Showing posts with label Sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sewing. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Sparkly Chiffon Circle Twirl Skirts...


I sewed an elastic waist chiffon sparkly circle skirt for my Lil Chick to wear for her garden fairy costume.  Oh what fun she has had twirling around and around!
Circle skirts are so much fun and once you figure out your measurements it's a cinch!  I followed the tutorial at Ikatbag.com. It is complete with good directions, diagrams, and a template.

Also, I have been overly enjoying tagging anything I sew with my new woven labels. (See above in the bottom right photo.)  After working really hard on a project: seam ripping errant threads, remeasuring, fitting, taking in, letting out, trimming etc...it feels like such an accomplishment to tack that label on!   I love them!

Happy Costume sewing! I better get going, I still need to finish a bat costume for Bubbalu!

Amanda - Vintage Dutch Girl

Friday, October 25, 2013

Travel Trailer Makeover, Part 9: Bunk Beds and Windows

Pigs are flying, we finally made it to Part 9 of the Travel Trailer Makeover Series: the Bunk Beds and Windows!

I really decided to abandon the idea of color matching the entire trailer and instead customized the bunks to each kiddo.  Here is what the trailer bunks looked like right from the dealership:

Rather boring, pretty dull. Ruffly curtain in hunter green leaf patter...well. I WANTED to burn it but kept it for possible future resale purposes.

There was too much beige going on in those bunks. I like COLOR.  Back to fabric shopping! I still used premier prints fabric because I LOVE it. I had a few ideas of fabric patterns and combinations but let each kid pick their color and pattern.

Bubbalu chose a navy and orange chevron and coordinating stripes print, Lil Chick picked chocolate brown and light pink elephants and a coordinating polka dots print:

Yeah. Those don't really match. At all. Oh well! It's COLOR.

Also, I decided that in order for me to be able to get away with sneaking into the kitchen area of the trailer at night and eating chocolate necessitated some sort of privacy screen or curtain.

I used a tension rod and these little stick and screw on holders designed for shower curtain rods to hang a polka dot curtain:

I made a tie-back thingy out of the chevron multicolor fabric and velcro, then just screwed it into the side of the bunk bed. Is this a permanent fixture? With my kids? Probably not. How do I know this? Because they have already hung on the curtain and pulled it down.

Twice.

So, the picture above is ALMOST the same, just imagine that the curtain tension rod has a large dent in and is no longer straight. Then yes, it's the same.

For Bubbalu's bunk I make him reversible curtains and valance so that I can change it out if I ever feel like it...and bonus, I didn't think about or notice it until after I was done with the redo but you can see them from the outside and they are cute!

Lil Chick got pink, pink and some more pink.  And some chocolate brown. And polka dots. And cute elephants. Same deal as Bubbalu, reversible everything:

I also decided to do sheets and blanket instead of sleeping bags because I envisioned kids wiggling during sleep and those slippery sleeping bags sliding off the bunks onto the floor with the kiddos in them! So. I cut down sheets and made a custom bunk sized fitted bottom sheet and top sheet with a fitted end (so it would NOT pull out of the bottom).

I was out shopping for trailer stuff and saw the madras plaid and the pink and brown polka dot blanket and pillowcase sets on super clearance!  WITH an extra % off coupon....Score!! I was shocked - Lil Chick's blanket is a PERFECT match color and polka dot size/spacing! I was so excited!

I'm thrilled with the infusion of color and each kiddo feels like they have their own special space.  Add in some tote bins in the very back of the bunks and you have a mini playroom as well! The kids LOVE playing or reading in their bunks. And Mama gets to sneak chocolate late at night. Everyone is happy happy happy! :)

So, here is the official Before and After shot of the bunk bed portion of my Travel Trailer Makeover:

I think this is the last tutorial/talk through of the Travel Trailer Makeover series! Goodness gracious it only took me like 14 months to do 9 posts! Yay me! I should get a bloggy professional procrastinator award or something.

Maybe I can make it an even 10 and do the full trailer walk-through. Yep. I'll do that. In a few months or so.

THANK YOU for joining me on my Travel Trailer Makeover Series! I hope you have been inspired to add a little sass and custom style and COLOR into your travel trailer or RV!

Amanda - Vintage Dutch Girl


Check out all the posts from this Travel Trailer Makeover Series!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Travel Trailer Makeover, Part 1: Shower Curtain...

