Another dress to skirt pattern

Here is another adorable dress that was just too small for Alyssa!

I cut off the bodice right above the waistine (so that I would not lose any of the skirt).  I folded the top cut off piece down and sewed a tube and inserted elastic to make an elastic top skirt.

I also took some of the bodice top (it was knit) and cut it into strips and serged the edges with the wooly nylon thread (stretching the fabric as I serged to create the ruffle effect) and used the strips to make a flower to sew on the skirt.

Here is the finished skirt.

And here is my precious model showing off her new skirt!!  She was all pretty and ready for church!

From Two short overalls to one super cute jumper!

Here is another project that I have completed for Alyssa!  I am really enjoying this if you couldn't tell!

Here is the before picture - a pair of overall shorts that were too short in the torso and a jumper that was too short!

I cut off the bottom of the shorts and the torso area of the jumper.  I added the bottom of the jumper to the bottom of the shorts.  I then replaced the straps from the short set to the straps from the jumper.

Here is the finished project!  A cute new jumper!

Here is Alyssa modeling her new outfit :-)

From A Onsie to a t-shirt (and the blankets I made for the kids)

The easiest refashion project yet!  It literally took me longer to thread my serger for this one than it did to complete the project from start to finish!

I had this onesie that was too snug for Alyssa at the snaps due to her long torso!  Now I have seen where you can add an extension to the snap area to keep it as a onesie...but I decided to do something a bit different.  I decided to make it into a shirt.

I cut off the bottom of the onesie right above the leg binding.

Then I just serged the bottom of the shirt.  I used wooly nylon thread and stretched the onesie as I serged to give it a ruffle effect.

That's it!  Easy as can be!

Here is my little model wearing the shirt!  :-)  She actually cooperated for the camera this time.  She even said "cheese"!!

(and she is wearing her new skirt with attached leggings)

Our New Blankets


I thought I would go ahead and add to this post the kids' new blankets!  We were at Wal-Mart the other day in the fabric section and Seth and Aaron found the novelty cotton prints and started yelling "Mommy I want this!  Make me something!"  Of course how could a Mommy say no...especially when it would allow Mommy to sew and it was something other than a toy they were begging for!

Anyways I told them to pick out their favorite print.  Seth chose a fireman print, Aaron chose a Disney Cars print (of course) and Alyssa chose Eeyore and Pooh (I held up several girlie ones for her to choose from...she pointed very plainly to that one.)

I got a yard of each of those fabrics and a yard of coordinating fleece.  I came home and washed and machine dried the fabrics so that they would get their shrinking done and then I just simply sewed the two together (right-sides in...and then flipped and then top sewed around all edges).

They loved them!  The only mistake I made was thinking Alyssa wouldn't care as much about them as the boys.  I made sure I finished both boys before giving them to them so that they got them at the same time.  I hadn't finished Alyssa's though...and boy was she mad that she wasn't getting her blanket yet!  She sure let me know she was mad about it too!  I have never made something so fast as I did her blanket :-)!!

From A Long Sleeved Dress to A Skirt with Leggings!

Here is another refashion project I have done for Alyssa!

Here is the before picture (I'm sorry...I didn't realize this was a blurry picture until I got it on the computer).  This is a long sleeved dress with bloomers that was too short for Alyssa.

Beforehand I made sure her legs would fit in the armholes - they did - perfectly!!

So I cut off the sleeves and cut off the skirt.

I sewed the sleeves to the leg holes of the bloomers.  For the skirt I folded over the top of the skirt and I sewed it to the waistband of the bloomers (stretching the bloomer elastic as I sewed).

Here is the finished product.

Here is Alyssa wearing her new skirt!

Refashioning Old Clothes To New For Alyssa!

Hey!  I know it has been forever since I have been on this blog!!  I have been spending all my time blogging on our homeschool blog and don't have much time to keep up both.  But I have found a new hobby that doesn't exactly fit on the homeschool blog.  I have already had several online friends that want me to share what I am doing and since not all my online friends are on facebook I needed somewhere where everyone can see what I am doing...which brought be back to this blog :-)

Ok - enough about that!  Now to my new hobby...taking clothes that are too small for Alyssa and refashioning them to ones that fit!!  I found this idea on several other sites and blogs and fell in love with the idea!  I decided to give it a go myself and found out real quick how easy and how fun it is to do!  It literally takes 30 minutes or less to have a whole new outfit made!

