Dollar Store T-Shirt Matching Dresses

I will fully own that this is crazy-dog lady status. But I turned this:into...
this!

This was a relatively easy refashion made from 2 dollar store XL tee shirts. I cut a ruffle from one shirt and added it to the bottom of one shirt (or else this would so not be pre-school appropriate). I cut off the sleeves and neck, folded over the top, and essentially sewed up the sides to make a tube dress. I cut some more strips from the ruffle shirt and sewed them on where my undergarment straps tend to fall. Super easy-peasy and I didn't even have to hem anything under!

Since I found another shirt, Parsnip also got this:

I think her hair rosette is rather Aretha of her. Right after I snapped this picture, the Hubs came in the back gate and she promptly peed all over the back patio.

Here's an insider look on how the Hubs managed to get a decent picture of us in our matching outifts:
Treatsies!

We Love Metamorph Designs!

I don't know where or when Parsnip started doing this looking straight into the camera look, but I think it's so funny. I didn't want to put her in an outfit because I didn't want to distract from her tag! (so I promptly tied a silly bow around her head and called it a day.)

Aimee from Metamorph Designs made this custom tag for Parsnip over on etsy.Now there's a few reasons I love this design:
1) She let me pick everything from the text to the colors to match Parsnip's harness and leash
2) There was room enough to put all the information we needed, shy of Parsnip's social security number and her mother's maiden name
3) Let this next picture speak for itself:
THERE'S A PARSNIP ON THE BACK. How cool is that!

We love you, Metamorph Designs! Check out Aimee on her blog, on facebook, and in her etsy store!

Hey Guys, What's New!

When I started this blog, I had all good intentions of updating every single day with fun new pictures of Parsnip.

That lasted all of one week.

As an apology, here's a sneak peek of a brand new design!



Welcome Princess Daisy! Princess Daisy is a lesser known Princess in the world of Mario. She is sometimes romantically linked to Luigi and likes the colors yellow and orange.





This also rounds out the Mario Set in the shop:

I also found some time to make something for myself! For awhile, I was making things for myself every night, but I recently had a week and a half dry spell! Here's what I came up with tonight:It's the same general idea as the elephant skirt, but I tweaked the measurements so it wouldn't be so ghastly long and loose. I looooooove these skirts and automatically start twirling every time I put one on!


And because every post isn't completely without a Daily Parsnip:We decided that Parsnip has been such a good girl that we would get her her own iphone! Juuuuuust kidding :)

Quick Birthday Update

Not only was it my birthday this past Sunday (Father's Day), but it was also my sewing machine's birthday! I got my sewing machine as a birthday present last year from my awesome in-laws.

I'm still recovering from a no-sew/no-blog/no-etsy weekend, so here's a couple of quick pictures:

This was my birthday elephant skirt I made in honor of going to the Wild Animal Park.

and yes, we did see elephants :)

I had a great time with my sister and the Hubs!

Parting (with fabric) is Such Sweet Sorrow

I think this is a common feeling among crafters. You go to the fabric store, find the fabric, and then it sits in your fabric box just waiting for the right occasion. I get this feeling big time. On top of that, whenever I have to use the fabric to fulfill an order, a little piece inside of me balls up as I package it in brown paper and send it to its new owner. And its not like I don't have enough fabric (believe me, I do). But I searched for this fabric, and fell in love with this fabric, and brought it home with me to make it into something someone would love.

This was my first fabric haul right after I discovered M&L Fabricsin Anaheim. I went every weekend for an entire month after that.

This was my second haul when I discovered the Goldenwest Swap Meet, another place that has become so familiar that the sellers are beginning to expect us every weekend. My sister and I love this place so much that this ends up happening:
We leave with BAGFULS of material and the Hubs has to help us lug it to the car.

As I started to get more comfortable buying fabric in bulk, my hauls started to get larger:
It gets to the point where I start flinging fabric every left and right saying, "I'll take this one! And this one! AND THIS ONE!" But the question is, when does it get out of hand?

This was my fabric haul of last weekend. But even with buying up to 5 yards of fabric in each color, I still find myself wishing I bought more.

I think I'm going to have to make my minimum 7 yards per design.

...the Hubs is going to be maaaaad...

Ringer Tanks Photoshoot

Ringer tanks are now up in the etsy shop! I love this new design. It's lightweight enough for summer and it fastens by velcro so it's easier to get finicky dogs to wear them. It is also unisex! I get requests all the time for more boys clothes, so your wish is my command! My favorite part about this design is that it comes with a matching Cowlie scarf for Doggy Moms. Now I don't have to be the only crazy dog lady walking around with matching outfits!

Now, I'll be the first to tell you. I am not a model. By any means. If I could have put the matching Cowlie scarf on the Hubs, I would have. So now, for your viewing pleasure, what really goes on during a YUP photoshoot:

okay, Hubs, how about a little warning!

Parsnip, look at the camera! Something spooked her so you can see her Koala vice-like grip on my arm.

So, this is the "I bite you" look?


Here, Parsnip, smell my big oversized smile.

Parsnip, however, had no problems remembering how to be the perfect model:


Today, Parsnip and I met the Hubs for lunch. Since we're on the never-ending quest to pinch every penny, I made pb&j and brought the strawberries we picked yesterday.

We sported our mint gray navy dresses for the occasion:



Parsnip was way too distracted by the Mets Mickey in the middle of the Irvine Spectrum to smile for the picture!

