From Wedding Dress to Blessing Gown

A year or two after I made Karen's blessing gown, I found out my brother and his wife were trying to adopt a baby girl from Ethiopia. This was a long process and a few months in, they found themselves expecting a baby girl. I asked if I could make a blessing gown for their girls and they agreed. 

I went to the Salvation Army, and this particular store was about as dark and dreary and grungy of any store I've ever been into. I always felt the need for a shower after visiting that store. However, they occasionally had some real finds and on one trip I came upon a vintage Jessica McClintock Wedding gown.I failed to take a before picture, but the top looked a lot like this:

 The bottom was lace chiffon over an acetate underskirt, but the skirt was lightly embroidered at the top and got more detailed at the bottom. The acetate was yellowed and falling apart. The dress had multiple rust spots. It was brownish with dirt and dust. It smelled badly. It was $12.

I bought it and threw it in the bathtub in hot water with a lot of bleach. I figured it would either be fixed or ruined. The lace survived and here's what I made. 

I tried to do the pleating for the smocking by hand, but that quickly turned into a project fail. I found a woman who charged me about $10 to run it through a pleater, which is a machine with multiple needles that makes the tiny pleats needed for the smocking. For my first attempt at smocking, I don't think I did half bad.

There is something very therapeutic about smocking. As tedious as it looks, I really enjoyed doing this. Back when we were living in Hermiston, Oregon, I was introduced to the artwork of Brazilian Embroidery.

It's a three-dimensional embroidery that uses different flosses, some of which are very silky. I used some of those embroidery techniques on the collar and bonnet.

The collar is chiffon over satin with the lace edging. It's no joke sewing all of those slippery layers and I didn't get it right. I didn't realize it until the dress was almost finished and after all the hours I put into the dress, I just didn't want to go back and fix it. I wish I had. Maybe some day, I'll fix it for my grand-nieces.

I was especially happy with the sleeves. The lace on the bottom of the sleeve, comes off the bottom of the sleeve of the original dress. I just cut it off and made it a cuff for the baby gown. I used the same sleeve pattern from the dress I made for Karen and modified it to fit this gown. It had a satisfying amount of pouf to it.

On the back, I used the heart-shaped pearl buttons and plenty of satin ribbon for the bow.

The dress has french seams, meaning there are no exposed seams inside the dress. The underskirt has a crocheted lace border that I did for it.

Here is the bonnet:

Here's beautiful Miss Cuteness in her dress. Cuteness was almost 9 months old by the time my brother, Jon, was able to get her from the orphanage. Shari is eight months pregnant, which is conveniently disguised by the length of this dress. I know I could have made it shorter, but I loved the lace so much I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Two months later, Sweetness modeled the dress. I made matching shoes for this dress too. The one shoe has JS on the bottom for Jon and Shari. The other shoe has BP on it for their last names.

Sweetness is also laying on a blanket that I crocheted around the edges for her. You can see the french seams in this shot.

Isn't she an angel? 

 Both girls are an utter delight to me. It broke my heart when I moved back to Ohio and could no longer play with them. Here is a picture of the girls today, the very picture of both Cuteness and Sweetness.

Cost Breakdown:

Vintage Wedding Gown - $12.00

Pleating - $10.00

Thread, embroidery floss, cotton fabric and ribbon - @$10.00

Total Project Cost: @$32.00

Total Time: I couldn't even begin to guess.

I'm linking this post to the parties on my Link Parties Page!

I'm also linking to GetYour Craft On. (they made me say this :-))

I'm in the Top Ten...Vote For Me

My Book Wreath Clock is in the Top Ten of the Iron Crafter's Cardboard Challenge.

Please vote for me...if you think my little ol' clock deserves the vote, that is.

Thanks! Voting is open until Friday, October 1st at midnight (CST).

Book Wreath Clock

I've been seeing all these book wreaths all over Blogland. Normally, I'm not one to do something just because everyone else is, but I've been looking for a project for some antique books I we inherited. See, a few years ago we had the daunting task opportunity to clean out my mother-in-law's house. She's a certified hoarder and I don't say that lightly. She could easily have been featured on one of those shows. Seriously, the stories I could tell...

However, one of the benefits of her hoarding was that every now and again I came upon something that was kind of cool. For example, I have these old comic books from the 1930s. 

