Upcycle Goodness

Reese's collection of up-cycled dresses is started to get pretty big. I love them for a few different reasons...
1. It is a way for Reese to wear character outfits in a way I love (I am not a big fan of character clothes typically)
2. They are usually very inexpensive to make and a pretty quick sew.
3. They are comfortable(great for play but also cute enough for going out) and great for any weather due to the ease of layering over long sleeve shirts and leggings or ruffled pants.
4. Reese loves them!!!

Reese kept asking for princess dresses for Christmas. I threw around the idea of sewing a few cute dress-up dresses out of knit, but then she could only wear them at home (which I knew could possibly turn into a daily battle). I finally decided to find a few cute princess t-shirts and make them into up-cycled dresses. She was thrilled when she opened them on Christmas morning and insisted that one of them would be her Christmas day outfit. I, of course, protested and told her she had to wear the adorable knot top and ruffled pants outfit I made her. Then I realized that she was excited about her new dresses and that she should be able to choose her outfit for the day. At least she was still wearing something I made...hehe.

Here is what I came up with:



I bought the shirts NWT off of ebay, and they are originally from Gap (Junk Food t-shirts). I still wanted to give them a little of a "princess costume" feel, so I decided to add the pointed skirt on Sleeping Beauty and the sleeves on Snow White. Cinderella didn't have any "fun" additions, but she is my favorite. I love pink and blue together....and of course, the blue has polka dots!!! I also love how the colors pop with the black background of the shirt.


Here is the dress (in spinning action) Reese picked to wear on Christmas. It ended up being covered up most of the day with one of the many princess dress-up costumes she received as gifts.

Here are some of the other dresses I have made for her. I have a huge bin of shirts waiting to be made into a fun new creation and a tote full of knits to add to them. Lee loves the U of M dress, and I have a shirt that match the one I used to make the dress. Reese wore the Minnie Mouse dress to Disney on Ice.

I also have a few that I was lucky enough to win as giveaways. The horse dress and the Mr Bubble dress where from Melissa at Nookie Skooter. She did a referral contest on her FB page. She picked one name from the people who where refered to her page. Whoever she picked received a costume dress as well as the friend who suggested her page to them. Luck for me, my mom was picked....so Reese received both dresses. We like to pair the horse dress with a cute pair of pink leggings that have brown horses on them and Reese's cowgirls boots. I made Reese a pair of yellow ruffled pants last spring that look great with the Mr. Bubble dress. Unfortunately, the pants are getting to be a little short (which will be nice in the spring) and JoAnn's isn't carrying the yellow fabric right now to make her a new, longer pair. I won the cute doll dress from Sofia at Chimi and Change. She designs such cute designs!!! The dress on the left is from Trisha at Night Owl. She had my name for a swap we did last summer/fall. I am also planning on getting a couple adult pieces off of her for me. Make sure to check out and "like" her FB page. She is always doing sun giveaways and discounts!

Of course, the baby dolls love up-cycled dresses too!

Reese loves dressing up like Jessie from Toy Story. She puts on her Jessie costume, asks for her cowgirl boots and then runs around the house yelling YEE-HAW!!!! She has requested a Jessie dress as her next up-cycle. Here is the shirt I am planning on using (from the Disney Store).

Eeeekkk..absolute cuteness!!!

Isn't this adorable!!!! I am hoping I win this fun give away!!! Go visit my friend Jessica's blog for your chance to win.

Christmas Goodies....3 weeks late

Yes, I do realize that Christmas was over 3 weeks ago, but I still wanted to share a few Christmas goodies!!! I have been busy busy since Christmas (more on that later). Reese had such a fun time this year. She understood most of what was going on and knew that Santa was visiting us(and was sooo excited about it). The one thing she asked Santa to bring here over and over again was a Rapenzul dress. She LOVES Rapenzul and also loves to tell us about Rapenzul throwing her hair down daily.....I am loving this age!!! Don't worry, Santa pulled through!!! Reese ended up with tons of fun dress-up costumes!

Reese was so excited to leave cookies and milk for Santa. Of course, we had to leave a special treat for the reindeers as well. The excitement soon left after she realized the cookies weren't for her to enjoy...hehe

Christopher Pop-In-Kins is to thank for me being so busy. Christopher is Reese's elf who hid in a new place every night from the weekend after Thanksgiving until Christmas morning(his final hiding place....in the tree of course). Reese had so much fun finding Christopher's new hiding spot each morning. It was also nice for mom and dad since Christopher watched to make sure Reese was being good daily....and yes we did use this as leverage a few time. Christopher took all of Reese's daipers with him on Christmas night when he went back to the North Pole. So, as you can guess, we have been in full swing potty training mode since the day after Christmas(and it has been a loooonnnggg 2 1/2 weeks and we are still tackling the pooping part...sigh). Any suggestions are greatly appreciated :)

I shared a sneak peak a few days before Christmas of some the things I sewed. One of the projects I tackled a week before Christmas was bedding for a fun bunk bed for her dolls that Maga bought for Reese. Kerri from lovely little handmades and sew deerly loved put together a fun scrap pack(and boy was it full of some yummy fabric). I love how the bedding turned out. Here is Reese right after she opend it on Christmas Eve.

I like the quilts so much that for a minute I was tempted to keep them all to myself...until I realized they would be in my house for me to admire daily (but the next quilt I make will be all mine!!!).

I also made a mattress for each bed using a few layers of batting and some fleece I had in my stash. I sewed up a cover, slipped the "mattress" in the cover and stitched up the opening. Of course, every doll needs a fun little pillow... with a hedgehog patch!

I was hoping to give free motion quilting a try, but my machine decided to take a dump on me right before all of my Christmas sewing. My sister was so nice to let me barrow her machine. Since it was a different brand then mine, I didn't have the foot I needed for the quilting. I was also a little out of my comfort zone with a different machine, so I decided to let a local quilt shop do the quilting. My favorite is the coin quilt (the one on the left).

Santa (aka the hubby) also left me some yummy goodies as well. He left this adorable new camera strap cover from knittybitties in my stocking. It pays off to leave lots of hints I guess...hehe. I am also loving this strap (love her new hand embroidered patch option too) and also have been wanting to make a strap from this tutorial...I love Lindsay..such a sweet gal! There are so many options of camera straps. I think I could make one to use for each month of the year....hmmm...maybe this would be a good thing to add to an etsy shop when I ever get up enough nerve to open one!!!

Lee also suprised me with a new necklace. I love to get gifts that I didn't pick out but is so me. Didn't he do a great job!

AND....drum roll please....Santa (aka hubby, mom & MIL) really surprised me with....

A NEW SEWING MACHINE.....EEEEKKKK!!!!

Let me introduce Miss Jane........

We are still getting to know each other but I am so excited to start some new projects!!! More on the new projects in another post!!

Yes, Santa was so good to us this year!!!