Turn a men's polo into loose top with fun buttons refashion (and it's reversible!)

As I was mentioning before, my older brother is moving away (so sad) and was cleaning/DI-ing/packing for his big move. And luckily for me, they donated all their clothes to my cotton & curls refashioning charity. This Polo was one of the tops and I'm a sucker for stripes. I love flipping shirts backwards, it creates kind of a blank canvas in the front and a party in the back. By the way, this top is also reversible! 

A little bit of family is in town and I took advantage with my little brother as my photographer and Beck as the entertainer. He is hilarious. He seriously tells these elaborate stories about sharks or bears and can go on for a good 20 minutes. These two bottom pics are of him talking about a shark and his big teeth. This kid has an imagination that doesn't quit!

Purple skirt and a small family shindig

Love this little mad face.

This purple maternity pencil skirt was designed by the lovely Megan Nielsen, made by me. I was thinking it would be a casual knit skirt that I could throw on here and there, but after I made it and tried it on, it is quite a sexy little number! Well, for a prego women anyway. I'm loving all these maternity patterns!

I'm SO bummed that everyone has decided to leave me in Utah to go and further their education to provide for their family or something...pshhhh. What about me?! Just kidding, I know that one day this would happen, I just didn't know it would happen all at once. I currently have 5 siblings and 3 in-laws and a niece here, but a few short months from now, 9 will become 3. My brother is leaving on his mission tomorrow morning (don't even get me started about that one...it will make me cry), my other two brothers with fam are moving to Ohio for law school and medical school. And they ALL decided to leave around the same time. 

So this little shindig was a last minute invite for Mike and Emily (and baby Rosie) knowing that in the next few days they will be packed up and headed out to Ogden for a little stint, then on to Ohio for bigger and better things. It was quite the party! I actually cooked chicken, and it was fully cooked mind you and I prepared a raspberry vinaigrette salad (what?! I never go past a pre packaged caesar salad from costco). Beck sucessfully, for the first time rode his tricycle and Emily snapped some awesome shots of baby Rosie's Mad face and tried really hard to get a good angle on my extremely enormous belly in that cute maternity pencil skirt. Can you believe I'm that big already?! Anyway, I'm going to miss all the family, and I wish them good luck. Love you all. 

My refashion modeled on the beautiful Miriam

She is darling right? Love how this looks on Miriam from Mad Mim and how she styled it with the cute hat! Go here for the  before picture and the instructions.

Painting stripes on a tee shirt

I refashioned this top out of my brother's old undershirt and LOVED how the shape turned out (that tutorial to come), but I knew I wanted to do some sort of painting to it. After seeing this super cute top at Jcrew, I knew what I wanted to do. One of my favorite tops I own now!

Side story, I was at the local school's playground taking these pictures so Beck could play while I did one of my mini photoshoots....he was just in some shorts and sandals sans diaper. Trying to potty train, but being unsuccessful. Well, he of course went number one the second I had everything set up ready to shoot. So this was me quickly taking photos while Beck uncomfortably was asking to leave and slowly riding his little fire truck away. Oh, the memories we build while potty training.

Keeping your belly in check - pregnant or not

First off....whether or not you can still fit into those pre-pregnancy pants you still need to keep that belly in check! Which means....when your zipper is fully unzipped to accommodate that growing waistband and hips, there NEEDS to be something that covers up that whole mess. Little do you guys know, in 99% of every outfit my pants are fully unzipped and on the verge of busting...but fashion is pain right? Even during pregnancy. So, as some of you have asked...how the heck do you keep that all covered up and in check...answer....a stretchy tube of knit fabric, whether that is a long tank top, or just a band. It needs to be tight, stretchy and comes in a variety of colors. And possibly something you want to use after words, because these things are amazing regardless you are pregnant or not.

My recommendations:

The tee shirt extender from Blush Accessories - which comes in a variety of colors, and can be for those non-prego ladies too (hence the picture above). It is made with a lighter fabric, making it more unnoticeable. Also, this is a local company and I'm all about supporting that.

The bella band - great for pregnancy because it is VERY stretchy, but it can be a little thick. But I didn't always mind, but it wasn't ideal when I wasn't pregnant.

 

An extra long, tight tank top - can be used, especially when shirt are a little more see through. I will see this is the least favorite of all the options because the fabric tends to ride up and there is a lot of tugging and pulling going on. I love these ones from Nordstrom.

 

DIY: For those of you who have an extra stretchy tank top around that you don't mind destroying, cut it off near the armpit area, in order to make sure it reaches past the bottom of you zipper. And because knit doesn't fray, you don't have to hem. If you are like me and you don't want the end to roll, then hem end up 3/4 of an inch to an inch with a zig zag stitch or a long straight stitch (if you're doing the straight stitch stretch it a lot as you go along). I've also wanted to make a shorter version too, which is nice when you stomach gets really itchy and you don't want anything touching it.