Tween Girl Room

 I mentioned last week when I shared my before and after pictures of the kitchen island here that I spent part of the summer painting and decorating the kids rooms.  I want to show you the first one.  My oldest is a tween, as much as I don't want to admit it, so I had to try and think of something that she could grow with in the next few years into being a teenager.  This is what her and I came up with.

To start out with the walls were all white. This is the first time that we have bought a house so we have been having fun with painting and not having to worry about changing it or getting permission from the landlord (I never painted any of our old places for these reasons).  My daughter loves pink so we went that direction. 

First thing I did was paint the entire room light pink.  She is still using the quilt that I made her here.

She is also a huge Harry Potter fan so she also had to hang her banner.  

On the big main wall on the other side of the room, I cut out a whole bunch of little circles using my Cricut with gold vinyl.

She thinks this wall is so cool!!

The last thing is the corner with the desk and chair.  That desk has been handed around between my aunts and then to me and then to my sisters, it has been sitting in my parents basement not getting used.  They brought it over for us.  

It needed a little love before I could put it in her room.  I had put wall paper flowers on the desk when I used it forever ago, I had to remove those and give it a new coat of paint. Also it used to have gold accents then I painted it when I did the flowers, covering the accents.  I brought the gold accents back with some gold paint and it was set to go.

The chair was a bit more work, it was one of our old kitchen table chairs, so it was wood stained and the back and legs were black.  The seat I painted white with chalk paint and the back and legs I spray painted with gold paint. 

I put them in her room and it was finished!!

Princess inspired shirt

Here is another little project that I did.  I have been loving my embroidery machine that my husband got me for Christmas last year.  My daughter loves this shirt and gets comments about it whenever she wears it. 

Matching Sister Aprons

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  Now really starts the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. I wanted to start off with sharing a quick and easy gift for anyone but that its still a lot of fun for the recipient.

I made these matching aprons, for my nieces for Christmas.  I also embroidered their names onto them.  It's is always fun to have a cute apron to bake in and even better when it matches your sister!! To complete the gift I also added some cookie and cake mixes.  Quick and easy but a lot of fun to make memories with.

Baby Blanket

My go-to gift for babies are baby blankets with their name embroidered on them.  They are big but not huge and made from soft flannel so they are lightweight and keep them warm.  In fact, my 6 year old still snuggles under his when he is watching movies sometimes.  This is one that I did for my friend I thought that it was so pretty that I needed to share it with all of you. 

Matching Sister Dresses!! From one shirt and a yard of Fabric

 I'm so excited about this project.  My daughters are 5 1/2 years apart and I wanted them to have matching dresses for awhile.  I had been looking and couldn't find any since they are so different in sizes.  I decided to make them myself.  I used a t-shirt from the dollar store and a yard of fabric.

To do the top part of the dresses I used the same method as here.  For the baby one I did the same idea but had to cut a neckline and sleeves.

 When I sewed the sleeves onto the shirt part of the dress I laid out the fabric I had decided the length I wanted it (I did 22") and cut across the entire width of the fabric and then cut down the fold as well creating to parts.

I basted the top of the fabric width wise to create a ruffle effect and made it fit to the width of the shirt part, I pinned it to the shirt and sewed it on.  I repeated the process for the back of the dress.  I then sewed the sides together for the dress going from the edge of the sleeves clear down to the bottom of the skirt.  Then all I had to do was hem it.

I did add a little bit of the flowers to the top of the dress for my older daughter and added a bit of a scrunch in the front of the baby's dress.  Otherwise the process was pretty much the same.  Instead of hemming the sleeves and the neckline for the baby's dress I added a binding.

Circle Braid

I was feeling venturous and had an idea to try a braid continuous around in circles until it came to the middle then had a braided ponytail out of the middle.  Here are the results:

Pocahontas cake

It was my daughter's birthday last month and she wanted a Pocahontas cake.  So I found a picture online and used it as a guide to create this.

Bed Skirt (no sewing)

I have been working on decorating my girls' room.  I showed you the quilt for one of my daughter's last week.  I then made a bed skirt to complete the bed.  I made a tutu bed skirt.  It was really easy, a little time consuming (put on whatever TV show you need to catch up on) and cost less then $10.

First I cut two strands of yarn the length of the bed, then I cut 6 yards of tulle into 2-3 inch thick strips and then cut again in half length wise.  Then I just started tying on the tulle onto the yarn.

With how the bed is built I hammered in nails in different parts of the bed and wrapped the yarn around each nail for the length of the bed.

All it needed was a little fluffing and it was ready to go.

Infant Tutu

I was over at a friend's house and she had out a tutu skirt similar to this on the table.  She told me that her sister-in-law bought it for her and after looking at it I decided that I could easily make it and for tons cheaper then it was bought for.  Total it cost me about $2.  I already had the headband and a yard of tulle was $1.49.

I first cut the whole yard into strips and cut each strip in half.

With each strip I folded it in half and tied it onto the headband and continued around the band.

                   I then went around again the next row up this time I went every other hole. 

Here is the finished product.

Ballet Quilt

I finally finished my daughter's quilt.  It didn't take as long as my son's quilt did (you can see it here) but I love how it turned out.

   On the border I sewed little ballet slippers its kind of hard to see.

It has turned a little colder here so I got it done at the right time.  My daughter has been snuggled underneath it every night so far.