A 1941 Sailor Girl Dress: Darla's Day Out

Today in The United States Of America we celebrate Independence Day.

Our family will be visiting with friends on the beach in beautiful Malibu, attending a cookout in the afternoon, and then watching the fireworks from the pier!

I though I would share one of my all time favorite patriotic sewing projects from my archives.

The 1941 Sailor Dress from April 2012....

Let's pretend.

It's 1941 and this little girl's daddy is a soldier coming home on leave today.

Her name is Darla.

Mommy and Darla came to the station early and Darla wants to look at the train tracks!

Darla is wearing her best dress made by mommy especially for today.

It is so patriotic, isn't it!

Mommy and Darla took a special trip to the city to buy her new leather shoes as well.

The man in the shoe shop gave Darla a pinwheel and she loves it.

Darla also loves to go to the train station because it's fun to explore there. Mommy often takes her out for an ice cream on days like this too.

She has such a nice mommy, doesn't she?

This is an old farming town and only one train comes a day so Mommy lets Darla play around the tracks.

Things were a lot different back then!

Children Darla's age played unsupervised outside for hours and no one called Child Protective Services!

Darla loves to find pretty rocks.

Darla also loves to play with her pinwheel. Lucky for Darla there is a nice breeze so her pinwheel affords her endless amusement!

Darla is starting to get weary of waiting....

There is the train off in the distance...

Daddy will be here soon!

Hip, hip, hooray!!!

Back to reality....

I used this pattern from 1941.

Read More....

Boho Sweater Poncho Tutorial

 

Lily designed this sweater for our guest post over at the Kids Inspiration For Design series at Me Sew Crazy last week. Lily was so excited to show off her design! Here is a small excerpt of her post.

My mom asked me to design something for a popular blog Me Sew Crazy..So what do you think I said? YES! She said I should do something "Fallish" so I decided to make a fall colored poncho. I was very inspired by a scarf in a sewing book. My poncho is made up of wool and cashmere patchwork squares. My mom sewed it for me"

I made it from a pile of my thrifted sweaters. It was really easy to make. I cut out 6 inch squares and sewed them together in rows. then I left a little opening for her neck. Sewed on some trim, and voila , I was done!

Making a template

laying out he design

As you can see here, I used a serger. It took about an hour to mak eit. the longest part was cutting all of the pieces.

Would you believe this got thrown in the wash yesterday and it SHRUNK?

Hopefully I can wash it again and stretch it back out.  That's what happens when kids do the laundry....

Little Dress Pattern Giveaway & Sew & Tell

Little Dress Pattern Giveaway

Today I have a very special giveaway!

Anne, who owns The Little Dress Pattern Shop is giving away
not one but three PDF patterns of your choice!

The Little Dress Pattern Shop was recommended to me by Jessica from Me Sew Crazy. She told me the patterns were really easy to follow for beginners, yet the designs are really stylish and after viewing the designs, I have to agree with her!

I'm actually going to sew one up myself , The Harley dress above. I love the simplicity and chicness of this wraparound style with pleats at the shoulder

I was impressed by the very cute, sweet, but not too sugary dress patterns at Little Dress Pattern Shop. Also if you sew for dolls , she has matching dress patterns in their sizes too!

If you would like to enter the giveaway go over to the Little Dress Pattern Shop  and find your favorite three patterns. Come back and leave a message telling me what that is and you just may win them!

SEW & TELL SATURDAY

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Last week's featured sewn creation is this beautiful orange coat made by Amy Stebbins.

It's just perfect and I want one too!

Please link up your sewn projects here.

Just link to you blog post by copying the post address from the address bar and pasting it in the Inlinkz form.

Little Hands Turkey: Thanksgiving Crafts

 My three year old always wants to make projects with me. I have been busy trying to come up with crafts for her to do.

Kids love to do projects where they get to used their handprints and this turkey made of their own handprints is easy and fun to make with your small children. Plus, it's a nice keepsake. 

Bigger ones like doing it too!

 We traced her hand and cut out two hands each in Fall colors. We glued them together, overlapping.

I cut out a gourd shaped body too.

 My girl is really into gluing things right now and loved making this, especially the eyes.  She is such a good speller, even if she couldn't fit the is between Gigi and Grateful !

