Toy Box Remake

A few months back I found this "Osh Kosh" Toy Box at a DI for $5. It had lots of stains and was pretty ugly so I decided to recover it.

After undoing a few screws it came apart easily. For the sides I used a blue canvas fabric and I found a cute floral printed fabric at Hancock Fabric for the top lid piece.

Then I stapled the fabric (on the back side) to each piece of the toy box and reassembled the whole thing. Looks a little bit better don't you think? It's so nice to have a place to hide all of the toys and it matches the room since I covered our pillows with matching fabric!

Sleeve Refashions

Do you have any shirts that you never wear? I liked this shirt last year but then it shrunk and the sleeves were way to short for my long arms. So I decided to cut the sleeves off and make something better out of it!

The sleeves on this shirt had nice serged edges at the seem that wouldn't fray, so I just cut around them and already had a nice finished edge.

Then I took the sleeves and cut the cuffs off of them.

Next I put one of the sleeves around the neck of the shirt and played with it until I got the look I wanted for the shirt. I gathered it in random places, folding and hiding the raw edges of the sleeves. Then I sewed the gathers in random spots to keep them in place. Here's what it looked like after sewing the first sleeve to it:

Then I took the second sleeve and did the same thing. This time I pinned it in place to make sure it would hold the right shape I wanted.

Here's the finished product:

 

Here's another one I did last summer. I actually found this shirt at the dollar store! It was a Hanes long sleeved T-shirt with sleeves that were to short for me. It was a little baggy on the sides so I took it in to make it fit better. Then I cut off the sleeves and sewed one of around the neck to add an embellishment. Sure adds a lot to a plain $1 T-shirt huh?

Linking up to:

Kristy's Table

 This past summer we had so much fun refurnishing my sister-in-law, Kristy's, kitchen table and chairs! It was a big project but turned out great! Here are a few before and after pictures.

 

It is so hard to keep upholstered chairs clean, especially with young kids! So we took off the seats and recovered them using a staple gun and a blue thick, vinyl fabric that could easily be wiped cleaned.

The one problem that came up during this project was the lacquer for the top of the table. We used an outdoor stain since Kristy already had it and she liked the color. But when we put the final lacquer coat on top, it never completely dried and looked really blotchy. 

After calling Home Depot, we found out the hard way that outdoor stains are incompatible with indoor lacquers. Who knew? So we ended up sanding the whole top of the table, applying an indoor stain, and then reapplying the lacquer again. Luckily, it worked the second time!

Here's a few different views of the chairs. We spray painted all of them an ivory white (Krylon brand) and then sanded the edges to give it an antique look. So much different than the brown huh? I love the clean, crisp look of the blue and white!

                                I like how the white paint really brings out the indented scroll.

Kristy also had these cute barstools in her kitchen so we reupholstered them too.

 Isn't it beautiful?!?! I'm so grateful she let me help!

$.50 Ring

This has become one of my favorite rings! Originally it was actually not a ring at all. It was a button I bought at a thrift store for $.50. I loved it and thought I would sew it on something but never found the right thing to sew it to. So I decided to make it a ring. I was wondering what I could use as the ring part when I looked down at my keys and saw one of my key rings. I tried it on and it fit my finger perfectly! The button already had a perfect loop on it so I attached it. Who would have thought?

Painted Doors

I found myself getting a little too bored lately so I decided to paint these old doors in our house. It was actually pretty fun and makes me happy to look at them now:) I love the simple things in life!
 

 

This is our bathroom door. I looked at a few different stencils for this door but then just came up with my own. I used a cool whip container lid and traced around it with pencil to create the circles, overlapping each other.  Then I painted blue inside the "football shapes."

 

This is our bedroom door. I drew 3 inch columns on it and painted them tan. It's simple but I love stripes!

This is Max's bedroom door. For this one I just started taping random lines with scotch tape and left the center extra wide. I painted blue inside all the rectangles then I used my handy cool whip lid and made the polka dots in the middle. Then I removed the tape to have nice crisp lines.  

This is a small hallway so I couldn't quite get a picture to show all three doors. It's hard to get the full effect but they all match each other and it's fun to add some color to our boring hallway!

Bags

One of my favorite things to sew are bags and purses. Here are a few I have made within the last year.

 

My sister Natalie found a bag she loved that had a huge flower on it but she didn't want to pay $45 for it. So I made this one for her. Although it wasn't the same as the one she saw, this one turned out pretty cute. I used less than one yard of this brown vinyl fabric, which cost about $8.

 This blue bag costs me about $2 to make. The blue canvas fabric was $5 bolt fabric at Walmart and I only used one yard. The strap is actually a canvas type belt that I cut.

If you haven't noticed by now, I love ruffles! I had fun making this bag at my sister Amy's 30th surprise birthday/craft party. I hope my 30th birthday is as fun:)

I love buttons! The bigger the better!

White Ruffle Shirt

 

The inspiration for this shirt actually came from seeing Sachiko's ruffle shirt on the TeaRoseHome Blog . I wish I had a picture of my original shirt. It was a plain white long sleeved tee with a rounded neck. I simply cut off the sleeves and made four ruffles out of them and sewed them on in rows. With the remaining fabric I made a one inch tube and then ruffled it to go around the neck. I felt like the shirt needed a little more to it so I added the gold brads (which actually came off of an old purse). The blue on the sleeves was actually not planned at all. I was in a hurry to show Tony the new shirt I had made so I slipped it on over the blue shirt I was wearing. He said one of his favorite parts was the blue on the sleeves. So I decided to add it to the shirt!

This shirt works well with any color cardigan over it too!

Gray Ruffle Shirt

 

My sweet hubby got me this dress form for Christmas. I was so excited because now I can actually take pictures of some of the shirts I've made!

I found this great knit fabric at Walmart. 5 yards for $5. I love great deals!

 

This shirt was actually really easy to make. I just took one of my favorite shirts and used it as a pattern for the main bodice part. Then I added a band around the bottom and finished the arms and neck. For the ruffles I took random strips of fabric, ruffled them and sewed them on in the shape I wanted. I loved the way it turned out! In fact I liked it so much I ended up using it for our family pictures:)

 Even though these family pictures are over a year old, I still love them so much! We had the most amazing photographer, Tara Winsor! I highly recommend her:) Check out her blog Winsor Photography.