Several of them are in decent shape, but a few of them were pretty trashed, as evidenced by the group held together with string. I took this one for my project.

I repeat...no intact books were harmed in the making of this project.

I took this old clock and used that as the base of my project. 

I threw away the plastic cover since it was cracked. I used the old face as a template to cut a new face out of a thin cardboard box.

Next, I wanted to use this inscription from the book. This is my MIL's name and this book was given to her on her 5th birthday.

It took me a little while to play around with the pages and images, but finally I came up with a solution I liked.

I tried to find images of Felix that went in the right direction for where the numbers usually go on a clock. I didn't have enough images to represent all the numbers, but I think this is a good balance. I liked the little sun image from one of the drawings, so that is the center piece.

Next, I needed a way to attach the pages to the clock. I took a thicker piece of cardboard and cut it out to fit around the frame of the clock.

I used pieces of Duct Tape to hold the side sections together. I taped it on the inside of the box so I wasn't trying to glue on Duct Tape. Then I used some of my Gorilla Super Glue to hold the cardboard to the clock. You have to know I'm serious about my project when I break out the Gorilla Super Glue.

 
For some strange reason, Super Glue does not like me. It attacks me on a regular basis.
For example, I now know that I should never attempt to use my mouth to take off the cap from the Super Glue, and even more importantly, should NEVER attempt to stick the glue back INTO THE CAP while the cap is still in my mouth. Thankfully, it only took me a few hours to get my mouth unstuck and the glue off, but as a method of lip exfoliation, I'll try something a little less painful next time around.
Seriously, I'm a complete dork 98% of the time.

At any rate, I folded my paper like so.

 I put a little dab of glue there in the middle so when I folded it again, the pages held together. 

I folded, glued, folded glued and layered my way around and around the clock. I alternated how I folded the paper since one side was a drawing and one side was text.

After all that glueing and folding, I had a weird place in the middle of the clock. If I did another round or two of the paper, you wouldn't be able to see the clock. I tried using ribbon, but that wasn't working. Buddy suggested I keep with the brown theme of the paper and use some twine.

More gluing ensued.
Here's what it looked like as I started to layer the twine.

Finally, I finished all my gluing. I switched to hot glue for the pages because I don't have the patience to wait on other glues. Gah! Yes, I burnt my fingers, but I got the project done in this century, so I was willing to put up with a little pain for the sake of project completion.  

Shhhhh! Don't tell Hubs.  

For some strange reason, he gets really nervous when I'm around sharp objects and/or hot glue. 

Again, I think it has something to do with my exceptionally high dork-factor rating.  

Sheesh!

 Here it is with my Liberace Pumpkin, some funky gourds and my Mercury Glass Bird. I like this location for it because that shelf is full of antique books, so it's a nice touch here.

The whole area, but with some different pieces on the book shelf.

 

One final note, if you're going to do this project, do yourself a favor and DO NOT use a 74 year-old comic book. The pages were very brittle and they tear very, VERY easily. If I were going to do this again, I'd take the time to age the pages of a newer book. Trust me on this one.

Cost Breakdown:

Clock - Free
Book - Free, acquired from my MIL
Glue - Free, in my stash
Cardboard - Free, see where I'm going with this?
Twine - Yep...Free!

Total Project Cost - FREE

Total Project Time - An entire day

Check Out My Link Parties Tab  to see where I'm linking up, however, this post was also done for the:

Fall Burlap Wreath

I honestly have no idea what came over me today. I had no intention of making a wreath for my front door, despite all the beautiful wreaths I've been looking at for the last few weeks.

Somehow a trip to town to the library found Kiddo and I in the Flower Factory. If you don't have one of these stores in your town, I'm sorry. It's awesome! I've been on the hunt for some lamp shades for a project I want to do and one minute I'm browsing the lamps and the next thing I know I'm walking out of the store with a wreath form and some sparkly Fall stuff. I have no idea how that happened.

I have some burlap left over from the curtains I mentioned a few posts back. I will get a picture of those one of these days, but the extra burlap sure has come in handy. 

 Here's what you'll need for this wreath:

A wreath form

Some burlap fabric. I cut mine into 2.5" strips and frayed out 4 strings on one side only.

 Some silk leaves, either from a garland or loose.

