Refashioning: A 70s Floral Dress into a Tailored Slit Dress (Over Skinny Jeans)

When I'm bored, I scour Pinterest for ideas.

So, lately, I've been getting looks like these in my main feed:

I dunno...I've seen the maxi-dress-over-pants look before, and largely ignored it. However, something about it intrigued me this time. So...I kept an eye out at Goodwill for a maxi dress to play with.

A few weeks later, I found this little 70s Flower Child number:

You can see it's way too big--even dragging on the floor. I hate ruffle sleeves on me. And the V-neck is way too low. 

Still, I really liked the print and the polyester jersey fabrication, so I paid my $1.00 and took it home!

If you would like to try this, you don't have to follow these exact directions, but maybe it'll give you some ideas!

First order of "bid-ness" was to cut the horrible sleeves off.

Now...realize this: When you want to shorten a dress, you actually have TWO options. Yes, you can hem it from the bottom--which is the usual way. But I know a much easier way--especially when the neckline is way too low.

This is what you do: You pinch an inch or so at the shoulder seam. Now...I realize that this is going to move the shoulder seam forward. In other words, it will no longer sit at the top of your shoulder. However, a forward-ed shoulder seam is sorta "in" right now, so I find this to be an adequate adjustment. I'm gonna show you a few pictures of this, because it's kind of hard to see in this print.

So then, all you do is cut off the excess. I use pinking shears.

Okay, so...I really wanted sleeves. Trying to finagle the ruffle sleeves into a more fitted sleeve was...not easy. The fabric was a really weird shape. Still, you gotta use what you got. I laid another shirt on top of the ruffle sleeves as a pattern.

So, next I eased and pinned the sleeves back onto the dress.

So you can see here how big the dress is; however, notice how much nicer the V-neck sits from before. 

So, the next step was pinning down the sides to take off the excess sizing.

I sewed the side seams all the way down from the armpit to the floor to keep the shape uniform. It's now beginning to look really nice! I could have stopped here...but it's getting colder, so I wanted longer sleeves.

Notice how much shorter the dress is now. I didn't hem it. This just goes to show you that if a dress is too big, try taking the length away from the top and the sides first. Then see how long it is. 

Don't ever hem as your first alteration!!!

I added a piece of faux leather jersey to give an edgy look. But notice that now it looks sorta incomplete.

So, I added a bit more of the floral fabric. I had precious little left from the ruffle sleeves, but it was just enough to create a more uniform finished-looking sleeve.

Okay...I could have stopped there...(and maybe some of you think I definitely should have!)...but I have a million dresses...and the purpose of buying this one was to put it over pants...

so....

I laid it down on the floor...

and cut a big ol' chunk out of the front!

Not gonna lie...I was like, "What have I just done???"

But then I took it to the sewing machine and finished the slit's seam.

Here's how it looks over jeans.

And because we all love "Before and After"s:

The End!

Sunday School Craft - I Am a Child of the King! Cuff Bracelet

The little kids are learning about Jesus' teaching the multitudes about His Kindgom. So today, we are going to make this bracelet.

You need: (colored) paper (preferably cardstock, but plain is fine), decorating items (stickers/crayons/glitter/etc.), scissors, and a stapler

First, print out the template at the end and cut the bands apart.

Next, decorate the band.

Then loop it around. . .

. . .and staple it.

You're done!

Template:

The End!

Sunday School Craft - Daniel's Lion 2

Another Daniel's lion craft!

First, print out the template at the end of this post. (I compiled it from two lion pictures in a Google search.)

Next, fold the paper just under the top lip of the lion.

Then, fold that top lip down to meet the bottom lip.

Done!

From here, the kids can color the lion however they want. 

You can even cut the eyes out if you want to make a mask.

Template:

 

The End!

Little Girl's Aprons - Two Ways (Regular Hem and Laced Edge)

This is a really easy project that you can do in a couple hours...Maybe just one if your internet doesn't suck as bad as mine! (I was trying to watch TV on my computer while I did this, and it kept messing up. So annoying! And we just got broadband!!!! Grrrr....I digress....)

My pastor's wife asked me to make two aprons for her granddaughter for Christmas. This was the fabric. I decided to make them two different ways. It is just a 1/2 yard of 44" wide cotton fabric for both.

First thing I did was to fold each piece in half and stack them on top of each other. Then I cut 4 inches off the top of both of them.

The 4 inches I cut off would become the straps. I folded up about 3/8 of an inch on either side of the straps and ironed them.

Then, I folded them in half and ironed them.

So then, I folded up 3/8 of an inch on the sides of the actual apron parts. (I'm just showing you one as the example here, but I did them the same so far.)

And then I folded that fold over again and ironed.

Okay, this was on the Paris one and not the cupcake one: I cut off the corner of the sides and bottom hem. . .

And I folded the bottom up once. . .

And again, and pinned it in place. I did this to both bottom corners of the Paris apron only.

Then, I pinned it from the right-side. (I always pin things on the right side, because I like to see it while I sew. It just tends to look nicer if you sew the side that will show.)

So, here is my Paris apron so far. It has all the sides and bottoms neatly hemmed.

Along the raw top edge, I did a 6-point basting stitch.

I used my basting to gather the skirt.

Then, I found the middle of the skirt and the middle of the sash and put pins there. (Incidentally, I made sure the pattern was top-side up on both the apron and skirt so it would look right when finished.)

Then, I pinned just the one edge of the sash to the top of the skirt--pinning out from the middle.

I sewed that down.

Then, I let the sash folds fall into place and pinned those--again from the right side. (This picture is showing the wrong side.)

This is the right side. I sewed it down.

The finished Paris apron (from the back).

Okay, so this is how I did the cupcake skirt. I folded the sides of the skirt part in twice and ironed, but I left the top and bottom edges raw.

I basted the top edge and then stitched it to the sash the same way as before. (Again, making sure the print was top-side up.)

Okay, so it kinda looks done, except the bottom edge is still raw.

A closer look at the bottom edge.

Enter: cotton eyelit trim. I stitched the right side of the lace to the right side of the fabric.

It's hard to tell here, but the eyelit trim is sticking out about 1/8" from the pink fabric. This is to make sure the "raw-ness" of the unfinished edge gets covered.

Other than the first pin, I didn't use pins for this because I wanted to make sure the trim and the fabric ended at the same time. (In other words: No ease to worry about.)

So here is it from the right side.

All I did was fold the trim back and iron it.

Here it is with the trim ironed back. I didn't need pins now either because it was laying the way it needed to. Now, all I had to do was stitch it down.

The right side. A finished edge.

The wrong side. Still a finished edge.

And from the inside of the waistbands, the edges are also finished.

The End!!!