Apron to Dress

Remember this little apron I got at the thrift store not too long ago?

Well, I mentioned in that post that I knew exactly what I was going to do with it. I have been dying to make L's little summer dress out of it. I needed just a little bit of that white islet, but haven't had a chance to run to the store till now. So, made her little dress this morning.

Here is what I did...

I cut arm holes then got that little lace embellishment and used it for sleeves. I found those cute flowers right next to the lace and had to get it for the dress also. It went so perfect and is so springish.

Then I cut off the bottom and used part of that for the bloomers and the other part as bias tape for the arm holes. I had just enough for both arms.

There wasn't enough for the bloomers so I had a little white islet fabric for part of the bloomers.

I love the way it turned out!

It's light, airy and summery. Oh, I added some more flowers to the back of the bloomers, partly so L knows which side is the back and partly cause it was cute.

There is L in her new dress and her little friend E. They have so much fun are are just the cutest together! I brought blood oranges to Angel Day for Little League and there is already a stain running down the front of the dress. Nothing a little stain remover and wash won't get out.

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Laundry Bag

We have this laundry drop in my husband's parents trailer that we use all the time. But it drives me crazy. It is hidden so nicely and out of the way.

It's a great little basket and in a great spot, but it has the huge gaps in it. These gaps are perfect for letting underwear slip through to the storage compartment below. I really don't like the idea of my father-in-law grabbing the barbecue with my underwear attached to it because it fell through from the last trip. I also don't like reaching in to grab someone else's underwear that used the trailer before us. I don't know, maybe I have an underwear issue.

So, here is my solution. A mesh laundry bag. It works great. Breathable and underwear can't fit through those little holes.

Well, that's what I've sewn this week. I needed to get it done before our next trip this month. Now, I can go to JoAnn's to use my lovely gift card that my son's t-ball team got me. :-) I'm so excited!

Kristen

Easy Bath Towel Wrap

Here is another project for a friend. This one is a nice little tutorial. I love doing them because I love finding a good one myself. Especially easy ones and this one certainly is. It's also cheap and probably the fastest thing I have ever sewn!

My friend's little girl is having her 10th birthday party this weekend and they are doing a spa party, so for the favors she wanted to make bath wraps for all the girls. How cute, huh. This friend of mine does know how to sew infact, she is quite good at it. She just likes to have someone there to help her not make a mistake. See those lovely Roman Shades in the background? Yep, she made those with a tiny bit of help from me to understand the directions. She did a great job.

So anyway, back to our project. This towel was the perfect size and it was bought at Walmart for $1.97 and the elastic was $0.97. Cheap! I told you.

You will need: 

1 towel

3/4 inch elastic

3/4 inch velcro

Now, let's get started. First, you need the chest measurement around the person who will be wearing the wrap. Write that one down and save it. Her daughter was 24 inches. Write that down and save it for later. We wanted the wrap to be about a 4-5 inch overlap so we just took the measuring tape and measured where it looked good. No science here. Then to get the gather in the towel, take your measurement and multiply it by 1.5, this will now be how big you want the width of your towel to be. It will give you the perfect gather.

Next measure the length. She wanted 24 inches. This towel was just at that so we thought it would be ok if it was a little shorter. So, no cutting and no raw edges for our project! Awesome!

Take one long edge of the towel and fold it down so you have 1 1/4 inches over. Pin and sew about 1/4 inch from the edge of the fold. Then, if you want, zig zag along the edge. You won't see it in the terry cloth and from the inside it makes the edge stay smooth against the towel. A very nice finish.

Now back to that first measurement. Her little girl was 24 all the way around. Take that and subtract about 2 inches for stretch. We want the towel to be tight and not fall off, but we don't want it too tight. Cut your elastic, (for us that should be 22 inches.) Then safety pin it and feed it through.

Feed it till it is about 4 inches from the edge and sew the elastic in place. See in this picture how we sewed it on the edge, DON'T do that. You don't want the velcro where the elastic is. Push it 4 inches first then sew. Now when you get to the other side, feed the elastic all the way through, take the safety pin off and push it back in 4 inches and sew in place again.

Too bad I don't have a picture for the velcro step. Don't I always forget a picture?! Let's just forget about that and move on... Now, take your velcro, put the fuzzy one on the top piece facing in and the scratchy one on the piece that is facing out just incase of growth. That way if one side touches the skin, it will be the fuzzy. Pin and sew - you are done!

Very cute, but I know, plain. Here is what you can do to make it cuter... You can tie-die them, that would be very cute or embellish them with ribbon or ric-rac. You can monogram them or buy a cute towel for a little more and make one with that. If you buy a cute towel, you will have to find one the right measurements or do some cutting. This was just a trial one. My friend is very good at doing a practice item before the real thing. I on the other hand am very bad at that.

If you decide to make some of these, share a picture, I'd love to see how you made them cute.

Kristen

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Yummy Eggs

Before we left for the weekend, we got our first meal with just our home fresh eggs. It was so exciting. Yes, it's the small things that excite me. Also, going to the grocery store and passing up the $4.99 organic eggs is very exciting.

Aren't the shells cute?

The yokes are SO tiny.

My family likes scrambled. I like over medium.

Leave it to me to not get a picture of the finished product!

Kristen

Memorial Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial weekend. If one of your loved ones is currently serving, I pray for their safety and for a peaceful heart for you. It is an amazing sacrifice you do for all of us!

