Yabba Dabba Doo!

Flintstones!  Meet the Flintstones… well just Pebbles and Bam Bamm.  Mr. Viever was a party pooper this year and said he didn’t want to dress up so no Fred and Wilma.  This is also the first year that I have made the kids’ costumes so I wanted to do something relatively simple, fun, and themed!

Bam Bamm

 I sent out an SOS to my sewing mama friends.  I needed a shorts pattern as I have none.  Sure enough they came through for me and pointed me towards Create Kids Couture’s Aidan’s Appliqued Shorts Pattern.  I followed the pattern as adding a fleece sash by sewing one edge down as I made the channel for the elastic.  The sash I cut based on the measurement from my son’s waistband over his shoulder and back to the waistband for length and then had it about 2.5 inches wide.  The bone I free handed out of felt cut two small slashes into the fleece sash and inserted the bone; I left the bone end of the sash unattached.  I also chose not to hem the shorts and just cut out ragged triangles instead. Rough and tumble kid is supposed to be from the stone age no hem required! I then stitched on several of the fleece triangles I had cut out to finish off the Bam Bamm look.  After he put on the shorts I then safety pinned the bone end of the sash to the shorts.  Gave him the club (directions on how I made it below) and we have ourselves Bam Bamm!!

Pebbles

I used a tried and true pattern for me: ModKid’s Baby Hannah.  This is the fourth set I’ve made for my daughter.  Perfect outfit for California summers.  It’s fall now but during the day it’s warm enough to wear and in the evenings I’ll pair it with a long sleeved shirt and leggings. I did learn something from doing Bam Bamm’s costume first.  This time I STARTED by sewing on the fleece triangles to the fabric THEN I sewed up the pattern.  So much easier then doing it the other way around!  To finish of Pebbles look I cut out a felt bone and attached to an alligator hair clip.

Bam Bamm’s Club Tutorial

I knew Bam Bamm needed to have his club but didn’t want to go buy a plastic one that would gather dust.  So I grabbed a small baseball bat that S got last year for Christmas and decided I would wrap it!  When S saw it this morning, he asked me what it was.  I told him it was a club for his Bam Bamm costume.  He then asked me if he could open it.  I guess my gift wrapping skill could use some work but for club making they are just fine!

Supplies: Small bat, 2 paper bags and Scotch Cover-Up Roll

I used a gift sized paper bag to start and ripped it open along the seams. Then I used that bag to cover the large part of the bat to create more bulk. Secure with scotch cover up roll.

Opening the second full sized paper bag along the seams I then wrapped up the whole bat.

Starting at the handle of the bat I made small strips and wrapped with the cover up roll.  Make it tight as you can for a good shape!

Using a square portion of the cover up roll cover up the large end and then use more of the cover up roll to go around the large part of the bat.

Squish, crunch, and “bam bam” a few things for the wrinkles and to make sure your cover up roll is sticking well.  Use additional strips as needed!

Happy Halloween!

Viever

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Small FRY-day Spotlight: Diedelbug Handmade

It’s our second Small Fry-day Spotlight of the month (and of “ever”) and this one is going to knock your socks off, too! I’m telling you, there is some rockin’ talent out there. This week we have Erin from Diedelbug Handmade showing off her “super” costumes that are guaranteed to turn you into a mega villain named Jealous Man.  She was even nice enough to share some how-to secrets with you.  Grab some candy corn and read on!  Also if you missed last week’s Small Fry-day Spotlight, you can check that out here.  Thank you, Erin for joining us this week!

-Crystal-
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Well first off let me introduce myself. I’m Erin, the craftermind (inset evil laugh, well maybe it’s more of a cackle hehe) behind Diedelbug Handmade. I’ve just started to sell handbags but I mostly sew for my little monsters, umm I mean angels, 2 and 4 year old boys. Need I say more?  They’ve reached the constant picking and bickering stage. More recently I’ve started to dabble into sewing actual wearable clothes for me. I can only use so many bags you know? Ok, enough about me and back to the “angels.” The boys FINALLY decided what they each wanted to be for Halloween. I have to start asking in August because they change their minds daily. Who am I kidding? More like hourly. At one point I was going to have to come up with Optimus Prime. Really? I had no idea how I was going to make that happen for a 2 year old. Whew!

Last year Zander, my oldest, went as the Incredible Hulk, complete with crazy Hulk hair.

