Teriffic Tutus!

I know, I know. You're sick of hearing about the dance recital, right?

Well... now that it's over and I've had chance to process, I had the time and energy to go through all of the costume boxes to organize and store them. They will be kept by the dance department and used again for future performances.

I took the opportunity, while I had it, to snap some shots of the completed costumes - and thought you might like to see? They look even better on bodies, believe me, but this should give you a good idea at least!

Dance Recital Photos!

Curious as to how the dance recital costumes came out and how darling the little girls looked in them?

Head HERE and enter the password: VisserYMCA

While you're there - check out local West Michigan photographer Elizabeth Krol's site - she has some lovely images!

Let me know what you think!

Dance Recital Update!

With just three days to go before the dance recital - we're in the home stretch! Last night I finished the rest of the flower headbands... (click HERE to go to the tutorial)


Lilacs


Cherry Blossoms


Daffodils


Bluebells


My Mum was here this weekend and brought out the roses and lilac tutus - they are so pretty! The daffodils and cherry blossoms are done too, just bluebells to go - and a few other non-tulle costumes!

Can't wait to share photos of the costumes in action after this weekend!

Dance Recital Sneak Peak: Preschool Flowers

I have been up to my eyeballs in tulle and satin for the past few days! Lucky for me I got to take a break Sunday-Monday and head to the lake for some much needed time off! Thank goodness I have my husband to keep me grounded and FORCE me to take some time off sometimes!

Anyhoo... my Mum and I worked on the preschool ballet costumes this weekend. There are five classes of preschoolers, and each class will be themed around a different flower: Daffodils, Cherry Blossoms, Bluebells, Lilacs, and Roses.

Each girl had a bag with their name and class on it, their hair accessory, and all of their costume pieces ready to sew. Here are the daffodils and cherry blossoms waiting to be sewn...

My dear friend Heather was amazing and spent much of last week cutting satin petals... thanks, Heather! They looked like this...

I serged two sides of the petal with the wrong sides outward, then flipped them right side out and pressed them. I then serged the tops to close them. It was my first serging experience - I was so proud of myself! There were a LOT of petals - so it was good practice!

The pattern called for two rows of petals - 15 petals in total per skirt. We put the first one together, and it just didn't look right...

You could hardly see the tulle, for one. And the way the pattern had us arrange the patterns was very strange, they didn't really look like petals at all because they were all sweeping to the side. Also, the skirt was SO HEAVY. We were concerned about little 3 and 4 year-olds wearing them and being comfortable...

Soooo... being the creative geniuses we are, we re-wrote the pattern a little. We used one row of petals, and spaced them differently. We were VERY pleased with the result. Here's a rose...


And a little daffodil...

They're just so cute! But I know that the cuteness factor will go up even further once the little ones get them on, and have their headbands on too. I can't wait! Thanks to Mum - for all of the help! She's the sewing queen!

My blog is having an identity crisis...

If you're a frequenter to this blog, you'll have noticed a lot of formatting craziness within the past few days. I'm fairly new to blogging you see, and don't really know much about html code, creating banners, or anything beyond blogger basics.

As my traffic and followers increase (still not clicked to add yourself as a follower? please do! help me feel like I'm not writing into cyberspace!) I want to create a more streamlined site with its own signature look. Only problem is - I don't know how!

I've used some great FREE tools and backgrounds from across the web - but what I'm really after is something to call my own. Something that represents "Ready, Set, Craft!" and separates it from the rest of the blogosphere.

What I really need is for someone to makeover my blog! : )

Any tips, tricks, advice from any of you bloggers out there? Please share!

Sneak peak of dance recital costumes coming your way this weekend... come back and visit me soon!

PS) Are you an up-and-coming craft blogger with great ideas you want the world to see? Leave me a comment with a link to your blog and a little about you, and I'll be posting a round-up highlighting you all next week!

Tutorial: Little Girl Flower Headbands

You guessed it, I'm making these for the preschoolers in the dance recital. They are super cheap, quick, and easy, and would be darling accessories for summer sundresses or just to add to a dress up box.

