Dorothy Dinosaur Tail

I just wish I'd taken a photo of the 2y/o girl's face when she opened her birthday present. It was worth every minute of making time and then some.

Felt Super Hero Armbands

I wanted to make a present for Mr 5's teacher who is going on maternity leave. I had planned to make a taggy toy, but then I saw her receive a half a dozen soft toys from other people in the class, and decided that something for her 3y/o son would be more useful. These were super simple to make. In total designing, cutting and sewing took 45 minutes.

 I measured around Miss 3's wrist and left a gap of about 3cm for the elastic. This gave me a fabric size of approx. 12cm x 8cm.

I cut two rectangles, one of felt, and the other of fleece. The fleece square was half a cm bigger on each side, this meant that when it got a bit misaligned due to stretching when sewing, I could just trim the fleece and it looked neat again. The fleece should be nice and soft on little arms.

I cut a few other felt shapes to make them look interesting and then sewed everything together. The elastic (about 5cm long) was a little fiddly to sew on the second end, but I just pinned it in place and took extra care I wasn't sewing bits together that weren't meant to be sewed together.

Here's hoping the little boy likes them!

Rose Headband

We had an artificial rose lying around, and I thought I'd make Miss 3 a new headband. Quick and simple. I made a tube of white satin to fit around some elastic (about 1.5 times as long as the elastic.) I turned it right side out and threaded the elastic into the tube. I sewed the elastic together and then tucked the ends of the satin in and sewed it together.

I sewed a small circle of white felt onto the satin (through the elastic). The felt bonds nicely with hot melt glue. I then cut the bottom of the rose off so it was flat, and glued it in place. A few of the layers of the rose seemed to be a little loose, and so I added some hot melt glue where ever it looked like it was needed.

Pretty, comfy and practical.

Fairy Flip Flops

Miss 3 came to me with this idea to make her thongs (a.k.a. flip flops) into "fairy thongs". First we selected a bunch of ribbons and I used a lighter to carefully melt the ends to stop them from fraying. I tied one ribbon around the front strap of the shoe, on both sides of the toe piece (making a rough figure 8 shape). We then threaded the ribbons through that first ribbon and tied them in a knot. 

Note: If you find these come untied too often, try tying each ribbon separately.

2 Dresses and a Nappy

I am just discovering how easy it is to sew clothes (as long as you're not too fussy if the end result is not exactly what you had in mind). This week I set out to sew Miss 3 a singlet top out of some cute panda material. I wanted to use a simple pattern so I had a quick look at the tutorials from Prudent Baby, and Random Nicole and then set to work. I was a bit too generous in my sizes and made a dress instead of a top, but neither Miss 3 or I were too worried about that. 

The great thing about this dress was that the largest triangles that were cut off, made a scrap of the perfect size to make a new matching dress for her baby doll. I used the same pattern, just seriously scaled down.

However once baby had a new dress on it was obvious she also needed a nappy, so I used a piece of lovely soft material to make her a modern cloth nappy. 

Wedding Dress Ups

On the first day of the school holidays, the kids decided they wanted to stage their own wedding. I felt like sewing, and so decided to make a bow tie for Mr 5. I knew I only had a few minutes to make it, or it would spoil the enthusiasm of the moment, so while Mr 5 made sure that Miss 3 went to the toilet "so she wouldn't have to go in the middle of their wedding" and put on sufficient things to make her especially beautiful, I got to work whipping up a bow tie.

I cut two pieces of shiny fabric, one roughly 20cm x 30cm, and one roughly 10cm square. I turned the shiny side in and sewed along the length of each piece.

Turning them right side out, I sewed together the two ends of the larger piece, making a loop.

On the smaller piece, I sewed a loop of elastic, that was roughly the size of my neck (which makes a nice loose ift around Mr 5's neck + hoodie.

Keeping the elastic loop to the inside, I sewed the two ends of the smaller piece together.

Turning the smaller loop right side out, I slipped it over the larger loop, and ta-da, we have a bow tie.

The smaller loop then needs to be kept in place with a few small stitches. Ideally this would be a few nice neat hand stitches on the back side. Due to time constraints, I just put a couple of stiches through from front to back using my sewing machine. Not as elegant, but functional.

 Next we needed some rings. I used a bit of aluminum foil for them.

And finally a veil. Miss 3 originally didn't want one, but seeing as I already had my sewing machine out, and had some old lace curtain at hand, complete with a seem to the top all ready for elastic to be slipped through, I thought I'd make it anyway. I cut the material with a straight top edge (pre-hemmed) straight sides, and the bottom edge in a scooped shape. The material was about 60cm wide. The elastic I cut to be roughly the same length as one of Miss 3's headbands.

I threaded the elastic through, and sewed it into a loop. Done. And I was glad I did, as Miss 3 wore it for the entire day, and every day since.

The wedding went off without a hitch.