Give Clothes a New Life

 
We're starting the countdown to the end of school at our house.  We even got a message yesterday that my youngest 4 get out a day earlier than planned. Yeah!  Now if your kids are like my kids, their clothes are starting to look like it's the end of the school year.  I don't think Maddie has one pair of jeans that don't have holes in them.  The boys do, only because they grew and needed new pants a couple months ago.  Many shirts are stained and my kids are starting to look like little rag-a-muffins. :)  So a little DIY clothing rescue is in order.

First up:
Seriously stained shirts, even my awesome Stain Pretreater couldn't get these really set-in stains out.  At my children's school, Friday is "wear red day" so a red shirt is an absolute must (they get a prize if they wear red.)  So these shirts had to be salvaged.

This was the best picture, after several, without Billy looking like a dork. lol  They do like each other. :)

Billy's shirt was a simple fix.  I used iron on vinyl, very simple.  It was Silhouette vinyl, however I cut it out with my Cricut.  Iron it on and I'm the coolest mom because he now has an "infected" shirt (a version of play on "Halo" that uses that symbol.)

For Chole's shirt, I did a reverse applique, my first time ever.  It was fun!  I found this great tutorial from Sweet Verbena.  The shirt had a few more stains that the applique didn't cover so I added a few circles of the same material just stitched on (they were small enough that I didn't use interfacing on them.)  I also decided to add a little more color by just dabbing on some fabric paint in the flower petals.

Finally, I turned a shirt of mine, that was now to short into a shirt for Natalie.  She doesn't like long-sleeved shirts, but 3/4 shirts are okay so I couldn't let this one go to waste.

First of all lay down the shirt to be altered, inside out.  Lay a shirt that fits on top of it.  Match shoulder seams and center it.  I use an old piece of soap - best tailor's chalk ever!, to carefully trace the edge of the top shirt.  Then just stitch up the new seam and turn right side out.  Since this was such a little adjustment and not a work of art, I just left the extra material because Natalie didn't care.  If it was a big adjustment, you could cut off the extra and serge or just zig-zag the edges.

Just a little more fitted and a little shape to it now.  Natalie liked it, yeah!

Here are a few more ideas I've shared for recycling and getting more use out of the clothes that you pay good money for:

Dress into Shirt

Shirts into Skirts

Painting and Felt Applique

Now to tackle the pile of pants I cleaned out of their drawers to turn them into shorts for the summer. :)  What's your favorite way to extend the life of clothes at your house?

Fire truck birthday party

My sister, Leslie, is back with another great party idea:

My youngest son is a big fan of police, rescue and fire truck vehicles.  We do daily "drive-bys" if we are anywhere near the vicinity of our town fire station (and even when we aren't we somehow manage to end up driving by).  So, today we celebrated his 4th birthday in true Fire Truck Party style!

I knew he would love a t-shirt with a fire truck, but I could not find one in stores and what I could find online was either cheesy and/or expensive.  So, I found an imagine online that I liked, printed it off, and cut fabric shapes mimicking the online image.  I used knit fabric which does not fray (I actually used old t-shirts).  Then I ironed the shapes onto fusible interfacing and then ironed them onto a basic black t-shirt.  From past experience, I knew I would need to sew around the edges, but my sewing machine was giving me problems that night, so I decided to use embroidery floss which actually turned out a lot cuter, (I think).

He was pretty excited about it.

The fire fighters were awesome and the kids LOVED the tour.

We gave them this before we left.

Here are some of the ideas for the party we had after our trip to the fire station:

I am soooo not a cake decorator.  However, I can print and cut : ) so I found pictures online of a fire station, hydrant, etc., added a new truck, and made them into a cake!

The guests each choose one of these on their way home. 

We had a beautiful day and had the party outside.

Do you have any spring birthdays coming up?  I will be back to post two more party ideas over the next few weeks:  Skylanders and Batman! 

Hot Pads and Lots of Fat Quarter Ideas

In early February, I signed up for a fun fabric swap that Amanda at Ninth Street Notions put together.  We were instructed to pick out 5 fat-quarters of material and send them to our partner.  Then  make something out of the fabric you were sent.  Sounds fun, huh!

My first task, go shopping - I can do that.  I found some really, really cute, super fun material to send to my partner.  I wish I had taken a picture or paid attention to the name or something, but it was really bright turquoise and red, polka dots and flowers of different sizes.  (I think I'm going to have to go get me some to make some more of these projects I found.)

