dressed up onesies

I've been making lots of onesie dresses and tie applique onesies as gifts.

The tie applique onesies  couldn't be easier! I made these for a friends new nephew.



I used Char's perfectly sized tie applique pattern + tutorial.

The dresses are easy to make and fun to embellish.

These dresses (plus a few more that are identical to the ones hanging on the line) are for friends that have recently had little girls. I am keeping a couple for my little girl though!

When I sat down to make these dresses I tried to reference my tutorial for sizing only realize I never finished it and posted it. Oopsie. I am so behind in blogging. Hopefully I will get caught up soon!

easy christmas shirts

My kids love having holiday themed shirts. In fact, I was able to get Liam out of bed today, with a smile on his face, by reminding him that he gets to wear his Rudolph shirt to school (he takes after his mom and is NOT a morning person!).

I like to keep the shirts simple, white T's with a one graphic image, for two reasons: I like the way it looks and they are EASY.

Liam requested Rudolph. I did a google image search and found a cute silhouette and made a freezer paper stencil. I didn't feel the need to do a tutorial. This idea has been popular for a while but in case you have never tried it need a tut you can find a good one here.

Liam's shirt is a little small. Rather than buying a new white shirt I decided to use his Mime shirt from Halloween not realizing he had grown so much in less than two months! Oops! Too late now.

Michael was the inspiration for Sutton's shirt. It was the night before her class party and I realized I had forgotten to make her a shirt. Michael suggested tying red ribbon into a bow and gluing it to Sutton's shirt. Then I remembered that I had left over fabric from the ribbon candy pillow and thought it would make a super quick and cute candy cane applique. I just stuck the (untied) ribbon under the applique and ironed and sewed the applique on like normal. Tied a bow, did a couple of stitches by hand into the knot to keep it tied and heat sealed the ends of the ribbon.

Ezra's shirt is a hand-me-down. Sutton wore it last Christmas but I actually made it for Liam when he was in preschool back in December 2007. It was probably one of the first freezer paper stencil T's I ever made. I did touch up the paint because it had faded a bit from being washed so much but it's holding up great considering.

So if you have a kid and a white T laying around whip up a Christmas shirt for him/her. It'll take a small amount of time and it will make their day, I promise!

I love this picture! Liam's belly showing, Sutton and Ez looking at each other... it's one that makes me smile and think about how much I love them. A fact that I occasionally need to be reminded of! :)

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween! I don't like the creepy, scary horror movie type Halloween and I don't particularly love trick or treating but I do love dressing up and having fun! I love that I don't have to worry about the over commercialization of Halloween or if my kids understand the "true meaning" of Halloween because there isn't one! Halloween is just for fun. I love letting my kids decide what they want to be and then creating it for them.

This year we dressed up as: A sumo wrestler, a mime, a lion, Strawberry Shortcake, and Nacho Libre.

Michael's Nacho Libre costume was made from ladies pants and jacket from Goodwill, a flesh colored t-shirt from Walmart, an old (but never even worn) swimsuit, a wig and a moustache. The knee pads and the boots were made from parts of the jacket.

Liam chose to be a mime and he took it seriously. He watched 'how to mime' instructional videos on youtube so he could play the part right. The hat, gloves and t-shirt were purchased at wal-mart, pants at Goodwill. I made the suspenders and the scarf.

Sutton loves Strawberry Shortcake and decided weeks ago to be her for Halloween. I was glad because I knew it would be a really easy costume to make. I bought the tights and made the skirt and hat. I appliqued the strawberry and diamonds onto a white-shirt she already had. Sutton's costume was the most expensive because of the tights and the fabric. I justified it though because it looked perfect and now that Halloween is over the skirt can be part of her regular wardrobe.

Ezra was a little lion. Liam and Sutton both wore this costume when they were little. I love it!

I decided to take advantage of my rotund figure and be a sumo wrestler. The shirt and the old lady stretchy pants came from walmart ($3/each on clearance!). I made the mawashi (diaper-y thing) from felt.

And because I have no pride... here is a shot of the back view:

To help you get that image our of your head here is another cute one of the kids:

I hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!!

my little supers

I usually take a nap Sunday afternoon. Yesterday though I wasn't feeling very tired (miracle!) so I decided to venture into my sewing room. I hadn't touched my sewing machine in so long I just stood there trying to figure out what to work on. Cue Liam and Sutton coming in and begging for capes. I figured, why not?

don't you just love the post church throw-on-whatever-you-can-find mismatched outfits?

These are not the cute, well-made capes that you have seen around the blogosphere. I let the kids pick out whatever material they liked. Liam's is a cheap dress lining material and Suttons is some pink polyester stuff I inherited from my MIL. Because I was trying to get the capes done before the kids lost interest and I lost my energy, I quickly serged the all raw edges (except for Ezra's cape which I made from jersey), added a free handed felt letter applique with double sided fusible stuff (I use Steam-A-Seam), and sticky velcro dot finished them off.


I was unsure whether Ezra would like a cape. The child has refused to wear bibs since infancy (I am not even exaggerating!) but he loved it. He ran and jumped just like the big kids.


I even allowed a little furniture jumping which is usually off limits at our house. Sometimes it's fun to ignore the rules!

his sunday best

this is what Ezra wore to church today. with pants of course... church is one of those places where pants just aren't optional! it may be the first thing i have made for him. which is sad because he is almost 11 months old. i am glad that i finally made this for him (it's been on the 'must sew' list for a while), he looks so darn cute in it and this tie works much better than the real tie i made him for Easter (to coordinate with his dad's and old brother Liam's tie- in retrospect it was a little much). he used it as a chew toy and it was practically dripping by the end of church. gross!

this was also the first time i have ever attempted to dye anything. it was easier than i thought it would be. although i don't recommend wearing your favorite white shirt while using dye. even if you think it will be fine because you are wearing an apron... it won't end well (duh!).

i made the tie applique with some fabric from my scrap drawer. you only need a few inches, really. i free-handed the tie but Char at Crap I've Made has a great template and a detailed tutorial if you need one.

same bird

this time on a shirt for an almost three year old. and a coordinating belt too!

my go to gift for baby showers