Crafty Tea Party for a 5 Year Old

We like to keep the kids´ birthday parties small but craft intense. After last years Fabric Craft Party it took me a while to come up with a new theme... but finally I had the idea to make it a Tea Party with cake decorating and dish towel stamping. For not getting to messy while stamping, I also made aprons for all kids to take home afterwards. 
This idea initially came to me because my kids like to play that the playroom is their house, so I thought why not make it look like a house and invite their friends over for a tea party. 

I´ve created a Pinterest board where I´ve collected some neat ideas that go with the theme. 

And here are some impressions about how it turned out: 

Tea cup invitations

 

Fabric curtain for playroom door

 Aprons from dish towels

Dish towel stamping

This was my own stamping version

Bake pop decorating

Happy Birthday to my not so little 5 year old girl!!

Sunny Spring Skirt

Spring is just around the corner and bright colors are everywhere this year. That´s why I made this nice yellow striped knit pencil skirt today.

I used an existing skirt as my pattern

 After serging the side seams

That´s the waist band (doubled lengthwise)

 Just have to finish the hem...

And here it is: my sunny spring skirt!

Living Room Make Over With Marimekko And Lotta Jansdotter

It was long over due! 

Ever since I made new cushion covers for a friend of mine, I was thinking about giving my own living room a make over. I was not only thinking new cushion covers but also giving our coffee table a new look as well (I was inspired by this diy-coffee-table-ottoman-tutorial that I found on Pinterest).

First, there was the hard decision of choosing fabric... it took me several weeks! At the end, I chose a mix of Marimekko´s "Kompotti" and Lotta Jansdotter´s "Glimma" collection. Both beautiful fabrics in a gray-blue-brownish color theme. 

This is how my living room looked before - the coffee table had several scratches and also these awful looking corner pads which you buy when you have small children: 

And here is what it looks like now: 

And of course my kids think it is the best new play area in the house!

And here are some pictures of "the making": 

I love this fabric! I am just a little nervous about little chocolate fingers...

DIY Fleece Slippers

 

Today, I made fleece slippers for my daughter (you never know when the cold weather will come). I was inspired by this Pinterest post which will lead you to this tutorial.  

As long as you have some fleece and Suede Sherpa fleece on hand you are good to go!

Drawstring Bags

My little boy needed a bag for the start of preschool. Not a lunch bag, but a bag to bring his change of clothes, extra shoes, etc. And he had the airplane fabric already picked out!

I didn´t have a lot of time to make an extravagant bag as I´ve started the project one day before school started. So, I chose a very simple quick and easy tutorial that I found on Pinterest. 

The bag turned out to be a little big for my little boy, but he likes it anyway!

And probably because this "too big" bag reminded me of a laundry bag, I decided to make an even bigger one for this exact purpose. 

I am sure I will make some more of those soon!!

Gray Is The New Pink

With our first child (born in 2009) the world turned pink. I found it really hard to find baby girl things that weren´t pink and also I was probably so excited about our baby girl that I liked being surrounded by pink. 

With our second child (born in 2010) the world turned more blue-greenish. Although I something have a hard time finding things that are boyish and fit my taste at the same time... (speaking of dinosaurs, super heros, sharks, trucks, and robots).

The question is: what will happen when our third child (expected soon) will be born? Well, there is probably no way around pink as I mentioned earlier, but you can at least try to minimize it. 

Maybe I will change my mind later on, but for now I will try a new trend (it´s probably not a real trend, but I will still try it out): Gray! 

My first project was to transform this baby blanket (made for baby no 2) by simply giving it a new cover. 

Here you go. The first gray baby project done!

Hedgehog Snuggle Pillow

This quick little project was requested by my daughter. Not that she wanted to make a hedgehog pillow, but she wanted to sew "something fun". 

So, I drew an easily shaped animal on a piece of paper and had my daughter pick different fabrics for head, body and feet. We cut 2 pieces of fabric from each body part (it is easiest to fold the fabric in half and cut only once - that way you make sure to mirror your pieces for the backside) and we were ready to sew!

My daughter did most of the sewing with a little help turning the corners. After attaching the body parts together, we sewed front and back right sides together leaving an opening at the nose. After turning the hedgehog right side out, we put a LOT of filling inside (such a little hedgehog can eat more than I thought!!). Last step was closing the opening near the nose with a few stitches from the outside.

Done!

The next animal pillow was already requested: "something without too many spikes and legs" (??)

Schultüte - A German Tradition

In Germany we have the tradition that kids get a "Schultüte" (school bag?) at their first day of school. This bag is shaped like a giant ice cream cone and typically filled with school supplies and maybe some sweet treats. 

this is just a random picture I found (here) while google-ing the term "Schultüte" (Berlin 1930)

Now, what has all this to do with me and this blog? My niece is entering first grade this summer and I am the lucky one who got to make her her very own Schultüte!
Because you can´t buy the ice cone shaped card board dummies here in the US, and because it would be hard to ship the whole thing to Germany, I just have to ship the cover and my sister has to do all the assembling. But for now, here is what it looks like: 

Can´t wait to see my niece posing for her first-day-of-school picture with her Schultüte!!!

(Red), White, and Blue Leggings

// Sorry, if the title is misleading - there will be no red legging here - but it is a nice coincident that I finished this project on Independence Day // 

As my daughter´s clothes change colors (less pink and purple), her leggings have to do the same to go with all the new skirts, dresses, and t-shirts. 

So, I went through my fabric storage and found these blue and white knits. White is probably not a wise choice for a 4 year old but it goes with everything - we´ll see how long it will last.

I used the same pattern that I used for the gray leggings I´ve made earlier (OTTOBRE 6/2012).

The dark blue one turned out a little shorter because I ran out of fabric...

Hoddie Dress

Two years ago, I fould this super cute dress on dawanda.de (the German equivalent for etsy.com). At that time I put in on my favorite list to maybe order the dress for my little girl. 

Now, two years and lots of sewing projects later, I found it again and still loved the look. So, I decided to give it a try and sew it myself.

To have a starting point I took a hoodie-sweater pattern that I had and did a lot of alterations from there. Looking back, I am not sure if I really needed the pattern, but I had to start somewhere, right? 

Next, I took one of my daughters shirts to adjust the body width and eyeball the shoulder width. 
 

After cutting my pieces, here is what I got (2 hood pieces and 2 body pieces). I left a seam allowance where needed - no seam allowance at the front of the hood and at the arm holes.

After closing the shoulder seams and hood seam, I put some contrasting fabric around the arm holes and on the hood front. Before attaching the hood to the body piece I checked if my daughters head would fit through the neck hole (it did not!!), and I cut the neck hole much larger before sewing the hood to the body. Next was closing the side seams and then another fitting to determine the length. 

My body piece turned out to be 29 cm long with a 5 cm waistband in contrasting fabric (same width as the body piece). For the skirt I cut my fabric 1.5 times the width of the body piece. The skirt turned out to be 24 cm long after hemming. I took all those measurements after a couple of fittings with my little model.

And here is the super comfy, super cute summer dress! I am glad the dress turned out exactly the way I was hoping for, because I am waiting for a super cute fabric delivery from Germany. I can´t wait to make another one of these!!