Then I waited to see what material I'd be working with.  In the meantime, I started looking for uses of fat-quarters and pinned a bunch of ideas (I'll share in a minute.)  Finally my material came and this is what I got to work with:

The funny thing is, I have a table runner half finished with very similar material/colors.  So then I had to narrow down my project list.  A table runner was out, like I said, I have a similar one.  I didn't really need another bag, my sister has made me a bunch of them.  Oh, and I'm not a really great seamstress -  wait, I'm not even good enough to be called a seamstress, let's just go with sewer - so I didn't want to tackle anything too tricky yet.  Finally my inspiration came as my husband burned his hand, again, while taking something out of the oven and started cussing and grumbling about how we need some good hotpads.  That's it!

So I bought some Insul-Bright batting - it's batting with a metallic/mylar stitched into one side, making it heat or cold reflective.  Like this:



Then I found this super easy tutorial here.  This was so simple, and she did such a good job of it, I didn't redo the tutorial.  I'll just share what I learned.  I tore the strips the length of the fat-quarter, giving me enough length for two strips.  Same with the backing piece, so after I finished the first one I had another one all ready to go - matching set. :) Also, after looking a little closer at the hot pad Bill burned his hand on and seeing it did use the Insul-Bright, too, I used two layers of the batting, making sure that the metallic side (which reflects the heat) was facing out.   It was really quite fun and rewarding to have something I made myself to be so useful. lol  I gave them a good test and am happy to report no burnt hands.

As I said, I found a lot of fat-quarter ideas, some simpler than others, so at $1-2/fat-quarter you can try out many of these fun things:
50 Scrap & Remnant Ideas
Sprocket Pillows - this is really cute!
Cloth Napkins
Ipod/Camera Case - if you noticed, I didn't use the gray/orange print from up above. This is what I'll be making with that material, a case for my new video camera I got for my birthday.
Handbag - really want to get more of the turquoise/red material and make this
Tiered Ruffled Skirt - my girls might be getting some of these soon. :)
Poochie Bags - the name makes me laugh, but they're cute.

That's just a few that I pinned, there are TONS of ideas/tutorials out there for fat-quarters.  So grab a few quarters and have some fun sewing!


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Tooth Pillow

See this sad, sad pillow.  For my 5th birthday my mom's friend made this for me (well, her daughter gave it to me.)  

It was so cool! We'd never seen anything like it.  It lasted through all my teeth, all my sister's teeth and through 3 of my kids so far.  However we got a hole in it.  Then it got bigger and bigger and finally it hardly holds a tooth.  So making a new one needed to happen.  This cute little pillow kept your tooth safe and sound for the tooth fairy to find and then makes a nice place to store your money until morning. This is a project I'd been meaning to get to for a long time, even bought the material, but wasn't a big priority.  See, my three youngest all lost their first teeth last year in Kindergarten.  Chloe and Maddie lost a few more over the summer.  We'd kind of slowed down on the teeth losing for a while.  And then it happened Jon finally had another wiggly tooth!  His sisters had lost all 4 front ones to his one, so he was excited to finally wiggle another one.  I knew I didn't have long, and this was the incentive I needed to get this done.  I'll show you how I did it.

Supplies:
Felt
Ribbon
White material
Stuffing

Start by drawing, finding a tooth shape graphic, something for a pattern of sorts.  I traced the old one I had and then tried to make it more tooth shaped.  This is what I finally came up with.  Cut 2.

Cut a square/rectangle of felt.  I used two kinds of ribbon, blue gingham and then polka-dot ric rack - trying to make it cute for boys and girls.  Cut both ribbons about 1" long than the felt.  I actually glued the ric rack onto the other ribbon, tucking the ends under.  Then I stitched the two ribbons along the top and bottom of the ribbon onto the felt, again tucking the ends under.  Stitch the felt onto the white fabric along three sides, gotta leave an opening for that tooth.

Then pin the two "teeth" together, right sides together.  Stitch around the whole thing, leaving about a 2" opening.  Clip around the corners, this will help it lay better when you turn it right-side out. (2nd picture on bottom.)  Turn it right-side out and stuff it.  Then hand-stitch your opening closed.  That's it, you have a suitable place for leaving teeth and a safe spot to receive your money (or whatever the tooth fairy brings to your house.) 

I got mine done not a moment too, soon.  Jon lost his top tooth the next day.  How cute is he?! 

