Sunday Diversion: A Dollar Tree Craft

Still working on Hot Patterns 1226, but I needed to order some seam binding, so I took a little detour into Dollar Tree Crafting.  My local Dollar Tree is a mixed bag.  Certainly not as much fun stuff as is depicted on those haul vlogs on YouTube, but still some intriguing things.  For instance, I picked up six spools of burlap ribbon and a wire wreath form.

The resulting wreath came out quite nice, so for $7 I was able to add a nice accent to my door!

I'm pretty happy with my dollar store craft.  The other thing I've done is repair a pet bed for some friends.  I am looking forward to completing my blouse as soon as my seam tape arrives!  Until then, enjoy your Spring!

Quick Sunday No-Sew Craft

The hubby is watching a man movie... so, I'm free to craft!  This happens rarely on weekends, so I threw together a quickie.  I acquired this frame at a yard sale.

And, I had some printed burlap left over from another project.

While thrift shopping earlier, I had also gotten some cute fabric strips.

So I threw them together with an old Yale safe key found in our house when we moved in.  Here's the result!

Not bad for a few spare minutes!  Hope you're having an excellent weekend!

Top 3 Finds of the Day

Today was my first real yard/estate sale foray of the season!  I love these sales for a lot of reasons. First, since many of the things that do not sell at a yard sale end up in the trash, I feel as though I am diverting things from landfills. Second, they are a wealth of raw materials to the crafter or sewist. Today was particularly productive for me.  I hit about five sales, and purchased things at three of them.  Here are my top three finds, which were all sewing related!

I just love this little pewter finish Timex sewing machine clock.  I'm not certain of the age of the item, but some quick online research says sometime between 1970 and the present.  The replaceable battery sits under the base and is reachable with a tiny screwdriver.  This is a welcome addition to my little sewing room!

The second sale at which I made a purchase yielded these lovely vintage linen pieces.  I just love vintage linens.  I use them around the house, and I also use them in crafting and sewing.  These do show some staining and wear, so a little bath is in order to see how these will be used.

Last, and possibly the most exciting to me is this large haul of sewing patterns.  I scored about 250 patterns in one stop.  Most of these are 1960's and newer, but nothing that looks to be newer than 2000.  You are seeing them after I transferred them into these wire baskets.  They were stored in a large cardboard box which was coming apart at the seams, and in a plastic garbage bag. In other words, not really stored in an archival manner! However, the treasure trove here is incredible.  Children's, women's, men's ... Simplicity, Vogue, Butterick, McCall and a few smaller brands ... day clothes, evening wear, accessories and even a few craft patterns.  I will be keeping some to use myself, but the vast majority will be posted for sale in my Etsy shop!

So, I had a productive morning (back home by noon)!  Leave me a comment sharing what your best yard sale find has been!  Oh, and please let me know how you feel about the new design of the blog... good? Or do I need to keep working on it?

Pinspiration: Menu Board

So, my sewing machine was in the shop... but my need to make something was great.  I often turn to Pinterest for inspiration, so I checked out some of the Pins I've been hoarding the last few months.  I had been wanting to make a Menu Board similar to one I had seen on Pinterest.  The original was from Lauren at The Thinking Closet.  You can read all about hers here.  Love the original, but wanted somthing more in keeping with my Victorian home, and wanted to spend only a little time making it, before the creative urge died with the realization that I couldn't sew!  My current method of menu posting involves a tattered piece of paper posted on the fridge.

So I headed to a craft store (but NOT Hobby Lobby whom I refuse to patronize, as we are on opposite sides of the fence as regards a woman's reproductive health rights).  And purchased:

1. A pre-cut chalkboard
2. Cute rub-on decals
3. Glittered baby clothespins      
4. Magnets
5. Cardstock
6. Glue (well, ok, I already owned the glue!)   

The decals were the type that you rub into place with a popsicle stick, allowing you to look like a great painter and artiste.  Once the decals were in place, I glued on my clothespins and magnets on the back to hold the board onto my fridge.  While it lacks the little pockets for holding the cards that the original had, I'm quite happy with the result.

