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

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!

Upcycled Baby Shirt Goodness

Nesting? Yes, most definitely. Over the past 24 hours, I have made seven baby shirts for the little guy. One for every day of the week, of course.

Update! Want to make some of these yourselves? Between this baby gown tutorial over at This Mama Makes Stuff, and my tutorial for the two-tones sleeves, you can make these too!

This "I Rock" tee is the only one of the seven made from a thrifted tee. (The rest were free from the hubby! The hubby bought a few new t-shirts the other day, and you know what that means.... adding some of his older ones to my fabric stash!)



Before I knew him, my husband was really into "No Fear" apparently. He has about eight of these "No Fear" shirts. They sure do make some bad-@ss baby shirts though :)



A men's XXL shirt is big enough to make two, count them two size 3-6 month shirts. Woohoo! For the first one, I utilized the print on the front of the shirt. For the second one, I made it out of the plain back side of the shirt. That enabled me to do some decorative applique on the plain ones :)

This first applique was store bought... Joanns clearance for 99c. I figured I would use the image to create a Valentines shirt for my first son, however since he was born on Valentine's Day, that didn't really pan out. He gets cute little number shirts to wear instead, declaring how old he is :)



Excuse me while I drool over these next baby shirts. I love me some red and white polka dots. And in the shape of the best state in the nation? Just an added bonus :)



Every little boy needs a necktie shirt! No need to reinvent the wheel, so you can check out this tutorial on how to do it over at Crap I've Made


Just a side note about the appliques... Make sure that you make a mirror image of your print before you draw it onto to your fusible web. Yeah, I forgot to do that. Every time. Seriously. It's really easy- here's how I do it. I find a picture online that I would like to trace (something simple!), and then I print screen on my computer. You do this by hitting control, alt, and print screen simultaneously (at least on my laptop that's how it's done). Then I open up the program "Paint," press "control, V" which pastes your picture into the paint program. There's a feature in there to flip the image horizontally. I do that, hold my fusible web up to the laptop screen, and trace around it. Voila!

You might have noticed that all of these shirts have two-tones sleeves. This is for two reasons. One, I like the look :) Two, I utilized the sleeves from the men's tees that I was upcycling, however, as they were all short sleeve shirts, there simply wasn't enough sleeve fabric to make long baby sleeves.

I could have made the long sleeves out of a different portion of the shirt, however I really wanted to utilize the hem on the original sleeves. Luckily, I have enough t-shirt scraps lying about, that I was able to turn all these men's sleeves into baby long sleeves! (Are you sick of the word "sleeve" yet? It's one of the words that the more you say it, the weirder it sounds. Sleeve. Sleeve. Sleeve....)

So in case you are interested (is anyone still reading this??!) in making some long sleeved baby shirts, here's how I did it. First of all, visit This Mama makes stuff for her tutorial on how to make a baby gown from an adult sized tee. I simply made the baby gown shorter and didn't do the elastic bottom, and you've got yourself a 3-6m tee. I laid a long sleeve shirt on top of the pattern, added a bit of an allowance for the hem (which you don't need to do if you're using the hems from the bottom of the adult tee), and then marked on the pattern with a dotted line where to cut.

When it comes to the sleeves, I used two coordinating men's sleeves to make one long baby sleeve. The part of the sleeve that connects to the shirt itself is made from the same color as the shirt. The part that goes down to the wrist is made from a coordinating color. I utilized the hemmed part of the sleeves for both the upper and lower parts. Less work, baby.

Are you still following? I really should have taken photos along the way.

I always cut out the top portion of the sleeve first, and then lay the bottom portion on so that it overlaps the hem of the upper portion. After cutting the bottom portion out so that the total sleeve is as long as the pattern, pin the two parts together, and then slowly sew over the existing thread lines from the hem on the upper portion. This creates one long sleeve with two pretty colors! Hopefully. If you understood all that mumbo jumbo. I know pictures to look at would make it easier. So sorry! Maybe I'll make another one and take pictures of the process this time. If you want me to, let me know and I will! (That's a good excuse to make one more baby shirt, right?)

Other than that, I think using the baby gown tutorial should get you through! Good luck! Oh, and let me see if you make one too :)

My husband, the stripper

It's a good thing my husband doesn't care about crafting, sewing, or thrifting, and so he never checks this blog. I'm pretty sure he would not approve of the title ;)

The hubs is a very patient person. Way more patient than me. I do not like to strip furniture. I like to slap another coat of paint on it and call it done. He felt that this dresser needed stripped before it received another coat of paint.

Note the detail on the dresser drawers.
Lots of details equals lots of angry four letter words if I were to do the stripping!

I might mention that this is the fourth time I've painted this dresser, and it was painted once before I got it too. It was black when I got it at an auction years ago for $10. I painted it a light blue but didn't like it, so I painted it white. It stayed that way for a while, and then when the first bun was in the oven, I painted it light green to go in the nursery.

Pfew. That's a lot of coats of paint.

It's hard to tell in this photo, but the knobs are made to look like blocks

It's no longer needed in the nursery as we've gotten a bigger, better dresser, and so I'm painting it white again to go back into the master bedroom as my bedside table.

Stay tuned!

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!