 

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Friday Tip - Save the Holes

So I was a little early getting this posted and up on Thursday instead of Friday. :)

How many of you have "distressed" jeans in your closet, or bought a new pair of worn out jeans for your kids this year?  When we were having our back-to-school fashion show, Bill was not too happy that Cheyenne and Natalie bought matching jeans with holes in them.  He felt a little better when we told them the were on sale, but we still got a big eye roll. :)  Anyway, at both their schools, it's against the dress code to wear clothes with holes in them - the half holes are okay, but when it gets to showing skin, it's not, I guess.  So I decided to take preventative measures.  I bought a package of iron on patches from Walmart, cut out close to the shape, and following the instructions on the package ironed them on to the INSIDE of the pant leg.

This does two things, 1- it provides a backing to the hole, of course, if the threads start to break,  2 - it also sticks to the threads, hopefully keeping them intact longer, or if they do break, they'll stay in place and you won't notice anyway.  After ironing, you could stop there, but I wanted a little extra insurance, so I turned them right-side-out and stitched around each hole, too.  That will keep the whole from fraying more and getting bigger.  You can only notice the stitching if you're really looking for it.  Great way to let those jeans be worn a little longer.

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Upcycling a Dress into a Shirt

On Saturday morning, Bill wanted all the kids outside first thing to help dig up all the potatoes in our garden. (I was heading to the church for a fun-filled craft day, part of which I was teaching.)  I told the kids to put on their work clothes (i.e. not good school clothes), plus it was still a chilly morning. So Chloe comes down the stairs in her good capris, flip flops, and this super cute shirt, inside-out and backwards. She is 6, don't quite know what was going on with the shirt.  Anyway, as I was taking her back upstairs telling her EXACTLY what she should wear, I realized I never posted about her super cute shirt I made.  Did a little scan through the pictures and realized, yes, I took pictures for it and everything and never posted. So here it is, the transformation of a dress into a shirt.

 Before                                                                                                  After

Before - Chloe in her modeling pose, I guess.

This was one of Chloe's very favorite dresses, mine too, for that matter.  I was so sad as I realized it was too short to wear to church anymore.  I couldn't give it up.  It sat in her closet for a few weeks, then in my sewing pile for a few more weeks, just waiting for inspiration to strike.  Then it came as I was visiting Make it and Love it and came across this tutorial.  Perfect!!  Basically, you cut the dress off to the length you want (plus enough for a hem.)  Have your subject try on the shirt and mark where you want the waist.  Remember, as I found out the hard way, after your shirt is gathered with the elastic, it will ride up a little more so take that into consideration when marking the waist.  Then you cut a 1" strip of material from the leftover dress.  You're going to make a casing for the elastic with this strip.  Pin the strip onto where you marked the waist (on the inside of the shirt) and sew close to the edge, leaving a small 2" opening on the bottom.  Cut a piece of 1/2" elastic just a little bigger than your subjects waist, you want it to gather up, but not be tight. Pin a safety pin on one end of your elastic (great tip for threading elastic or anything else) and start feeding it through the opening.  Once it's all the way through, overlap the two ends and stitch on top of them. Work the elastic the rest of the way through and adjust all your gathers.  Have your little girl try it on and admire your crafty genius!  Then call all your friends and family and tell them how awesome you are. Oh, is that only me who does that?  It really is pretty darn simple again check out Make It and Love It if you need more detailed instructions with great pictures.  She also shows you how to make short sleeves out of long sleeves.

After - Yup, still striking a pose. 

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Cardigan with Ruching DIY

For a while now, I've been hunting for one of those long in the front, drapey kind of cardigans that seem to be so popular.  I figured anything that would hide some lumps and bumps is great for me. :)  I also wanted it to be a little more fun, not the same as everyone else around here who all seem to have bought them at the same store.  So a few months ago, while browsing through Ross's (love that store) I came across this awesome black cardigan.  It was a little different than the plain old boring because it has these cute knots down the front.  I didn't really want long sleeved (it was the beginning of summer when I found it) but it was only $7 so I went for it.  After bringing it home, I remembered I had found this tutorial for ruching the sleeves and had been waiting for something cute to try it out on. Perfect! However, after looking around the internet some more, I found an even easier way to do this - elastic thread. So here's my tutorial on ruching sleeves - great for sleeves that shrink in the wash, are stained, or just for putting a little fun into something plain.

Supplies:
Article of clothing
Elastic thread - coolest thing ever (or right now at least c: )
Matching color thread to garment
Marking utensil (tailors chalk, fabric marker, soap)
Sewing machine

Start by finding the middle of the sleeve. If your material will hold a crease, that is the easiest way.  Lay the sleeve flat and iron it.  My material was too soft, flowy thin to keep a crease, so I had to lay it on on my cutting mat, adjust the hem underneath, make sure each side was even, just make sure I was getting it in the middle.  A little more work, but really not that hard. When you find the middle, lay it out on a cutting mat, as I mentioned, and using a ruler and I actually used my mom's best trick of a pointy bar of soap, mark from the shoulder seam straight down the middle to the cuff.


