Re-purposing

I have always been a re-purposer. We grew up in thrift stores. When I say grew up in them I mean we would plan on going to thrift stores on our weekends and LOVE to do so. We enjoyed finding treasures, cool 60's stuff and OWLS of course. The owls came a little later though. Any ways. Sometimes I see an item and think, I want to make something out of this material. Other times I have a specific project in mind. Recently I was going through Kayla's old baby clothes which mainly consisted of hand-me-downs from her cousin or my friend Sarah who just started a blog called SUGAR BANANAS. Check it out for yummy recipes and creating goodness. One of the outfits she had handed down was really cute. I picked it up and noticed it had Tylenol spilled on it and it had been there unwashed, just soaking in for months! BOOOOOOOOOOOOO I was gonna throw it away when it occured to me, "Hey I could use everything ON this to create something else." And that is what I did.

First things first, here is a picture of the outfit before I destroyed it.



I ripped the ruffles off, the pocket, the bows and cut the patches off to get this.



Those ruffles were too cute to pass up! I took a white sheet I had bought at Walmart on sale for 4 bucks and made a tub. Then I used the ruffles as sleeves. I had extra sleeve left over so I made an extra pocket and attached the patches. I still have a little extra ruffle I am still trying to decide what to do with. I was thinking some hair clips to go with the outfit. What do you think?





She wore it the other day when Daddy came home and took us shopping. She wore pink leggings underneath it and everyone kept telling me how cute she was. I love when you hear strangers talking about your kids and how cute they are. "I over heard one woman telling her friend,"Oh my gosh, look at her little outfit!" haha Any ways. I didn't get a picture of it on her so here's hoping the mac and cheese she spilled on it at lunch comes out and I can take some pictures of her actually wearing.

The purpose for this post is, before throwing or giving any clothes away study them for a second and think, "Can I reuse this in a way that will be useful?" This was stained and I was gonna throw it away because no one would have wanted it. Therefore, anything I did to this would have been a plus. Just keep that in mind when looking at thrift stores or getting ready to get rid of your kids ( or your clothes ) I have some shirts of mine I was gonna cut up to use for material that I recently fixed and I am so happy I didn't cut them up yet! I will share those soon too. So happy re-purposing!!



Check out the other "green" projects from others at Sew Much Ado