Learn how to make a Strawberry Shortcake costume for your child or toddler using my tutorial.
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How to Make a My Little Pony Costume
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This tutorial is a bit advanced, but not that hard to master. This was only my second attempt at making a pillow with piped edges and I think it came out really well. I'm in the process (or should I say, I'm constantly in the process) of redecorating my apartment living room....
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Tutorial for the Ruby Red Dress with FREE Patterns
What do you think? Should I market it or what?!? Well, in case I never get around to making a few to sell because I'm too busy breathing through temper tantrums and drinking, I've made this tutorial so you can make your own if it strikes your fancy.
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How to Make this Super Cute Lipstick Pouch
It's that time of year again in my life where I need to start cranking out birthday gifts for all of my sisters and sister in laws. I don't know why there are so many birthdays at the end of August and September? Are there a lot of people who like to give little holiday gift to their spouse (if you know what I mean, bow chika bow bow...)? Or maybe it's just that time of year when it's cold outside and people get extra snuggly and then, well, you know the rest.
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How to Sew a Tank Dress that Buttons in the Back
We are getting closer and closer to hot summer days spent frolicking in light airy dresses and sandals and I couldn't be happier about it. I've been spending my entire winter dreaming up fun little dresses to make for my daughter and now I'm deep into production mode. This latest dress is a variation on the tank blouse that I blogged about in my last post.
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How to Make a Tank Blouse and Shorts Set
As promised, here is a tutorial for a slightly more difficult summer clothing sewing project. I showed you how to sew a Simple Knit Tank Dress in my last blog post, and now I'm moving on to this adorable tank blouse and shorts set.
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How to Make a Cotton Knit Tank Dress for your Child
Summer clothes are so easy to sew that even a novice can jam out a couple of dresses for yourself or mini-person in a couple of hours. Here is a tutorial for making a SUPER EASY cotton tank dress.
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Follow my instructions to make your very own monogrammed, turtledove pillow. Create a wedding gift that will last a lifetime.
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How to Make Easter Bunny PJ's with Matching Stuffed Bunny
Well, Ruby is official a terrible two year old and I officially dream of childless vacations every second of the waking day. Don't get me wrong...
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How to Make a Puppet from Old Clothing
How much is that puppy in the window? Free! Because I made it from recycling old clothing I had laying around the house! Isn't he just the cutest little puppy puppet? I think he is pretty adorable with his necktie ears and button eyes. You can put one of these adorable little guys together in under an hour with my FREE printable pattern included in the tutorial. Happy Upcycling!
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I came up with the idea to make these pillow case grocery bags while I was perusing Pinterest, so I have to give credit to the blog that I got the inspiration from, GrowMama. I love a good upcycle project, and these bags are not only upcylced, but they are also great for the environment because they save on disposable bags! My daughter's favorite book right now is The Lorax by Dr. Suess, so we have been talking a lot about helping to save the environment and I think the best way we can teach our kids about being good to our planet is leading by example. Every time we go to the grocery store we talk about why we use reusable bags. It's such a good way to begin to teach her about being conscientious about the environment.
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How to Make a Set of Produce Bags from an Old Shower Curtain Liner
Alright friends, it's time for the first upcycle project to kick off Upcycle March, where Audrey from Oh So Lovely and I bring you DIY upcycle projects all month long.
For my first project, I got super creative on you and took an old shower curtain and turned it into something super useful, and something that is fantastic for the environment, reusable produce bags. So, double whammo, I'm greening it up all over the place on Life is Made today. I made two different types of produce bags. The smaller ones I made just using the shower curtain and a drawstring. They are perfect for lighter items like herbs and greens. Then I made a couple of larger bags reinforced with fabric to carry heavy items like oranges and apples. The shower curtain is made from plastic, so I thought reinforcing it for the heavier items would help keep it from stretching and breaking.
