Estate sale finds: Dennison seals and ironstone

It is a source of much frustration to me that I don't often get to visit estate sales around here very often (especially when I see the goodies that Laurie finds at estate sales every week). I don't go because 1) four-year-olds and newborns don't make for very good estate sale shoppers and 2) I live on the edge of town in a very new area, and 90% of the estate sales I see listed are at least a 30-minute drive from me.

Last weekend I needed a junk fix and The Mister was home to watch the littles, so I headed across town to an estate sale that sounded interesting (the ad said something about three generations of collectors...enough to set any junker to drooling). It was a good 40-minute drive into the heart of downtown Denver but when I found these on the floor in the attic, I knew it was all worth it!
LOVE them. And serendipitous because I had been watching some of the turkey seals on eBay that very week! There are more that I didn't show, mostly duplicates and a few Christmas designs.

I also found this lonely china plate in the back of a basement closet:
Crazed and stained, just the way I like 'em!

The seals, the plate and about 10 packages of 1980s Muppet & Snoopy stickers for Maren set me back exactly one dollar. Now that was worth driving across town for!

Tuesday thrift finds

Some thrift finds from August that I never got around to blogging...

Silver baby cups (someday I'll have enough to do this)
Three little half-pint milk bottlesA delightfully crazed yellow planter with a sweet little bird on a branch

A turquoise Krispy Kan to match my red one. (I had no idea they came in this color; they were made in yellow too).

Halloween craft: Swirly crystal pumpkins

When I saw the cover of the 2009 Better Homes & Gardens Halloween magazine I bought it immediately, purely because of the image of that pumpkin on the left with the swirly designs. If you look closely, the swirls are made of little gems, and since I'm all about adding a little bit of *bling* to Halloween I knew right away that I wanted to make one of my own. My mom saw it and loved it too, so we decided to make the pumpkins when she came here to help me before Porter was born. Because he took his sweet time in getting here, we had time to get our pumpkins completely done before I went to the hospital! I even made one to send to my Sweet & Sinister swap partner and now that the package has been sent and received I can finally post about it. This was such a fun, easy and satisfying craft project and I've been dying to share it with all of you! Here are some of the particulars:The pumpkins:
We used the fake pumpkins that you can purchase at Michael's as they were slightly less expensive than the Funkins brand from JoAnn's. We used both the large size and the smaller size. We wanted our pumpkins to be black and white rather than orange like on the magazine cover, so we used a can of black spray paint to spray some of the white pumpkins black (fortunately the painting went better than last year's attempt). We didn't initially paint the stems but after we were all finished we realized that black stems would look better, so we used black acrylic craft paint and a small sponge brush to touch them up.

The crystals:
The most difficult part of this project was finding enough crystals to use for our pumpkins, since we knew we each wanted to make more than one. The crystals we used are from Prima Marketing. They are self-adhesive and they come already placed in the swirl patterns, so all you have to do is stick them onto the pumpkins. The ones we used come on a sheet that looks like this:Each sheet is slightly larger than a sheet of paper and contains 4 large swirls, and will cost you approximately $7. The colors we used were black and clear (they also come in black diamond, which is really more of a smoky gray or charcoal). We bought out the stock at Archiver's and two separate Hobby Lobby stores to find enough packages of each color. Here is a link to buy the large black swirls on Amazon, and here is one for Ritz Camera (it doesn't appear they have the same swirls we used in clear, though they have a different design).
We found that it took approximately 6-7 of the crystal swirls for the smaller size pumpkin: 5 swirls to go around the top and then an additional swirl or two to cut apart and add in here and there to make the design balanced. Because the swirls are self-adhesive it's as easy as peeling them off the backing and placing them carefully on the pumpkin. On the painted pumpkins we had to be careful in our placement because the adhesive lifted off the paint if we tried to adjust the swirls once they were adhered. We also used larger single gems in both black and clear to accent the swirl designs. We purchased those at the Hobby Lobby as well and attached them with Glue Dots. I can't recall how many swirls the large pumpkin used, but I know I used more because I wanted them to come further down the sides of the pumpkin.

