Why Hello

It has been almost ONE MONTH since I blogged.  Let me just tell you that I didn't plan that.  IN fact I have at LEAST 3 blogs that I took pictures for and never posted.  Ever since we moved we have had major problems with our internet.  I would get to the end of my blog and hit the publish post button and the internet would stop working and I would lose it.  It was very frustrating, not to mention a big fat waste of time to sit around and write a post to not have to save or publish.  BUT we think we have got it all squared away now.  My problem now is getting back into the habit of posting.  It's not that I do not have projects going on.  I have had many finished projects.  Those I have pictures of I will slowly start to post.  My project for today is an ear warmer.

I made this for my sister using an old Old Navy sweater.  I cut it up and sewed it together to make the ear warmer part.  Then I put two buttons on it which are a pretty pale yellow ( LOVE yellow and grey together ) and then made a crochet grey flower.  I LOVE how it turned out.  She walks daily with her best friend Liz and so I made them both ear warmer's for Christmas.  Hopefully they enjoy them and use them on their walks to keep those ears warm.

Now here's hoping I can get some more stuff up.  My parents and sister and her baby are coming tomorrow and will be here until Tuesday so I am hoping that maybe I can get a bunch of stuff posted today and scheduled for them to post through out the weekend.  Crossing my fingers!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

I LOVE it!

Do you ever see something in the store and think, "I know EXACTLY what I want to do with that"? I found a tank top in the dollar section at Target for $2.50 ( you know how they always have some $2.50 stuff in there too ) I picked it up and knew instantly what I wanted to do with it. Here is the tank top.

Cute right?  I am liking the fake necklace shirts that are going around right now.  In fact, I have another one to post but I'll wait until tomorrow.  I wanted to turn this one into a dress for Kayla.  I just thought it would be so cute.  I am happy to report that the vision in my head turned out great in person too!  I have had this project half done for about two weeks now.  It has been KILLING me to not have it finished because I just thought it was so cute and needed to be done and worn.

So here is what I did to it.  I took one of Kayla's dresses and put it up to the tank top and decided where I wanted to cut it off at.  I also needed to figure out how long the arm holes needed to be. This tank top was intended for 8 to 10 year olds or something like that so she needed them to be shortened for her.  I cut off the top of the tank top.

You will notice that I also cut a triangle out of the center.  The reason I did that was so her neck had some room.  With how much I had to cut off of the top, there was no room for her neck.  I wasn't sure how much I liked the openness of the back though so I took some lace and pinned it in placed and sewed it down.

Once that was sewn down I took the tops of the shirt, pinned them and sewed them together to make it a shirt again.

After this was the hard part for me.  I was trying to figure out which fabric to use on the bottom as the ruffle.  I eventually went with an old knit grey shirt I bought when I was pregnant with Tyler.  Yeah it's that old and I never where it any more.  It was in my "discard" pile of clothes that I can repurpose.  I made two ruffles.  I long one and a short one.  The where almost twice and wide as the skirt.  So I pinned them in placed with ruffles.  Oh but before I did this, I zig zagged the bottom of the ruffles while stretching the fabric to make the bottom of the ruffle flair out more.  Want to see the finished project?  I thought you'd never ask...

I was hoping it was going to be as cute on HER as it was on the hanger.  And guess what?  IT WAS

Seriously in love with this!  I can't wait to put it on her when we are actually leaving the house.  :)

Fixed Dress

Kayla had this dress that I got at a thrift  store for 2 dollars.

Isn't it so cute?  I LOVED it.  It still fits  her perfectly fine except the arms were too tight.  The last time she wore it I couldn't hardly get it off.  I didn't want to give it away.  I mean it still fit her fine every where else.  I went ahead and cut the sleeves off completely.  I tucked under the raw edge and sewed it down.  Then I took some lace and sewed that down for a new sleeve.  It turned out SO cute and it was SO simple!

I tried to take a picture of Kayla wearing the dress but this was the best I could get.

So what can you do this too?  Warm weather is on it's way and I am getting the urge to do this to a couple more shirts.  We shall see

Repurposing Week: Day 7 Skirt to Apron

Sorry it has taken me an extra day or so to do this.  Posting everyday is too much for me with kids at home.   I  FINALLY finished the project I started a LOOOOOOONG time ago.  It is so simple any one can do it and make it look good.  Go find a skirt and cut it in half.  Yup, cut it in half and turn both halves into an apron.  I found this skirt at the church rummage sale ( which means I got it for free ).  It was a size 16 and it was soooooooo short!  I couldn't even imagine seeing someone who wears a size 16 wearing something this short.  I like to think of it as stopping this skirt from being worn.  haha  So here is what we ended up with

Cute right?  I just took some ribbon and sewed it around the sides to finish it off.  Then I used some black fabric to make the ties. The left over I used to make a big bow.

