This shirt can be worn plain. And sometimes plain is fine.
But sometimes plain gets the boot with a funky 3/4 ruffle or striped, full-length sleeve.
Just slip socks or leg warmers on all the way up to the shoulder and you’re set.
You can attach your new sleeves with a zig zag stitch/serger to make them permanent or just wear them opera glove style depending on your fashion fancy. Go for a more polished look by wearing the faux sleeves with the finished edge showing or keep it super casual with the raw edge exposed.
Here’s another example:
most days this is just a plain black shirt.
But add some faux sleeves and you’ve got a holiday wardrobe in seconds.
See?
So …
Go hack up some socks or drag out those old leg warmers
Well it’s too small for kid #6 and has a few stains here and there which makes passing it down to younger kids a no-go.
Time to trash that striped number, right?
Wait! Don’t toss that!
With a little Edward Scissorhands love, that sweater or cardigan can yield mittens and hats —even with those pesky stains.
(Good thing, too, since winter in Utah this year has been a little like living on the ice planet Hoth. Add to that six kids who keep jumping head-first into snow drifts and I’m having a hard time keeping enough dry hats and mittens around.)
*Cue the back ups.*
Chop off the sleeves and nix any trim or zippers. Open plain sweaters up along a side seam.
Use a hat for your guide and make sure you have enough material to cut twice the length of your hat + side seam allowance.
Cut the extra fabric away and fold in half with right sides together.
Cut around hat leaving room for a seam allowance.
Stitch around the top and serge or zig zag the raw edges.
And those stains? Yeah, totally covered them with some scrap t-shirt fabric. Just stitched in place.
I got one kids size hat out of this 5T sweater. Adult sizes would easily yield a hat from both the front and back pieces.
So don’t stop there!
What about those sleeves? Or any extra sweater material?
When I opened up the sleeves, I realized I had enough material for another hat.
Trim up the arm and scrap pieces to even rectangles. Measure from the border and trim pieces 1/2” longer than the height of your finished hat.
Fold each piece in half and round the raw edge at the top to match the curve of your hat piece …
… so that it looks like this.
Then just pin and stitch together. Serge or zig zag edges.
Done and done, right?
Nope.
There’s still left over material from the tops of the sleeves. What about that?
Mittens!
That same t-shirt scrap kicked out two more little hearts while the folded sleeve edge made some quick and easy seam binding for the cuffs.
Have you been recycling old shirts, chopping up boxes and turning cake pans into stars? Have you found awesome deals on line and scored some great deals? I hope so.
But if you’re like me and still have a few items on your shopping list (plus the never ending need for more of those staples), make a conscious effort to save money AND support your local businesses.
Why?
Because I’m an official in my city and can tell you how much local businesses drive our economy. I’ve seen first hand how money spent in local stores impacts our communities several times more than online sales. You want more money for roads-schools-police in your neighborhood? Shop local. You want lower property taxes and bond costs? Shop local. When Main Street shops get overlooked, the recovery for all of us is slower.
And stop – before you go there – I’m here to myth-bust about local being more expensive. Shopping local isn’t just a noble idea, but a savvy way to save. You really can get awesome deals. Really.
Yes, they’ve got amazing deals on up-scale catalog furniture—they’re famous for that and their selection rocks.
But I’ve got four – FOUR – great reasons to swing by THIS WEEK and in 2013 even if you’re on a shoe string budget like me and not in the market for a new couch:
1. CLOTHES
DownEast has the cutest, comfiest, most affordable stand-up-in-the-wash-like-a-champ clothing staples like camis and layering tees that everyone needs.
Finding affordable clothes that are actually modest and cute is getting harder and harder. That’s why I’ve fallen in LOVE their in-house DownEast Basics line.
I have two daughters who are crazy tall with wicked cases of plumbers butt. Since I have yet to make camis and tees successfully out of cardboard, these were at the top of my list. Plus it buys me a little more time with those shirts that are getting a little too short. See?
Baby girls was ticked when I told her it was time to retire her favorite black tee. Add a DownEast lace cami and problem solved.
Ah, way better.
This lace one was under $5 and layering tees are 2/$15 right now. Yeah, I’m stocking up. Mr. Thrive loves the price and everyone at church and school appreciates that my girls are no longer mooning them.
