A little sewing project

I had some fun with a quick sewing project a few weeks ago. My sister, who is a photographer, was visiting that day, so it made it a lot easier to get some nice pictures...thanks, Becca!

I found these adorable babydoll bunk beds sitting by the curb on trash day several months ago. They were adorable and seemed to be in decent shape, so I decided to give them a new home!

I wanted to give them a bit of makeover, though, so I took an old sheet and a curtain valence we were not using and set to work to repurpose!

From the old flat sheet I made fitted sheets for both of the doll mattresses, a flat sheet for each, as well as a little pillow.

I kept things really simple...sew the edges for the fitted sheets, then flip them inside out.

The unused valence became baby blankets!

I used a seam-ripper to take off the loops for the curtain rod so I was left with a large rectangle. I cut that into two smaller pieces, finished the end, and instant blankets!

The end result:

This was a simple and easy way to repurpose (someone else's) trash and a few things that were collecting dust in my house. And I'm happy to report that a certain little girl is loving her baby bunk beds!

Any recent repurpose stories to share?

Wrapping outside the box

Do you still have gifts to wrap? I'm almost done, but I still have a few to go. I am finishing up a few handmade gifts right now, and I'm waiting on one more thing to come in the mail!

Recently, I found some great inspiration for an adorable and quick candy pouch from Peppermint Plum. Be sure to check out her tutorial! 

I used a brown paper bag from Trader Joe's and cut out some shapes

And sewed them together on my sewing machine. I left a little gap to stuff in the candy, and then finished the last bit on the machine.

I made a few stocking shapes and a few circles!

It was amazingly simple and super cute! If you have a few minutes, I bet you can whip up a few of these too, just using things that are already in your house! And while you could dress them up a bit more, I love the simple "wrapping" of the brown paper.

Next wrapping: a clementine box and some newspaper.

In this case, the newspaper is actually homemade firestarters (inspired by Whole Living). I used a pinecone and some pine cuttings inside.

I also dipped the pine in some wax melted from an old candle.

Wrap it up and twist the ends

Tie with twine (I used ribbon that can be easily cut off before burning!) and place in the clementine box. Beautiful!

To make your gift card gifts a little more snazzy, check out some of these ideas.

Make a snow globe out of an old jar (via The Creative Mama)

I love this idea for a Starbucks gift card from Saucy's Sprinkles.

Since I didn't want to make a trip to Starbucks just for an empty cup, I used a box that had Starbucks VIA packets in it...very cute, and much easier to wrap!

I decided to print out some free Christmas sheet music and use it to wrap an iTunes gift card. I just picked a Christmas song, but you could print out lyrics to a song on a particular album the gift card recipient wanted, or a photo of the album cover. The creative possibilities are endless!

Have you wrapped anything in a new or creative way over the last few days?

Salvaged Jeans

Somehow I manage wear holes in my jeans on a regular basis. I'm sure it has plenty to do with being on the carpet with my kids a good portion of the day! Sometimes the rest of the jeans are wearing out too, so the hole isn't that big of a deal, but a hole in a pair that still had plenty of wear remaining, and I am super bummed!

Patching a hole from the inside never looks right to me, and just patching the one little hole would have drawn attention to the fact that it was there even more so. When I was doing an internet search about patching jeans, I came across several different "patchwork" styles (for examples look at various designer brands, Hot Topic, ArtFire, and even eBay).

I decided the patchwork look would be easy enough for me to make, but I still wasn't sure that I could pull it off style-wise! After getting the advice of my fashion-loving sister (who happens to live in Miami), I decided that I really liked how my "new" jeans turned out!

After getting ideas from some different websites, I ended up using a pair of my daughter's jeans for inspiration also.

I really wish I had done a better job documenting the process along the way because it was so easy! I had a very small (less than 1 inch) hole in one knee, but the other knee was thin also, so I realized I needed to reinforce both sides of the pants. I have saved every worn out pair of jeans we've gone through, and was finally able to put them to good use!

I cut a bunch of square-ish pieces from different wash jeans, then pinned them onto my jeans to see how it would look. I even worn the jeans while I was pinning the pieces over the knees because the knees were fairly stretched out, so leaving them flat would have made the patches not end up sewn on evenly.

I used my sewing machine and stitched around each patch, and then helped tease out the material to create more of a frayed look. This ended up being kind of an extra step, since I sewed over top of these when I patched the jeans.

The most time-consuming part of this was sewing the patches to the jeans, but it was so worth it because I love the finished product!

My husband took a bunch of pictures for me one evening, and he had fun getting me to pose (something I feel extremely awkward doing!). I wanted to do a whole second-hand "salvaged" outfit for you...I think I got everything from Goodwill over the past 2 or 3 years. The jeans are Gap (paid $2.50), the sweater is j.Crew ($3.50), and the books are knock-off Uggs (less than $5).

What do you think? Do you like the patchwork look?

I'm linking up with these partys...check them out!


,

Salvaged Shirt

On Monday I showed you this photo:

It was a sleeve on my daughter's "I'm a big sister!" shirt that somehow got partially eaten in the washer. I'm still not quite sure how it happened, and in the 2+ years I've had the washer, this is the only casualty, so we'll call it a fluke for now. But sadly, the poor shirt could not be worn as is, and it still was plenty big enough for her.

Providentially, it was a "layered" shirt! Which meant it was super easy to salvage!

All I had to do was cut the pink sleeves out along the seam...no sewing required!

When it was finished my daughter found the shirt folded and ready to go back into her drawer. She held it up and said "Its so cute!". I think so too, and I'm glad it was such an easy fix. I'm sure we'll get to enjoy it all summer!

Have you rescued anything from the scrap pile lately? I'd love to hear about it!

Thrifty Sewing Projects and Walmart Sales

I've been working on a few sewing projects lately that I'll be sharing over the next two weeks! Here's a sneak peak at a ruined shirt...

and a pair of jeans...

I found some great clearance sales at Walmart last week. A Cars hoodie for $1, a thick fleece for $2, and a winter coat for $5!!

The coat was tagged as $6.50, but scanned even lower...just $5!

I don't usually shop at Walmart, mostly because they do not double coupons. But thanks to a change in Walmart's coupon policy, you can now apply "coupon overage" towards the rest of your purchase. A quick example...a small box of Gain dryer sheets is priced at $1.78 at Walmart. Use the $3 off Gain dryer sheets coupon (from the 2/13 Red Plum insert) to get a box for free PLUS $1.22 of overage towards the rest of your total.

I had three of these coupons, so I was able to get 3 free boxes of dryer sheets plus $3.66 off the rest of my total, which made those clearance clothing even sweeter! If you still have the $3 off coupon, use it quickly! It expires on Thursday.