The Shop has turned to a Winter Wonderland...

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

On Saturday we decided it was time to turn our fall harvest shop into a Winter wonderland.  After decorating the last time, we decided we needed more help then just the two of us. We also needed some fresh ideas. Who better to call then our designer friend Olivia? We asked her to come over and she brought 3 of her younger sisters as well as a cousin. It was lots of fun! We pulled out everything we could think of that was white, silver or blue. Then I took a couple of the girls to the store and we bought more decorations. It is so hard to restrain from buying decorations because this time of season there are so many cute ornaments, little trees, gift wrapping items, and much more! Well we loaded up on all kinds of things. When we returned Olivia, Veronica, Ellen, and Rose had already hung glittering snow flakes, spray painted pine cones silver, and shimmered up the window sills. It was looking great! Ellen made a wonderful bouquet of wintery flowers and feathers. We hung stockings from the ceiling, wrapped boxes to look like gifts, It all looked spectacular! 

To add the finishing touches we bought the spray snow for windows, and also got soft peppermint sticks. Yes, you can't have winter decorations without your candy canes or peppermints!

Oh and by the way, that beautiful looking snow fairy doll on the center table, is outfitted in our friends new line of doll clothes she is making. She has started an Etsy shop now with multiple doll clothes....don't miss it for your Christmas gifts!

It is always so much fun to have a project to work on with friends. It makes decorating all the more fun!

It Keeps Snowing but Work Must Go On!!!

Yesterday afternoon it started snowing and now today it just hasn't stopped!!! For us here in Olympia you know this is a very rare site, especially this early in the winter. It makes me want to be a little kid again and be able to just go out and play in it, but work must get done first. So today in my heated shop I am working on a wedding dress a customer brought in. She wants her grandmother's lace dress overlayed on her dress. We had to make a pattern from her purchased dress and this morning I layed on the freshly cleaned dining room floor (We don't yet have a big open area for projects like these but hopefully soon!) to cut it out. I think it will turn out beautifully. Now I am sewing it all together so either later today or tomorrow my customer can try it on! At least I have lots of windows to look out at the wonderful snow.

At about 9:00 this morning from my shop window

around 10 this morning! It just keeps coming. I might have to make a goal to get some jobs done so I can video the kids out in the snow!

cutting it out on the dining room floor

it was rather tough!

Here's the front of the "new" dress overlay

Warming Up for Winter!

Yesterday a sewing class student came for class and wanted to make some fleece hats for skiing. She really liked the ones on North Face but of course, being as she is our student her next thought was "why buy the hat? I can make one of these!" We searched online for hat patterns and found the one linked below. It is a great pattern - you can print it out and it only takes about 1/2 hour or less to make (how easy is that?) It really is perfect for your trip to the mountain or playing in your own yard! You can even add embellishments of any kind (buttons, ribbon ect...) or find fleece to match your coat! Anyways, I highly recommend making these for this coming winter season.

Click here for the pattern! 

Doesn't it look really warm and comfortable?

Here's how it should look after you cut it out

This one is for her brother

Oh, and by the way today is Victoria's and my 20th birthday. We are very blessed to be able to teach and be with young girls and be doing a vocation with our mom that we enjoy and can bless others through!

Back to making Instructional Videos...

We are finally back to making instructional sewing and crafting videos for you! My brother Isaac recently bought Victoria and I a new iphone for our birthday! I was so excited when he gave it to me, and couldn't wait to find out how I could profitably use it for my business. Since it has an HD camera we got to work on making some instructional videos. It took us less than an hour to video, edit and publish 2 videos! It was easy and fast. It will also help us to be able to take photos of the projects we are working on so we can post on our blog and flickr more often! Guess what? With this iphone we can download an app for swiping debit/credit cards so we can take them!!! (yah!!! It's kind of embarrassing when someone comes to the shop ready to pay with a card and we have to tell them we don't take it:) If you know of any other great ways to be profitable with the iphone, please let us know! We want to get the most for our money!

Sergeant Peppers is back...

Yes, it's been a while since we've updated. Things have been a little crazy around the shop lately with lots of jobs for special events as well as sewing classes. A few weeks ago we had a request from some little friends of ours (12 and 14 year old boys) to make them replica costumes of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. They were going to sing some Beatles songs at an upcoming wedding and just had to look the part. We couldn't resist this job! The boys were so excited and couldn't wait to see the costumes come together. Everyday after school they would come over to the shop and check on the progress of their costumes and were thrilled every time. We added our own "designer additions" to the costumes to give them that extra touch of realness. Well, Saturday they performed their songs and I must say, everyone was delightfully surprised at the boy's costumes. All in all it was well worth the time spent to make these costumes. So here are few progress pictures and some of the boys in their costumes. Enjoy!

a little trimmings make these coats sparkle!

very intense ribbon work

one of the boys after school visits to check on the costumes

as you can see they thoroughly enjoyed dressing up!

don't they look like the Beatles

and of course they had to do a typical Beatles pose.

Let us know if you have custom costumes you need made!

Thanksgiving Day Favorites!

Every Thanksgiving without a doubt we always bake delicious cinnamon twists. The recipe originally came from my great aunt Joanna who would make these in the dozens for all the men working at the farm. Well, she let my mom have the recipe and now it's become the family favorite. They are like cinnamon rolls, made with a sweet dough and cinnamon, brown sugar and butter inside except instead of rolling them you fold it in 1/3rds and cut them in strips. Then you twist each strip and place it in a yummy corn syrup coated pan and bake! They are scrumptious, and definitely something you should try for your Thanksgiving party!

Here's the recipe - Enjoy!

Christmas Collection is here...

Being in the clothing industry you always have to think ahead of the seasons. Since it is not winter yet, but needing to get our Christmas line of clothes out, we had to come up with an idea to show "Winter" instead of Fall. We pulled out all of our winter decor and found some huge white sheets to set up as backgrounds. To our benefit we also found a sheet that had snowy sparkles all over it. They were great!

When we had our seventh birthday a good friend of ours gave us a sled. It was the old fashioned kind. We still have it, and I thought it would be great for a prop that the girls could sit on. We also had large pine cones and greenery that worked perfectly. We set it up on the grass so the sled could sink into and make it look more realistic. We were ready to go!

These dresses are all made from designer material and can be custom ordered on our website: www.bellajeanboutique.com

Formal Dresses...a few from our portfolio

This summer a woman came to our shop with her grandmother's wedding dress. The dress was handmade in Germany. It had a high scalloped neck edge and 3/4 length sleeves and was not lined. This bride wanted the dress altered to a strapless dress, a red petticoat, and lining added for her wedding dress. Unfortunately we don't have pictures of the original dress but here are a few from her wedding.

The next dress is a homecoming dress we custom made. Our customer brought in a picture of what she wanted so we designed and created the dress from that. With only 3 weeks to make the dress it was definitely a challenge, but a good one. It turned out beautifully. It's always fun to take on projects that are challenging, we learn more techniques and better ways of doing things.

The skirt of the dress is original - the bodice was made strapless

We added the red sash and petticoat for accents

This is the picture of the dress we were copying

Satin dress with a lace underlay

The dress turned out beautifully and the customer loved it!