Handmade Stocking Love

One of my most favorite things that I've ever made are these stockings. Using only fabric, bows, ric-rac, etc. that I already had around the house, I created several stockings for our mantel. The toile one on the left is my favorite. The white bow was off of my high school prom dress :) Or maybe the green one with red and white stripes is my favorite. On second thought, I really like the white one too! I can't decide. I love them all :)

Bridesmaid Dress Tree Skirt

When my first son was 3 months old, one of my close friends got married. I was still carrying around a little extra baby weight. (Okay, it was probably more like an extra 50 lbs).

What a perfect time for me to have to buy a bridesmaid dress right? The bigger the dress, the more fabric to work with when I cut it up after the wedding :) There's a silver lining to everything!

I knew I would never wear the dress again, mainly because I was never planning on needing a size 16 again. (Wrong! I had my second child a month ago, and I am in a size 18. Mostly I'm still sticking with maternity clothes!)

Since the dresses were a beautiful shade of red, I figured I could make something Christmassy with it. And since my tree skirt was one of those small, el cheapo dollar store felt things, making a new tree skirt seemed like the obvious choice. I got the idea from Chica and Jo.

Basically, my friend and I cut out triangles, and then sewed them together into a circle. When we were done, it was not as big as I had pictured it, so we made it larger by adding a large ruffle to the circumference of the circle. We also cut out a small circle in the center so that it would fit around the tree trunk.


Voila! Happy Holidays!

Calendar Towel Onesies

Besides my little newborn, there was also another baby born on my street a week before mine, and another neighbor gave birth on November 2. Three babies born to three friends all within about one month of each other! Wowser!

After I saw this onesie on pinterest, I knew I would be making these for the three boys! Yes, that's right, they're all boys! AND, we all already have toddler boys about the same age. Crazy, huh?!

We're working on making an entire Buckeyes offensive line here on our street :)



Making one of these calendar towel onesies is really quick and easy to do. Here's how. Take an old calendar towel and cut out the appropriate month. Take some floss and back stitch around the date the baby was born. Next take some fusible web (mine was thrifted of course!) and adhere it to the wrong wide of your calendar applique with your iron. Iron it onto a plain onesie, and then use your machine to zig zag around the outside of the applique. You're done!

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?

Long Sleeved Raglan Tee

Even though my son is only 2 1/2, I decided to go ahead and sew him a special long sleeved tee for his birthday. I don't have a lot of time to sew during the school year since I'm a teacher... and this year we'll have a newborn on our hands too!

The yellow fabric was a polo of my husband's that had some stains on it. The green fabric was thrifted tee that I scored for only a quarter. The number three iron-on applique was also thrifted... still new in the package for only 30c.

Awesome. But I don't really want my toddler wearing those words!

Before beginning this project, I should have checked around online for a raglan tee tutorial like this one over at Craftiness Is Not Optional. Lesson learned. Her tutorial looks great, and it would have saved me a lot of headaches rather than just winging it like I did.

By the way, the number 3 is supposed to look like that. It's the tattered look apparently!

I'm not very happy with the neckline (and hope it's big enough to fit my son's head!), and I completely messed up the sleeves. Twice. Ok, more than twice. The sleeves don't go all the way to the neckline like they're supposed to... *sigh* The sleeves also turned out pretty skinny, so I added a third strip of fabric to make them a little wider, which of course made the seams pretty strange. But I salvaged it the best I could, and I'm not too upset because after all, it was my first try at a raglan tee! Now I know what to do for next time :)

And anyway, I'm sure the only thing my son will notice is that it's green and yellow (John Deere colors). He's in love with all things John Deere. He even spotted a pair of green and yellow scissors at the thrift store the other day and exclaimed, "I want John Deere scissors!" They were actually children's pinking shears, and to tell you the truth, I should have just gotten them as they were only 50c.

Getting off my Duff and Sewing a Romper

I have just four days left of freedom before we go back to school. It has been a nice, long relaxing summer! This past month I've been pretty lazy as my nesting phase ended and ushered in the phase of laying around, doing nothing.

I decided that I would use my sewing machine today and whipped up a 12 month romper for Jonas for next summer. I haven't added the snaps around the bottom yet because I am still holding out until I find a thrifted snap-making tool.

Using Sugar Bee Crafts' tutorial as a guide, I turned this thrifted men's large Gap tee into a baby romper. I bought it originally for my first born son, because he LOVES hockey, and because my husband grew up on the south side. Whenever I see something that says "South Side" while I'm out thrifting, I pick it up if it's cheap. But seeing as how my son's closet is bursting at the seams with clothing, I decided that little baby Jonas could have this one!

If you make baby tees, basically you do the same thing to make a romper, except make it a little longer with two leg holes and reinforce the upside-down-U part in between the legs with a strip of "bias" tape (though since it's t-shirt material, you don't really have to cut it on the bias) before adding snaps. I used a 12 month romper of my first son's as a guide. It was really very easy!



