DIY || Turn your kid's art into fabric

I'm posting this early so if any of you want to try and do this you have plenty of time until Mother's/Father's Day. Little Miss A is wildly creative and very generous.  She loves making gifts for her grandparents especially. So, for every gift giving occasion, in this case it was Christmas, we put our thinking caps on to come up with a project that she can make for them.  

This is how this DIY was born- For some reason Little Miss A always draws my mom wearing a pineapple dress (she sure has style seeing as though pineapples are so 'in' currently).  She mentioned she wanted to give her grandma an actual physical dress with hand-drawn pineapples for Christmas.  At first, I thought the idea was too crazy, but then I thought of Spoonflower. Brilliant! Spoonflower is an online service that turns your designs into fabric (and now wallpaper and gift wrap! and no this post is not sponsored).   She painted those two cute drawings- yada yada, yada, yada.....and we made two beautiful dresses for the grandmas and some pocket squares for the grandpa and dad.  And aren't these grandmas going to be the chicest ladies in town??  Uhm, I think so!

So this is how we did it-

1 ||  Have your child paint a large drawing (we used an 8 x 11 1/2 piece of paper)

2 || Scan it.  You can probably upload it to Spoonflower directly at this point but I tweaked it a little in photoshop.  I selected the actual drawing and re-pasted it into a new canvas just to make sure the background was white.

3 || Upload the file into Spoonflower.  You must create and account and sign up if you have never used it.  Then, gounder the 'Create' tab and choose 'Custom Fabric'. 

4 || After your file is uploaded you will get a window like the one I have below with options as to how you want your design printed.  I chose a 'half-drop' repeat.  You can make your design smaller or bigger by hitting the appropriate button.  I had to hit 'smaller' quite a few times to get the scale right.  My pineapples/mermaids came out to be approx. 10 inches each to give you an idea.  Use the side rulers to figure out the scale you want.

5 ||  Then you choose the type of fabric you want.  I honestly can't remember what I chose but it is some kind of cotton.  For the purposes of this project it was perfect.  Make sure you read the description of each fabric so you know which one would be best for you.

6 || Then choose the quantity of yards you need!  I ordered 3 yards per fabric, out of which, I got a dress for grandma and a pocket square for grandpa and a bit of fabric leftover.

7 || Make sure you review all the settings before you hit 'Add to Cart'.  Then checkout!!

8 ||  Make the Dress.  I have no idea how to make a dress. So, I outsourced this part.  I grabbed one of my mom's very simple summer dresses and took into to a tailor and they just copied it. 

9 || Enjoy the smiles when your loved ones open their presents.  Of course we presented the dresses/pocket squares with the original painting!

 This DIY would be so cute for Mother's Day!!  A dress was ambitious, but you can make pillows, or fun cover-up for the beach....the possibilities are endless. 

It will be difficult for us to top this for Mother's Day.....what are we going to do??!!  Let me know if you have any suggestions.

[all photos by AC]