The leaves:
The pumpkins shown in the magazine didn't have any leaves, but I remembered that I found some awesome vintage silver foil leaves at a garage sale earlier this summer that would be just perfect for our blingy pumpkins! For the black pumpkins with clear crystals we left the leaves silver but for the white pumpkin with black gems we spray painted them black with a bit of the leftover spray paint. Then we simply hot glued them to the top of the pumpkins (this is when we realized we should have painted the stems. Alternately, you could cover the stems with coordinating glitter).

I love how the pumpkins turned out! My photos don't do them justice. They sat on the table for a few days after we finished them and every time I walked past them I think I mentioned how much I loved them...I think The Mister got sick of my declarations of affection for my silly pumpkins!

I'm linking this post to Kimba's DIY day!

A golden Saturday in October

Last weekend was a perfect example of why I love autumn in Colorado: lovely blue skies, warm sunshine, crisp air and gorgeous colors all around. This weekend is a perfect example of what I don't love about autumn: the schizophrenic weather that gave us snow yesterday, cool sunshine today, and more snow (and high temps in the 30s) on tap for tomorrow. Sigh.
We took advantage of the lovely weather last weekend to drive north to Loveland to a pumpkin patch. The Mister was out of town so my mom flew in to help me out for the weekend, and we packed up the kiddos and set out for an adventure.
We had such fun! The farm itself is quite small and the whole event was delightfully low-key and uncrowded. While Maren enjoyed the pumpkins, hay rides, barrel train and petting zoo, my mom and I enjoyed the antique vendors, visiting with friends and the beautiful fall scenery. Here is my loot from the day:A great old glass jar (to go with a few others I have), a pair of cream ceramic urns (only one is shown), rhinestone sparklies, and a couple of fun old spice cans for Thanksgiving decorating. Not shown is the old Almond Joy candy bar box that I scored for a song for my mom's growing collection. The one that got away: a huge old metal canister in the perfect shade of orange for Halloween decorating. It was cheap and awesome but I didn't want to haul it around and when I went back for it, it was gone. Serves me right for being so lazy!
Beautiful weather, friends, junking and my family--what a perfect way to spend an autumn day!

Wardrobe refashion: Freezer paper stenciling

Most of September is just a blur to me. I spent so many days in limbo, waiting for Porter to be born that the days all ran together and before I knew it the month was over! I've been meaning to post about these since the first week of September, when I did my class on wardrobe refashioning (previous posts here and here).One of the reasons I volunteered to teach the class in the first place was that it would give me a good excuse to finally try out freezer paper stenciling, a technique I've been reading about throughout blogland for a couple of years. I've long been acquainted with crafting with freezer paper, ever since I taught my roommates how to make tissue paper envelopes back in our freshman year of college. In case you've never used freezer paper before, it can usually be found in the same grocery store aisle as the foil and plastic wrap. It's wide white paper on a roll that has been treated on one side with a coating that makes it glossy and water-resistant. The neat thing about that coating is that when ironed, it melts and becomes adhesive, opening up all kinds of crafting possibilities.
Complete instructions for the freezer paper stenciling technique can be easily found through an online search, but the premise is this: draw or print a design on the paper side of the freezer paper and cut out a mortise (reverse) mask. Iron the freezer paper onto your fabric, glossy side down, thereby adhering the stencil to the fabric. Paint as you normally would with a stencil and when the paint is dry you can simply rip off the freezer paper to reveal your design!For my designs I used a mixture of sources. The crow was the outline of a clip art illustration from a book, the toadstool was hand drawn, and the black cat and owl were clip art from my Microsoft Word program. You can use any kind of design, but it's important to remember which parts of your design will be positive and negative space! (Ask me how I know this one.)For the owl, cat and toadstool I used regular opaque fabric paint. For the crow I used really beautiful silver Lumiere fabric paint that I bought at JoAnn's. It didn't photograph well but it's a beautiful metallic silver! I haven't washed it yet so I don't know how it will hold up but the shirt itself cost less than $5 so it won't be a huge tragedy if it cracks.

I found freezer paper stenciling is just as easy and addictive as all of the other bloggers said. What a great way to hide a stain or a flaw or just to spruce up an existing (but boring) piece of clothing!

