Catching Up...

Oh wow I am horrible at keeping up with this!! Will I ever learn to make this blog a priority? I'm so sorry, dear readers - I will try to be more faithful to you!

Over the last 6 months, a lot has happened - business has expanded and been absolutely wonderful! I've have been very busy keeping up with a steady stream of orders and creating new and unique items. Also, I began making American Girl size clothing, like these:

Both of these outfits can be bought here, along with the matching outfits and hair candy for your daughter! A wonderful seamstress friend of mine created the hair candy and the girls' clothing.

In the coming weeks, I will be filling orders for these outfits as well as building up my shop inventory and preparing for BarbieBoutiqueBasics' first TV spot. My products will be featured on the Show Me St. Louis segment "Jennifer's Favorite Finds" (watch her latest segment here). I am too excited about this!! This will mean HUGE exposure for my shop!

I will also be preparing for an upcoming "Christmas in July" craft show that is being held by a local quilting community. This will be another exciting opportunity to reach my local market. I have a feeling I will be running a special in my shop to coincide with this event.

Well, dear reader, it is time for me to sit behind my sewing machine and get to creating! I hope to finish these orders up soon and start on a new line of boutique fashions for Barbie - I'll post photos once they are done! Until then, check out these most recent creations:

Customs & Church Happenings

Good Saturday Morning!! Computer issues kept me from blogging yesterday, so just like last week, I'm a day late. Sorry, dolls! I hope this day finds you well. It finds me well and busy, busy, busy...

I completed Aurora's custom order on Wednesday night - well, early Thursday morning actually. Here is the last photo from that order:

I'm not going to lie - re-sizing those jackets was quite a challenge. But look at the end result! I love how they turned out.

And just like with this custom order, as it was being completed, I received a new request for another custom! This one is for 2 Ken size doll outfits. Each outfit will have a sweater crocheted by Granny Gloria and a pair of jeans by me. One sweater will be maroon, the other will be green. Gloria should have them completed by tomorrow!

In addition to all this, I'm participating in several bible studies at my church including a Beth Moore study which I'm very excited about! Also, I'm making pouches my boys' Sunday School class for each child to put the papers in. AND today the pumpkins arrive for our church's pumpkin patch!! Every year we hold a pumpkin patch and the proceeds go to different missions. It's a wonderful outreach - so many people see the pumpkins and come by to see what we are up to. The kids and I are looking forward to unloading all those pumpkins this afternoon. My husband was so bummed he had to work today and can't be there to help - he missed it last year too!

So, as you can see, it's been a pretty busy time for me, but I'm loving every bit of it! This coming week, I hope to start my daughter's Halloween costume, so maybe that's what I'll blog about next week.

Until then, have a great week, dolls!

Custom Order Progress -- Almost Complete!!

Wow, what a week it's been!! I've gotten so much accomplished in just 7 days! Thanks so much to my wonderful husband who gave me Tuesday to work all day while he took care of the kids and house (and even ran to the store for me when I ran out of Velcro!). What would I do without him?

I was able to complete the jeans & t-shirt set and workout outfit for all three dolls. Last time I posted, I only had Barbie's done. I'll post photos of the completed outfits at the end of this post. I also created the Barbie gown with matching stole and created the patterns for the gowns for the Tyler and Emme dolls. The skirt portion of the gown is a full circle for Barbie, meaning it's about the same in diameter as a poodle skirt, but this gown is long enough to hit the floor. For the Tyler gown, I had to had 1 1/2 in. to the waistline and 2 inches to the hemline. You can see in this photo, the original pattern piece for Barbie dolls and then my pencil drawings for the Tyler-sized gown. For Emme, I added an additional 1 1/2 inches to the waistline and 1 inch to the hemline. In the photo, you can see the pattern piece for the Tyler-sized gown on the fabric and my markings for the Emme gown. I laid the tape measure down to see how long the diameter of the skirt was. It's 23 1/2 inches!! Wow!

I've really enjoyed working on this order and challenging myself to enlarge my patterns to fit dolls other than Barbie. This has been really good for me. I've definitely learned to think outside the box! This week I'll be focusing on the last outfit - the business suit in purple and lavender. Each suit will have a lavender sleeveless blouse, a purple skirt and a purple midriff jacket. The jacket & skirt will be trimmed with lavender ribbon. Resizing the blouse I think will end up being difficult because of the darts and the facing, but I'm sure I can handle it! I should be done with the order early in the week. I admit, I'll miss working with the larger dolls. Emme is so lifelike. I think I'll add her to my list for Santa....

Have a good week, dolls! I leave you with photos of the completed outfits:

Custom Order In Progress

 Good afternoon dolls! This week's focus has been on my new custom order that I mentioned last week. I didn't give you too many details then, so here's the scoop:

A psych professor is doing a study on girls age 4-7 and which doll they would choose based on size - Barbie, Tyler, and Emme. So each doll will have the same swimsuit, workout outfit, jeans & tee, business suit, and gown. This means I'm taking patterns that I have for Barbie-sized dolls and enlarging them to fit Tyler and Emme. The professor was kind enough to loan me her Tyler & Emme dolls to use as models and they are gorgeous! So far, I have the swimsuits for all three complete...

and the jeans & tee for Barbie... (the denim is ultra soft and stretchy)

and the workout outfit for Barbie... (I love this over-sized hoodie! It looks so comfy!)

I didn't really realize what a difference is size there was between Barbie and the other two fashion dolls. I know it's 4 1/2 inches, but that's not that much, right? Ha! Look at the difference:

So this is a challenging project - but believe me, that's what I live for! I love to be challenged. It's a great way to develop my talent and craft. Over the weekend, I will be resizing the pattern for the workout outfit & the jeans & tee-shirt. Out of curiosity, I tried the jeans for Barbie on the Tyler doll - they are the right length for her capris! And I'll just need to add a smidge around the waist. For Emme, I'll need to add just a little bit more to the length (about 1/4 inch) and a little bit more around the waist. Emme is my fave doll so far. She's my size ;)

Have a great week, dolls, thanks for sharing in this project with me. You can follow along and see more photos on my facebook page and on my twitter. And don't forget to stop by my shop to see new items added daily!

One custom order is completed as another one comes rolling in...

I'm very happy to say that I have finished my custom order for Hande. I only took photos of three dresses - remember though that there 5 of each of the three pictured. It is a little hard to tell from the photo, but the dresses have ribbon trim along the waistline - one is white, one is black, and the last is pink. Each dress has a matching drawstring purse trimmed with lace like the one in the photo.

These dresses are my own design and created with special fabric sent by the customer. I'm pretty proud of how they turned out.

And as I was finishing this one up, I got a request for another custom order! I'm very excited about this and what a challenge it will be! I will be creating 15 outfits again, only this time, only 5 of them will be for Barbie. The other 10 outfits will be for the Emme and Tyler Wentworth dolls.



Aren't these dolls gorgeous?? So I will be making 5 different outfits in 3 different sizes - Barbie, Emme, and Tyler. Each doll will get a light blue swimsuit, a pink/white workout outfit, jeans and a navy long sleeve tee, a purple/lavender suit, and a two-tone pink gown. Here are my fabric selections:

What will really be a challenge will be resizing the patterns from Barbie up to the Tyler doll and the up again to the Emme doll. If you don't know much about the dolls, I did some research. The Tyler fashion doll is 16 inches tall - approx. 4 1/2 in. taller than Barbie. This doll has the same proportions as Barbie. The Emme doll is also 16 inches tall but she is considered "plus-size", so her proportions are not quite the same. These two dolls are made by the Tonner Doll company and run about $60 for the Emme dolls and anywhere from $60 to $250 for the Tyler doll. I'm wondering now how much they would be on e-bay or Amazon.com... hmmmm... something to ponder, anyway.

I will begin my work on the Barbie-sized outfits today. I'll post pictures here and on my facebook page, www.facebook.com/BarbieBoutiqueBasics. This will be an exciting undertaking!! I'll blog more about this order next week, dolls!

Lots of Love,

Crystal 

Custom Ordered Set of 15 Dresses

Ok, I confess... I'm a horrible blogger! I just haven't been inspired to write! And I've been struggling with finding a way to juggle it all... being a Mommy & wife, working part-time, creating, facebook-ing, etsy-ing, blogging... clearly blogging has fallen by the wayside. BUT I'm back and I'm going to blog EVERY Friday - even if it kills me LOL!

So, this Friday, I want to talk about what I'm currently working on, which is really exciting for me. I have a dress that I designed the pattern for - it's a simple V-neck, sleeveless dress that is knee-length and pretty classy looking, if I do say so myself! But here, take a look and you can decide:

I love this dress and it is fairly simple to create - I've made it in several colors and it is currently being sold locally at Kids Bazaar.And now I am working on customizing for a customer using Barbie fabric that she sent me. This new print for the dress is great - it's black and white with just a dash of pink! And I'm making a matching drawstring bag with black lace and pink embroidery floss. It will look similar to this:

I'm going to change it just a smidge by adding a second drawstring so that the purse will pull open/closed. I just started putting the purses together last night and I hope to finish them up tonight. The dresses are complete minus hand sewing on the snaps. I meant to take photos last night, but got caught up with other Etsy things, so here are the photos from 3 nights ago...

Did I mention that the customer wants 15 of them? How exciting is that! Her friends are going to receive this dress and matching purse for Christmas - what a great friend, huh? I'm hoping to have everything 100% complete by next Thursday so I can get these posted by Friday - can I do it? Of course!

A little more about the pattern - This dress is altered from a knit top pattern that I had. I added some width to the back to account for the lack of stretch in non-stretch knit fabrics. I lengthened the lowered edge and flared it out some to give the dress a more A-line silhouette. The bodice gathers in front just a smidge where it connects to the skirt of the dress. The waistline at that connection point is raised to an empire waist. When the dress is complete, it will have ribbon trim along that line. However, the photo I showed you earlier, has a bow to one-side. This customer opted not to included that bow. I normally prefer Velcro closures as they are easier and quicker to sew on than snaps, but, as I mentioned, these dresses will close with snaps, per the customer's request.

I'm very excited to be working on this custom order. I love creating for people and this one is definitely a pleasure! I'll update with more photos soon - maybe even tonight!

Lots of Love,
Crystal

UPDATE: I got three of the dresses 100% complete (snaps even!) yesterday!! Yay! Here's what they look like:

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New Items in My Shop!

I know it's been a very long time since I last posted - it has been busy busy busy over here! I've been working on lots of new items to get my shop ready for Halloween and Christmas and I'm planning for a couple craft fairs, too. Keep reading for a sneak peek at some new items!

Some of my new photos were taken by HollyAnne from Wonderstruck Images, like this one:

And some have been edited for me by Nichole from BettyBellaOriginals like this one:

Don't they both do great work? But the big project I have been working on is my replica of the Kate Middleton wedding gown.

This gown is made with crepe-back satin. It is strapless with a drop-waist and a long-sleeve lace overlay on the bodice. Embroidered rose and leaf appliques decorate the bottom of the skirt and the train. The train attaches and detaches with Velcro and the gown itself fastens in back with Velcro. The appliques were carefully hand sewn in place. Barbie's veil is made of chiffon and trimmed with lace. A row of square rhinestones are hand sewn onto the veil to create a tiara. Veil attaches to Barbie's head with a strip of elastic that acts as a headband. This gown is made to fit 11 1/2 inch Barbies of the newer generation. However, I'd be happy to add an extension to the back so that it will fit your vintage Barbie.This gown, complete with the train and veil is $100 in my shop.