Maternity Skeleton Halloween DIY shirt

I don't know how new this is, but it's new to me, and it is so totally awesome!  I love the look, especially this time around when I'm about halfway through my pregnancy and can really enjoy wearing this shirt!  With my daughter I was only about 6 weeks at Halloween, so I wasn't broadcasting it (with two miscarriages before her, I didn't want to have to tell and then un-tell again... it's pretty traumatic).  With my son I found out I was pregnant the first week of November, so totally missed Halloween.

I looked online, thinking I'd take the lazy way out and just buy one of these shirts.  Well, the one I really liked here, is $35 and it's just a t-shirt, not even an actual maternity shirt.  Other ones I didn't like the design as well, some had the baby skeleton part looking downright creepy.

So following this tutorial, I decided to make my own.

I know, I know... I really need to get on the ball with taking pictures during my making of things.  But this one was just too cute not to blog about, even if I don't have any before pictures.

I bought an actual maternity shirt from Target for $15.  I still would have liked to get it cheaper, but I didn't have time and couldn't find another plain, black, long sleeve maternity shirt for less.  I also had to buy the giant roll of freezer paper for $6, white fabric paint for $1.50, crimson fabric paint for $1.50, and 2 sponge brushes for $0.50 each.  I don't have an exacto knife, but used a regular utility knife and honestly found it easier to cut out the bigger pieces (ribs, heart, head) with regular scissors.

I simply laid out the freezer paper on the table, having already cut it to the length I needed for the shirt.  Instead of tracing a pattern, I just decided to draw it on free-hand using the original shirt I liked best:

I'll admit I got lazy and tried to do this as quick as possible.  I also omitted some ribs at the top and bottom to make it all fit because the shirt I bought was a scoop neck, so I didn't have as much space at the top.  I ironed on the freezer paper as the tutorial says, then put two coats of paint (allowing to dry between coats) and peeled the freezer paper off very carefully. All in all I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  

I got to wear it for the first time at a local amusement park.  We took the kids for their annual Halloween festivities.  Given that both I and the kids now had skeleton shirts (theirs bought by Nana), I felt bad leaving my poor Hubby out, so I made him one too.  

I was thoroughly amazed by all the compliments I received on my shirt.  I had at least 7-8 people tell me to my face how cute it was and probably overheard another 5-6 people in passing say something like "did you see how cute her shirt was?"  It felt really good!

Football Baby Blanket

So saw something very similar to this on pinterest.  I didn't even bother following the link to the original, just went from the picture I saw and used some scrap fabric I had to create this blanket.  I'm sure I'll be making more of these in the future, it turned out super cute and the kids love it.  Not to mention it's awesome working with fleece fabric as it doesn't fray so there's no need to do a ton of extra work sewing edges under.

Vow Renewal Dress

In September, my Hubby and I renewed our vows for our 10th wedding anniversary.  Originally my plan was to take my actual wedding dress, tear it apart, and make a new, 50's style, cocktail dress out of it... with the help of my aunt who is an amazing seamstress.

I don't have a good picture of my actual wedding dress on this computer, but here are some pictures I saved as inspiration for what I wanted to create from my wedding dress...

I love the tops of these next two.  I hate my arms, so I rarely wear anything that's sleeveless or with cap sleeves.  Plus I love the lace look, especially after seeing Princess Kate's wedding dress.

So that was my plan... make my wedding dress into a new dress that was somehow similar to these inspirations above.  

And then this happened...

We found out in June that we're expecting our third child.  He/She is due in February, which would make me almost halfway through my pregnancy for our vow renewal.  Given that I was already scared of cutting my wedding dress apart to make a new dress, there was little chance of figuring out how to make it into a maternity dress.  So on to plan B....

I started shopping online, looking for a maternity dress that would be similar to what I wanted.  I found this one that was perfect...

but then saw the price tag... $300!  Um, no.  I wouldn't pay that for a dress that I would wear over and over again, let alone a maternity dress that would probably only be worn once!

So onto plan C.

I bought a maternity dress pattern online for $13.  I made a practice dress first, and boy am I glad I did.  It turned out way too big and I hated the way it was gathered the whole way around the waist, it ended up making me look enormous!  Once I altered the pattern to fit the way I wanted/needed it to, I got started with my real dress.  And I am so happy with the way it turned out.  It ended up being much more flattering on me than I thought when I first tried it on.  Plus I have to admit this was the first time I've made a dress from a pattern.  I'm amazed it turned out this well considering I have very little, really no experience making clothing from patterns.

Here's the finished product in action