Pillowcase Dress Measurements +info for googlers

First and foremost.... please read this blog entry. It is very important. Thanks!

Sometimes I like to add posts just for the googlers... I know how it is to search the web over for info and can't find it. I noticed in my analytics today that someone landed on my page from google searching the above subject.


Here's how I do it....


For the length, I measure my DD from just below the collar bone down to the desired length (which for me is the knee), and add 1 1/2" seam allowance for the casing at the top and 1/2" seam allowance for the bottom hem.


For the width, I take the measurement of one of my daughters losely fitting shirts and add 3-5" depending on how puffy I want it to be.


I prefer more a pillowcase style top rather than a dress. They are still adorable and can be easily worn with pants. For that, I add about 3" onto the width of one of her shirts, for a dress I add about 5" to make it nice and full.


Here is the result.... (these are from this spring/summer)

Dress style

Top style

More for the googlers....

I bought the fabric for my daughters pettiskirt from AFC-Express. The fabric used is 15 denier nylon chiffon. BTW I will be selling the pettiskirt on ebay. As much as I hate to, I really need the money. Consider it like a charity auction lol. See here for more info on why.

An EXCELLENT place to get info for making bows (bow making for dummies) is http://www.hipgirlclips.com/forums/. Awesome. Lots of tutorials on making bows and running a successful hairbow business.

Birthday party!!

I'm waiting on pics from a couple of people, because I didn't get a chance to take very many at the party. I was a little too busy chasing children and entertaining.

Everything was so much fun! Everything turned out exactly the way I wanted it to. All of our guests seemed to have a good time.

Here are some pics of the decor. My mom and step dad did most of it (I was too busy being SICK all week and making her cake, which we'll discuss in a minute)....

I truly regret not taking more pictures!!! We had a big moonwalk and helium balloons tied everywhere.... on the front porch, back porch, chairs, etc.

And now on to the cake.... the final and last MMF cake I'll probably ever make....

It's a crappy pic, again... I'm sorry... I was seriously busy.

I made all of the little boys capes with there initials (hence why it's pretty important to SHOW UP when you say for weeks that you are coming ;-) but I still love you Miss B). All of the little girls got tutus in the theme colors.... pink, black, and white. I didn't have much black tulle so most of them were white and pink.

The little girl wore the pettiskirt outfit featured in my last post. I barely managed to put on makeup and clean clothing. I was sick all last week and I still don't feel that great. I've had a bad sinus infection. Ick. Not contageous though. And, yes.... I washed my hands repeatedly.

We played a game too... my mom (who did most of the work and the cleaning, thank you mom!!!!) hid fondant stars all around the downstairs and outside (it was a last minute game, otherwise I would have thought of something better to hide lol). Girls searched for pink stars, boys for white. The two who collected the most got a calendar (Mustang calendar for the boy, Tink calendar for the girl).

I bought the stuff for everyone to make their own hunky bead necklaces, but after K opened her presents everyone was pretty much interested in that. The little girls escaped to the bonus room to put in the Hannah Montana instructional dance DVD and the little boys were still looking for stars lol.... and playing outside.

Kaytlin's Birthday day & Pettiskirt

These pics are from yesterday, her 5th birthday! We're having her party this coming Saturday. I made the pettiskirt. I'm in the process of working up a tutorial, not sure if I'll give it away or sell it. If I sell it, it'll be $5 or less.

Good morning sunshine! Lets get that hair brushed! (note the pink streaks)

"Mommy, I want McDonalds for breakfast!" You got it babe...

"How old are you today, Kaytlin???" 5!

We picked her up from school with a huge balloon and a bouquet of flowers in tow.

"Let me in! I want my presents!" Check out the bow.... thanks appleblossombows! The bow rocks!!!

I LOVE my new room!!

True Divas do wardrobe changes =)

We went out and ate mexican.... the pictures are on Matt's phone. I'll post those later. Cute. I made the skirt and the shirt is a iron on rhinestone applique. The pettiskirt was not easy.... well, it was easy, but it took HOURS AND HOURS!

Here's a video of the "Grand reveal" of her gifts from us...

>>>> Okay I totally tried to use the blogger video upload function but it took 2 hours and still wasn't done loading, so here's the youtube video!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyn-166GKuw

Sorry

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've closed my etsy shop for the time being. I'm having surgery in a few weeks (hopefully, maybe 3-4 weeks, not sure exactly when). My life has been completely consumed with researching... and planning Kaytlin's birthday party. I finished the pettiskirt. It looks awesome! It's no Kaiya Eve, but I think it turned out well. I'll post pics soon, I want to finish the little top first so we can have a little modeling session.

