A Little Birthday Dress Wish List

Birthday dress wish list by sunae-reilly featuring an anchor dress

My birthday has totally snuck up on me this year (it's on Monday) and I am absolutely beside myself because I forgot to buy something pretty to wear for the big day! I have been coveting a dress from Bonne Chance Collections for absolutely ages and always planned on buying one to be my birthday dress "in my next pay". Well, my next pay came and went, then came again and I still haven't purchased one and now it is too late. There is no way a dress from Bonne Chance could get here by Monday, but a girl can dream so I put together this little wish list of my favourite dresses from their collection, each of them just so perfectly suited to my style that they certainly would make me feel like a princess on my big day! 

I'm not really doing anything too special on my birthday - just spending the day with my best friend (who knows what we will get up to!) and having my aunty, my cousin and my other best friend around for dinner that night, so whatever I might end up wearing on Monday, I'd like to keep it pretty yet casual to suit the laidback way I'll be spending my day. Each of these dresses are ones I would get a lot of use out of over the hot summer months we are experiencing at the moment in Australia, and I can see quite a few of them transitioning well into autumn and winter with the addition of tights, cardigans and jumpers to cosy them up a little. 

I'm almost certain I won't find anything this cute to wear from my local shops by Monday, so tell me, which of these dresses is your favourite and if I had more time, which do you think I'd be best off buying for my big day?

What I Wore: My Heart On My Sleeve

Ever since I bought this jumper from The Briar Rose Blog Sale, it has become a staple in my wardrobe! It is the first new piece of clothing I have bought myself in a while, and I somehow managed to convince myself to buy something practical that I needed from Megan's blog sale, instead of all the pretty things that caught my eye, which I am proud of! It was no mean feat (I mean, you've seen the clothes she wears, right?) but I am so, so glad for it because it has been bloody freezing Down Under lately, and this cute little heart jumper always brightens an otherwise bleary day.

On Friday night, Jake had a few friends come up to our place and we all headed out to Timezone, which is a games arcade, for a spot of Laser Tag and Ten Pin Bowling
. I was a little nervous about this outing, because the girls that were coming up were people that I didn't know, and so planning an outfit was a bit of a pain. I tend to have an incredibly cutesy, girly style which sometimes leads to me not being taken very serious by new people that I meet but in the end I decided bullocks to bitchiness, I was dressing how I wanted and they'd just have to like me the way I am. Damn that took courage, but I am over worrying about people's opinions!

It was absolutely freezing when we left, and blowing a gale so I actually have leggings underneath my tights to keep me extra warm I am also wearing a singlet and long sleeve shirt under the jumper. It is so rare to be this rugged up in Autumn in Australia. I'm not quite sure what the weather is playing at, because we normally only get one really cold month a year up north here. Please excuse the fact I am not wearing shoes, but we didn't have time to take photos before we left, and when we got back my boots were wet and muddy, so I left them at the door. Also excuse the bad lighting and poses, because these pictures were actually taken at midnight! I wasn't about to miss the opportunity of having someone there to take outfit pics though, was I? It's something I really want to get into more, but alas, I rarely have the opportunity!

What I Wore:

Heart Jumper - Krisp (Out of Stock) 

Skirt - ICE (Similar)

Woollen tights - I forget (bought 4 years ago)

Rose hair clip - Home made

What a busy day!

Hello lovely bloggers,
Today has been a MASSIVE day for me in the best and most creative kind of way. I got so much stuff done that I don't know where to start as far as posting goes, so I thought I'd maybe write a little, show a lot!

Here is what I've been up to:

Yellow Shabby Rose Hair Clips

 

 

Custom order crochet necklace for my good friend Amira

 

 

Purple baby set for my cousin and his fiance's new arrival

 

 

Blue and white gingham dress (fostering my new love for ric-rac!)

 

 

 

Hope this has inspired you to get creative! What have you been up to today? Anything exciting?

 



Finally! A finished project!

Are you proud, guys? I finally have something worthy to show you, and it's super cute too!

Introducing my cap-sleeved peasant dress and diaper cover set...

It's made to fit a baby about size 12mo, however I made the dress a little bit short so that the bottom of the diaper cover would peek out from underneath. It was my first attempt at a diaper cover and second attempt at a cap sleeved peasant dress (remember my problems, problems, problems post?) and i'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Hopefully the set will be available on Etsy soon, although I haven't set up my shop yet and still want to tweak the diaper cover a little bit (wider band of elastic at the top, little decoration somewhere, maybe a frill?) before I sell it. 

The dress was made without a pattern - all I had were measurements of fabric for a pillowcase dress in this size, which I got off the sizing chart at The Mother Huddle. I learnt how to do the sleeves after stumbling across this post on a long sleeve peasant dress at The Trendy Treehouse after much google searching for good tutorials. Tara gives really clear and simple instructions on how to make your own peasant dress - all I had to do was guesstimate the size of the sleeves I wanted and voila! 

I had quite a bit of trouble with the diaper cover, especially with the casing for the elastic around the legs. No one ever told me how hard it is to sew around a curve like that! Eventually, I did get there though, even if my first diaper cover turned out the size for a newborn rather than a 12mo baby! Safe to say I had to alter the pattern I used and go again, but in my frustration I think the second, larger diaper cover (which would actually cover a diaper) didn't turn out as neat as the small one! :(

Small Pair (bad lighting, sorry!)

Large pair

Oh well, I might put it up for sale on Etsy by itself as well as size 3mo or as a cute little no nappy pair of swimmer bottoms!

I love the pretty purple colour of the fabric against the vibrant spring greens of the ivy bush and grass in my garden!

I originally finished the dress and diaper cover on Wednesday, but the dress seemed too plain without any trim or embellishment on it. So glad I stumbled across this beautiful purple rose trim and the purple pearl buttons in Lincraft to pretty it up a little! The colours match perfectly in my opinion. This close-up really shows the girly, prettiness of the fabric with its embroidered eyelets!

I would love to do a tutorial on how to make the diaper cover, and took plenty of photos along the way, but before I do I will have to get it up to my own high standards! Oh well, back to the sewing machine I go!