Mickey Shirt Make-Over

We did a little thrift shopping at Salvation Army in Burnsville, MN.  It is a marvelous place.  I won't get all the way on top of my soap box, but I will tell you I have been disgusted at the lack of affordable thrift stores here in the mid-West.  Plain t-shirts can be as much as $20...USED!  One time one of those $20 used t-shirts was a JCPenny brand shirt....I am sure sold originally for $7.99.

Anyway, It is a favorite past time of mine to collect silly little shirts like these two and make them into something fun for my 6 year old daughter to wear.  She is extremely tall for her age and we have a really hard time finding clothes for her anymore.  By altering women's clothing to fit her child body, sometimes we make magic happen...and then there are all of the other times.

Anyway, I found this weird ruffle-sleeved women's muscle shirt for $2 on half price day, so for $1.  I can risk $1!  I took the shirt and just closed the armpits in a bit, then tapered the shirt out towards the bottom like a dress.  

Here is what it looked like after the 5 minute alteration... 

Adorable!  So sweet and feminine with just two little seam adjustments.  That one turned out so well I tried another.

This Mickey was even winking at me, like he was saying, "You can do it!"

First things first, cut off the neck cuff.

Since the back of shirts is generally higher than the front, I folded the shirt in half so the shoulder seams line up in the middle and the front is folded over the front, back of the shirt folded over the back. 

Slicey Slicey!

So easy.  Since the shirt is made from knit fabric, there is no need to be too fussy about raw edges.  I just folded over the fabric around the neck hole and sewed it to make casing for the thin elastic.

A safety pin in the 1/8" elastic does the trick so you can feed the elastic through the casing just made...

Until you come out the other side.  I just tie the two ends into a square knot after trying the shirt on my smiley little model.  I do recommend evenly distributing the shirt around the elastic, then stitching a little stitch, about where the shoulder seams are, so that the fabric does not bunch all in the front or back whilst crazy play is happening later down the road.

More winking..."You've Got This!" 

Must keep going...

These are the original sleeves.  I just wanted a little smaller opening, plus wanted to add a little feminine touch, so I shirred two rows on the top of each sleeve.  I had my model put the shirt on, then pinned where I thought the gather should start and stop, then set about sewing with elastic thread on my machine.

Zip-Zip

Done.  Does my little munchkin like her new shirt???

Judging by the sassy pose she took, I would say yes.

I also shirred up the back a bit to gather some of the extra fabric.

Emmers loved her shirt so much she wore it to school the next day.

Love it!  Best $1 shirt ever!  I must make more...

Charming

I finished up a little bit of Charming for Emmalee's wall this week.  

I purchased this wooden frame from Crafts Direct probably two years ago.  Last summer I painted it blue.  This past week I finally figured out what to do with it!  

My mind is always working, but just at it's own pace ;0}

I know it is silly, but it was a pretty exciting thing for me to get this project in motion finally.

Here is a glimpse at what it takes to cut something like this out.  I found a picture, traced it, cut it out, traced it again but on wood this time, then drilled relief holes to make cutting the middle holes a possibility.

I cut the image out with my scroll saw, then for each inside hole, I have to unscrew the scroll saw blade, fish it through a hole, tighten it back up, cut the piece out, unscrew the blade, get it in the next inside patch to be cut, and do it all over again.  Not to sound complainy, but it gets to be a pain.  Luckily this was totally worth it!

All cut, now to paint...

I wasted no time putting Grandma to work painting this.  The edges were sanded just a touch for dimension, and then glued to the frame.

{LOvE}

I showed Emmalee.  Bet you can't guess her response..."Mom, when you are done with that can I paint it the way I want it?"  "How do you want it?"  "Well, I would paint the dress blue and the face skin color...."

"No"

Yep.  Mean mom.  I told her we could cut out another one for her to paint, this one is going on the wall.

So there it sits, right across the room from the castle.

{LOvE}

Autograph Cards Revisited

Per an email request, I made up some Frozen character cards to add to the Disney Autograph Card set I have available for free download!!!

I am still passionately in love with the movie, the characters, the songs!

You want autograph cards to go with everything else?  No problem ;0}

My sister went to Disney World last month.  She informed me that Anna and Elsa were at Disney World over Christmas as characters you could meet and get autographs from.  After the surprising demand to see them did not diminish at all over the months, Anna and Elsa are now there until further notice awaiting your visit!  

