My daughter likes for me to make her costumes, but I was short on time this year because our local German festival was coming up, and this year is her first year to dance in it, which required me to make her a dirndl.  I made this deal that I would make her Halloween costume, but I would use the same pattern as the dirndl pattern, and that is how we settled on Little Red Riding Hood.  
I made the Halloween dirndl first, which worked out smart because I knew what adjustments I needed to make for her dance costume.  On to pics:

I thought I was soooooo clever because I found this wolf fabric to line the cape:

Here is Little Red's dirndl:


There are more pictures from our Halloween photoshoot in my flickr set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amboo213/sets/72157627933030631/detail/

I finished the Halloween costume the night before Halloween, and within the week, I finished her dance dirndl!

I can't wait till we go to the festival!

This dress was a real test of my patience and skill.  It started when my mom and daughter were at the fabric store, and my daughter spotted the sparkly green fabric (green is her favorite color), and my mom said, "I'll buy you that and your mom can make you a dress for St. Patrick's Day!"  This was 3 weeks before St. Patrick's Day!  I had to buy the lining, tulle, zipper and  patterns (the first one I got needed wider fabric).  

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/5562719717_b2279997c6_b.jpg
I don't know if there's any special way to sew that type of fabric, but my sewing machine hated it.  The dots are affixed to the fabric with adhesive, which kept gunking up the needle, and causing missed stitches.  I ended up hand-sewing the hems because the machine stitching looked so bad.  

But, it was worth it.  The girl loved it, as did everyone who saw her... and I DID get it finished in time for St. Patrick's Day.

My daughter has wanted me to make her a mermaid costume for the past year, and when she couldn't find any costumes that she liked in the stores, I decided to make her dream come true:


All the mermaid costumes I looked at in the stores and online were missing something I thought was important: Scales.  
I made this costume as I went along.  The "scales" are pleats in the shiny fabric, sewn on to a lining:



I sewed those two rectangles together and then shirred it with elastic to make it snug on her body and give it the ruffly effect.  There are elastic bands of sequins (from the clearance bin, yay) on the top and down near the "fin."  The fin is two layers of sheer fabric over lining (the sheer fabric was leftover from a prom dress my mom made me in 1998).  

I also made her a hair-clippy out of ribbons, sequins, and seashells.  The jewels on her face were stickers from the scrapbook department that I modified to fit the contour of her face:

Hi  I was wondering if the VBS she went to had their own t-shirts?  Is that what you meant by all the t-shirts were too big for her? 

That dress is really cute. How'd you go about making that pattern?

Yes.  Our church had tshirts made for our VBS program.  The smallest size they had was children's XS, but even that was too big for my girl.

I used a dress she already had to draft a pattern.  I sketched around it onto wrapping paper, straightened out the lines and added seam allowances.  ruffles are easy....  just a long strip of fabric.  The dress I was using for a pattern had a zipper, but I put a loop and button on this one.

My daughter went to VBS for the first time this summer.  She's a petite 3 yr old, and even the smallest tshirt was like a dress on her . . . so I turned one into a dress!  It took 1/2 yard of the stripey fabric and a button off some old pants, and I used one of her existing dresses to draft a pattern.  Her dress was a hit!  All the mamas kept sneaking by her classroom door to take a peek at the "VBS dress."  She loved the attention (and so did I).  It'll be interesting to see what the mamas come up with next year now that they have the idea.

I used regular wall paint.  The hardware stores sell "samples" that are half-pint-sized in satin finish.  I bought red, blue, purple, black, and green in that size. 

I bought a larger can (can't remember what size) of yellow because I knew I'd use a lot of it in blending. 

I bought a gallon of the white and peach colors, but I ended up with about a half of a can of each left over!  Seems a little paint goes a long way. 

Halfway through I did end up buying one more sample can of green because I ran out and one more of red because my daughter accidentally spilled my can! 

I didn't seal it with anything.  It's pretty durable . . . we've already had a few incidents that required me to scrub!  Seems, when your toddler sees you painting her wall for a year, she reasons it's okay for her to paint on the wall, too!

Well, I do wonder what will happen when she gets older. 

Will I get tired of the mural faster than she will and be ready to paint over it before she is ready to see it go?

Possibly.

Or, will she "grow up too fast," and want something more mature, forcing me to paint over the vibrant colors as my tears fall into buckets somber-toned paint!

I liked the illustrations from a kids' book called "Ten Little Ladybugs," so I decided to paint them on my daughter's walls. 
Since my daughter is a toddler (she'll be 3 next week), and I work, it took me a year and a half to paint all of it.  On to pics!

butterfly, probably my favorite

frog, fish, duck, and there's a turtle not pictured

this bee is in the entryway, on the short wall across from the frog

caterpillar, bird

butterfly again, and grasshopper

I made a walk-through video, since it's hard to take pictures inside rooms without a wide-angle lens:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amboo213/3901377226/

Last Sunday we went to a Garden Festival in Austin.  They had kids' shirts for 5 dollars, but even the smallest size (S) was too big for my girl!  Well, I've seen enough craftster recons to not be discouraged by big tshirts, so a few days later, and my girl has a one-of-a-kind festival dress, with matching bloomers!





Here's the "before" pic:


I already had the yellow fabric in my stash, and I used a capri-pant pattern to make the bloomers (I just added elastic around the leg).  

Thanks all.  I think it would work for adults, too. 
I have a few other fabrics in mind to make some more for my girl.  Since I know she can grow into that size, I have time to make more!