My Tie Troubles.

So my brother is getting married on the 28th and Ike and I wanted to get Jackson a new white shirt and tie to wear to the wedding. The color we were going for was something in the maroon family. We thought that because it was Christmas time we would be able to find something right??? WRONG!!!! After hours ( and I do mean hooooouuuurrrsss) of shopping we found nothing in his size and especially nothing with a tie included. Lots of sweater vests and blue/black/grey/yellow/red shirts but no white shirts with ties! I did not want to spend $25 dollars on a little suit with a colored shirt when we wanted to use this for his church shirt too. So after re-bleaching his old white shirt for the millionth time I decided I would just have to make him a tie. I found a great tutorial here(http://helpinglittlehands.blogspot.com/2009/10/make-your-own-baby-ties-with-optional.html). When Ike and I first got married I went through his ties and separated some into an "unwearable" pile. These were ties that I felt were too stained, old, frayed or just too ugly to wear to church or work. I dug through the ties and found two that I thought would be salvageable. My first attempt produced this yellow tie:

Not bad for a first try right?


I liked this tutorial because the tie is actually in two pieces. The neck strap and the tie itself. You can adjust the length just like an adult tie depending on how you tie it.


Instead of using elastic like the tutorial shows, I did Velcro for my neck strap.

Overall I was pleased with the yellow tie but not completely satisfied. I did not like how narrow the tie is (in the tutorial you use the narrow end of the tie) so I decided to make another with a few changes. I picked a tie that was a little more narrow and I took it in a little more to make it even skinnier. Then I did the same steps but I used the regular end of the tie instead of the narrow end and I think the results are much better! I tied the tie a little long so I will need to go back and retie it a little shorter.






I think I would be fine if Jackson wore either of these ties to church and the silver one should work for my brother's wedding. I saw some toddler ties on amazon but they wanted around $22 for one tie. I made both of these for $0.00. CAN I GET AN AMEN?!!?! So yea, I feel pretty good about Jackson's tie situation now.