Minnie Mouse Costume

 

Good morning and happy day after Halloween!  This was Lyla's 3rd Halloween and her 1st time trick or treating in the neighborhood.  It was pretty cold so we only went to a few houses but it was fun anyway.  I have made all three of Lyla's costumes and plan to continue making costumes for both my girls because it is so much fun.

When Lyla was 3 months old she was an owl.  You can read about how I made this costume here.  This costume was a no sew costume.

Last year Lyla was a cat.  You can read about that costume here.  This was also a no sew costume and was extremely simple to make.

This year Lyla was Minnie Mouse.  This was my first time sewing a costume for Lyla and I am so pleased with how it turned out!  When I decided that she was going to be Minnie for Halloween I spent some time searching for the perfect dress pattern.  I knew that it had to have a peter pan collar, puff sleeves (this reminds me of Anne of Green Gables and how she begged Marilla to make her a dress with puff sleeves), and a sash.  After searching I found The English Rose Dress pattern from the Etsy shop Mandy K Design.  It was perfect!

I like the look of the traditional Minnie with the red and white polka dot dress as opposed to the new pink and white version.  I found the red and white polka dot fabric at Joann Fabrics and also purchased some plain white cotton fabric for the accents.  The only other fabric I needed was some white muslin for the bodice lining which I already had on hand.  The pattern had several options for collars, sashes, and ruffles.  I chose the peter pan collar, the simple sash, and the fabric ruffle.  As you can see I chose to make the collar, sash, sleeve trim, and fabric ruffle with the white accent fabric.  I made the 3T size to make sure the dress would be roomy enough.  This pattern used layers in Adobe which is nice because I only had to print out the pattern pieces for the size I wanted to make.

This was a great pattern!  The instructions were easy to follow although I would definitely say this is an intermediate sewing pattern.  You will get really good at your gathering skills by the time you are done with this dress because there is a ton of gathering.  I only had to use the seam ripper once so I must be getting better at sewing!

For the ears I just purchased some from Target for $3.99.  They were in the party supplies section.  They had both Mickey and Minnie ones.  I bought the Mickey ones because I wanted to make a bow out of leftover fabric from the dress.  You can find a ton of bow tutorials online.  The are quite easy to make.  Then I just hot glued the bow onto the ears.

She didn't always want to wear the ears.  That is the explanation for her reaction in the top photo above ha ha!  I ended up putting her hair in two buns to help hold the headband for the ears on but they also doubled as ears themselves when she wouldn't wear the headband.  The only other things that I needed for the costume were a pair of black tights and a long sleeve black shirt.

On Halloween it was quite cold so I found this adorable hat and mitten set on Amazon.  I just love those pom pom balls for the ears.  The bonus is that my Minnie loving girl can use them all winter!

I didn't make a costume for Ana and she was a little too small yet to fit Lyla's owl costume so she just wore a cute Halloween outfit.  

I hope you enjoyed this post on Lyla's adorable costume.  Next up on the blog I will be posting on Ana's monthly photos.  She is already a month old!  It is so crazy!  I have also begun work on the fireplace in the living room and I can't wait to share that makeover with you too.

Sister Shirts Using the Silhouette Portrait

In my last post I told you that there was one more part to the gift that we gave to Lyla when she came to meet Ana at the hospital.  The last part of her gift was a big sister shirt.  Of course I had to make a little sister onesie so that Ana could match.

This project was quite simple and I've already written several posts on using heat transfer material with the Silhouette Portrait so I won't bore you with all of the details but I'll just hight light a few important things.

I found the onesie and toddler t-shirt at Hobby Lobby.  I created the graphic using a font called October Twilight.  With any script font you want to make sure to weld the text before cutting out the shape so that the text will come out as one continuous shape and not a lot of little pieces.  I found the heart arrow in the Silhouette Design store by typing "heart arrow" in the search bar.  I measured the front of the t-shirt and the onesie where I wanted to put the designs and then sized each design accordingly.  When you are using heat transfer material you always have to remember to mirror the designs before cutting them out.  Also make sure to load the heat transfer material properly into the machine.  I accidentally loaded it upside down the first time oops!

I just love how the shirt and onesie turned out!  Now getting a picture of the two of them wearing their sister shirts was the challenge.  Ana wasn't having it so she had a pacifier for most of the shots. Lyla kept kicking her legs up in the air so that I had to fix her skirt a ton of times.  Finally I told her that she needed to keep her legs down if she wanted a snack at church ha ha.

Of course most of the shots were less than perfect like this one when Lyla heard daddy walking by.

Or this one where Ana's pacifier fell out and Lyla looked like she wanted to run away.

Or this one where Lyla is trying to pull up her skirt and Ana's legs are straight up in the air (I think she was imitating big sister here LOL)

This shot was the only one I got with Ana's eyes open.  

But even the outtakes are adorable.  I love these two girlies so much!  Next up on the blog I will be sharing Lyla's Halloween costume with you and I am so excited about it.  It is the first time that I sewed her a costume and it turned out great!

Big Sister Gift for the Hospital

Hello! I am back today and the first thing that I want to share today is that our newest little one has arrived!

Introducing Anastasia Grace (pronounced ah-nahs-TAH-syah, named for her great grandmother) who was born on September 29th at 10:30 am weighing 7 lbs 13 oz and was 19 3/4 inches long.  We are calling her Ana and we are so in love with our newest family member.  I have been on maternity leave now since the day before she was born and I have been loving my time at home with her.  Big sister Lyla has really adjusted well to life with a baby in the house and she seems to really love her baby sister.  This morning she had to give her two kisses before she left for daycare.

