It's been a while...

Oops.  Long time no blog, he he.

Raising a puppy is a bit harder than we planned.  Our first corgi was very easy going and pretty easy to train, our second one, not as much.  I have to spend a lot of time making him understand our world while trying to understand his.  It may take a while, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

Anyways, I bought fabric for this project I am starting several months ago and want it finished by winter time.  That may be asking a lot of myself, but I think I can do it.

TA DA!

I have wanted to make this Anna costume for my doll for ages.  I bought the patterns almost two years ago.  So far I have cut out all the pattern pieces, which took quite a long time.  And I have cut out the fabric pieces for the bodice, skirt, and vest.  I am going to save the cloak and gloves for after I finish the dress portion.

I am very excited to get back into it.  I love sewing and have wanted to pick up a project, so I thought why not this one.  I will try to update as much as I can, as I work, but like I mentioned raising a puppy is tough and he will be my number one priority at the moment.

Have a wonderday!

New Patterns!

I was very excited when I found these two patterns.  I have been looking for the first one for over a year now.  And I found it at Walmart of all places.

I really wanted to make Rapunzel and Merida's dresses.  I own the other Disney Princess pattern, so I wanted this one.

And this one and I almost screamed when I found.  I love Doctor Who and anything to do with the franchise makes my heart happy.  So I am hoping to make the TARDIS dress, if I find the right blue fabric that is.  I'm picky with my TARDIS blue color.

Have a wonderday!

Sewing A Jumper & Fun Find!

Hi-ho!  I was looking through my fabric the other day and realized I still had some denim material left and I found a pattern I wanted to work with, so I set to work!

Ta da!  For this outfit I used the jumper pattern from Butterick #5452.  The patterns in this set are little more simpler and room-ier, so I thought using denim would be okay.  Most patterns I come across aren't fit to use different fabrics other than the ones they are designed for, but I thought this would be perfect.

I have two tiny flower appliques to add to the jumper, but I didn't get around to that yet.  I will update you on when I do that though.

Here is an up-close picture of the stitching for the "pockets" (they aren't real) and the zig zag stitch I did along the bottom hem of the dress.  I am fond of zig zag stitching with hems, I think it adds a bit of an extra touch.

The only note I have about this jumper, was when I was trying to add the waistband, I could not figure it out.  I think it looked funny because I was using denim, instead of cotton like that pattern suggests.  So I just sort of manipulated it how it would work and I like how it turned out!

If you are wondering, I did sew the shirt too!  I used the Trendy T-Shirt pattern from Liberty Jane, which you can get for free from here!  I didn't have the best material while making the shirt, but I wanted a simple white shirt for my doll, so it will do for the time.  The pattern was great though, it is a pretty simple one as well.

Now on to my fun find!  I was in Meijer the other day running an errand, and I saw all of the back to school things.  It got my own mind reeling on some new crafts, but I wondered if they had anything dolly sized.  And they did!  I found these eraser crayons.

They are perfectly sized Jumbo Crayons for dolls!  Plus they were only $1!  I couldn't pass them up.

There are six that come in the pack.  Orange, red, white, yellow, green, and blue.

Here is Emily showing you the size comparison.  I also like that they are erasers because they won't start melting like wax crayons do when you set them somewhere you assume is safe.  (It has happened to me before.  Here is tip, make sure you don't have crayons near your vents in the winter time.)

My only thing is that the labels slip off quite easily and they say Eraser on them.  I am thinking of making my own labels and gluing them on.  I also hope to make a crayon box for them.  I'm not sure yet, but it would be fun.  I will see, but for right now that is all!

Have a wonderday!

P.S. I have just a few more Camp It Up! posts to go.  I should be posting those within the next few weeks, then back to school time!

Soccer Uniform

As you know I bought the Springfield Soccer set, and I didn't want to buy the Springfield Soccer Uniform because I worried the material wouldn't be all that great and I wanted it to last.  I decided to make my own.  I bought a half of yard of some black polyester fabric, a soccer applique, along with the numbers 0 and 2!  And I already had just enough white cotton at home from a previous project.

I used two different patterns when making this uniform.  I used Simplicity #7688 (I can not find this one on Simplicity's website, it may be out of print.) for the shirt and Simplicity #1580 for the shorts.  I wanted the shorts to have elastic in them, so that is why I went with that pattern.

And I love how it turned out.  It fits her quite well and I really feel proud of myself.