DownEast also has designer denim and accessories for 60-80% off what your kids want you to fork out at the mall. And when those cute jeans that you or your daughter want are high two figures (or even three), slashing that price by way more than half gets your attention very quickly. It’s all name brand stuff, but the prices are so low that I’m seriously not allowed to say them out loud … or in print … or even show you pics. I’ve been in their stores several times over the last few weeks and can tell you I checked it all out … and saw the prices … and maybe drooled a little bit since we’re Rock What Ya Got at our house and I’m not used to having “cool” stuff be in my price range – ever.
So don’t worry about the mysterious hey-I-can’t-tell-you-the-brand-names-thing. Let’s just think of it as the designer blinged-out denim Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Or the designer blinged-out denim brands that I could tell you about, but then I’d have to …. well, you get the idea.
2. DESIGNER from-the-huge-catalog-companies LINENS, HOME DÉCOR, and KIDS STUFF
(wait … that’s probably #2, 3 and 4. 🙂
DownEast gets the overstocks, seconds and discontinued items from some of the biggest catalog and department stores. Monogramed 300 thread count sheets with the wrong letter or kids backpacks with the wrong name. No biggie. Five minutes with a seam ripper and you’ve got sheets-curtains-bedding-backpacks-suitcases-lunch boxes-pillows-you-name it for half of what you’d spend on the cheapy generics at the box stores. Yeah, half. At least. And the quality kicks butt.
I’ve been on the look out for new sheets for my girls’ room after kid #6 went all Edward Scissorhands on us, but I have completely struck out at thrift stores and online. Again, cardboard is not an option so I’m looking for cheap. Yup … found a complete set (flat, fitted, shams) at DownEast for thrift store prices. Perfect color, too.
3. HOLIDAY DECOR
Do you need stockings still? Or are you thinking that you’ll need to replace them next year if you can find a good sale after Christmas? They’re 50% right now. That means stockings like these are $2.50 – $5 each. They’re thick and heavy and will last for years to come. My favorite is the red and white striped wool number.
But confession: no one in my house is named Jean-Luc.
These were $30 in the catalog and I snagged the 100% wool yummieness for way less that I could have found the fabric even with a coupon (under $5!). Since I don’t have any old wool sweaters or friendly sheep around, this worked out handy. And kid #4 who has a thing for snowmen? Snagged that one for him for $2.50.
I also found this ridiculously cute Santa sack for under $5.
And confession … it’s not the right name (although you may just find yours!)
But … you got it. It’s a cinch to cover or remove and I know the kids are going to freak out when they see that Santa left his sack at our house.
4. AWESOME CLEARANCE & WEEKLY SALES
I’m a THRIVE-r so I went straight for the clearance and sales racks.
Holy cow. Can I just show you my score?
Kid #3’s backpack was a $10 clearance find from Wallys. It was made out of paper (apparently) and lasted us all of four months. I found this extra-thick-padding-and-reinforced-seams backpack AND matching lunch box with the easy-washable-so-you-don’t-get-the-funky-sour-milk-smell liner that she’ll love. Catalog price for the backpack alone was $40. DownEast had it for $11.99. Catch one of their awesome sales and you’ll pick it up for 30-50% off that like I did. And the lunch box? Picked that up for $3.
But kid #3’s name isn’t Gaby. Or Sophi. Big whoop. My seam ripper took care of both in just a few minutes. I could even just cover over the stitching with a cute applique or name tag. Such an easy fix.
Or how about this crazy-cute sleeping-bag-blanket-roll? I’ve seen these in popular children’s catalog and they’re $80+.
Yup … a mere $80. Kid #6 really, really wants one of these for Christmas. Thanks to DownEast’s low prices + great sales, I got the whole furry puppy head, sleeping bag and paws for less than a Pillow Pet. Of course no, my daughter isn’t a Paiyton. I’m going to turn on White Christmas after the kids go to bed and take care of that. I’ll have that name off before anyone gets their life saved by Phil Davis. Easy peasy.
I even did something for myself that I haven’t done in months … I bought a new shirt. I had big, big plans to hack apart a sheet and refashion the heck out of it, but I’m running short on time and wanted something special to wear to church for our Christmas program. I figured I’d grab a cheap-o shirt at the thrift store … or Wallys … or Tar-jay. Instead I found this $10 number that looks awesome even when I’ve been caring kid #6 around all day.
I may have worn it three days in a row over the last week already. I get compliments all the time which is a really big deal for me. Not because I’m vain, but because I usually am so focused on making sure the kids are covered that I never take care of me. Any other moms out there guilty, too? And while I’m so proud of how my kids look at Christmas or Easter, I usually sit next to them in something worn out and frumpy. This year I realized how important it is to treat myself with the same kindness and respect that I give my family. If it was important for my family to look nice for the holidays, it should be nice for me to as well. Finding a shirt for myself that didn’t make me feel like I was “taking away” from my family’s needs made me float. Turns out stick-to-the-basics pricing can still be cute, too.