Vintage style that fills me with GLEE

In addition to the snappy writing, Jane Lynch's hilariously snarky one-liners and the spontaneous musical numbers, one of the things I love best about Glee is Jayma Mays' character's awesome vintage-inspired wardrobe! In case you haven't seen the show, Mays plays Emma Pillsbury, the high school's guidance counselor. I don't know who is in charge of wardrobe on the show but I'd like to send him or her a big ol' sloppy kiss! Even though Pushing Daisies has gone the way of the dodo, I can still get my fix of fabulous vintage style through Glee!The buttoned up, ladylike vintage style is a perfect fit for the character of Emma Pillsbury, a germophobe who is secretly in love with Will, the (married) Glee club advisor.
While searching the intraweb looking for photos of Emma Pillsbury's ensembles, I found this awesome blog post that details some of the outfits worn in the show's pilot episode and gives sources for the pieces. Looks like many of the items are from J. Crew and other fairly accessible brands. I wish there was an outfit-by-outfit breakdown like this for every episode! The comments for that post have some good info in them as well. Here's another blog that is cataloging the jewelry she wears (unfortunately without sources, although many of the pieces appear to be vintage).

Can't wait to see what she'll be wearing tonight!

Ten for Tuesday: Likes & Dislikes

First the Dislikes:

• Nursing bras. Unflattering, lumpy, shapeless. I'm not a super big fan of breastfeeding in general and I attribute that largely to having to wear nursing bras that don't exactly..er...lift and separate (separate yes, lift not so much) and make getting dressed in the morning even more of a challenge. Add in nursing Gs for my Mo friends and you have a sure-fire recipe for serious body-image issues.
  
• Bedtime. What used to be such a delightful relief now just signals the beginning of eight hours of sleepless frustration that leave me a zombie until at least 10:00 a.m. the next day. I know it hasn't even been three weeks yet but things need to start improving soon or I'm going to go nuts. I need sleep! And naps during the day don't really help.
  
• Cute fall clothes in all the stores...none of which I currently fit into and don't want to waste money buying "in between" sizes. I miss my old clothes.
• A messy house. Feels like I'm fighting a losing battle. Also in this category: Trying to keep the dog hair under control, another battle which I cannot win.
  
• Post-partum hormones giving me the complexion of a 13-year-old. I need to make friends with a dermatologist.

Whew, that list was a downer! Let's get to the things making me happy today:

• This rolled fabric flower tutorial to learn how to make the flower bib statement necklaces I see all over blogland & etsy these days. I can't wait to try these out! I hope it's as easy as they make it look. I'll keep you updated.
  
• This cute ruffled tank from Target. My store was out of the purple so I hope I can find it at another location. I think J.Crew might have had something similar earlier this year, but you can bet it cost a whole lot more than $15.
• Buying smaller "in between" pants yesterday than at this same point after my last pregnancy. They're still two sizes larger than what I normally wear but buying smaller pants is always a good thing, right?
• My cute new $13 leopard-print ballet flats from Target. First leopard-print item I've ever owned, actually. They're pretty comfy for cheap shoes and they make me feel kinda sassy.
• Finally figuring out how to make a 3-column template for ye olde blog. Feels like I can finally stretch out a little! I used this tutorial and I'm so pleased with how it turned out.
  

Easy Framed Halloween Vinyl Decor

During the week or so before I delivered Porter, I had several days of nothing to do. I had nothing scheduled because I didn't know when I'd actually go into labor, and I was too physically awkward to be moving around much, so I returned to my default setting--if all else fails, CRAFT!