I used a zig-zag stitch on the seams you could see.  These are the shorts and I used only the polyester fabric for these.  It was a tricky fabric to work with too.  It kept stretching and when I tried to use pins it was a mess.  So it took some time, but it was fun!

Here is the front of the shirt.  I know the soccer ball applique is a tiny bit off, but when I slammed the iron down on it, I didn't realize it.  But I don't really care to be honest.  And if worse comes to worse, I can just take it off later and add a new one on.

I used the black for the sleeves and neck line.  I wish the black would have gone down more on the neck line, but I don't mind it.  I once again used the zig-zag stitch on the sleeve hems too.  I thought it added a fun look.

Here is the back of the shirt.  2 is my favorite number, so that is what I made her jersey.

I thought overall it turned out great.  The more I practice with sewing I think the better I am getting.  So I am hoping to do more projects soon.  This one only took me about four to five-ish hours to complete.

Do you play any sports or did when you were younger?  I played soccer and softball.  I always had fun playing on sports teams.

Have a wonderday!

Shorts! + Sailor Scout Fuku: Update #6

So as I said in a previous post, I got around to making shorts for my doll!  I really love how they turned out.  I think they turned out better than the pants did, I may have to either remake the pants or fix them up a bit later.

Ignore the mess behind Emily, it's my craft corner because I have no other way to store stuff right now.  But there she is.  I noticed I can pull them up higher and lower on her.

(Oh gosh I forgot about the pattern.  I used the Simplicity pattern 1580 for the shorts and jeans!  In case you wondered.)

They are just velcro-ed on the back.  That was probably the hardest part of these.  Trying to hand sew through the velco and three layers of denim is no fun, but they turned out great.

And you may notice the thread on the shorts.  I ran out of blue, so I found this color changing rainbow thread in the sewing box and thought it would look great.  And it did!  I want to use the thread again on something.

And looky what I pulled out today.  As you can see in the picture I have a lot of odd stuff done, and I just want it finished.  I set to work today on making the Sailor Chibi Moon's fuku and it's been going quite well.  I am almost done with it, I just need to sew on the hip puffy things, and then add the bottom with some elastic.  I would take a picture but the lightning is bad at night, so you will just have to take my word for it.

I do also need to make the other boots, finish the hair accessories, sew the pins on the bows, and I think that's it.  It just sounds like a lot work.  Oh, and I need to figure out how to attach the compacts onto their bows.  Not sure how yet, but I will figure it out.

So tonight I will probably watch a movie and sew the pins on the back of the bows.  It's a pretty simple thing to do, just annoying and tiny.  Other than that, it's all I got today, so...

Have a wonderday!

Guitar & Jeans!

Over Memorial Day weekend, I was hard at work on some thing for my doll.  I think she looks quite snazzy too!

First off I will talk about the guitar I made.  I have wanted a guitar for my American Girl doll for a long time.  And when American Girl had one I thought I would be able to get it, but it was quite expensive.  Finally I sat down and did it.

I used MyFroggyStuff's instructions from her second how to make a guitar video.  I sort of made it my own by adding different touches here and there.  I even added a hook on the strap so it's easy to take off and put back on!  I really enjoyed this craft, I think I should make a microphone next.

And following that, you may have noticed the jeans Emily are wearing.  I made them yesterday!

When the JoAnns by my house was moving, everything was on sale (everything!).  So I bought some denim material for when I wanted to make some jeans.  And I did just that!  I plan to make a pair of shorts with the left over fabric, but my hands were done last night after I finished the jeans.

You will may have also noticed the shirt she is wearing.  It is actually a hoodie pattern from one of the many patterns I own, and I wanted to test it out.  I had to adjust it a lot because it's supposed to be made with stretch material, but it's kind of long sleeve hood shirt now.  I like it.

I plan to fix it up with the sewing machine soon, but for now I think it will hold together.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and have a wonderful week!  Oh, and I finally contacted American Girl about my doll's wobbly limbs.  I am eagerly awaiting a reply from them.

Have a wonderday!

P.S. I hope you noticed my snazzy new header.  I had fun working on it and thought it fit well.  : )

Edit: P.P.S. After making a new header, I decided to redo the whole blog!  I kind of want a different background, but I think for now it's okey-dokie!

