Onesie Dress

To continue on with my obsession of re-fashioning plain onesies, I also found a great tutorial on how to make a dress using a plain onesie and some scrap material.

Here is the dress from the tutorial:

I started with a plain pink, short sleeve onesie from Hobby Lobby.

My skirt is actually made from fabric I have left over from my sorority letter making days in college.

I can't wait to see this on a pretty little girl.

Hoosier Onesie

One of my cousins had a baby girl last week.  I've been trying to think of something to make for them.

Recently, I stumbled on this awesome onesie on Pinterest.com

Since my cousin and his wife are both from Indiana, but living in Colorado, I decided to redo this onesie and put my own spin on it.  I think it came out so cute!

Notice that Indiana is made from a vegetable patch fabric! I thought it was so appropriate for this agricultural state.

I hope they love it and think of home every time she wears it.

Update:  Here is a picture of the blessed baby wearing the finished product

Up-Cycled Sweater Dress version 2.0

Okay, I forgot to take a photo of the before.  But this was a big bulky sweater with a HUGE turtleneck.  I was able to cut it down and make the neck more like a mock-turtleneck.  It ended up being pretty short (it'd been badly shrunken), but it will still make for a great long sweater over a pair of itty-bitty skinny jeans!

Then I crocheted a rose for the shoulder.  Adorable!

For the record, Thing 1 will be a great model one day.  He is not picky about what I put on him!

Update:  Here is a picture of the actual little lady the sweater was made for with her wearing it!  Doesn't she look darling.

Up-cycled Sweater Dress

So, like many crafters, I have developed an obsession with Pinterest.com.  I am so overwhelmed sometimes with good ideas that I'm finding myself working on multiple projects at once.

Last night I was cleaning out/re-organizing my bedroom closet and I came across a few cute sweaters that no longer fit.  Actually, they no longer fit for two reasons.  #1 I have gained weight (duh!) and #2 they've been dried (read: shrunken!).  I've been holding on to them because they are cute and I was holding out hope that if I lost enough weight, that they'd eventually fit again.  But at this point, I've decided to give up the ghost and just get rid of them.

But wait, I remember pinning something into my "If I had a little girl" board on pinterest where a woman does a tutorial on how to turn an old sweater into an a-line toddler dress.

Following the instructions (and using one of Thing 1 & Thing 2's 3T long sleeve shirts), I was able to make a super cute and soft sweater dress for one stylish little Lady Bug.

The sweater before:

Cutting the shape of the dress out:

The dress after:

Thing 1 is about the same size as the Lady Bug, so I made him try it on for me.  He was happy to help.

Do you think he'll hate me for this one day?

I made a few mistakes along the way, but besides the arms being a tad short, I think it turned out great.  I'm ready to try making another one with my other sweater.  And it's not a cowl neck, so it should be easier.

Almost done

Halloween is almost upon us.  Time to get together the finish pieces of the boys' costume.

We liked having the wagon with us so much last year that we decided to refashion the Thomas the tank engine into a hot dog cart.

Because I'd been using the wagon as a garden cart, and it'd been left out in the backyard all summer, and was completely waterlogged (yea, we didn't make it with very good wood), we had to rebuild the bottom and sides.

Then we spray painted it a shiny metallic silver and resprayed the wheels and handles black.

Finally we painted the sides.  And what hot dog cart is complete without an umbrella?

We are finally all ready for Halloween.  And not a moment too soon, because tomorrow there is a Trick or Treating event in town along fraternity/sorority row that we plan on hitting up!  First time with all of the costumes together!  Can't wait to take some pictures.

Updated pictures:

Quick crafting

It's been raining all week, so I couldn't finish the boys' Halloween costume (the hotdog cart). :(  But, the time stuck inside gave me an excuse to get out my bag of yarn and keep my hands busy crocheting.  I found a great blog with awesome, easy to follow, FREE crochet patterns: Crochet Geek

The first thing I made was a with a Baby Puff Stitch hat accented with a Crochet Spring Rose for my friend's baby due this winter.

Thing 1 & Thing 2 were watching me make the hat and asked me to make them hats too.  So, I found a cute pattern with a little visor.

