Lalaloopsy Baby Dress

So I'm just gonna say it:  I LOVE that the Fluffies love Lalaloopsies.  They are one of the cutest, girliest toys I've ever seen.  It's kind of funny because the Hombre noticed them first, and it took me a while to actually SEE them myself since we... um, I mean the girls, of course... already had a dollhouse and Strawberry Shortcake dolls and Lego Friends and a bunch of little girl toys that you can add endlessly to the collection of.  But then I noticed them and I fell completely in love!  The Hombre laughed, as these little dolls put a great focus on STICHING and BUTTONS and all things SEWING, so obviously they are right up my alley!

Even though I feel an insatiable need to do it, I've only done a little bit of sewing for the girls' Lalas.  Last summer I needed a little break from the responsible sewing I was doing and spent an afternoon making some custom dresses.

Maybe it's just me, but there seemed to be a lot more inspirational pics for custom Lala clothing on Pinterest back then.  Anyway, as fall gets closer, I've been working on some warmer skirts for the girls, and, after finishing skirts two more skirts yesterday, the "Fun Sewing Bug" bit me today.  I don't have time for anything complex, so I made a dress for Fluffy 2's little naked Lala Baby.

Poor little thing looked cold!

So here is a quick tutorial for anyone with some of these little darlings laying around the house with no clothes on!  Medium difficulty, as there is some machine wrestling involved, but it still sews up pretty quickly.

Here are the supplies I used:

Fabric scraps from some summer dresses I made the girls ages ago, wide ribbon, narrow ribbon, and regular-sized rickrack.

Cut two strips of the skirt fabric 1 1/2 by 6 inches wide, and two little half moon pieces that I'm sorry I just eyeballed, but I'd say the top curve is similar in size to a dollar coin.

(Pay no attention to the square piece with the heart on it.  I had an idea for it, but ditched it later on.)

First, put together the front bib of the dress, using the little half moon pieces and a couple pieces of the thin ribbon.  Angle the ribbons inward on the right side of one of the bodice pieces, and sandwich them in with the second bodice piece.  And I actually pinned these.

Begin machine wrestling.  Carefully sew a scant quarter seam around the curve, being careful to avoid your pins.  Go slowly!

You should now have an inside-out bib that looks like this...

Carefully trim those edges, clip the curves, turn it right-side out and your bib is done!

Sew the skirt side seams together.  I gave it about a half inch seam allowance.  Honestly, on the skirt it doesn't matter.

Press the side seams flat.  You should have a circle like this...

Next, line the side seams up and cut right in the middle of one of the skirt strips...

(This will be the back opening of the dress.)

Next, line up the rickrack on the RIGHT side of the bottom skirt edge and stitch it down.

(Go slowly.  My foot kept wanting to slip one way or the other and the rick rack wanted to move.)

Then fold the rickrack to the backside of the skirt fabric and press.

So now there is a cute little edging and the skirt is hemmed!

I added some thin ribbon trim to the bottom edge of the skirt at this point.

Trim the excess ribbon, and if you're good with a candle, melt those ribbon ends so they don't fray!  (I ALWAYS melt all ribbons and rickrack I'm working with, but I found it especially helpful on this dress because I'm not taking the time to serge the raw edges or finish them the same way I would on a regular piece of clothing.)

Next, fold over about a quarter of an inch on the top edge of the skirt and press.

Run a basting stitch about an eighth of an inch from the folded edge.  You'll use this to gather it in just a minute.

Wrap the ribbon for your waistband around your doll to get an idea of how long you'll need it.  Remember, it has to go over a gathered skirt and fold over on both sides in the back to finish the back of the dress, so make sure you allow enough room for that.  I cut mine about 5/8 of an inch larger than the doll's midsection.

Gather the skirt to the same length as the ribbon...

Line the side seams up under your Baby Lala's arms.

Next, center the bib on the gathered skirt and stitch it down.