What ideas have you gotten from Pinterest lately?  Please share!

Plodding Along on the Ultimate Restyle

I'm considering this wedding dress to be an ultimate restyle.  I'm retaining the basic skirt from the original gown and I'm using similar features, like lace netting.  I applied the netting to the bodice today.  Here are a few pictures so you can get a sense of it.

Tomorrow I plan to cut the netting for the overskirt.  I'll intersperse some other projects here so you don't get bored with this dress.  It's going to be a painstaking project because I want it to be perfect, of course.

On another note, another one of my projects was featured on the Green Crafts Showcase at Crafting a Green World!  I am very happy to say that my latest mom jumper restyle was one of the five projects featured for June!  Thanks for all your comments and encouragement.

Wedding Jewelry

Today I'm working on something slightly different from the usual sewing projects.  I'm making jewelry for my upcoming handfasting in August.  I'm upcycling some old costume pearls,faceted glass beads, sterling chain and findings into a new, collar style necklace, with matching earrings and footwear.  Here's a peek at the beginning of the necklace.  I'll post the finished piece soon!

Butterick 4228 Sneak Peek

Hi everyone!  Hope your weekend was fantastic!  I hit some garage sales on Friday, and I plan to share my haul with you later in the week.  The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back, but I managed to get some sewing done on Butterick 4228.  The skirt is almost complete, so here are a couple of sneal peek pictures.

Well, just the zipper!  Just hooks and hems left on the skirt, with the top left to go!

Also, I have a new post up at SewMantra on getting out of a sewing or crafting slump.  Please stop by there to see it and make my day by leaving a comment!  Thanks!

Team SewMantra

I'm very excited to announce that in addition to blogging here, I am joining the team of Guest Bloggers at SewMantra!  Sew Mantra is a site dedicated to reuse, renewal and reinvention - all in a very original way!  The site founder is gathering a team of very ecclectic crafters and artists to contribute to a collective blog about this exciting process.  Since many of my inspirations are vintage, I just hope I can live up to all that originality!  Please visit me over there, check out the site and all it has to offer, and look at the cool stuff the other GBs are up to.  Thanks for all of your support!

Lessons From the Past:2 - Shirt Shuffle

The Make and Mend for Victory book has been so much fun to read, and such an inspiration.  I have always been interested in reuse of discarded or unwanted fabrics, but this book has helped me to see things through my grandmother's eyes even a little bit more than before.  Having been a young woman during the Great Depression and WW2, she knew how to pinch a penny until there were tears in Abe's eyes!

I stopped into our local Salvation Army store the other day and picked up two old men's shirts.  Both are large sized.  One was $2.99 and the other $4.99.  And, of course, you may have a stock of worn out men's shirts at your disposal for free!

I have plans to modify these into women's blouses, but another chapter of Make and Mend for Victory had me looking at the many other potential garments hiding within these shirts.  Many of you have young children.  These shirts are ideal for making all kinds of garments for the little ones! Again, patterns of the day are used in these layouts, but modern patterns would work as well if you haven't a source (or the budget) for vintage patterns.

I hope this gives you some great ideas, as it did me!  Happy sewing!

Shared on Frugally Sustainable.

Owl get it all done by Yule

This is the time, each year, when I wish I'd crafted and sewed my ass off all summer, and that all my Yule presents were made, wrapped and ready to go.  <Cue the maniacal laughter>  Well, needless to say, I haven't and they're not.  I'm going to make these cute little owl pillows for Mike's three 3 year old grandchildren.  This guy is the prototype.  Theirs are going to be made in a cuddly fleece instead of the recycled menswear, but you get the idea.  I'll post other things as I get them made, as long as it doesn't spoil anybody's surprise.

I've also been working on getting some garments finished for my Etsy shop, though this has been a painfully slow process as well.  Where does time go?  Anyway, I finished another upcycled vest.  The vest itself was obtained from a Goodwill shop some years ago and the embellishments were added by yours truly, and completed this morning!  Hope you like it!