Re-purposing: t-shirts to toddler pants

I'm not happy with these pants, but at least now I will be able to do it right with the next pair. www.dana-made-it.com is where I got the idea from these pants. She made a pair out of linen with knit patches on the knee. I took the same idea and made the pants out of an old maternity t-shirt and the patches out of one of Dan's old t-shirts. They were simple, but as you can see from the pictures below, I didn't get the knee patches on right. They are too low, but cute anyway.

Re-purposeing: SKIRTS!

Today I re-purposed some clothing and made skirts for Alanna. Sorry for the bad pics.... I took these at night with my point and shoot.

The first one was this dress a friend gave me. You can see that I started cutting this apart prior to the picture. I stopped just to show you what it looked like before. It was just a basic sleeveless dress.


It had a few stains. So, instead of using it for a play dress, I turned it into this skirt.



It was simple. I just cut the top, white part off. Then I folded it over to make a casing for the elastic waist band. You'll notice I left some of the white top on. It has a serged edge and I didn't feel like going through the hassle of folding and ironing since I don't have a serger... yet! :) It made of less steps. Then I just pulled some elastic through and sewed the casing closed.


I cut out the star that was on the top of the dress and put it on the bottom of the new skirt.

The skirt still needs to be ironed... but it's super cute.



The second skirt I made was from an old pair of jeans that I have had for a long time (jeans I hoped to fit into some day but I'm finally being realistic!:)

For this skirt I cut the bottom of both legs off my old jeans. I cut them along the inside, side seam to open them up into to pieces of fabric. I then sewed them up the sides so that the outside side seam would be on the front and the back. When I read that, it's totally confusing. I'll do a tutorial on this. The top is just elastic. It took me about 15 minutes! I don't think we've seen the last of this skirt though. Embellishing of some kind is definitely in it's future.

Tomorrow... pants for Abram!

Korker barrette

Today I made a korker barrette for Alanna. She loves these things but I hate paying 9 dollars for them at gymboree. Who needs gymboree when I can make them myself. Here is the tutorial I used.

I'm not a fan of these ones.... yet. I used bamboo skewers, but next time I will use a fatter dowel rod. That will make bigger curls and, in the end, a fuller barrette. Instead of bamboo skewers. But, for my first try... not too bad. The tutorial also uses a wood burner to melt the ends to prevent fraying, but I don't have one. So, I just held the cut end of the ribbon against a hot burner on my electric stove and it did the trick. Turn on your fan, it kind of stinks! :) Just make sure you wash off the residue when you're done. Or just use a lighter.

felt barrette

This is what I made yesterday.

This craft was super simple. Felt barrettes are all over the place and sooooo simple to make. I found this tutorial, and made some alterations to it. Then I hot glued it to a barrette from Alanna's "hair pretty" collection. :) Here's what I came up with in a matter of moments. Super fast. Super easy.

Don't mind the crummy picture. I had to take it really fast as my batteries were super low! :)

The goal

My little ones and I love to do crafty projects - from simple things like drawing a picture to sewing. The problem is, we just do not do enough. So, the goal is to do daily projects and track them here. Will that happen? Don't hold your breath, but that's the goal none the less! Some of the things I post might be crafty things I do with the kids or projects I do myself. You can expect to find kid craft ideas, sewing or knitting projects, and bigger projects around the house.

So, stick around to see what this crafty family comes up with!