The One About Baby Cousin's Tutu

So it's officially summer - one of the many parts that makes teaching great right??! I've always been one to live off a schedule and to mark my days based off of school seasons, holidays, breaks...when I went into corporate world for a couple of years I think that was what I missed the most.  The seasons of school.  Where the new year isn't marked by the drop of the ball but rather with back to school season.  My favorite. Fall, football, new school supplies (for OCD organizers like myself and life long educators...of course that's a fav. - I think making our annual trips to Office Depot was more of a favorite than back to school clothes shopping for me.  I remember sitting in my room for hours organizing all of my supplies! I'm fine with the fact that I'm a nerd that way)...so many things I love about the fall.  A fresh clean start to the year!

But of course - second to that is summer break.  I can't believe another year has gone by!!! Like what? I went to happy hour last night with one of my college roomies and friends Jordie...she's my church and brunch buddy but because Sunday is Father's day we are skipping our Sunday tradition for the week and rescheduled with a Friday night happy hour.  She says to me...so you know this is our 5 year anniversary from graduating college this year.  WAIT WHAAA??? We graduated on 05/06/07 (cool date right?? I'll never forget that one!)  but 5 years ago? no way...I'm 24...how can that be?? She was all like um no you're 27...and I was all like ah yeah, you're right. When did this happen? Apparently people forgot to mention that as soon as you graduate from college, life's fast forward button get's pushed... so yeah about that. I guess I've been graduated for 5 years now. Wow.

At any rate...rather than thinking about that too much I'm just going to focus on summer...and I'm excited about this one because I have a lot of things I want to do!!
Like I want to go see Crater Lake. I've never been there and I've lived in this state my entire life.  It's 5 hours away. I think I'm going to make it happen this summer.  And also on my way I want to go to that Wildlife Safari! Cause how can there be a real life safari in this state and I've never been there!!? It's 3 hours and 15 minutes away. And kind of right along the way to Crater Lake.
I also want to take a Cake Decorating Class...and make a lot of things/fix a lot of things (aka get a lot of my pinterest-wish-list things crossed off).

I'm getting closer to completing project bonus room re-vamp.  I just finished painting 1 of my desk pieces yesterday and it is CUTE!! I can't wait.  I bought the thing from Target like 7 years ago...it's moved houses 5 times (yeah I know I've moved 5 times in the last 7 years...life in college and right after, gotta love that...) - it's beat up.  But I'm restoring it and so far so great!! Can't wait to post my final post about all my projects in that room!!  It's actually a LOT of work to fix up furniture! and I've done almost every piece in that room!

But last night I took on another craft.  I wanted to get it finished before Sunday...because it's a father's day present for my cousin Josh (really it's for his wife Jen probably...well technically I guess it's not for either of them it's for baby girl...) anyway it's what I'm giving him when they come over Sunday. We are taking Liam to the zoo! He is two and he has never been!! I'm pumped! He is going to LOVE it. Anyway...I have been wanting to make that little girl a tutu since the day I first found out she was a girl.  I didn't have a pattern or anything - I sort of just made it up as I went along.  I had been doing some hunting on pinterest but didn't find any type of pattern I was in love with.  And actually I was walking through target the other day and I saw one I thought was super cute looking so I took a picture of it (the hems mostly) and decided that I could probably figure out how to recreate it! We had tool left at home from one my sister had made for her friend Molly...so I stopped by the fabric store to grab some ribbon and elastic for the waistband and last night I decided to get to it! Anyway I'm super happy with it!! I think it turned out adorable.  She is going to be one fancy kid.  I love that there is going to be a girl in the family - it will give me an excuse to make all these cute things I want to make.  I want to do little baby leg warmers next.

Anyway here they are in picture form...the tutu and also a little head band that I made (I literally sewed together a thick piece of elastic lace for the band and then hot glued a cute flower I found at Michaels to a piece of felt and sandwiched the piece of lace between my felt-backed flower and another little circle of felt so that it was all glued together in one piece!)

Here is the project mid creating...tool galore.

I used a 2 inch ribbon for the waist line (double the length of what you want the waist line to be)...and a 1/4" strip of elastic (the size you want the waist line to be). I sewed the piece of elastic down the center of the ribbon (stretch it out as I sewed so that it creates the ruffle look that will stretch when you pull it open!).

Then I cut three long pieces of tool (double the length of what the ribbon was) and sewed a loose stitch so that I could pull it into a long bunched one-sided ruffle then I sewed the ruffled side to the edge of the ribbon...I repeated on the other side, sewed it into a circle.  Made a cute big bow that I tacked on to the seam and bam!! The most adorable thing ever!!! Here it is finished!

 you can see a good little view of the head band in these two...it is baby pink tool also. So precious!!

Here's to summer!! Great weather!! Fun crafts and LOTS of adventures!!!