Now comes the fun part, using the elastic thread. You're going to have the elastic thread in the bobbin and the matching color thread on top. You have to hand wind the bobbin, which only takes a few seconds, with just a little tension, you're not stretching the elastic out. Then just load the bobbin as normal, have your top thread in and starting at the seam on the shoulder, slowly stitch straight down the sleeve on the line you marked. Make sure to backstitch at the beginning and end. That's it! The hardest part is making sure you don't sew your sleeve shut, keep that bottom layer out of the way.

Kind of a weird picture. Not the best shirt to wear under it, but was just throwing it on for the picture. And I suppose I was trying to get a better picture of the sleeves, holding my arms out a little and that's why I look like I'm wearing football pads. lol  Anyway, there's the sleeves before and after. It was a fun simple little addition to spice up any top.

Ta Da!!

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Prepping for School

Does anyone remember this commercial? I love it!


The dad is so happy and the looks on the kids' faces are perfect. That's exactly what my kids are looking like today - the last day of summer. Usually I'm not looking forward to school starting, I like my kids at home. I really don't look forward to homework starting, to the rush of getting everything done after school. And this year, all my kiddos will be in school all day! I'll have no one to "hang" with, no one to play with, no one to scrapbook with, no one to laugh with all day, no one to "help" me go shopping. Secretly, I'm a little bit excited about this, too. I'll have 7 hours to do whatever I want each day. I can mop the kitchen floor in the morning (a chore I despise) and have it last at least 7 hours! Anyhoo, we all are feeling very mixed emotions, sadness that our summer fun is over, but excitement at what lies ahead tomorrow. So here is some of my last minute prep for that big day tomorrow.

1.  I finally got the tags made for Cheyenne and Natalie's instruments. (I've only been meaning to do this for 2 years now.) Everyone in band stores their instruments in the band room each day. That's a lot of basic, boring, black cases that all look alike. So I wanted to make something that not only identifies them, but distinguishes them from all the other cases making it easier to grab the right one.
This is what I used: My Cricut; Childs Play, Walk in my Garden, Car Decals, and Plantain cartridges; chipboard (or old packaging like I used); scrap paper; stickers and rub-ons, eyelets, adhesive, packing tape.
I started by cutting 3 oval tags (on tall ball setting) from the Plantain cartridge at 4" using the multicut and3 or 4 times (depending on the thickness of your chipboard.) One daughter thought she liked the thickness of two layers together and the other one liked only one layer.  I then did "repeat last" but turned off multicut to cut 4 pieces of patterned paper. Then started gluing it all together. Natalie's in to turtles right now, so using the Car Decals cart, I cut the turtle at 2" and glued it all on the back.  Cheyenne picked out "Laugh" from the Childs Play cartridge at 1 1/4" and the little flower from Walk in my Garden at 3/4" for the back of hers. When it was all dry, I added stickers on Natalie's, and rub-ons on Cheyenne's (wishing they were a little bigger), and then covered both sides in packing tape, my cheap way of laminating. Worked great! I then set the eyelets in the holes already cut, and TaDa! cute tags ready to identify anything. A cheap-I had everything I needed already on hand); quick-only took maybe a 1/2 hour to make both; easy-the cricut did all the work, I just glued; fun-they make me smile; great little project for getting ready for school.


2. My next project is a little more work, or maybe it's just a little less fun. Hemming pants. I've got 3 pairs of pants waiting for me to hem up today, a job I really don't enjoy much. However, thanks to this great tutorial from Sew Much Ado it will at least look much nicer. No one will notice that Cheyenne is height challenged, at least by the hem on her pants. ;) (Love ya, Cheyenne!)

Picture from The Gunny Sack

3. My final project to accomplish today is to get some things printed while we're in town today. (We haven't replaced our color printer yet.)  First are these great lunch Lunchbox Jokes from The Gunny Sack. Since school lunch prices have gone up again, my kids are going to be taking A LOT of lunches. Billy loved getting a great joke in his lunch last year and I'd also sneak them in Cheyenne and Natalie's, too. I'm sure C & N would roll their eyes and then they'd chuckle with their friends at the corny jokes. I really like these ones from The Gunny Sack because of the lift-the-flap, just makes it more fun. I'm also searching for some cupcake toppers for fun treats for after school tomorrow.

So that's it, these last minute projects and lots of fun, fun, fun today. I'm savoring every minute of my time with them today. I love my kids!

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