I made another test cake for K's party. This one looks pretty crappy but I was more less just trying to figure out a good way to stack the two tiers, and I wanted to practice doing the little stars on wires and getting the stars to stick to the sides. Her real cake will look much better, and will have lots more stars and something else on the top, plus some cute pink and white sparkler candles. The flash gives a funky shadow on the cake from the wires. Sorry about that. Again, I am aware that this is not cute so don't laugh.

For the googlers.... I was told by a Michael's employee (who had taken all of the cake classes) that she didn't think fondant could be dyed, and she didn't know what should be used to do it either. Here's how it's done- I used the little jar looking wilton dyes from the craft section of Michaels. I dabbed a bit onto the fondant (about 4 dabs). I kneaded and kneaded for like 15 minutes. Finally everything was all one color. Voila. So... use the Wilton jars of color and knead until it's all one color. It takes a while, and you may have to add more to achieve the color you want, but it can be done. I made marshmallow fondant, just in case anyone is interested. It's easy (except for the kneading part, which is still pretty easy but messy and a little time consuming) and it tastes SOOO much better than traditional fondant. Click the link above for the recipe. It's a lot cheaper to make than buy pre-made fondant or the stuff to make it.

An apple a day....

We went to the most beautiful place in Georgia again this weekend. This time we had a mission - picking apples. I'll be making caramel apples for Kaytlin's 5th birthday bash, and what better source for a mass amount of apples than the North Georgia mountains. It's so beautiful there. I could take a thousand pictures. I just love going to my moms house. There are so many things to do that you just can't get "in the city".

I went with intentions of getting about 30 apples, and was sent home with this.......>>>>> (minus the tractor)

There were probably 12 apple trees scattered about, all slap full of apples, just waiting to be gobbled up.

The best part about apples? If you keep them in the crisper, they'll last for months!


K absolutely loved it. Nanna was cleaning apples for her right there in the orchard. K got to ride my stepdads tractor. That was cute. I spent the entire afternoon cleaning apples. Did you know that grocery store apples don't come off the tree looking all shiny and absolutely flawless? For some reason I imagined they were just naturally shiny and bright red. I was informed that they go through a serious cleaning process, then they were coated with a WAX to make them shine! My stepdad has been known to jack with me from time to time, but it turns out he was telling the truth this time lol.

Go big or go home

That's my personal mantra. Too bad I can't apply this principal to Kaytiebugs! Unfortunately that gets put toward the bottom of the 'to do' list, when it should be close to the top.

So why is this the title for this entry?

K was stuck between a girly skull theme and Hannah Montana for her birthday party... so I let her choose both. Mainly because I'll be able to mix the two together well. I'll buy mostly for the punk theme, solid colors and skulls adorned with pink hairbows. Here's the image I'm kindof going on for the party...

Here's where the whole 'go big' thing comes into play. I'm one of those moms. The over-achiever mom. When you're a "young mom," ya kinda have to be... being a "normal mom"+being young= less than good enough in most peoples eyes. I've learned over the years that you really have to PUSH and prove yourself. This applies to family too, unfortunately. Totally not going in that direction.... PS- I'm not that young, but 5 years ago I was :-)

So this is the big one for K.... the big FIVE!

I'm going to design her cake. I want this cake, but it'd cost a fortune to buy, so I'm making it.

Here's the practice round... I made my own fondant using a marshmallow fondant recipe. It actually tastes pretty good, as opposed to traditional fondant which people peel off before eating the cake. Now remember, this is only the test round. The real thing will look more like the above cake. I didn't buy the right food coloring and I was just tinkering with excess fondant when I cut those strips and layed them on. Trust me, the real cake will be waaay cuter than this! I think I'm only going to do two tiers though, instead of three like pictured above. And I'm still debating on just buying the skulls premade because I wasn't so good at that.

On to favors.... Instead of the usual little baggie of sugar and Made in China toys, the kiddos will receive something a bit more personal. I'm for sure going to make custom bottlecap necklaces for each child, two bottlecaps each and one necklace (girls will get the organza ribbon kind, boys will get the ball chain kind). Each kid will receive a necklace with there name on it (girls will have crowns on theirs, boys will get something equally masculine), and skulls.

Entertainment.... If it were up to me, we'd have a totally punked out girl come paint faces and do balloon animals, but I don't think fellow parents would be too impressed lol.

More to come...