Baby Dear Baby Shower: The Invitations

I recently threw a baby shower for a dear friend of mine.  I collect Golden Books and have been looking for an excuse to throw a Golden Book party for years.  I even found a site that puts books in diaper cakes here. Baby Dear was my favorite book as a little girl, and I thought it would be perfect for a Golden Book themed shower for a baby girl.  I was a bit giddy with excitement over the idea of a Baby Dear shower.  :)

With a book theme, of course the invitations have to look like the book, right?  I scanned in my old copy and prettied it up a bit in photoshop (30 years takes its toll on a well-loved children's book).

I erased "A Little Golden Book" from the front cover and replaced it with "A Little Baby Shower" in a similar font.  

I just love that I was able to get the back cover and the trademark spine on my invitations, too.   (Even if the spine is a worn silver now instead of the original gold.  I like the worn look better, so I didn't try to fix it.)  

I even put in the inside cover, with the bookplate and everything.  So cute!  The party information was written in a similar font to the original story and I put in an illustration from the book.  

I am seriously in love with these invitations.  I guess I'm just a Golden Book nerd.  :)

Disclosure: I was compensated for a sponsored link in this post.

Lace Skirt Tutorial

In August, I had the great opportunity to make bridesmaid skirts for a wedding.  The Mother of the Bride is a friend of mine and she brought me the fabric she'd picked out and asked me if I could make some skirts with it, to her specifications.  The Bride's sisters were going to be in cute green Downeast skirts, and the Bridesmaids were to wear pink skirts that were to be similar to the Downeast skirt, but a little longer and a little poufier.  

Cute Kylie, one of the sisters of the bride:

The bridesmaids were super-cute girls, too!  

I made the skirts out of a beautiful white lace the bride's mom found, layered with a pink lining and a top layer of light pink tulle, all attached to a black elastic waistband.  

They were pretty simple to make, though making 5 at once took a bit of patience.  All that tulle to cut!  :) 

I didn't have a pattern, so I figured out a mathematical formula to have each skirt look the same as the rest, but still fit each bridesmaid.  I took each girl's waist measurement and calculated what the hem should be.  

For the lining layer, which was a little narrower than the lace and tulle on top, I multiplied the waist measurement in inches by 1.12.  The lining was 24.5 inches long. 

(Waist Measurement x 1.12) + 1 = Hem Width for Lining

For instance, this piece of lining was 33.6 inches by 24.5 inches, for a girl with a 30 inch waist.  Make sense?  (And yes, the fabric in the below picture was cut a little crooked.  Oops!  I straightened it up before sewing it, though. :) )

The lace and tulle were the same size as each other, and slightly larger than the lining.  The equation for the lace and tulle is: 

(Waist Measurement x 1.36) + 1 = Hem width for Lace/Tulle

The length for the tulle/lace was 26.25 inches, so the scallop on the lace would be more visible over the solid pink lining.  So, for a girl with a 30 inch waist, the lace and tulle was 40.8 inches by 26.25 inches.

Who says you don't use math in every day life, right?

For each skirt, I cut two lining pieces, two pieces of lace, and four pieces of tulle.   

So, here's how I made the skirt.  

After everything is all cut out (the biggest part of the whole process), sew the two lining pieces at the sides (using half inch seam allowances), with right sides facing together.  Trim, finish (I zig-zagged) and press the seams, then sew a narrow hem on the lining.  

Next, sew the two pieces of lace down the sides (right-sides-together).  Trim, zig-zag, and press the seams.  I didn't need to sew a hem on the lace because it had a lovely scalloped finished edge.

Then, sew the 4 pieces of tulle together on the sides.  (I didn't get a picture of this step...oops!)  The tulle layer is doubled up so the pink would show (with only one layer, it was nearly invisible).  Trim, and press the seams.  

After your 3 skirt layers are sewed together and hemmed if needed, prep the waistband.  I think the elastic I used was 3 inches...it may have been 2.5 inches wide.  The length of the elastic was the girl's waist measurement + 1 inch.  (So, for a girl with a 30 inch waist, that would be 31 inches of elastic).  

Fold the elastic in half lengthwise, with cut ends together, right sides facing each other.  Sew together with a 1/2 inch seam allowance.  

Press open the seam in the elastic (on a cool iron setting so you don't melt it!) and stitch the sides of the seam down.