I had this very cool Spooky Brocade vinyl Decor Elements from Stampin' Up! and was looking for a fun way to use it in my Halloween decorating. My mom and I tossed around some ideas and came up with the idea of placing it on the glass of a picture frame. (I also thought it would look neat on a framed mirror, especially if you could give the back of the mirror a cool antiqued effect.) It just so happened that I stopped by a garage sale the weekend before and found a piece of framed art that was just the right size! Here's what it looked like before:
My transformation wasn't very complicated but it was satisfying! I used cheap black acrylic craft paint to paint the frame itself. I could have used some of the black spray paint I had out for another project that I'll share later, but that would have meant removing or taping off the glass, and at that point I just wasn't up for anything that took more than the minimum of effort.
Initially I had thought about leaving the frame empty, so the wall color would show through the glass. However, I felt like the brocade design got a little lost so I found a piece of Halloweeny patterned paper in my stash that perfectly fit the frame. I applied the vinyl decal to the front of the glass (so easy, it's just like a big sticker), and added the Making Memories velvet sticker letters below it. The glass is just standard thickness but I like how there is a bit of depth separating the vinyl design from the background paper. And because I can't just leave well enough alone, I embellished the brocade design with a few small adhesive gems (eyes on the bat, the large spider's body and the swirls at the sides).
I reassembled the frame and added a black grosgrain ribbon bow at the top with my hot glue and staple gun (those don't show in the photo). Now, to find the perfect place to hang my new piece of Halloween art!

Thrifting my way to good mental health

Four straight days of nasty weather and a newborn conspired last week to give me a pretty serious case of cabin fever by the time Thursday rolled around. I made my escape to the thrift store (of course) for a much-needed hour of sanity restoration, and while it would have been good anyway just to get out, it was made even better because I found some good junk!


I went looking for a particular item for a project I'm working on for my Sweet & Sinister swap partner and thank the thrifting fairies, I found it! No picture yet because so far it's just a boring picture frame, but I have plans for it that I can hopefully share soon.

I also found two other items for the baby's room that I've been looking for: a crib bumper to match my previously thrifted crib skirt, and this green & blue paper lantern. I had a darling pink & yellow lantern hanging up when it was Maren's room but needed something different for Baby Boy. I looked at World Market but could only find a white lantern and I bought it but once I put it up I realized that it reminds me WAY too much of the fake spider egg sacs that I saw in a Martha Stewart Halloween magazine a few years back. This blue & green lantern is MUCH better! It was new in the package and it is the perfect colors for the baby's bedroom. Maybe I'll actually have that room finished by the time Porter is ready to actually sleep in there!

My other treasures: a bag of sewing notions that included 2 teeny weeny flower frogs and a baggie of covered button blanks, a Scrabble game for the tiles, an apothecary-type jar (which will probably get one of these spooky labels for Halloween), and a mushroom-shaped jar that I'm dying to fill with red & white Jelly Bellies. Not shown are an old Christmas wreath from which I'm hoping to salvage the vintage glass picks and a NWT blue and white seersucker suit from Talbot's Kids that will fit Porter in 4 years.

And speaking of Porter...
Here's the little Munchkin after his first bath last week. I love his crazy hair!

In the words of the ridiculous Rachel Zoe, I DIE.

Pumpkins + Toadstools x the October issue of Martha Stewart Living =
Heidi passes out from CUTE OVERLOAD

I haven't even looked at a single page inside but I don't care if it's all garbage, that cover alone was worth paying full price! Do you see the snail? It KILLS me! Normally I wait until I can use a 40% off coupon at JoAnn's (hey--I'm cheap) but when I saw this at Target this afternoon I HAD TO HAVE IT. Immediately.

And now we are four

Hello friends!
Porter Mackenzie German was born on Thursday, September 17 at 3:25 pm. He was 20.5" long and weighed 7 lbs 15 oz. He has a crop of long, thick dark hair and his daddy's chin. :) We're all home now and doing great!

Here's a time line of my labor/delivery:
8:00 am Arrive at hospital, change into fabulous and oh-so-alluring hospital gown.

8:45 am Doctor breaks my waters, hoping contractions will begin on their own. They don't.

9:45 am Pitocin is administered. That does the trick! Contractions--owie.

11:45 am My new BFF the anesthesiologist arrives to give me the blessed epidural. JOY!

1:00 pm Nurse checks my cervix--I have gone from 5 cm to 9 cm in an hour because I was able to relax. Nurse gets doctor in there in a hurry to check on me. She checks me and says I'm getting close to 10 cm, but realizes that baby is face-up. Whoops! She has me do some pushing while they try to get baby to flip over. Doesn't work, so they let me rest for a while to see if the contractions will get him to flip on his own.

