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.

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 :)

A Precious Toddler Conversation about Sewing

Today on TV, Curious George was learning about spider webs. George decided he was going to build a monkey web and used thread to weave his web.

My 2 1/2 year old got very excited when he saw the thread and exclaimed, "Mommy uses fred on the sewing big 'chine!" and he ran over to the dining room table and pointed to my sewing machine.

And I said, "I do? What do I make with my thread?"

And he said, "Uh.... shirts!" :)

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 :)

My big belly (28 weeks) and some griping

I have a few things I've been meaning to craft, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I thrifted a white dress shirt for 50c, and I want to make another dress shirt onesie with it; maybe I'll get to that today. I've been very busy finishing up some scrapbooking (I thought I was all caught up, but I keep thinking of pages I want to make...), and making this giant beast of a swingset for my son.



We got a good deal on it, so I couldn't pass it up. I went to the store to buy tea and bread, and came home $670 poorer. My husband said he's going to stop sending me to the store. I ended up getting about a hundred dollars in groceries, diapers, etc., the swing set (which was on clearance for $479 and was originally 8 or 900 dollars), and a patio table with six chairs and a umbrella on clearance for $250. I already had a coupon for 5% off my entire purchase, and then I decided to go ahead and apply for their credit card (this is only my second credit card, so it's okay!) to get the additional 10% off.

Since the stuff was on clearance, if we didn't get it now, we would have to wait until next year! As we're getting a patio poured in a couple weeks, I didn't want to wait a whole other year to get a nice patio table set. I'd been looking on craigslist, but I wanted something more contemporary looking, and I just wasn't finding what I wanted. Sometimes you just have to buy things new!

Oh, I can't forget that our CENTRAL AIR WENT OUT. Grr. We had to spend two nights at the in-laws because it was about 90 degrees in the house. It was pretty miserable, especially since I'm pregnant. It cost us... brace yourselves... $1600 to get it fixed. Of course it had to be the compressor, the most expensive, important part, that went out. And of course this had to happen just a couple days after I spent almost $700 at Meijer... and just weeks before we're scheduled to spend $3100 getting our patio poured...

Anyway, enough griping out of me! Here's a cute pregnancy photography idea that I've seen all over pinterest. I loved it so much that I made my husband photograph my tummy. And when we were done, my two year old must have thought that it looked like we were having a blast, because then he exclaimed "Do me! Do me!" I love two year olds, don't you? :)

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!

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 :)

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 :)

Vintage Cart Before and After

I've been meaning to fix up these old, rusty, ugly vintage carts. I finally got around to it :)

Before (I forgot to take a photo of the red one before my husband disassembled it):



And after! (Ok, the other one isn't done yet because it's too dang hot to spray paint...)

Keep Calm and Ride On (And Other Nursery Printables!)

{When I printed mine out, they had white backgrounds... I didn't figure out until later how to make the background colored! Oh well!}

Until the newborn babe is born and I can take tons of pictures of my fat little baby and plaster them all over the house, I have a lot of picture frames that need filled. With the help of Microsoft clipart, some cool fonts, Microsoft Word, and Paint (the computer program), I created some free nursery art that I thought I'd share with y'all. I couldn't figure out how to add a pdf file in blogger, so I uploaded them into google docs. Just click on the photos below, and it will take you to the big version.

This is the part where I tell you that these free printables are for your personal use only, so please don't sell them (unless of course you want to give me half the proceeds)! Thanks!

This one is my fav:



By the way, these are centered in the pdf file...
I cropped them and made jpgs out of them for the links.

$10 Photo Ledges. Heck yeah!

I'm still here! I just took some time off for a very hellish intensive week of scrapbooking. I hadn't done a page since my son was born in Feb 2009. I am now caught up! I completed three scrapbooks in just over a week! Hip hip hooray! And yes, two of the three scrapbooks were thrifted for about $2 each, as well as three packs of extra pages. Each pack had five sheets (or ten pages) and was 69c. Woot, woot!



Anyway, can I just say that Ana White is seriously my hero? I found some instructions on her website, showing how to make your own photo ledges, and I was all over it.

Okay, my husband was all over it.

I sat in the driveway, eating popsicles, and talking to my neighbor while our boys played together.

The best part about these ten dollar photo ledges is that they actually cost me less than ten bucks! All the wood I bought was $20, plus the cost of paint and stain (which I already had lying around), plus a couple dollars for new screws. That's about $23, but when you divide that by three, that's only $7.66 for each eight foot section!

We bought enough to make three 8-ft ledges. That's six 1x4x8s and three 1x2x8s. We had the man from Lowes cut the 8 ft sections in half, so that we could make six 4 foot ledges instead after we decided that 8 feet sections were just too long.

After the hubs made them and I painted/stained them, we decided to do 2 ledges in three different rooms rather than 3 ledges in two rooms. (All this math is confusing, isn't it?)

I used some frames from storage in the basement, which received the royal spray paint treatment, and then I went hog wild at thrift stores and garage sales, buying up frames for 50c to a dollar. I bought 27 frames for a total of $15.50. (I use about 6-8 frames per shelf, and remember I had six shelves to fill up!)



So for under $40, I have decorated three walls in my home :) Not too shabby!

Two ledges are up in the family room (the "lodge")...




two are in the master bedroom...


and two are in the nursery.





{Keep Calm and Ride On}

In the nursery, I made a bunch of little printables to put in the frames. I'm trying to share them with you... stay tuned! My computer program is not cooperating!

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 :)