2 1/2 Pillowcases = a Handmade Swaddler!

Alida over at I Make Stuff is flippin' awesome. She came up with a tutorial on how to make swaddler blankets! I had bought three on clearance that supposedly last up to 14 lbs, but seeing as how my son is about 12 lbs and I can barely fasten the velcro around his broad shoulders, I figured it was time to buy some new ones.

But wait! Alida to the rescue! Why buy when you can sew some for free, using fabric I already have on hand?! Stash-busting, that's what I'm talking about!

Before I decided to whip up some of these bad boys, I did find a The Miracle Blanket Swaddler which gets very good reviews online. It costs $30 at Amazon... it cost me under $2 at a thrift store :)

For my first attempt at a swaddler, I decided to use three pillowcases that I had thrifted for their fabric (technically you need 2 1/2 pillowcases for this project). The plain brown one was 75% off for a total of 15c, and the two sock monkey pillowcases were 40c and 60c. I actually found them on two separate shopping trips, one right after the other. I believe that's what we call good thrifting karma :)





Alida uses minky fabric for her swaddlers, however I don't have any of that and certainly don't need to go buy any new fabric when I have a fabric breeding ground in my basement. Instead, I used flannels, t-shirt fabric, or regular pillowcase fabric.

Also, a quick word about the velcro. Last night when I was sewing the velcro on, my two year old asked me what that stuff was. When I told him "velcro," I think he misunderstood and thought I said, "Hell no," because he said, "Mommy! Don't say that! Say, 'Oh my peas!'" Our son has a swearing problem, and whenever he says something bad, I tell him to say, 'Oh my peas!' Now he's taken to correcting ME when I say a bad word... Not that I ever say bad words, ahem :)

Anyway, back to the swaddlers! The first two swaddlers have black velcro, which I actually cut off of a baby carrier that had been recalled. That velcro is awesome because it's much wider than regular velcro. The last one I had to use regular white velcro, so I doubled up on it so that it would be wide like the black velcro. I also didn't place velcro on the swaddler in all the places that Alida did in her tutorial. I only have so much velcro, and I didn't want to run out and have to buy some, since these are freebie swaddlers. My son has slept in it for two nights now, and so far, he hasn't busted out of it (knock on wood), so hopefully it's okay that I skimped on the velcroing!



Back in '09 I thrifted several yards of this red and black lumberjackish flannel for only 50c. Paired with a cut-up black shirt of my husband's, I think it makes quite a nice swaddler. The best part is, I still have enough to make my older son a pair of pants, and maybe even a matching pair for my husband. That's a lot of mileage for only 50c! (My husband has ripped two pairs of lounge pants in the past couple weeks, and one pair he actually ripped twice. I'm getting tired of mending his pants! I'd say that new ones are definitely in order).





My third and final swaddler is made with 50c race car flannel, thrifted last year, and a green pillowcase from my college days. As that was over a decade ago (wow, I am getting old), and the dark green no longer matches any of our bedding, I decided that chopping it up was no biggie.





Whoops... the velcro didn't quite line up because it shifted while I was sewing. If I had to do it over again, I would have used white thread to sew two strips of velcro together before attaching it to the swaddler. Then I could trim the edges to make sure both strips were exactly the same length.







Second Time Around Tuesday

Thrifting for Kid Clothes: Winter Edition

Thrifting for kid clothes is my obsession. I love a good deal, and even though their closets are stuffed to the brim, I just. can't. stop. buying. them. clothes. They seriously could go a month without needing their laundry washed.

For some reason, I never published this blog post. I just noticed it in the "drafts" today, so I figured I'd post it. Jonas is a lot smaller in these pics... he turned 9 mos. old today :)

I love this sleeper. I thrifted it back before Joel was born, but I've since lost how much I've paid for it.


A thrifted pair of black dress pants for 50c, a $1 green vest, and a thrifted black tie


Jonas is wearing a $1 fleece romper, while his older brother sports a 40c striped polo and thrifted navy blue khakis.


A 50c pair of Pooh blue jeans and a 50c Pooh shirt,
thrifted on two seaparate occasions.


I love, love, love this $2 Gymboree sleeper


A 50c Tiger Hockey shirt for my hockey lovin' toddler


a 40c onesie


A cute toddler in a thrifted dinosaur shirt


This long sleeved polo onesie was 50c


This next outfit is one of my favorites. It was actually thrifted on three separate occasions but work together! First, the red and grey pants were thrifted back before Joel was born. The "Leader of the pack" tee was a bit of a splurge at $1, and the grey turtleneck onesie layered underneath was 50c.



Joel's basketball shirt was 50c,
and the jeans were thrifted for no more than 50c.


Here Joel is wearing a clearance t-shirt with 25c pants.


50c shirt and thrifted jeans :)


Handsome boy in a 50c Old Navy sweatshirt, showing off
his 50c Chick Hicks car. He loves the movie "Cars" so much!


