Tutorials – Page 6 – Shop Project Run & Play

Posted on June 3, 2024October 30, 2024 by liesel.e

How to Paint Tulle

We’re bringing you no-sew tutorials, which are fun for beginners or experts, alike! I LOVE this look from @madeofstarlitecouture who painted tulle in fun neon brushstrokes. This may not be practical, but fashion doesn’t have to be. Stick around for all the Sewing School fun on the blog, and Instagram and Facebook!

When you can’t find the perfect fabric for your project, make it yourself! Jenny from Made of Starlite did just that with her show-stopping tulle from the Project Art Studio Lookbook!

When building the vision board for Project Art Studio, I ran across thee amazing painted tulle skirts! They were the perfect embodiment of everything an artists studio should be in my opinion: colorful, playful, and whimsical! I just knew I HAD to do something similar!

I started with regular mesh tulle from JoAnn Fabrics, nothing fancy, and regular acrylic paint. I tried a few techniques to get the paint to stick to the tulle, the most successful being suspending the tulle between two chairs with hangers and using a foam craft brush. I also went over most of the lines at least twice.

I would be curious to experiment with different types of paint for this type of project! The biggest hurdle I came up against was getting enough surface tension for the paint to fill in the holes of the tulle and make a solid line, rather than just breaking apart and sticking only to the individual fibers in the fabric. I wonder if a different, thicker paint would stick better. I also ran out of fabric medium, which I usually add to acrylic paints when using them on fabric, and I wonder if that would have helped any, or made it worse?

Full disclosure: Because I ended up with straight acrylic paint, this in not a washable dress. The skirt is pretty stiff, and some of the paint has flaked off as she has worn it. I would say that this technique, while SO cool, may be for more of a couture piece than every day wear. She has worn it to a fancy night out over the holidays, as well as to a play. It still looks new, but we did notice a few flakes on her seat at the theatre as we were leaving.

So while I wouldn’t call this a fail, it’s not 100% where I would like it to be. My goal with children’s fashion is to be able to wear and abuse it, and for it to still look amazing! Stay tuned for more fabric painting adventures in the future! Someday I will find the perfect medium for my next painted tulle dress to last forever!

Save the image below to come back to this later!

Posted on June 2, 2024October 30, 2024 by liesel.e

Detachable Cape Tutorial

In honor of our Sewing School event, we are migrating some of our favorite sewing tutorials from the old website. Hayley from Welcome to the Mouse House wrote such a fun tutorial for sewing a detachable felt cape! We thought this was the perfect kick off to Sewing School, because even if you’re brand new to sewing, you can start to create, and have a fun finished project, with just a tiny bit of sewing!

Hey guys! My name is Hayley and I blog over at Welcome to the Mouse House. I am so excited to be back over here at Project Run and Play. I was a part of Season 5 and had so much fun and loved meeting new people! Here was a recap of my season: RECAP of Project Run and Play. Today, I am going to share a super easy and super FUN detachable cape that can be embellished (or not) to suit every child’s imagination. Introducing The Switch Out Cape! The free pattern includes sizes 3, 6, and 9.

*Supplies:
Yardage of felt in various colors
t-shirt
sew-in Velcro/hook and tape (soft and flexible kind is best)
FREE cape pattern/tutorial HERE

how to sew a removable felt cape for kids

*Print out the free cape pattern HERE.
*Choose from size 3, 6, and 9. (Ainsley’s is a size 6)
*Cut the cape on the fold of the felt, as instructed on the pattern piece.

*Open the cape up.
*Sew the velcro on the back of the cape and the back of the t-shirt, using the placement on the pattern piece as a guide. Be sure to use the soft Velcro pieces for the tshirt and the scratchy pieces for the cape. (This is so that the t-shirt remains wearable even without the cape attached.)

*Attach the cape to the shirt and enjoy!

Make lots of them in fun colors! How fun would this be for a birthday party?!

Now, here comes the fun part…. you can either leave it plain… but how great is it to embellish them!?!

Thank you Hayley!! You can follow Welcome to the Mouse House on Facebook and Mouse House Creations Facebook group, and on Instagram too!

Save the image below to come back to this later!

Posted on May 14, 2024May 13, 2024 by pacountrycrafts

How to Turn a Dress into a Romper

Our upcycle sewing inspiration continues with a brand new tutorial for turning a dress into a romper! Heather from Heather Handmade does a lot of cute upcycles for kids and has several patterns available! We are excited to welcome Heather to the PRP blog today!

Hi! I’m Heather from Heather Handmade. I believe small sewing moments can create great joy. I’m so excited to be here to share an upcycle tutorial with you!

My daughters love to wear rompers. (Let’s be honest, so do I!) They are so comfy and perfect for playing all day.

I have a romper that I love that is a little bit of a dropped crotch, loose fit style, and whenever I wear it I know I can make something similar for my girls. I realized it would be so easy to create the style by upcycling or refashioning a dress.

I turned two dresses into rompers, and I’m sharing the tutorial so you can make one too!

What dress will work for this upcycle project?

You must use a knit dress for this project to work. You need the stretch and movement of knit, or this project won’t work. If you can find a dress with pockets, even better! Both of the dresses I used had pockets, but I ended up moving the pockets on the pink dress higher for my shorter daughter.

The dress should be an a-line style dress with no horizontal seams. The more flared the dress, the looser ( more bunching of fabric at the center front and center back) it is. It can be any length, and you can shorten it if you need.

Also, it’s very important that the neckline is open enough to slide the dress up the legs and onto the shoulder. Once the dress is a romper, it cannot slide over the head to be put on.

What do you do about the center front and center back curve of pants?

On a normal pair of pants, there is a front and back crotch curve to fit a 3D body. This makes it so the pants can contour and shape around a body and remove some excess fabric.

This style of romper is a loose fit, drop crotch style. The front and back crotch curves are eliminated which leaves excess fabric and some fabric bunching in the center front and the center back. The striped dress I upcycled wasn’t as flared so there’s minimal bunching. The pink dress I upcycled was very flared so there’s a lot of bunching.

How do you put this romper on and take it off?

This romper is put on by sliding up the legs and onto the shoulder. That means that the dress neckline must be open enough to slide up the body, or the romper won’t be able to be worn once you sew up the bottom.

Looking for more? Upcycle projects you might love:

How to Turn a Dress into a Romper

Supplies

Knit fabric knee length or maxi length dress with an open neckline
Sewing tools
Sewing machine

If the dress is too long, then put the dress on your child. Mark the length you want, like a shorts or cropped length.

With the dress on the child, mark the top of the inseam curve. Make sure you drop down a couple of inches from the crotch curve for movement. Have your child take the dress off.

Use a marking tool to mark the inseam curve. Draw out the leg seams. You’ll have better luck with a loose fit or wider leg style. I chose a straight leg loose fit that stayed the same width from the thigh down. Mark out the seam allowance.

Cut the arched piece of fabric out of the dress.

Pin the inseam with right sides together.

Sew the seam with either a zigzag stitch or a serger. I actually ended up serging and sewing with a zigzag stitch. The inseam gets a lot of wear and tear so I didn’t want the seam to pop later.

Hem the pants the way you want. I folded the hem up 2 inches towards the outside of the pants for a cuffed look. I sewed around the top fold with a straight stitch.

Press the hem and the inseam towards the back of the romper. You are finished!

The other dress I chose had a really fun ruffle at the bottom so I kept that as part of the look. The neckline and shoulder straps were a little too wide for my little daughter so I added a row of shirring across the shoulders to bring them in and a row of shirring around the neckline to bring it in.

If you make something using this tutorial, I’d love to see! Please share it on social media with the hashtag #heatherhandmade and tag me!

Thanks so much, Heather! We hope that this has inspired you to give upcycling a try! Heather has several different upcycle sewing patterns and we will be doing a giveaway in our Facebook group this weekend! Make sure you have joined the group to get special freebies and giveaways every week!

JOIN OUR FACEBOOK GROUP!

Heather is also hosting a PRP giveaway! Click HERE to enter!

Don’t forget to join our upcycle challenge this month!

GET THE DETAILS!