S is for Spoonflower

Spoonflower is a fabric lovers dream website.  I ran across it a few years ago when it was just starting out and fell in love with it.  It sells custom, printed on demand fabric created by you.  Not feeling up to the task of creating your own fabric?  That's okay, you can browse through other member's gallery until you find that design that screams buy me.

I know what your thinking.  If any bum on the internet can create a fabric design, then obviously the standards aren't that great.  But no.  The standards are pretty high actually.  And the designs are often amazing.  The lovely thing that keeps the creative designing fresh and new are the weekly fabric contests.  All members are given the opportunity to submit one design each week into a contest revolving around a specific theme.  You can see past winners and themes here.  Just be prepared for a cute and awesome overload : )

P is for Project

My nephew had to do a report on an animal.  It was an interesting project.  The directions were to create a vest, out of paper bags or material, and on the vest place a minimum of 5 facts and 3 pictures about the animal they chose.  It was one of his monthly family projects, so we got to help...yay!

He's became fascinated with the Harry Potter series and had just finished the first book when this project was announced.  He decided to do the snowy owl...wonder where he got that animal from?  He decided that he wanted a vest out of material, and he wanted a huge flying owl on the back of it.  It had to be white with black "spots" and have huge yellow eyes.  So naturally I did my best to comply.  He read through 3 different books to find his 5 facts, and helped pick out the pictures to go along with it.

And here's the finished vest:

 

I couldn't find a free vest pattern for kids that I liked, so I drafted my own using the lining and then cut out the blue polar fleece to match.  I didn't realize how much polar fleece stretched until I went to sew the bottom and had to make these little tucks to get the fabric to match up.

 We had him write out his facts and then scanned them into the computer and "attached" them to the pictures they went with, printed them on photo transfer paper and then used iron on heat bond to attach them to the vest.

 

 For the owl I found a coloring page of Hedwig from Harry Potter online and scaled it to the size of the vest.  I traced the image onto white felt with a lt. gray marker before cutting them out.  I created layers of felt to give it a more 3 dimensional look.  Once the pieces were cut I used the marker to mark where the black "spots" would be and then he used black paint to go over them.  We used fabri-tac to glue the pieces together and then to the vest itself.  The eyes were 20mm yellow google eyes.  we cut slits in the eye "layer" and inserted them a bit to cover the eyes slightly.

The beak and talons are cut from black felt and layered in.

The owl winds up covering most of his back.  He was pretty excited to try it on : )

Happy Halloween!

Well, Jem didn't pan out.  By the time I found fabric that would work for the dress and had given up all hope of ever finding shoes that matched but wouldn't kill me (helloooooo stipper heels lol) I had run out of time.  But fear not! I had just enough time to whip up a little something to fit in.

Obligatory mirror shot

I love this wig!  Totally makes me think I should get my real hair cut and dyed to look like this forever. 

Vest is slightly modified from Burda 8448, to make it a lace-up front.  Head band is just a strip of fabric tied in the back.

Burda pattern # 8448 Peasant dress ensemble. Size 12-28