99c jammies!


This fleece hoodie was a bit of a splurge at $1.50, but I couldn't pass it up. Underneath is a white Gerber onesie that I had received as a gift, and then I added an iron-on pumpkin to it :)


Another splurge for Baby Jonas: $2 "Backseat Driver" romper.
But isn't he cute? :)


My Santa Baby (in a 75c thrifted fleece blanket sleeper). The hat was given to me by one of my high school ex-boyfriends.... his family are Jehovah's Witnesses, and he had received it at school but couldn't keep it since they don't celebrate Christmas.

Christmas Ornament Wreaths

Has anyone out there ever made Christmas ornament wreaths? And if so, what kind of glue did you use to adhere all the ornaments together? I made three of these wreaths several years ago and used hot glue, but every year I have to reglue many of the ornaments back onto the wreath because they've fallen off or are barely hanging on. There must be a better way!

Anyway, I do love my ornament wreaths :) I started with a styrofoam wreath form, wrapped it in garage-sale green and white gingham ribbon (I think it was 50c for a huge big box of ribbon!), and then painstakingly hot glued bulb after bulb onto the wreath. (The bulbs were of course thrifted also!) In the end, I took some blue ribbon I had on hand and tied it around the top of the wreath so that it could hang on the wall, and voila!

Here they are hanging above my mantel this year. (And in case you're wondering, I don't normally decorate THIS early... Santa Claus is coming to our house for a photo shoot on Sunday, and so I needed a nice backdrop so the pictures turn out cute!)

{Note to self: if ornament wreaths made with hot glue are hung over candles, do not light them! Doing so will heat up the glue, causing the ornaments to come crashing down and shatter all over the floor. Then the glue will cool again, and the shards of glass wil adhere to the floor. Seriously.}

And here they are a few years ago, hanging above my couch.


I also made the blue background thingies that the wreaths are hanging on. It was a really quick and cheap project that adds a lot of pizzazz to the wall. (For the other 11 months out of the year, I hang photos on them). I could totally see making some of these with red and green fabric, or perhaps thrifted vintage Christmas tablecloths... the possibilities are endless!

Here's how I made mine in case you're interested. I went to Lowes and bought the cheapest thing I could find, which happened to be that brown pegboard stuff. I covered it with some of the heaps and piles of quilt batting that I have laying around. (Isn't it the best when you find some brand new batting at a garage sale for next-to-nothing?!) Then I stapled on my fabric (I think my staple gun {and my glue gun too} are extentions of my right arm...) and finally attached a hanger-thingie on the back so I could hang it onto the wall. Then I hammered a nail into it so that I could hang something on each panel, and viola, there you have it!

This is a photo of how they looked at the old house. At the new house, I've decorated in a more contemporary style, so I changed out the frames and am now using pictures of my husband and kids rather than my ancestors. Here is how it looks now (Sorry for the dark picture; I took this at night)

Help Me - I can't choose!

I have two Christmas outfits for the boys to wear when they get their pictures taken, and I just cannot make up my mind which one to use! Both outfits were completely thrifted :) What do you guys think; which one should they wear?

This Old Navy fleece "Peace" romper was 50c. The blue dress shirt and the dress pants each were 50c, and the sweater vest was a quarter.



This white dress shirt and black dress pants each were 50c, as was the Baby Gap sweater romper. I forget how much the tie was, but it was surely about 50c and it was still new with tags!



Perhaps we'll just go get their pictures taken twice :)

Kids in Thrifted Clothing!

The sweatshirt was a gift, but the jeans were thrifted :) ALL his jeans are thrifted, in fact. He has 8 pairs of jeans for a total of $3. And they're all in good condition with no holes or signs of obvious wear, and are good brands like Gymboree, Old Navy, Wrangler, etc!


Here Joel is wearing a totally thrifted outfit. I sewed down the skeleton tee from a thrifted adult tee, and the thrifted orange onesie underneath goes well with it to keep him warm.


The romper Jonas is wearing here was a bit of a thrifting splurge at $1 but it sure is cute :)


Jonas's romper was a gift, but Joel is wearing a thrifted outfit. At 40c, this shirt was a steal!

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.

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 :)

Kiddie Table

At our old house, we used this little side table in the sunroom. It used to belong to my ex-boyfriend's mom, but she gave it to me years ago. After a crisp coat of white paint, it fit into my decor perfectly!

At the new house, there is no sunroom, and so this little table has been in the crawl space for the past year. I got the idea the other day to get it down and use it for a kiddie table!



I already had these three adorable Mexican chairs too. Can you believe I actually thrifted them on three separate occasions?! At the old house, I had them hanging up in the den on a peg rack. Here at the new house, they've been sitting in the basement.

I'm so glad I brought them upstairs. My son l.o.v.e.s. them! They've made quite a nice little nook in the family room :)