Independence Day Dress

At the last minute, my little one decided that she "needed" a new dress for our Fourth of July parade. Since the parade is a day early this year, that didn't leave me much time.
Fortunately, I save almost everything and I still had this (my favorite western skirt that doesn't fit anymore) in my closet.

I used another dress to estimate how long it needed to be, cut off the waist, and removed two of the ruffles. I used a pattern I have for a peasant top to cut out the shape for the neck and the sleeves. I was a bit worried because the skirt was wider than my pattern, but I like it even better than the dresses I usually make from the pattern and it doesn't look too bulky at all.

I made a waist by adding elastic above the ruffles. (I made a casing with seam binding on the back side of the fabric.)

I also gathered the neckline. The sleeves were a bit shorter than the sleeve pattern because I cut them from one of the ruffles. Instead of gathering the bottom of the sleeves like I usually do, I left them as flutter sleeves and really like them with the style of the dress.

The pattern I used is Simplicity 4206. I always cut the neckline lower about 2 inches because, at least on my child, it always ends up being too high otherwise.

Fourth of July Decorating

Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. We always decorate bikes and wagons days in advance of the local parade and come home for a short rest and clean-up before heading off to a close friends house to share Fourth of July treats and watch fireworks from atop a hill.

We now use curling ribbon instead of crepe paper to decorate our bikes since one year it actually poured rain, but crepe paper still always makes me think ... Parade! So, I couldn't resist sharing this fun idea I found in the July issue of BetterHomesandGardens magazine. If you are really industrious you could use this idea to decorate a whole table or make your own parade float out of your red American Flyer wagon!

And of course, you could use the idea in different colors for any and every special occasion! Isn't is amazing what you can do with crepe paper.

(You can click on the photo for more bhg ideas.)