Black and Purple Burst Sheath Dress - Pt 1

After making my watermelon halter dress, I decided to try making another dress.

I found this pattern that seemed pretty simple... 

...and this neat purple flower/sunburst-type fabric:

Neat, huh? Yeah, I can do this... totally!!

Look how nicely they go together!! I mean, it's hard NOT to go well with black, but still! 

So I cut out the pattern pieces, and got to work....

It's a bit hard to see in this picture, but I made darts to bring in the sides!! Have only done that maybe once or twice before...

And also sewed in some vertical darts to adjust for the "feminine figure", on the back side...

Got the middle and 2 side front pieces sewn together...yeah, this is lookin' good!

I got a little bit of puckering at the top corners unfortunately, but hopefully it won't be that noticeable once I'm wearing it?

A quick sexy angled pic of the front pieces sewn together.....teeheehee....

Got the fronts and backs sewn together (really hard to tell....)

Then came time to cut the collar pieces, no biggie, right?

Hmm... something doesn't look right.... Oh darnit!! I forgot to fold the fabric so I get two of each!!

Oh well, at least I have plenty of black fabric to cut more!

Now for the interfacing pieces...

Got the collar pieces sewn on to the body... but there's just the ONE darn spot that puckered, and I didn't realize it! :(

It's a little hard to tell, but you can somewhat see the pucker/foldover below.

I haven't yet sewn down the top-side of the collar, or rather, attached the underside pieces yet, but hey...let's see if this will in fact fit ON me, yes?

I have... NO...idea what's going on with my hair tbh...

W00t!! It fits around me!!

Now for the zipper!!

Hmm... the bottom of the zipper has this weird fold-over looking part, but the first time I've done a cross-stitch at the bottom, to make sure it doesn't break?

But y'all..... you guys....... hey......the method of how the zipper is stitched, with the fabric covering it and making it a hidden zipper... I am SO proud of myself for getting this done SO WELL!! I've never done a zipper like this, and was soooo happy when the 4 times I re-pinned ended up working out once I finally took needle to fabric! :D!!

Secret zipper!!! hahaha

I would just say, I could do for improvement at the top, since this happened (below).... but hey, the rest of the zipper looks pretty darn spiffy, so I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out! :D

I only have 3 more major steps left and this dress will be done!!! It asks me to hand-stitch the outside and inner pieces of collar together/down, I have to add the arms, and seam up the bottom of the dress. 

When I saw the hand-stitch part though, I kiiiiiinda noped out and I haven't picked up this dress for months, so hopefully I will get to this before summer's here and/or I have a reason to where this dress somewhere!! 

Once I finish it though, I will definitely share, so keep an eye out!

Until then... Craft ya laters!! :D

Finally, some more mini canvas painting!!

I finally painted some more mini canvases!! :)

There's no real chatter to put with these, so I hope you enjoy!

Cherry blossom in the wind is on a 2"x3" canvas.

Simple daisies on a black canvas is on a 4"x4" canvas.

And one of my new favorite pieces!! Lovebirds on a branch, with flowers and green background is on a 3"x3" canvas. LOVE IT!!

This 3"x3" canvas I had painted with a blue gradient a while back, and could just never decide what I wanted to put on it. Well, I brought it out when I was hanging out with my mom this last weekend to paint together, and she just 'saw' a boat on it, so I offered her the canvas, and this is what she did! Pretty good, huh? :)

This is another canvas I painted a while back, didn't know what to put on it, but left it with my mom to see what she puts on it! Whenever she decides, I'll try to show y'all, too! :)

Until next time.....

Craft ya laters!! :)

More play with mini perler beads!!

Got in the mood to play with my mini perler beads again, and wanted to share with you all!

These are all some basic little pieces, but definitely make a cute little impact!

Although, if you can't tell... being so tiny, these guys are just a little harder to iron. I accidentally got a few beads static electricitied to the parchment paper when I shifted the iron, and didn't realize until I was done ironing. 

