Wednesday, October 26, 2011

DIY Series: Personalized Apron

During S's 3rd birthday, she had a small school birthday party. I had a lot of plans but again budget was the issue. Unlike during S's 1st and 2nd birthday parties, when I was still working and had money to augment the paltry budget my CFO gave me, this time the "working mommy no more" had to be extra creative and resourceful on how to make the party special at the same time stick to my budget.

S and her classmate getting busy with the activity
Her school only allows simple parties in school so no games and program. But I wanted to add an activity aside from the usual eating and blowing the candles. I decided to do a cupcake decorating activity. The kids decorated cupcakes I ordered from Frupcakes using candies, sprinkles and fondant decorations while wearing these cute little aprons. I got the idea from The Loot Fairy. I initially wanted to order from them but they have a 24 pcs minimum order. It came to a point I was tempted to order all 24 thinking the rest I can give out as Christmas gifts. Tee hee! But at that moment, I did not have the money to order all 24 pieces. 

With no sewing skills, I tried asking my friend if her mom who dabbles in sewing can make the aprons for me. It was fairly easy to make so she asked me to send her the template and the materials. I'm sure your friendly neighborhood mananahi (seamstress) can do that for you.




For the materials, I used katsa / local cheesecloth. I got it from the Fabric Warehouse for around Php 30/yard. I could have gotten it cheaper from Divisoria but I did not want to go all the way there for just 4-5 yards of cloth. 

Then I bought Iron Transfer Sheets from National Bookstore for less than Php 300 per pack. Each pack contains 3 pcs of sheets which was more than enough to make 9 aprons. Using my Photoshop skills, I made the following designs with the Strawberry Shortcake Theme. I made use the color scheme of the cartoon series then also printed some small strawberry elements:

Each student got an apron with their names printed on it






I got this from a Strawberry Shortcake digiscrap kit. 
My cake/cupcake supplier also referred to this same palette for the cake's and cupcakes' icing

Now, before printing your design make sure you read the instructions that came with your iron transfer sheets. With my mine, it says that I have to print it in mirror image. I could have used my printer's function for this, but I wanted to maximize the iron transfer sheets. Using Photoshop I transformed it into mirror image. Here's how you do it:

See it is fairly easy!

So now the image looks like this:



Next, using Photoshop again, I arranged the pictures and names into a canvass with size similar to the actual iron transfer sheet. It looked like this:

No wasted space!

After, printing I then painstakingly cut each element then proceeded to iron these on the aprons. Again, just be sure to follow the instructions. The finished products looked like these:

Folded into neat little packages

Btw, since I had a lot of leftover katsa, I had my friend's mom make these drawstring bags for my daughter's guests for her small playdate party in the afternoon. I got the idea as well from The Loot Fairy. I decorated it using my leftover transfer sheets. For the drawstrings, I used green and red grosgrain ribbons:

Soccer themed bags for the boys
And Strawberry Shortcake ones for the girls

All filled up with goodies!

All in all I think I spent more or less Php 1000 and that was already for 10 aprons (I had one extra made in case I make a mistake with the iron transfers) plus 11 drawstrings bags. Not bad eh?





10 comments:

  1. this is a really a creative idea for kiddie birthday parties :D

    thanks for visiting my blog!

    www.streetsmartgirl.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. you just gave me an idea. just today, i'm thinking where i can buy apron for my son, hilig kasi ipahid sa damit yung kamay niya pag nag artwork.

    you're so creative. i'm pretty sure your daughter and her classmate enjoyed her birthday celebration. =)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank streetsmartgirl!

    Michi, thank you! try making it for your son. My daughter still uses hers until now whenever she pretends to cook.

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  4. I like the apron a lot. So cute of that Strawberry Shortcake design! :D

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  5. soooooper cute! ang galing galing mo mars. belib talaga ako sayo. :)

    they are perfect. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good ideas sis! Hope you post more DIY projects. =)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks the average jane! i have a lot of DIY projects. Just trying to find time to upload them :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Cute idea and party! Great blog; happy I found you!

    personalised aprons

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  9. so creative!! I have been planning to have a business using katsa like making bags, pillow case, and all. I make designs as well but my problem is on the printing. I tried asking from printing shops, usually they provide narin the katsa bag and so the cost is much higher. No idea ako on the printing..your ideas would be much appreciated. =)

    ReplyDelete
  10. can you use any kind of printer for the iron transfer sheet?

    ReplyDelete

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