Strawberry Shortcake Ball Gown

My daughter is STILL on the Strawberry Shortcake kick, so for her fourth birthday she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake "theme"... again.  But this time she wanted all of her friends, too.  OK.  No problem.  And, just because I wanted to, I made her a Strawberry Shortcake ball gown - copied from the Glimmerberry Ball movie.

 I am pretty happy with the results and I think she likes it, too!  I used the more expensive satin from Walmart and it was worth it!  It was so much easier than the cheap stuff I used on the Pinkalicious dress.

The bodice was patterned after a tank top that fits her well and it has velcro in the back since I didn't have any zippers on hand.  Under the arms I used single fold bias tape and used that for the straps, too.

The bottom is a circle skirt with sparkly tulle overlays - I just cut the waist circles off center and graduated the sizes for the layers on the dress I was replicating.

Oh- my biggest cheater factor is that I melted the edges of the skirt with a lighter instead of sewing a hem- I hate hemming on a curve, especially with satin!

The headband is made from an old Tshirt and leftover satin scraps.  I have been waiting weeks to get this post up because I didn't have that strawberry on the front or the headband done in time for her party.

Now, back to the Strawberry Shortcake & Friends party.  I didn't flinch a bit when she asked for that because I had already bought her a set of dolls on clearance at Target after Christmas to save for her birthday and figured I could stick 'em on some cupcakes!

Lots of sprinkles (clearance from Valentines Day at Target) and some strawberry gummies and we were set!

BUT, because I was so ambitious, I actually made strawberry shortcake, blueberry muffins, lemon meringue pie (my first time!), and "plum pudding."

Actually, that was just dirt pudding with the pudding part dyed purple!

OK!  I finally blogged about the last birthday in time to get ready for the next one!  Grace will be one year old on Sunday!  It makes me all sappy and sentimental...