Ack! There's a Monster Eating my Head! {A Carnivorous Hat}

My oldest son, Weston had been eyeing all the funky winter hats. He especially liked the ones with ear flaps and the strings or braids hanging down with pom-poms.

Well, I aim to please! Coming up with a handmade gift to make him for Christmas was easy peasy.

I flew by the seat of my pants with this child-eating hat though. No one was more surprised than me when it actually turned out so good!

First I found a printable pattern for a hat with ear flaps (sorry! I can't remember where I found it....I was in the haze of holiday midnight crafting...) I cut the hat from a fifty cent sweater....yep, that's right. 50 cents!! I know. So cool. And, boy it was a pretty ugly one. I think the sweater is much happier being reincarnated into a hungry monster hat.

So, after I had the lining and outer hat pieces cut out, I added a row of fleece teeth and stuffed striped knit horns.

I braided three strips of fabric....two strips of the striped knit and one strip of green fleece and sewed those in before I put in the lining. Once it was all put together I added the eyes and the fleece pom pom to the top.  For the pom poms on the braids I unraveled the sweater. 

Weston....you look a bit too happy for one who is getting their head eaten though, dontcha think?

Ok. There's a little more terror. Thank you. (This shot was taken right after he opened it on Christmas morning...er....more like afternoon by the time we got home from church and back to the opening of presents! :)

Hmmmmm....we took a lot of pictures, didn't we? Well. We were having fun....

Oh my. This boy is so much fun. He didn't want me getting his jammies in the pictures at first. But then he decided he didn't care.

While making this hat, I had to plop it on my head every so often and race to a mirror. Then I'd giggle in happy anticipation of Weston opening it. And, boy....that was an awesome moment. He was THRILLED! That monster, Floyd (as Weston named him) perched on his head for probably three days straight. 

Fluffy Ruffly Pettiskirt

Pink and ruffly and twirly and So. Much. Fun. Yep, that describes this skirt perfectly.

I made this skirt for Zoe about a year and half ago.....

  

Oh! Look at her. She's so small! I found the tutorial for this fabulous fluffy skirt at Made by Bronwyn. And while it did take a fair amount of time ruffly all that wonderful chiffon fabric, it was pretty easy. And so worth it.

Wouldn't this make such a fun Christmas gift for a little girly girl?

It's so cute watching Zoe wear this skirt.

She can't help swishing around as she walks.

And, of course, it's great for twirling.

I had to include this last shot.

Do you think this pose will catch on with other models?

Easy Patchwork Top and T-shirt Leggings

I sewed up this super easy patchwork top as a dress for my smallest monkey a few months ago.  I tried using really wide elastic in the top casing. I thought it was a good idea but....erm....it made it too bulky for her small body. In fact, it looked just a wee bit strange on her. And it was way too long, too.  I have such a problem with getting the length right with dresses for my babies!

So, it's become a top for my older girl. And she was thrilled! The wider elastic doesn't seem too big on her. And she looks pretty darn cute in it, right? I especially like her choice of pink boots to complete the ensemble.

Her super crazy simple leggings are made from an upcycled t-shirt. I cut them out so the bottom of the pattern is lined up with the hem of the t-shirt. And then I don't have to hem the leggings. So incredibly easy. And I didn't even have to buy a pattern since I made one from a pair of leggings she already had. She has a bunch of these in fun stripes. I'm always on the look out for fun tees to upcycle into leggings.

I need to make some more of these for her and I'm thinking of putting a tutorial together. If you're interested, let me know. I'm more likely to do it if there are actual readers who want me to!

I've also jumped on the cute ruffley pants train. I've got to finish a few up and I'll post pictures soon. They're so fun!

How-To {Tuesday} Give Your Children Superpowers

Zoe was invited to a cute little superhero birthday party on Saturday and I thought it would be fun to whip up some fun superhero masks for the birthday boy. 

These were so easy.  No! Really, they were (friends are always giving me a hard time about saying everything is *so easy*)

I found the templates at Homespun Treasures (as well as a whole ton of other awesome tutes). I've made masks for Halloween before so I was familiar with the technique but I gave the instructions a quick glance over.

I decided to make mine a little different.  I used knit so I wouldn't have to do the satin stitch around the edge and...erm...well, that's pretty much all that was different I guess!

So, first off, I printed out patterns.  I adjusted the shape of two of them, making them bigger and giving the one more of a cat eye look.

Then I traced patterns onto the non-shiny side of really thick interfacing.

I fused this with the iron to the wrong side of my fabric, using a scrap of fabric between the iron and interfacing.

Following my traced lines, I cut the masks out. And then cut the eye holes out, too.