Of course, once I finished the hat, I couldn't get the little buggers to actually wear it for a picture, so I had to use Mr. Bear again. :)

Next project: a blue super hero cape for a little boy that loves Super Why? :)

My Back Up Plan

My back up plan, for if/when Thing 1 and Thing 2 decide they don't want to wear their costumes for very long.

They'll also be great just-because tees, dontcha think?

Cut the mustard

As a reminder, my 4 year old twin sons wanted to be ketchup and mustard for Halloween this year.

Thing 1 is my mustard eater and Thing 2 can't get enough of his ketchup. So, in my mind that is how I would dress them. But over the past week and a half, they have each been telling me that they are dressing as the other condiment. I have no idea how this will shake out on Halloween night.

But for now, I finished the Ketchup costume last weekend.

And spent this morning finishing the Mustard costume.

I used the ketchup costume as a base for size and height. Then made the slightly more bell-bottomed shape and narrow squirter top. It fits Thing 1 great so far.

Then I hot glued the labels I'd already made, and I added his weight in ounces to the bottom. Then used yellow puffy paint to make lines on the squirter to look like ridges.

Finally, I had to bribe Thing 1 to try it on for me. But once he had it on, he really had some fun with it pretending to soak Superman with mustard.

Next step: the hotdog cart!

Ketchup catch-up

Thing 2's ketchup costume is finished!

One I finished making the labels (materials: felt, hot glue gun, and puffy paint), I just had to make the actual bottle shape.

I didn't have a pattern, so I literally laid my little ketchup kid down on the felt and did a police outline of his body.

Unfortunately, my ketchup kid (Thing 2) wasn't being very cooperative after the initial measurements, so luckily I had a clone happy to step in for the "fittings".

Finished product.

I plan on having Thing 2 wear a red shirt under the costume.  I'll have to have a long sleeve one on stand-by in case it gets cold.  No jacket is going on over this costume!

And, I've already finished the labels for Thing 1's mustard costume.

Seriously, I love Halloween!  When Steve Jobs tells the world to follow your passions, I think to myself "Self, why can't you find a job where you get paid to make Halloween costumes all year long?" :)

Halloween is coming!

Halloween is just 26 days away! Which, seems like a lot of time, but if you saw our family's calendar for this month, you'd understand why I already feel like I'm running behind making Thing 1 and Thing 2's Halloween costumes.

As I've discussed before, I come from the school of make-your-own-costumes. And as a mother of twins, I like to dress my boys in coordinating themes. So this year, we decided to do Ketchup and Mustard. Superman actually came up with the original idea, after seeing ketchup and mustard costumes at Menards. It seemed like a perfect fit for them because we are going through a phase right now where they want "sauce" on everything. And wouldn't you know it, Thing 1 only wants mustard. Lots and lots of mustard: on hotdogs, on french fries, on chicken nuggets, on Ritz crackers. You name it. Thing 2, the same thing except he wants ketchup on everything. I even saw him dipping his apples and grapes in ketchup. And he ate them!!

Of course my boys can't wear any regular old generic ketchup and mustard costume :), so I hit the internet and searched for inspiration.  Basically, I decided to model their costumes after the old fashioned Heinz ketchup bottle and French's mustard bottle.

Last night I measured the boys and then drafted a costume based on their proportions. Then, using felt, I designed the Heinz ketchup label. I used my spring loaded snippers to cut out the intricate letters out of adhesive backed black felt.  I started cutting out the red lettering too, but it came out too fat, so I settled on using red fabric paint instead.

I replaced the original "Est" date with 2007, since that is the year Thing 1 and Thing 2 were born.  And I changed the "Net Wt" to their weight in ounces.  For the label under the cap (not shown) I used 04 instead of 57, since the boys are 4 years old.

Now, I just need to figure out how I'm going to create the bottle itself. I can't decide if I should do all one piece with a face hole cut out or break it into two parts, with the neck as a hat.

Oh, and remember the Thomas the Tank engine we made from a wagon last year? We liked having the wagon so much for practical and logistical purposes that this year we are repurposing it as a hot dog stand.

Now if only we had a dog to stick in a hot dog costume.