Summer Ruffles

Our sand volleyball (or beach volleyball as we like to call it) team had a Beach Party to celebrate both my hubby's birthday and the engagement of two of our teammates. My hubby and I hit the thrift stores in search for "beach party" attire. I found this very fun floral dress (2nd from right). 

I also found this very cute Ann Taylor Loft dress for $9. 

I loved the ruffles and loved how it was made of horizontal strips of fabric. 

It was a size or two to big, but I didn't care! It was only big around the bust so I took two pleats and turned them into two seams that would make it about 2 inches narrower. I was worried that it would pull the dress too much toward the back, but it actually looks just fine on. 

I had to remove the top trim to do this, but after I made it smaller I put the trim right back on and whabam it's done!

New dress to wear on my vacation to California! One more reason (actually two) why I L.O.V.E. thrift stores!

xoxo 

Little Bicycles

My new Mod Podge / fabric / earrings love...

A few nights ago a silent bike ride was organized in support of cycling safely and riding for friends and loved ones who have been injured or killed by vehicles while cycling. I couldn't make the ride, so I wore these cute earrings all day instead. 

Don't forget to ride defensively and please drive carefully! Watch out for cyclists! They are doing great things for their bodies and for our environment!

Fun Times with Felt!

It has been a really really really long time since I have purchased, or even thought about purchasing, felt. That was until I caught a glimpse of the absolutely adorable felt flower pillows. The web is crawling with these pretty pillows so I thought I would make one.

I found a great tutorial on Cluck.Cluck.SEW and let me tell you, this project is SUPER easy... It would have been a tad more time consuming if I had not been able to use one of these:

A circle cutter! 

I don't own one, but it is certainly now on my list of cool gadgets that are "super-useful-every-now-and-then"... I borrowed Ali's during the last Modern Sewing Guild meeting and got all of my circles cut in a jiffy (and they were PERFECT). And after showing off my felt flower pillow, I already have requests to make more. I think that warrants me NEEDING a circle cutter. 

The flower is made of a bunch of felt semicircles sewed to some fabric and will soon become a pillow!

Close up of the flower and the button in the center. Can you believe nearly all of the felt I found while shopping was made of recycled plastic bottles??? Yay for recycling plastic!

Close up of the pillow fabric. 

For those of you that don't sew, the Crafting Chics have a tutorial using glue.

Hooray for Fridays!
xoxo