V-Day: The All Well Box Top and The Indie Dress Pattern

For a good period of time I really disliked Valentine’s Day. I’ve worked in retail since I was legally able to and I love every part of it: the stocking, the merchandising, changing the mannequins and best of all talking to the people. But, there was one specific day a year that I loathed. You guessed it…Valentine’s Day. Maybe it was the poor choices in men I made before my husband, or maybe it was just the *weird* change room situations I would find myself in during that specific day, either way the reality was that I just didn’t like this day. It wasn’t common knowledge, it’s not something I would go around screaming from the rooftops, but it was definitely there. 

Fast forward to meeting my husband, and he has spent each Valentine’s Day proving to me that it’s not all that bad. Not to mention, he is American and it's just a bigger holiday here than in Australia. So, I’ve slowly warmed to it and during that warming process I’ve realised that I wasn’t enjoying the “traditional” view of Valentine’s day. The notion of ‘make this one night special, with your special person, more than any other night in the year.’ Then when I had kids I finally landed on the idea that Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate love to those around you. Be kind, smile and just share that positivity. So this year my sweet daughter and I decided to make twin outfits and I also snuck in one more dress since it was screaming to be made for the day.  

For Aurora’s outfit I made her the Indie Dress from Bebekins Patterns in this strawberry fabric from Harmony Provo. For my matching top I used the All Well Box Top pattern with the ruffle hack from All Well Workshop. For my dress I bought this amazing fabric from Fabricmart and used the All Well Box Top again, but this time with the dress hack. I also made one more backup top for myself using fabric I picked up from B&J Fabrics in NYC. I used the Anthea Blouse pattern from Anna Allen Clothing and added a flounce to both sleeves. 

We ended up running a giveaway to showcase our makes and spread the love. To enter, people wrote the sweetest things to the people they loved. It was truly the loveliest thing to see and I hope we can keep celebrating this day like that moving forward.