Crafting by not a very crafty mum - Christmas vests

A recurrent problem parents with older children have is, "Oh no, school want them to come in costume tomorrow!"

I thought we would be spared this for a few years, but no...Little E's nursery were having a Christmas party and the children were allowed to come in their favourite costume. Nursery kept reassuring us that they could dress Little E up if we didn't have anything...

Isn't it amazing, that you want to be laid back about these things, but that little voice inside your head starts saying, "What kind if mother are you? Your child doesn't even have a Christmas outfit for nursery!"

I did have some outfits for Little E, but they were for Christmas Day and there was a good chance anything he would wear at nursery would be filthy by the end of the day.

There are so many places to buy cute, cheap, festive outfits now, but I can't help feeling it is a waste of money for something that is probably going to be worn once.

So...I did this last minute.

I'd seen the phrase on serveral Christmas outfits for kids and stole it for my purposes!

Nursery were really lovely about the top. They had a face painter who then decorated him like a little Christmas pudding! I got lots of other positive comments from friends, which is always nice for me.

I think it goes to show how infrequently we make our own things now, which is a shame. I wonder, is it due to embarrassment? Are we worried our kids will be teased for their parents' shabby efforts? Luckily, Little E is too young to worry about this yet, but we shall certainly see what the future brings.

Until then, I will enjoy making him these simple things. I look back at my childhood and I did so much drawing and painting, until I hit my exams and I just didn't feel I had time for it anymore. I'm glad I can reclaim some of this back.

So...I made another one!

My learning points:

1) Place the design as high as possible. The writing on the Christmas pudding one tends to disappear under the waistband.

2) Fabric pens are definitely so much easier than the paint and gel pens I have used before, but still very tricky to write anything.

3) I tried to use an embroidery ring to tighten the fabric across and make it easier to draw, but I found pulling the vest over a cereal box easier.

I used these pens: 

And have a few more ideas for other vests. Needs to be something very simple that I can actually draw!