I'll also show you a t-shirt and shorts set that I reconned for my older son awhile back. It's nice when kids are small; you can make multiple items of clothing from one men's tee! We usually use this outfit as PJs since t-shirt material is so soft, but sometimes he wears it outside too! Here he is playing with his cousin :)

33 weeks pregnant and a t-shirt

I haven't posted in about a month because I just have been too pooped. Being pregnant while you have a crazy two year old running around really wears a girl out! I just had an ultrasound yesterday, and the doctor said the baby is quite big for his age. He's estimated to be about 6 lbs already, so I'm on par for a 9-10 pounder. Good times! They scheduled a c-section for Oct 7 due to the fact that I had third degree tearing with my first son, and apparently it's easier and quicker to recuperate from a c-section than third degree tearing. I can tell you that the months (year!) after having Joel was the most painful thing I had ever suffered through in my life, and I still have problems from it.

I haven't really done anything crafty lately. My sewing machine is just sitting here collecting dust except for the few things that my sister-in-law wanted me to mend and sew for her.

We did take a weekend vacation up to Lake Erie last weekend and visited Put-in-Bay. A long time ago I had thrifted a Put-in-Bay adult t-shirt because I knew at some point we would take a trip up there. I sewed it down to fit Joel a month or so before our trip. Here he is on the "beach" behind the Perry Monument.




And let me leave you with a chocolate ice-cream covered two year old in a thrifted shirt :)

Puzzle Pockets- Genius!

Cluck, cluck, Sew came up with the best idea ever when it comes to toddler puzzles, to corral all those stray puzzle pieces that end up all over the house.

Puzzle pockets!

She used fleece; I used felt because I have tons of it on hand. She used velcro, and I opted to use snaps and buttons (once again, because I'm running low on velcro, but have dozens of snaps and millions of buttons). Because of the snaps, the button is actually not functional. I just sewed it on to hide the ugly snap.

The way she did it also uses less fabric than the way I did it. She's smarter than me... I should have reread the post before I started! I ended up sewing a large envelope, and then hotgluing it to the back of the puzzle. Either way, it works!

More tees please

I think I need to go to thrifting rehab. I swear I just can't stay away. I was perusing the newspaper the other day, and I saw a couple ads for local thrift stores and their 50% off sales. I wrote it all on the calendar, so that I wouldn't miss it!

I hit up the men's tee aisle, as well as the kid's clothes. This particular store doesn't have a wide selection of knick-knacks or homegoods; it's mostly clothes. I was able to find a package of four fitted sheet straps to keep the sheets from coming off the mattress all the time. I hate that, don't you? They were 50c :) That was the only non-clothing item that I bought.

Here are the men's t-shirts that I scored the other day. They were 50c unless noted.

Another St. Patty's tee.

I bought one last time I went thrifting too,

but I'll eventually need one in every size, right?

I'm thinking Father's Day for this one!

Do kids even know what GI Joe is anymore?

As a band director, I couldn't pass this one up, even though it was twice what I like to pay for kid clothes. It was $1. *Gasp* Breaking the bank, right?

I do hope that Joel chooses to play something other than percussion though!

This one is a Columbus Clippers tee.

Every little boy needs a special Clippers tee to wear to the games!

And here's the little twerp wearing his Clippers tee to his very first Clippers game.


Not sure what he's doing with his hand ....

Dress Shirt Onesie. Genius!

So have you seen this tutorial yet over at Sew, Mama, Sew!?

Yeah, it's pretty awesome.

What makes it even more awesome is that this men's shirt was originally thrifted so that I could cover a cork board in my son's room. I figured I had enough extra fabric left to make a onesie out of it also, especially since I had not used the button plackets for the cork board project. So this onesie cost me no additional money :)

Because I never fully follow a pattern and end up winging it at some point, mine is a little bit different. First of all, I didn't want to mess with putting the button hole foot on my machine, so I opted to hand sew on snaps at the bottom of the onesie.





I sewed matching buttons on the other side of the snaps to make it look like it buttons, but they're really not functional. Fooled ya :)

Secondly, I didn't want to mess with elastic, so I just used some extra t-shirt scraps to sew a bias binding (even though it wasn't really cut on the bias), and then just finished off the bottom with that.

Lastly, I think I screwed up the collar somehow because it just didn't seem to reach around as far to the front as I think it should, and so a clip-on tie wouldn't work with it like I had planned. Instead, I made Prudent Baby's super easy and super awesome bow tie :) I opted to make my tie smaller than hers because mine is for a super large 3-6 month old. (Ok, it's supposed to be 3-6 months, but when I hold it up to his other onesies, it's really more like 9-12. Not sure why it came out so big!)

The dimensions I used for the main part of the bow tie were 9" x 2.5" whereas hers were 12.5" x 3.5". I actually used her dimensions first, and it turned out pretty ginormous. Cool for my toddler, but too big for an infant.



I didn't photograph it, however here's how it's attached to the onesie. I made a tube of the same fabric as the bow tie, pressed it flat to make a strap, and slipped it through the "knot" on the backside. On the left side of the onesie, under the collar, I stitched the strap directly to the onesie. On the right side, I used my handy dandy snaps again. I sewed the snap onto the onesie, under the collar, so it's hidden out of sight. No one will ever know that the strap doesn't go all the way around the neck!


