More upcycled baby clothing

I've been making clothing out of old baby clothes for the girls dolls. Here is a dress I made out of bloomers that all three of our girls have worn LINK. Tonight, I took three onesies and a romper and in less than 45 minutes I re-purposed them. I made three sleepers and a dress for my girls. Okay, I made them for their Bitty Babies and Bitty Twins. I saw this method on Pinterest, but here is the original post.  It's so easy, okay maybe not as easy as the winging it dress from bloomers but still.
Four outfits
+ less than 45 minutes
+no money spent
= AWESOME.

Here's what I did-

Put the onesie/romper on the doll inside out.

Take pins and pin all around the loose fabric - this will help you know where to sew to take in the arms, legs, chest and sides of the clothing. Don't worry about length.

Slip the clothing over the dolls head - with the pins still on. I choose clothing with snaps and buttons in the neck area so it was easy peasy for me to remove it.

Sew where you've pinned. Remove the pins, and trim away excess fabric.

Turn the new sleeper or dress right side out. Put it on the doll and adjust any length on sleeves, legs and skirt hems. I did not have any sleeve or pant legs to hem, the onesies made for a perfect long sleeved sleeper. The romper I just cut off the bottom where the snaps were and stretched it, so I didn't need to hem it.  (Like the bottom of this T-shirt HERE)

Upcycled Old Navy Dresses

I recently got some dresses from Old Navy, one was a small ladies strapless dress for $2.00. The other was a women's dress that was $1.47

I didn't like the way the small looked on me. It was too.. ruffly. So I cut off the top. Added some elastic and made a skirt for Diva. She LOVES it. Its just her style. I didn't do much to it at all. But the little I did made it perfect for us.

The dress before.

 Added elastic.

Finished waist. 

Next dress-

For this dress I found. It was an XXL. I looved this material and color. I'm not a great seamstress. At all.  So for me to even attempt to sew material this slippery and stretchy into something isn't worth the cost of material that would end up in the scrap bin :). Since this was already a tube dress I was more than half way there. I wanted a long bustled skirt. Easy peasy. Just cut off the top and and add a waist right? Not so much. I've had a hard time finding a skirt that was long enough to do this with. By the time you fold up the waist band the skirt is too short.

Here's what I did-

1. Cut off most of the top of the dress. 

2. I wanted the front to be a nice flat panel instead of just bunched up, I didn't need or want extra bulk, or bunching there. So I took some stabilizer to make a panel for the front band. 

3. Sew some ribbon to the ends of the pannel

4. On what will be the back of the skirt, put two button holes the height of the ribbon. About  1 inch apart. Use a stabilizer where the holes are. (I took a picture of the stabilizer, not the holes. Ugh.)

For the front- To keep the ribbon out of the way, I pinned it up. Then I realized that wasn't going to help me at all. Because I needed to sew the waist band over the panel, and I couldn't get the ribbon unpinned. I have so many ideas, execution of them... not so much.

5. Sew one straight stitch of the panel to secure it to the front of the waist band. So it doesn't slide around. I did this before I folded the panel down so you can't see it from the outside. Sew the top of the dress down over the panel.  Keep an eye on the ribbon so you don't sew it into the dress. (I used a post it to help me sew straight.)

Once the panel is sewn into the waist band, put the ribbon through the holes in the back. The skirt will be big around, but will bustle beautifully when gathered.

I had the genius idea to top stich the top of my waist band. I'm not sure I like that as much.

Here's what the finished skirt looks like from the back. Not perfect, but I like it. AND mental note, match your threads very carefully. I'm sure they covered that in sewing 101, but I wasn't in that class.

Upcycled doll dress from bloomers

My babies are no longer babies anymore. I've been getting rid of baby clothes left and right. It's so bittersweet. I pulled a couple of items out of the giveaway pile and made some dresses for the girls dolls. This one started out as a 6-9 month bubble, that all of the girls wore. 

This as a simple process. I basically put the bubble on the doll and decide where it needs to be taken in. The chest area, neck area and arm holes almost always have to be taken in. 

For the neck area, I just took in the front of the top. I didn't want to mess with the buttons in the back, especially since buttons make dressing the dolls easier. 

Since I didn't cut anything away I put a decorative stitch on the outside to stabilize it.

 The arm holes were too big. Again, I didn't want to cut anything away so I just sewed the hole smaller. *hides*

Then I cut off the bottoms. Hemmed it and that's it!

Sewing kit for a toddler

When MIL emailed me to ask what Pixie might like for her birthday I sent her some ideas. I had seen this on childhood101.com and thought, I need to make her one of those she would love to sew. Especially since her sisters are learning to sew. I passed the idea on to MIL and she made Pixie the CUTEST little bag with her name embroidered on it. With extra needles, different types of string and extra shelf liner. PERFECT. She loves this little kit! 

