Inspired by the Uniform Project

Have you ever heard of The Uniform Project?  It was started back in 2009 by Sheena as a way to challenge herself and raise money for underprivileged children in India. The object of this project was for Sheena to wear the exact same LBD every day for a full year.  The challenging portion of this was for her to style the dress differently everyday.  Well,  her project turned out to be wildly successful and as a result she raised over $100k and inspired countless others to try the same thing.  One of those other people is Miss Elaini of Miss Elaini Ous'.  I actually discovered her blog first and then found out about Sheena.  Miss Elaini did a similar fundraiser by wearing 1 LBD for 100 days and also donating the money to underprivileged children in India. You are probably wondering where this is going and what this has to do with us adopting.  If you know me pretty well you probably are not wondering and have a pretty good idea about what I am about to say.  

I want to take this project on with my own spin on it.  When I first read about these projects over a year ago I kept thinking how awesome it would be to do something like that but I didn't have any benefiting reason to do it other than to challenge my creativity so I put it on the back burner.  It wasn't until earlier today when I read Miss Elaini's lastest blog post that I remembered how cool I thought this was again and realized I now have a great cause to do this for.  Our adoption!

Like I said this will have my own spin on it.  So here are the details I have come up with so far.

• I will be wearing 1 dress a month for 12 months and end up with 12 different dresses. 
• Each month the dress will be a different color/print/texture/fabric but the same basic pattern.
• I will be making each of the dresses.  Since I am trying to raise money I am not shelling out money each month on a pre-made dress when I have over 600 yards of fabric in my stash.  That's just silly!
• I will be styling each dress differently every day with other clothing and accessories I already own plus anything new that I make or that is donated to me for this cause.
• At the end of each month I will be auctioning off that months dress.

I will be starting this on January 1, 2013.  I love the beginning of the year as a starting point because it is a new year and a fresh natural starting point.  Plus, it will give me 5 months to get myself organized and allow me to get all the craziness of Christmas sewing done.  There are a lot of details I need to work out within the next 5 months other than what dress I will make first.  Everything related to this projected will be posted on Eric and I's adoption blog, The Adoption Project.  There will be some reorganization and changes of it coming up to accommodate this new challenge.  I am excited about this and hope you all will follow along with this fun challenge.   Do you have any suggestions for patterns?  I have a few in mind already.

The Adoption Dress Project

Have you ever heard of The Uniform Project?  It was started back in 2009 by Sheena as a way to challenge herself and raise money for underprivileged children in India. The object of this project was for Sheena to wear the exact same LBD every day for a full year.  The challenging portion of this was for her to style the dress differently everyday.  Well,  her project turned out to be wildly successful and as a result she raised over $100k and inspired countless others to try the same thing.  One of those other people is Miss Elaini of Miss Elaini Ous'.  I actually discovered her blog first and then found out about Sheena.  Miss Elaini did a similar fundraiser by wearing 1 LBD for 100 days and also donating the money to underprivileged children in India. You are probably wondering where this is going and what this has to do with us adopting.  If you know me pretty well you probably are not wondering and have a pretty good idea about what I am about to say.  

I want to take this project on with my own spin on it.  When I first read about these projects over a year ago I kept thinking how awesome it would be to do something like that but I didn't have any benefiting reason to do it other than to challenge my creativity so I put it on the back burner.  It wasn't until earlier today when I read Miss Elaini's lastest blog post that I remembered how cool I thought this was again and realized I now have a great cause to do this for.  Our adoption!

Like I said this will have my own spin on it.  So here are the details I have come up with so far.

• I will be wearing 1 dress a month for 12 months and end up with 12 different dresses.
• Each month the dress will be a different color/print/texture/fabric but the same basic pattern.
• I will be making each of the dresses.  Since I am trying to raise money I am not shelling out money each month on a pre-made dress when I have over 600 yards of fabric in my stash.  That's just silly!
• I will be styling each dress differently every day with other clothing and accessories I already own plus anything new that I make or that is donated to me for this cause.
• At the end of each month I will be auctioning off that months dress.

I will be starting this on January 1, 2013.  I love the beginning of the year as a starting point because it is a new year and a fresh natural starting point.  Plus, it will give me 5 months to get myself organized and allow me to get all the craziness of Christmas sewing done.  There are a lot of details I need to work out within the next 5 months other than what dress I will make first.  Everything related to this projected will be posted on this blog.  There will be some reorganization and changes of it coming up to accommodate this new challenge.  I am excited about this and hope you all are too.

