DIY burlap ruffled tree skirt

Slightly off season, but I was going through some old photos and remembered I never posted about our new tree skirt!  I have been wanting to make a ruffled burlap skirt for some time now... and my lovely dogs gave me a reason to go ahead and do so after they chewed a hole in our other tree skirt.

Bummer about the old skirt, but I may make some adjustments to it so it's good as new (they chewed the edges and last time I sewed it up it had a couple "scallops" to it)

Anyways, I started by cutting the largest circle I could with a base layer of white cotton fabric.

DIY tree skirt

Then I cut my burlap into long strips (I believe I had 2-2.5 yards of burlap)  I was SO excited about the burlap, because it had some metallic gold colored threads mixed in with it.

DIY tree skirt

Then I pinned the strips of burlap onto the cotton fabric and sewed each row on to form the ruffled look.  Of course the cat had to "help".  (he had to leave the room when I was using pins)

DIY tree skirt

I used the selvage edge of the burlap for the outer most layer of ruffles and thought it added a cute, slightly different border.

Burlap ruffled tree skirt

After repeating row, after row, after row of placing burlap and stitching it on, the tree skirt was complete!  I really like how it turned out (and the animals do too... they love to lay on it).  If I were to make another one, I would make it larger, by stitching panels of cotton together for the base layer rather than just using the size of the fabric from the bolt.

Also, due to the nature of burlap, it does fray a lot, and with 3 animals that love to roll around under the tree, I don't think this tree skirt will last very long...  I'll probably make a more durable skirt to rotate with this one in the future.

Baby Sushi bodysuit!

When I saw this Sushi Baby Costume  on Martha Stewart's website, which was made by Carolynn Caffelle I could not resist making one for my niece/nephew-to be for Christmas a couple years ago.

 

 

 

There are templates to make either tuna or shrimp (<-- the one I chose).

 

It was a lot of fun to make, and got quite a few smiles when it was done :)

 

My brother & sister-in-law took some adorable pictures of my niece wearing this, where they had chopsticks in the forefront of the picture and it looked like they were "picking up the sushi" hahaha.

 



my poor tree skirt

Awhile back, I made this Tree skirt.  Well our dogs have always left it alone, until this year... I was steam cleaning the floor and removed the tree skirt from our tree (yes, the carpet was that bad so I didn't wait until the tree was taken down to clean it).  I set the folded tree skirt in a basket in our living room... and later found out someone bit a couple chunks out of it :(

 

I just stitched it back up and packed it away for the season, but now, instead of a nice smooth border to the tree skirt, a section in the back is now "scalloped".  Now the debate... to make a new tree skirt for next year? or not... tough call.

Baby boots! (or slippers)

I had so much fun making these little boots for my sweet little niece :)

 

Trendy boots for babies and toddlers!

 

Since I don't know much about baby and toddler sizing, I traced my nieces foot before making these.  Then, I found an image of a toddler sized shoe sole and printed it so it was slightly longer than her foot measurements (heel to toe) to allow for seam allowances and some growth.  I looked at patterns for the toe portion of the boot and changed them up so they would work together with the sole.  Then, I used paper to draw out the rest of the pattern.  It took a bit of tweaking before the pieces worked together :)

 

The buttons are decoration.  I sewed in Velcro closures, so the boots open up all the way down to the sole.

Christmas pajamas pt 2

More Christmas pajamas for the special little ones in our lives!

 

I made this outfit for my little niece.  To make the candy cane on the shirt, I used red rick rack (the same as on the pants) and twisted sparkly white/clear ribbon around it.  I then pinned the ribbons onto the shirt in the shape of a candy cane, and stitched down the center of the ribbons to connect it to the shirt.

Candy cane pajama top and bottoms

 

 

This is the outfit I made for our handsome little Godson.  To make the onesie I appliqued logos that I cut from the same fabric as the pants.

Appliqued Packer bodysuit and pajama pants

 

Check out the other Christmas pajamas I made this year!

Christmas pajamas pt 1

I made pajamas for Hubby's niece and nephew for Christmas.  Hubby picked out the materials and ribbon, and was a great sport on our multiple trips to the craft store :)

 

I bought a plain white top and appliqued three owls from the pajama pant fabric onto it.

 

Appliqued owl top

 

I can't remember off hand which pattern I used for the baby/toddler pajamas I made this year, but will look it up and write a review in the future.  I used this pattern for 3 of the 4 pajamas I made this year... but likely won't use it again, at least not without changes.

Owl fabric toddler pajamas

 

I liked the pattern I used for the boys pajama pants, but, of course, my dog literally ate my pattern.  Thankfully it was after my pieces were cut!  I'll look up the information and post a pattern review for it in the future too.

Penguin fabric boys pajama pants

 

Check out the rest of the Christmas pajamas I made this year!

 

 

Winter break!

Winter break is FLYING by!  I've been crafting (and organizing!) a lot, but since most of the things I was making were gifts, I had to wait until after the holidays to blog about them.   I'm still way behind on posting from last winter too... school has been keeping me busy, to say the least. 

 

I didn't bring anything crafty to school with me last term, but won't make that mistake again.  It gets pretty sad when I have a countdown going... not for the end of classes... but for how many days until I can sew (or craft) again!  (I am even considering bringing a small travel machine with me... but will likely limit myself to knitting supplies, due to luggage & time limitations)

 

 

I did a lot of sewing and cooking this year for holiday gifts :)  We used our dehydrator to made fruit rolls, dehydrated apples & bananas.  The spiced nuts we made using a new recipe I found on-line.  I have to say, I was hoping they'd turn out better (sorry, family!) next time I'll have to do a trial batch before giving them as gifts.

 

Hubby helped pick out fabrics, and I made Christmas pajamas for our nieces, nephew, and Godson.  I'll add pictures in another post :)