Thrift Store Finds

I was very excited to be featured on two of my favorite blogs this week,

Eisy Morgan and DIY by Design
they each host a craft linky party on their blog
and I love seeing all the great things that are created and shared.
I'm always so inspired.
So,  thank you ladies!!


I went thrifting the other day and was so
thrilled with what I brought home
Yay!! More junk to fix up!
and all for less then $20
Guess I should go easy on the exclamation points...

Anyway
I have been looking for some cabinet kind of thingy for my hallway
It needed to be a good size, but very shallow.... hard thing to find
but wouldn't you know I finally found the perfect thing.
AND it was only 12 bucks.   Now THAT put a smile on my face :)
and here she is.....

I know what your thinking....

IT'S UGLY!!
and I agree , but wait until you see what it looks like when I'm done.
then you can judge.
Hopefully it will be finished soon.
***update***
and it's done!

not so ugly now

 


and here are a few other things I picked up
Recently I've been obsessed with old suitcases, especially when they're like $3.
and so needless to say, I grabbed this right up.

and I loved this
glass vase that reminded me of a beaker.

And this is what they look like in my living room :)

My husband added his own decorative touch....
. don't those
work boots look nice there??

My Fresh Start

I read somewhere that

"sometimes you just have to cry, 

let it go, 

shake it off,

then move onto a new,

fresh start"

So my friends

  this is the beginning

of my fresh start....

Upcycled T-shirt

I am so excited to tell you I jogged TWO MILES tonight!!  (without stopping for a breather)  Wahoo!!   I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere.  Honestly, when I started jogging, I was thinking.... I'm never going to be able to do this.   But look at me now, Mr. doubtful....  two miles :)

So anyway onto the t-shirt up cycle.
I bought a few long sleeved t-shirts on clearance for $3.00 hoping I could make some cute short sleeved shirts for the summer.   This was very easy and didn't take long at all since there was no hemming involved

1. First step was to fold the shirt in half, line the sleeves up and cut them both off the length I wanted at the same time.   This way they were the same length without all the measuring fuss. I just left the sleeves since knit won't fray and I like how it rolls a little bit.
2. Next I used my disappearing ink sewing marker to draw the v- neck and cut that out.   I only cut out the front part of the neck and left the back alone.
3. cut 2 rectangular pieces from the sleeves for the ruffled neck..  This I just kinda eye balled how much I would need and pinned them on the front of the shirt.   
4. Since I didn't want sewed ruffles I just  pinched and pinned the pieces of fabric in random spots on either side of the v neck
5. Sewed the pieces along the shoulder seam and to the back of the neckline.Sewed and back-stitched  each of the pinned spots a little just enough to hold it in place.  I then had to trim all the threads.
6. Then to make the bow I just cut another rectangle piece of the sleeve, folded it in half and sewed the edge to make a smaller rectangle.   pinched it together with a piece of the neck line that I cut off and hand stitched it together.   and then hand stitched it to the shirt 

hope these pictures help a little:

Yes those are pins, this is the before it was sewn picture.   But the after it was sewn picture looks the same just without the pins :)

 

I'm thinking about adding some pearls or something...  guess we'll see.
What do you think?    have you done any up cycled tops recently?

Linking to

Sew Much Ado ( We did it Wednesday) 

Upcycled gift bags

I saved this cute gift bag from a wedding gift thinking I would reuse it sometime.  And now is the time!  I really liked the pink and white stripes... perfect for a baby girl gift.   I know what your thinking....  It only costs a few dollars to just buy one!   But I like to recycle :)   But clearly that wedding cake on there just isn't  saying "baby girl" to anyone....  

so I removed the wedding cake from the bag and set it aside to use a lil later.

this is what it looked like underneath

and this is the cake I set aside for later use.   so cute!

I made a pretty big felt rosette with a pearl in the center and some green felt leaves to cover the large cake and glued them on.
  and it looked good enough... but good enough just didn't cut it for me  It definitely needed  something else. That huge flower covered the cake shape but looked a little lonely.  Then I remembered the butterflies ( cut out on my cricut/ thank you sister for the cartridge)  that I had leftover from another project and glued one of them on.

then I just drew a swirley curly dotted line to show where the butterfly "flew" past the rose.
Much better!
so cute and it only took me a few minutes to finish.

The pink bag I've been saving from I'm not sure where....

kind of Blah

I cut out "stems" and leaves from some green scrap paper,  glued them on, glued 3 small felt rosettes to the tops.   repeated the butterfly process and ..... Done.

So much cuter than the plain pink bag!

I embellished a wedding card with the cake from the first gift bag..

First step was to cut out the polka dot paper into a rectangle.   Fold in half to make the card.  ( I made mine to fit into an envelope I already had).

polka dot paper is already folded in half in this picture

cut out some pale pink paper the size I thought would look good for the cake embellishment.
Cut brown paper a little larger than that and glued the layers together with a glue stick.
I apologize that I forgot to take a picture of the inside, I made this VERY last minute and the picture taking was not helping get it done faster.  My husband was patiently asking me every few minutes ... you almost ready?  translation     "You're done,  let's go".
But anyway, what I usually do is print out the little verse or saying that  I want in the card on computer paper.  cut it out a 1/4" smaller than the actual card making sure it is centered and where I want it to be and glue it to the inside cover .  I thought it turned out really cute.   Loved that the polka dot paper was already distressed looking.  Saved me a step.   I usually ink the edges a little bit.