3:00 pm Nurse checks me again--I am now fully dilated, fully effaced. Baby is still sunny-side up but he is *right there* and the contractions are telling me to PUSH so they decide to just proceed anyway.

3:10 pm I begin to push. Epidural keeps me from being in pain but boy, can I ever feel the pressure!

3:25 pm Thanks to a handy vacuum assist and a talented doctor, I only have to push for 15 minutes and baby is born, still face-up. Doctor finds that baby has an extremely short umbilical cord, which is probably why he couldn't flip over to be face-down. This may also explain why I was dilated with no progress for so long, and why he always kicked me in the *same exact place* all pregnancy long. Poor kiddo couldn't move!
Although I was technically in labor for about six hours it seemed like it all went so much faster than that--it really caught me off guard when the nurse came in and said it was time to push already! Better quicker than I anticipated than slower, right?

Maren is besotted with her baby brother and has already been a fantastic little helper. My mom was here before the birth and my dad was able to fly in the next night, and I'm thrilled that they were able to spend a few days with us getting to know Porter before they had to head home. The Mister gets paternity leave from work so he is home all this week and I'm so thankful to have him here. I feel pretty darn good and am so thankful to be able to bend over again. Oh, I missed having a waist! LOL Baby Porter is sweet and smells delicious, like all newborns do. Last night he even slept a bit between ravenous feedings, for which I am thankful.

Hope to be back later with some better photos!

Cute diaper cake gift

So...I'm still here, still pregnant, despite the fact that I've been at 4-5 cm since Friday night, if you can believe that. I feel just fine--actually more comfortable than I have in a while, but the mental strain of wondering if I'm going to go into labor at any moment is making me crazy! Thankfully, my OB doctor is a merciful woman and offered to induce me tomorrow morning, so I happily agreed! Tomorrow is my actual due date and is also my grandma's birthday, and I know she's been pulling all along for me to have the baby that particular day, so it looks like she'll get her wish!
Before I go all incommunicado, I wanted to show you this cute diaper cake that one of the ladies in The Mister's office made for us. It's a little bit different than the other diaper cakes I've seen in that it is diapers on the inside and then it was wrapped in baby blankets and wash cloths on the outside. She pinned little toys to the blankets and tucked all sorts of little baby accoutrements inside the layers with the diapers.
I was just tickled to receive such a thoughtful gift and thought it was so creative of her!

Wardrobe Refashioning, round 2

Last week I taught my class at the church on Clothing Refashioning (the one I made the corsage t-shirt for) and I think it went really well! I had a great attendance and the ladies seemed to really enjoy themselves. It was a little tricky as I can't actually try on any of the shirts I made, so I'm not entirely sure how good they actually look on a body!
This was a $10 shirt from Target. To embellish it, I simply made three fabric yo-yos. I actually had never made a yo-yo before (even though I've always meant to learn) so I used Heather Bailey's tutorial. They were easy but if I was planning to make a whole bunch of them I'd definitely invest in a little yo-yo maker gadget. Three for a shirt wasn't bad, and to fancy them up a bit I sewed a coordinating pearl bead in the center of each before tacking them to the shirt.

I haven't washed it yet so I don't know how well they'll hold up in the laundry but they were so easy that I can reattach (or ultimately remove) them as needed.The next shirt was a $5 hoodie from Old Navy. For this one I raided my stash of vintage covered button blanks that I've been slowly collecting, one thrifted bag of sewing notions at a time. I used some fat quarters I had on hand from some other project and made buttons in a variety of sizes. Those little covered buttons are addicting! I love how smooth and perfect they turn out and can't wait to make more--I'll be on the lookout for these while thrifting for sure.
To embellish the shirt I laid out the buttons in a pattern I liked and sewed each one to the shirt. That part was actually harder than I anticipated, as I didn't have a good way to mark on the fabric where each button should go. My tailor's chalk just doesn't work and since the shirt is black a disappearing ink marker wasn't an option. I ended up taking a photo of the button layout and printing it to use as reference, then just eyeballing it but I think my arrangement suffered a bit as a result. I also think this would work better on a garment with a little more heft to the fabric; the knit is very thin and the weight of the buttons causes them to lay a bit funny. The good thing is that I can easily snip off the buttons and resew them on a different shirt or sweater--heck, I can even change out the fabric if I want!
This last shirt I made to show how you can doodle with a Clorox Bleach gel pen. I don't totally love how it turned out but at least it gave people the idea of what you can do. The shirt was less than $5 on clearance at Target so no big loss if I can't salvage it.