Strawberry Picking and the Weekend Wrapup

Three Mario outfits, 2 Luigi outfits, 1 Princess Peach Outfit, and 3 crowns later, I'm done! But I couldn't have done it by myself:



Meet the Hubs. The ever supporting super encouraging Hubs. He is also my resident circle-cutter. He cuts the best circles (and also makes the best mac n cheese). And yes, he is pouting in the picture and yes, that is his favorite videogame in the background that he was ignoring so he could help me all in the name of love. He had to love me extra because our house looked like this for most of the weekend:



And that is the tame picture. As the weekend progressed, little pieces of felt starting flying as I made these beauties for a handful of lucky little birthday pups:



The neat thing about this version of the Birthday crown is that I discovered that I can make the completely reversible. The crown in the middle will be worn by 3 pups due to its versatile velcro number and double-sided colors.

To celebrate the end of a long fabric-filled crafting weekend, we visited the only farm in Orange County, Tanaka Farms. We first found out about Tanaka Farms during pumpkin season. June at Tanaka Farms means strawberries!



For $13/person, we got a tractor tour of the entire farm and got to sample all of the crops. We even got to eat brocolini FLOWERS!



At the end of the tour, they let us off the tractor in front of their strawberry fields and pretty much said, "Go to town!" When our tour guide said that we were free to gorge ourselves on as many strawberries as we liked, my eyes almost fell out of their sockets. I was shoving as many strawberries in my mouth as fast as I could that I didn't get any pictures of us actually picking the strawberries. Let's just say I ate about a pound of strawberries in the 15 minutes we had and almost forgot to put some in my basket.


The Hubs likes to take pictures of his fruit, too.


I wore my best strawberry picking dress for the occasion. This is one of my favorite dresses I've ever made because it reminds me of Slimey, Oscar's wormy friend.



I loved Tanaka Farms! Take a strawberry tour before they end on June 27!

Summerfest and 8th Continent

I love local festivals. I was searching for things to do this weekend with the Hubs and came across Summerfest, a free outdoor fair to kick off summer! The website promised hot dogs and churros, so I was SO going to be there.



We broke out our matching colorblock maxi dresses that we wore to the latest OC Doxie Meetup. The State Farm booth was nice enough to let Parsnip spin the wheel! She ended up winning a red cup which she used to drink water later in the day.

So let me just say: people in Fountain Valley are loads nicer than people in Tustin. When we were at the Tustin Chili Cookoff last weekend, we literally got pointed and laughed at when we would walk by in our matching dresses. This time around, we still heard people exclaiming from afar (as if we couldn't hear them), but their comments were much more positive. "You guys are so cute!" "That dog is precious!" "Hey did you know you MATCH?!"

We met a super nice new friend from 8th continent Soymilk, Lacie. She poured an ice cold cup of soymilk for Parsnip and let her go to town!



Are you digging the matching dresses?




I seriously had to cut Parsnip off after she wolfed down half the carton, or else she would have drank herself into oblivion! Thank you, 8th Continent!

The Sweater-Vest-Sweater-Dress Preview

Since I'm knee-deep in making Mario and Luigi costumes, I decided to procrastinate and refashion a $2 Old Navy XXL men's sweater vest into a comfy sweater dress. The machine was already threaded and the refashion only really had 2 stitches to it, so I decided to give it a go. But alas, my piles of red, green, and blue fleece are glaring at me so the tutorial will have to wait.

In the meantime, get thee to an Old Navy and buy yourself the largest clearance men's sweatervest they have! (the clearance section was also an extra 30% off!)

I Never Thought this Day would Come!

Today is a day to remember. YoungUrbanPuppy's etsy shop just reached over 100 sales! (cue trumpets, confetti blaster, and live-studio-audience)

Before the days of the etsy shop, I posted this picture on a pet message board asking if people would even be interested in Parsnip's new trenchcoat:



I got some great warm and fuzzy comments that really gave me the courage to try the whole etsy thing. Maybe it was this picture of Parsnip in her matching headband that put the outfit over the top:



When I opened the etsy shop about 7 months ago, I never really thought it would take off. But thanks to Parsnip's good looks and a willingness to give big puppy dog eyes in exchange for a bowl of milk, we somehow made it work!



So, THANK YOU everyone for allowing me to pay for our cell-phone bill by doing something I love!

Mario, Luigi and the very Blogtastic Day

Today started off as any other day. I woke up, drank my ice coffee, and went to the preschool as normal. When I took my first break at around 9:30, I checked my phone and saw that I had sold a Mario costume from the etsy shop. Neat! Nothing too abnormal.

At lunch, I checked my emails again, and saw that I had a message wondering if I would have the Mario costumes back in stock AND another order for the remaining Luigi costume. Interesting... I relisted the Mario and Luigi costumes and was surprised to see that they, too, sold out by the time I got to my kickboxing class at 4:30.

This amount of traffic is pretty abnormal for a little shop like mine. Every once in awhile, I like to google myself just in case something fishy is going on. Here is what popped up today:



When the Hubs saw this, he went, "AMAGAH. KOTAKU IS LIKE THE BIGGEST VIDEOGAME BLOG EVAR!" Well, he was a bit more composed than that, but lets just say he was VERY proud of Parsnip and gave her extra kisses tonight. So, thank you, kotaku.com, and a BIG thank you to Jonna at Style Lush for creating this latest frenzy!

Parsnip is celebrating her newfound fame by de-stuffing one of her innocent toys.



Someone's going to poop fuzz tonight!