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How to Make Your Own Felt Pizza with Patterns
Alright guys, I'm at it again with the felt foods! This felt play pizza was so fun to make and Ruby just loves playing with it. She asked me (in a Brooklyn accent of course) if I wanted a slice of pizza today about 30 times. How could I resist a delicious slice from a 2 year old doing a Brooklyn pizza guy bit? I couldn't. And I pretended to bite into that felt pizza slice over and over again exclaiming "Yummy, yummy in my tummy, tummy!"
I've done all the leg work for you and the patterns are really easy to follow. There isn't a lot of sewing either because I used Heat n' Bond to attach all of the toppings. You could knock this pizza out in under an hour. For reals. Do it.
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Yeah, I'll admit I was pretty proud of myself when I finished making these adorable felt cupcakes, but the true validation came when I gave them to my daughter and she promptly exclaimed "Cake!" and shoved one in her mouth and then gave me the most disgusted look when she realized it wasn't a real cupcake. Make these cupcakes for your kids to play with, to use as pin cushions or just because they are so dang cute and you want to decorate your house with them. I've done all the leg work for you by creating super easy patterns for you to print out and use. The part that took the longest was coming up with the patterns and figuring out how to make the toppings, but since you don't have to do that, you could construct a couple cupcakes in under 2 hours tops. Promise! So go forth and make felt cupcakes!
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When Santa brought my daughter a play kitchen for Christmas, I think I was way more excited about it than she was. She immediately got to work baking cookies and making Mama's favorite, coffee and I immediately got to work organizing all the dishes, utensils and pots and pans perfectly into the cabinets and onto the shelves. Just like Mama's kitchen! (Yes, I border on OCD.) I also started dreaming of the all the cool foods I could make out of felt for her to use in the kitchen. This was my first attempt making play food, so I kept it pretty simple. These fried eggs are so super easy to make and took me about and hour and a half to complete. Stay tuned because I will have more tutorials coming with free printable patterns. Next up: Cupcakes!
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I love a vintage linen table cloth. Every time I see one at a flea market I feel like I have to adopt it, bring it home with me no matter how stained and full of holes it is and breath new life into it. You just can't replicate the delicate colors, gorgeous prints and interesting patterning in modern cloth. If the cloth does have stains or holes, you can usually work around it to make something new. You can check out the vintage table cloth pillows I made here. My sister-in-law saw the vintage table cloth apron that I made for the Woodstock Library Benefit Auction (you can check it out here) and requested one for herself for Christmas. So I made one for her. Shhhh....don't tell her! Follow my instructions below and make an apron for yourself or for a Christmas gift!
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For me, there is nothing more adorable than a cute little girl in a classic jumper. Add a fox or a squirrel to that jumper and toss in some sweater tights, a peter pan collar and mary janes and you've got yourself a major cuteness overload. I got the idea to make these jumpers for Ruby because she is really into animals right now and I knew that nothing would get her more excited than to have a fox pouncing across her body or a squirrel eating a nut on her belly. The pattern for this jumper is pretty easy to create, just make sure you've got the measurements correct before you get started. I measured Ruby about a month before I made the jumpers, and now they are a bit too small in the chest. Probably better to add a half inch to all of your measurements to ensure they will fit your child for a whole season.
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There have been reports in Dumbo of a wild lion cub on the loose. The lion cub has been cute-erizing the residents of the neighborhood causing many to take its picture and post it to Instagram. Luckily, I shot a couple of photos of the lion cub before it took off down the sidewalk headed towards the Manhattan Bridge.
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Two of my best friends got together and baked a little baby and that now baby is set to join us in November. I'm going to their baby shower this weekend and I want to bring them a gift that is truly from the heart, so I made them these cute little drool bibs. The new parents may not appreciate the awesomeness of a drool bib right now or even after the baby is born, but somewhere around the three or four month mark that little baby is going to start producing gallons of spit and it's clothes are going to start looking like it's parents used a garden hose to clean it's face. Drool bibs can be a super stylish way of sopping up all that liquid and making sure your baby still looks like a french hipster. I chose bandana-type fabrics and lined the backside with french terrycloth to really absorb the drool. The pattern I used allows the bib to gather around the neck so it catches more spit and gives the illusion of a cute little baby scarf. Follow my tutorial below if you want to make your own!
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