Oy!

It's been weeks since I last posted... *sigh*... I need to make a point to keep up with this more, yes?

Well... for today's post I'm actually going to link you over to the blog of a friend of mine. Her name is Joanna... she is quite creative, fun, and quirky.

I got together with her a couple of weeks ago to sew a skirt for her... we did it all in one afternoon and had a lot of fun. So here's her post about the skirt sewing day. =) Enjoy!

Don't you just love her blog layout? It's incredibly spiffy... =)

Oh, and in case you ever had the notion to make a skirt like this... we used this pattern and modified it a little... it's a great pattern to get started with... and it has pockets!

Pinatas

Today I want to show you some of my past creations... pinatas!

These are all made completely out of newspaper, flour, water, and a little paint.

I have a lot of brothers... and therefore a lot of little-boy birthday parties happen at my house. So I started creating these pinatas for their parties every year. Making them saved us the money of purchasing one for every party... and this way, I could make the pinata fit any party theme that my brothers wanted. We definitely do DIY birthdays at my house. =)

Enjoy!

Maybe one of these days I'll do a tutorial on how I make them. Tell me what you think!

(Oh, and I did change my blog header in case you were wondering... so now I may show up in your subscriptions as "Thr3e of Ei8gh"... do not be alarmed.)

A long-awaited birthday present...

I have finally completely a project of mine that has been in the works since September...

I received a Joann Fabrics gift card for my birthday and I immediately knew what I wanted to use it to make... A mushroom dress! ...or... a dress with mushrooms on it, rather.

I finally got around to making it this past weekend.

I fell in love with this fabric as soon as it came into our store...

I also picked out a pretty brown to accent it with... 'cause mushroom's everywhere might have been a little much. =P

And I knew I wanted the dress to have a scrunchie looking top... so I origianlly picked out this pattern...

I was planning on tweaking some things so that the dress didn't look so apron-like... But then - I came across this pattern when making a different dress for a friend...

(Dress A) It still had a scrunchie top... and I thought the waistband was more grown-up and slimming... so I decided to use this one instead.

So I began...

 The top was a little bit low on me... so I raised it up 2 inches... 

I assembled the bodice and waistband in brown...

I also decided I wanted a fuller skirt... so I added 4 inches to the edge of the skirt... then I just gathered in the extra fullness.

I attached the bodice to the skirt... now all I had to do was put in a zipper and hem it.

I adore HUGE hems... (I actually like to cut my patterns extra long so that I can do this) so I gave this dress a nice 4 inch hem... *angels singing*

And there you have it! Ain't it cute?

Close up of the adorableness...

The brown fabric has some awesome texture to it... It makes me happy. =)

So there you have it... dress complete! Happy birthday to me... haha. =P

(pictures of me wearing it are soon to come... I just have to bribe an unwilling brother in to taking pictures of me in it... *sigh*)

(Oh... and my blog is under construction again... I'm not pleased with it... so bear with me.)

Edit:

Here are pictures of me in it! Thanks to my wonderful friend Maeve for putting up with my silliness. =)

 I love it. I wear it alllllllll the time. ^_^

Corduroy Mushrooms...

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about this blog... my computer crashed last week and so I haven't been able to do much in the way of blogging. =P

But!  I have been working on projects! It's pretty cool how much you get done when your computer is dead.

And... there is one particular project I finished that I wanted to show you. =)

...

I appliqued the mushrooms with corduroy fabric to add texture... I think that was one of the best ideas I've ever had... I love them!

Ain't it cute? ^_^

I'm thinking of doing a tutorial on how to make the mushroom applique... and maybe the tote bag... if people are interested. The bag is way bigger than I meant for it to be... I really just made it up as I went along. I think next time I'll do a smaller bag. =P

So: If you're interested in a tutorial, comment and let me know! I did these mushrooms on my embroidery machine... but I could show you how to do them on a normal machine too. =)

Rainy day project...

A couple weeks ago I found a dress at Goodwill... it cost me less than a dollar... I bought it with the thought that I would make it into a scarf... so today, I finally got around to doing it... and I documented my creating!

The dress started out looking something like this...

(I actually didn't take a picture until I had cut the skirt off... but you get the basic idea - ugly)

I cut the skirt into 6 different sections because I didn't want all of the stripes going in the same direction... that wasn't interesting enough for me...

Then I sewed the pieces together to make 2 long strips...

 I then pinned the 2 long pieces together

(wrong sides together - the wrong side of this fabric was horrible... so I didn't want it to show... that's why I made it a double layer instead of just a single like most scarves)

I cut off the excess... I wanted a perfect rectangle.

Okay, now comes the fun part. I put a wing needle on my machine. This needle is big compared to normal sewing needles... it's called a wing needle because it has little 'wings' on the sides of it. This type of needle separates the fibers of the fabric so that you have a really cool 'holey' effect throughout your stitching.

I used this lattice-like stitch... and stretched it a little.

Time to sew!

I sewed around all four edges...

(I love how it made the edges scrunch up a little... yay for unexpected added interest!)

(Close up so you can see what the wing needle did... see the cool holes?)

Then I tried to fray the edges some... I feel like washing it should help make the edges fray... 'cause i wanted that effect on this scarf... and the stitching will keep it from unraveling all the way.

Finished product! Perfect for a rainy day like today...

(Sorry for the weird coloring... I tried to fix it, but I think I made it worse... oh well.)

I love re purposing things... and modifying things to make them epic... and I was happy to actually have time for it today. =)

You may not know...

I have this thing for decorating... I don't get to do it very often... but when I do, I like to go all out.

For the past couple of years, my family has hosted a Valentines day dinner for our fellowship group... and I've always helped decorate for it.

So this year... I decided to take pictures! Enjoy!
(will... resist... urge to caption every picture...)

First off... I wanted to do something fun with the napkins. I had seen this picture on Pinterest a week or so ago and I thought I might try it...

The napkins I used were kinda large... so I just folded them to the right size...

(please excuse my man-hands)

(about 6 inches of ribbon and double-sticky tape)

Voila! A bow napkin. =)

Now for some other pictures...

(without the finishing touches... candles, petals, etc.)

I just happened to have these butterflies... so I thought I'd use them.

We had to have a total of 3 tables... lots of people.

                                                           We ran out of red napkins...

Finished product... complete with candles and rose petals...

(yay for napkins!)

Floating candles

I think it turned out wonderfully...

The fellowship was awesome too... good talks with great people. =)