Back to School Tour: Made of Starlite x Raspberry Creek Fabrics

Thank you so much for joining us on our 2022 Back to School blog tour! We hope you found some inspiration to make this handmade school year the most uniquely you. 😄 We are closing out the tour with these library ready looks from Jenny at Made of Starlite, sponsored by the Designer Studios at Raspberry Creek Fabrics! All custom printing is 30% off for Labor Day weekend, which is a great deal!! Use the code CUSTOMLABORDAY and get allllllll the best prints, on alllllllll the best bases. 😎😍😄

Hi everyone! Here's what I put together for this year's Back to School Tour! I was soooooo excited to work with Raspberry Creek Fabrics, and try out their *new* Designer Studio! I'm amazed at all the fantastic designs available from independant designers, as well as every. single. CLUB print. Raspberry Creek has ever sold in their exclusive design library! 😲😲😲😲 It's like Spoonflower, but with the quality and fantastic customer service we all love from Raspberry Creek! Talk about too many great choices! So I whittled down my wish list to a small (50 print) collection, and let my kids scroll through them and choose their favorites. Didn't they choose well??

Since I didn't have a strong vision for these looks, and the fabrics didn't coordinate, I went ahead and let them choose their favorite PRP patterns to use with the fabric, resulting in completely kid designed looks for the two most opinionated fashionistas in my house! 😄😜 

Audrey touched on this at the beginning of the tour, and let me reinforce that letting your kid design their wardrobe does NOT have to mean neon rainbow unicorn tops and green checkerboard leggings! I always curate a selection of fabrics, paying attention to include shades of their favorite colors and designs that include current interests (like unicorns), and let them choose from those more limited options. The fastest route to neon unicorns is to just take your kid to JoAnns and let them run wild. Ask me how I know.  😄🙈 When they are choosing the pattern, discuss what clothes they already love to wear, features that they like on clothes they already have, and any sensory issues you've noticed in the past. That should help you narrow things down a lot, and give you a good place to start as you sort through pattern shops, looking for the perfect pattern! I'll walk you through two examples of this process by breaking down what my kids settled on!

This girl is OBSESSED with animals! Too bad for her, her mamma is super allergic to fur... and the idea of animals in the house. 😜😝 When you search the Designer Studios at Raspberry Creek, you can narrow down the thousands of designs by searching key words or colors. I searched "Animals", and we both fell in love with this collection from Carrie Cantwell called "Quirky Cats". We printed the Purrfect Portraits on rayon, and the Cat Eyes on 8x3 rib, which is just as fabulous a fabric as everyone says it is! Initially, she was hoping to color in some of the cats on the jumper with fabric markers after the photoshoot, but she loved the neutral look so much (and got so many compliments from the librarians!) that she decided to leave them as is. It's so fun to see her taste mature and change over the years!

She has been on an overall and dress kick lately, probably because I've been wearing more dresses lately, so she picked out the D'anjou Dress from the Project Farmer's Market pattern collection as the main piece. We both love the cute little patch pockets and the super full double skirt! It's extra twirly, just like she likes it, and the rayon gives it a really nice, soft look. I probably should have stabilized the bodice, or at least lined it with something more sturdy, as the weight of the skirt does pull on the waist seam. Lessons learned I suppose! 

Of course, with super girly dresses, you must always include the perfect trim! I put just a touch of cotton lace around the top of the bodice, and then we found this tan and cream striped, cotton eyelet lace that was the exact same cream color as the rayon print, so we added to the underskirt for that little something extra. I also lined the patch pockets in pink, just a little nod to the coordinating tee! And will definitely match others in her wardrobe, since pink is one of her 6 favorite colors. 😏 Along with purple, aqua, regular blue, mint and rainbow. Not in any particular order.

For the top under the jumper, we used the Odeline Dress, hacked for knits! We both really liked the yoke top, puff sleeve, and flowey fit. For the hack, I took one inch of the center back yoke and cut in on the fold. Followed the rest of the pattern exactly as written, including choosing the same size I would have if I were using a woven fabric. She is pretty willing to wear wovens, but definitely prefers knits. We liked that the cat eye print looked a little like polka dots (another favorite print of hers!) and then we realized that they could work especially well for Halloween! Super excited about that now. 😁😁

Dreams were realized when we found out that the library has a pet Guinea pig! Since we were the only kids there, she was able to feed it, fill it's water bottle, and cuddle it for 15 blissful minutes, all by her self! Brothers were busy building a fort with the blocks, so she didn't even have to compete with them to hold the lettuce. One of the many perks of homeschool! 😉

This little guy is pretty easy to please. As long as it's blue, we're pretty much good. I think it's hilarious that blue has been his favorite color almost since birth! All my other kids have a list of their favorite colors; not him. It's blue or nothing. Beyond that, he insists on no scratchy insides", which means elastic waistbands on pants and knit fabrics for tops. Not too tall an order! We just threw a pair of Target shorts on for these pictures, since I didn't have enough fabric for a full coordinating set with the letter print. Guess I'll be placing another order for that soon!

He picked this ABC Letters print by Sunbow Studios "because it has letters, and I know what those are". 😂 I love seeing that light go on and watching my kids fall in love with reading! Along with sewing and music, reading is one of my favorite hobbies. I'm so glad my kids have picked up on it too! We managed to get out of the library with only 6 books this morning. As opposed to Monday's 43. 🙈 We got it printed on the Sweatshirt fleece, but didn't get *quite enough* for the whole hood AND long sleeves (which he insisted on) so luckily I found red rib knit in my stash that actually was a perfect match!

He is currently into "shirts with a hat", also known as hoodies, so the Chromium Cropped Hoodie was a no-brainer. The pattern doesn't call for it, but I usually line the hood, both for aesthetics and for a fun pop of color! I also went ahead and did the bottom band in the red rib too, since the sweatshirt fleece only has about 30% stretch.

Thanks for checking out my looks, and make sure you check out all the fantastic designers in the Designer Studios! 

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