Long time no ‘see’

Hey everyone  —  Things at Apple Tree Boutique have been so busy the last 6 months.  I could go into all the nitty gritty details but what you should know is Ive made lots of items and listed them on Etsy — 

Visit Apple Tree Boutique on Etsy to see all the cool new stuff!!

Few things Ive been up to…

Doing another preorder on these bags if you are interested, you have until Sunday to order! 😀  Just click the picture to go to the site to order.

Embroidered some more baby hooded towels.  These are an order for a set of boy/girl twins- too cute!

There is more, but I am tired!! *Yawn* 😀

Sewing Room Remodel- Done!

Besides a few things I still want to put on the walls and things, the room is done! I painted, replaced the large computer desk for a small antique vanity table, recovered the vanity table, covered the light switches and trimmed my corkboard with modge podge, move my fabric into the open where it could inspire me, reorganized the notions, fabric, under table items, etc.

It is amazing how much stuff had worked its way into my room over the last year or so.

Here are some before/after pics:

I still want to upcycle an old chalkboard for wall art over the fabric in the corner, replace the rug on the stairs and recover my ironing board.

Few coffee cozies on a Saturday afternoon

I whipped these up this afternoon using the scrappy “Sew n’ Flip” method I posted about last Fall.  Love how they turned out!!!

If you are looking to make your own here are a few free online tutorials:

• House on Hill Road Coffee Cozy Tutorial
• Sew Simply Creative Coffee Cozy Tutorial
• Lime & Aqua Studio Coffee Cozy Tutorial upcycling a mens necktie
• Terris Notebook Coffee Cozy Tutorial with a scrappy quilted look like mine!

Enjoy!

Few things – New to me!!

Wow I really took a break for the holidays, huh?  Almost 2 months I was gone from here.   Suppose everything I had to say was already said enough I didnt feel like writing it down.

I had a good friend ask me to custom make a few things for some gifts and I wanted to share.   First is a coffee cup cozie thingy- ya know one of those things, lol.   I think it turned out really cute!

Next she asked me to make some “Sleeves” for an Ipod and Blackberry.   Here is what I came up with:

I do have to admit both projects gave me a run for my money for some reason- but if i did them again it would be a breeze I imagine!

Found an Etsy team…

I am so excited to finally join an Etsy Team, Etsykids!

You can see some of the great items here:  EtsyKids Etsy Items

Cute Ruffle Bottom Pants

Wooden Baby Rattles

Doll Miniature Backpack

OK- I will stop now as I am sure I have lost your attention with the link to a million great handmade childrens items on Etsy by the Etsykids Team!! 😀

Finished = :)

Love it when I finally finish the assembly line of something I am working on.  The end picture of all those items together and finished all at once is worth the monotony of doing the same step 12, 50, 100 times before being able to move on.

Finished a dozen wetbags.  1 for a friend that needed one and the other 11 for a wholesale order and being shipped to Green Pixie Baby!

Arent all those zippers pretty??  I am so glad I finally figured out the easy way to put a zipper on something like this.  And now laugh at how hard I used to make it, lol.  <–See there I go again laughing at myself 🙂

WOW.. I made something for my OWN child, lol

It is rare these days that I get to anything FUN for my family as far as sewing goes. My time is spent on keeping the Etsy store stocked and making diapers for Bottombumpers. But I finally got around to embroidering the insert for this snack bowl for baby girl. I love it…. She is going to be so excited tomorrow at church when I pull out her goldfish snacks in this baby instead of a ziplock bag, lol.

I have 6 more here if anyone wants one.  They all have white lids.  Just email me or comment 😉

New labels…

I was making paper labels for my Apple Tree Boutique stuff for TOO long.  I finally found this store on Etsy that sold them fairly cheap so I thought  I would give them a try.   Granted they are not AS soft as the ones we get for Bottombumpers that cost 10 times more, but they are pretty nice!

Doesnt that just make this bib look “Finished”..  I love them!!!

Turning a womens shirt into a toddler dress..

I had been wanting to do this for awhile.  Love the result and so did my 2yo as she wont take it off, lol.  I didnt do a full blown tutorial with measurements and things on this as the size you need will vary and I simply cut around an existing dress we had and liked.  But I imagine that you can do something similar yourself with the few pics I have included to show you what I did 😉

Here is the shirt and dress I am using.  I first laid the dress on top and marked where I wanted to cut the bottom of the shirt off.  I will use the bottom hem later to do a ruffle on the bottom.  So i cut it about 5″ shorter then what i wanted to leave room for the ruffle. Then I matched the front neck line of the dress up with the front T-shirt neckline.  Tuck your sleeves in at the seams and trace about 1/2″ away from the outline of the dress.

Cut one half then fold over and match your lines the best you can:

Then do the back neckline, fold in the sleeves.

Then I matched the sleeve up on the finished edge, traced about 1/2″ away from the neckline, folded back the sleeve seam and traced it all out.  I then stacked the 2 sleeves on top of each other when I cut them so they would be identical.

The rest I didnt capture pics of but here is a run down of what I did :

• turned the neckline edge of the sleeves under 1/4″ and zig zagged them both
• Matched up the sleeves with the back pieces and serged, then serged the other side to the front side.  I went ahead and serged all the way to the end of the front/back pieces even though the sleeves are shorter on my dress.  I will show you this later.
• Threaded all my serged threads back into the seams on the necline.
• Then I sewed up the SIDES of the body of the dress.
• Cut the bottom of the shirt that was leftover earlier into the ruffle.  I ruffled the edge and then serged it to the bottom of the dress matching up the side seams of the dress I made and the shirt.

Then I tucked under the leftover underarm edges like this and sewed them down:

I took 1/4″ elastic and placed it on the inside of the top of the sleeve and zig zagged it on to make the neck gather on the sleeve tops:

VIOLA, you are done 😀