MIBM on Tuesday--Seeing Red

Isn’t it funny when you come up with a great idea only to see that someone else had the same one.  Chalk it up to “Great Minds think alike” I guess.  This week for Jill’s Made it by Monday Challenge, she gave us the prompt “Red.”  We could go where we wanted with that.

I tried to think of a bunch of different crazy ideas, but then I looked over at my refashion pile and saw an old red and white gingham dress that I’ve been meaning to turn into something else.  I’ve had the dress for years (tried to find a picture of me wearing it, but couldn’t).  There’s nothing wrong with it, it just wasn’t a favorite.  The neckline was a little low, but not so low that it was easy to find a shirt to go underneath that didn’t look weird, you know what I mean?

I don't know why I look so, so serious in this pose other than I was taking these with my timer and hoping to get lucky.  Maybe I was concentrating too hard!

So…I hacked it off at the empire waistband.  Then I had trouble making the zipper work at it’s shortened length, so I just took it out too.  The skirt actually fits great without any need for closure or even elastic really, so I just sewed up the zipper opening and folded over the top and sewed a thin waistband.  It will always need a belt or to have my shirt untucked since the waist is a little loose (with no closure, it had to be loose enough to go over my hips!), but for such a simple skirt, I think the belt added a lot anyway.

So, sorry for no progress pictures, but it literally took all of 5 minutes…

And why did I mention the whole “Great minds think alike” comment…well, it’s because Jill also made a red and white skirt this week.  She also wore it with a white shirt, and she also posed out front of her house for some simple pictures.  I promise, I didn’t meaningfully copy Jill’s ideas in participating this week (even though my post comes a day later!!)

I guess it just means Jill and I are both brilliant since we have such great minds, huh?

Pop on over to Made it on Monday to see Jill’s awesome skirt and everyone else who linked up.  And if you’ve got something making you see red, why not link up your project, too.

Make it by Monday Challenge--Dress under $10

  I haven't linked up with Jill in a few weeks, but I thought this theme sounded fun.  Dress for under $10...my immediate thought was to make a dress for under $10, but it could just as easily mean create a whole outfit for under $10.

  I knew exactly what my project would be.   Down here in the South, especially in a small town, school spirit is something you don't grow out of.  The high school football field is the place to be on Friday night and school colors are seen all over town on Fridays.  I found an old polo shirt in the back of Chris' closet in our local high school's colors.  It was his Friday shirt for a long time, but he's now moved up a size...   I decided to cut it down for Emma to give her a new dress for Fridays.

  I sewed new side seams, cut down the sleeves and re-attached them, hemmed it a little...and it still looked like she was wearing Chris' shirt.  I took everything in a little more...nope, still Daddy's shirt.  I waited till Chris got home and asked his opinion.  He didn't answer, letting me know that it looked like Daddy's shirt.  His suggestion--hang it in her closet till next year.  She'll have grown enough by then hopefully to fill it out a little.  So, that's what I did.

  But now I needed a new plan to link up with Jill.  So, I took the other approach.  I shopped our closets to make a new outfit for Emma that was free.  It will need a new belt (since I had to use Oren's), but that will be our only cost.  So, how'd I do it?

  Well, while Daddy's shirts are WAY too big for Em, mine aren't.  Mine are the perfect tunic length for little Miss Long Legs, so we threw on a shirt I never liked on me anyway, layered over a white t-shirt.  We added in some black leggings, flats, and a belt and I think she looks pretty cute!

  Emma is just beginning to really care about fashion.  She's always been very picky about what she wore, but she's just beginning to really look at what other people wear and what's in the stores.  I think its very interesting to watch her develop her own personal style and see how much influence I have on that style.  Some days--I can see myself, and other's NOT AT ALL!!

This is her attempt at a sassy face.  Which should tell you something about the  kind of sassy girl she is...

  So, here's my outfit for under $10.  Shop your closet and see what you can come up with.  And don't forget to head over to Jill's to see what everyone else has come up with too.

Made it by Monday Challenge on Tuesday

Hey everyone,
  We are having a great time at the beach and loving every minute of our time together here with family.  I wanted to link up with Jill again for her Made it by Monday challenge this week. 





  Her challenge this week was a shoe revamp.  Easy enough, right?  I was thinking I could glitter, paint, or at least "beautify" one pair of the many hanging out in my closet.  Then I remembered I recently gave away every pair of shoes I couldn't live without to a friend who took a trailer full of donations to Alabama after the tornadoes ripped through there a few months back.  Oh, and don't worry, I still have plenty, I just wear them all as is!
 
  So I looked around and decided it may be best to buy a cheap pair of flip flops to alter.  So I bought some white ones to match the pair Emma has and brought them and a few craft supplies to the beach.

  But then, life happened.  See these cute sandals I bought at Target?  I have a white pair and these black ones.  I just bought the black pair a week or so ago, but hadn't worn them.  Sunday morning we were rushing to get ready for church and while I slipped my foot into the left one just fine, the elastic strip in the back split away from the plastic leather on the right shoe.  I went to church with a broken shoe!  The fit was great, so I decided to just go with it...I'm on vacation, right??

