Picnic Season is almost here!

I have been wanting to make a big picnic sheet for a while for our ever growing family and finally this weekend I got there. It also grew from there and once the sheet was done, I made a bag for it, some napkins and a bag for those too!

The sheet was a funky duvet cover that I found at Value Village over a year ago for $4.99. I opened it out and kept one edge sewn so we can double it or open it out to make a really huge sheet and then I hemmed all the way around.

The big denim bag was made from a pair of my hubby's jeans. The smaller bag was made from the leg of my jeans and finally the napkins I made from you fabric my friend just donated to my craft supply. Thanks Robyn!

So pretty happy to complete the whole project for $4.99 and a day of sewing.

Reuse Reuse Reuse

So I still have lots more of my old cherished clothes to turn into my daughters new summer wardrobe.

Today I managed to turn a thai dress into a dress for her. I cut off the top part of the dress and added black bias binding to the armhole, top and for the straps.

Here is the dress before :

 Here is the 'after'...Evie has her scarey face on ;)

The skirt matches the brown top I worked on in a previous post. I had worn it in the past to a couple of weddings. I wanted to keep all the beautiful applique on it so I cut the length to size but left the width and then elasticated the top. It made a very twirly skirt which Evie and her dancing feet loved !!

Finally we did a kid and mum project. Last summer the kids grew a lavender plant each. We have been working on the garden and so I got the kids to pick off the dried leaves and today we made lavender eye pillows. They all have removable covers. I did the sewing and the kids did the filling and we added rice to the lavender mix to weight the bags.

Quite a productive day in all. Lots of sewing as well as potting our whole deck garden with over 18 different types of seeds and plants and making 25 chocolate beer waffles with cashew cream and chocolate drizzle. I put the extras in the freezer for a yummy breakfast another day.

We have wings!

So my goal for this year is to make all my gifts for friends and family, if at all possible. I, therefore, got a head start and began in January so that I can spread the projects out throughout the year.

I saw this blog a little while back with some beautiful fabric wings and thought that they would perfect for my princess ballerina, Evie. So here is my version.

You'll have to wait until Christmas for them to be modelled by her. Next we are back to repurposing my clothes into her summer wardrobe.

And another!!

This cute summer dress was gifted to me by a friend who was clearing her closet. I wanted to do something different with the top of the dress and then instead I decided to make another dress for Evie.

Here are the before and after shots. I sheered the body so there was minimal alterations in this one.

I cut off the straps and top green part. Then I folded over the cut edge and ironed and then began to sheer with the elastic on the spool. I left about 1 cm between the rows.

 Once finished I sewed in the straps to make this a halter neck maxi.

More Upcycling and Repurposing!

This time it was one of my summer frocks. Worn once to my cousins wedding about 10 years ago and then never to see daylight again until now.

So I worked it a little like the pillow case dresses and used a strip of the same fabric for the armhole binding and the straps from the original dress for straps on the new dress.

Old Tee Upcycled to New Dress

We are having a clothing swap at the yoga studio soon so I have been clearing out the closet again. Pinterest inspired me to try turning my old tees into dresses for Evie.

This one below was a V neck striped tee from Old Navy. We turned it backwards and cut it at the shoulder seam and resewed the pieces to the opposite shoulders. Quick and simple and now she has extra outfits for the summer. Perfect considering her flare for covering herself in paint and food!

She wanted to dance in it to show it off!

The Princess Cinderella Gown

The littlest member of the Lynn family is turning 4 years old next month and she wanted a beautiful princess dress. I found this one on Etsy and as perfect as it is (I know the price reflected a lot of fabric and work in it) I couldn't justify spending $130 on a dress.

So I set to finding the fabric and making it myself .

My fav place to wallow away time in is Fabricland. I managed to get great deals on all of it especially the corset fabric as it was on final sale. I think I spent just under $60 in total for the whole thing.

I was pretty pleased with the end result and so too was Evie.

Stayed tuned for pictures of the big day where she will debut at her Princess Ball Birthday Party.