Start with some cheap-o headbands from your local dollar store. I purchased packs of five for $1 from The Dollar Tree.


For the daffodil headband, I found fake daffodils at Michaels by the bunch. Pop a single flower off its stem...


And pull the plastic part out of the middle, separating the main petals and the trumpet.


Sew the main petals onto the headband loosely, using a needle and embroidery floss.


Use a glue gun to reinforce, then continue to sew through the petals and headband at different angles. Add the trumpet with another dab of glue and continue stitching.



Your stitches will create a new center of the flower.


It's okay if the underside of the headband looks messy...


Use satin ribbon the same width as the headband to cover your stitches. Glue gun the ribbon to the inside of the headband.

Voila!

For the rose headband I used these bunches of wired roses from Hobby Lobby. At 77 cents a bunch, I used one bunch per headband.


Place the bottom of the rose where you want it to sit on the headband and hold.


Wrap the wire around the headband in alternating directions for security.


Tuck in the end of the wire underneath.


Continue to add roses, close together.


Glue satin ribbon to the underside like you did for the daffodil headband. The ribbon is especially important this time because it covers any little pieces of wire so that it's both comfortable to wear and doesn't catch hairs.


For the lilac headband (and the others like it - same principles apply) I began with this bunch of dollar store flowers.


I pulled the flowers off their stems...


Took out the center plastic piece and separated the petals...


Using a glue gun I attached the large petal first...


Pull it taught so that the glue comes out of the middle (careful - it's hot!)


Place the smaller petal on top and stick...


Continue to add petals in this manner all around the headband. Be sure to allow each flower to overlap - it looks better if you don't have any of the headband showing in between flowers.

Voila!


You can use essentially any kind of fake flower you choose - and could seriously make this craft super cheaply by using all dollar store materials. Be creative and come up with your own flower patterns and combinations!


Enjoy! And have a nice weekend!

Tons of Tulle & Happy Easter - MSCE April Days 11 & 12

Happy belated Easter! I hope that everyone enjoyed good food, and great times with family and friends. We had a great weekend - and now it's over I definitely have a case of the Monday's!

On Saturday I worked on costume designs for the preschool ballet students in the June dance recital. There are five classes of preschoolers, and each class is going to be representing a flower (the ballet portion of the recital theme, if you remember, is "Secret Garden.") All of the preschool classes will be wearing pink leotards, with this skirt...

(far left)

The petals will be made from satin and the bottom layers of the skirt from tulle. Since tulle was on sale this weekend I had to make some quick decisions about which flowers which class would be, and what colors they needed. Mum and I got to work, and off I went to JoAnn's to pick up the tulle!

JoAnn's was QUITE the experience. I was at the cutting center for over a half hour, and everyone else in the store thought I was INSANE. I purchased more than 100 yards of tulle!

Here's what we came up with...

Daffodils

Lilacs



Roses



Cherry Blossoms

and Bluebells

Now we have to pick out matching satins for the petals. I know for sure that the daffodils are going to have orange petals to represent the trumpet of the daffodil.

While Mum will be doing the sewing (I'll be doing the cutting!) my project will be hairpieces for each class. For the preschool flower classes I'm thinking something like these...

Only trouble is I have zero experience making anything like this - and I have a feeling they could be tougher than they look. Has anyone made anything like this before? Or do you have other ideas for flower pieces I could make for their hair with faux flowers? I am absolutely taking suggestions! (Keep in mind I have to make 50 for the preschoolers alone, so they need to be relatively easy to mass produce!)

On Sunday we dyed eggs : ) Better late than never, right? This was my FIRST TIME EVER. I grew up in England, and we don't really get down with dying eggs there, so this was a first for me. I had aspirations of doing lots of cool dyed eggs using different techniques but time got away from me and Trav and I had fun with a cheapo boxed kit from the store, and some paint tape! I have big plans for next year though... and will get an early start!

The hubby isn't a huge egg dying fan, but he was a good sport and after showing me HOW to do it (remember, it was my first time!) he dyed one egg himself. Can you guess which one is his?

Happy Monday, folks!