Simple Easter Dress + Tutorial

I have had plans to make my two girls Easter dresses for months, but just kept putting it off and putting it off and then when I had to go home for the funeral I thought that there was no way I was going to have time to make them. As I was walking through Joann's this week, I came upon the cutest fabric that was pre-ruffled on the bottom and smocked on the top and my plans of being able to finish dresses in time became a reality. 

I know that these dresses have been around the block a few times now, but this was my first time making them before so bare with me. 

This has to be the easiest thing to make in. the. world. And it looks like you spend to much time and effort to get the look.

The fabric comes like this. All you have to do is sew up the side to create the dress and add straps of some sort. It literally took less than a half hour to make. Umm... I think that is a record for a dress this cute! :)

So here is how I made the dress {for my skinny 3 year old}:

Keep in mind that you are going to have to take your own measurements to come with how much fabric you will need.

SUPPLIES:

-half yard of the pre-ruffle/smocked fabric

-whatever you want to use to make the straps; ribbon, extra fabric, etc.

-thread

To make my dress straps, I bought an extra half yard of the regular matching fabric because I have plans to make a skirt for my baby to match this dress {pictures and tutorial to come soon}.

Step 1: Zig zag or serge the raw edges of the sides of the fabric.

Step 2: Put the fabric right sides together and sew up the side to create the dress part. {forgot to take a picture of this step, but I think ya can figure it out ;)}

Step 3: Measure how wide and long you want the straps to be. For my little gal, I cut two strips of fabric that were 3 inches side and 10 inches long. {Keep in mind that you will be folding your straps in half so double your width.} Once your fabric is cut, take one of the fabric pieces and fold it in half (hotdog wise) right sides together and sew up the side of the raw edges creating a tube. Do this for the other piece of fabric too.

Step 4: Turn the tube right side out and and iron flat so that the seam is centered (instead of on the edge) so that you won't see it once the straps are flipped over.

Step 5: Try the dress on your daughter and pin the straps onto the dress so you can see where they need to be sewn. Carefully take the dress off her while the pins are still in.

Step 6: Sew the straps in place.

That's it!

I am back to blogging and crafting!!! (Plus a glimpse of my house mid-crafting...)

I am FINALLY back to the crafting/blogging world!


For those of you that didn't hear where I went or why I was gone- I had to leave spur of the moment and unplanned due to my little brother passing away. 


I am so grateful to you guys for sticking around, even though I took a month off to be with my family. Lucky for me, I have a fabulous friend named Rach that took over the reins of my blog and lined up some great guest posts from my favorite bloggers to keep things moving with my blog. So thank you to everyone that helped guest post! You guys are the best!!


And a HUGE thank you to you guys.... I got so many wonderful emails, comments, etc- that really helped me and made me feel ok about taking this big leave. Thanks so much for your support and understanding! I love you all and am so grateful to get to know you a little bit through this blog! You guys are the best!!


I pulled back into town last night so I have a month worth of everything to catch back up on, but I just wanted to let you all know that I am back on board with blogging and crafting and have some fun projects and tutorials up my sleeves- headed your way soon!! Thanks for hanging around!!


In the mean time, I am going to share a little bit of behind the blog scenes... WHAT MY HOUSE LOOKS LIKE WHEN I AM MID-CRAFTING... brace yourselves! ha ha


(this is a guest post I wrote for My Hand Crafted Home)


Have you ever felt worthless after spending hours(or even minutes) looking at blogs because in blogland everyones house is perfectly kept, kids are perfectly dressed, projects are always completed, pictures have perfect lighting, and meals are artfully prepared and served on color coordinating dishes, etc?

Then you aren't alone! I have spent many a night feeling like I am not as orderly, crafty, talented, etc as other bloggers out there!

But I have a newsflash for you... blogging is an optical illusion. You see what bloggers want you to see. The picture of the perfect chocolate cake doesn't show the kitchen in the other room that was torn apart making it! The picture of an intricate quilt doesn't show the number of seams that were ripped out while making it. The picture of a perfectly fitted pencil skirt doesn't show the safety pin in the back holding the skirt shut cuz the button popped off while taking pictures! Get what I mean? 

Pretty much 100% of the time that I blog, I am sitting in my pajamas with a house in need of some sort of attention! (to my defense, I mainly blog at night so pajamas are fitting- but that is no excuse for my house! ha ha)

Of course we want everyone to see the "perfect side" not the side that has let the laundry pile up and go unfolded for weeks while working on sewing projects. {Of course that has never happened to me- just giving an example- wink wink}

So today I thought I would let you in on a little bit of the behind the scenes in my neck of the woods. Brace yourselves... it isn't pretty!

