Maggie Mae Dress

I really love this pretty, tailored dress (and the very pretty girl modeling it). The pattern I used is Shwin Design's Maggie Mae Dress and I wrote all about it in my first Contributor Post for GoToPatterns.com. Check it out here!

Sisterhood of the Dancing Cupcakes

There's a story behind this dress and it began when Abby mentioned that she wanted to dress like a cupcake during her school's Spirit Week. She remembered a brainstorming/Pinterest scouring session last year (for crazy hair day) where we came across several pictures of girls with their hair twisted into cupcake-inspired buns. But since it was a Wacky Wednesday, not crazy hair day, she wanted to dress her entire person in cupcakes. Wacky? Yes, completely. But achievable? Of course.

Cupcake hair!

The savvy mommy in me quickly searched Amazon for an off-season cupcake costume but she was not impressed. What she was dreaming of was a twirly dress in a sweet, sweet cupcake fabric of her choosing. A tall order but sometimes dreams come true . . . and then come true again for an insistent little sister.

Both dresses are a sized up version of Made By Rae's Itty Bitty Baby Dress. I made the dress once before when my oldest girl was an itty bitty toddler and I loved it enough to fuss with it to make it fit a petite seven-year-old and an almost four-year-old. The main fabric is Cupcake Dot from Joann's.

Sometimes these two bicker and it is absolutely crazy-making. But they are also the best of friends.

 

Like the kind of friends who don matching cupcake dresses and pink slippers and start their own kick line.

 

 

 And re-enact scenes from Frozen, and feign exaggerated surprise.

 So, even though it can be a little boring to make the same exact dress twice, I love that they want to match and do things together. Even (and especially) the silly things.

These lovely photos, minus the playground snapshot, were by the incomparable Jessica Peterson Photo.

Fiesta/Vintagely Modern Skirt Mash-Up

If you take the darling trim ideas from Dana's wonderful Fiesta Skirt tutorial over at MADE and combine it with the elastic-free waistband of Simple Simon's Vintagely Modern Skirt, you get this fun and more-fitted little number. Following Dana's lead, I thought this would be a great Cinco De Mayo outfit, but also something that could be worn again (and again).

Of course, the best laid plans . . . Somewhere between the time that I finished the skirt and bought the tee and May 5th, the white shirt was hopelessly lost in our laundry vortex. Had I realized that it wasn't in her drawer before the morning-of, I could have rescued it but - twenty minutes before school - there was nothing to be done and no ready substitution. Oh well, a pink skirt is really a wardrobe staple for a seven-year-old girl so it will have its time to shine later.

Button/tab closure. "Look Ma! No elastic!"

The fact that she is modeling this for me and smiling is proof positive that she loves it.