It is so much fun to dress up baby in adorable, funky baby clothes, the trouble is that often you spend baby's entire wardrobe budget on one outfit! Shopping at thrift stores is hit or miss for the really hip baby clothes. With a little craftiness, you can turn baby's boring onesie into a trendy shirt, or you can go crazy with a sewing machine and make your own funky baby clothes!
There are lots of websites that provide guidance, ideas, and patterns to help you make your own hip baby clothing. The easiest thing to do is get a few plain white onesies and dye them a new color, or tie dye them. Then you could get more crafty and use some freezer paper and paint to make a simple (or complicated) stencil. If you have older children, the freezer paper stencil is a great way to alter and turn their artwork into something they can wear! You can also find special printer paper that turns whatever you print out onto it into an iron on image. I've found that the color is never what I want it to be, but I don't have the latest and greatest computer, and it would be great if it were just black and white though.
If you want a slightly more challenging project for your funky baby clothes, you can do some Applique. This can be done with a machine or by hand (I prefer hand sewing for applique) and is just sewing shapes onto the shirt or pants after ironing them on with a fusable web fabric. If that's too hard you can do iron on applique, which you can find pre-made at craft stores and just cut out and iron on.
After you master the art of stenciling and applique, you might find yourself brave enough to try some actual sewing. One of the easiest trendy baby sewing projects is pants. Made-By-Rae has a great pattern for babies' pants that are nice and roomy in the tush area for diapered bottoms. Her free pattern has options for different cuffs, or ruffles on the rear. There is also a pants pattern on Etsy that is adorable with pockets. Both patterns would pair nicely with that Onesie or T-shirt you just made. A super trendy outfit of funky baby clothes for your hip baby made by you!
Once you are ready to graduate from pants and painting, you can expand your hip baby clothing wardrobe with tops, dresses and skirts. There are lots of simple patterns for tops or dresses that you can change the length of to suit your idea of its purpose. Tops with sleeves are harder, but if you make a sleeveless dress you can use it in warmer months alone, then add a onesie underneath in cooler months for a trendy baby outfit.
There are so many adorable skirt patterns out there for funky baby clothes -- twirly skirts are really popular with little girls, as are pettiskirts, and they are great for photographs too. They are really easy to make, and if you make them a little longer, with a nice stretchy waistband, they can be worn by the same baby into toddlerhood and possibly longer!
Once you have feel like you have a good grasp on the basic sewing skills, you can try some really adorable, super funky, totally hip baby clothes, and you'll be so proud your baby is wearing something you made yourself, and happy you saved some money in the process!