My little niece had the biggest obsession with the movie, so my sister went to Epcot before the park opened, ran the whole way to the spot where the princesses were to be, and still ended up waiting 2.5 hours to see them.  Crazy lady!  For all you devoted Frozen fans out there, here are your new autograph cards.

I know I need a couple more characters in my collection, but I made my autograph cards long before I had ever been to Disney World myself.  I will add updating the other characters to my list when our Easter celebration is over.  Until then, let it go, and go watch frozen again!

Oh, so three versions based on which Anna you want.  All cards are available for download HERE from my dropbox file!!!

"Can't Hold It Back Anymore!"

In honor of the release of Frozen on dvd, I made these dollies to make for fun Frozen play.  I was asked by several different people what they were for.  Well...They are for me ;0}  I just thought it would be fun to make them.  Once I started painting, I began to wonder if anyone could even tell they were Frozen characters.  Regret soon followed once I discovered just how detailed their clothes were.  It has been a good number of years since I have done any real tole painting, so this little project was quite a refresher course for me.

If you haven't seen the  movie, you will see nothing special here.  These peggie dolls will only be magical to those that have been sucked into the magic of Arendelle.

Do you wanna' build a Snowman?

Pabbie!  Please Help!  

Do you have to go?

Can I say something CRAZY?

Elsa, we're Coming!

Elsa, Come home.

Sisters ROcK!

I realized about last night I need a later version of Anna, the just-before-snow-queen version of Elsa, and a kid Kristoff {working the ice}.  I thought about a sunburned Olaf.  I probably need a Marshmallow and the Duke of Weselton too.  

I guess I get to keep painting ;0}

From the left, Kristoff's sled.  Teen Anna, Queen Elsa, Kristoff, Hans, Mom, Young Anna, Dad, Young Elsa, Mom and Dad's boat in the back, Oaken {store owner}, Rock Trolls, Pabbie, Bulda, and Cliff, and just behind them, Sven the Reindeer.  Wait!  Where is Olaf!  How did he sneak out of this picture!?!

Let it go, let it go... he's in this picture  ;0}

So, that is what I did over the weekend, paint, paint, paint.  Now if you will excuse me, Target is finally open.  I am off to get my...er, I mean, Emmalee's copy of the newly released movie Frozen.  

Gotta go, Gotta go!

Can't hold it back any more.

Gotta Go, Gotta go!

Emmie dear, please don't slam the door.

No time to grab a coat.

The cold never bothered me anyway ;0}

Personalized Wooden Cars Sign

My cute little friend at church asked if I might be able to make a Cars sign for her son, but personalize it with his name.  I was originally thinking she wanted like Lightning McQueen with Brody's name on it or something like that.  I guess it just shows how long it has been since my little boy was all about the movie Cars. 

I was a little taken back by this symbol, but eventually figured it all out.

First stop was to make the printable.  It took a bit to get shadows and such with my measly little scrapbook program, but I was thrilled with how it turned out.  The original idea was to make the printable and just mod podge it to a wood cutout.  Once the printable was done, I started to think a wooden sign would be possible.

I grabbed a couple of handy panels of mdf and got cutting.  This sign is actually three pieces stacked together to give depth.  I used 1/2" mdf for the back piece, an outline of the whole sign.  It would be possible to just cut the v shape that is in the background, but it wouldn't be as sturdy or ...just nice, as it is when the back piece is solid.  

I then cut the whole grill front out of 1/4" mdf and then just the red name plate out of 1/4" mdf as well.  

I painted all the metal parts grey, and then with a sparkly metallic paint.  With those metallic paints you want a solid color base coat or they don't show up as well.  I painted the name plate red, then used a burnt umbery, brownish red to make the subtle chevron background.  The original image has stripes, but since the chevron is trending right now I went with chevron as the background.  Either way you go, it is really a nice touch to add that slight contrast in the background.  Having a pattern in the background softens it and adds texture and complexity to the project with little effort.  Those additions make things more exciting ;-}

I was going to cut the name out of wood, paint it and try to glue it on there, but let's face it.  I have been overcome with laziness with this long winter and I just didn't have it in me.  I ended up cutting the name three times out of vinyl.  I cut the black name above out of black vinyl and a medium grey vinyl, then I cut the grey name above out of a shiny metallic grey vinyl.  Once I had all the extra scraps of vinyl weeded off the backing sheet, I used my transfer tape as the tool to line everything up before placing on the board.  