So skip the traffic at the malls and box stores.
Skip the expense of rush of shipping online.
Check out DownEast for those Christmas items still on your list and save yourself some of that well earned money.
*Disclaimer: I received a gift card to shop at DownEast, but all opinions, stories about my daughter’s plumber’s butt, plans to watch White Christmas, hygiene-pushing “hey-I-really-love-this-shirt-and-seriously-live-in-it” confessions and civic-geek passion for shopping local are 100% mine.
Fold over and hem raw edges. You could totally cheat and just whip out the hot glue gun, too. Leave the edges plain or go nuts adding ribbon, buttons, etc.
Sew a gathering stitch along the top edge and gather in nice and tight. Stitch in place.
This little skirt had a flat front with no extra fabric so my skirt doesn’t quite meet in the back.
No big woop. Our tree is up against a wall and you can’t even tell.
See?
Fuller skirts like these would have enough fabric for a traditional skirt fit.
So go dig out those outgrown dresses and dress up that tree.
My daughter’s convinced that she needs an extensive Halloween wardrobe.
I’m convinced that it’s not gonna happen.
Luckily for her I have a closet full of these ripped, stained and worn out gems.
Toss in some thin elastic and scissors and I came up with this candy corn themed, ruffled skirt refashion in a single nap time.
Ah, compromise.
And this has got to be one of the easiest sewing projects ever. Start with a white t-shirt that easily fits around your girl’s waist.
When you flip the cut-off rectangle upside down, you see that you’ve got a handy-dandy skirt base with a pre-sewn waistband all ready to go. And since t-shirt fabric doesn’t have to be hemmed, that raw bottom edge doesn’t need any sewing at all.
You’ll need to cut and piece together strips of white, orange and yellow t-shirt scraps to make the ruffles for each layer. The width is up to you and how long you want each layer. The length of all your pieced together strips for each color needs to be double the width of your t-shirt base.
My t-shirt base was 15” wide so I made sure my strips totaled 30” long. I stitched my scrap strips together to make three long loops of fabric …
… and then ran a long basting stitch along the top edge of each one. I gently gathered each loop of fabric until they were the same width as my t-shirt base.
(Make sure that any screen printing, stains, etc. are facing the inside of your ruffled layers!)
Pinning and attaching each ruffle layer to the t-shirt base was a quick and easy.
And the best part was using that already-sewn bottom shirt edge as a casing for the elastic. Love that.
The only thing left to do was sew the elastic ends together!
Sweet! Done and done!
In less than an hour I wound up with a cute t-shirt skirt refashion in time for Halloween that’s the cat’s meow. Um, apparently.
And while I was cleaning up, I put those left-over scraps to good use.
I cut some rag ribbon for easy piggy tail love, Halloween treats, or whatever.
So there you go!
I hope you take a look at your fabric stash and have fun whipping up something awesome during nap time!
For the first time in eleven long years, all six of my kiddos are in school—five in elementary and one in preschool!
That means that I now have dedicated time to get back to spending some quality time over here at Thrive while my kids have a blast with their friends at school.
It also means that I had to shell out for six kids to go back to school. Thankfully, though, a little planning and creativity paid off big for us. Here’s what we did.
#1 – DIY It: The more you create, the less you spend
Shoes
My girls are still on the glitter kick which means expensive, blinged out shoes for school.
Or does it?
Baby Girl headed straight for some $30 graffiti-glitter-rhinestone-rainbow numbers while I wondered toward something more in our budget … like plain $5 black canvas numbers from the boys’ section at Walmart.
Baby Girl wasn’t excited … like at all … until we wondered over to the sewing section and I let her pick out her own bling to make her custom shoes. And to my surprise, we walked out with some fuchsia $0.57/yd. sequined trim that went on in two seconds flat with a little super glue.
Holy cow. LOVE.
Trendy. Funky. Sparkly. Blessedly less over-the-top than those $30 numbers.
Baby Girl loves them.
I love them.
Mr. Thrive loves the extra $24 we didn’t spend.
And she totally rocked that first day of preschool.
$2-3 School Spirit Shirts
I’ve already seen the PTA fliers for the school spirit shirts in the kids’ backpacks …and they’re cute …and they support school programs … but at $10-$20 each x 5 kids in school, it’s just not happening.