I placed a large piece of cardboard inside the shirt before I started so that the bleach wouldn't go through to the back, then free-handed a design with the bleach pen. Using the bleach pen takes a little bit of practice to get a nice, even line without smearing or blotting. I let the design sit for about 20 minutes and then I carefully folded the shirt in half with the bleached side out and put it in my laundry sink that was filled with cold water. I let that sit for a while until the bleach gel washed off and then I threw the whole thing in the washing machine. I still got a ghosting effect from the design in some places-- I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I don't like how it looks so that's why I'm not happy with how this shirt turned out. However, this could definitely be a fun way to salvage a shirt that got splashed with bleach: it's ruined anyway so even if you don't like how the bleach doodles turn out, you're really no worse off, right?

The other technique I showed in my class was freezer paper stenciling, which was so fun and just as addicting as everyone says! I'll show those shirts in another post.

Weekend garage sale finds

It's so nice to have friends who know what you like, isn't it? On Friday morning I returned home to find a message on my answering machine from a sweet friend, alerting me to a garage sale in the neighborhood that she thought I'd like! I grabbed my purse and raced over there, only to find my friend still there shopping. :) She was right--I found plenty that I liked! Here are my purchases:These two cute pillows made from old chenille. The pink & blue one matches Maren's new bedspread just perfectly! The other doesn't match anything yet but was just too darn cute to leave behind; in addition to the chenille it has old yo-yos, buttons and cute vintage fabric.
The cherry fabric is a pair of curtain valances; they aren't vintage but they're definitely vintage-inspired and I think they'll fit over my kitchen window. The pretty shabby pink frame will also go in Maren's new room. The metal thing--well, I'm not sure exactly what it is (a mail holder?) but what I do know is that it 1) has chippy pale aqua paint and 2) was only $1, so that was enough for me!

One of the ladies holding this sale is a big fan of shabby/vintage style decorating and was doing some purging, hence all the goodies. She said whatever didn't sell by last Saturday would be moved over to another sale this coming weekend, and she said she had barely scratched the surface of things she needed to sell. We encouraged her to "get scratching" and my friend took down her address so we can be sure to hit her next sale--hopefully I'll have more goodies to show next week!

Saturday morning I went and had my hair highlighted and trimmed. Add that to my recent pedicure and brow wax, and I'm almost ready for those post-birth hospital photos--just need a quick trip to Target for some new jammies! :) After my hair appointment I started having contractions, which continued all night long. They weren't really hard but they were frequent and they were enough to scare me good and bring back the memories of my labor with Maren. The contractions stopped Sunday morning and I haven't had any since. I actually feel much like I did when I was first pregnant: zero energy, upset tummy and no appetite--funny that it has come full circle that way! I go in to the OB tomorrow for my next checkup. Mostly I'm just trying to take it really easy. Maybe my exhaustion is my body's way of telling me to cool it and conserve my energy for the big task ahead. Plus I need to conserve my strength for Round #2 of that garage sale this weekend. :)

Taking measure

I was wandering through the local Cost Plus World Market recently and found these cute decorative items made with wooden rulers:

Wooden ruler frame

Wooden ruler box

Wooden ruler chest

I especially love the little chest but I think the price is outrageous for the size & quality of the item. Maybe they'll go on clearance, right?

