Game Day Dress... with Sleeves!

So this is only a semi-Pinterest project, because I didn't actually get the idea from Pinterest, or the instructions... but it's crafty so I'll group it together I guess. I've been wanting to make a game-day dress ever since coming to BYU. All of the southern college girls seem to have these adorable dresses made out of college tees, and they wear them to football games etc. The only problem is that ALL of the examples and pictures I have see are either strapless or halter. I choose not to wear sleeveless tops, plus the BYU Honor Code doesn't allow it, so I had to come up with another solution. I've had some ideas about it for a while, but I was nervous to start since I wasn't sure my sewing skills were up to par. The nice thing about sewing, though, is that you can always sew, unpick the seam, and try again (you just have to be careful about the cutting part... it's not as forgiving). It's also really great to have a mom who is an AWESOME seamstress, so she could tutor me on the more difficult parts. I ended up not wanting too much help from her, though, because I really wanted this to be my own project where I could make mistakes, fix them, and truly have a product of my own creation. I've tried to put together a little tutorial, but I wasn't so good about taking pictures towards the end... I just wanted to sew and finish it! So, here is my attempt. Disclaimer: There are definitely other, better ways to do this. I know this. Also, I'm writing this tutorial a few weeks after the fact, so I honestly don't remember every single step I took and any tips that would make it easier.

1) Gather materials. To make my dress, I used a BYU shirt that I didn't mind cutting up and a navy jersey maxi skirt. The shirt was a size small, but was super boxy and didn't fit well, so it was perfect for resizing. The skirt was something I found at TJ Maxx last summer when I was shopping for Jerusalem, and it cost less than $10. It was the perfect color and cheaper than buying fabric for the bottom of the dress. I really suggest just using things you already own, instead of going out and buying something you aren't sure about. The other great thing about using the skirt was that I already knew how it fit, and I was able to better visualize what the final product was going to be.

2) Resize the shirt. While researching for this project, I found a lot of different methods for this step, and I tried most of them. The best way that I found, though, was finding a shirt that you already like the fit of and using that as a pattern. I took one of my favorite shirts (a v-neck from Old Navy) and put it right on top of the BYU shirt. I had already cut the sleeves off at the seams and set them aside for later. Turn the shirt inside out, and mark all the way down the side seams with pins. Remember that you need to allow room for a seam allowance, so the pins mark where you sew, not where you cut the fabric. Sew up the side seams, turn it right side out, and try it on! I suggest waiting to cut off the excess fabric until you try it on, in case you need to adjust the seams. 

3) Set in the sleeves. This was definitely the hardest, most frustrating step, but it's very doable. My biggest tip is to make sure the seam allowance on the sleeve part and the shirt part are the same, that way you can just match them up and not worry about it (I cut my fabric without measuring closely enough...). I again used the Old Navy shirt as a template for the sleeves, marking on the shirt body where the openings started and ended. I also tried to use it for the sleeve piece, but for some reason I wasn't able to get that to work as well. I honestly don't know why it didn't, but I just worked around it and tried to get it to match up as closely as possible with the opening. The best way I found to pin the sleeve and shirt together was to have the body of the shirt inside-out, then stuff the right-side-out sleeve inside the opening (like how sometimes the sleeves of you shirt get caught inside from the laundry). Match up the edges and seam allowances, and pin together. Sew that sleeve! I was originally planning on doing a gathered or ruffled sleeve, but I decided that was a little too ambitious for my first sleeve-setting experience. It would be really cute though, if you feel comfortable doing that.

See how my seam allowances are different.... Don't do that. 

4) Create the neckline. After the sleeves (which I amazingly only had to sew once!), I cut out the neckline that I wanted. The existing crew neck wasn't really what I wanted, so I got another v-neck shirt that I had to use as a template. The Old Navy one I used before had a v-neck too, but it was a little lower than I wanted. Just stuff the BYU shirt inside the other and mark where the v is. Unless you want a raw edge on the collar (which I did not), cut about 5/8 inch further from the mark, that way you can fold that inside to reinforce the shape of the v-neck and hem it. I sewed pretty close to the edge of the neckline, but it doesn't really matter too much.

5) Connect the top to the bottom. Since the jersey skirt already fit me, I didn't have any alterations to do except the length (which I'll get to later). It did have this weird waistband though, which made me think maybe it was a dress, but it wasn't quite long enough, so I don't know... that's why it was super cheap haha. Anyways, right under the awkwardly large waistband was a cute gathering around the skirt that I wanted to keep. So I matched up the front, back, and sides of the skirt the skirt with the front, back, and sides of the shirt, right at the ruffle. I had already tried on the top and bottom together to find where the shirt needed to end and the skirt begin. Mine is right at my waist. Once you match up and pin the four points, pin around the rest of the skirt. You might have to kind of stretch the fabrics to match up, but as long as you have the four basic points matched up, it'll be fine. The jersey was interesting to work with since it's so stretchy, but it didn't give me too much trouble. Note: The first time I connected the top and bottom, I tried it on and HATED how it fit. I had tried to do a sort of blouse-y top, but it wasn't working. I decided to just pick out the seam, get rid of the blouse, and try again. So don't get mad if it doesn't work out perfectly the first time-- just try again.

6) Adjust the side seams and the length to finish it off. I thought I had fit the shirt and skirt pretty closely to what I wanted, but of course it fits differently when you have it all put together and tried on. So, my mom showed me a cool little trick. Basically, you just put the dress on inside-out and fit the dress to yourself with pins. I only had to take it in a little bit on the sides because I wanted a more fitted look. (If you don't want it more fitted, or you like the way it turned out, just skip this step.) It's a lot easier if you have someone to help you pin the sides, but you can also do it yourself. The really tricky part is trying to get the dress off without sticking yourself with the pins! If you find a good method... please let me know. Once you do shimmy out of the pins, you just need to sew up the sides where the pins are! The pins mark where the seam goes, not the seam allowance, so just sew right on top. Remember to try it on again and make sure you like it before you cut off the extra fabric inside. Lastly, hem the skirt. My mom has this really fancy standing ruler that measures skirt hems from the floor to make sure it's a straight seam, so that made my life easier. Don't fret if you don't have a little hemming contraption, just try on the dress and mark where you want the hem to be (again, easier if you have someone to help, because the length changes when you bend over to mark it haha).

Here is the finished product! I know it's not a very good picture, but you can kinda see the v-neck and how it's fitted on the sides. I was going to take a picture with it on, but I didn't look very cute, so I didn't want to be in a picture. Also, the proportions between the top and skirt look off, but it really does look cute and normal when it's on. I promise I'll post one when I wear it at BYU's first football game. I can't wait for football season to start!!

MPPP #3: Canvas Paintings

My third Pinterest project was canvas paintings. I was planning on following this tutorial for canvases with paper underneath paint, showing through on the letters (does that make sense? Just look at the link...). It was really cute, and naturally I wanted to try it with all or my encyclopedia pages. But once I had the canvases in front of me, I wasnt really feeling it. BTW: I got the canvases for super cheap at JoAnn's-- they always have canvases for a low price, but then I got a 40% coupon in the mail AND got a 15% student discount. Booyah. So as I was staring at my two 12x16 canvases, I just kinda decided to go for whatever. That's one awesome thing about creative projects: sometimes it's jsut better to let go of the plans and be creative. As a control freak and perfectionist, this can be hard sometimes, but the only way to truly be creative and create something spectacular is to let go of the fear of failure. There is a quote that I just adore from Oscar Wilde that says "You can never be overdressed or overeducated." How perfect is that? As a total school nerd and dress-up addict, I feel like this quote describes my life. The second canvas is a chevron-- a classic pattern that you can never go wrong with. I'm not sure where in the apartment I'll hang them, but we'll see. I'll take a pic of them hanging when I figure it out.

MPPP #2: Bownanza

I love bows. Any kind of bow, really. It's such a quintessential Southern trademark, and I love all things Southern. I used to wear bows in my ponytails all the time, but then I cut my hair, and thus my bow-wearing habits. Now that my hair is longer, though, I've been wanting to wear them again. Pinterest has had a lot of really great bow-inspiration, so I gathered all my little ribbon scraps at home and got to work. I did a combination of bow-tie bows and game-day bows, depending on the look I was going for. I even did both styles in certain ribbons, just for the versatility. Here is the tutorial I used for the game-day bow. I followed the game-day bow tutorial pretty closely, and it was really helpful. The only modifications I made were 1) not attaching a barrette, and 2)making a bow with three loops instead of just two (you just wrap it around the card one more time). Since I didn't want to go out and buy hair clips or anything, I just made sure that when I glued the middle ribbon around, I left a spot to put a bobby pin through the back. The bow-tie bow was more of a trial-and-error venture, then I based it off of the game-day bow. Basically, I ended up just making a large loop with the ribbon, doing a running-stitch down the middle, pulling the thread to bunch it, then wrapping the thread around the middle (just like the game-day). The only difference, really is the loop at the beginning. I made about 10 bows pretty quickly; it didn't take too long to get the hang of it and start doing my own variations. I used a variety of ribbon widths and styles, so each one turned out kinda different, but I like them.

My Personal Pinterest Project : Paper Flower Wreath

(BTW: 4 point alliteration) Pinterest is getting worse than Facebook in the grand scheme of my time-wasting. Especially when DIY crafts are involved. It's amazing how far reaching multi-media is: not only does it waste my time when I'm online, but then it extends to when I'm offline, trying out all the things I saw online. Nice. Luckily for me, though, I have plenty of time to waste this summer while in Texas. So, I took it upon myself to finally try out some of the crafts that I'd pinned (you can see them and some of my other Pinterest boards here). First on the craft to-do list: a paper rose wreath. I hit the jackpot when I got home and found some old encyclopedias and books of the year that my mom was wanting to get rid of. Why get rid of them when you craft with them?!? So that's exactly what I did. I made little paper flowers out of the book pages, and I have to admit, they turned out pretty cute. They look a little more like ranunculus than roses, which I like better anyways. They took FOREVER though. The tutorial warned that the flower-making took a while, but I figured it couldn't be that bad. It was. It was definitely that bad. I got so sick of rolling paper into little flowers. In the end, it took me about two sittings to make enough flowers to cover the wreath (for my own sanity, I didn't pay attention to how long each of the sittings was, but they were most likely over three hours each. Granted, I was also really distracted by movies and TiVo).

My first little flower. The magic of it quickly dissipated after about the first hour. 

Thanks to some coupon circulars from Michael's, I got an 18 inch wreath form for about $3, which ended up being the only thing I had to pay for (score for poor college student budget!). I was so excited to finally start glueing the flowers on the wreath. First, I modge-podged some paper strips onto the wreath form, that way the hot glue wouldn't melt the styrofoam and any gaps would be camouflaged. The tutorial I followed had a really uniform look with all of the flowers basically the same size, but I wanted a more organic look. I'm not really sure if I decided this before or after I realized how hard it was for me to make the flowers all the same size, but no matter. I ended up having a nice range of flower sizes, with a few larger ones that could act as the focal point, then have a gradient down to smaller flowers. In the end, I absolutely love how it turned out. I can't wait to see it on our apartment door! What do you think?

Luck o' the Irish

Remember that Disney channel original movie? The one about the high school basketball star who turned into a leprechaun? Not gonna lie, it was always one of my favorites. Happy St. Patrick's day! I feel like my blog is turning into a hoopla for random and overlooked holidays: new years, President's day, Valentines, Pi day, St. Patrick's Day... what's next? Maybe April Fools' Day? Anyways, focusing on the present. Whit and I celebrated green day early by going to our friend Michael Sean's party. He's a friend from Jerusalem, so we knew we would have a blast see everyone again. He also hosted it with his cousins, so there were plenty of people that we didn't know too! Yay for making new friends! It was a really fun party with lots of  Irish decor, green clothes, a potato peeling contest, and even a Blarney Stone to kiss! I also tried out a new dessert--rice krispie treats, but instead of rice krispies, you use Lucky Charms. Whit had the idea, so I did it. They turned out ok; since the cereal already had frosting/sugar on it, the mallow coated it kinda funny. But they still tasted good, so I guess that's what counts! I at least get extra points for holiday spirit and appropriateness.

Love is in the air

This past Sunday, Whitney wanted to get all crafty and make Valentine's Day decorations. So, naturally, we did. We both love to be creative and make things, so this was the perfect project for us to do on a quiet Sunday evening. Whit focused on creating cute paper heart bunting, and I taught myself how to make a tissue paper pom-pom garland. It turned out pretty cute if I say so myself. We also have a "Love is..." wall that is covered with hearts that complete the phrase. My personal favorite is "Love is... Zac Efron." Just saying...

Garland and twinkle lights for Valentine's Day

Here is the tutorial I used to make the garland. It was pretty simple, even though it was my first time to make it.