OS go find a skirt and cut it in half and make an apron.  : )

Repurposing Week: Day 6 Shirt

I have an OLD shirt that I love!  But it was white and the arm pits are so yellow now that I can't even wear it out of the house.  I mean, I have had the shirt for like 4 years but still....I have a hard time getting rid of clothes.  There were a couple of things about the shirt I just loved.  One thing I didn't like was that the sleeves were a little too small.  Once I had worn the shirt for a couple of hours they would stretch out and then my undergarments would show.  I decided to recycle my shirt.  However, I didn't want to completely get rid of it so I decided to just completely re-make it.  How you may ask?  Well, I have a bunch of white REALLY nice cotton shirts from my mother in law that she gave me a while ago but they are all huge on me.  I have done a couple of things with them.  I made the beanie from the beginning of the week.  Usually I just slept in them.  I decided I would turn one of these shirts into my old shirt.  This is the old shirt

See how nasty the pits are?  they look worse in person, trust me.  Gross I know.  I had a picture of the plain white shirt I am using but my memory card wasn't in my camera when I took it.  DOH!  Don't you just hate that?  Please tell me I am not the only one who does that?

Any ways.  Like I said I took some pictures but my memory card wasn't in my camera so I have to just tell you what I did for a while until I can update you with a picture.  I took the old shirt and laid it on top of the new shirt.  I cut the new shirt to match the old shirt.  I cut the sides up and I cut the sleeves off ( the new shirts sleeves are big so this helps me alter them if I cut them off and resew them on. )  I cut all the way up to the shoulders and then left the shirt sewn at the top.  I then too the old shirt and cut the lace off from the middle.  I wanted to transfer it to the new shirt.  I then pinned it down and sewed it to my new shirt in the exact same spot.  Next comes the fun part!  The thing I LOVE about this shirt is the tie around the middle that makes it umpire wasted.  I LOVE umpire wasted stuff.  Makes your boobs look big and your waste look smaller if done right.  What's not to like about that?!

This can be done to ANY shirt that is too big around for you.  A big t-shirt for example.  Turn the shirt wrong side out and figure out where you want the tie to go.  I use the sides of the shirt I cut off and cut strips long enough for the sides.  I pinned it down.  AFTER I pinned it down I realized that I don't want to sew this down without putting in ties themselves.  Since I am using an old shirt I didn't have to find something. If you are making it from scratch you can do a number of things.  You can use shoe laces, lace, ribbon or you can make your own.  Making your own would be a pain but it can be done.  Pin that down then pin the strips on top like this

Here is a close up of what it looks like ( but this is before I realized I needed to put the strings in first.  )

Now sew down both sides of each.  Notice I didn't do the center of the shirt because I have the lace embellishment there.  If you are doing this on a new shirt, you can leave the center free or do it all the way across.  Be careful NOT to sew the lace down to the fabric.  You want it to be free inside the casing you are making.  Once those sides are done, I did the same thing to the back of the shirt. This time it was a continuous strip all the way along the back.

Once you have that done you are ready to sew the shirt back together along the sides.  DO NOT SEW ACROSS THE MIDDLE WHERE YOU PUT YOUR NEW STRINGS.  Make sure it looks like the picture here

I would sew JUST to where the strips started.  Remember we are using a stretch cotton so it will not ravel if you leave the end unsewn.  If you are using a fabric, you are going to want to use fray check or sew a little border there before you sew the sides together.

Once I did the sides, I went ahead and added the sleeves back on.  If you have never done this before it's actually pretty easy. Check out the blog Make It and Love It   She does shirt refashions all the time and gives you step by step instructions on how to do it.

Now you have a shirt!!!   Check out how much longer the sleeves are!  No worries about under clothes showing now.

I was pleased with the results.  THEN I decided to take it one step further. I have SO many white shirts.  I love them. There is just something about a plain white shirt that I LOVE.  I decided to dye this one though.  I had bought a yellow dye forever ago and then never used it.  I thought about using just half of the box of dye and after seeing how yellow it made my stuff I wish I had just used half. This is a little TOO yellow for me but that's okay.

Sorry for the crappy pictures.  It was night time and my house was dark.  If I wasn't lazy I could have gotten out my tripod and set it up and taken a better one but I AM lazy!  haha  I had my ISO bumped up way too high and that's why the picture is so grainy.  I also look really lumpy because I forgot to pull down the tank top I had underneath my shirt when I put the new one on.  Oh well....

