As I was reading the themes for this season's P.R.&P. As soon as I read the details for the white sheet challenge I knew what I would be doing. You all remember Scarlet's white dress from the opening Gone with the Wind.  But then I realized as much as I love the skirt...but HATE the top. There I said it I think it is ugly I hate the abundance of lace on the sleeves and neckline.




I didn't know what would go with all those ruffles, then I found this sweet website: How Do We Run On? I was inspired by all of Scarlet's fashion statements not just this one. Then I was reminded of her Honeymoon Outfit:
Boom, it hit me. Modern twist on classy designs.







The skirt is a circle skirt (based on the instructions from Dana Made it) rows and rows of ruffles. I finished the edges of the strips with a red rolled hem to give a decorative feature without the weight or fuss of lace. I used my ruffling foot to make large strips of ruffles until I had enough to make five rows ruffles, 2.5 inches in height. This took the full length of a king sized sheet 6 times cut at 2.75 inches (I lost some to my rolled hem). The red elastic is in place of her red band on her dress.
The shirt I made from small portions of 3X Large shirts I found for a $1 at Walmart. I used Simple Simon & Company's 3 Seam Caftan tutorial. The white part was made by cutting a 7 by 16 inch rectangle. The black I used the bottom of the shirt so I didn't add any more for bottom hem. That rectangle was 6.5 by 16 inches. I serged the white with the black and then serged down the sides.
The design was cut out on freezer paper using Al's Silhouette Cameo, the black decoration was done with craft paint with fabric paint medium and the white decoration was done with white spray paint.

I love this shirt with pants. And Ty had such a good time playing with the shirt and she loves the red covered buttons on the sleeve.

In High School my family visited MET as  part of New York family vacation. I was so excited when one of the collections was the Haute Couture which featured several of Dior's dresses. I was over whelmed with happiness as I saw the textures and the sure quantity of beautiful fabric.
As I read about Dior and how took fashion from function to beauty. His designs were feminine and accentuated a ladies shape.
I love beautiful fabric, though quilting goes so much quicker for me. I don't feel as alive when I am working on quilt than when I am making a pretty dress. I remember the looks of disgust/awe I got from people when I told them that my senior prom dress had 30 yards of fabric in it. I can only imagine the looks Dior got when he changed fashion from function to glamor in a post WWII world. (Dior and I both studied the field of Political Science).
Instead of copying one of Dior's dresses I decided to look over hundred's of his designs and come up ground rules for my own creation (All pictures from the MET website):
1. Dior designs have dimension from using different fabrics.

"May" Spring 1953

"Junon" dress, Fall/Winter 1949–50

2.He loved showing a woman's shape.

"Mexico" spring/summer 1953

"Nuit D'Aout" Spring/Summer 1954

Now though I love Dior my fabric budget doesn't allow  for fancy fabrics, so the material I used for my Dior Inspired Sewing project was from a curtain that didn't dye right and a red tag fabric from Joann's. Though neither are silk I loved the shimmer on the shell fabric and I love the design that is embroidered on the skirts.
Here is my result:

When I finished it today I wasn't sure I fit Dior style but then I came across these two designs and felt comfortable with calling mine a Dior Inspired Sewing projects.

Donated to the MET by Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Jr., 1953

"Eugénie" Fall/Winter 1948–49

Ty was in "pretty dress" heaven. When she put her new dress one of her friends demanded to go home and put another princess dress. 

Anyone who has seen Napoleon Dynamite can faintly remember the horse shirt that he wears in one of the scenes, the thing that some of you that aren't from rural Idaho might not know is that the horse shirt is a true representation of Idaho citizens in the 90's. I remember horse shirts being the coolest thing in elementary, everyone had them (along with neon shoelaces and double pair of socks). My mom went to a screen printing shop when she visited West Yellowstone and came back with one of the coolest shirts I had ever seen. I always thought my mom looked so elegant in her horse screen printed sweatshirt.
Yesterday, Al and I were going through the refashioning pile and I was so surprised when she pulled out my mom's beautiful horse sweatshirt from the 90s. We talked about how we had both loved the shirt when we were kids. She said the last time she was home Mom sadly put it in the DI pile, Al rescued it. We talked about the possibilities, we finally decided on a horse sweatshirt dress (that we later changed to a sweatskirt).

 

So most days and moments of being a mom are really hard. It seems that toddlers are almost always pushing limits and doing things they probably shouldn't. Even though parenting is frustrating a lot of the time, it seems that there are sweet little moments each day when you kid does the cutest darndest thing. When these happen, I'm going to sit down at the computer and write a blog post about it so that I can remember that moment. I invite all of my dear sisters to capture these beautiful moments and share them with me. Label them: kids say the darndest things.

