Onsie Making At It's Finest

I am helping to throw a baby shower for my niece.  

I decided that decorating Onsies would be a good idea. 

 I did this once before for another niece and it seemed to be a hit so why not?!  

I gathered Onsies (harder to find than I thought) and set to printing up many under the sea 

(and near the sea) creatures for said Onsies.  

I think one of my favorites will be the Narwhal.

What's that you say?  

You want to plan a Onsie decorating party too but you don't know how?  

Then let me walk you though it.

First determine the theme of the Onsies.  

In this case sea life. 

 I did animals previously, you could do farm, or alphabet, or vehicles, whatever you like. 

 Next is to look for coloring pages online in your theme. 

 I Googled sea life coloring pages.  

I found pages that I thought would translate well into doing fusible applique and printed those.  

 I used the copy machine to resize to a size that would fit on the Onsies. 

 I got the Onsies in many sizes, 0-3 months, 6-12 months, 12-18 months and 24 months.  

Get a good range. 

 Some of mine are long sleeved and some short.  

I chose all white but there are plain colored ones too.

  It is a good idea to look for them at the end of the seasons 

(ie short sleeve at end of summer and long sleeved at end of winter) if you have the time. 

 I didn't.  

Once you have your designs you are ready to trace them.  

I flipped my page over (using the back and a light box) and traced it onto fusible breaking the design apart as necessary.  

This means when they are trying to make the applique it will 

exactly match the one on the coloring book page front. 

 Then I figured out which fabrics I wanted to use for which parts 

and fused the design to the back of those fabrics.  

Isn't that stripe perfect for the horn? 

 I rough cut the fabric as you can see in the photo.

  Voila! 

 Bag the fabric parts, original coloring page and one shirt and you are ready to go on to the next one.  I found making these "kits" helped at the actual party.  

At the party, I let people choose which kit they wanted to do.  

They cut out the fabric pieces and placed them on the shirt 

(with supervision, it's tricky when there are pieces that need to go 

under and over other pieces so make sure you are helping).  

I brought a little ironing board and iron.  

They brought me the Onsie and we placed the fabrics on the Onsie, at the board,

 using the coloring page as a guide for placement.  

Then they fused the design in place.  

We hung them up around the room on a clothes line for display.  

I took them all home and stitched around them and gave them back to the mom-to-be. 

 So. Much. FUN!

If you have any questions about any of this, just email me and ask! 

Or leave a comment here but be sure to leave your email address so I can respond!

Of COURSE you know I had help with making these kits right?

Oh Autumn, you are such a good helper!

Thanks to everyone that linked up yesterday.  

I will try it again next week so get your WIP pictures ready!

~XOP~