This is perfect for practicing fine motor skills. Pixie just turned three, so this is safe for her.

Some tips- 

Get shelf liner with fairly big holes but not too large- just large enough so the needle isn't hard to pull through

I don't knot the string to tie it off when she starts. I just sew a couple of stitches for her. Once she's done I can pull it all out if needed to store it

MIL sent some different types of string, which is perfect, the textures are great for little hands

Check her out.

Stitch by stitch, sewing lessons.

I've recently been teaching the girls how to sew, (my oldest two). We're just working on hand stitching. Very basic. Straight stitches/running stitches, overcast stitching, button sewing, simple stuff. But they are having so much fun with it.

This was our first project. Diva chose a drawstring bag, Piglet chose to close her bag up and make a pillow. Since the girls are just starting out their stitches are crooked and uneven. So before the pillow was stuffed and the bag was finished, I reinforced the stitches with my machine.

Piglets pillow. She's stuffing it.

Upcycled T- shirt capes

I'm not a seamstress. Both my mom and DH's mom sew. They sew very well at that. I just never really learned. I'm left handed and my mom is right handed so anytime she tried to teach me to crochet, knit, sew it just got frustrating for her. LOL, poor thing.

So, I do a lot of no sew and  very little sewing projects when I get bit by the sewing bug. Oh sure I get these ideas in my head of making gorgeous dresses and fantastic quilts. Then, I sit down and I'm just overwhelmed. That's why sewing for my girls is perfect, they don't care if things are straight or "right", they just don't, God bless them. It's nerve wracking to be a perfectionist. I really do try to step out of my "if I can't do it right, I just won't do it" zone. Especially when the girls are around. I don't want them to be limited, if you will, by perfection.
I have been teaching the older girls how to sew. Right now they are working on hand stitching pillows, draw string bags, eye masks, and teddy bears. I'll have to post them soon. They are good little seamstresses! They really enjoy it also.

I made these capes from three of DH's old T-shirts. I just had Purple Heart pick up 8 bags/boxes of books, clothing, baby gear today, and I saw these shirts and the Sock Monkey Pajamas in one of the bags. So I pulled them out to make these capes. There is NO sewing required for the capes, unless you want to sew them. I just cut off the arms. and front panel, leaving the collar. Stretched the sides so they would roll, see HERE. That's it. Done.  I didn't even cut the sides straight. You can even use fabric glue to attach the embellishments. I used felt and the pajamas to make some embellishments and stitched them on with a sewing machine.

BDU gift bags...

OK I will be honest with you... I am not a good seamstress, but I love this little bag! my mom made a ton of gift bags for me out of fabric I had lying around, and so I thought I would try to make one of these bags from DH's pants. The tutorial is here at Camp Follower Bags and Quilts .

Once I was able to do one I whipped out the second one in not time. I would show you the inside but DH's Christmas gift is in there. These will also make the cutest Bento bags, I think.

As stated before my mom made me a ton of fabric gift bags, now I am not trying to be a Grinch or anything, I love LOVE wrapping gifts with bows and pretty tags and what not but, I went through so much wrapping paper this year that I thought, this is all just going in the trash. So I said to my slightly crunchy, but definitely more soggy self, "this is insane, we're switching to cloth." DH has no issues with is so here we are... once I have used up all my wrapping paper cloth it is. Unless it's a gift going out of the house to someone, then I will use paper or something.

Ladybug costumes....

Here are my little ladybugs! It took me all of 1 hour and 45 minutes to do these costumes. they aren't gorgeous but served their purpose and the girls looked TOO cute! Both are made with red sweat shirts, felt, pipe cleaners and pompoms.






Take a sweat shirt, cut off the arms. Hem the arm holes.











For the hat, use a sleeve. Cut it to the length you want sew up the top and hem the brim.







For the dots I used felt, I traced the circles with a mason jar lid and cut them out.







Sew on the dots.
Diva helped me put glitter glue on her dots after they were sewed on. I like the costume better without but any chance I can have her "help" me and be a little creative I will take it.
The girls wore black leggings with silver hearts on them and a black shirt under these and were warm.





Disclaimer on the hats- if you have kids that put things in their mouths or might take a pipe cleaner and poke their eyes out, use another method. My girls didn't mess with them so I just took pipe cleaner attached it to the pompoms and then onto the hat. This is Diva's hat I made the pompoms stick up a bit, for Piglet's hat I just attached the pompoms closer to the base of the hat.