Dress and T-shirt Hacked into a Maternity Skirt

{24 weeks and still going strong, baby!}

I'm on a red and teal kick right now. Maybe it's the fourth of July coming up. Maybe it's my son's bedroom redo. But when I saw this forgotten cut-up dress in my stash (that I thrifted eons ago for its fabric), I knew right away it would make a nice Independence Day maternity skirt.

I currently have a large pile of t-shirt scraps scattered about lying on my dining room floor, leftover from making baby gowns and t-shirt/shorts sets for my boys. I picked up all the reds that still had the bottom hem, pieced them together, and voila! A belly band!

This is the inside of the belly band. Not the prettiest. You would probably want to use thread that matches your fabric. Personally, I'm lucky if the thread in my bobbin matches the thread up top.


See the top portion of the belly band? That was originally the bottom hem on the t-shirt. That's why it looks so straight and pretty and professional. I'm all about reusing existing t-shirt hems to cut down on the amount of work I have to do. The bottom portion? Yeah, I did that part. That's why it's jagged and ugly. I really can cut straighter than a first grader. I'm going to blame it on the scissors. I think they need sharpened or something.


I cut the skirt portion off of the dress, machine basted around the top, and gathered it to match the length of the belly band. Pin right sides together, sew, and you're done! Talk about a quick project!




If you need more detailed instructions, you can find lots of tutes online on how to turn existing clothes into maternity clothes. Probably the most recent one is by Trudy. She goes into way more detail and gives you lots and lots of photos along the way. Instead of using t-shirt scraps, she cuts a tube of fabric from a cami. Either way, easy peasy!

A big boy bedroom and handmade bedskirt

{Joel's first third piggy bank. They're all empty}

A little over a month ago, we made the big move from crib to twin bed! We figured that we better get Joel out of the crib plenty of time before Jonas needs it, so that perhaps he'll forget that the crib was "his." He is a very possessive little thing, and when Jonas arrives, we don't want him to feel like he's been kicked out of his bedroom.

We decided that it would be easier to keep the crib and nursery set up the way it is and just move Joel into one of the other bedrooms. (It was my sewing room, of course, that got the boot. Again. This happened to me at the old house too when Joel was born).

Of course we had to set up his big boy bedroom on the cheap! By the way, the photos don't do this room justice. It's actually very cute in real life! The lighting was bad, and I'm not a great photographer, so excuse the photos!

Anyway, here's the skinny:

Paint: I don't like to buy full price for paint, as I usually buy the Oops paint, but I splurged this time so that I could get just the right shade of blue.

Window treatments: These I bought new because I needed the black-out kind, and I needed them stat. The back of our house gets H.O.T. from the sun coming in. I'm talking greenhouse hot, people. I figured the black-out curtains would help. I think they were about $25 for the pair. (Ouch).

Dresser and TV stand: Free! The dresser was mine growing up, and Jason had the TV and stand in his apartment before we met.



Toy storage: My grandpa made this barn toy box for my dad some 50 years ago. It hadn't been painted in like 50 years, so that was the first thing that I did gto spruce it up. I added some wallpaper scraps of firetrucks, but then Joel ripped almost all of them off. I think I'll try again, this time with modpodge. I'm still going to make a little curtain for the bottom and some kind of fabric covering that rolls back and is held with velcro for the top. So please excuse the mess! The red bins I bought a couple years ago at Target. They were on clearance after Christmas for I think $2.50 apiece. I bought all they had :)

Thing keeping my son from falling out of bed: That was thrifted for two or three bucks. The funny thing is, Joel hasn't figured that he can get out of bed in the middle of the night. He stands there with his arms up, wailing, "Mommy! Mommy!" until I come get him. One night I found him trying to climb over it to get out of the bed! Geesh, child!

Bed frame: free from the in-laws, however they had left it outside lying in the grass for awhile (don't ask), where of course it got all nasty and rusty, so it needed some TLC. The wheels/feet were missing too. Did someone seriously go into their yard and steal the wheels off of the bed frame? Who does that? Probably the same person who stole the lids off our trashcans, and/or the person who stole the doghouse right out of our yard. Jerk. Sorry, I'm digressing. Anyway, luckily I already had some thrifted casters that we attached to the frame. It's really low to the floor, but I guess that's a good thing for a toddler! Ah, the silver lining.