Now you're going to add that ribbon over your gathering, just a hair from the top edge of the skirt.  Line the ribbon up with the middle front of the skirt and work to the outer edges.  

Push the gathers on the back panels of the skirt closer to the side seams so you leave about half an inch of the skirt next to the raw back edges completely flat.  (You'll need to turn this over to finish the back edges of the skirt in a few minutes.)

More machine wrestling.  Carefully and slowly stitch the top edge of the ribbon to the skirt while removing the pins.  Don't let it shift or your ribbon will be sewed on crooked!  Then, flip it over and repeat, carefully and slowly, adjusting the gathers as you go.

Woohoo!  You're getting there!

Next, hold the dress on your Baby Lala firmly, flip her over and position those thin ribbon straps on the back one at a time.  Tuck them carefully on the underside of the dress and pin into position.  Be sure to check that they are holding the dress evenly, so it's not droopy on one side.

Carefully topstitch each strap to the back of the dress.

Trim and melt your ribbons.

Now you're going to fold over about a quarter of an inch of both of the raw skirt edges on the back and press.

Stitch.

I may be the only person on the planet who thinks velcro for children's dress-up clothes or doll-clothes is the worst idea ever, but so be it.  I refuse to use it and only use snaps.  They don't snag the fabric, wear out, or tear off with normal use.

Sew those little babies on the top edge of the skirt opening in the back, and you are done!

You have a super sweet little Lala dress that you are ALMOST excited enough about to wake up the special little girls in your life to show them the wonderful new thing your made for their naked Baby!

Hopefully that made sense and if you have any questions, let me know and I'll try to answer them in a way that makes better sense!

Crafting With My Kiddles

I have a confession:  For as much as I love sewing and crafting FOR my kids, I don't enjoy sewing or crafting WITH them very much.  That might sound horrible to some moms that come up with all this great stuff to do WITH their kids, but I am not one of those.  I craft for therapy, and crafting with kids is not therapeutic at all.  I don't know if anybody else has noticed this, but when you do a craft WITH your kid, if they're under 7-8, you do most of the craft yourself.  And what is the point of that?  What kid, once they've become bored with watching you do a craft for them, sits around to watch while you're finishing it?

Fuzzy is getting fun to craft with because you give him the idea and he goes for it.  Fluffy 1 is such a perfectionist that she gets all frustrated and gives up if her project doesn't look as good as she thinks it should.  Fluffy 2 runs ahead impatiently without any real understanding of what I'm trying to show her, so she does something completely different.  (Yes, this is great and creative of her in some ways, but frustrating in others because she doesn't follow instructions because she's too busy thinking outside the box... this translates into school, too.  OY!).  And Little Stinky is four, so his crafting is just plain limited.

My kids are all pretty creative/crafty/artistic all by themselves, so I could actually be over-thinking this.  But for me, it really comes down to trying to spend time together, and I think crafting is a good bonding experience.  So I've really been making an effort to make special time on the weekends to do crafts WITH my kids.

We've been attending all of the Lowe's and Home Depot kid activities.  Those are GREAT because the craft mess is someplace besides my kitchen table and I don't have to set it up or clean it up.  We show up, the Hombre helps and I help, everyone gets their craft done and has fun, and we go home!

 

 

Our Home Depot has been a really big hit this summer because of the inflatables!

 

 

Bonus for WATER SLIDES!

At home we mostly do painting, whether we have a little wooden craft to paint or just paper.

 

I chopped up and sanded some 2x4 scraps at the Hombre's shop for the kids to paint.  These are what inspired the more grown-up versions in my last post!

But I'm trying to break it up a bit. 

Here are some wooden clothespin mermaids the girls and I made. 

They were fun.  I had to cut the tails and do the hair... and draw the eyes.  But the girls LOVED this!  (I felt like an over-worked stylist, but it wasn't about me.  The mermaids were far more patient than their creators.  Ha!)


The older three sewed some tiny flannel pillows.

