Easy Sleeveless Dress Refashion

In our house we don't do sleeveless.  I am trying to teach my children right from a young age to dress modestly, which in our home, means no sleeveless clothes.  But we get a lot of hand me downs (which I am so grateful for) and often times they include really cute sleeveless sundresses and tank tops.  I let my girls wear these with a t-shirt under them and I think they are so adorable.  But I wanted to create a way to just add a t-shirt already to these cute sleeveless pieces to make them into an "always modest" piece of clothing.   So I came up with a SUPER easy way to turn a dress like this:

into this:

 What you need for this project is your sleeveless item and a t-shirt that coordinates.  It is important to try and keep the sizes similar, so that they fit better.  I found t-shirts that worked at our thrift store.  You are only going to see the top and sleeves so it doesn't even matter if it has a design on it.

What you need to do first is place the t-shirt under the dress or top (how it would look if your child was wearing it).  Pin this in place.

 I pinned along the front of the dress and the back.

 I pinned on the straps on top of the sleeves and under the armpits.

 Next it is important to choose a thread that matches the stitching already on the dress or top.  In this case the stitching was pink so that is what I chose.  Now you need to stitch.  I look for places where I can sew so that the stitches would be hidden.  I stitched along the front just below the top hem.

 Then I stitched under the armpits (only about 2 inches) again just below the hem.  This keeps the sleeve from popping out.

 Then I sewed along the back.  This had a bit of gathering so I stitched just below the last row of gathering stitches.  If your thread matches pretty close then it is really hard to even tell where you did it.

And lastly I sewed along the straps.  I sewed along only one side of the strap (about an inch of stitching) because that is where the stitching was on the dress.  I don't sew along the whole thing because I don't want to completely change the fit of the dress.  Sewing just a few stitches makes everything lay the way it normally would if you were to just wear a shirt under the dress.

 Lastly you will want to cut down the shirt under the dress.  Pull out the t-shirt flat and

 trim so that there are only a few inches hanging down below the lowest stitching that you did.  Because you used a t-shirt then you don't need to worry about it unraveling.  Knit is perfect for projects like this because it doesn't unravel.

 And there you have it.  A really easy, inexpensive fix.  It takes only a few minutes and a sewing machine.  It was so much easier than I expected.  I was able to do this in about 10 minutes.  It is not like it is that hard to wear a shirt under a sun dress or something but now it is a complete and modest outfit and my daughter was excited because it was like something "new" all over again.

 These are the other ones I did quickly one afternoon:

Now there is no need to worry about an outfit that is sleeveless-you can easily turn it into a new, modest, fashion piece.

Random Tips

This is one of the reasons why I wanted to dabble in blogging again-having a place to share random and sometimes helpful tips and thoughts.  Here are three new tips that I have put into practice in my life:
1. Paint your toenails before having a shower then when you get in the shower run your toes under the cold water for a couple of minutes to set the polish then proceed with the shower as usual.  A great way to multi-task and saves time on waiting for nail polish to dry.  You have to keep them under the cold water for a least a couple of minutes in order for it to work.
2. Speaking of showers have you tried shaving your legs with hair conditioner.  I read about it on a Pinterest post which said that it made your legs super soft and saves you money.  I have been doing it for a few weeks now and love the results and even my super sensitive miss picky small fry has commented on how soft my legs are...so there.
3. Do you like to hang your laundry out to dry but hate crunchy towels?  I do.  I don't use fabric softener because it is so blasted inconvenient (if you have an older washing machine like I do) and it makes my girls skin rash bad so when I hang my towels they always end up crunchy.  Then I read a laundry post on Pinterest (of course) and it said to dry your towels in the dryer for 5 minutes prior to hanging and you will no longer have crunchy towels.  I did it, I hung them out to dry and the end result...FABULOUS. 

Simple Solutions -Towels and Tantrums

Maybe having towels hanging from your oven door is way old fashioned or something but I've got em.  They are super handy right here for drying hands after washing dishes or in between food prep steps as well has the perfect height for Small Fry to dry her hands.  They are also perfect for my two darling daughters to pull down everyday and drag to unknown parts of the house.  I found myself getting frustrated because I would go to grab a towel and it was either on the floor or in some toy bin.  Plus as I cooked they were always getting pulled off.  It's small stuff I know but it was driving me crazy.  So I came up with this:

This is my before:

 Now I used 3 new dish towels (though they don't have to be new), a piece of ribbon (3 inches for each towel) and a package of shower curtain hooks (got mine for a $1.00 but there are lots of cute ones out there).

 I cut my piece of ribbon and folded a 1/4 inch under on each side.

 I found the center of my towel (it was easy on new ones cause they still had the crease mark in them) and pinned my ribbon.  Then I sewed over the ends of the ribbon.  This creates a little loop hook.

Put 3 (or more or less if you like) hooks on your oven door handle, open them, thread on the loop, lock em closed and problem solved.  I was worried they would become a pulling toy and risk pulling the door open (which some of you may have kids that can do this so beware) but actually my little pumpkin pulled on them the first time and realized they weren't coming off so now she likes to just slide them back and forth.  Everyone is happy!!!  I took an extra 10 minutes and added hooks to my already existing towels and we are set!!

Cautionary note:  Just remember if you have kids that are climbers, grabbers, pullers or really strong for their age they could use these to pull on your oven door-so beware.  This isn't a project suited for household.

 Now for my simple solution to tantrums (p.s. this has not eliminated tantrums from my house-only helped cool some of them in the heat of the moment).  In February we were getting ready to go to the State basketball tournament.  We had told Small Fry if she was good she could ride on the bus with daddy.  The tournament was 2 days away.  Every time she started having a melt down or attitude we would say, "Do we need to take away your chance to ride the bus?"  I felt like it was really hard to distinguish when she had gone over the line or when we needed to give her another chance (I mean she is only 2).  So I quickly whipped up this smiley face chart.  I found a picture of a bus and laminated it and stuck it to the bottom, then I put up two rows of smiley faces.  I told Small Fry that if she lost all of her smiles she would also lose the bus.  This became really effective because as she was acting up or melting down I would give her a warning and say, "do you want to lose a smile?"  Sometimes she would stop and sometimes she would continue-in which case I would take off a smile.  What worked so well is that she could visually see how many smiles she had left and actually she was devistated when she lost her first smile. 

I have continued using this chart and have made various pictures to put on the bottom.  I have park, tv, ice cream, a bike ride, a ride in dads sidekick, bake cookies, library and trampoline.  She gets to choose what she would like to do if she doesn't lose all her smiles.  I like this because there are always those times in parenthood that are unclear whether they warrant a time out or if you should just ignore them or what.  I still use time out for major offenses like kicking, hitting, major tantrums but this is perfect for things like not listening to instructions, not sharing, not getting her coat on when asked for the 4th time.  You know how it is when you are trying to get out the door quickly-there isn't always time to stop for time out but a warning that a smile will be gone can help get things back on track.  When all the smiles are gone she can try again the next day.  If she keeps her smiles and we do the thing at noon or something then I let her choose another reward for the afternoon.  It has been really helpful in our house (and helpful for me especially since I no longer have to give warning after warning and chance after chance).