Do It Crafty, Easy, Mommy: Fabulous in One

My niece is my world. And considering she lives in Michigan and I live in Oklahoma, it's torture. So I try to spoil her when I'm home as much as possible. She turned one in November, and what's better than making her little outfit for her birthday party.

Some background info: She loves Minnie Mouse; she smiles whenever she sees her. She's freakin' adorable, so she'll basically look cute in anything. But most important, her mommy is my twin so I wanted her first birthday to be unforgettable.

So I may or may not have taken it upon myself to create the outfit in which she would celebrate her first year of life. It goes like this.

While this project was easy, it did end up costing a little more than I would have liked. But it was a lot cheaper than it could have been!

Let's start with the tutu: I was totally prepared to make one; how fun would that be! But, I just so happened to find this gem at Old Navy for four dollars, so I couldn't pass it up.

Because Disney is pretty sticky on who can sell what in regards to their characters, I couldn't find a rhinestone Minnie applique like I was hoping, so I did some improvising. I ended up getting a pair of cheap Minnie pajamas from WalMart and just cut out Minnie's face and applied it to the front of the shirt with fabric spray. It took a long time to get the cut perfect, but it ended up working out just well.

I wanted to do something that made the shirt "special." I wanted everyone to know, "This is the birthday girl, and she is so special!" SO I found some glitter iron-on letters at Michaels that just so happened to match my pinks perfectly! These were the most expensive part of my purchase, at like eight or nine dollars. All I had to do to apply these was iron them on--easy enough. And I like easy.

Once I got Minnie cut out the whole process only took about a half an hour, so it wasn't too bad! I did have some hiccups with the letters not sticking, but with some patience (which I don't really have) they finally stuck.

I was so excited to show her mom this adorable little number and put my niece into it. So when we got to Michigan I was almost bursting at the seams. That may have been because I hadn't seen family in six months, though. Who knows? My sister loved it; my niece smiled. Life was good.

The day of the party came and it was time for this girl to shine. And she did! My sister couldn't find any tights, so we ended up using the pajama bottoms for little make-shift leggings and it was a-dor-a-ble!

Here's the princess: