Copycats, That's Us!

One of us here at Crafterhours is totally stoked about being able to judge Spring Top Week '11. And we're both looking forward to Skirt Week. Neither of us was expecting to be asked to judge the Copycat Challenge over at Sew Much Ado, but we're totally happy to hop to it. We're at the ready. And in order to warm up for it, we decided to do a little copycatting ourselves.

Adrianna found this lovely number at Oilily and there was a sudden fire under her... bottom... to do it. And since the Crafterhours Reunion was taking place, it was the perfect opportunity to craft together. We couldn't start until we had debated the most appropriate spelling of "gipsy". We decided we preferred "gypsy". Not that it mattered, because rather than totally copycat we used this as a point of inspiration.

Because we had four kids four and under, we had to pack the crafting in where we could. And that includes taking our craftiness out on girls' night at a local restaurant. If anyone looked at us funny, we didn't notice. We were too busy enjoying adult beverages, dinner without sippy cups or spaghetti-os, and crafty girly chatty fun. And brownie lollipops for dessert. (Okay, I think I did notice some annoyance on the part of the servers when they weren't sure where to put our food for lack of available surface area on the table. Next time we'll ask for the larger table in the corner.)

If you haven't tried Crayola Fabric markers, we say they're worth a go. They don't have a fantastic variety, it's similar to the original 8 colors, but they're certainly affordable. We supplemented with some others to expand the range a bit. With just those and some blank tees, it's a very portable project. The inspiration piece appears to include stitching... but we weren't that ambitious. The only caution for the Crayola markers is that they look so much like the regular more washable versions... definitely some to keep out of view of little ones if you're not ready for them to be applied to clothes/walls/furniture that don't need sprucing up. And they work nicely as drink stirrers, too.

Susan's shirt says "All the happy in the whole wide world" and the ends of the sleeves each say "Happy" so that K can see them. This was the view from across the table, through the (empty) Cosmopolitan.

And here's a poorly lit photo of the 3/4-finished product. That's a theme for this post. Poor lighting. When crafterhours-ing, you take what you can get.

I feel obligated to include a photo of me with my hair down. Not only were my friends surprised at how long it was, I was surprised. I'm so regularly in hair-up-on-the-go-mom-mode, I seriously forgot how long it was. It was, quite literally, a night to let my hair down with good friends.

Speaking of good friends, here's Kyra! Her shirt is aaaadorable. And continues the theme of poor lighting. But she's cute in any lighting.

And the back...

That's two of the four shirts. Time for a snack break. Just in case you've never seen a brownie lollipop before, here it is. Peanut butter. Yum-O.

My good friend Sylvie also made a shirt for K, featuring K's fish, Rex and a disco ball. Fish like disco. The moment K saw it the next morning she put it on and wouldn't take it off for 48 hours straight until I told her she could not wear it for a third day. Here it is, after a washing. The colors have faded a bit, but it won't take much to touch it up.

And Adrianna's shirt for Z is most clearly inspired by the Oilily shirt (Adrianna's edit: Because drawing and being original are two of my biggest weaknesses.  I'm just proud to say I didn't actually trace over anything). She went with "Globe Trotter" on the front and a list of places Z has been or has scheduled to be in the coming year.  A compass rose on the shoulder ties it all together, and would be a pretty cool tattoo, come to think of it.

Happy moms. Happy kids. Happy copycats! 

P.S. Don't forget to check out the Copycat Challenge!