Thank you for stopping by!
Debby

Knit baby hats

I found a great tutorial for knit-baby-hats that I've been dying to make.  They are so adorable!
Two of my friends had baby girls this month and I was thrilled that I could make these as gifts.
This is how mine turned out: 

I did change the embellishment a little bit to make it more my own, and I totally LOVE how they turned out.     The polka dot one is a felt flower  with a little rhinestone glued in the center, I had to hot glue this one on the hat because I couldn't get a needle through the hot glue on the flower, .and the pink one is a rolled rosette I made out of some dotted,  satiny material with a pearl sewed onto the center and then sewed onto the hat,

If you have a wee one who needs a cute little hat,  hop on over to Make it and Love it she has a great, easy-to-follow  tutorial for these.

And I put them in these cute upcycled gift bags

And I will show how I upcycled my wedding gift bags into baby gift bags sometime this week.  And yes I do have gift bags that I've saved from my wedding 5 years ago.  I'm not a hoarder i promise.  I just have a hard time getting rid of things I'm pretty sure I will be able to reuse.   That  IS different... right??

Linking up to Not Just a Housewife, Tip Me Tuesday and  One Project At A Time

Thanks for stopping by,
Debby

Feeling the loss on Mother's Day

Well my little Avery would be 6 months old today.   Sometimes I wonder whether she would be sitting up or crawling yet,  what her little baby babbling would sound like,  all those little things that would have been so familiar to me by now.   It has been a good day though,  the bad day was mother's day.  Lovely holiday for all you hard working moms out there, but it was just a sad reminder of loss to me. I tried real hard not to show it, but sometimes I just can't fight it.  So I didn't have the best night , but God is always there to comfort and I'm thankful for that.  I wouldn't be this far without God's love,.

I have to say I have an awesome family.  My honey, who feels the pain as much as me, gave me a beautiful card that said
" God speaks through all things good and beautiful, but nowhere is His voice more sweetly heard than in the love shared between mother and child".    and signed it from him and Avery.   It couldn't have been easy for him, but he said..... " you ARE a mom" .   Oh how I love him.
There were lots of tears, but I really do think the tears help.   It's odd I guess, but grieving has to take place, so we can move on.
My sisters gave me a beautiful plant and card... such simple gifts, but they are huge comforts to me.
So even though it made me cry, I am so grateful.  I want my beautiful baby girl to be remembered.

Debby

Day 1

Ok so this is day 1

Picture of yourself and 15 interesting things about yourself.

I was in Boston with my Honey  (April )

Now I do realize that says "interesting" things about myself....  but I'm not really sure that I would consider these interesting.   so I'm going with random oddities about me. 

1. I love all things creative....   that includes:  scrap-booking, occasional sewing, re-purposing, decorating, flowers, jewelry making,  all that fun stuff.
2. My craft/ computer room is always a mess.   I hate clutter, but it's impossible to keep clean when you have 10 different projects started!   It's organized tho... well maybe not
3. I can't  whistle :(   I know I know   I've been told a million times     " purse your lips and blow"  you really think I haven't tried this a million times?  it just doesn't work for me   Just kinda sounds like a pathetic blowing
4. My wedding band and engagement ring are a size 4 3/4.  and I can finally wear them again!  My feet and hands kinda swelled when I was carrying my baby girl and they just refused to go back to their normal size till now.
5. I can only wear neutral and really soft make up colors.   I pretty much look like a 10 year old who confiscated her mothers ( or sisters in my case) make up and went nuts with it.   not pretty, not pretty at all.
6. I absolutely love making lists.   I write them for everything. this doesn't really benefit me at all though, because I can never remember where I put the list.
7. I'm an impatient sewer, so if  a pattern looks too complicated, I don't bother, I won't finish it.
8. I flew in a helicopter once,    can you say nauseous??   never again
9. I am extremely claustrophobic.     very inconvenient at times.
10. My sister in law  and I got married a month apart.    She got her dress  a few days before I did and when I was telling my mother in law about my dress, she was like umm... I think you better come see Carrie's dress.  Yup you guessed it. Same exact one!!   I cried a little bit, sucked it up and went shopping again and realized it wasn't " the one" after all.   So in the end I loved my dress.  Just a little test.
11. I love being around a lot of people.   But I don' t always like to talk.
12. I can't keep shoes without some kind of buckle on my feet.   You know all those cute pumps and ballerina shoes out there that all you girlies are wearing??   Well they are like flip flops on me :(  totally not fair. Not sure why I have to be the one with the odd feet.
13. I redecorate my house often.    Probably a little too often.   My husband adores that about me.... never mind I think it drives him nuts.
14. I need lots of sleep
15. I would love it if I never had to clean my kitchen floor again.   Seriously would rather clean the bathrooms!   Not sure why, just the way it is.

and that's the end!
thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for Day 2


Debby