Sailor Scout Fuku: Update #5

Howdy everyone!  This past month has been an interesting one for me, but guess what...I was able to work on something!  My hand sort of hurts after working with it, but I suppose that was bound to happen.  I finished creating one of the pair of boots I need to make the Sailor Moon outfit!  Well sort of finished, I still need to add the moons to the top of the boots, but I think I say they are pretty much done!

I am not sure if I mentioned before, but I used this boot pattern for them and to be honest I think they turned out quite for never having used pleather before.  They velcro in the back and fit quite well on the dolls foot.  I wouldn't suggest wearing socks with the boots though, I tried and they weren't quite big enough.  If you happen to make them bigger, I don't see why not though.  

I did have a cut a new piece of pleather for one of the stripes I believe.  I got frustrated and let me tell you going slow and steady is everything with this stuff.  The small stitches help everything hold together better too.

I thought using the hot glue would cause the pleather to melt, but it seemed fine.  I don't have that hot of a glue gun, that could be why, but I was happy that it didn't.

I think that is all from me today, I really want to start on Sailor Chibi Moon's outfit, but I'm having thoughts of restarting Sailor Moon's now.  It looks fine, it's just really tight on the doll.  Oh wells, I have to improve and all that jazz.  So until next time, have a wonderday!

P.S. The store Hobby Lobby just opened right down the road from us.  I haven't had the chance to pop in yet, but we now have a JoAnns, Michaels and Hobby Lobby all within walking distance from one another.  Let the battle of craft stores begin!

P.S.S.  I realized I forgot to share that since JoAnns got some Doctor Who fabric I was able to make some pajama pants for myself and I had enough left over fabric to make some for my doll.  I'll try to remember to take a pick and show you because I love them!  That's all for now, TTFN!

Sailor Scout Fuku: Update #4

Hi ho!  Alright, so I took a trip to JoAnns the other day and bought something I needed for the Sailor Scout Fuku.  I have mostly all I needed but then I realized I needed something for her boots.

I found a pattern online that was perfect.  It is located here!  On the pattern there is a large stripe that goes down the boot, but all I had to do was cut it off when I was cutting off the pattern.

As I mentioned before, I went to JoAnns and bought pleather (faux leather).  I purchased 1/4 of a yard of each color.  Since I making 2 Sailor Fukus, I need to make 2 pairs of boots.  I also bought a bit extra because I knew I would probably mess up.

I started to cut out the pieces I will need to make the boots, but that's about as far as I got tonight because it's kinda late.  I hope to work on them soon, but it all depends on life I suppose.

While I was at JoAnns, I saw this fabric and couldn't walk away from it.  Not sure what I will do with it yet, but I wanted it.  I love paw prints, and can't get enough of them.  I looked for cute paw print buttons, but they didn't have any.  I figured I would keep looking.

So yep, that's about as far as I've gotten so far.  I was going to work on the outfits last weekend, but my friend's lung collapsed and she needed surgery so I was fretting about that for awhile.  She is doing better now, at home resting.  But anywhos, I am going to keep working on it the best I can!

Sailor Scout Fuku: Update #3

Here I am, because I promised you a post on my finds and I wanted to share!  Okay, so I basically had to walk around JoAnns for an hour waiting for my mother to be done with her shift.  I suppose it was the perfect opportunity for me to just look at what they had left and think.  And I got quite the haul.  I did also make some purchases from Meijer because as I mentioned before our JoAnns is moving locations and they sell everything before they move so they don't have to move it.  If only moving for us would have been that easy over the summer...

Anywhos, here is what I found!  Basically I looked back at Sailor Moon and Chibi Moon's outfits and realized they do indeed have stars somewhere, so I found these!  It has hundreds of stars in different colors (mostly the tiny gold ones are what I need).  I had a different pack of stars that were metal, but too big and I found some awesome mirrored stars you can glue to things, but they didn't have enough of the tiny ones.  I went with these and figured let's go!

For the jewels on Sailor Moon's compact, and in their tiaras I needed some rhinestones.  I wasn't sure where I would find them, I suppose I could have gone to Michaels, but eh.  I found these and couldn't be more happy.  I bought the colored pack and then I suppose it's crystal or silver.  They are perfect though!

Now, I completely forgot about their hair accessories until I was looking at people's cosplays online.  And I realized they have the wing clips in their hair.  I smacked myself on the forehead in frustration, but then I either watched a video on YouTube or found a tutorial on DeviantArt I can't remember, where the costume maker used big beads and cardboard.  I found these beads and decided to maybe use foam, I can glue some cheap hair clips on them with hot glue and presto!