Layer your tulle layer and lace layer together the way you want them, matching up side seams where possible.  (Put the lace inside the tulle "skirt").  Machine baste the top of the lace/tulle skirt.  Pull threads to gather the fabric to the size of your waistband.  Adjust gathers the way you want them to look and pin the lace/tulle skirt to the waistband.  Sew the skirt to the waistband, pulling slightly on the elastic as you sew, so your threads don't break when the elastic stretches as you wear the skirt.  

As the lining is slightly smaller than than the lace/tulle layer, I gathered it separately.  Repeat the above process with the lining, making sure that when you pin the lining to the waistband that the side seams match up with the side seams in the lace/tulle.  Sew the lining to the waistband slightly above the stitches where you sewed on the lace/tulle, again stretching the elastic a bit as you sew.  

 

Trim the excess fabric inside the waistband (I wish I'd gotten a picture so this makes more sense--there will be a ton of fabric above your stitches on the inside of the waistband, because the fabric was gathered.  Trim it close (like 1/4 inch) to your stitches so it looks nice.  Zig-zag it if you want (or serge it if you've got one of those fancy sergers!).)

Clip all your threads, shake it out, iron it, and you've got a pretty layered lace and tulle skirt!

Cleaning Cards

 

Using these cards as my inspiration, I made my family some detailed cleaning cards so they can effectively help me clean our house.  They've been great.  "Go clean your room" can be a bit overwhelming to a kid.  Now, my boys have the chore broken down into manageable parts.  And the room actually gets (mostly) clean!

Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective

This summer I got the chance to visit the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit at the Denver Art Museum.  I felt so lucky that its only North American stop was right in my backyard.  

On my way into the exhibit, I stopped with my kids at a fun design station the art museum had in conjunction with the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit.  There was an activity for each step in the design process.  My kids loved doing it, and I thought it was pretty fun too.  :)

First, we made inspiration boards:

Then we sketched.  If you weren't artistically inclined, there were lightboxes you could use to trace templates.  I drew my own clothing, but I'm awful at drawing people, so I traced the form.  Now I kind of want my own lightbox--that would making pattern tracing SO much easier!

 

 

Here's my sketch!  

After sketching, you could drape a dress form, make a little tiny draped dress on a toy dress form, and model dresses on the runway.  I didn't bother with these, since I couldn't actually make what I wanted.  :)  But my kids thought they were great, which was kind of the point anyway.  :)

 

 

After having fun with the fashion design, I entered the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit.

 

Photography is absolutely prohibited in the exhibit (and they mean it!  I saw one lady get angrily booted from the exhibit!), so I got a few pictures from the Denver Post website and the Denver Art Museum website to show you (The two above, however, are mine.  No rules against taking a picture of the entrance...).

The exhibit starts of with his years as a designer at Dior.  

And then moves, somewhat chronologically (but not strictly so) through his other designs.  

They also had an area with his world-inspired designs...

...and an entire hall dedicated his use of color...

...not to mention, all of his tuxedo suits.

At the end of the exhibit was a display of his ball gowns.  

 

Since photography wasn't allowed, I took notes on my program about which dresses were my favorites, and then looked them up later in the exhibit's book.  

The Dior years are my favorite, since really I'm a Dior girl at heart.  The 1950s silhouette is my favorite.  

The colors in this one were amazing.  

I thought this was such a cute secretary-style dress.

Grace Kelly wore this one! 

I typically prefer the dresses, but I liked this pantsuit.  I especially liked the bow blouse and the cute hat.  Hats need to make a comeback.  :)

 

This one was from a collection of his that did not do well. I love this dress though.  It was made in the 1970s, but with a 1940s flair.  I'd wear it.  

This cape was amazing.  

There were so many beautiful clothes in that exhibit!  I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did! 

Mothers

It has been a busy, busy month.  Between doctors appointments, commissioned sewing projects (I'm making all the bridesmaid outfits for a wedding!), summer scouting activities (I'm a den leader), vacation, and the chaos that comes with having the kids home for the summer, it seems as though there is no time left over for anything else.  

Plus, with any extra time I find, I've been trying to spend with my kids.  I even made myself a printable, to remind me of the things I want to be sure and do with my three boys.  It comes from a talk by Ezra Taft Benson called, To the Mothers in Zion.  (He gave a similar talk to fathers, as well.) In his talk, he lists ten ways that mothers can spend effective time with their children.  

I thought it was a good reminder of what I want to do, so I put together the list (with cute fonts!) and printed it out and placed it on a bookshelf in my bedroom, where I see it often.  I thought some of you might enjoy this printable as well, so I'm posting it here for you.  Feel free to download (right click and save, as always) or pin to Pinterest.  Enjoy!