Introducing a baby sibling to an older child can really rock their world.  Everything that they have known changes completely.  One of the things that I did to help Lyla feel involved and to reassure her of our love for her was to give her a gift at the hospital when she came to meet Ana for the first time.

Part of her gift were these two sweet books which you can find here and here.  I think these books do a lovely job of explaining the love that you have for both your first born and any new addition to the family.

For her birthday Lyla received this doll from her godparents. This sweet doll comes with a magnetic pacifier and bottle as well as a little bear and a book.  Lyla absolutely loved the doll and I thought it would be fun to give her a diaper bag full of accessories for her doll.

I found this mini craft tote at Hobby Lobby.  It works perfectly as a diaper bag for a doll!

I started by loading it up with items she already had including the accessories that came with the doll, her keys (she got these keys for her first birthday from a friend and they are seriously the best set of toy keys I've seen), and her play phone.

The rest of the accessories in the bag were sewn from scrap fabric in my fabric stash!  For the diapers I used the pattern from this tutorial from the blog One Little Project.  I had to make the pattern smaller to fit the Stella doll.  I think I sized it to 70% of the original pattern.  I used scrap PUL and scrap fleece that I had on hand but you could use any fabric.

I used this tutorial from the blog Craftaholics Anonymous that was a guest post written by Christina from the blog 2 little hooligans.  I used scrap fleece for this project.

The burp cloths and changing pad cover were made just like my burp cloths which I originally wrote about on the blog back in 2013.  The changing pad was about the same size as the burp cloths and the doll burp cloths were just small versions.  For the changing pad I also add some velcro to keep it closed when folded.  I used PUL and dot minky for the changing pad.  For the burp cloths I used cotton quilting fabric and chenille minky just like I do for the full size versions.

Lyla loved all of her gifts.  Her favorite thing to do is change diapers and she changed about 12 dirty diapers in row while over at grandma and papa's house when we were still in the hospital.

There was one more part to this gift but it is a Silhouette project that I will write about in my next post.

Baby A's Nursery Reveal

The day that I blogged about Lyla's finished nursery was the day that my water broke and labor started.  Since I'm getting a little impatient here's hoping that posting about baby girl A's nursery will do the same.  So without further ado here is her nursery:

I am absolutely in love with this room.  My vision of floral and lace came together in this room even better than I had imagined it.  You can read about how I made the floral and lace chandelier here and you can read about the floral letter and the lace frame art here.  So much of the rest of this room was made possible by Target.  Target is hands down my favorite place to shop (and no Target is in no way paying me to say this but if they would like to I won't turn it down *wink wink).  The crib sheet and ruffled crib skirt are both from their new Cloud Island nursery collection.  Surprisingly that crib skirt had some not so great reviews online.  Most of the negative reviews were centered around the fact that it was really wrinkled coming out of the packaging.  There is a simple solution to that though.  I just threw it in the dryer with a wet towel and it came out perfect!  And $25 compared to $80 for comparable crib skirts was such a steal!

I cannot tell you how much I love this crib.  I love the vintage look which is why I picked a classic Jenny Lind style crib for Lyla's room.  For this room I wanted a metal crib but most of them are ridiculously expensive.  This crib from Little Seeds is affordable and I love the color.  I bought mine at Wayfair but I just got an email from Target today that they are carrying Little Seeds products now. You can find the crib here.

You can read about the vintage doily art that I made for above the dresser here.  This dresser is tied with the crib for my favorite piece of furniture in the room.  I found it on Craigslist after months of looking and here is what it looked like when we got it.

I liked the gray but it was too close to the color of the wall so it needed to be painted white.  It is such a gorgeous vintage piece!  I used the same baskets mounted to the wall that was used in Lyla's room at the old house and you can read more about it here.  I found the tray to hold diapers and other things that we need while using the changing pad at HomeGoods.  I made another changing pad cover using extra fabric from the roller shade project and gray dot minky.  You can read more about how to make the changing pad covers here. That toy basket in the corner is from Target from the Pillowfort collection.

Those gorgeous lace curtains are from Target from the Shabby Chic collection.  I found two of the panels on clearance in store.  The other 2 were bought online and I had kind of a funny experience with them.  Instead of receiving the curtains I receive a package full of bras but the packing slip said it was the curtains.  I had to jump through some hoops to get the curtains but it ended up to be a blessing because they actually went on sale which I wouldn't of known about had I received the right order the first time.  You can read more about how I covered the roller shades in fabric here.  I found the curtain rods at Wayfair.  That rocker was thrift store find that I recovered for Lyla's nursery and you can read more about that project here.

The lamb was a gift from the previous homeowners.  I found the pillow and that beautiful lamp at HomeGoods.  The bookshelf was a clearance item from Target.

I found these gorgeous prints on Etsy.  The child of God and Alice in Wonderland printables came from the shop Adoren Studio.  The middle print came from the shop MINTable Printables and it is a quote from a Mumford and Sons song.  I found the simple white frames at Target for $3 a piece.

I found this picture ledge and the hooks at Target.  The pictures in the frames are of baby A's namesake.  There will be more on that once she is here and we officially announce her name.  The Alice and Wonderland print was actually on our porch at our old house but I thought is fit in well here.

Well that's it!  I love this room and I hope you love it too and are inspired by it.  I can't wait until baby A is finally here!