Love it!

Two Toned Baby Sleeves: the tutorial

Seven handmade shirts just wasn't enough. I felt the itch to cut up just one more of my hubby's old tees. I. just. can't. stop! And seriously- how cute is this appliqued Scrabble tile? The number 8 was a little fiddly to cut out, but I love how it turned out :) And the baseball... I was worried that I was going to have to hand sew (ugh) the red stitching, until I discovered that my awesome new machine already had the perfect fancy-schmancy stitch built in! Sa-weet!

Anyway, getting on with the tute.

Because the design was pretty small on this particular shirt, I was able to make T.H.R.E.E. baby shirts out of this one shirt! (The third shirt is not complete yet, though all the pattern pieces have been cut).

I also took photos along the way of the process of making the two-toned sleeves, so that you, my dear sweet readers, can make these too!

Ok, let's get started! Visit the awesome tute at This Mama Makes Stuff to print out the pattern. Gather up an adult tee. The bigger, the better.
Cut it apart and open it up like so, and place your pattern in one of two places.



If you want to use the picture on the front, center of the tee, place the pattern up there. If you want to utilize the bottom hem of the t-shirt as the bottom of your baby shirt, place it along the bottom like I did here. I do both so maximum the shirt's potential, but please note that if you place the pattern up around the neckline in order to use the picture already on the adult tee, you will need to make the shirt a little longer than if you use the bottom hem of the adult tee. This is so that you will have a little extra fabric to fold under to create your own hem.

Notice the little green cheerleaders at the bottom of my pattern. I need my patterns to cheer me on as I go :)

Here are two photos of where I placed the pattern in order to end up with a shirt just like the husband's originally was, only smaller :)





My pattern is only half, so I have to fold the fabric in half before I cut. Cut a back and a front, and another back and front if your shirt is large enough. (If you're wondering what's up with the bottom of my patterns, remember that these were originally baby gown patterns. I fold the pattern in order to make it the correct length for a shirt).



Here it is, all cut out but still folded in half.



And unfolded! Notice on the back where it says "Nike" is a little off-center. I had to do this because of the fabric available. I can fix it later by adding an appliqued Nike swoosh or something on the left. Then it will look centered :)



Now we're going to use the sleeves off of the adult tee. Here they are cut off, sitting pretty next to the baby sleeves pattern.



Take the sleeves and open them up. If you can fit it, make two short baby sleeves from each of the adult sleeves. Place the pattern along the hemmed edge of the sleeve. Notice the dotted line that says "short sleeve hem." I added that to the pattern because the original pattern was only for long sleeves. There's also a "short sleeve cut." Use the "hem" line when you're using the existing hem on the adult tee; use the "cut" line when you're not using the original hem, and you're going to have to hem the bottom yourself. (That's why it's a little longer... to give you extra fabric for the hem). Make sense?



Notice all the mumbo-jumbo that I've written on the pattern. You'll want to do the same. I've marked on my pattern where to cut fabric #1. Remember that the second half of the baby sleeve is going to be made with a second fabric, and so we're not going to use the entire pattern on fabric #1.



(If you can't quite make out all that I've written on the pattern, you can click on it, and it should take you to a larger version of the photo).

Then cut. You might need a John Deere tractor and a three foot tall helper with this part. I know I did.



And repeat.



Pfew! You're over half way done :)

Now take fabric number #2. If you're lazy smart like me, make sure you're taking a piece that is already hemmed.



Notice the "long sleeve hem" and "long sleeve cut" lines. Once again, the "hem" line is for when you're using an already-hemmed piece. The lower line, or the "cut" line gives you a little bit of extra fabric so that you can hem the baby shirt yourself. I just want to be clear, because this is important :)



Now you're ready to cut the top section of the second fabric, where it will attach to fabric #1. Just make sure you leave enough fabric at the top so it will overlap a little bit with fabric #1.



I like to lay the top part of the sleeve on the pattern, just to make sure they're overlapping.



Then cut and repeat!



Pin together like so. Simply lay fabric #1 over fabric #2, remembering to overlap a bit. Sorry I'm not more precise with my measurements. I don't get to use my measuring tape because my son always wants to play with it.



Here's what the inside of the sleeve will look like. It's not finished, but of course if you're a perfectionist, you could make the second fabric a little longer, leaving enough room to turn it under and make it look all professional. I am not a perfectionist, and so I'm totally fine with unfinished edges on the inside of the garment :)



Now let's sew! Finally getting to the good part. I hate the cutting and pinning part, don't you?

Place your needle directly over the stitching that already exists (if you're using an existing hem). Make sure you use matching thread so that it blends in with the original stitching. I sew slowly so that I don't go left or right of the original stitching.



Here's what the sleeve looks like when the two parts have been joined. Feel free to snip the jagged, uneven edges.



And here's a shot from the back. (This sleeve's secondary fabric is black because it's the second set I made).



You are now ready to get back to the tutorial over at This Mama Makes Stuff, because the tricky awesome two-toned sleeves are ready to be sewn into the shirt! Woohoo!