I live in an apartment and have limited space. I don't have a cute  craft room {that will be the day}- so my dining room doubles as a sewing/laundry room. Here is what is was looking like last night amid-sewing...

Across the room lies a space full of disorder!! (un pictured in the corner is a sink full of dirty dishes and an empty pizza box cuz mommy didn't have time to make dinner! ha)

I guess what I am trying to say is that blogging is awesome in a lot of ways- but just keep in mind that what you see isn't always the whole picture! :)

Little Miss Priss Skirt + Tutorial

 I would definitely classify my oldest daughter as a "girly girl"... she loves all things girly, ruffly, princessy, etc. And I love it! She is always totally in love with anything girly I make for her. She thinks all of things I make are "beautiful" and she tells me all the time!  -Definitely a confidence booster since she currently tells everything "how it is" and has not been afraid to tell me more than once that she didn't like the shirt I was wearing {in a very nice way of course}. ha ha

Since it has been a while since I made her a skirt, I decided it was high time I get to ruffling and skirt making. In the past I have made the rick rack ruffle skirt, the {not so mini} mini skirt, the Dora the Explorer skirt, and the pom-pom skirt for her- so this time I wanted to mix things up a little and try something new.

I knew that I wanted to do ruffles again since she loves them so much, but I wanted to do them a little different. Here is what I came up with.

The ruffles are just barely there, but add a little fullness to the skirt which is fun:) 

{more "twirl factor"= happy girl}

So- if your little gal needs a Little Miss Priss Skirt- here is how I made mine...

My daughter wears a 2-3t right now so if you were making this for a smaller or bigger sized girl then you may need to adjust the fabric measurements/amounts.

Supplies:

--- 3-4 different fabrics, 1/8 yard each. 

{I had originally planned to make this a 4 tiered skirt, but once I had the 3rd tier on and held it up to her I realized than another tier would have been too long so I stuck to 3.}

---Elastic for the waistband

-trim for the bottom of the skirt 

{the kind I used is rick rack with crocheted trim on it- I found it at  a darling little fabric shop in my town.}

---thread

Cutting your fabric:

Each layer of this skirt is progressively bigger than the layer above it. So you will need to decide which fabric order you want your skirt layers to be before cutting...

Here is a picture of the cutting process to help you visualize a little bit.

So as I mentioned  earlier, when making this skirt I had planned to have 4 tiers, but last minute changed to 3- well I changed to 3 after cutting my fabric- So this is how I cut mine. For the bottom tier {not pictured} I left it the full length {around 42-44 inches}, for the second to bottom tier {the bottom tier on my finished skirt} I cut off 5 inches of the length, for the red tier I cut off 10 inches, and for the top tier I cut off 15 inches. So if you are doing 4 tiers on your skirt- cut your fabric like that- if you are doing 3 like mine ended up being, I would not cut any off the bottom tier and then adjust your lengths for cutting the other two layers off depending on how full you want your skirt. The key to the skirt looking even is just making sure whatever ratio you use for cutting is the same with each graduating layer so that the layers are evenly ruffled. Make sense??

{Tip: I think 1/8 of a yard is the perfect size/thickness for a tier in the skirt- no matter the age, but if you are making a skirt for a bigger child, you may need more width than just 1/8 of a yard so you could buy 1/4 of a yard and then cut it in half so you had two 1/8ths and then you could sew them together so that your fabric was 1/8th of a yard thick but twice as long as just 1/8th of a yard- does that make sense at all?? ha ha}

Step 1: Once your fabric is cut, zig-zag or serge all of the edges for each piece {technically you don't need to serge or zig-zag the bottom edge of the bottom tier since you will be hemming it and you don't need to do it to the top edge of the top tier either since you are going to be creating a casing for your elastic, but if this confuses you- just do it around all edges of each piece- that is not going to hurt anything}

Step 2: Take each layer except the top layer and sew across the top of each layer- Make sure to set your stitch length to the longest your machine will do and do not go back and froth at the beginning or end because you are going to be gathering your fabric. Once you have a seam sewn across the top of each layer, take the second tier of the skirt and gather the fabric so that it is the same length of the bottom of the tier above it. (it is not going to take a lot of gathering since it is only 5 inches bigger than the tier above it) Put the gathered piece on top of the top tier right sides together and pin the top of the gathered layer to the bottom of the tier above it and then sew in place. (make sure that you adjust your stitch length back to normal for the remainder of your sewing project)

 When you are all done, it should look like this. You are going repeat step 2 with each tier until each tier of the skirt is sewn on.