*Sigh*
Thankfully our dollar store has surprisingly nice, basic t-shirts in solid colors right now. So a plain shirt + $1 worth of vinyl = custom school spirit shirt for $3 or less. And while we were at it, we grabbed a few old, stained shirts from the kids’ closets and bleached them, too. Completely original, yet very school-spirit-ish shirts for a bucks worth of vinyl?
Score!
We went the bleach route and simply added a vinyl design, lightly bleached around the design with a spray bottle and then peeled off the vinyl. A quick rinse with cold water and a run through the wash and the kids were set. I used my Silhouette to cut my designs, but rock what ya got! This works great with contact paper or freezer paper + scissors and/or a craft knife. Heck, you could even make designs with painters or duct tape. Go crazy!
And since there are roughly a billion bleach shirt blog posts out there, I’ll skip the tutorial and just pass along a few tips I found in making our shirts:
Use a garbage bag
Slip a large garbage bag over a hanger and then place the shirt over top. This keeps the bleach from bleeding through to the back side and keeps everything neat.
(Shirt with vinyl design applied and ready for bleaching)
Experiment with spray bottle settings
Using a full-sized spray bottle on the SPRAY setting produced a fun, blotchy finish.
Love this one.
Go Tigers!
(Tiger image from 123rf.com; Collegiate Black FLF front can be downloaded free HERE)
In this CTR shirt that I made for my niece, I used that same full-size spray bottle set to STREAM and the bleach beaded up on the shirt and ran down the front. I love the look of the run-off and the slightly blurry finish from the bleach stream soaking in behind the vinyl design.
(CTR design was created using Dymaxion Script which free to download HERE)
For this last shirt, I used a small travel size spray bottle for a fine mist and ended up with this even, faded look.
This time I bleached the front and back of the shirt. The garbage bag kept the bleach from bleeding through.
(Eagle design from 123rf.com; Certificate font can be downloaded for free HERE)
Find cute designs
I made shirts using designs from three places: my kids’ school, the Silhouette store and online images.
School: I asked the secretary at my kids’ school for a digital copy of the school logo/mascot and she happily emailed me a black and white copy. I imported it into my Silhouette and started cutting. My kids were super excited to be able to cut their mascot. Plus I can use this design to make teacher gifts for the holidays and teacher appreciation. (For internet safety, I’m not posting that one, but it turned out great.)
Silhouette Store: For $1 each, their shapes are a cheap and fun way to find thousands of designs. It’s like the iTunes store for crafters. And they just added Batman shapes. Kid #4 is going to be ecstatic. 🙂
Online Graphic Websites: I purchased designs like the tiger and eagle for $1 each from 123rf.com. I wanted to do something a little more grown up for my older kids and decided to design my own logos with their school mascots. While the Silhouette can trace and cut any digital image, I’m a stickler for honoring the copyrights of online images and only use royalty-free or paid designs that I have permission to use. There’s so many websites with free or cheap images that there’s no reason to play dirty.
Create Your Own: For all you crafty/artistic types, make your own designs! You can draw or create your image on the computer and cut it free hand from freezer paper or contact paper.
#2 – Buy Year Round
Rather than buy clothes in big, expensive spurts, I’m on the watch for clothing deals year ‘round. I grab staples like jeans and coats at garage sales, thrift stores and clearance sales as I see them. That way back to school shopping is about a few new items to update, not completely overhaul a wardrobe. Mr. Thrive laughed when I bought the kids’ new school backpacks the week after school got out for the summer, but our local store had the popular $20-$25 backpacks slashed to $9 each. Done and done. And when Kid #2 who is brutal on shoes found his favorite pair for 50% off, I bought one pair in his size and another identical one in a half size bigger. For the price of one pair, I got two and was prepared for that day a mere three months later when Kid #2 was ready for new shoes yet again.
#3 – Budgeting for clothes when you don’t have a clothing budget
Back to school shopping used to stress me out because the reality is that we didn’t have a clothing budget for our family at all. Whenever someone needed new shoes or pants, we’d eek it out of our monthly gas or food budgets. But Mr. Thrive came up with a great idea at the beginning of this year that has allowed us to budget for ongoing clothing, birthday and school expenses on our limited income. He set up a savings account for each of our kids separate from their personal savings accounts. When we did our taxes, we put $50 in each kid’s account. Then every two weeks $5 goes into each one. For us that’s $30 a paycheck and is what we can afford—your family may do more or less. It may not seem like a lot of money, but it adds up.