The other thing I love about my new shirt is how high up in is on my chest.  The old one would show a little too much.  Especially when bending over and once it got stretched out.

Hopefully you guys found this post useful.  Get a big shirt and make it over.  It is really easy.  This took me about an hour or two.  It's hard to say because I was doing it when the kids were up and so it was off and on for the whole day pretty much.

I have one more make over for you.  I know this one was a day late because I was too tired last night to do it.  So my last one might have to wait until tomorrow.  We shall see how every one is doing later today.  I have two different things that are half done to post and I just have to decide which one to finish and post!

Happy Sunday.

Re-purposing Week: Day 5 ACU Purse

What the heck is an ACU?  Well if you are a military family or live in a military town you probably know the answer.  It's part of their clothes.  I am telling you that military wives usually go crazy for stuff made out of these.  Partly because they have special meaning, especially if they use one their husband actually wore while overseas.  Another reason is because it is more attractive looking then the normal camouflage.  I took a picture of what one looks like.  I only had a top that my friend gave me.  She said she knew I could do something with it and I FINALLY got around to it.  I am pretty sure she gave it to me like 6 to 8 months ago.

These have SO many pockets and since I needed a lot of material I pick all of them off.  This took forever.

Next I figured out how big I wanted my purse to be and I examined the all of the pieces I had to see where I needed to cut.  After much going back and forth I got everything figured out and started sewing. I was doing a tutorial but then it got complicated and I stopped.  I LOVE how this purse came out though and so I plan on making myself one soon and I will do a tutorial with that one.  Here is the finished product

It;s got two side bottle pockets.

It's got two pockets on the back with lift up flaps to keep the stuff in them.

One big pocket inside the purse

and the strap is double sided.  I love it because it is not really big but it is big enough for any mom on the go.

Seriously LOVE it!

Repurposing Fool

I have turned into a repurposing fool this week!  I had so many things I wanted to do for projects and it turned into too many to just post one a day.  I wish I had enough time to finish and post things every day like this but it has been a struggle just to get a post up everyday for the last week and a half.  Fun, but a struggle.

I took a shirt that I got for free from a church rummage sale ( seriously I SCORED at that rummage sale! )  I LOVED the color and print but the shirt itself fit weird.  Especially on me who is not skinny any more.  Here is the shirt

Notice the band along the bottom?  Not flattery to someone with a belly.  I would wear it around the house but I would usually end up taking if off because it looked awful.  Finally I decided it was too cute to just be sitting around.  I wanted to make something for my daughter Kayla.  I grabbed one of her shirts the other day and laid it on top of this shirt to get an idea of where to cut.

I cut my shirt up to the arm pits.  Then I cut along the top.  This is striped so it was easy to cut straight.  I wanted to shire the top of this.  If you have not heard of this or have any clue what I am talking about it is cool.  YOu buy elastic thread and wind it around your bobbin.  Then you put regular thread up top and bump the tension on your machine as high as it goes.  Then you start sewing.  Again it was easy because I just followed the pattern of the shirt.   I read some where to leave really big strings after and before each line.  Then you go through and tie knots after you are done and this prevents it from coming apart.  I have a dress from Walmart that has shirring on the top and the dumb thing is coming all apart.  Apparently it wasn't made very well.  What do you except from walmart though right?!

Any ways.  I got a couple of rows done, tie it all down and then you spray it with water and apply steam from your iron.  Watch it shrink up even more.  It's kinda fun!  Oh and I forgot to tell you, I sewed the sides together BEFORE I shirred the dress/top.  I took some extra fabric to make straps and a little bow.  Check out how cute it looks.

And here it is in action...

I am debating on making two changes.  What do y'all think?

1.) I am thinking about taking the bow off of the front and putting it on the back where the straps come together

OR

2.) I am thinking about taking the straps off completely and making sleeves. I have my sleeves left over still and I can easily make them into her size and sew them on the shirt.

Not sure yet but I will most likely do one or the other.  Right now the bow kinda gets lost in her arm pit. Let me tell you how much she loved this though.  It is so sad to me when I make her something and she won't wear it or tries to rip it off. This she was all excited about and even let me put a hair clip in her hair and left it in all day.  She was HAPPY and that makes me HAPPY.  This project cost nothing unless you include the elastic thread that I already had.  And THAT makes me ecstatic!

Can't wait to show you what I have for tomorrow.  Come back and check it out.

Adding to some parties check them out