Cutest thing ever! So this year we’re in total super hero mode.  The boys decided they wanted to be Iron Man and Captain America.   Now I’m a pinterest addict, so of course I scoured for hours looking for inspiration for prefect costumes to recreate.  I had come across this tutorial for a muscle shirt from Sew a Straight Line. Thanks Sabra!!!! I followed the tutorial exactly last year, and used a glue stick to stick the muscles on before covering with the second layer of fabric and waited the hour for it to dry.  But this year I’ve found the wonders of spray baste! Spray baste=magic

 Who’s got time to wait? Just spray, stick and go! But make sure it’s temporary and washable. For both costumes I started out with the Scientific Seamstress All the Rage Raglan shirt pattern which includes the hood option. Gotta have the hood because both the Captain and Iron man have their heads covered.  Ronan’s Captain America costume I used the muscles from the tutorial. I modified the shirt by cutting just under the arm pits to create the bottom part of the Captain’s suit. Then I cut stripes of red and sewed the onto the bottom white part before attached to the top half.

I used this same principal for the sleeves. Now you need two pieces of the front part of the shirt because you sandwich the “muscles” in between the two layers.  I pinned the two layers together around the edges, to keep them from shifting too much while I sewed.

For the Captain’s muscles I wanted them to blend in with the suit so unlike the tutorial I didn’t just sew around them. I sewed around with the same color thread so it just looked like real muscles under the shirt. Of course at this point I realized I forgot the star! Doh! So I just sewed the star on top. Worked out just fine J.  I then tried the shirt on him to check the length to add the “belt.”

Someone, *cough* Zander *cough* was a little bent out of shape that his costume was not done yet. Well if you’d take a nap and go to sleep when I put you to bed I’d get more done kid! LOL, back to the Cap.  I cut a little off the length and added a rib knit band around the bottom of the shirt for the belt.  Same thing for the pants, except I chopped under the knee and added a band around to simulate the boots. He’ll wear red shoes and red gloves. The Captain is complete!

 You should have seen his face light up, melted my heart.  Say it with me, “AHHH.”

Now Iron Man was a little bit more of a challenge. His “costume” is more machine than man so I had to draft my own armor. I traced the top part of the shirt bodice and sleeves. I rounded out the pieces and subtracted half an inch from the edges to make room for seam allowance.

Although once I started sewing I should have cut a little more off because it didn’t leave much room after the muscles are between the layers.

A little “muscle” on my part to catch all layers and squish the muscles through the machine as I sewed and we have armor! Now on to the bottom half of the armor, I was running low on red knit and didn’t want to have to run to Joann’s for the millionth time that week. So instead of cutting two layers for the pants I just cut the “armor” pattern out of the fabric and sewed it on top. Knit doesn’t fray so I didn’t need to worry about finishing the edges.  And we’re done!

Avengers ASSEMBLE!!

Now I have two of the cutest happiest super heroes on the planet. They ask to wear their costumes daily and wear themselves out saving the world from the bad guys.

How can I say no? Score one for mom J Hope you’ve enjoyed my ramblings.

A Pixie Birthday Party

My little girl V is turning one on the 13th of this month.  It’s so hard to believe that she’s been with us a year while at the same time it feels like she’s aways been with us.  At the end of last month we used part of Mr. Viever’s paternity leave to travel to see friends and family and at that time through her birthday party celebrating her first year among our family members in Arizona at my in law’s home.  We did the same for S when he turned one and it was so nice spending time with family and being with those who loved us most to celebrate the life of our child so we had to do it again for V.

V is a bit on the small side and I call her a little pixie, so a party theme was born! Now some random background, I’m not a fan of Tinkerbell.  Just plain don’t care for her, her sass, or the fact that Pixie Hollow took over what used to be Ariel’s Grotto at Disneyland- I know I’m a bit of a freak but Ariel’s my favorite!  So when I was on my search for decorations, I wanted fairies but not of the Disney sort.  I found the perfect little cupcake toppers and matching garland on Amazon and suddenly two days before we were to leave for Boston for a week, (we’re a little on the nutty side and planned travel to Boston for a week, one day at home, then drive to AZ for the weekend of party fun and a relay triathlon) I was struck with a NEED to make V a party dress to match the fairy decor.

I used Zafarani’s Saffron Twirl dress (It’s still on sale price for $5, go get it now!) as my base for the dress knowing that it would make the perfect party dress and that with a small adjustment to the back button band I could create some awesome removable wings.  So I ran off to JoAnn’s during  naptime and bought fabric and all I needed to make wings– that’s right make the wings, never mind the fact that I ordered wings as party favors already…. crazy lady right here.

During her second nap, I used these tutorials (no sew wings and these gorgeous textured wings which when I have the time I want to fully do justice) as  guides to make my own wings. I didn’t quite follow either exactly as I knew I wanted the center piece to attach to the dress as in the second tutorial but I didn’t have the time to do the layers or the wire shaping of the second tutorial.  I did do some sewing for my wings as I used one set of panty hose and did the bottom portions of the wings separate from the top requiring a seam as I wanted more shaping than the first tutorial did.  Also to attach the pantyhose to the center I also hand stitched the panty hose in place there then used felt with my glue gun to cover up the wire and any panty hose ends that were sticking out.  I also used a glitter glue stick in my glue gun to add some texture to the wings before spraying it down with fabric glitter paint.  Thankfully I remembered to throw the dress fabric into the washing machine at this point otherwise sewing when the kids went to bed would have been postponed, whew!