Painted Stained Glass Tutorial

 

If you are as addicted to Pinterest as I am you have probably seen the above picture!  I instantly fell in love with these painted sea glass candlesticks.  I knew I had to make them, however,  this image did not link back to a tutorial to give the details.  Instead this is all the pin said:

 Use Elmer's glue and food coloring painted on clean dry glass=sea glass effect. This is brilliant!

My initial thoughts were how much glue and how much food coloring?  I decided I would play around with it and write a more comprehensive tutorial for this.  Mine ended up more like stained glass than sea glass but they look cool too!

 Materials:
clean glass jar/candlestick/vase
Elmer's school glue
food coloring
paint brush
clear spray paint

1.  Start by making sure whatever glass you are using is clean and dry.  I used old salsa and sauce jars because I love decorating with them. 

Is is just me or does this look like a melted snowman?

2  Mix 2 tablespoons of glue with approximately 12 drops of food coloring.  For this one I did 6 red drops and 6 blue drop to get purple.  Make sure the color of your glue mixture is dark.  Pale pastels come out almost clear once the glue dries on glass.













3.  Once mixed paint the outside of the glass.  I put 2 coats of glue on my jars to give it a darker color. Don't worry about trying to make each coat of glue even.  You will get a cool marble like color effect when it is not even. Let the jar sit to dry for approximately 15 minutes.   After they have dried spray paint them with clear coat to seal in the glue so it does not peal off.



Tada!  You have faux stained glass!

 They look really cool when in direct sunlight!  I think next time I make them I am going to add some wire to around the top of the jar to make it a hanging candle holder.

As always if you have any questions please feel free to ask and/or send me pics of your finished project.  I would love to see what you came up with.

Meet Me In St. Louis

Over two weeks ago the hubs and I went to St. Louis for our 5 year anniversary.  It was a blast and I highly recommend this as a vacation spot for everyone, but especially families!  Why you ask?  Well, of course you have to go up the Gateway Arch.  It has an amazing view and the ride to the top seemed straight out of a Men In Black movie.  You climb through a 4ft tall door and ride in a pod (pictured at right). 

Aside from that the city is very family friendly.  Their City Garden is like a water park and arts garden all rolled into one.  The water fall is set up so you can play around in it. 

They have one of the coolest water fountains ever! Please pardon the graininess of the image.  They also have giant sculptures that you can climb on.  The best part is that everyone treats these things with respect.  Nothing is trashed or destroyed.  They have security guards who patrol the areas in the evening but while we were there it was full of families and children enjoying the park. 

The other, most majorly awesome reason to go to St. Louis is the zoo, history museum, art museum and science center are all FREE!!  That's right I said free and they are all located within the same area.  We only ended up going to the art museum and the history museum since this was just a weekend trip.  The history museum did have a fantastically unexpected surprise for me though.  They are currently running an exhibit called Underneath It All, which examines undergarments from Victorian all the way to Victoria's Secret (present).

Let's just take a moment to talk about how I almost peed my pants because I was so excited!  I ran through the exhibit so quick, taking pictures of just about every single garment they had on display, that I didn't read any of the little placards that they had with each piece.  Not that I really needed to, Eric said they just told what each garment was and why it was worn.  I pretty much already had that covered.  I was so excited that whilst running through I didn't pay very close attention to the photos I was taking and so quite a few are a bit blurry.  But here are just a few of the gorgeous things I saw.

Pannier, more from the 1700's than Victorian.

Detail of a very old and very worn corset.

Love the pleating detail of this bodice.

This is in the top of my fav's of all the gowns we saw.

The fabric is gorgeous!  I believe it was probably silk taffeta.

And check out the pleats on the skirt!  It's some sort of double box pleat craziness!

Hoop skirt

The brocade for this was absolutely stunning.

Look how tiny that waist is compared to the bust and hips!  Talk about hourglass shape.

This lace was so intricate and beautiful.

The beading!  Look at the beading!

This dress needs no words! 

I want to wear this dress now!

Look how pointy the boobs are! 

This surprised me!  It was from the 50's.  Very saucy for the time period.

The print and the pleating are perfect representations of the 60's

Haha love it!

These underwear were encased in glass.  Why?  Because they are paper!

I have probably over 100 pictures from just this one exhibit.  If you are anywhere near St. Louis go and check this out!