Headboard: a thrift store find for a whopping $3.93. There is a chip out of one of the legs, however that gets hidden by the bedskirt. I was superstoked when I got it home and discovered that the wood tones do indeed match the dresser!



Mattress & boxspring: we bought these back in August when we put the old house on the market. (We used it for staging).

Bedding: we had all that bedding already, with the exception of the bedskirt, which I made with fabric I already had in my stash. The truck fabric was originally thrifted curtains. I cut them in half long-ways to utilize the upper and lower hems that were already there, because I'm a total lazy sewer to save time and energy. I sewed the unhemmed sides to a piece of large white felt since that part will be under the mattress and won't be seen. (The felt was a freebie too... we bought a new leather recliner, sofa, and loveseat when we moved into this house, and they came wrapped up in the felt. Of course I couldn't throw away yards and yards of free felt!) Finally, I made a pretend box pleat where the two pieces of truck fabric came together. In case you're wondering, a pretend box pleat is really not a pleat at all. I simply sewed a piece of red fabric from my stash to the white felt, under where the two pieces of truck fabric met. Once again, because I'm a lazy sewer. Super simple, and it does the trick!




Ceiling fan: (Not pictured because I couldn't get a good photo of it). I found two, almost brand new ceiling fans at a thrift store for $13 each! I was totally stoked! Luckily, my father-in-law is good with electricity, and he installed them for us :) Someone must have moved into a house that was a couple years old and ripped out the ceiling fans and donated them. Lucky me!

Picture Frames & Wall art: Several of the things hanging on the wall were thrifted or garage sale finds. I thrifted the Engine Number 9 metal sign years ago for $3 because I liked it, even though at the time I had no children and nowhere to hang it! The ambulance print was still new with tags, half off at Goodwill. $2.50! The race car print set me back $3. It originally had an ugly wooden frame, which I spraypainted black to match the rest of the frames. I bought the shelf for $5 at New Uses. It was originally purchased for staging the old house. The red and blue picture frames were 50c apiece at a garage sale. The wall decals were Meijer clearance- after the 75% off, all those decals were only $5. Score!





Thrifted little stair-step thingie: I painted Joel's name on it. It actually had some girl's name carved into it, so before I could paint Joel's name onto it, I had to fill in the girl's name with spackling and then prime and repaint it white. I like how it turned out :) He loves going "updairs" and "downdairs" on it!


Thrifted car rug: This was still new with tags for $5!

Eventually I'll get around to showing you photos of the nursery :)

Upcycled Toddler Tees and Matching Shorts

There's no doubt about it.... I am certainly in the nesting phase of this pregnancy. I have been sewing and getting ready like there's no tomorrow these past few days. We even steam cleaned my mother-in-law's carpets the other day because 1)it was her birthday and she wanted them done, and 2) I want Jonas to be able to roll around on clean carpet when he gets here :)

A week or so ago my sewing machine focus was on finishing Joel's upcycled tee and short sets. I made them about a year ago, however after I made them I realized that they were way too big for him at the time. Of course, this time when I got them out of the closet, several of them were a little too short. I fixed this by letting out the hem and then adding coordinating t-shirt scraps around the sleeves and the bottom to create a faux layered look. I decided against sewing in the faux layers and instead opted to use some fusible hem tape. I love how it turned out. This one will be his Independence Day outfit :) Please excuse the slight wonkiness on the front. The hem tape came loose a little... I'll fix that later on today.


By the way, there are matching shorts for all of these tees, however most of the time, he wasn't wearing the matching shorts when I took the pictures. (We've been using the shorts as PJs bottoms since they're so comfy!)

The next two fit well just the way they are, so I didn't add anything around the hems. This one was the perfect shirt for Father's Day!