First of all, I apologize for the travel trailer sassification posting delay. See, we were busy actually USING our new trailer (Lumi) for the first time. You know, the main point of having a trailer. Not for shredding it to pieces and revamping it; for CAMPING. Err....glamping :)

OK, here goes.

It aaaaaalllll started with a shower curtain.

I'm in the middle of Fred Meyer with a list a MILE long of stuff I'm looking for to outfit our new travel trailer. Cooking hardware, organizational stuff, utensils, storage bins, etc....

The kiddos are being less than helpful.  I have them side by side in that weird car cart at Freddy's that had the kiddos high and up front "steering" the cart.

After breaking up eleventry hundred fights, reminding them eleventry hundred times to stop shrieking in the store, picking up my clipboard eleventry hundred times after they knocked it to the floor (Yes, I shop with a clipboard. Yes, I am a nerd. Hey, at least its not a fanny pack. ) I decided to go for it and let them stay in the Fred Meyer kid play area.

I'm one of those nervous types of Mama.  Kinda wary regarding these kinds of child care centers.  However, after having heard positive things about it from other Mama's that I trust, I decided to check it out.  Yup, loved the system and the safety features and went for it.  Bubbalu was pounding on the locked entrance door chanting, "let me in, let me in!"  A pretty good sign.

Was a SMART Mama and took the kiddos to the potty first.

Yup.

So, I was now blissfully child-free and finally able to tackle my list.

Fast forward 10 minutes. I'm pushing my (now empty of children) ginormous child car cart through the store, knocking items off my list.  I find this gorgeous light aqua blue modern print shower curtain...and Ka-ChoW! Light bulb moment.

I say to myself, oh yes, I am GOING to find a way to switch out the current blah trailer shower curtain to this sassy one.

I'm holding the shower curtain in my hand when I hear this crackly overhead page,

"AMANDA ------- --------, WOULD YOU PLEASE RETURN TO THE CHILD CARE CENTER"

Oh. CRAP.

At this point I'm guessing Bubbalu has jumped off a table or something and broke his arm. And please remember: It's been approximately ELEVEN minutes since I checked them in the child care center.

For real.

I get there and Lil Chick is bawling!  Turns out she has had an accident.  A HUGE accident. A poo in the pants accident.

Oh. CRAP.

Literally.

Thankfully, I had thrown the sassy shower curtain into my cart. And by golly, I am NOT leaving the store without my sassy shower curtain. And all the other random stuff in my now full cart.

Picture this:  A now flustered Mama pushing a full-of-products-yet-still-childless child car cart around to the checkout line with one hand while the other hand is holding Lil Chick's hand. (There is NO way I'm going to carry her. Poo squishing down the side of my shirt and pants?! No thanks. Been there done that.)

Another SMART Mama move: I choose the Family Friendly checkout lane.

Because only a compassionate fellow parent can even possibly begin to understand my plight when my child is SCREAMING at the top of her little yet mighty lungs:


"I HAVE POOP! IN! MY! UNDERWEAR!"

Broken record? Yes. Screamed this delightful little phrase from the time I first arrived at the child care center to pick her up, through the entire checking out process, aaaaalll the way to Lola (our Tahoe) in the back of the lot, and about halfway home....at which point Mama remembers that she has a random Dora DVD in the car and by golly, that "we use the car TV only for LONG car trips" rule is going to be broken.

Stopped crying about three notes into the Dora theme song.

ANYWHO. Yes, a poo accident in a store.  Just another lovely entry in my parenting diary.

Back to the main point. I found a sassy shower curtain to replace the blah one that came with the trailer.  I first seam ripped the handing hardware off the original shower curtain. Then I cut and hemmed the new shower curtain to size since a trailer shower is much smaller than a regular shower.  Instead of a traditional shower bar and rings we have glide tracks in our trailer bathroom with glide tape sewn to the very top edge of the shower curtain.

Glide tape is flexible plastic strips with little clips every 6 inches or so:













Using a zipper foot on your sewing machine, set your (hefty upholstery size) needle to a side position:












and sew along the top and bottom of the plastic glide tape strip directly onto the top inside of your fabric:













Trim off the excess and you are done! Snap that sassy curtain up onto the slide tape and take some photos:




SO much better.  More projects to come! Next time I'll be able to do full before/after photos as I wizened up and started snapping pics before I took things apart.

Off I go to clean my (ignored-for-a-month-because-I-was-sassifying-our-trailer) house...

Amanda - Vintage Dutch Girl


Check out all the posts from this Travel Trailer Makeover Series!

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