They reminded me of this very cool table project featured in the September 2009 Country Living:

I LOVE this! The designer used a small table and simply cut and nailed old yardsticks to the top. What a fun, innovative way to dress up a junk store table, especially if the top was damaged. I have no place to put another little table around here but I still want to make one! Seeing this photo made me wish I hadn't passed up the brightly colored yardsticks that were going cheap from one vendor at the Old Glory fair earlier this June. Rats! I knew I'd regret that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In pregnancy news, today I am officially 38 weeks! I can't believe it's almost time. I visited the OB yesterday and according to her there is some 'progress' happening down below. That could be significant, but it also could mean nothing--the uncertainty makes me slightly crazy. It was a good wake-up call for me that maybe we should quit procrastinating and 1) choose a name for this baby and 2) get his room at least started before he decides to show up! He'll be sleeping in the cradle by my bed for the first few months so I'm not feeling the need to get his room all put together in the next two weeks, but it still might be nice to not be tripping over boxes every time I go into his bedroom to change a diaper. Maybe our big goal this holiday weekend will be to get the crib put together!

Wardrobe refashion: Corsage T-shirt tutorial

Next week I'm teaching a class for the ladies at church on Clothing Refashioning. Let me be the first to admit that I don't really have any experience doing wardrobe refashioning, but what I do have is a healthy regard for my ability to learn a new skill (read: copy from other more creative bloggers) and teach it!

My friend Angie knew I was teaching the class and sent me this link showing a cute and easy T-shirt refashion and I've been obsessed with making my own version.
Here's the inspiration item: a shirt from J.Crew, original price $29.50. Not bad for a T-shirt from J.Crew, but I think my $5 version is pretty darn cute too:I used the same Old Navy $4.99 clearance T-shirt as this tutorial. I wanted to be able to wear it immediately, so I bought an XXL to fit my 37-weeks-pregnant frame. For the extra material, I bought an XL shirt in the same color. This one was also on clearance but the shirt had a small hole in the front so the salesperson gave me an additional small discount, making my total for the two around $9 with tax. Go ahead and get the largest size shirt you can for your cutter--it's probably the same price but will give you more fabric for your buck. This way you can make corsages for several t-shirts from one cutter so your final product is even less expensive!

The Little Birdies tutorial and original Enchantresses 3 tutorial both used heart shapes to make the flowers. I wanted things to be even easier so I chose to use the stacked circles method from this Hope Studios tutorial. I used a circle template and a Sharpie because I was having a hard time getting my shapes to look like circles instead of blobs (and I'm OCD like that), but you could just eyeball it if you like. My largest circle is about the diameter of a soda can.
I started out with 12 stacks of circles. To sew them, I used matching embroidery floss and starting at the shoulder seam, I just pinched each circle stack and stitched through the bottom onto the base shirt. It's hard to explain, but it was really very low-tech--if you can sew a button, you can sew these (the Hope Studios tutorial explains it better). I went through each stack about four times for security and knotted each one. It's up to you how close you want to place the flowers but in my opinion closer is better so that you get a nice fluffy fullness to your flowers.As I said, I started with 12 stacks but once those were sewn I thought it needed more, so I cut four additional stacks and sewed those. After that I washed and dried the shirt. The cut edges of the flowers don't really fray but they do become a little more rough and they shrink up and get fluffy. Originally the shapes were much more floppy like the J.Crew shirt, and I think if you wanted them to stay that way you either need to make the circles larger to begin with or try the heart-shape method. I did notice that after everything shrank in the drier, there were a few empty spots, so I quickly cut and sewed on two more circle stacks to fill in the design.
Here's a closer look at the corsage so you can see how fluffy it is. I wore my shirt to church on Sunday and I have to say that I'm pretty darn tickled with myself--for $5 and 30 minutes, I have a cute new shirt! Also, I still have plenty of fabric left from my cutter shirt so I can embellish another shirt or two--maybe Maren needs one too. I'm going to show this project in the class I'm teaching and I hope the ladies like it! I also think this would be a really fun project for teenage girls because it's easy, inexpensive and provides almost instant gratification, plus I'm sure you can take text-messaging breaks in between sewing flowers. ;)

I have two more refashioning projects for $5 Old Navy shirts in the works, so I hope I'll have those to show you soon. I also promised to teach my class freezer-paper stenciling for childrens' shirts, so I'd better get a move on learning how to do that as well. I've got a week to become an expert! :)