.