Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Turning That Old Skirt Into a New Dress For Your Little One! Reuse, Recycle, & Upcycle!

 
 
I found this skirt when I was in college at a second hand store! I fell in love with the colors and it's overall brightness. I have hung on to it, unwilling to send it back to the thrift store, despite the fact I haven't worn it in years!
 
 
 My two year old daughter saw the skirt one day and she said "Mama, that is the most pretty dress I ever saw!" This gave me an idea!


 

I undid the stiches on each side of the skirt. I pulled out the elastic until it fit around my daughters chest just perfect.
 




I stiched and cut the elastic. Added shoulder straps, with ribbion and buttons as extra decorations!
 
The finished product looks so cute on my daughter! She loves how full the dress is, and she just spins and spins!
 
This is a fun project for little ones, requires very little sewing experience, it takes very little time, saves money, recycles and reuses the old stuff in our lives!

Dyeing White Sculpey Oven Bake Clay at Home with Wilton Food Color! Babies "First Christmas" Ornament!

I needed a bunch of green Sculpey Clay. To buy the amount I needed would be a lot of money, and almost impossible to actually find it in a package by itself! So I decided I would try dyeing it myself.
 
I did two small batches first, then I combined them together.
If you are not familiar with Wilton Icing Dyes, they are very potent. A little goes a long way. Wal-mart usually sells a small box that has 12 sample colors.
 Also, just like with cakes, at some point, no matter how much color you add, it just won't get any darker. This was about as dark, as I could get the clay. I was also, concerned about adding too much, and the clay not setting up right when I baked it.












I am pleased with the end result. I rubbed it with a white cloth and nothing came off. It seems to have baked almost perfect.

I plan on drilling a hole and hanging this on our tree!

 I hope this helps you! I tried looking this same information up a couple of years ago. I've seen where some people have used oil paints, and old eyeshadows, and had sucesses. I want to try the old eyeshadows, I bet the shimmery appearance would be neat!



I have been playing with Sculpey clay since I was a kid. I have always just painted the project afterwards. And It has always ended up sticky sometime later down the road. I have yet to figure out how to prevent this. I think I will try dyeing it from now on instead!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Denim Rag Baby Quilt, Jungle Animal Theme, Upcycled Denim

My First Denim Rag Quilt Was a Baby Quilt!

I had been wanting to make a denim blanket/ quilt for a long time. So I Started saving all of our old jeans that we either outgrew or completly wore out. I ended up with a huge pile of jeans and my Husband started to complain about them, so I vaccum bagged them and threw them into a plastic storage container. Well...like they say, out of sight - out of mind. I kept collecting jeans, and just adding them to the box... and before I knew it seven years passed and I had enough jeans to make several quilts!

I first planned this Baby quilt for the Baby Boy I was someday hopeing for!
I even bought the fabric, and had it in with the rest of my fabric collection.
After I had our Second Daughter, I laid to rest the hope I would have a baby boy. And when one of my close friends announcced that he was having a Baby Boy, I jumped on the chance to make this long dreamed out quilt!

I wish I had taken more pictures during the process of making the quilt! Cutting the squares of denim, and the squares of fabric. It was a huge fiasco, because I had never tried cutting squares for a quilt before! And the added difficulty of cutting them from jeans! It was LOTS of fun!

* This was after the sewing was finished,
 But Before I washed it to make the denim fray!

* This is after I washed and dried it several times!
I also cut off all of the really long fibers sticking out!
 
 
 
* It really came out even BETTER than I had imagined!

*This is the back of the blanket. All of the different shades of blue from different jeans really makes the back look neat too!




 
 

* I am so glad I was able to give this to my friend! Since then, GOD granted me with a new precious gift...my very own baby Boy! So, now  I can make a similar blanket for him!