If you've read that title you're probably a little confused right about now. Allow me to explain. Saturday evening I was checking my closet to see what I had that was clean for church in the morning and I realized that all of my church clothes were dirty. So I was faced with a dilemma - either go down two flights of steep stairs to do laundry (a chore that I hate, hence the lack of clean clothes), or make myself something new to wear. So of course I chose the latter of the two.

This skirt was made of fabrics from the remnant bin at the fabric store, and a recycled  zipper off of a worn out pair pants (which I just realized isn't visible in any of the pictures).

Sorry for the wrinkles, these pictures were taken after I had worn the skirt and I didn't feel like ironing it again

Here is a quick view of the complete costume. I didn't make the tights or shoes, and the petticoat consisted of an old dance tutu that I already had, but I removed a layer of tulle so it wasn't as fluffy.



When deciding what I wanted to be for Halloween I was faced with a dilemma - I'm broke. I wanted to make my costume but only had about $5 to do so. So I set my brain into thrifty mode, a mode it finds itself in quite often. I had a TON of plain white cotton fabric that I had no clue where it came from(I think I still have about 4 yards left), and some royal blue RIT dye left over from a previous crafting adventure so I decided to make an Alice in Wonderland costume. I wanted to make the costume as close to the 1951 Disney Alice as I could.

There were two issues I came across with the patterns in this quest:
1, None of them had a peter pan collar like Alice does. So I drafted my own peter pan collar using PinkLizzySews' tutorial found here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=356301.0

2, Alice's apron sort of widens at the shoulders which none of the patterns covered. Due to my making this costume last minute I ran out of time and went with a simpler apron.

I used Mcall's pattern M4948 for the dress and apron base. Although, I did alter the apron so that it had a back and was removable, the pattern has the apron sewn into the shoulder and waist band seams. I made bot the dress and apron out of the plain white cotton and then I dyed the dress blue. I adjusted the dye:water ratio so there was less dye per water than the bottle called for and I monitored the dying process the whole time to make sure the dress didn't get too dark since the dye I had was royal blue.

When my little sister heard that I was being Alice she wanted to go as the Mad Hatter so we put her costume together using clothes from our costume box (we both take dance classes so we have a lot of costumes). However, I did embellish the hat and make her bow tie.

But that's enough talk, on to some pictures!

Here is the dress pre-dye and sans petticoat (I hung the fabric behind it since my walls and door are white as well.)


The first picture again


My sister telling me to act "more normal"


The back of the apron and the zipper that didn't take the dye too well (darn you polyester)


Close up of the apron


Close up of the collar and best representation of the color


The Mad Hatter (we had so much fun ratting her hair although it was much crazier at the start of the evening  )


Close up of the hat and bow tie


Close up of her make up (again, it looked much better at the start of the evening)


Cookies for you actually read the whole thing


 

I've been meaning to make a new computer bag for a while now, so this challenge was just what I needed to get me started. The only part of this bag that isn't recycled is the thread used to sew it together.

Sneak peek:


Here are the materials I had to work with:

An old computer bag that was literally falling apart at the seams



A dress that I made that doesn't fit anymore

A pillow that I made but never used

Part of an old robe (the whole back panel was missing)

(please excuse the face, I wasn't feeling well)

And the finished product!
Front

Strap Attachments

Zippered Top

Back

Lining


I sandwiched the robe fabric in-between the other two to give it a little bit of padding.

So my childhood hero is/was my mom. She's always been there for me and she's just an all-around great person.

This was just a plain yellow notebook but I cut a page out of a magazine with a cool pattern on it and pasted words on top of it that describe my mom. I'm thinking of giving it to her for her birthday (in august) but I might get impatient and end up giving it to her before then.







I also wrote a note on the inside telling my mom how much she means to me.

So I started out with a men's white short sleeved undershirt and I had the idea of changing it into something fun to wear for my 16th birthday (we're going to the zoo). I freehanded all of the zebra stripes with black fabric paint (it took me about 2 little bottles). Enough talk, here are the pictures: