Christmas Picture Outfits

I having been dying to post these!  I was actually prepared this year and we had our Christmas pictures taken the week before Thanksgiving.  Sure, I stayed up until 3:00 am the night before finishing the outfits but it was so nice to have them done!  (Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the “how to” on the outfits.)

 

I love how they all turned out!

 

 

 

I love how they got the boys to look like little cherubs.  Don’t be fooled!

 

My little girls, sweet as usual.

 

 

O.K. so here is the lowdown on what I did.
For the girls:  I bought this fabric last year after Christmas from Chez Ami and was just itching to finally use it.  I knew that I wanted cozy yet girly dresses in a Hanna Anderson like style.  Christine at From an Igloo posted this nice tutorial on how to make a cute twirl dress using knit fabric and it was just what I wanted.
Christine used the Lil Blue Boo Hoodie Pattern for her top.  I own this pattern too and highly recommend it.  See my post about it HERE.  However, it doesn’t go up to my girls’ size  and I was being chicken about guestimating up.

I looked through my patterns and found

McCall’s M6157

I like the gathered sleeves and the length of the bodice but I didn’t want it to cross over in the front like it does in the pattern.  I ended up cutting two of the back bodice pieces for each dress and then just cutting down the neckline a bit on the front bodice piece.  Once I had my top, I followed Christine’s tutorial for making the gathered twill skirt.

For the boys:  I wanted to make an applique using the fabric from the girls dresses.  At first, I was thinking maybe a snowman and having the polka dot fabric be his scarf and band on his hat. 

Then I googled boy’s Christmas appliques and found this cute little truck idea.  I like how it’s a bit more “boyish” and I love the button wheels.  I used all knit fabric so that I could just straight stitch the applique and not have to worry about fraying.  (Quick and simple was my goal as this was all happening at about 2:00 am after finishing the girls dresses.)  Go HERE for my tutorial on straight stitch applique.

Happy Holidays!