Bows, ruffles, lace, pleats, and darts solve everything!

Sooooo, this last October I traveled up to Utah and bought a whole bunch of clothes to "redo" when I got home! They have pretty much been stuffed in a big bag since then, until this week! I remade 3 skirts, 1 dress, and 2 shirts. Here are some of the finished results! (I haven't taken pictures of all of them yet, so more to come!) I'm kind of bummed I didn't take BEFORE pictures on most all of these, but I'll paint a picture for you of what they looked like before!

So this was a pretty large plain short sleeved button up shirt. I put 4 darts in on the front and 5 in the back to make it more
form fitting. 

Then I cut some length off the bottom and used that fabric to make some ruffles on the front. After the ruffles I decided it could use some lace! So I sewed on some lace along the button front. The last touch was this ribbon tie around the waist to further accentuate the waist and add some more girly-ness..and perhaps my excuse to squeeze a bow into this outfit. ;-)

The sleeves were pretty huge and ugly, so I added 3 small darts on each sleeve and the bottom.

Here's the back!

This skirt was just plan and long. It actually already fit my waist and hips well, just needed some hemming and then I added a bow to the front with the extra fabric I cut off. Pretty simple!

I just added some lace to this plain cardigan to spruce it up a bit!

This skirt fit well too, it was just long and boring. So I hemmed it up first then used the extra fabric to make ruffles on one side. The picture below is better to see that.

Kind of a crappy photo, but you get the idea.

So this is the one and only BEFORE picture. I got lazy. Or in a rush. I don't know what, but this is the only one!

This skirt was a little big on me. First I hemmed it. Then I made a pleat on the right side of the waistband to make the waist fit better.

Then, I added 2 buttons to the pleated waistband and, of course, used the excess fabric for some more bows!

Lastly, but this was actually the first one I did, it my favorite. Its used to be a plain, long skirt. First, I hemmed it up to knee length. Then, to make it more fitted I added 4 pleats in the front. 

It was still a little weird fitting so I put 2 darts in the back too.

With the extra fabric I added this bow, which was actually quite difficult because the fabric is so thick, but I managed to get it on there!

THE END!

Actually I still have several things left to do and one unfinished shirt, but I figured if I kept going on, I'd just put bows on everything else too! I just got really excited when I learned how to make them! =)

In other events, the holidays were great! Here are some random pictures of what happened because I don't feel like writing too much!

The festivities started with a joint birthday party for Kaitlyn and Jonny! 

The big 1! 

The big 8!

  We went to see the Oakland Temple lights where it rained the whole time!

My Temple Square umbrella came in handy!

heehee he's soooo cute!

Gingerbread Men!

Ethan

Adam's special cookies!

Cory

Jimmy

Shawn

Megan

Jonny

Kristal

Me

Mom

Kim

 Jelly Belly Factory

 Christmas!

San Francisco!

He was being so cute and smiley!

Shawn thought this was hilarious

precious! hah

I don't know!

And more recently, this is what I encountered when I went up to my room to go to sleep last night. hahaha.

There is a story behind this. My mom is the primary president in our ward and found all these teddy bears in the closet at the church so she decided she would use them to give to the kids and she is attaching a cute little poem that is supposed to remind the children to pray. I came home yesterday and thought they were kind of creepy all piled into this big bag. Before I even said this, Jimmy-knowing that I get creeped out by things like this decided he would put these all on my bed with a reminder to pray. I was laughing so hard I cried. hahaha it still makes me laugh when I think about it. So creepy!

Anyway, happy new year! I don't have any pictures from new years because I forgot my camera! oh well. It was a fun night spent in the city with friends, karaoke, fireworks, and dancing! And, so far I've kept my new year's resolutions! (I only made 2 to keep it easy on myself ;-))

This is it for now--school starts tomorrow so I better get some sleep! Especially since I have the same teacher I was accidently an hour late to her first day of class 2 quarters back because I was on muscle relaxants for my neck/back pain and they made me super drowsy and so I slept through 3 alarms and she almost bit my head off! So, I don't want to do that again! Goodnight!