OK, that was me...

The gluing fanatic also got to cover the whole thing with Mod Podge to make it last for more than one Thanksgiving. I glued some popsicle sticks to secure it to the back and a twine string to it to hang it up.

 I love to get out the kids old crafts every holiday and my older ones get a kick out of seeing things they made when they were little.

Making A Dolly

 Meet Mary, Gigi's new dolly!

This is the second doll I have made.

Yup, in a house with four daughters.

I just realized I like making dolls!

 I was relieved this was such an easy project....

The first doll I made several years ago was for my nine year old . It was one of those Waldorf style wool dolls with yarn hair. Anyway, it took days to make and when I finally gave it to Lily within a few days our dumb dog chewed big holes all over it.

So I was relieved that this little pattern kit I bought from the girls over at 

Simple Simon was so easy and not time consuming at all.

Gigi has a short attention span and sat with me the whole time and even helped me stuff her body.

She calls her Mary.

And the dog?

We miss her since she is gone, but not her bad toy manners.

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Mr. Top Hat Pumpkin Tutorial

 This is the third Halloween project I have made so far this month!

I usually can't gat my act together to do much for Halloween but I have been a most busy bee lately!

I just finished this pumpkin project and I love how it turned out!

He sort of reminds me of a character from The Nightmare Before Christmas...

 I used a brown paint glaze and the Mod Podge Antique formula to give Mr. Top Hat Pumpkin and aged, vintage look.

 I made him yo go with this other pumpkin treat holder of mine, which has the same finish.

It's a fun and easy project to make.

Here is what you need.

One of those plain, white, foam pumpkins sold at craft stores.

( They are all going on sale right now. I got mine for 50% off. He was seven dollars.

Two small jars of craft paint. I used Folk Art paint in black and burnt umber.

A paintbrush

Mod Podge Antique Formula

A couple of old cereal boxes to make the top hat from

Some ribbon to decorate the hat with.

 Carve a scary face into your pumpkin and cut the top off.

 Paint the inside of his head, the inside of the carving, and outline it with the black paint.

After the black paint dries, water a little burnt umber paint and paint a glaze all over the pumpkin, concentrating it in the ridges.

Cover the whole pumpkin with Mod Podge Antique .

Use two plates to trace it two circles for the top hat, and the middle part. Glue it together. Paint the hat black and decorate it with some ribbon.

I used some orange tissue paper to make a rosette to give a jaunty look!

He is spooky but cute!

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Mod Podged Vintage Halloween Card Banner

This is my second project made from my MOD PODGE haul I got from Plaid.

A vintage Halloween Card banner.

I used the Mod Podge Outdoor formulation so you can hang it outside or inside.

First, I downloaded some vintage Halloween cards from who else but Graphics Fairy?

I love her site!

Then I printed them out in a 4 by 6 size.

I got these little chipboard books at the hobby store for around a dollar .

 

A super quick and cheery vintage style Halloween project .

Mod Podged Black Doily Cake Plate Tutorial

I have been seeing a lot of black & white Halloween decor this year and I am loving it and wanted to try something similar myself. 

I recently got a box of goodies by Mod Podge to try out and I have several projects in the works for Halloween this year.

This is my first project, a black doily Mod Podged cake plate. It's made from materials I bought at the 99 cent store:

A clear glass plate

A footed clear glass desert bowl

paper doilies

These are the supplies I used to create the project:

Mod Podge Outdoor for its' waterproof qualities.

Black spray paint

Heirloom white spray paint

The new Mod Podge rolling applicator.

Goop glue 

First spray paint the doily black and let it dry.
Then apply Mod podge to the right side of the doily and glue it to the plate's back side.

After it is thoroughly dried spray paint the back side of the plate with the white and paint the inside of the bowl black.

Once the plate is dry coat the back of the plate with Mod Podge to seal it.

There you have it! It looks like the doily is on top of the plate but it's under it, giving this neat sheen to it with the whitish paint having a glowing look to it.

Check out some other fun Halloween projects below!

I wrote this post as a part of a paid campaign by Mod Podge and Blueprint Social.

All the ideas and opinions are mine.

;

5 minute feather hairclip

Use a glue gun if you have one.

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