Create: Sew a Simple One Seam Child's Skirt

What is it about skirts that little girls love? It is a major struggle for me to get my daughter to wear pants or shorts. It usually requires a lot of talking it up and compromise on my part. Or a lack of anything else to wear due to my slacking on the laundry. :)

Well, if my little girl is going to insist on wearing a skirt everyday of her life, I need to at least provide her with an assortment to choose from so we're not wearing the same one over and over and over again. 

Enter: my quick cheaters method of skirt sewing. (Or really, I guess it is skirt resizing. However you want to look at it.)

Really what this takes is finding a cute (preferably low cost) already made skirt at the store, and sizing it down.

I have scored great deals on knit mini skirts in the women's section at H&M. When sewing for kids, the key really is to find mini skirts, because they are already the right length for short child legs. This past spring I found a few different skirts on sale for $3 and less that I thought would be adorable on Hailey.

Step 1: I began with a skirt of Hailey's that is already the right size and set it on top of the bigger skirt to gauge sizing. 

Step 2: I then factored in about 3/4" to 1" extra to account for a seam allowance. Use a rotary cutter to cut off the excess.

Step 3: I ran it through the serger. Easy peasy. If you don't have a serger, simply use a zig zag stitch so the fabric is still able to stretch like it should.

This skirt quickly became one of Hailey's favorites. It has the best colors and the proper amount of fantastic twirl. 

This works for making pencil skirts as well. Hailey has a couple of those she sports too. If you spot a great deal, this is an easy, minimal effort way of sewing a skirt. No hemming, no threading elastic through the waistband; just one cut, one seam and then you're done!

(Depending on the length of the skirt and the size of your child, you may need to hem a little bit. Hailey wears a size 5/6 and the length of skirts has been perfect on her. If you need to hem, but don't want to, just roll the waistband up. It works, and no one will notice, promise. :)

A Turquoise and Pink Country Wedding

01.19.16 edit: I have added a downloadable file for the Who Has the Groom game for those who may want to use it. 

June was a busy month for my family. My sister was married at the end of the month. I spent a good portion of my free time helping prep for the wedding. I was so excited for my sister, and of course very eager to help craft and create wedding decorations.

My now brother-in-law is a cowboy through and through. He is always in boots, jeans, and a hat. He and my sister go out hunting, fishing, and motorcycle riding. Naturally, the wedding was country themed: mason jars, burlap, lace, cowboy boots, and guns. The colors my sister picked were pink and turquoise, nice and bright for a fun summer wedding.

Let me share with you what kept me so busy helping plan this wedding. Besides helping with set up and food prep in the kitchen, I put my computer and crafting skills to work. When you procrastinate and do most of the work just weeks (or the night) before the wedding, it makes for jam packed days. Not that I did that..

To start the wedding month off, with some help from my mom and aunt, I hosted a bridal shower. Here is the invitation I made. Nice and simple.

When I throw a party I really don't go all out. I like it to be nice, but not over the top. I don't decorate much or do anything real stressful or elaborate. Keep it simple. Corinne did request to play one game she had spotted on Pinterest: Who Has the Groom? I thought it was a fun idea, so we went with that.

The idea of the game is that each guest is given an envelope with a card inside. Most cards hold a celebrity, one or two others hold the groom. Whoever has an envelope with a picture of the groom wins a prize. Pretty basic. We played this game as we went around the room introducing ourselves.

To make the cards I searched online and found an image of a model wearing a tuxedo. I also searched up different male celebrities and used Photoshop to place their heads onto the tuxedo body. I had so much fun making these cards! I included a few of Corinne's favorites, like Steve Irwin (who she loved as a child) and Spiderman.

I sized the cards to be business card size (2" x 3.5") so they would fit inside a small coin envelope.  I rounded the edges of the cards with a corner punch. For the envelopes, I used a template found on Everything Mary Beth and put the text on using Photoshop (or Illustrator) and then printed it all out on cardstock. To seal the envelopes I found a glue stick that was repositionable. It worked great! Follow the instructions, wait a minute or two before sealing the envelope, otherwise it will just stick like regular glue. If you wait, you can open and close it over and over and it will continue to stick and unstick. 

Click here to download a copy of the game with envelopes.

Now, onto the wedding. I designed the wedding announcements. I am really happy with how they turned out. They were double-sided, information on one side, pictures on the other.

At the reception, for centerpieces among the burlap and mason jars, my sister requested I make some fact sheets about each the bride and groom. I made a little table tent that had a picture and a few facts about each of them on either side.

Another requested idea were signs greeting guests as they made their way into the reception. The signs read a welcome message, the bride and groom's names, the date, and a few other fun messages like "The hunt is over!". To make these signs we cut some plywood into rectangles, I think they ended up being 8 x 16. I made stencils on the computer and used my silhouette to cut them out of cardstock, we taped them in place and then painted with acrylic paint and foam brushes. Then the plywood was glued to wood stakes that were found at Home Depot. The signs turned out even better than I had imagined (especially considering we finished them at 10:00 pm the night before the wedding).

The last item I helped with was a quilt. My sister had seen the idea of using a quilt as a guest book and wanted to do that. That's fitting for a country wedding, right? So just a few weeks before the wedding my mom and I got down to business and busted out a quilt top. There were a few times when we were together cutting squares all afternoon, or sewing with both of our machines next to each other. With the two of us working hard we got it done.

The quilt pattern I found is called a Siggy Block, I found it over at Sparrow Quilts. This pattern was perfect for the guest book idea. We did size it up a little bit, so the blocks were a bit bigger. It worked out great. Now Corinne and Taylor will have a guest book they will actually look at. Once we get it quilted that is... :)

That is a small bit of our summer craziness. Now to focus on completely reworking our backyard. Yay!

So tell me, what is keeping you busy this summer?