Blanket pants for the little mr. in your life

We are spring cleaning this month and I started with the youngest kid's room. Found a few of these old blankets that come with stuffed figures. Well my kids are to big to sleep with them, as I have been told on a few occasions (like every time I put them on their beds.) So in spirit of spring cleaning I found a great way to keep the blanket, yet make it usable.  I made lounge/sleep pants for my "little" man based off the tutorial at The Ribbon Retreat Blog, that my mom used. It's a great blog spot, so check it out. The tutorial is pretty easy to follow. The blanket was too small in length so I used the leftover material to lengthen the pants, plus used material for a waistband. My son loves his jammies!
http://www.theribbonretreat.com/blog/pajama-pants-tutorial.html

6 Pocket pants for the boy!

So almost done with the 6 pocket pants for my son, well with the mock- up pants in white muslin with red Velcro. Instead of doing a full thigh pocket like the pattern I did a half pocket on both legs. For the pair in fashion fabric the pockets will have exposed zippers in place of the Velcro.  The pants are almost done I just need to decide if the closure will be a zipper and button or just an elasticized waistband. The pattern calls for an elasticized waistband, but what 7 year old wants that? So I have to do a fly zipper and button for the closure. Now to just find the perfect fashion fabric for him. Black fabric with blue bug fabric for the contrasting pockets and lining. Will have pictures soon as the kiddos go down for their naps this afternoon.

Winter is here, so what happened to Fall?

So this week we have winter in Colorado. Now I have to whip up a ton of winter ready clothing for the kids. Have been sewing hats and gloves for the kiddos and myself, I am hoping to get enough hats made to donate to a local shelter or families in need. Not sure where to start looking for this goal. Anyone have any ideas? I'm open to suggestions! When the wind kicks down, I'll be able to open my storage shed for more fabric, the winter stuff is hiding in there. The kids are getting double layered pants and long sleeve shirts to wear under their t-shirts. Gotha love layers!
For this project I will be using patterns, I got from the Arch for less then $.50. This one is for my long legged daughter.

 Most of the patterns that I have collected are used and from Goodwill or the Arch.

Here is the pattern for my son, it needs a few changes made to it. The waistband needs updating and the pattern its self has been cut of a size 14. He wears an 7 with the length of an 8. I have pretty tall kids for their ages

 Can't wait to get started today!

 

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Halloween Costume pieces

So it's been busy around here, we have had health issues to deal with and birthday parties to plan.
Now that its calmed down around here...... I have been working on Halloween costume pieces for the kids. My daughter is going to be a princess, but all the dresses we found at resale shops are sleeveless. That doesn't work well for the weather here in Colorado, so I came up with a crop jacket with bell sleeves and "gloves." The gloves are glove less and come up to mid-arm, I currently don't have a picture of these. They are still getting gold glitter designs for a more detailed look. Here is the jacket to go with the pink princess dress. The gold glitter really adds the finishing touches to the jacket. It looks like I bought them together, so happy with it.

The next piece is a Spiderman cape for my son. We are doing recycled/handmade holidays  this year, so his Spiderman costume is getting make over with a spider web cape and hat with the same design as his costume.  We found the mask to his costume this week. It was in a box still unpacked from a trip back in February. I'm still working on the hat.

 So I think the cape needs a backing fabric like red or blue, something that matches the color of his costume. My husband thinks it looks okay like it is.

 

Just between Friends Sale

So I decided to consign at the Just Between Friends event next weekend. So excited about it too! So I have a few items in the sale so far. A Jungle Babies (design by Patty Reed) pack n play sheet, fleece skirt, batman dress, nursing pads, jungle babies comforter and two pairs of Capri, plus a pleated skirt.

 

SIDE NOTE!

I have a few more days so here's to hoping that sewing can be done soon! More designs in the works! I saw a fur coat at Babies R Us that I want  to copy for my niece! The coat is by Heidi Klum and the brand is Scrumptious or Truly Scrumptious. I liked the design style and she needs a coat. I have a spotted blue faux fur to use for this design.

Up-cycled Batman Dress for sale on eBay

This dress is made from a t-shirt I found at Good Will, its too small for me and too big for a kid. So I down sized it with the serger to be a size 8/9. I love the tulle on this design, it makes the shirt so much cuter. The tulle is so much brighter in person then with my camera phone. I have it posted for sale on eBay it has one day and 17 hours left on this auction. The cost of the dress is $10.00. It is such a great dress.  Look up the name Up-cycled t-shirt dress size 8 girls! or my seller name, helping2pay4school. Please check out what I am selling.

Capri pants for Fall 2013

With Fall around the corner, what does one make for the new season? I think Capri pants are perfect for the hot days and then warm evenings. So going through my fabric stash I found a gorgeous gingham and a denim looking stretch cotton. The gingham is a soft teal with petite squares, that looks adorable on my model. I just didn't getting pictures of her with the pants on :(. The denim is dark blue with orange on the inside. The third pair is sparkly purple plaid with teal lines.

 This is a bad picture for the stretch denim, but they are still cute! I used a contrasting material for the inside waistband which really goes with the orange. I so need to get pictures of these on my model. Here is a better picture with a third pair of Capri.

 The pair on top is the stretch denim with the contrasting waistband. I love the rounded pockets on the teal gingham, and sparkly purple plaid has a contrasting waistband in teal green. What's great about these pants is their length! I love how they work for cool and hot days. 

Upcycled boys t-shirts!

Do you have a pile of kids t-shirts that are full of holes, but the design is still good? Well as spring/summer cleaning has taken place, there are a ton of shirts that need a new purpose. So here's how  you diminish your old wear shirts, when Michaels or Jo Ann's has plain colored sheet on sale buy as many as you need. Then cut out the design with a small edge around it, either hand sew or machine sew the pieces to the new shirt. To make the designs look different you can dye, or stitch different directions through the design. The limit is your imagination! The two shirts I did, had so limits to them, one has plastic one it and other has puffy paint which doesn't work so well with the needle.

Handmade BookBags for the new school year

This post is very late, due to my niece tossing a cup of soda on my computer. I had to wait until I could afford a new one or a cleaning. Which I went for the cleaning, here is my backpack post!

 My kids needed new book bags because their bags ripped by the end of the year. Which in itself is pretty good, due to the cheap quality of Wal-Mart products. So being as cheap as Wal-Mart, we dug through my fabric stash and found a bolt of bag fabric. Having found this at Good Will, over the summer, for $4.00 it was a steal. The original plan was to sell it on eBay, but I kind of got attached to it. I do that with all the fabric I buy or find. It's a bad habit, when you need to downsize your stash. The first bag is a messenger bag for my girl. It is a white base with pink, neon green, and brown polka dots. I had some quilted pink for the lining. The supplies for this bag came totally from my stash (yay!). The pattern for this bag came from another messenger bag, but I added way more pockets on the inside and one on the outside.

 The next bag is a backpack design, which I used his bag from last year as the pattern, however I know for next time, there needs to have at least 3 inches added to the pattern to make it big enough. I seem to have forgotten that little boys love to pack everything they can into it for school. (Even if it shouldn't go to school.) So this bag cost me about $8.00 to make because I needed 2 yards of black fabric, half yard of bright yard fabric and iron on letters. I would have made the letters however I could not find the interfacing when I needed it. We all know that kids like new book bags on the first day of school. So one of his shirts has a batman sign on it and I used it for the design pattern by free hand drawing the shapes. The straps came off of another bag that was beyond repair. The zipper is from my zipper box, you can find the best deals for zippers on eBay.

If you would like a yard of the Polka Dot bag fabric, just leave a note in the comments and I will get back to you details.