Easter Dresses

Can you believe Easter is almost here?  Spring still hasn't shown up here in Nebraska but Easter is right around the corner.  This year I decided to make my girls' Easter dresses.

I'm not big on buying patterns because a. they are ridiculously expensive unless you hit a good sale and b. the sizing on them always seems really off.  If you look online you can find so many wonderful FREE kids patterns made by fellow moms that sew.  The best part is they usually fit really well.

The two dresses I made for Easter were made from online patterns and tutorials I found.  I wish I could take credit for these beauties but the links for each are below.  Use these sites as stepping stones to find soooo many other amazing FREE patterns and tutorials out there on the web.  Also, follow my Pinterest board "girl's sewing" for other fun little girl clothing patterns and tutorials.

First up is the dress I made for my 3 month old.  This pattern and tutorial found over at the Ribbon Retreat was so simple and easy to follow.  I altered it just a bit to make two tiers because I only had two fabrics I wanted to use.  Isn't this bunny fabric adorable?  It fits with the holiday but doesn't scream Easter which I like.

For my two year old I used this tutorial and pattern from Skirt as Top.  I made the Junebug Dress found here at Craftiness is Not Optional for Christmas so I knew it would fit just right.  I love the original version but I also liked the altered version at Skirt as Top so I thought I'd try it out.  Her tutorial was wonderful and super simple.  Again I altered it a bit by not adding the ribbon at the waist and sewing on some flowers to the side which match the hair clip she'll wear.

Now go out there and find some free patterns to make your little ones some adorable, unique and best of all handmade outfits! Happy sewing!

St. Patrick's Day Shirts

Hey friends! As promised, I'm back to share a tutorial on how I made my daughters' St. Patrick's Day shirts.  I'll apologize ahead of time for my poor phone photos.

I made these with things I had on hand but they can easily be made for super cheap.  Here is what you will need:

White Shirt

Green Fabric Paint

Pink Fabric Paint

Glitter Fabric Paint

Contact Paper

Cardboard to fit inside shirt

Sponge Brush

Scissors

Shamrock Template (Optional)

Ribbon (Optional)

First take your contact paper and cut it just larger than the size you want your shamrock to be.  You can eyeball it by placing it on top of your shirt or you can print a shamrock template off the internet.  Then cut your shamrock out.

Next slide your cardboard piece inside your shirt.  This is to prevent the paint from bleeding through to the back of the shirt.  Take the backing off your contact paper and stick your template on your shirt wherever you'd like your shamrock to be.  Make sure to rub all around your contact paper to ensure it's stuck onto your shirt nice and good.

Start with your green paint and apply a thin but generous layer.  I like to use a round foam brush and apply the paint with a stamping motion rather than a streaking motion.  This will help keep your contact paper from coming up as well as prevent bleeding of the paint.

Let your first layer dry for about an hour and apply a second layer to ensure you didn't miss any spots.  Then let this dry for a good four hours as the bottle recommends.

Next cut a little heart out of small piece of contact paper.  Stick it on your shamrock wherever you'd like it to be.  Apply two layers of pink paint as you did with the green.

Once the pink paint is dry, remove the heart contact paper.  Next apply a layer of glitter paint over the whole shamrock.

Let the paint dry for a good four hours and then remove the contact paper.  Originally I had planned to add a bow to the stem of the shamrock.

After the painting was all done, I decided I liked it as is so I left the bows off.  It's super cute either way though.

There you have it.  A fun and cheap way to have some cute St. Patty's Day outfits.  They also match the glittery headbands I showed you how to make in my previous post here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

St. Patrick's Day Headbands

It's crazy to think St. Patrick's Day is almost here.  How is it already March?  That means Spring is just around the corner though so I'm not complaining.

I always like to dress up my girls for holidays but I'm not big on spending tons of money for something they'll wear one day. 

This year for St. Patrick's Day I made my two girl's outfits for under $2.50 total.  First up I'll show you how I made their headbands.

I found these super cute glitter headbands in the Target dollar section for a pack of two.  Then I got these glitter foam shamrocks at Joann's for about $1.50 when they were 50% off.  So there went my $2.50.  The rest was made with things I had on hand.  I'll show you how to make their matching shirts in an upcoming post.

These are so easy to make, it probably took me about 10 minutes to make both.

First lay out your shamrocks how you'd like them to look on your headband.  Then cut a piece of matching felt to be slightly bigger than your shamrock design.

Take your piece of felt and place it on the back side of the headband wherever you would like your design.  My foam shamrocks were stickers so I simply stuck them onto the felt until I had it the way I liked.  This part is hard to explain so hopefully the pictures help.

Then I reinforced the shamrocks with some hot glue.  Once your design is together, simply cut off the excess felt.  Smaller scissors like shown will definitely help with this step.

That's it!  Your adorable little headbands are complete and ready to wear!