Halloween Costume: Garden Gnome

A read a little history on gnomes and was quite intrigued by these tiny under-dwellers who hold great powers, helping plants grow. It was said that they only came out at night and if they were caught out in daylight they turned to stone, thus the statues.  They are known for their willingness to help in the garden which seemed quite fitting for my little farm hands. With a little inspiration courtesy of my sister via Pintrest we set out to make their costumes. 

Girly Super Hero Cape

We went to a birthday party for one of my favorite little people and needed the perfect gift. Amelia knew exactly what she wanted to get her: dress up clothes! I loathe the princess collection you find in the stores so we compromised and made a super hero cape for her to dress up in. Flowers and ruffles make it frilly and earn Amelia's approval-very important!

Like most things I make, it was a 'figure it out as you go.'  I love the end result and the girls did too, so much so that I had to make a couple more for them! (And how could I say no when Amelia said they give you the super power of growing a garden?)

Halloween Costumes: Rooster and Sunshine

When it came time to talk costumes this year the husband and I had some pretty good ideas as to what we wanted to dress the girls up as. We came up with some pretty elaborate, family coordinated options and presented them to the girls only to have them shot down. Amelia had plans of her own.

If it were Barbie, Disney princess, or any other licensed character I think I would have cried and tried to get her to change her mind but this idea she had was pretty great. I had not heard of nor seen such costumes on anyone in the previous years trick-or-treating so how could I say "no" to such an original, creative idea?

So I set out to create the costumes she so wanted to wear.

A rooster and a sunshine.

Hallway Play House

We live in a rather small house so when it comes to places to play and for toys our options are limited. Most of the girls toys are in the laundry room which is also the pantry. It make things interesting. (I find many random items stashed away with the canned goods.)

I knew the girls would love a play house and I spent many hours drooling over some pretty amazing ones courtesy of pintrest, but none would be affordable/practical/fit anywhere inside or outside of our home. I started to think of ideas that would be more tent-like that ended up paring down to this:

A hallway play house. An easily put up and taken down, single panel curtain, held in place with tension rods. When put in place, it closes off the laundry room and transforms it into a playhouse.

We surprised the girls with it on Christmas and they love it!

A Very Merry Homemade Christmas:Pajamas

Every year as a child we were allowed to open one gift from under the tree on Christmas eve and that gift was always new pajamas. I don't know how the tradition was started but apparently it is a very common one. I tip my hat to the person who came up with the idea because I personally think there is something so great about new, warm pjs when you go to bed on a magical night like Christmas eve.

This year I made the girls pajamas to wrap and put under the tree. Pajama pants are a fairly easy project and inexpensive too!

Materials

1 yard snugly soft fabric (this made 1 pair 3T and 1 pair 12 month)
Elastic (1" thick)
Thread

Directions

To start I used a pair of well fitting pants, folded with legs together, as my template. Fold your fabric so that right sides are together the width of the widest part of your pants plus 1/2".  Lay pants on top of fabric with the front of the pants touching the fold of the fabric. Using a fabric pencil trace the back edge of the pants leaving a 1/2" allowance on the side, 2" at the bottom, and a 3" at the top. Cut through both layers of fabric, this will be your first pant leg.

Leaving the pant leg folded, sit it aside and reposition the remaining fabric so that it looks as it did when you began, with it folded onto itself the width of your pant leg. Place your first pant leg on top of the fabric and trace around it and cut.

Take one pant leg and sew the length of the leg to the crotch using a 1/4" seam allowance. (With the extra fabric at the top it may be easy to confuse the top with the leg so it may be helpful to mark one or the other.) To keep stray threads from tickling tiny legs sew the same seam using an overcasting stitch. Repeat with the second pant leg.

Now you're ready to hem the pants. I left a 1" allowance at the bottom to give me a 1/2" hem. Turn the bottom of the fabric up 1/2" and press. Fold again and press (you may want to pin at this point, however I find that pressing holds the fabric in place well enough.) Sew along the bottom edge of your pants using a 1/4" seam allowance. Repeat with second pant leg.

The next step is sewing the legs together. Turning one pant leg right side out, place it inside of the other pant leg and line up the raw edges. This should create a U shape. Starting at the center,where all the pieces/seams meet up, pin together. Sew along the U shape using a 1/4" seam allowance. Follow the seam using an overcast stitch. Pull the inside pant leg back out, making sure the pants are still inside out.

Now we can sew the waist band. I left a 3" allowance at the top giving me a 1 1/2" waistband. (I wanted enough room for my 1" elastic to slide in.) Like with the pants, begin by folding the fabric over 1 1/2" and press. Fold again and press. Sew along the bottom edge of the fold using a 1/8" seam allowance, leaving a 2" gap at the back seam.

Cut the elastic to size (you can find many different ways of determining the correct size, the way I did it was flat the pants out flat and measure across one and a half times) and using a safety pin attached to one end feed it through the pocket you made. Once all the way through pull until it overlaps the start by 1" and sew the two pieces together. Fold the gap closed and sew closed.

I may embellish the pink shirts I got to go along with these and if I come up with something good I'll share!

Updated 12/20/2012

I tried my hand at some embroidering and added the tree and moose to the plain pink shirts I bought. What do you think?

Little Bo Peep and Her Sheep

Little Bo Peep lost her sheep and didn't know where to find her....

Just leave her alone and she will come home, bringing her tail behind her

I must say, I am quite pleased with the costumes I made for the girls this year for Halloween. Inspired in part by Amelia's obession with Toy Story 3 earlier this summer and by the classic nursery rhyme I came up with the idea of making Amelia a shepherdess and Marinn her sheep. As is apparent by Amelia's first two costumes(a baby bird and a pig), I love seeing babies dressed as animals. You can only get away with doing it for so long so I figured I needed to take advantage!

I made both cosutmes with no patterns, using their exsisting clothing as templates.  Bo Peep's outfit consists of a dress, pantaloons, and a bonnet (that were made by myself) as well as tights, boots, and a shepherds hook. I added the tutu I made for St. Patrick's Day to give the dress some volume. The sheep costume is a onesie style, fuzzy outfit that I made over top of black tights and a black shirt topped off with a headband complete with ears that I made from a pair or mens dress socks.

Marinn was less than pleased about painting her nose, but has done surprisingly well keeping her ears on. Amelia loves being Bo Peep and has been haming it up while in costume, eliciting many 'awes' over the pair.

I Heart Antiquing

I can remember being in middle school and going antiquing with a friends mom and thinking it was the most terrible and boring thing ever. Store after store with old furinture and funny smells and absolutly no touching. The only up side was bailing out on the shopping to find ice cream. I don't know if it's coincidental or not, but where there are antiques, there is usually ice cream or some other form of sweets.

I'm still a fiend for anything sweet, but these days I'm just as pleased to do a little antiquing. Furniture isn't my thing so much as little trinkets and housewares and I'm pretty sure I could waste a few days browsing booth after booth in antique malls.

I stopped in a store in town in search of an old tin for a sappy anniversary gift for the husband and I accidently spent way too much money and bought way more than a tin. (Not to mention the fact I found the most amazing Christmas present for the girls that I'm pretty sure I'll be returning to get soon!)

I didn't have time to look around at everything they had in the three story floor but I think I pulled a pretty good haul for a "quick trip" in! I found an amazing bread box, which I happened to be in the market for, an egg beater, some old sewing needles, a Cream of Wheat print, an old Folgers tin (the one thing I intended to buy!), a cracker tin, and a gift to put up fpr Christmas for the husband.

Take a look...

Not too bad, huh?

Easy Peasy Tee Shirt Dress

And for my next trick, I will turn this tee shirt into a dress!

While browsing the clearance table at Target I came across this tee for $1. I couldn't pass up a bargain like that, so I bought it (and a pink one just like it) in hopes of turning it into something pretty for the babe to wear.

When nap time rolled around today I put the monsters children down, pulled this lovely fabric quarter out of my stash, and got to sewing! This is a very simple sewing project that can easily be completed in a short amount of time. (Which is definitely how I would describe the lengths of nap times these days. Sigh.)

Thread Storage

My dream space to work and create may still be in the distant future but the need to organize is long over due! Since the arrival of our second child I have decided that if I have any chance at taking advantage of the little time I get to sew that I had better get things in order.

I'm fairly new to sewing. I took a home economics class in eighth grade that touched on the subject briefly, but didn't even think about sewing again until I found out I was pregnant for the first time. (Looking at tiny homemade things when you're hormonal is dangerous!)  I got my sewing machine shortly after Amelia was born and slowly started accumulating things as I would work on projects. Now here we are two years later and my project list has grown and so has the mess of supplies you can find nesting in any free space in our home.

I saw the idea for this way of storing thread a while back and made a mental note that it needed to be on my to-do list. I love having things very organized and I also like things pretty so that I'm inspired to use them and this project happens to do both! (Sorry, there are no step-by-step photos. There were a lot of 'helping hands' with this project!)

Cowgirl Skirt

I remember having a skirt similar to this one my grandma made when I was little so I'm excited to have an upcoming party as an excuse to make one for Amelia. Made from an old pair of jeans and a bandanna, this is a very simple and inexpensive project. (And a great way to up-cycle a pair of old jeans that are worn in the knees or a little too short!) The party we will be going to is a cowboy theme so the bandanna is especially appropriate, however, I think that this would also be cute with a bright, floral print fabric too!

travel tea party

Little girls and tea parties go hand-in-hand (Not that little boys can't have tea parties too, we have had many boys at our tea table!) and they are a great time to sit an be guest at your child's table. Amelia happens to love her singing tea pot so when I saw the idea for this on the Prudent Baby website I thought it would be a great idea for this years Easter basket. But then Easter came and went and I still hadn't made it. The forecast calling for rain all week turned out to be the nudge I needed to get going! I broke out the collection of fabrics that I have had a love affair with for sometime (perfect for a girly little tea table!) and started sewing. Here's what I did: