Vincent the Strong Man!

I will do a full recap of the Circus party later, but for now here is the costume I made my son. Originally he was to be the Ringmaster, since it was his party you know, and Tim was going to be the strong man. Tim was down with the idea for a few months until he really thought about what he would have to wear. Then he changed his mind.

So Vincent became the strong man!

The costume came together really quickly! It's all one piece.

 I used Dana's Kids Pants pattern {free} for the basic shape of the shorts, since I've made it a trillion times over and the shape of the rise really fits vin {too bad he's getting to big for the pattern now!}. The black is a t-shirt dad gave me to cut up, the hem on the shorts was the hem on the shirt. I just made the pants as high as they are in the pattern, even though I knew that I wouldn't be folding down

The top piece is just a t-shirt pattern I'm trying to tweak to get perfect {I know I've mentioned it a trillion times}. I made the armholes super low and the neckline very low too. I love the way it turned out!

Then I got Vince to try the shorts on, with the singlet and I pinned and marked it and then stitched it together.

He really liked it...

On the day of the party it was PRETTY DARN COLD up here! So he wore a hoodie for most of it, it was warm in the sun. The clown did face painting, so she did Vince up REALLY hilarious!

Check out his chest tattoo he got from my mum who was the "tattooed lady"

The Beard Family ;)

This is my dad, Vince, Me &Tim. Isn't Tim a good looking ringmaster! *swoon*

Proper Circus party post soon I promise, with LOTS of ideas!

Winter is Coming

Bahaha. We love Game of Thrones, but this post has nothing to do with it, I just thought the title was amusing and fitting.

While I was figuring out posts to schedule when I'm away having the baby, I saw some cute Spring Collections by Jessica over at Me Sew Crazy for her kids. What a darn cute idea! Suddenly I had this crazy idea that I could make some Winter Collections for my kids! It's five weeks until Edison will be here, and I already have A LOT to do but I'm going to at least try and make a bit of a dent and start some of my ideas. We'll see, maybe it'll be an after-Edison-is-born thing.

If you've seen my Winter Wardrobe board on Pinterest, the colours I'm going for myself are neutrals in grey and black, as well as a lot of layering. I know it may seem dismal and uncheerful, wearing gloomy colours in winter, but at least I'll have some nice bases to mix and match other colours with. Also I like grey and black!

By total coincidence I was trying to find fabrics in my stash that could work, I wanted the same colours so that each piece would go with each other and we could mix and match them. It's hard because in my stash I have SO many prints and weird thrifted fabrics that don't go with anything and not man solid colours. Luckily the other day I scored some awesome solid coloured knits from the op shop for a few dollars a piece. Hurray!

So the colours I had a lot of that seemed to go together was... grey! Haha.  I also have a really pretty peach tulle I'm going to use but I forgot to take a photo of that.

From the bottom to the top, here's the fabrics I'm working with:

1. A really beautiful soft and slinky grey corduroy
2. Grey floral quilt cover
3. Grey stretch denim
4. Grey jeans
5. Black and grey striped sweater
6. Scrap grey fleece {leftovers from the Ugly Shirt}
7. Slightly grey stretchknit
8. Slinky soft dark grey stretchknit. It's really soft. I love it!

Not Pictured: Peach tulle

And because I'm pretty unimaginative, all the ideas I chose to make Edison are grey originally...

Sources:

1. Round Collared shirt by Zara, 2. Riding Cape by NellyStella, 3. Hooded Sweatshirt by Stella McCartney for GAP Kids; 

4.  Stephanie dress by NellyStella, 5. Braided Headband by The Tangled Knot 6. Mika shirt dress by Dagmar Daley; 

7. Jeggings tutorial by Running With Scissors, 8. Tutu by Stella McCartney for GAP Kids, 9. Tights by Delighted

and Vincent's is more tweakable and I guess leaves more to the imagination for you guys. That whale toy? I'm not actually make that toy but I'm incorporating the idea into something else.

Sources:
1. Eyeball Tee{I photoshopped this}, 2. Knitted Cowl {source unknown}, 3. Zip-Mouth Whale by MaiRuRu
4. Scoodie by GlamourDamaged, 5. Toddler Blazer by Cirque Du Bebe {pattern by MellySews} 6. Toddler Slouch Beanie by Me!
7. Pants with Inseam pockets by My Growing Home 8. Resized Jeans by Me! 9. Sarouel Pants by Cirque Du Bebe

The above two collections look a little strange at the moment, but in my head and in the fabrics I have, I'm pretty sure it's going to come together well. I have a few more fabrics I need to buy to bring the collections together, but the colour scheme will stay the same.

Also the difference between the two collections, Vince's stuff is based on things I've made before, and I've been inspired by tutorials others have written. Edison's is like all designer stuff haah, but I know how to figure them out! I already have the 'Stephanie' dress by NellyStella made sans bow!

I'm actually feeling confident I can at least have the the majority of both collections made and photographed before she comes, but we'll see! I'm guest posting at the end of June and I promised I would do a pattern & tutorial for a certain item {I'm being so vague!} and that is my priority right now, but the way I've been zipping through my To-Do List lately I'm feeling motivated, inspired & confident!

OH AND GUESS WHAT!

Tim is picking my sewing machine up from the shop today! Yes I've been using my sister's Janome and it's been a TOTAL dream but I'm looking forward to having my beloved 'Spaceship' back on my sewing desk!

Tutorial: Recycle sweaters into distressed legwarmers!

Legwarmers.

I know right? Ordinarily I would be like "Hail No!" BUT, this winter, thigh-high socks, cool tights and boots have been my staple. And leggings. And you know what, with boots, legwarmers look just like socks!

I was rummaging through 13 bags of clothes I'm trying to donate to the op shop, but they just don't seem to leave my studio at all, and I found this hilarious dusky pink cowl-necked poncho. I have no before photo and I'm so sorry but I just started cutting before I thought it might actually turn out into something cool! The top of the legwarmers is actually the cowl neck, and the cable knit down one side of one legwarmer was down the front of the poncho. Then it had like all these tassels around the bottom. Trust me, it was hilarious. I don't even know who it belonged to, it just turned up in my studio somehow. Sorry if someone reading this actually owned it, but it's far too late now.

Anyway I was actually trying to look for a black sweater to reconstruct but this was found instead and then I decided I would use it to make leg warmers.

Inspired by these, which I would totally buy in a heartbeat {if they weren't $120} I decided a bit of DIY was in order. Next time I'll use a finer knit, and not pink, and make them a bit looser.

These legwarmers are so easy to make! Click the link below to read the tutorial!

Getting Ready

I am here and I have been working furiously behind the scenes. I'm not going to make any announcements yet until everything is locked in and ready, but I'm planning a really fun celebration for the week my daughter will be born.

Also I've been working my butt off getting ready for a party we're throwing tomorrow, Carnival themed! We've even hired a clown to do face-painting and balloon animals and a little treasure hunt. The thing is, it's a huge outdoor party but it has been FREEZING here the last week. And the party is in the morning so it's going to be really cold.

I hope miraculously it will be a super hot day, weather is crazy like that here.

Anyway I'll share some photos with you of what I've been working on, it's weird crafting and not blogging about it but I've got so many big projects in the works!

I photoshopped an invite together, using a variety of striped and aged textures from DeviantArt as well as some circus images from The Graphics Fairy.

Every party we have is themed, and this one is no different. We LOVE dressing up, I swear between my mum, my sister and I we could open a costume store! We've done Cowboys & Indians {poop I need to find some of those missing pictures}, Monsters and recently a Pirate party.

I posted all the invites out, because getting mail is cute and being local the guests got their invites the next day.

I made the envelopes myself! I got A4 printer paper and made a stamp out of strips of cardboard glued onto a cardboard base. I painted the cardboard, smoothed the paper over the top then peeled it off to get some cool irregular striped paper.

Then I changed the shape of an envelope slightly to be able to fit the invite in it, and used it as a template. I cut out the striped paper and folded, glued and voila!

I don't have very many photos of the other things yet, mainly because the party is tomorrow and I can take LOTS of photos then. Hopefully! Also I don't want to spoil the fun of the guests {even though they are 3 and younger}

Don't worry this was a progress shot. They're stitched up now, no pins!

I made 33 mini bean bags filled with rice for the bean bag toss and the knock-em-down game, the kids get to take them home. I also thought they'd be awesome mini heat packs.. Ha-ha.

I melted down crayons and used some circus themed molds I bought to make some pretty awesome chunky crayons. I made little colouring in books too, using biasbinding as the spine on them. On the back is a thank you note for coming to the party.

Tim is going as the Ringmaster, I'm going to be the Bearded Lady and Vincent is going to be the Strong Man! It's going to be pretty fun! I just hope it's not too cold because there are A LOT of children coming and it's going to be pretty crammed inside my tiny living room otherwise!

I'll be making a post after the party with everything I made for it, as well as downloadable printouts of the signs I've made and where I sourced everything. In the meantime, check out my Circus Party board on Pinterest!

Miniroos First Training

Vincent and his best friend started soccer training last week.

Yes. I know it is called Football, but where I live, Football is a sport I can't stand and refers to AFL and ARL  and NRL and ew ew ew. I'm not that kinda girl. So for easiness sake we call it soccer.

I made a cute little montage video of photos and video of their first training. It's so funny watching a team of 3 year olds running around after their soccer balls.

Vince spent a lot of the time being dramatic on the ground and Elliot spent a lot of the time kicking the ball all the way over to the other side of the soccer fields. They did really well.

Monday was their second lesson and my little man did REALLY well. Less lying on the ground, more getting involved. El wasn't as into it, he was having an off day, but he still did well!

My friend Sophie & I added iron-on letters to the backs of the boys' training shirts

Megan Nielsen: Ruched Maternity Skirt

I absolutely LOVE this skirt!

I've come to the conclusion that I am far too pregnant to be wearing just over-sized tees and leggings. The waistband on leggings and jeans cut right into my abdomen even though I fit them still!

I made this skirt with the Ruched Maternity Skirt pattern from Megan Nielsen. It was a Beginner rating, which is so spot on because I whipped this baby up in about 15 minutes if that! I made it about 10 inches shorter than the pattern has room for {it is supposed to hit you on the knee} because apparently I'm a massive fan of mini skirts.

My hips were a size S in the pattern, and I wasn't sure how well my 33 week stomach was going to fit, but I took a gamble and went with the size S anyway. It fits perfectly, as you can see!

The fabric I used was stuff I scored at St Vinnie's for like a buck. It's this cute maroon plaid stretch fabric. The tag said Lycra but it's not like swimsuit lycra where it's slinky and slidy and smooth, it has quite a rough texture on the printed side. I knew it would work well because it stretches four way.

I didn't put elastic in the top like the pattern instructed, because I was worried about it not even fitting me. Since it stretches so well, it turns out I didn't need the elastic anyway.

Excuse the snarl. I swear I was totally smiling :/

This skirt also works with the shirt untucked over it, just looks like an adorable plaid mini, with all the comfort of a maternity skirt! Hurray!

I am so in love with this pattern. It was so dang easy, I love the ruching in the sides, the way it covers my belly comfortably and the shaping of it. It's quite flattering and I can't wait to whip up some more. I'm thinking a maxi skirt! I need to have a look at my stretch fabric stash, because it is quite pitiful at the moment, but I think I'll find something to work with, I always do!