The Man in the Yellow Hat Costume is now YELLOW

Woot, woot! My hubby ran to Meijer for milk late last night after the kids went to bed, and I told him to pick up a box of yellow RIT dye too. (In case you missed the post yesterday, I made a white "Man in the Yellow Hat" Halloween costume for my son, and I'm dying it yellow).

Last night I upcycled my sister-in-law's white linen skirt into white pants for Joel. The waist band is a little a lot girly, so I'm going to have to put some testosterone into it, but other than that, I'm lovin' the outfit!

This morning, the screaming darling baby and I came downstairs. Armed with a bottle of formula and a cup of coffee, we got to work dying the costume yellow!

I did it in a stock pot with just over a gallon of hot water and the entire box of dye. I did put it on the stove on low, but I was afraid of melting the plastic lid so I didn't turn it up high at all. The water never boiled and really wasn't all that hot. I only left it in the dye solution for 10 minutes, then I started rinsing. (And in case you're wondering like I was, RIT dye water CAN be saved for use at a later date! I wanted to keep the yellow water in case Joel outgrows the dress shirt. It's a 3T, but with my luck, he'll need a 4 by then. If he does, I'll just thrift another cotton dress shirt, and dye it too :) I have the water saved in an old milk jug with "DO NOT DRINK!" written all over it.

Back to the how-to... I put all three articles of clothes (the 100% cotton dress shirt, the linen pants, and the t-shirt material mock necktie) in the dryer on EXTRA low. Once again, I was worried about melting the plastic piece in the mock necktie, but it was just fine.

And now, drumroll please, I introduce to you Joel's Halloween costume this year.... The Man Who Still Does Not Have a Yellow Hat!



Ok, so I still need to make la piece de resistance, the yellow hat.

Here are some ideas I pinned:

Source: seekatesew.blogspot.com via Jodie on Pinterest

Source: homemadebyjill.blogspot.com via Jodie on Pinterest

Aren't they cute?! These ladies are awesome :)

Linking to
Delightful Order Thursday Linky Party!

Button Placket Pant Legs

My sister-in-law and her family are moving to Cincinnati this summer, and so she's doing a lot of weeding out of stuff they don't wear or use anymore.

Enter me. The annoying scavenger relative who always wants other people's trash!

I was lucky enough to intercept the box of clothes before it went to the thrift store. Now I can make some upcycled clothes for the kiddoes :) I did tell her that I would make her daughter a few shirts and skirts. I thrifted a 30c girls clothes pattern (still new in the package, never cut) just for the occasion.

I was excited to find a plaid shirt to cut up because little boy plaid shorts are all the rage, you know.

Because I wanted the pocket to be on the butt, I aligned the pattern to make sure the pocket was in the right spot. Doing so put the button placket (although technically they're snaps) from the shirt on the side of the pant leg. I wasn't sure how I felt about that until I was out shopping and saw some shorts with the snap buttons up the side. Now I'm digging it. I even got compliments on the placement of the button placket from my neighbors :)

Now go raid the closet and make some button placket shorts!

A Construction Birthday Par-tay!

Here are some photos from today's birthday party :) I can't take the credit.... pinterest was a great source of inspiration!

The mason jars were free; I had one and was given three others. The fabric I used on them was from my stash, and I created the tags on my computer. We already had the large dump truck for the chex mix and the figurines on top of the cake.









"Thank you for cone-ing to my party" ... I thought of that one all by myself :) No pinterest needed!

Awesome Things to Hang on the Wall, Part Deux

When I saw these online, I knew I wanted to make one for my hubby's birthday. I had the perfect square frame (thrifted of course, and painted white), scrapbook paper for the background, a fiskars heart thingamabobbie, and tons of old maps that we don't use anymore thanks to GPS.

Here was my inspiration for this project:

Source: google.com via Jodie on Pinterest

I love how mine turned out :)

Cookie Monster Sleep Sack Costume and a Newborn!

I would like to introduce you to the newest member of the family.... Jonas Alexander!

At 9 lbs 4 oz, he was a hefty little newborn! He was born two weeks ago via c-section, and we're both doing quite well. I'm so glad he was born in time for Halloween... I do love Halloween :)

Proud big brother!




Now let's talk Halloween. To save money (hey, we are now diapering for two!), I decided to have my older son be Elmo because we already have an Elmo costume. My mom got Joel one for Christmas last year. And who goes great with Elmo? Cookie Monster, of course!