I stuck the transfer tape to the shiny metal, bits and pieces Brody vinyl.  Once that was all attached to the transfer tape I pulled the transfer off the backing and then centered the attached shiny metal vinyl over the medium grey vinyl so they were right on top of each other.  After I had two of the three vinyl names stacked, I added the third by once again centering the transfer tape over the black, triple checking that everything lined up, and then placed the transfer tape on top of it so that the black was shadowing the grey.

Here is that picture again.  

Telling you what I did with the vinyl is way more complicated than actually doing it ;0}

I triple sprayed everything with Rustoleum 2x clear spray paint, glossy, to give it that shiny Cars shine, lightly sanded edges, then wood glued it altogether.  So fabulous!  Wow Lauren.  That was a totally fulfilling project.  I wasn't sure how I was going to do it at first, but the finished product made it all worth it.  Thanks for asking!

For Kallie

Here are a couple of things I made for my sister Kallie this past while.  She was over Monday awaiting her flight to Disney World Tuesday morning.  I still have to sew the pieces of Emmalee's St. Patrick's Day skirt together, but when I realized Kallie and clan would not be back for St. Patrick's, I hurried to get Char's skirt made.

I bought all the fabric from Joann's.  I am not a super fan of the quality of some of the fabric sold at Joann's, but for a skirt that will only be worn a couple times, the price is nice.  They also have really spruced up their selection of prints.  I have been totally impressed the last couple of shopping trips.  The Owl print from the Valentines line was an instant favorite for me, just like these cute little Patty's Day birdies.  

I have crocheted many blankets like for my own kids while I patiently waited for them to be born.  They were also made for several of the babies born to my brother's/sister's/in law/friends/etc. 

You must know....

I hate them!  

I love them for how nice they are, but I am not known for my staying power with projects that take hours and hours and hours...and especially for such a small blanket.  

Basically, I make them for those babies to show them JUST HOW MUCH i LOVE THEM!  This blanket took three trips around the outside edge with crochet thread.  I started it in July.  Yep, I said July.  It was touched several times between then and now, but it was worked especially hard on during free moments since Christmas.  As of yesterday, baby Sawyer is three months.  Pretty sad he didn't get his blanket before the three month mark, but it took me 9 months to get it done.  I think it is totally fair.  After all, it takes 9 months for babies to be finished too.  Why should the blanket take any less time?

I am just going to be happy I finally finished it.  Late projects are totally acceptable, and often excusable, but NEVER-to-be-finished projects are NOT ALLOWED around my house ;0}  I am thinking there were about 20 hours total invested in the stitching of this blanket.  I am not a super fast crocheter, but I try.  I have many a friend that can craft that needle in circles around me.  Just remember it takes longer to sew love into the stitches along with the thread {or at least that is what I tell my self to feel better}.

Here is an up-close.  

As for the pattern {for you that know how to speak crochet}...

I buy my blankets, or have them hemstitched in Utah whenever we get to go visit family back there.  I have looked into buying a hemstitching machine, but can't seem to find where to get them.  Anyway, I know I told you I hate these blankets, but that is the dark, lazy side of me speaking.  The baby lover in me totally loves them.  They make such a nice, sturdy, love filled gift for new babies and their mamas.  Sawyer, this one is for you!

So, Tuesday, about one hour before I was to take the clan to the airport, I discovered Kallie had two pieces of fabric in her car she was afraid to ask me to sew into a blanket.  Well, that is about all it took.  I cannot stand the idea of fabric going through life unfulfilled.  I grabbed the bag and whipped up this car seat cover.  In my defense, I have never made one of these and did not have the car seat nearby when I made it.  I would make a few adjustments in the future, like a little longer in the back and not as long on the sides...

Actually, I think I would change the shape so there is less fabric there along the arm...but, well, it will serve it's purpose.  Now baby Sawyer will be protected from the onslaught of germs spraying off the bodies of well wishing baby admirers all over Disney World.  Plus, I got to use my snap press again to add snaps to the handle straps.  Party in the craftroom BABY!

Have a great time Kallie and clan.  Just remember your poor family stuck in the snowbanks back here in Minnesota.  Don't go getting a tan or anything.  We are jealous enough LOL!