Life is Beautiful

Motherhood, Sewing, Family

sequin flower headband

~ Etc.

i got this pretty sequin flower at hobby lobby
(they just opened in my town and i had a perma-grin
the whole time i was there. i ♥ that store!)

on sale for $1.50 each then i glued some pearls in the middle and put a clip on the back
so my girls can wear it and i can wear it also.

(*these are NOT the headbands i’ll be selling at my store.) and if you’ve noticed how simple my projects have been lately,
it’s because my family’s on a vacation in hawaii!but we’ll be back shortly and i can’t wait to tackle on these projects:

these for my little girl


and these for me


i hope you had a lovely weekend!

how to tailor your own clothes

~ SEWING

“Hello Mrs. Sarah,
One of the many things I love about your blog is how you buy something so much bigger than your actual size and make it so much smaller. How do you make your clothing “smaller”? I really struggle with that! I started sewing a couple of years ago but I have never been really good at alterations. If there is anyway you could tell me how you do what you do? I would love to know! I don’t have money to by those high end looks but if I knew how I could find the time!” -M.B- I don’t know about you but I’ve tried on clothes in the dressing room many times and said, “ah, only if this was bigger here, smaller here, tighter here, looser here…” but now that I tailor my own clothes all the time, even if it doesn’t fit right, I don’t sigh and wish, I just buy it and fix it so it fits just right.
And I think every woman should know how to tailor their own clothes, because instead of saying “oh I wish my body was smaller here, bigger here.” to fit certain type of clothing that you try on, you can say instead, “I don’t have to conform my body to a certain size, I make the clothes conform to me.” and it helps to have a better body image and self confidence when you wear a clothing item that fits you like it was made for your body that fits perfectly and accentuates the positive.
i’ve struggled with very poor body image and hated my body for many years and that is why I’m more passionate about this and the reason why I want to have my own clothing line one day. to help women have positive body image and accept and love the body that they have instead of wishing and waiting. but we can talk about my business concept later. on black friday, my friend rachel and I went to nordstrom rack, and I SO badly wished I had bought more than just one groupon! because even though some didn’t fit right, I saw the potential once it was tailored. here are some things I’ve tailored this past weekend.
before:

a black lace top that’s a little baggy.
after: before: a grey t-shirt dress that’s too big.
after:

I sewed the middle of the back of the dress from the neckline to the bottom hem of the dress and used the extra fabric from the back as a tie. I could have sewed the sides but then the flowers on the side would’ve been sewn over so that is why I tailored the back instead.

you can enlarge the picture to look at the back of the dress in more detail.
before:

a grey plaid dress that I look really silly in.

after:

*and just to clarify, when I say sew along the white lines, I mean from the inside out.

and this dress was possible to sew the sides since it was a back zipper dress. if it was a side zipper, it would’ve been harder to tailor, and you would have to tailor it from the back middle part like I did with the light grey dress above. that’s how I do it anyway. I hope I helped in some way in answering your question M.B! I’ll have more tailoring DIY’s and tips next week. I usually post my DIY projects on Monday but from now on, I think I’ll post them on Tuesday.

BCBG Maxazria knotted panel dress DIY

~ SEWING

Hi everyone! And if you’re visiting from Sew Much Ado, welcome!
I’m a guest blogger for their Copycat Challenge
and it sounds so fun, I just might enter one too!
(not this one I’m posting right now of course. 🙂

but I hope everyone had a great weekend! besides listening to christmas music on the radio(yes! they started playing it a few days ago! i’m so happy about it!) mine was filled with my daughter’s 3rd b-day party planning, stressing, staying up late baking/sewing/crafting for the party, and celebrating the special day and can I just tell you I’m SO glad it’s over? Her 1st and 2nd birthday she was so young that we didn’t need to have any entertainment really, just great food and mingling but now that she’s older and there actually needs to be entertainment, games, prizes, etc., it was so stressful! Do you other mothers stress about planning birthday parties too? so i came up with a simple solution. my husband’s going to plan the whole party for my other daughter’s birthday in march. genius right?
anyway, here is my inspiration:
BCBG Maxazria knotted panel dress
(i came across this store this past may when i went to vegas to celebrate weaning my baby. my friends wanted to go in and once i stepped inside i was like, “whoa, look at this! look at this! WHAT STORE IS THIS???” and my friends were surprised i’ve never heard of this store! which comes as no surprise however since i’ve never heard of chanel, dolce and gabanna, louis vuitton, etc., until i was 20 yrs.old and went to korea. where have i been all my life right? in the bubble of course. anyway, i loved almost everything in the store. except for the price tag… )
eh hem, moving on from my tangent…
in my closet i found
a gray sweater dress

and i bought a yard of gray silky fabric from walmart for $1.50
i wish i found a gray ribbon to work with instead but i couldn’t
find a light gray thick ribbon anywhere. so i had to go with plan b.
1. cut the fabric in 5 strips, about 5.5″ wide and however length you’d like it to be.

2. sew the right sides together(which means the side you want it to show touches each other on both sides and you can’t see it but is on the inside when sewing like this)

*and yes, i have the most ghetto sewing machine due to my girls drawing on it with a permanent marker.
3. flip it inside out. i didn’t need a safety pin since the strip was wide enough for my fingers to go in and pull.)
it looks like this.

4. iron it flat.

5. safety pin the strips along the neckline.

*after many trial and error, this was the only way that worked for me.
i tried sewing the neckline first,then the strips vertically,but it would bunch up,
it wouldn’t come out straight, so after many attempts and unstitching many times,
i felt like giving up for the night but then i thought of you(yes you!) and so i continued and finished! aren’t you proud of me?

6. let the strips hang straight down and with liquid stitch glue the strips down to about 2″ below your belly button. leave about 1″ space on the very top of the strips so you can sew it easily later on.

7. take the safety pins out and safety pin again, this time so the neckline is clean and the strips below are straight and unwrinkled.
it should look like this.

8. tie 5 knots.

9. cut all the strips the same length in a straight horizontal line.

10. use fray check on the ends of the strips.

*i knotted first then cut since i wanted some knots bigger than the others but still the same length.

and after:


i wish i had the strips a little longer like the original dress but i had to match the other strips to the length of the strip on the shoulder. oh well.

(keep in mind the strips are on the right side just like the inspiration dress
but since it’s taken through the mirror, it’s shown the opposite way.)

i like it without the knots too. (w/o the wrinkles of course.;)

i saved over $200!