I started with a thrifted sleep sack pattern, and a bunch of other vintage stuff that I already had on hand. The fabric was from my great-grandmother's stash. When she passed away, I got her fabric. The zipper and bias tape were thrifted too.

The cookie is made of felt sandwiched together with batting in the middle, and attached to the sleep sack with velcro.

Then for his head, I decided to make a baby bonnet using Prudent Baby's awesome tutorial. I left off the ruffle for obvious reasons! I bought a six pack of ping pong balls for $1.29, hot glued two of them on top of the baby bonnet, and then drew some googly eyes with a permanent marker.

Is he not the cutest baby Cookie Monster you ever saw?

Kitchen Table Transformation

This table was the one we had in our kitchen growing up. My mom gave it to me in college when they upgraded. Unforunately, my rabbit chewed on the legs, and so I still have some repairing and painting to do.

The first thing I did to spruce this up and add some color to the room was add a fitted tablecloth. Very cheery!



For Mother's Day, the hubs and my son made me a hand print. He calls it his "hand cake" because they made it in a pie tin :)



I started with two matching kitchen chairs, found one for free sitting near a dumpster, and then bought one at a thrift store for two or three bucks. They don't exactly match, but they're close. Armed with four cans of spray paint and some primer, I coated them all with this funky blue paint. (My husband says it looks like chairs from a Mexican restaurant. I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not. I don't think so!)

I found four seat cushions on clearance at Meijer for $6 each, and that completes the sitting area! I'm not so sure about the competing patterns, however since the tablecloth won't last all that long (it's already tearing!), I figured it didn't really matter. I already have a new clearance tablecloth waiting in the wings... Meijer has really cute teal with large white polka dot tablecloths, and I snatched one up :)

Keep Calm and Ride On (And Other Nursery Printables!)

{When I printed mine out, they had white backgrounds... I didn't figure out until later how to make the background colored! Oh well!}

Until the newborn babe is born and I can take tons of pictures of my fat little baby and plaster them all over the house, I have a lot of picture frames that need filled. With the help of Microsoft clipart, some cool fonts, Microsoft Word, and Paint (the computer program), I created some free nursery art that I thought I'd share with y'all. I couldn't figure out how to add a pdf file in blogger, so I uploaded them into google docs. Just click on the photos below, and it will take you to the big version.

This is the part where I tell you that these free printables are for your personal use only, so please don't sell them (unless of course you want to give me half the proceeds)! Thanks!

This one is my fav:



By the way, these are centered in the pdf file...
I cropped them and made jpgs out of them for the links.

$10 Photo Ledges. Heck yeah!

I'm still here! I just took some time off for a very hellish intensive week of scrapbooking. I hadn't done a page since my son was born in Feb 2009. I am now caught up! I completed three scrapbooks in just over a week! Hip hip hooray! And yes, two of the three scrapbooks were thrifted for about $2 each, as well as three packs of extra pages. Each pack had five sheets (or ten pages) and was 69c. Woot, woot!



Anyway, can I just say that Ana White is seriously my hero? I found some instructions on her website, showing how to make your own photo ledges, and I was all over it.

Okay, my husband was all over it.

I sat in the driveway, eating popsicles, and talking to my neighbor while our boys played together.

The best part about these ten dollar photo ledges is that they actually cost me less than ten bucks! All the wood I bought was $20, plus the cost of paint and stain (which I already had lying around), plus a couple dollars for new screws. That's about $23, but when you divide that by three, that's only $7.66 for each eight foot section!

We bought enough to make three 8-ft ledges. That's six 1x4x8s and three 1x2x8s. We had the man from Lowes cut the 8 ft sections in half, so that we could make six 4 foot ledges instead after we decided that 8 feet sections were just too long.

After the hubs made them and I painted/stained them, we decided to do 2 ledges in three different rooms rather than 3 ledges in two rooms. (All this math is confusing, isn't it?)

I used some frames from storage in the basement, which received the royal spray paint treatment, and then I went hog wild at thrift stores and garage sales, buying up frames for 50c to a dollar. I bought 27 frames for a total of $15.50. (I use about 6-8 frames per shelf, and remember I had six shelves to fill up!)



So for under $40, I have decorated three walls in my home :) Not too shabby!

Two ledges are up in the family room (the "lodge")...




two are in the master bedroom...


and two are in the nursery.





{Keep Calm and Ride On}

In the nursery, I made a bunch of little printables to put in the frames. I'm trying to share them with you... stay tuned! My computer program is not cooperating!