Now to the dress.  I changed up a few things.  I added an additional skirt layer of a shimmery/glittery tulle material to mimic the look of the fairy dresses in the decoration pieces.  I also made it so that the button band was removable (rather than sewing in the band as instructed I made the whole dress and then did two button holes on the dress and attached two buttons on either side of the band) so I could use a band without snaps for the wings on days we didn’t want the fairy look.  The outfit was done with one day to spare for packing for our whirlwind adventure.

The food.  I knew I was going to need to pick something that would appeal to the toddler crowd and the great-grandparent crowd while also being easy to prepare.  So we went with the theme of brunch finger foods.  We made apple pie dip and cinnamon chips, bacon corn muffins, set out the fixings for fruit parfaits; bought a few different sweet dessert type breads (banana nut, pumpkin strudel, and pound cake), mini cinnamon rolls, BBQ wings, and a veggie tray; catered a few subs and our favorite slushy drinks Eegees (local to Tucson, if you are ever in the area you HAVE to try some my favorite combo is lemon strawberry and favorite flavor of the month cherry cider, and get some fries and ranch too, yum).  My in laws made a mu shu pork dish for lettuce wraps and my husband’s grandmother made sausage/potato/gravy burrito wraps.  All in all the food was GOOD and best of all we didn’t run out of anything.  My in laws actually informed us this last weekend that they were still eating down the leftovers a full week post party.

Lastly I made fruity cupcakes (used 1 banana and subbed the second for 3 medium strawberries and substituted the honey for maple syrup) topped with a little whipped cream sweetened with a little maple syrup.  Birthday girl was very happy with her first tastes of cake.  Kids and adults alike also got to have mini ice cream cups served with their cake though the birthday girl missed out on them (mean mama I know.)

Party ended post cake when the birthday girl declared (loudy) that it was naptime.  Our littlest guests left donning Peter Pan hats or fairy wings while our grown up guests were invited to TAKE FOOD HOME!  All in all it was a wonderful family gathering and a lovely celebration for  our girl’s first year of life.

— Viever

Small FRY-day Spotlight: Life of a Compulsive Crafter

Crystal here!  It’s October and that means Halloween!  We have decided to spotlight a “Small Fry” a week because we’re all small fries too and want to see what you can do. We’re spooking things up for the next 4 weeks to fit this haunt-a-licious time of year and we have some great posts coming your way from crafters just like you and me and the other SHEs.  Featured this week in our FIRST EVER “Small Fry-day” spotlight is Mae from Life of a Compulsive Crafter .  She’s going to share her super fun and wild Halloween costume suitable for the at-home crafter.  Enjoy!  I know that I did!

Hey!

My names Mae and I blog over at The Life of A Compulsive Crafter where I mostly discuss my need to create clothing as well as other random things.  Today I’m here to discuss a super cute but also easy DIY Halloween costume.

Nearly five years ago when it was my daughters second Halloween I hadn’t rekindled my love for sewing yet, but still scoffed at buying the store costumes. They were usually $20 and looked like they were made for $5. Just not my first choice, ya know?

So, following the theme of her nursery/bedroom I chose to create her a MAX costume from Where the Wild Things Are. This year, I’m showing it to you on my son who will be wearing it for his second Halloween as well!

What I used:

1. A set of white footed pajamas with a small embroidered logo on the chest

2. Grey Felt

3. 2 fuzzy boa’s bought at Michael’s/Joann’s

4. Gold fabric

5. 3 White buttons

6. Stuffing

What I did:

1. I had to get the logo off so I used a seam ripper and carefully picked the stitches.

2. I sewed the buttons next to the zipper to mimic Max’s outfit.

3. I ripped the seams at the feet, then using the grey felt I cut claws and sewed the seam back up with them tucked nicely into it.

4. I cut a tiny hole in the butt of the pj’s where a tail would be, then I pulled the string at the end of the boa through the hole and tied a few knots to secure it. I also hand-stitched this to be extra sure it wouldn’t pull out.

5. (The Crown) I measured his head, added 3inches& cut the gold fabric with points at the top to create a crown. Then I sewed it all together and stuffed it to give it character. I used the second fuzzy boa (not all of it) to wrap around the bottom edge of the crown.

&that’s it!

Seriously guys, this was one of the quickest halloween costumes I have ever made. It’s lasted us all of these years and is still cuter than ever!

Happy Halloween!