Yesterday was one of those super sweet moments. Scary and I were in the kitchen making dinner and the kids were sitting across from each other at the table eating raisins.
As they were eating Ryder said to Ty, "You wanna get married?" Chuckle, chuckle.
Pause, "Ya." Chuckle, chuckle (Ty)
"You wanna pick out a movie?" (Ryder)
"Ya. Let's get get married and pick up a movie." (Ty)
"Okay." (Ryder) By now they are both giggling.

 

We had a stinky thing happen last week. Slim Jim had his Jack disappear out of his truck. It made me very upset, I decided that all of our tools would be marked. I am never having that happen again without the thief having to look at our name and face his/her terrible decision every day.

Seriously this only takes  seconds.

Go to your old t-shirt drawer of shirts that you just love, but you can't get rid of because they remind you of a memory from your childhood. You can't wear them anymore because they are either not fancy enough to wear in public, have small holes from being worn so much, or probably even just that you are not the same size you were before you had kids.

Pull them out. Only set aside the ones you could realistically wear in a week and that still fit. Place the other in a pile and give them to your toddler for pajamas. Chances are your kid will love your old shirt as much as you did; Ty was pretty ecstatic about having Mommy-Mom's basketball shirt for her 'jamas. Especially if you point out the face of Albert Einstein and his crazy hair or the awesome player and basketball on it it is sure to be a hit.

No need to worry about where the bottom of the pajama set went or how to keep your kid in pajamas that fit because they grow too fast.

You might ask yourself how it can be considered a refashion without any work? The explanation is simple, by giving all of my old t-shirts to my toddler I am making a new and better use of them.

Yesterday I went to our new ward's playgroup as I was getting to know the women there I met a lady who does all her meal planning 5 Weeks at a time! Isn't that amazing. I asked for further details because I was super impressed and a little shocked that someone could be that on top of it.
Here are the highlights of her 5 week meal planning plan:

• Uses the same 40 favorite recipes and if she isn't feeling one meal she just rotates it with another one
• Grocery shopping once every 5 weeks to get her groceries
• 2-3 meals a week are in the crockpot because she works part time and doesn't get home soon enough to make dinner
• As a side she serves home canned vegetables. (She cans one can for every day of the year)

Meal planning is something I have been good at in the past but not great my weaknesses include: CRAVINGS! Days turning out a lot busier than I anticipated. Or weather (I like soup when it is cold).
But this week has gone pretty good so far, here has been the results (bold=success) (strike=change of plans)(italics=added bonus)

This morning this is how our (Al and Scary) day started. We ran, we walked, we lunged and we found a sweet old playground that had no one on it!
After running today we sat down and meal planned for the week.

We have found that pretty much the only way to have a full fledged meal, meet our kids needs, save money, and stay sane is to cook together. This isn't really a planned dinner group, but more of a spontaneous, but not so spontaneous symbiotic relationship. We also find that if we cook together we make more delicious stuff and are better at adding all the sides. Feel free to cook along with us this week if any of it sounds good to you. We will attach links to the recipes that we can (some of the ones we've made up ourselves don't have recipes written yet).

Ever wonder why we are only half decent bloggers, it is because every day that goes by we try to finish one old project and end up starting 2 more. Don't believe us just look at Scary and I's combined project list.

Sell Closet full of Yard Sale Clothes:

• Take pictures of clothing
• Upload and Organize on the moving blog
• Locate small hipped/bust females to purchase old super cute clothing
• Hide profits from self so they can be spent on new clothing that fits, instead of on fabric/craft supplies/toilet paper

Finish Placemats:

• Cut Remaining frames
• Spray Paint place setting silhouette
• Get it laminated

Participate in Project Run and Play

• Plan out outfits
• Begin sewing 
• Take pictures of kiddos in projects

Other stuff

• Plan out Refashioning projects (laundry basket full)
• Hem tan Gap jeans from Scary
• Cut jean square for picnic blankets (another laundry basket heaping full)
• Figure out Planner/Organizer/Financial ledger system (and make it cute) -----Suggestions would be appreciated!
• Make Ty and Brooklyn ruffle romper/dress
• Make Bubba and Nae's wedding quilt (a few months late *nervous laugh*)
• Shorten bed skirt
• Help Scary put her new bed skirt on
• Clean out small storage shed
• Finish staining bench
• Refinish crib
• Refinish table & chairs
• Get Skinny (dedication ends where the cream and butter hit the pan): Maybe lunges  would help they make you super sore so they should make our legs skinny right?
• Definitely wash heaping piles of laundry, potentially fold them.
• Fix pretty skirt that Rhett took sewing scissors to. 
• Make Stick horses