A Dress Made With Grandma's Love

Now that the gift has been opened I can show what I've been working on in the evenings - a little dress, bloomers and barrette for Brooklyn's birthday gift.

I remember when Lynne' was little the tshirt dresses were popular. Love 'em or hate 'em, they were sure easy and fun to do. A friend and I even taught a community education course on how to make them and we painted the tshirt. Oh the days of the painted tshirts - I'll admit that I do miss them.

Anyway, I saw somewhere online a dress using the same concept, but with a tank top instead of a tshirt. I found cute tank tops at Walmart that were made of stretchy fabric and the neck and sleeves were edged with matching lace. The fabric I used had little smiling suns and flowers and that was perfect since I call her my little ray of sunshine. side note: Lynne' did point out that I used to call her my little ray of sunshine and that is true. She would wake up smiling and smile through the day. Luckily I have room in my life for two little rays of sunshine. :)

Making the bloomers was funny because I tell you what, literally every single seam on them had a close encounter with a seam ripper. They turned out cute though and I laughed way more than I cried, so all is well.

The barrette, ah the barrette. I am here to tell you that any time you see any "boutique barrettes" at a craft show, buy them no matter how much they charge - they are so worth it! I read directions online, at the store, and watched videos on youtube. I won't say that it was hard to do, but me and hot glue guns have never gotten on well. And apparently this is not a skill that has improved with age because I still had trouble. I had little strings of that glue everywhere and to top it off, I kid you not, I even burned my lip with hot glue!

In the end I'm very happy with how it turned out and since I have more supplies and more styles I'd like to try I'm sure I'll do it again. Perhaps with an alternative glue source though. ;)

Good times......