When it comes to my children’s birthdays I admit it, I am a bit of a lunatic. Not in the bad sense, in the best sense; for them anyway.
I will go out of my way to make any birthday memorable. If it’s the cake, the candle shape, the present, the presentation of it all, the party, the decorations, everything!
So every time the kids decide they want a birthday party I buckle up and dive into my next birthday project. I mean, hey, if it’s not going to be perfect it’s just not worth it.
And no, I am not encouraging my kids to be perfectionists or unbelievably competitive, they are not really aware of everything going on behind the scenes; they just like it when mommy is super engaged in the planning of their birthday and comes up with fun ideas.
So after making sure my son had a perfect “Mario Bros” birthday party, my daughter decided she wants to have a cupcake party. So we’re planning on baking cupcakes, getting cupcake decorations, having a cupcake table cover and of course the cupcakes treat bags. So I thought it would be pretty awesome if the kids get to take something home with them; something they can actually use later on and then it hit me; why don’t I make cute aprons? So I did.
Now, keep in mind that I am a full time employed mom with endless responsibilities, so I had to keep it simple; I had to think of a way to make these aprons fast and furious.
I’m not a seamstress really, and the only true sewing learning I ever took was in grade 4 when my mom (thankfully) sent me to sewing classes (I actually loved it!) so keep in mind that any knowledge I have of this craft is really super basic, but still, I think it’s a pretty useful craftsmanship.
What I did was go to the dollar store, buy a few kitchen towels (for what I have planned I needed them to be as plain as possible), get a few rolls of ribbon (fabric one) and a few buttons, that’s it. To make the aprons here’s what I did:
- Kitchen Towel
- Ribbon
- String
- Needle
- Buttons
- Fold 2 triangles on the back of your towel (Figure #1).
- Run a few stitches along each triangle’s sharp point (just to make sure the folds hold)
- Measure the ribbon length you will need to go around the waist to wear the apron, add 6 more inches and cut the ribbon in two.
- Connect (stitch) the ribbon halves to the sides of the waist line on your towel/apron (on the back – so the stitches are hidden), one on each side (so when you’re done you can tie them together around the waist)
- Same goes for the ribbon that goes around the neck (I used buttons to stitch the neck ribbons, just looks cuter)
You can use whatever towel design you want. I chose the plain ones because what I plan on doing is using the aprons for an activity where the kids will decorate their own aprons with permanent markers and thus personalizing them.
It takes patience and some sewing skills (minimal) but hey, the results are all worth it!
