Any Day Now......

So my sister is an amazing photographer and she took some family pictures for us the other day that I just LOVE.... 

DIY Tiffany Bracelet

So I have been trying to think of a gift to give our little Reagan while we are at the hospital after Little London is born. I know Reagan is going to be such a great big sister but I am a little worried that she is going to feel a little left out when all the attention is going to be on her new sister. I thought it would be fun for us to get Reagan a little gift that made her feel special.... but I also wanted to get something that she could give to her new sister. I decided on Bracelets... Reagan Loves my Tiffany's bracelet so I thought it would be fun for her to get a mini version ... Here is what I did... Hobby Lobby just opened up a store down the road from here so I went to the store on there Grand Opening and got everything for these bracelets at 50% off...

I bought a thick silver chain that looked similar to the Tiffany chain, clamps (just make sure they fit around the chain... I had to go back and get bigger ones because the first ones I got were too small) and heart charms...... And I used a pair of of pliers so I could open and close the chain loops. This project was so so so easy and took less then 10 minutes to make both of them.

 I got so excited when I found these adorable hearts that say "Big Sister" and "Lil' Sister" and I just know Reagan is going to love the diamond... She is such a girly girl....

And of course no Tiffany piece of jewelry is complete without the "Little Blue Box".... Ill have to do a tutorial sometime on how to make these cute gift boxes....

The Final Stretch.... and I mean Streach

So we are getting really excited to welcome Baby London into the world... But no one is more anxious than I am. I feel like I have been pregnant for ever... And when I say that we are in the final stretch... As you can tell I'm not exaggerating when I say "stretch"  The Doctors say any day now but they have been saying that for some time now...

 So I don't go absolutely crazy from waiting I decided to keep myself busy with some projects...I saw some extra material that I had from a few old projects that I did.... and I decided to make London a cute little shirt.... Now this is probably one of the easiest shirts that anyone can really make.... but they are so cute. I am planning on using a cream stretch fabric that I have to make baby leggings and a little cardigan to also go along with this to make a whole outfit.

 I took the extra material and I cut two squares... one for the front of the shirt and one for the back.... Make sure you cut the squares a little larger than you are planning on the shirt being ... leaving room for the seam allowance but also so you can create a gather so the shirt is not tight.

once you sew the squares together on the side seams.... sew a seam at the bottom of the shirt... ( i like to make the seam a little thick)

Then at the opposite opening sew a basting stitch around the whole opening.  Pull the strings tight to create the gather. 

After I pulled the gather....I cut a slit in the center back of the shirt so you can slip the shirt over the head easily....  Later I  will add a button.

To make the slit look clean cut... I took a small strip of fabric and pinned it along the slit...as you can tell if you pull the slit open you can almost sew in a straight line. Once it is sewn on you just need to fold it into the inside of the shirt.

If you notice from the first picture I had a lot of small scraps of the mustard color material... but nothing big enough... So I sewed all the scraps together to create one piece of fabric...I also wanted it to have the rough frayed look so I made it so the ends of the fabric was showing...
Thats what I did.... but you can use one piece of fabric like a normal person.... or you can make it patchwork as well if you like to spice things up like I do...
In this first picture The patch work fabric is folded in half horizontally .... I then pinned that fabric to the polka dot fabric making sure I lined up the ends of the mustard fabric to the slits in the back of the polka dot fabric...

I cut out four strips of the polka dot fabric and made simple straps. (two for the front of the shirt and two for the back) Sewed those on in the appropriate place and tied them in a knot at the top.

I then sewed on a loop button.  TADA! the shirt is complete.

Child Polka Dot Shirt Refashioned from Adult Shirt

I absolutely loved this turquoise polka dot shirt.... But unfortunately it shrunk and was too short.... but I could never get myself to get rid of it... Good thing I didn't because now I have an adorable shirt for Reagan. Here is a step by step of how I refashioned this adult shirt to fit a toddler. Hope you are getting ideas of ways to make clothes for your little ones out of recycled clothing... send me a picture of anything you have done... Id love to see it.

I just cut the top of this shirt off so that it was the legth that I wanted for my little girl...

I then flipped it around and made the elastic hem of the bottom of the shirt now become the top of the shirt ...

I took the sides in  and hemmed the bottom of the shirt

I cut strips of fabric from the extra material from the adult shirt folded and ironed creases into the soon to be straps....I sewed down the creases of the straps and then I attached them to the top of the shirt.