So for a bit I wondered what I would do with the striping on the collars.  I knew the white fabric I had would fray and bias tape isn't that small (at least from the research I did), my mom mentioned how they had some ribbon left at the store and I might find some.  And I did!  It's 1/8 inch wide ribbon.  It's so tiny and perfect!  I can't wait to add it on!

Next I thought I about how I would need gold paint for the tiara and brooch.  I knew I would be using foam for the base of each.  I found some pretty gold point to use and after some research I learned paint takes a long time to dry on foam, so yep.  Although I knew I was in the long run with this project.

This is a find while I was walking around JoAnns wasting time, and literally my mind started turning.  I found 3mm and 6mm thick foam.  Most regular foam packs come with 2mm thick, so I was excited they had these two pieces left and in white.  My mom said it was that it was quick the find since most of their aisles are half or completely empty now.

As for the sewing parts of the project, I made the collars!  I don't know if I showed them to you at all yet, but here they are!  On the right is Sailor Moon's and on the left is Sailor Chibi Moon's (it is pink, but lighting).  I used someone else's pattern and scaled it way down and altered it a bit.  But I like how they turned out, and once I get some more white thread (need more white thread!) I can add on the stripes.

So yep, other than that today we took down our Christmas decorations so our house is kind of bare now.  I think my dog likes it when we put the tree away because one year it fell on him and I think he has flashbacks.

Now for some reason I am feeling inspired so I will either start working on the brooch or make a shelf with some cardboard MyFroggyStuff style!

Have a wonderday!

Sailor Scout Fuku: Update #2

Whew...this project really has me beat.  I picked up a few more things I needed for the outfits and I hope to share those with you soon, but right now I am just trying to get the major piece of the outfits done.

Yesterday I finished making the bows.  I am quite proud of them.

The smaller ones are for the front, while the bigger ones will be on her backside.  They were actually all the same big size, but I had to alter them to make them smaller because they were way too big.  So I hope to show you how I made them soon.  I have some extra fabric I could use, but we will have to wait and see.

Now as for the suits, I bought the stuffing and let me tell you making those darn shoulders are going to be the most annoying thing about this outfit.

I don't hate them, but I don't really like how they turned out.  I am honestly thinking of scrapping this one and starting again because I have enough white fabric to make new ones.  The under part of the sleeves is way too pinched.

Course it is my first try at something like this, so it's all about learning as I go.  Plus I know the bottom isn't done which makes it look dorky as well.  Oh wells, I will see.  Now that I ran out of white thread I had to stop, but I did cut out the collars and hope to have them done soon.  And maybe tomorrow I will show you all what I found at Meijers and JoAnns!  I was quite excited about my finds.

Have a wonderday!

Hogwarts School Uniform: Update #5

Well guess what?  I finished it!  I had an incredibly fun time making this and I am quite excited about how it turned out.  I will show you some pictures I took yesterday, but I substituted and then I was too tired to post.  So without further ado is my finished Hogwarts Uniform!

As you may have noticed I added a few things that I haven't posted about.  I finished the tie and after sewing all of those ribbons to the fabric my hand is happy for the break.  

I even made some hair ribbons using the left over ribbon and some stiching adhesive I had already.  I didn't have any shoes that really fit, but when these are the shoes from an American Girl Today outfit from I suppose 12 or 13 years ago.  It was called the Urban Outfit.  The socks are also from this outfit.

I took off the robe so you could see the whole outfit.  The pleated skirt, sweater, tie, shirt

And you may have noticed her wand.  To be honest I thought about making one, but then my mom suggested I just go outside and see what I can find.  Well I found the perfect stick.  The stick even had a small knot at the end for the handle.  It was originally taller than her, but I cut the stick down and sanded the end to make it rounded with a slight point.  I made it to look to be about her size.  I like how real it looks.

And you can't see in my pictures above, but I made a even made a wand pocket inside of her robe.  I took some of the left over black lining and folded it in half.  I sewed three sides and turned it inside out.  And then I sewed it inside on one of the sides.  It took a bit more time than I thought it would, but now I have somewhere to store the wand when it's not in use.

So yep, that is my Hogwarts School Uniform!  If anyone has any questions about the small details of things I would happily answer them!  Have a wonderful day!