Alyssa's Christmas Dress - A Refashion Project

One of my recent refashion projects for Alyssa was her Christmas dress!!

Last year my sister got her this adorable tie dress from a craft fair.  Last year it was way too big - this year it quickly became too short!  She only got to wear it once this Summer!!  But I love the fabric and since it has a lot of red in it I thought it would be pretty for Christmas.  And I had a perfect white shirt to go with it.

So here is the before - the dress and the shirt.

Here is the after!  I took the ties from the dress and made them into a ribbon bow for the front of the shirt. I gathered the material from the original dress to make the skirt.

I added a pretty Christmas sweater I had to it to complet the outfit!

This weekend we went and took Christmas pictures (my hubby happens to be a pretty awesome photographer!  Doesn't do it professionally but he certainly could!!)  Here is one of my favorites we got of Alyssa and it is a good model of her outfit!

(and you can't see from this picture but I love the length of this dress - hits her about mid calf!  You just can't hardly find dresses that long for little girls right now!)

Refashioning Clothes For Alyssa Again!

I have been a refashioning fool lately!!!  :-)  (I guess you could say it is part of Alyssa's Christmas present!)  I have made 12 new outfits for her in the past couple of weeks!!  Yay! Go Me!!  :-)

Here are 3 that I have made!

Project #1
Here is the original onesie and dress.  (The onesie was too small in the snap area, the dress was too short)

I cut off the onesie right above the snap area.  I cut off the bodice of the dress.  I then sewed the skirt to the bottom of the onesie (and then did a top stitch on the onesie part after that).  I LOVED how this one turned out!!

 Here is Alyssa modeling her new dress!

Project #2

A long sleeved shirt that was too short and a dress that was too short

Here are the original items.

 I didn't have to do anything to the shirt.  I just cut off the bodice of the dress and sewed the skirt to the shirt.  This shirt had a lettuced edged bottom so I sewed the skirt underneath that edge.  Here is the finished result.

 Here is Alyssa modeling the new dress.  She really acted like she liked this dress alot!  I think it was very comfortable for her!

 Project #3

This probably has to be one of my favorite refashion projects I have done yet!!  In the picture below is the dress that was too small and the onesie that was too small in the torso area and sleeves.  I did not get the white sweater that was too short pictured in the original picture.  I combined all three to make one dress!

On the onesie I cut off the sleeves and cut right above the snap area.  I also cut off the cuff of the sleeves.  I sewed the cuffs of the sleeves to the inside of the bottom of the sweater sleeves.  I then attached the sweater to the onesie.  I cut off the bodice of the dress and sewed the skirt to the bottom of the onesie.  There was an embroidered pair of ballet shoes that were cut off with the bodice portion.  I patched that embroidered piece to the front of the sweater!  I LOVED the results of this project!!  (it has a very cute 50s flair about it...to me at least.)

 And here is Alyssa modeling the dress!  She wore it Sunday to church!  I thought she was absolutely beautiful (but I also admit I am quite partial! LOL!!)

One of the 12 projects I have done is her Christmas dress!!!!  I can't wait to get pictures of her in it!!  I will be sure to post pictures and the details of that project when I do!!

I love this whole refashioning thing!  It is fun to think of new ways to do it - the projects are fast to put together and my husband loves the fact that it saves us money on clothes!  HA!!

Seth's Tic-Tac-Toe Game

Seth has been loving learning how to play tic-tac-toe.  I thought it would be fun to make him a tic-tac-toe game!

This was another felt project - I love working with felt - it is so easy to work with!!

I just took a black square of felt and sewed red rick rack to make the game board.  I then cut out x's and o's from red and white felt.

On the back I sewed two rectangles of felt to make pockets to keep the game pieces in.

I then added snaps and rick rack handles so that you can close it up and carry it with you!

I sure hope Seth enjoys pulling this out of his stocking!

Alyssa's Bear

I made a bear from one of Alyssa's baby blankets!!

The tutorial I got did not have clear instructions at all and it ended up being quite a struggle and the feet have got this curve in them that I don't think they are suppose to have but I think overall it turned out very cute!  It is very soft and very snuggly - and a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be :-)

I think Alyssa is going to love it - club feet and all :-)  (my hubby said it looks like the bear has club feet...oh well)

Mr Potato Heads

A little while back I saw a tutorial for making a felt Mr Potato Head that I thought really cute.  When our kids saw the Toy Story movies just a few weeks back and fell in love with them I thought these would be cute to make them for Christmas.  When I went searching for the tutorial I found out that Hasbro asked that blog to remove the tutorial.

But I realized that I could figure out how to make these without a tutorial...it couldn't be that hard, now could it?!?

I thought the results turned out to be really cute!  Don't you agree??

I was trying to make them with the pocket for all of the items attached to the back but I wasn't using my brain and didn't think to leave some give in that piece of fabric so that I would have room in the pocket to put things (so if you try this yourself then don't make your pocket peices the same size as your other body pieces.  It needs to be slightly larger so there is room in the pocket)

Thankfully my mom had the idea to make a backpack to put the items in!  (I actually did this project at her house on black Friday!)

Here are all of the pieces.