And this one is my personal fav :)




For this shirt, as well as all the others, I was able to use the necklines and the sleeve hems of the existing shirts to cut down on the amount of time it takes to make the shirt, as well as to make the finish product look more professional. (I'm not very good at sewing in straight lines!) All of the bottom hems are sewn by me though, which was a bit of a problem when it came to this shirt. The bottom obviously needed white too since all the other openings were white. Since I had no ribbed fabric on hand and I'm too cheap to buy some, I used white t-shirt scraps to make a bias tape and sewed it on. It doesn't match since it's not ribbed, but I guess it's not too noticeable.

{cute little boy sweeping with his newly thrifted vacuum cleaner}

For the tank top, I made double sided bias tape from t-shirt scraps and sewed it around the openings. For the coordinating shorts, I once again did the layered look by adding in some black t-shirt scraps. For all the faux layers, I was able to utilize the existing hems in the t-shirts. Score!




And because I had used up all the thrifted tees in my stash, you know I had to run right out and thrift some more!

The only problem is, I really don't like weekend thrifting. By the time the weekend rolls around, the 50%/75% colored tags are pretty much picked over, since the colors change on Mondays. Nonetheless, I had the itch to go thrifting on Friday, and so off I went. Not to mention, Father's Day was just around the corner, and I was hoping to find my hubby something special. That didn't happen, since I never find anything that I'm actually looking for... thrifting is all about stumbling upon things you didn't know you needed :) I did find a pair of vintage binoculars that I thought would make a cool gift, however they smelled pretty funky, so I passed. I've been wanting to get the hubs some binoculars ever since we moved into this new house. Our backyard looks out onto a bird sanctuary!

Anyway, all the adult tees I bought were 99c with the exception of the first one, which was $1.99.

I put Ketchup on my Ketchup ... I saw the kiddo version of this shirt while we were on vacation. We almost got it for Joel but didn't because of the high price tag. Joel really does eat ketchup on anything. He even dips tomatoes in ketchup. (And I'm not even kidding). Does that make me a bad parent?


I Rock. Need I say more since there's a baby on the way?


Peeps in the Hood ... perfect for an after-church Easter shirt!


A brown skull tee for Halloween. Check out the gold teeth :) I really bought this one mainly because I need to make Joel a pair of brown PJ shorts to match his monkey PJ tops.


Chillin with my Gnomies. When Joel saw this one, he exclaimed, "Santa!"


Lucky Shirt for St. Patty's Day


You can never go wrong with a shirt with a skunk on it!

A Handcrafted Father's Day Family Tree Mural

Check. this. out. Is this not the coolest wall art that you've ever seen? It's a Bed, Bath, and Beyond hack. As soon as I saw it, I thought to myself, "I can make that too!" What a great father's day present!

Jig saw and sander? Check.
Lots of random frames? Check.
Scrap wood? Check. (I used luan plywood ... it's a really thin plywood used in flooring. We had some leftover from our laundry room remodel)
Black spray paint? Check! (I ran out of spray paint mid-project, another can set me back one dollar)

The only other things I had to purchase were double sided tape (the thick, heavy duty kind, sold near the Command Strips but way cheaper) so that I could attach the leaves and trunk to the wall, and the letters to spell the word "family." I found a nice silver font at Michaels, and with my 40% off coupon, it came to just over three bucks :)

I'm not sure I like how the upper right hand corner turned out. I might add another frame. We'll see. The more I look at it, the more I'm okay with it the way it is.

Unfortunately, we ran out of ink, and so my final photos didn't get printed out yet. I wanted to get this blog post up for Father's Day, so oh well!

Update: I opted to add the seventh frame after all.

Halloween in June

My son loves Elmo. (shocker, right?) Since my parents got Joel an Elmo costume for Christmas, I decided that being Elmo for Halloween this year would be a good choice! The other day, at two different garage sales, I found him an Elmo treat bucket (50c) and some Elmo tickle-me gloves ($2) to go along with his costume. He's all set!

For baby Jonas, who will likely be less than a month old when Halloween rolls around, I decided that dressing him in a Cookie Monster costume would go cute with Elmo. Several years ago, I thrifted a McCalls pattern for baby clothes and hats. I never did use any of the patterns on Joel, so I figured I better get some use out of it, because there's no way I'm going through pregnancy again in case this is the last time I have a baby!