I wanted to add a flower to embellish the shirt so I took a strip of white fabric ribbon and twirled it.( If you don't have fabric ribbon just cut a long strip of whatever fabric you would like to use....)

Then I coiled the ribbon till it made a flower and I tacked the coils together in the back with a needle and thread to hold it together...And attached it to the shirt... 

Then the shirt was done... It was so very easy and I got a super cute Refashion. 

Quick Embellishment

I was given a bunch of hand-me-downs from a friend for this next baby.... the only problem was they were baby boy clothes.... but a lot of them were super cute so I decided that I would simply put a few embellishments on the ones that weren't too boy looking and then gave the rest to my sister who just had a baby boy. 

well here is one of the onsies that I embellished. I simply made a flower out of some left over white fabric and tacked it on. The flower was made the same way in my tutorial a few posts back except I didn't burn the edges.

No More Junk ( hopefully )

So one of my biggest pet peeves that my husband does is.... at the end of every single day... he emptys his pockets out on our dresser.... I mean chap stick, change, receipts, scraps of paper, business cards, and whatever other crazy thing he put in them through out the day... Everything just ends up in a pile.... never to be touched again until it starts to take over the whole entire top of the dresser.... Then at that point I get so fed up with how big the pile is getting that I finally give in and clean it up myself. So today after cleaning up yet another pile.... I decided to be cleaver and make a fancy little box that I put in this "dump spot" where he can empty his pockets all he wants but it will be hidden from my sight

. I found this old wine box and I used some scrap booking paper that I had and a button and made the box look a little more presentable. Im hoping this will actually work and hide all my Hubbys pocket junk. I guess only time will tell.

Child Tank Top Refashioned from Adult Tank Top

 

Today was such a beautiful day that it made me so excited for summer.... I became inspired to start making some clothes for Summer.... Here I give you a step by step on what I did in order to convert this Adult tank top into a childs Summer Tank. I just love this fabric. 

First thing I did was cut the length of the shirt into a lenght that would fit my little one.... I decided to keep the bottom hem for two reasons. 1.) It had adorable lace that I wanted to keep and

2.) It made it so I didnt have to make a new hem... saving me a lot of time.

 I cut out the built in bra... I put it in my supply of fabric.... I am always in need of some good elastic and it will come in handy for another project sometime in the future.



I cut off the straps

 And I cut off the back and the front of the shirt above the empire waist.... I took the back section and  kept it the same length  because I decided to make the back of the shirt shire and it will shrink down almost half the length once I put in the elastic..... How you do that is you hand wind your bobbin with elastic thread and lower your upper tension a tiny bit.... then you sew parallel lines all along the fabric you wish to shire....

Once you finish all the lines you need to pull the elastic string (bobbin string) in order to make gathers... this will create a fun texture, give your outfit a little more personality, plus it will give it a bit of stretch.

Iron the gathers down before you sew it onto the shirt.

I wanted to give the front of the shirt a little flair so I added pleats in the front.

I then basted the pleats into place and then attatched the front and back together. 

Then I attatched the top of the shirt to the bottom of the shirt  that I gathered.

Once they were connected I took out all my pins and the shirt was almost done....

I put the straps back onto the shirt but shortened them so they were now the perfect length for little miss Reagan. 

Reagan loved the shirt.... She actually said "pretty" when she put it on..... And since today was such a beautiful day we went outside in the back of the house to play and I snapped a few pictures so you could see the new shirt in action.

Thrift Store Finds

Like I said before...  I love the Thrift Store. I thought Id show you some of the wonderful finds I had on my last trip there....

 This I am really excited about.... I found a TON of commercial size rolls of  Elastic... Ribbons.... and clasps..... Everything was 50cents each.... The Black Elastic Spool alone has a price tag on it saying it was sold for $2.75 a yard and it has over 145 yards left on it. and I am so excited about the clasps... I'm planning to make a baby carrier soon and they are exactly what I was looking for....

 I just LOVE thick and chunky frames like this ... but they are usually an arm and a leg to buy from a frame store..... Especially one this size. This beauty only put me back $3.00 and I know just what picture I'm going to put in it.

 I saw this sheet for $1 and had to buy it. I just love the lace detail and I cant wait to make Reagan a dress out of it... but since its a whole sheet I could make a dress for all the kids in the neighborhood as well... or maybe not....but I'm sure you get the point..... its A LOT of fabric for just $1

I have been looking for a pair of cowboy boots for Reagan and these are perfect and  for only $2 I couldn't pass them up. 

So all in all.... It was a great day at the Thrift Store and I cant wait to put all these things to use.