See below vv

It's ok, you can hardly tell from the front.... right? haha

I also did a couple other types of unicorns (I'm in a mini unicorn phase right now...can you tell?? lol), and a rainbow poop! I couldn't resist, they were just sooooooooo cute!!

They're just so tiny, aren't they!?

I also made some lightsabers, a minion, and a butterfly.

Aaaaand..... didn't realize static electricity struck again, when it shifted a couple beads off to the side in his arm area.....

So this guy's just got a random hole in his side! (Please excuse my nails, I'd just recently gotten my acrylic nails off on my own, and hadn't buffed them out yet :"> )

I am just going to leave this little guy as-is, not going to worry about trying to fill in the spot.

Cleaning, organizing, etc... at my mom's house

I know this isn't a craft post, but... last fall, I helped my mom get some big clutter out of her bedroom closet, her office, and a little in the living room, and I wanted to share because of how awesome it was she was willing to go through this process and get rid of so much stuff!! 

Here goes!!

I totally forgot to take before pictures of her office (sorry!!) since we just got right into cleaning, but here's the afters of about 7 hours of work, over 2 days...

Office after

Office after

Office after

Office bookshelves after

 I'm hoping she will be able to go through the rest of the books and trinkets on these shelves, and if she can, I'm pretty sure we can move the books to a shelf in her bedroom, and be able to move ALL 3 SHELVES out of here so she can have wall space to display her art stuffs she's trying to paint, and have less cluttered feeling overall to WANT to paint more!! :)

Now, her living room is a project for another day, but at the very least, we did get an oooold shelf (seriously, she's had it since college y'all!!) and got her more space next to her recliner/the sofa:

Emptied out shelf from living room ready for donation!

I mean, just LOOK at that thing!!! Doesn't it look old and rickety!! Yikes!!

And here's the space she now has with the shelf gone!

Shelf #2 gone! The space!!!

Next was her bedroom closet:

Closet shelf - before

Closet floor - before

Closet shelf - before

Closet shelf - before

Needless to say, the next handful of pictures are of the clothes racks before...

And now for some after shots! She still has a bunch of clothes, but she is doing a fantastic job at getting in to a better diet and losing weight so she can fit into some of these clothes items she's been saving for just that! She's definitely doing a better job than me at the dieting, that's for sure! ;)

Closet shelf - after

Closet floor - after

It's a little hard to tell in some of these photos, but she did get rid of a lot of clothes! The biggest reason it's hard to tell is she has a number of these hangers (the black ones) that have a hook on both ends, with holes in the bar in between. These allow you to hang multiple items of clothing on the same hanger, but then have them hanging vertically instead of taking up horizontal space on the shelves! They're awesome if you have a small closet, however....well, you get it. :)

This picture is here to show you how she's got her necklaces arranged, however, although they are in fact organized on this holder, there are so many, it makes it look cluttered. Something to watch out for when you have an organizer like this. (Did anyone guess that it's actually a shoe rack? ;) )

And now the part I'm sure you're all excited for: the trash and donation piles!!!

Donations first!

Piled in my dad's office (yes, there's a ton of movies.. the man was a collector....lol)

Donation pile from combination closet, bookshelf in living room and mom's office

And the 2nd pile in the living room:

More donation piles!!

 Aaaaand the trash pile!! Yay!!!

Trash pile!!!

 The next, and final part of the 2 day, 12 hour cleaning spree was to load up the donations in my and my mom's cars: 

Mom's car is stuffed!!  

Mom's full trunk of donations....

Back of my car is stuffed too!!

Whelp, there you have it!

2 days, and 12 hours later, there's muuuuch more space for my mom in her closet, and particularly in her office, but there's still much to be done.

Organizing and cleaning can be a difficult process, but it's best if you have someone to help push you along, keep you motivated, and if anything, help with the heavy lifting!

I know you can do it! :)

Until then...craft ya laters!!