Fluffy 2 stayed home with me for an afternoon and wanted to try out sewing with my machine, so we did a little quilt together.  I did the cutting and pinning, of course, but only helped her guide it through the machine while she operated the pedal. 

So she did a lot of it and was very pleased with her quilt.

We've also tried shoebox houses.  Those are still in progress, and I admit that I'm the one who hasn't suggested finishing them.  They need curtains and I'm still trying to figure out a way for the kids to do that independently.  But the girls, at least, are playing with theirs with Strawberry Shortcake and their dollhouse people.

Occasionally I let the kids pick out some little dollar crafts at Michael's.  Those always go over well.

 

Little Stinky got some kind of wooden, bendy snake to paint this time.

 

 

Fluffy 1 got some little plaster horses.

 

 

Fluffy 2 got a little wooden pony to color.

 

 

(Fuzzy was at the shop with Daddy playing in a giant puddle.  :) )  I was sewing close enough to indulge every "Look, Mommy!" with a "That looks wonderful, Darling!" and assist when necessary.  And everybody was happy!  Go me! 

Besides Sewing...

I have been crafting and loving my paint lately.  The quicker the project the better!  But I haven't used my paint much in recent years, so it's been exciting to play with it for my own projects, instead of just kids' crafts.  I'm already dreaming about wall art projects that I'm hope to create in the future!

It started with this...

 

 

I saw something similar on Pinterest and totally fell in love with it.  After fantasizing about it for several weeks, I broke down and bought an 8x10' from Lowe's, chopped it in three pieces, beat the edges with a hammer and went to town.  I love it, but I'm still waiting to hang it on the wall.

 

That same day I was trying to give the kids something to do while we were at the shop, and since I had all my acrylics there, I chopped up some scrap 2x4's to make little houses they could paint.  They were so cute that I made my bestie some for her birthday...

 

 

 

And I had to make some for me to go with my painting...

 

 

 

I also painted a desk that the painting and the little houses are sitting on.

 

 

Sadly, I had no idea that latex paint does not respond well to distressing, so I went through and waxed all the edges prior to putting the green paint on it.  It's gorgeous!  Seriously.  I cannot get a picture that does the color justice.  But the latex peels off the edges like... well, like latex paint.  With all the paint we deal with between crafting and the Hombre's playhouses, that's really the best description I've got.  It should rub nicely away, which chalk paint does.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize I could make my own (because real chalk paint is really expensive!) until after I'd done this.  Anyway, it's still very pretty.  The color is Sea Glass.

 

Then the beach stuff got a little out of hand and I painted these bottles because I saw a tutorial on a blog that has a whole lot of pretty things.

 

 

The blog is sandandsisal.com.  It's full of a whole bunch of tutorials to make gorgeous stuff!

 

And THESE were a melding of several Pins into one awesome project!

 

 

I never throw away glass anymore.  I've seriously become a jar hoarder, but jars + Mod Podge = MAGIC!  It's amazing all the stuff I've been able to use them for.  Those are Martinelli's bottles, tinted with Mod Podge (they took FOREVER to dry, but it was worth it, I think!), then netted with cheap twine (here's a tutorial for that).  I think they're fun!

 

Here are some glitter jars I made with Mod Podge for our school room.  They're so colorful and fun!  And with all the color, it's almost like painting, so I get a kick out of it!

 

 

 

I did take a stab at finding another creative outlet this year and taught myself crochet.  I've tried to learn it before, even asked my mom to teach me, but I wasn't wrapping my head around it, so I was happy to have finally got the hang of it.  I'm not an expert at it yet, by a long shot!  But it's kind of fun.  It just doesn't fill the same void that sewing or painting does, so I only pick it up here and there. 

 

 

I found all of these patterns on Pinterest, of course.  I'd like to get to the point where I can crochet lacy scarves, wraps and tunics, but that will be later on!  Maybe I'll make a blanket to match all my painted beach stuff up there!  LOL