Then I ironed the other side to another piece (wrong side) of fabric. I hadn't bought double sided interfacing(at least I don't think it was...), but I noticed when I ironed them the first time, the interfacing kind of stuck to the scrap cloth I'd placed between the interfacing and the iron.  It peeled off easily but I thought this would be easier then trying to just pin the layers together and it was.  So much easier.

Next I trimmed this layer of knit down to the mask shape. 

Ack! Aren't they so cool?!  I love them. I wonder if wearing a superhero mask would go with my own style? Hmmm, would that look odd?  Me, walking the aisles of Wal-mart sporting a pink mask? Maybe I'd be able to get through the place Super fast. heh heh.

Ok, so then I measured how much elastic I needed by having one of my sons hold the mask up to his face. I peeled back the stuck, but not really stuck side of fabric where the elastic needed to go and slipped the ends of the elastic into the sandwich on each side of the mask.

And then all that was left to do was to stitch around the edge of the whole mask, including the eyeholes, trim the thread, wrap them up and slip the pink one on my sweet little superhero. 

I was in a hurry to get the party and forgot to take some pics of the other masks! Snap.

This was such a fun and easy (and cheap!) birthday gift! I need to whip up some more of these masks to go in our dress up box.  I think we need one in every color! And, of course, one for myself.

I think I'm need a purple one.  Maybe with yellow lightening bolts on the side. 

Thrifty Thursday: Boring Jeans to Ruffley Capris (a $2 project!)

Boy, have I got a thing for ruffles lately.  But can you blame me? They are so cute! And they get even cuter when you start out with cheapo jeans from the thrift store....

I picked these up for my 3 yo Zoe at D.I. for about two or three dollars a few weeks ago. I think they were only $2.

I had Zoe try them on last night and I figured out where I wanted to chop them.  Then I let her get back into her jammies and after I got my last and smallest monkey popped into bed, I cut the legs off the jeans and sliced open the leftover bits. 

I cut these into strips to make the ruffles. I had enough to cut out two strips per leg. This made the ruffle twice the width of the pants.  (I ended cutting some other strips though...I didn't like how some of this denim had the vertical stripe thing going on.)

I serged these pieces together, serged the hem, ruffled them up, serged them to the bottom of the pants (sorry no in-process shots since it was super late and I needed to get them done so I could get some work done on Sam's Super Secret Birthday Project), ironed the ruffle down and top stitched them.

I couldn't wait for Zoe to try them on the next morning. 

Ok. Those are totally worth the late night sewing.  Totally. 

I'm linking to...

Thrifty Thursday: Ruffled Bum Bloomers from a T-shirt {with a half-baked tutorial}

Ok.  A ruffled baby tushy is just about the cutest thing ever, right? Ack! They're so CUTE!

So, I've been wanting to make some ruffled ba-donk-a-donk bloomers for Molly.  This week I finally got around to it.  And I made them from a thrifted white t-shirt (you know those white t-shirts that have hardly been worn because they're a nifty promotional shirt that no one wants to wear) 

I used a pants pattern (folded up to shorts length) and sewed them up according to directions.

I cut out three strips of the t-shirt and ruffled them down the middle.

Next I pinned them to the fanny of the pants and sewed them on.  

 Then I added 1/4" elastic to the leg opening and 3/4" elastic to the waist.

Yep. The only thing cuter than that ruffley caboose is the baby herself.

Now go find yourself a rear end, booty, heiny, some hind quarters or gluteus maxiums to ruffle! 

Link up here...

The Friday Five: Molly

Happy First Birthday to our wee Molly Monkey!  We started out her day with some little presents....a new dress and shoes!  I started a fun tradition with our family a few years ago where the kids get new clothes as their first present of the day...a birthday outfit.  Her brothers and sister got a kick out of watching her play around with her presents instead of opening them.  In the end we had to help her out a bit.

I wanted Molly's dress to be colorful and bright and I have to say I love the whole Holly Hobbie look.  I made it out of vintage reproduction fabrics I've been hoarding.  Can you guess what pattern I used?  Yep.  The lovely Simplicity 5695.  I'm always making her dresses too long which makes crawling a real pickle.  So, this time I tried really hard to make it shorter.  But.  Well....I think I might add a small ruffle to the bottom.  I was also going to make her some ruffly pants to match. And I wanted to try topstitching the tiers...  Ya know what? There should be some rule.  Some law.  Some kind of legislation...

The more children a woman has the more time she should get, the more hours in a day...right? It only seems fair. 

Sam wanted to feed Molly her breakfast. Mmmmmm, banana chunks coated in rice krispies.  Our Molly really is a monkey.  She LOVE bananas with an insane and crazy passion.  She could easily pick the bananas up and feed herself which she did for a while but then they became slimy projectiles.  So, Sam helping her with her breakfast became a great idea.

So, in honor of our sweet little monkey, five pictures of her birthday morning!