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 :)

Dresser Redo

Remember this dresser? The green wasn't really working for me.



Now it looks like this! Much better :)



I'm really digging the two toned look right now.
So much so that I also painted this little side table the same way.



Both the dresser and side table were second hand finds. I think the side table was $5 or $10 but I forget for sure. I've had it since college.

The dresser I won years ago at an auction (why do they call it "winning" when you have to pay for it?). It was ten bucks but was in sorry shape. The previous owner had painted it black.

I painted it light blue. Then I painted it white. Then I painted it light green.

I can't make up my mind.
I change my mind a lot.
I'm indecisive, okay?

I added some cute thrifted baby block knobs to it and used it in my first son's nursery. Now I've given it some clear crystal knobs I had laying around, and I'm going to use it as my bedside table :)

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!

Independence Day Fun, Food, and Family

I saw this awesome fruit kabob idea on pinterest and decided, "Hey I can make that!" The original photo used bananas instead of marshmallows, but I thought that they would brown too quickly and chose something else white instead. You could use mini marshmallows, but as you can see, I opted to use large ones cut in half to match the size of my strawberries.


Mmmm... the toddlers loved it!
Don't poke your eye out on that sharp stick, kid.


Enjoying a kabob in a thrifted top and super-clearance el cheapo shorts


Joel's cousin loved the fruit kabobs too!


Was this outfit thrifted too? You betcha. So were the flags the kids were waving and the quilt we laid on while we watched the fireworks :)

Someday Crafts Patriotic Linky Party 2012

More thrifted goodies in the big boy room

Just when I think I'm done with a room, I go and run into more thrifted cuteness that I can't pass up!



I picked up a plain black frame for under a buck. When I got home, I filled it with a page from one of my son's firetruck books. My husband spazzed out when I told him it came from a book ... he said that was his book when he was little. Oops. I tried to calm his nerves by telling him that it was just the title page, and the book is still totally readable, but he was still a little miffed. Sorry babe.

The el cheapo 59c plastic antique car frame was pretty hideous when I saw it sitting on the shelf at the thrift store. I actually didn't even give it a second glance the first time I walked the aisles. Luckily for me, I tend to take a second pass through the aisles!

And that's when I saw it. I'm pretty sure I heard angels singing in the background when I picked it up. It was perfect for Joel's room, so I snatched it up.

Ugly, no? (And believe me when I say it was even uglier in person.
And did I mention it's plastic?)


Much better with a fresh coat of red spray paint! Have I mentioned that spray paint is my BFF right now? I don't know how I would get along without it!




There was also a fire station picture on a canvas that I had seen the past couple times I went to that thrift store. I picked it up and set it back down about eight times over the past week or two. I finally decided that it was fate that it was still sitting there, so I scooped it up and made it mine. It was $3.

Last but not least, I have been on a corkboard kick lately. I had one already that needed a new fabric covering and a fresh coat of paint, and I found another one on that thrift store outing for a whopping 90c. I thrifted a couple of long sleeve button-up shirts ($2 and $1) to give the corkboards a facelift. I figure when the boys are a little older, we'll hang their artwork from their special corkboards. I don't trust Joel with pushpins just yet!

Fitted Tablecloths are all the Rage

Aren't these a good idea?

Fitted tablecloths! Who'd a thunk it? ;) This tute over at smashedpeasandcarrots is for a square or rectangular table. Let me tell you people, it is much simpler to sew a tablecloth for a square/rectangular table than a round table! (And I know this because I made one of each).



Kris over at Resweater made one too; her table is round like our kitchen table. For round tables, elastic is the key to keeping the tablecloth snug. Snug as a bug in a rug!

I had thrifted this vinyl tablecloth a long time ago because I loved the fruit motif on it, especially the cherries! It was large enough that I could cover our round kitchen table, as well as cover the little table that our son sits at :)

Voila! Matching tablecloths!

Thrifted Toddler Clothes Fashion Show

This plaid button up shirt was 50 cents!

He was very proud of himself for walking up the slide and then going down the steps :)

Picking pumpkins! This football tee was 40c

Still fits into that tee the following spring :)

These bibs were higher than I normally go, but for $1.50 I bought them anyway. Joel loves anything monkey! The green turtleneck underneath was 45c.

I couldn't pass up these Ohio State bib overalls, even though they were $1.50.

I love, love, love this Carters jacket. It was only 45c.

Another shot of the ca-utest jacket! Oh, and the kid is cute too :)

This Future Rock Star is sporting a 50c shirt and a brand new haircut.

Not shown: throwing a temper tantrum because he hates getting his haircut.

Sometimes I buy girl things, not realizing it. Don't look too closely, but these $2 snowflake PJs are definitely for little girls. Lacy trim is a dead giveaway.

Thrifted plaid shirt and blue shorts. Probably 50c each, since I very rarely spend more than 50c on children's clothes, unless the piece is really something special!

Mmmmmm.... cheese stick!

This blue and brown plaid button up shirt was a score at only a quarter!

(Do I dress my son in too much plaid?)

The bib overall shorts were 50c.

The plaid shirt was a birthday gift, but the Monster Truck tee was 45c :)