I have already made 3 new outfits.  I would like to share the first with you today :-)

Here is the before picture...a cute little summer dress that became too short for Alyssa.  (I will warn you up front...I am not a photographer so these might not be the best pictures)

I cut off the bodice...I actually cut a little higher than the waist on this dress (by looking at all the different dresses I have to do this with it is already clear to me you will be cutting off at different points just depending on the dress...just picture in your mind the skirt and you will figure out where to cut)

Now this dress had buttons in the back and where I cut there was still a button left on the back.  I took off the button and sewed the opening shut.

I forgot to include in the first picture the pair of bloomers that I had that matched the colors.  I used the waistband of the bloomers to become the waistband for my skirt...made it that much easier.

I just had to put a gathering stitch at the top of my skirt piece...gather it up to fit the bloomers, fold over the top of the fabric of the skirt and topstitch to the bloomers.

Here is a picture of the finished product.

Here is a picture showing the bloomers attached on the inside.

And here are a couple of pictures of Alyssa wearing the skirt.  She does not let me get good pictures of her right now.  I did the best I could.  She loved the skirt though and really got sassy when she was wearing it (it was her first time to wear her new (to her) boots too!)

I loved the fact that the skirt is long on her!  I thought she looked adorable!  And this seriously took less than 30 minutes from start to finish!!

I can't wait to share more of these projects with you!

Goodbye to this blog - for now.

Ok - it is obvious that I have not been on here in a while. Life is just so busy!!

We will be starting homeschooling Seth in kindergarten on Monday!  This means that life will be even more busy!  :-)  I have decided that for the time being at least I am just going to give up on this blog.

But never fear- I will be keeping up with my homeschool blog!  I mean homeschooling will be our life...so we might as well just keep everyone up to date with our lives through that blog.

So please head on over to my homeschool blog - http://trainingupachild.blogspot.com and keep up with us there!  I promise to strive to at least make one post a week on that blog!  I would love for each and every one of you to follow us on that blog.

See you over there!

Alyssa’s First Birthday

I went to the blog to make this post and saw that it has been 2 months since I have made a post!!  Man - life is just so busy I can't seem to find the time to blog!  Sorry...

I did want to post pictures from Alyssa's first birthday party!  We had so much fun!!  I threw Alyssa her very first tea party!  And rest assured - it will not be her last!  It was just too much fun!  It will be even more fun when she is old enough to really participate in it :-)

First – the party set up.

Here is a close up of the food table.  We used my mother’s china and crystal platters of my mother in law.  The roses are in the glass cups that are part of my mil’s punch bowl.  The roses are from my rose garden!

The box that the napkins are in is a box that my grandmother made me a few years back and filled it with items of my great grandmother.  I thought it made a very pretty napkin box!

Here is a picture of the food table with all the food on it.  We served mini quiches, pinwheels, southwestern egg rolls, and fruit salad with fruit dip.

Here is the tea table.  Instead of serving punch we put rasberry white tea in the punch bowl.  We also served sweet and unsweet iced tea in cute pitchers as well.

The cake table

Alyssa’s cake!

I made “tea” cakes for everyone.  The daisy ones had pineapple cream cheese icing (made with real pineapple).  The tulips had fresh strawberry icing and the butterflies (and Alyssa’s cake) had buttercream icing.  They were arranged on plates from my mother’s china set.

 

Here is the teddy bear tea party that was set up in the living room.

The little table had one of Alyssa’s baby quilts on it and my mom got her the little plastic tea set that is displayed (also displayed is the tea set she got from my mil for Christmas)

 

These animals were wearing some of Alyssa’s baby dresses.

This bunny was wearing one of my dresses and my jewelry…sshe went all out! :-)  (and the baby stroller in front is what we got Alyssa for her birthday)

Here are some pics from the party!

Daniel couldn’t handle all the “girlie” stuff and decided she needed a 4-wheeler hay ride!  It was a lot of fun!

Opening her gift – she has the funniest facial exressions!

She LOVED her cake!!!  You can’t see real well in the pic below but I decorated a onesie for her to wear when eating her cake!

It was a super fun party!   I still can’t believe she is one though!!  Where did the time go?