We were gone for the weekend at the Colorado River. We go every year for Memorial Day and throughout the summer. This trip was a bit interesting. We had some interesting people watching and we got attacked by killer bees when Mr. C and I took about 6 kids on a little explore by the railroad tracks to find glass balls and other cool stuff. We did find 2 glass balls, but soon after had to run out of there all the way back to the water screaming! Yes, we did look like one of those cartoons where they are frantically running away from bees right into the water. Except we were holding kids in our arms. I got away with only 2 stings and one of the little girls had one.

The rest of the trip was pretty normal. Oh, except for the cold windy day. Wind is normal, but cold at the river this time of year is crazy. We were wrapped up in towels. It's usually 100-110 right now at the river. The water is about 50, so it needs to be hot.

L finally has enough hair for me to do fun things with it.

 On the beach with my boy.

After a long day L was out!

C taking himself back to shore from the boat. The water is too cold. :-)

I hope you all had a fun Memorial Day weekend!

Kristen

Thrifty Finds

I've seen people do this and I love it, so I've decided to do it myself. Today, I went to 3 thrift stores looking for sheets. We have this bird that comes every spring to mate. This spring it decided to fight the reflection of itself in my bedroom window or mate with it. So I needed to make a curtain to cover the window until we wake up. It starts pecking the window, literally at sun rise. Before the rooster even crows! So this is what I got at the thrift stores.

The shelf was not from the thrift store, my mother-in-law had it in her shed and it was just getting old and yucky so I asked if I can have it for my porch.  That one was free, the best kind of deal. At the stores I found a few cute plant holders, some sheets and an apron.

This plant holder was 99 cents at the Good Will. I usually don't buy from the Good Will because I find them to be highly overpriced. I have found Big Lots price tags still on an item and the Good Will is trying to sell it for more then Big Lots was. But this little bucket was perfect! There was no price so they gave it to me for 99 cents.

My other Good Will find was this little basket. Paint has come off in a couple of places so I was going to spray paint it, but I like how it looks on the shelf in this green.

This basket with "The handle that doesn't work" as L informed me when we got in the car, was at the Charity Thrift Store in a little strip mall by my house. It was $1.09 after tax. I thought it was cute for my shelf.

The last stop was a thrift store that supports the local christian college. I have heard about it and my MOPS mentor mom this year volunteers there. I have been wanting to go check it out for a very long time. There was a lot of cute stuff, but I had already gotten a couple things I was not looking for so stuck with the sheets.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with these vintage looking sheets. If you have any ideas for me, please share them. :-)

This sheet, I know exactly what I am going to do! It will be perfect for a few pillow case dresses with black ribbon. 1 for L and the rest for friends, unless I actually do get an etsy shop up and running.

Well, I said I was going to stick with the sheets, but this old apron was just screaming at me to buy it. There is a dress that I want to make L and I just haven't found the perfect fabric. That is, until now. Now I have the PERFECT fabric.

So there you have it, these are my thrifty finds today. I spent $9 and some change on all of this. Very exciting.

I will be making that little yellow dress very soon, but you won't get to see it till next week. I will not be blogging till then. So, have a great memorial weekend and I would love to see your great deals you get over the weekend.

Kristen

Eggs!

Woo-who! I went out to pet the chickens this afternoon about 12:30. I didn't check their roost this morning because I do every day and when I peaked in the hole to see who was hiding, Honey was in there. Then I remembered I got 2 new chickens yesterday. The white one, the frizzle to the right of her and the other one in the middle behind the white one.

So, I opened the door and guess what I found in this little basket?

Yep, you guessed it, eggs! 3 to be exact. I am so excited, even more then my kids are. Little C said, "Ah-oh, I hope it wasn't a rooster that laid those eggs." He knows we have to get rid of the roosters.

We are on our way to not buying eggs anymore, that's saving 4-8 dollars per week! Organic eggs are expensive and we usually go through 2 dozen a week. Yes, these little eggs are a bit small, but our chickens are barley 6 months old. I am assuming as they grow, so will the eggs, at least a little and if they don't we have 8 chickens to make up for the size.

Kristen

Socks

Oh how I love cute socks. Especially soft ones. White socks are just so... well, plain. I especially love knitted socks. One year for Christmas, my husband bought me a pair of knitted socks from a patient of his at work. She didn't give him a price until after she finished the socks. He had no idea they would cost $30! $30 for a pair of socks?! That's a bit crazy. That took a big chunk of my Christmas present on socks. The socks are plain blue and not very stretchy, so they are hard to get on over my heal. But they are hand knitted so that is really cool and I do wear them.

Since I knit and I love knitted socks, I have wanted to knit a pair myself for SO long. Finally, this winter I found a great book at the library. It was so helpful, when I couldn't check it out anymore, I had to go and buy it for myself. I finally knitted my 1st sock. I don't have a picture of that sock because the size was a bit off and I don't know what I did with it. But I do have a picture of these beauties...

Yep, I knitted those all by myself. I love them! After the first sock was too small, I set right out to knit a pair in this, oh, so cute yarn! Don't they look great with jeans? I could wear them every day if I didn't care about being dirty. But, I do, so I don't.

Look, I even almost started at the same point on my yard for each sock. I love these colors. Maybe I will make another pair next winter. The only problem is the yarn is so thin the socks take me forever. Little C wants a pair of white socks with grey on the heal so bad. I started them. They will be ankle socks, I got down to the heal of one sock, but haven't gone any further. it's really tedious for me when I am knitting white socks with tiny yarn. But, when the winter hits, I love to knit, so I may finish then.

So, tell me, are you a sock lover, or is this some weird obsession I have?

Kristen


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