Step 3: Press your seams so that they are all facing towards the top of the skirt. The top stitch on the right side of the fabric above each seam. (so you will be top sewing on the bottom of each tier above the gathered part of the tier below it)

 It will look like this when you are done top stitching.

Step 4: Fold your skirt in half, matching up the side seams, pin in place and sew along the side to create your skirt.

Step 5: Create a casing for your elastic. To do this, fold and press the top of your skirt over 1/4 inch all the way around the skirt, then measure the width of your elastic and fold and press over again. I used 1 inch elastic so when I folded over a second time, I folded over 1 1/4 inch so that I would have enough room for my seam and to fit my elastic in. Sew all the way around the skirt but leave an opening big enough to feed your elastic into. Measure and cut your elastic and then hook a safety pin to one end of your elastic and thread it all the way through the casing till it comes out the other side. Sew both ends of your elastic together (make sure that it has not twisted around at all while threading through before sewing) and then sew finish sewing the casing closed.

Step 6: Hem your skirt. I just folded and pressed 1/4 inch and then over again 1/4 inch and sewed for my skirt.

 Step 7: Add your trim. If you are adding trim like pom-poms, rick rack, etc- sew your trim to the bottom of the skirt.

 I used a rick rack trim that had crocheted lace on the top and bottom of the rick rack. To sew this kind of trim on, I just pinned in place and sewed on top of the rick rack part. (since the delicate lace is not attached to the skirt, I am sure I will have to press this trim after each washing)

That's it... now you have a new skirt for your Little Miss Priss!

I'm addicted to quilting + a giveaway

*This giveaway is now closed.*

So just like I used to think sewing was something I thought I could never do- Quilting was on the list of "things I could never do" as well.

Well... I proved myself wrong and made a quilt!

{I'm totally turning into my Grandma! ha ha Love ya Grams!}

 Oh My Crafts sent me some Riley Blake Stackers and I decided that I could do it... So I got to quilting. 

For this quilt I used 3 of the Riley Blake Happy Skies Stackers (each bundle has 22- 5x5 inch pieces so I used 64 of the 66 pieces for this quilt)

Oh My Crafts only carries pre-cut fabric bundles so I wasn't able to get the fabric for the backing and or the binding from there, but their prices on pre-cuts are super great!

They also sent me 2 of the Riley Blake Dainty Blossoms Stacker Bundles so I decided to make a dolly quilt for my little gals to use for their dollies.

I decided to cut of the 5x5 inch squares into triangles and tried my hand at making a zig zag quilt. I loved it! It was so fun that I have decided to do a chevron/zig zag lap sized quilt this summer and I am going to be doing step by step instructions for anyone that wants to sew along with me! There will be a weekly post for one month that will have everything you need to know to complete the quilt and sew along with me. Stay tuned for more details!!

I machine quilted by sewing along the zig-zags and  I love how the zig zag looks on the backside- on the minky part!!

{Not sure why my camera was acting weird and made this fabric look grayish- it is really bright green}

Oh My Crafts is a super awesome site that has just about every crafting tool, supply, etc you need for all of your crafting ventures! I could not believe just how much they sell! It's great!

And... now for the fun part! Oh My Crafts is giving one lucky Mommy by day Crafter by night reader a $25 gift certificate to their shop!

All you have to do to enter the giveaway is:

{leave a comment saying that you did both things with your email so I can contact you if you win}

---Like Oh my Crafts on Facebook

--- Become a follower of Mommy by day Crafter by night via GFC {the blue button on my sidebar that says "join this site"} or via RSS

One winner will be chosen at random and announced on the Mommy by day Crafter by night Facebook page on Feb 29th.


Also- Here are some Coupons codes that are good thru 2/29/12

Use coupon code LEAP15 for 15% off any order! Use coupon code SAVE20 for 20% off on orders over $50.00 Use coupon code SAVE25 for 25% off on orders over $200.00

Easy Pom-Pom Pillow Tutorial

I am in the middle of giving my bedroom a makeover... Just a few more things that I need to get done and then I am ready for the big reveal! Last week I shared my lamp shade makeover and 

today I am sharing a pillow I whipped up to go with my bedding. 

