{Embrace} and {Small Style :: Birthday Girl!}

Good morning!

I am so so excited about today's post!  This has been a big work in progress for me and I am thrilled with how it turned out.  More importantly, Emilia loved it!

We celebrated Emilia's THIRD birthday this past weekend with a "Tinkerbell Party", at E's request.  The only catch was that she wanted to be Rosetta, Tinkerbell's fairy friend, because she wears pink.  My MIL found an awesome deal on a peachy colored fabric which matched our Rosetta doll's outfit perfectly, so I set out to create something fantastic. 

Emilia loves tutus and all things twirly, so I really felt the stress of perfection...haha.  Honestly, I just kind of made up the skirt as I went along...I looked at a couple tutorials for petal skirts and tutus, but ultimately, just kept playing with it until I liked it.  It didn't pass the "Twirl Test", but E still loved it!

I also took a plain white tank and added a small fabric rosette embellishment.  I didn't want anything too over-the-top and I think it turned out great!



She was also very particular about which character each family member was to dress up as...and here is our little family!  I was Tinkerbell and Jason was Terrence- Tink's boy fairy friend.  Such a good dad to get in on the fairy fun! (O:


I am excited to post all about her party details soon.  Please stop back by! (O:

As seen on Emilia:
Rosetta Skirt - Handmade by me
Rosetta Tank - Target's Circo brand plain tank, I added the embellishment
Leggings - Walmart
Wings - Amazon.com

I am linking up with two wonderfully awesome blogs today; please go check them out!:

Personalized Photo Valentine's Day Card

I am a big fan of personalizing cards and gifts as often as possible.  Why mail out cheap cardstock Disney Princess cards for Valentine's Day when I can just as easily create my own card to send?  So that is exactly what I did!  Here is what I will be sending out to Grandparents this weekend:

These photos are from a little session I did with Emilia last fall, to showcase my final product as part of the Scrap Tutu Tutorial I put together.  I wanted to make the most of our time playing at the park, so I grabbed a couple extra props and planned to take extra photos for other projects.  Thinking ahead to Christmas and beyond, I put together the little sign she is holding.  It is just a piece of white posterboard and letter cutouts (both can be found at your local dollar store).  One side, as you can see, says "I Love You" and the other side says "Joy. Peace. Love".  (That side was, of course, for our Christmas photo card.)  To stabilize these against a bouncy 2.5 year old, I taped the signs to either side of one of our wooden puzzle bases.

I love the bright, cheery colors of Emilia's outfit and her bubbly, fun personality really shined during this session.  I picked out a couple favorite shots and then headed over to Picnik to start putting my card together.  (I know I have said this before, and I will probably say it again, but I'm so sad this site is shutting down in April.  I love using it for quick fix-ups- it's super user friendly and quicker than fumbling around in Photoshop.  Take a few minutes and check it out.  You've got about 2 months left to work on ideas!)

So, from my family to yours- Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are inspired to create your own personalized card to send out.  (O:

I am linking up to Fun Friday Finds - Go check out all the great ideas being posted today!

PDLB: Scrap Tutu Tutorial!!

Happy Tuesday!

I am so excited to share this “Pinned It. Did It. Loved It. Blogged It.” post with you!!  It was a couple weeks in the making- since I had to work on it here and there between everything else going on right now…I was finally able to take little Miss Emilia out to the park this past Sunday to snap some photos of our finished product, and now I can share it with you! (O:  ALSO, I doubled my PDLB points for today by completing another pin...Check out this Pinterest Challenge going on today.  There are OODLES of great ideas being shared.  Look at us Pinners actually Doing!  (O:

The first time I saw THIS scrap tutu pinned, I knew we just had to make one.  I have an over-abundance of fabric that I’m looking for ways to use, since it can’t come with me to Saipan next summer. (sad face).  One fabric in particular, I have been waiting for the perfect project to use it on.  You’ll see it in the pics- the sweet owl fabric!  I just love love love it.  So, I grabbed all the pinks and oranges I had to coordinate with this print.  I decided I could use this tutu in her fall photos as well as maybe some photos for Christmas cards.  (Which involved another pinned idea…Have I told you lately how much I love Pinterest!!)

My daughter, Emilia is 2 and ½ and LOVES to help.  When I told her I had a new project for us to work on together, her eyes lit up!  To keep her out of reach of the scissors while I cut the strips, I asked her to look through all the fabrics and pick her “favorites”.  (She didn’t really know I was planning to use them all, but she had a blast unfolding them, stacking them, straightening them, etc.)

On to the tutorial:::  I spent a little time googling to find out how wide to make the strips, etc.  THIS is the blog I ended up getting my information from.  Very helpful and cutie little girl! (O:

Supplies::

Scrap Fabric (Coordinating colors or just whatever you have laying around)

Elastic (½ to 1 inch width)

Scissors (Pinking Shears will keep the fraying down)

Needle/Thread or Sewing Machine to sew waistband

Directions::

1. Gather and iron your scraps. (The tutorial I read just used assorted scraps.  I preferred to coordinate my fabrics for a more cohesive looking skirt.  This is definitely the OCD coming out in me, but since I knew I would be using it for pictures, I wanted it to a little more coordinated.)

My little Helper piled these up for me. ;-) 

2. Cut your scraps to roughly 22 inches long and about 1.5 inches wide.  My daughter’s waist is about 18 inches and I used somewhere around 60 strips.  You can adjust this number depending on the fullness you want to create.  (I am a horrible straight-line cutter.  I took pictures of the little trick I used to help me eye up the straight lines:  Fold your fabric in half long-ways, so you have the end where you will begin cutting as well as the side where you will end.  Snip a small cut through all the layers.  When you unfold the fabric again to cut, you can use the snip at the other end as a guide for keeping semi-straight cuts.  I cut all my snips while the fabric was folded in half and then I just cut all the strips out following my little guides.)

3. Sew the elastic waistband- by hand or with machine.  Either way you choose, I would recommend going over it several times- depending on how rowdy your little girl can get. ;-)  (My daughter’s waist is 18 inches, so I cut at about 19 in order to have enough elastic to overlap and sew.  Also, I usually make the waistband a tad smaller than her waist actually measures to help keep it snug.)
4. Double knot each scrap around the elastic- trying to keep the center of the strip at the elastic so you have even sides.  *Remember to do this loosely, so you don’t stretch out the elastic. 

5. Continue all the way around the elastic.  Once you have all the strips you want to add, you can trip long pieces as needed to even up the tutu.




6. Take Little Miss outside and let her twirl to her heart’s delight! (O: 

I would love to see your scrap tutu creations!! (O:

*This tutu will fray, but that just adds personality.

*It is not recommended to wash this tutu in a washing machine.