alex's sequined birthday top and bulldog's bowtie

alex just had her 5th birthday party, the beach blanket birthday. the colors were blue and orange and white and her outfit was inspired by mermaids. no, i didn't give her a tail or anything. the barrettes are some of the woven '80s style barrettes embellished with sequins and starfish. the skirt is a two-tone green pettiskirt to imitate the colors of a mermaid tail and she had green sparkly tights that you can't see in these photos. i found some sequined fabric that matched her party perfectly and decided to make her top with this showstopping fabric. the fabric has some stretch to it - it's basically swimsuit material with sequins all over it (dance costume fabric.) i am no good at sewing fabrics with stretch - i think i need to take a class on that or something. because i know i am not very talented at sewing with stretch i kept the design simple by appliqueing an orange straight across the chest area and keeping it a simple long sleeve shirt. the only part that i had a problem with was the neck, it came out all stretched and wonky. it didn't look that horrible though and i added some binding to the neck line so the sequins wouldn't scratch her neck. that added binding did make it difficult to pull the top over her head, but we managed. the pictures don't really do the sequins justice, she was practically blinding in all that shine. i had leftover fabric so we decided that bulldog needed a special birthday collar for the party. yes, she named her bulldog stuffed dog, bulldog. we ended up adding a bow to the collar making it a bowtie (even though it looked better when the bow was in the back and not under his chin.) alex's outfit was a bit over the top, but she really liked it and that's what was important.