Some sparkly picks. I'm still in a Liberace mood after my last pumpkins experiment and, seriously, who doesn't like a little bling here and there?

I wrapped the wreath form in the burlap like so. I glued it down with hot glue. Where your strips overlap, just fray the end and you'll have a nice texture point.

I wrapped the picks together and wired it onto the wreath. To secure the ends of the wire, I poked the ends into the foam.

I filled in the spaces with some of the silk leaves. Because my garland has two leaves with a center hole that attached to the garland, I just took a sewing pin, put it through the hole and poked the pin into the foam.

I took my brand new, $.99 wreath hanger and stretched the hook a little to hold the wreath and voila! 

I'm now the proud owner of a bedazzled fall wreath. 

(The paint on my thumbnail is from the buffet I'm refinishing. If you follow my on Facebook, you'll know I've been working on this for a few weeks now. I think I'll have it done this week!)

What do you think?

Here's the whole front door area.

The Fur Child is staring at my Fall Wind Catcher. I should probably figure out a way to make this area more inviting but I don't have the energy for it. We won't be in this house long enough and I'd rather get other projects done.

Cost Breakdown:

Wreath Form - $1.95

Sparkly Picks - $3.98

Wreath Hanger - $.99

Burlap & Leaves - Stash on hand

Total Project Cost - $6.92

Total Project Time - 45 minutes, max.

Check out my Link Parties to see where I'm linking up!

Viva La Pumpkin!

Oh, SnAp!

I did it. Just like that, as bold as a brass lamp from the Goodwill, I marched right up to my fence and liberated that poor, homeless pumpkin.

You remember her, right?

From her humble beginnings in a trash heap, she yearned to be liberated from her lowly station to become a StAr!
Her deepest fear was the death sentence imposed on her cousin.

For the crime of excessive cuteness, this poor pumpkin is now serving time between bars.

If you read my Pumpkins Gone Wild post, you will recall that I had issues about whether I could claim the pumpkin as my own, as it was from my neighbor's yard, but growing on my side of the fence. Obviously, I built a bridge and got over it because here she now sits in my home, awaiting her transformation.

At first I wasn't sure what type of treatment this little girl would get.
I could do one of my tried-and-true fall pumpkin treatments, like one of these:

However, I quickly realized that this little sweetie wanted something more.
She wanted a level of Froufing and bling yet to be achieved by those pedestrian pumpkins.
This little girl is special and she wants the world to know it.

She wanted the Full Liberace Treatment, thankyouverymuch.
You really need to watch up to :57 of this, and it really gets fun about the 1:30 mark.



Years ago I bought these sequins at a craft store for $1.00. Every year I've wanted to use them, but I never found the right pumpkin for them. Finally, this is the year! Next, I broke out my straight pins and some seed beads and went to work.

Several hours later, we have success. Without further ado, I give you the  
newly liberated, fully Liberace-d Lady of the Day.

I know, right?! Isn't she GOR.GEOUS? 
The copper sequins and the colored beads have this girl just as loud and proud as she could be. Long are the days of the trash heap. This sweetie is ready for her close-up, Mr. DeMille.

Look at those flashes of color. It matches all the glass I have in my windows (check out my Invisible Window Shelves for more pictures).
Like Liberace said, "Well, look me over. I didn't get dressed like this to get unnoticed!"
What's that you say? You want to see more? She'll gladly oblige.

She's just the most over-the-top, out there pumpkin I've done and I absolutely LOVE her!

On a side note, I was taking pictures of my little lady,
when I noticed something amiss with one of my plants.

What the heck? 

Do you see all the short leaves here? Spider plants are NOT supposed to look like this.
Someone gave my plant a hair cut. I have a sneaky suspicion I know who.

Don't let that innocent face fool you. Fur Child likes to pull these kind of stunts to make me crazy. I'm not sure what he did. Do Beagles even eat spider plants? I know they'll eat an entire pizza if someone leaves the box too close to the edge of the counter given the chance. I didn't see him do it, but I do know that somehow, he's to blame.

Cost Breakdown:

Pumpkin - Stolen Liberated for FREE
Pins - $1.67
Sequins and Beads - Stash on hand

Total Project Cost - $1.67

Total Project Time - An episode or two of White Collar and Covert Affairs.

Check out my Link Parties tab to see where I'm linking up!