It was super easy... only 5 steps 

***The pillow cover that I made is for an 18x18 sized pillow, so all of the supply measurements and cutting measurements coordinate with this size, but you could do this for any size/shape of pillow and just take your own measurements to come up with how much fabric you need and what size to cut your fabric!***

Supplies:

---2 fat quarters {if you want to use different fabrics for the front and back of the pillow} OR 1/2 yard of fabric {if you want them to be the same fabric}

---72 inches of jumbo pom-poms {I use a 50% off couple at Joann's when I buy these so they aren't too pricey!}

---16 inch zipper

---thread

Cutting your fabric:

For the front panel of the pillow- cut one 18x18 inch piece of fabric

For the back panel- cut two 18x 91/2-10 inch pieces of fabric (depending on how much room you need to put your zipper in)

 Step 1: Zig Zag or serge around all of the edges of your fabric.

Step 2: Sew in the zipper on the back panels. I like to use Make It and Love it's zipper tutorial!

Step 3: Set your back panel aside for a minute and take the front panel and pin the pom-poms all the way around the edge (on the right side of the fabric) with the pom-poms facing towards the center like this....

 Step 4: Sew around the edge of the fabric- tacking down the pom-poms. {You can totally skip this step if you are super great at sewing- but I like to do this when sewing on pom-poms just to make sure they aren't moving around when they are pinned in between two layers of fabric. }

Step 5: Lay your back panel on top of the front panel {right sides together} and pin. Then sew all the way around the edge... Make sure that your zipper is unzipped a little bit so that you can turn the pillow cover right side out when you are all done. 

Turn your pillow cover right side out and insert your pillow form.

That's it! Super easy and cost me less than $10 to make {not including the pillow form}

New Site Design!

I am so excited to reveal my new site design today!! 

I have wanted to go a different direction with the look of my blog for a long time. I searched and searched for someone to do it for me that had the look/style I was wanting but also a price that I could afford and lucky for me I found the perfect gal for the job!! Carly of Playful Pick Designs. I got on the her waiting list and was so excited when it came time for my turn! She really went above and beyond my expectations and did everything just how I wanted it. She is so awesome to work with!! Love her!

So feel free to grab a new button and switch it out with the old one!

<br /> <a href="http://mommybydaycrafterbynight.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i232/chuckarama/Hired%20Design%20Work/e47d861f.png" border="0" /></a><br />

What do you guys think?? I am in L.O.V.E.

Chenille Blanket

I am pretty much obsessed with Chenille blankets at the moment. I love making them, I love the way they look, and I absolutely love the way they feel after the first wash. 

A chenille blanket is created by layering three pieces of flannel and backing it with a coordinating cotton print. You quilt the blanket with diagonal lines and then you cut through the three layers of flannel in between each line. After you are all done, you throw the blanket in the washer and dryer and it comes out as soft, frayed goodness!

I first came across Chenille blankets when I saw this one on the Aesthetic Nest. And recently Anneliese from Aesthetic Nest caught my eye again with her chevron chenille blanket! Holy Toledo- that is one cute blanket!!

So then when I came across Dana from Made's version I knew that it was time. The universe was screaming- "Make a chenille blanket!"

A few months ago I was shopping and found this lovely fabric... 

It is called Peacock Lane Menagerie Yellow by Violet Craft for Michael Miller

The only problem was that it was just a lightweight quilting cotton and for the back of my blanket I needed something heavier, like twill or home dec weight fabric. 
So I got to brainstorming and figured that I could just get an extra layer of flannel and use spray adhesive to tack it to the fabric and then added my other 3 layers of flannel, sewed, and then when it was time to cut the fabric to create the chenille effect, I didn't cut through that flannel that was attached to the yellow fabric. Worded like a charm! Made my main fabric feel more heavy duty and I still got to use the fabric I loved!


I didn't come up with a tutorial for this project like I normally do- just because between the Aesthetic Nest tutorial and the Made tutorial these ladies pretty much had it covered...


Here is my two cents for making chenille blankets. 


-I have made two so far and with the first one I cut through the layers by hand with scissors and it literally took an hour plus a lot of hand cramping. So I knew that I would be making more of these little blankets so I ordered the chenille cutting tool by olfa- LIFE SAVER! It took minutes to cut through the layers and my hand was cramp free! Love this tool! But really- only buy this tool if you have plans for making lots of these little lovelies- not just a one time deal. Buck up and use your scissors if it's only one blanket. 


-Tack your fabric down with washable spray adhesive. These layers like to shift and move around so adhesive helps keep things in place for ya while sewing. Just make sure it is the washable kind!


-If you haven't made one of these- try it! It is time consuming, but the end result is so worth it. It is the perfect baby gift! Anyone who receives one will think you slaved over this thing for weeks. :)