I made the sleep sack out of some fabric, vintage bias tape, and a vintage zipper from my stash. (I love me some vintage, thrifted notions!) Unfortunately, when I went to make a matching hat, I discovered that the hat pattern was missing. (Darn those used patterns). Never fear! Using Prudent Baby's awesome pattern, I was able to make a matching baby bonnet. Since I was not using fleece, I needed to finish the edges, so I added more bias tape. I also left off the ruffle on the front, since Jonas is a manly man-child. The only thing left to do is find some thrifted ping pong balls and add some googly eyes to the top of the bonnet.



I decided to add a felt cookie to the front of the sleep sack. I figured attaching it with velcro so that it could be removable would be the best bet. I'm pretty sure felt shouldn't go through the washing machine. The world doesn't need another felt cookie tutorial (plus I didn't take any photos of the process), so let's just suffice it to say that I used some thrifted fusible web to make the chocolate chips and some batting sandwiched between some tan felt from my stash. I probably should have used a blanket stitch around the outsides, but instead I used a straight stitch on my machine because that was a lot quicker. You can still tell it's a cookie, so I'm okay with that :)

A cute little boy in a thrifted tie

Or as most people would call last Friday, my brother's wedding!


We had the wedding at my parents' house. My mom did most of the cooking (I helped make the Ambrosia salad!), and I was in charge of things like wrapping plastic silverware in napkins then tying them with pretty little bows, and putting the tablecloths on the rented tables. Very strenuous. I also had the very important job of photographer :)

I had some time to squeeze in a little thrifting because we arrived to my parents' house a day early, and so we hit up two thrift stores and a neighborhood garage sale. At the neighborhood garage sale, I scored this dresser for $10. The lady had $12 on it, but when I was pulling out the drawers, one of the knobs popped off. She said "I'll take $10 on it." Deal!


I thought my mom was going to kill me because I dragged another piece of furniture home to store in their basement, after she just spent the past several months cleaning out the basement, getting ready for the wedding. My dad thought it was hilarious... my mom, not so much. I'm sure some day she'll look back and realize that baby Jonas needs a dresser, and $10 was just too good a deal to pass up!

I found a few pieces of clothes at the thrift stores, including a still new-with-tags dress for one of the cousins at Christmas for $2.60 and a cute, like-new toddler camouflage raincoat for $2.11. (Goodwill was having a 35% off everything sale, hence the odd prices). At the second thrift store, I found two more kiddo ties and a pair of little Old Navy khakis for baby Jonas, all for a total of about $1.50. I don't know what it is with me and little boy ties, but every time I see one for about 50c, I feel compelled to buy it. Isn't he handsome in his new tie?!

A birthday party!

Back in February, my little boy turned T.W.O. How time flies! My baby has turned into a full-fledged little boy with his own likes and dislikes, mood swings, and sense of humor :) He absolutely loves monkeys, so when it came time to pick a theme for the party, it was a no brainer.

If you google "monkey cake," a million and one cake images come up. I opted to go with the monkey cake from parenting.com. The only bad thing is that all the little things you have to buy in order to make the cake look like a monkey really rack up the price. You need mini chocolate donuts, licorice, brown M&Ms, peppermint patties...

I really like how it turned out!


One cake isn't enough for my husband's ginormous family our large guest list, and so I made some monkey cupcakes to go with it. I used these cupcakesas a jumping off point, however for the life of me, I could not get the vanilla wafers cut in half correctly to make the ears. I eventually gave up, raided the cereal cupboard, and decided that Cinnabon cereal made pretty good ears. They were a little Princess Leia-ish, but they did the trick.


And here's an action shot of my son enjoying said cupcakes:


This one's not the best photo of him, but it does show off the shirt I made for the special occasion. At a thrift store, I found a blue, furry, (still new-in-package!) "2" applique and a solid colored turtleneck to adhere it to. For under $2, Joel had a special birthday outfit :)