Now, whenever one of our kids needs clothes or field trip money, I just take it out of their account. No worrying. No stretching gas. No panic when they grow through three shoes sizes in one year and we’re already tight on grocery money. The money is there and my kids are taken care of. So the $6 for Baby Girl’s glitter shoes came straight out of her account and not the gas tank. And $2 came out of each of my older kids’ accounts to cover their spirit shirts. And since the money is constantly being replenished, I don’t have to worry about choosing between new jeans or groceries next month because I know we’ll need both.
So what creative, free and/or cheap things do you do to help your kids get ready for back-to-school?
I was digging through my stash looking for inspiration when I pulled out this torn, king size fitted sheet. We had this on our bed for years before it finally wore a hole in the center. This sheet was huge (and because it was fitted), never really fit well on my shelf. Since I was drawing a blank on the Thanksgiving outfits, I decided I’d at least clean up the stash a bit and cut the sheet into smaller pieces so that it would store better. I grabbed my scissors, cut the sheet into quarters, and then went to cut off the elastic that ran around the entire thing.
And I stopped dead in my tracks … and just started at the elastic … and wondered if it was a mistake to cut it all off … what if I needed that elastic later ….?
While I was thinking, my daughter the genius picked up one of the ragged pieces and said, “Look Mom! It’s just like a skirt!”
Light bulb.
And from that happy little (divine) accident, I wound up with skirts for my girls in less than ten minutes.
Want to know how?
Seriously … it was that simple.
And if you use bias tape or some type of binding on the bottom, you can skip the hemming part all together – score!
So since I didn’t spend all that time prewashing, trimming, measuring, sewing, adding elastic, etc., I had lots of time to work on the details.
**And quick picture disclaimer — my girls kept bugging me to wear their new skirts so I let them play around while I finished up projects. Consequently, these don’t look freshly pressed anymore. Sorry for the wrinkles. **
You could so do ANYTHING with this basic skirt, but I figured the best thing to add to a happy little accident was a happy little tree … or at least the happy little leaves from the happy little trees.
{Sorry – I can’t stop thinking of these as “The Bob Ross Skirts” and smile every time I see them.}
I grabbed the fat quarter bundle I won a few months ago …
… and cut a bunch of 3.5” x 3.5” blocks with leafs cut out of the centers. I cut my blocks and shapes using my Silhouette, but this is easy-peasy to trace and cut using sewing shears or a craft knife. The blocks were sewn together with a 1/4” seam allowance …
… and the top and bottom edges were pressed under for a clean finish. The whole strip was sewn to the bottom edge of the skirt.
I hand-cranked my sewing machine around each leaf cutout, but you could sew this by hand, too.
I love the creamy flannel poking through the cut-outs. Yummy.
And don’t think the leaf shapes and scraps went to waste. I just made another skirt.
I stitched the scraps together to make a long, 1” wide strip. Then I ironed the strip in half and then in half again to make my own faux bias tape to finish the bottom edge. The leaves were stitched in place with a lot of hand-cranking as well.
Not bad for a fitted sheet and some fabric scraps, huh?
It’s all in the details:
peek-a-boo cut-outs
or sweet appliqué with a simple border.
And how fun would it be to dress up this skirt for Christmas?
Mitten appliqués? Little trees with button ornaments? Ric Rak candy canes? Reindeer?
Or for Valentine’s Day? Or any day?
How much fun could you have with an old fitted sheet?
Chalk this quick little post up to impulse shopping at it’s finest. Sheesh.
I was walking through Wal*Mart yesterday on my way to the toilet paper isle when this $2.24 wonder practically blinded me from cosmetics.
Wow, that’s bright.
I am so, so not a make-up person — a minimalists at heart who skips make-up all together most days. But for some reason, the freakishly-bright-Halloween-hey-why-not mood came over me and into my cart it went. And while the kids where down for naps and I was supposed to be folding laundry had free time, I started playing around on my otherwise un-prepped and un-plucked eyes.
The result?
A little something I like to call The Candy Corn Cat Eye
What do you think? Kicky or creep?
Obviously I’m no 16-year-old YouTube make-up tutorial wiz, but for some reason I really enjoyed brushing wide strokes of garish color all over my eyelids with reckless abandon.
And stepping outside my everyday routine makes me want to do other wild and crazy things today … like take my hair out of a clip, wax my upper lip and get some bangs-ha!
Or maybe go someplace special with my all-dolled-up-self … like Target.
Ah, the power of make-up.
So what are you doing for Halloween?
Do you dress up?
Do you do fun little things like wear funky socks, play with your make-up or drag out the black polish?
