Curling Iron refashion.

The Beauty Department has a great tutorial on turning your old curling iron into a curling wand.  This is great.  I have been looking into buying one of these, but I already own 3 curling irons.  I will be DIYing my curling irons into curling wands.

Some outfits.

Here are a few pieces I made(last year) that I never had time to upload. 

 Miss J's Easter dress

 Miss N's Junior/Senior banquet dress.  She was a Senior.

 Pillow dress top with matching pants.

 Some batman pj pants

A jumpsuit, that ties on the shoulders

My Burda Skirt.  I love it.

Miss A's dress as a top.  This pattern is from Ottobre Mag

Invisible zipper.  I love how this came out.

The full dress.  I need to fix the bottom half.  The instructions were weird.

Finally my dress

Here is the dress I said I wanted to make myself eyons ago...

Its very nice, I just don't like the way it looks in the front.  I am going to try and fix it, if not my daughter said she would be more then happy to take it off my hands.

 Here is the dress

My Dress Form

Last night my daughter helped me tape myself up to make my dress form.  My husband came and helped finish me off.  What I have learned is that its not that easy.  Being in the form was OK , cutting me out was difficult for my husband( he didn't want to cut me)  All in all we laughed a lot..  After the duct tape we used masking tape to cover it with...I didn't want it to be gray....  So after I am cut out of it we decided to tape up the back with duct tape first then cover that tape with masking tape

Bad idea,  duct tape does not stick to masking tape.  My dress form kept opening up, even after I had stuffed it.  I had to literally remove all the stuffing and close it with masking tape.  Then I went ahead and re-stuffed it.  Everything stayed in place after that.  Since it had opened up on me, its a inch or two bigger then my waist size.  Its OK, I remeber reading a post where a lady explained that a dress form is to just hang the clothes on.  Since I will still be fitting my clothes it really doesn't matter.

Hopefully I can go ahead and fix the dress I made that came out wonky. 
It was hard for me to adjust what was wrong while it was on me, so my form may help Hopefully

Here are the pictures

I do plan on making another one but not out of duct tape.  This one will be made based on my measurements either with fabric(like this custom-dress-form) or mat board (body double)  Since I have his book, it would be easy for me to do.

All in all I am happy with my form..

Cool finds #9

Hey all I am resuming my cool finds Fridays.  Finding cool/nice things on the internet is sometimes exciting, especially the ones that are DIY.

OK so for anyone out there that has a Kitchenaid Mixer.  Check this out
kitchenaid-makeover.
This is such a cool idea.  Think about it, after sitting out on your counter collecting dust or getting stained, you just give it a makeover.  Make it look even prettier..  Here are some before and after pictures

              Here is the before.  your regular looking Kitchenaid.

 

Here is your after, a very cool looking Kitchenaid mixer

Bitten by the sewing bug.

 I had signed up to take the Sew Retro Perfect Bombshell Dress class with Gretchen Hirsch.  I haven't made the dress yet. Actually I signed up more for the learning tips then for the dress itself.  I did the same for the class The Couture Dress taught by Susan Khalje. You can head on over to craftsy and check out these classes.  Even though I have been sewing since my teen years, I still have lots to learn.  Both of these classes have taught me so much, I am glad I took them.  


After watching both of them and Project Runway All Stars I can say that the sewing bug has bitten me..  
I went into NYC on Wednesday and bought wax tracing paper( both classes spoke about it).  I got 2 sheets one red and one blue.  They are large( not sure how big) I haven't measured them yet.  They are much larger then the non-wax ones you find nowadays.  These should last me a long time.  I got them at SIL Thread 257 West 38th Street, New York, NYC.  I also stopped over at Pacific Trimmings 218 W. 38th Street, New York, NYC and noticed that they also carry the waxed paper.  I refrained from going into MOOD and went into Spandex world.  Their prices are pretty decent.  I bought some nice cotton knit fabric. 

This picture does no justice to the colors of the fabric.
The bottom fabric is a nice rust color and the fabric on top is a mustard yellow.  Beautiful colors.

Now all I need is a dress  form.  After trying to make a dress for myself I realized how important it is to have one of these.  Trying to adjust fittings etc.. while the fabric is on you is not easy.  I want to try and make a duct tape dress form.  Hopefully I can find some time tomorrow to do it.  I will post pics if I am able to.  There are plenty of videos on YouTube that show how to make one of these.

Refreshed and ready.

I feel so refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of this year. 

 As far as school goes on Monday my kids will start getting dressed from head to toe.  My boys will have to wear shirt, tie and khakis.  I will be sewing up some jumpers for my 2 little girls (they will wear regular clothes till then).  I haven't decided what to do with my 13 yodd.  Not sure if I should have her wear a skirt or pants( leaning more towards a skirt and maybe even a tie).  Why am I doing this?  Well I went to catholic school my whole life and saw the difference in the behavior(during school) of the kids.  Also I want my kids to know that their education is important, its not something to bum around with.  So out with the pj's and in with the clothes.  I am revamping our schedule, and what subjects they do.  I might even teach them some subjects all together.  Lets see..
Speaking of getting dressed what are some of your thoughts when it comes to wearing "uniforms" for school.  I am all for it and as you can see will be implementing this in our school.