I'm turning Japanese, I really think so!

Adara has decided to take off and leave me all alone (well not quite alone lol)

She has gone to Japan for 2 weeks with school.

In her honour I have decided that this weeks PR&P project will be dedicated to JAPAN and all things Japanese.

This weeks theme was the "white sheet challenge"

I totally loved this one!!!!!

I used a King Size sheet from Kmart 225 thread count

I started off by making a top and pants

The pants are double layered with the top of the sheet as the cuff.

The top has kimono style sleeves and ties at the back.

Bianca quite liked it but was happy to take it off and I was thinking great another outfit to sit on her bedroom floor. You know how it is nice but nothing to write home about.

Then I thought lets try dip dying

I did the right thing and googled heaps, then went out and got my dye :)

I wanted the outfit to still be predominately white so I used this tutorial

but I only did one dipping at full strength and I boiled the water.

It still looked a little plain to me so I grabbed some of the extra fabric and tried a couple of other dying techniques.

1. Rubber bands

2. knots

I then cut it up and made Kanzanshi Flowers

Here is the closest tutorial I could find to how I do them

I learnt at a craft show.

The only difference is I use squares and trim off the extra on the bottom before sewing them together

(maybe I will do my own tut at some point)

I made them in 4 different sizes

1 inch squares

2 inch square

2 1/2 inch squares 

3 inch squares

I used an iron for the 1 inch squares as they were quite fiddly.

I then played around with how to place them I even let Bianca have a say (isn't that thoughtful of me)

We then had another photo shoot with a new hair style

a chop stick bun

Tutorial here

After this shoot I couldn't get her to take it off :D YAY

She is off to Dinner Friday night with Nanny for Yum Cha and has decided she is wearing it and thinks with the right skirt and shoes it will also be worn to church on Sunday.

Now then the right shoes

I had quite a bit of sheet left (remember it was King size) so I thought shoes, well slippers (needs to be traditional) but I just didn't have time to work it out so I bought her a new pair of white thongs (US-translation FlipFlops) and started making more Kanzanshi flowers from the left over tie dyed white sheet.

Wow did this turn out to be harder than I thought.

First up I broke 3 needles putting the flowers together.

Then we glued them on and went for another photo shoot.

We have a Japanese garden about 1/2 hour from our place, couldn't think of a better backdrop, but the flowers fell off the thongs, and I didn't have anything to stick them back on with (learnt my lesson should always carry a hot glue gun lol)

Jack and David came for the drive (so did Anthony but he didn't want his photo taken)

We did the shoot anyway - hence the awesome photos for the sew along.

When we got home I re-glued them but I glued the back as well (can't really explain but they stay on now)

That of course meant another photo shoot. Bianca may never want to see another camera again.

So that's it. I really love this outfit and I'm really proud of my work.

Now on to next week. I think I better use the boys as models next week, which works out great seeing as its "boy week"

p.s. I thought I would add one more shot to show the play ability of this outfit, it also shows Bi being more like Bi

:)