Please notice the back strap on the back foot is just sadly hanging there.

   I had plans to just sew or glue them back together when I got home, but my Mom suggested just cutting the straps off altogether.  They were obviously fine without them since I'd worn them to church and grocery shopping with one shoe strapped and one shoe without.  So I went with it.  I'm revamping these sandals into flip flops!

  So, easiest DIY shoe revamp ever:

1.  Gather supplies:  sandals, scissors

2.  Cut back straps off each sandal.

3.  Model new flip flops and glory in your one of a kind shoes!  :)

Thank you to my sister for the awesome photos!  :)

What do you think??  I like them.  They're different, and since I have a white pair of the same style, now I have two separate pairs of shoes instead of 2 in different colors.

 As I said, I'm linking up with Jill today.  Go over and check out the other linkups and do a shoe revamp of your own to link up.  It doesn't have to be difficult or involve fancy tools.  See what you can make your own today.  Oh, and for further ideas, Ashley is doing a flip flop refashion series at her blog right now, too.

Oh, and those cheap flip flops I was going to make...I made a prototype and have learned what I can do better to make them cuter.  I will definitely post about them soon.  If only all shoe-making and fixing were this easy, I could have been a cobbler!  Oh well, I'll stick to sewing, probably!  ;)

Make it by Monday Challenge

  I love a good challenge, don't you?  It gets you out of your comfort zone, gives a push in a certain direction and holds you to completing something.  Well, Jill at Made it on Monday agrees with me.  She competed in both So You Think You're Crafty and Crafting with the Stars and she missed the weekly challenge format that the contests provided so she's set up a non-competitive version on her site called Make it by Monday (nice play on words, Jill!)

  Our first challenge was "Outdoor Games and Activities."  It's so broad I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with it.  At first I thought of something for the beach (since we're going next week!!!!!!!) and then I thought of something to do right now like an obstacle course or something.  Chris suggested weeding the flower beds and getting the kids to help, but I didn't think that was quite what Jill was going for...

  After some thought I kept going back to tie-dyeing something, I don't know why.  But the thought of tie-dyeing with a 7-yr-old and a 5-yr-old on my back porch made me cringe a little.  Then I remembered an idea I'd saved from Family Fun magazine when Emma was little.  I found it online to make sure I was remembering it right.

  And then, if you can believe it...neither kid had a plain white tee shirt that I could find to get started...so a trip to Walmart later and here we go:

You'll need:
  a tee-shirt for each child (preferably white or light colored)
  cardboard to put in each shirt so the dye doesn't run through
  1 cup flour
  water
  a 4-cup measuring cup
  a squeeze bottle
  Fabric spray paint (I used Tulip Brand)
  a sunny afternoon

Steps:
1.  Prewash your shirts so there'll be no funny shrinkage issues later.  When dry, put the cardboard inside the shirt to make sure your design stays on just the front!  Our cardboard didn't quite fill in all the space and neither the flour mixture or paint made it to the back, so this step is optional, but I would recommend it just in case.
2.  Mix together your flour and just enough water to make a thick liquid (FF said it should look like mustard...) and then pour it into your squeeze bottle.
3.  Squeeze your design onto the front of your shirt.  FF used a sunburst idea, but my kids went with a peace sign and a monster truck.  (I have to admit that the part of me that is a control-freak that usually stays hidden came out and I drew on the design as the kids told me what they wanted.)

4.  Leave the shirt in the sun to dry for a couple of hours.  So,  there was absolutely no sun when we did this because of the tropical wave that has been hanging over us, so we did this part indoors and I used the blow-dryer...

5.  When the flour paste mixture has dried and hardened on the shirt, begin spraying on the color.  We did this one kid at a time, one color at a time, and laid down LOTS of newspaper first.  (I will also admit that we did this before the flour paste was all the way dry and in retrospect, that was the best choice!!)

7.  Leave the shirt to dry again.  This time we left them on the back porch so the heat would dry them but I got impatient and used the blow-dryer again.  I mean, really...who has 4 hours to wait when there's a blog post to be written???

 8.  When the paint is fully dry, pick the flour mixture off to show off the white underneath.  This was harder than you might think where the flour had fully hardened.  The softer parts were doughy and messy, but much easier to peel off.  And yes, Chris and I did most of the peeling.  It was a family affair!

9.  Launder as your fabric paint recommends and wear with pride!!  And we obviously haven't laundered yet, but I let them wear them for the picture.  The paint actually says to let it set for 72 hours before laundering.  

  So these shirts aren't the most fashionable thing around, but the kids thought this was SOOOO fun.  Since I bought a set of 6 shirts, I told them we could make more at the beach next week using the sun to dry them instead of Momma's hair dryer.  Oren's already decided his will have a shark on it...

  In all, this was a fun and easy project.  The kids had some trouble with the spray bottles, their little hands weren't quite strong enough, but they thought it was great fun.  I think I'd like to make one using a stencil of some kind...I may be using my silhouette to cut something to take to the beach with me too!!  :)

  Thanks for the fun challenge, Jill.  I might not have got around to doing this otherwise and it was really a great time.