I hope my boys love these!  I know I sure do!!

Made Hiccup dolls to match our Night Furys!!!

If you have seen the movie 'How To Train Your Dragon' then you know that one of the things that makes the movie so good is the relationship developed between viking-in-training Hiccup and Toothless, the Night Fury.

If you saw this post then you know that I have made a Toothless plush for my sons and my nephew.  Well, my mom, sister and I decided that they needed a Hiccup to go with them.

I did some research online tutorials for dolls that I could make work (that would be easy too) and decided on this tutorial.

Here are pics of my result!  I was pleased!  I hope the boys love him!

This is also being posted in Watson Family Christmas

My Toothless plushies!!

OMG!  I can't believe I finally finished this project!

My nephew's favorite movie right now is How To Train A Dragon.  In fact a few weeks ago they came up and brought the movie and we watched it.  I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the movie.  My boys fell in love with it as well!

So when I found this tutorial to make a Toothless plushie I decided that this needed to be another Christmas present!  This will be my Christmas present to my nephew and I thought to go ahead and make one for each of my boys while I was at it!

This was probably one of the most challenging sewing projects I have done yet!  There were about 25 pattern pieces!!  And some of the steps were difficult to figure out but I did!  And I am glad I stuck with it!

I enlarged the pattern pieces by 200%!!  The final doll is a dimension of 36" from tip of head to tip of tail!  (I found one online for not quite this big for $250!!!)

I can't wait to see their faces on Christmas!  I especially can't wait to see my nephew's reaction when he opens his!!

Here are some pics (they don't do it justice...I am not a good photographer and could not figure out the best way to get photos to show you what these are like!  Yes there are flaws (it is my sewing so there are going to be flaws!) but I still think they are cute!

Oh - and I probably should state I made these with black felt!  Felt is very easy to work with :-) That was a plus for this project!

Here is a full body view - like I said they measure 36" from tip of head to tip of tail.  The wing span is 45"!

Here is a belly shot - sorry it is blurry!

I'm ready for something a wee bit easier! :-)

(I am also posting this is Watson Handmade Christmas)

Another Doll :-)

I got another doll for Alyssa made for Christmas!!

I got this pattern from a Pioneer Crafts book I found at the library.  The pattern was for a rag doll.  I decided to use some of Alyssa's receiving blankets from when she was a baby to make the doll out of!

I thought it turned out really well.  Every time she would walk in and see me working on it she would start yelling "baby baby" and wanting to hold it...she couldn't figure out why I wouldn't let her (she doesn't grasp the whole wait until Christmas thing - HA!)  But it's good to know that she wants to hold it!  It will be exciting to watch her open it on Christmas!

Here she is next to the book I used for the pattern:

This post was also posted on Watson Handmade Christmas

The Cat In The Hat sock puppet

Aaron is in love with the cat in the hat right now!  I thought it would be fun to try to do a sock puppet dressed like the cat in the hat!  Thankfully Aaron spent the afternoon at Granny's this afternoon and I was able to get this made for him!  I can't wait to give this to him on Christmas!!

This is also posted in Watson Handmade Christmas.

My First Doll

Yeah!  I just finished making my first doll!!!  (the first of 3 different kind I am planning on making for Alyssa for Christmas.  I found the tutorial for this doll here.

 I loved how her hair turned out!!

 Here is what she looks like without her dress on.

Like I said, I will be making a couple more dolls for Alyssa, along with some other toys for the boys!  It's going to be a fun Christmas :-)

Also posting at Watson Handmade Christmas.

My Quilt!!

OMG!  I can't believe I finished it!!  I finished my quilt for my bed!!  I am so excited.

There is a special dear friend of mine, who desires to remain anonymous in this, that was given a bunch of quilting stuff from the family of a woman she knew that passed away.  Most of this stuff was quilts that were half pieced together but were never finished.  My friend told me that she did not have time to finish these quilts and wanted to know if I would be interested in any of them.

When I saw the pieces for this quilt I fell in love at first sight!!  It was beautiful and I quickly thought of my bed and how pretty it would be on my bed so I told her I would love to take it!!  I also took a few other projects...and am thinking my sister would maybe like to do some of them herself :-)  (she hasn't even heard about this until this post - HEE HEE!!)  But once again, the friend of mine wishes to remain anonymous in this and I am honoring her decision in that!

But look at my quilt!!

I finished piecing it together.  I added the solid blue around the edges.  I found some super soft high loft batting and some pretty natural color muslin fabric for the back side.   I am quite new to quilting so instead of trying to hand quilt it or even machine quilt this massive quilt I found some pretty blue and cream 1/8" satin ribbon and tie tacked it (I don't know if that is the correct term or not...sorry if it is not).

Here is a close up of one of the squares.

Now I just need to find (or make) some pretty shams and some new curtains for my room.  (my current curtains are white but the bed is cream)

My husband told me last night that he would like to make a custom headboard for our bed!!  I think that would be GORGEOUS!!!

I'm so excited!!!  I have wanted to make bedding for my room for quite some time now.  But it seems like other projects always send this one to the back burner!  I am so happy to finally have new bedding for my bed!!!  (even if I didn't completely make it by myself!)

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!