Recent sewing items

Sorry I haven't been a very good blogger. I do have a few new items to post if blogger will allow  me to post pictures. The first item is a dress made of condoms for the Boulder Women's Health center  Condom Couture back in September. My model was great and looked awesome that night.

The next item is a monster high bustle for my daughter's birthday party.  I did it in yellow and gery because those were the colors on hand. It was a fun and fast project, the total price was less then $10.00, so I'm not complaining.

I guess that is all for now. I will be back soon.

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

Diaper inserts fit G-Diapers! Make or Buy!

Couple of months I got a client who needed G-Diaper inserts for her daughter -in- law. I got to work and came up with the perfect pad (if I say so). It has a few layers of  absorb, 100% cotton batting, flannel, and micro- fiber suede. Love the micro fiber suede, its so soft against baby's skin and makes me jealous :).  This are really easy to make, so here is a quick tutorial.
The  inserts I made measure 5" by 13" for the medium to large sizes.
So get your rulers and measure out a rectangle that is 5" wide and 13" long on your paper.
Now if you want rounded corners take the edge of a coffee cup or cd. Then place the curved item right below the corner and trace to round it. Remember to make your curve meet with the sides. Repeat on the other corners. I liked having the square corner, so mine are not rounded.
After getting your pattern cut out, its time to cut out your layers: Flannel, cotton batting, absorb, micro-fiber suede or sweatshirt fleece. (Re-purpose that holey old sweatshirt!) The layer order for serging and zigzag stitch is as follows; Flannel (top layer pattern side up)absorb and cotton batting in middle, micro-fiber suede or sweatshirt for the bottom. Now for the bottom layer you want to make sure the soft suede side is or the inside of sweatshirt is facing out away from the cotton batting. This is so the soft material is touching baby's skin.
The next part is really easy once you get the hang of serging multi- layers. The different layers may shift as you serge do to speed of the serger. This shouldn't happen too much with the zigzag stitch.  Don't panic the edge may get cut crooked, just finish going to the end  then use a ruler to measure the excess and make a straight line with chalk then redo your line with the serger. If the sides are just a little (or a lot) off, its still ok and the pad works. So no worries! Now just finish serging or zigzag stitching around the edges.  Voile you are done. I hope these directions make sense, I'm not that great at it. Now if this doesn't sound like fun or you just don't have time, shoot me an email and we can talk about ordering 12 pads for $30.00 plus shipping. Unfortunately I can only take forms of payment through PayPal, unless you are local to Colorado Springs.
For some reason I can't upload my pictures at this time. So I will try to get them on the tonight.
So I have been trying to post at least one picture of the inserts for too long, but I'm trying again.

 Yay! It finally posted my picture! When buying through the e-mail please specify if you want boy, girl or neutral.

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.

 

Costume change for Batman dress!

The Batman dress gets a costume change! I love the red tulle so much more then the pink and I added a tulle flower. Plus I found another sweet character shirt that can't wait to be something new!   This dress is going in the Just Between Friends Sale next week (much to my daughter's disappointment.) She loves the dress and wants to buy it with her allowance. I'm torn about giving it to her or selling it, the shirt was bought to make and sell but she wants it. Anyone have any thoughts on my issue?

 The first dress with pink tulle, the red is so much better!

Reuseable Nursing Pads

Got milk? Got spillage? Need these?

After visiting with my new niece, my sister was in need of these nursing pads. She doesn't like having to pay a minimum of $15.00 for a box of disposable  pads, who can blame her? It gets expensive when your maternity leave is not paid. Little sister gets a set of 4 nursing pads. We even went looking around at Baby's r Us for a set of nursing pads and they wanted between 10.00 and 39.99 dollars for their available brands. So she has tried these out and they work wonderfully. My sister can't wait for me to make her a few more nursing pads! I think they will make a great baby shower gift too. I'll post when I get some made up and for sale on eBay. Right now eBay is the cheapest platform for my sewing right now. I am looking forward to setting up an etsy account by the end of the year. Does anyone else have an idea on where to sell? I am on a very tight budget.

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.