Tales of a Newbie Refashionista

I found an awesome website called Wardrobe Refashion. You sign up and take a pledge to not buy new manufactured clothes for yourself for a period of 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, or life, and to "refashion, renovate, and recycle preloved items for [yourself] for the term of [your] contract." I've been looking through the blog and getting so inspired - I want to sign up! The next sign up isn't until April 15, so I have a little while to wait. But that doesn't mean I can't do some refashioning in the meantime!

A while ago I bought some cheap $3 shirts at Wal-Mart for the express purpose of refashioning them. Today I came across a great tutorial for turning a turtleneck into a cute ruffle-collared top. It that looked simple enough for me to try, so I took this shirt:


... And turned it into this:


I cut off the sleeves, then cut them into 1-inch strips. I sewed the strips into ruffles and attached them to the collar of the shirt. Then I zigzagged around the new sleeve cuffs to make them ruffly. The whole thing took less than an hour.

Here's a couple close-ups of the ruffled collar.



Isn't that so fun?

And as an added bonus, here's a cute use for the cuffs of the sleeves:


A little girl's choker! She came up with that all on her own. She loves being girly!

Another refashion I did recently was that black skirt I'm wearing in the above picture. It started out as a velvet shirt with a mock turtleneck. I rarely wore it because the sleeves made my arms look like white marshmallows, and the turtleneck was a bit tight. Similar to this skirt, I cut off the collar and the shoulder seams, and cut open the tops of the sleeves, and turned the shirt upside down to become a skirt. I found a bunch of lace that I bought a while ago at the thrift store, and sewed some onto the bottom of the skirt. I love love love! the way that it turned out. Here's a closer look:


Yeah, it's fun to take one ill-fitting, rarely worn piece of clothing and turn it into something much more wearable and beautiful. :-)

p.s. The lace cuff I'm wearing is available at my Etsy shop. ;)

Miscellaneous updates

- I gave the kids haircuts the other day. Thomas' was getting unruly and scraggly again, so I pretty much buzzed it off. I wasn't intending to make it quite as short as I did, but it's cute anyway. And Zaylee's hair was really long - halfway down her back when wet. But with that beautiful length came tons of tangles, and hair brushing was on the verge of being torturous for Zaylee. She actually requested that I cut her hair, so I gave her a chin-length bob. It's much easier to brush now, and very cute.



I know these pictures aren't the best, I accidentally had my camera on a weird setting. And Thomas had food all over his face.

- We finally got our tax return money. With the credit for buying our house, it was quite the sizable return. We were able to completely pay off our van and our credit card. So now, except for our mortgage, we're completely out of debt! And we even had enough to put some into savings. Good feelings. :-)

- Audrey turned 4 months old on Sunday. And we think she's the coolest little 4 month old around!




She had her 4-month well child visit yesterday. She's now 24 1/4 inches long, and weighs 12 lb. 5 oz. She's strong and healthy, and right on track for development. It's fun to see her learning new things. She has recently started reaching for things; when I hold a toy in front of her, she'll get this intense look of concentration on her face, slowly grab the toy and then bring it straight to her mouth. It's very cute.

- With the weather finally starting to really warm up, the kids have been having a blast playing out in the backyard. They like playing with sticks and rocks right now, but they'll soon get a fun surprise - we got them each a tricycle for Easter. I think they'll have a total blast with them when they find them outside on Saturday! Hopefully the weather will cooperate with these plans, it unexpectedly started snowing this morning and hasn't stopped. Blah. I like snow, but now that we've gotten a beautiful taste of spring, it's kind of irritating that the snow came back.

- When the weather does warm up again, we'll be ready! Seeds, shovel, hoe - I'm ready to start gardening. We're planning on several tomato plants, a pumpkin patch, and a few other veggies. I'd like to try growing pinto beans as well.

- I'm in the process of putting up a clothes line. I wanted something that can be put up when we need it, but taken down and put away when the clothes are done. It's hard to describe how we decided to do it, once we get it done I'll take pictures. But it involves hooks and pulleys. Right now I'm just waiting on the weather to clear up so Jeff can tie the line properly (he's much better with knots than I am). Then it will be ready to hang clothes on. Yay for saving money and helping the environment!

And yay for finally getting on and updating the blog.

Sock Monkeys

Okay, so Jeff has this total obsession with sock monkeys. He absolutely loves them. Anytime he sees one, he gets this goofy grin on his face and starts giggling.


And honestly, who can blame him? These things are so stinkin' cute!!!

So I when I saw this crochet pattern, I knew I had no choice but to make one for Jeff.


I did change the colors a bit from the pattern, Jeff wanted his hat to be more true to the original sock monkey colors. And I crocheted the eyes instead of using buttons.


How cool is this hat?! I think I might have to make some for me and the kids too.

My List

In the back of my mind, I keep a running list of things that I would someday like to have. You know, things that I plan to get when we either find them cheap, are given them, or have saved up for them. Items that were previously on my list that I have been able to check off are a freezer, a 6-qt. slow cooker, a cake stand, a sewing machine, an ice cream maker. Items still on my list include a heavy-duty stand mixer, a headboard for our bed, a clothes line, a DSLR camera.

A couple days ago, I was reminded once again why I love D.I., when I was able to check yet another item off of my list - a food dehydrator. We got a slightly used SnackMaster, still in the box, for only $7. We do need to get the fruit roll sheets, and possibly the "clean-a-screen" tray, so we can do a greater variety of dried foods, but we are still excited about this fun little purchase. We've wanted a food dehydrator for several years, so to find one for this inexpensive at this time is exciting, now that we are finally in a position to have plenty of stuff to dry. We'll have a real garden this year and there's even an apple tree in our back yard.

Jeff is already running a small batch of apples in the dehydrator right now. They should be done later tonight, and I'm so excited to see how they turn out.

Smoked Corned Beef

There's a right way and a wrong way to smoke a corned beef brisket. The right way involves the use of a grill or a smoker. The wrong way involves putting it on the stove to boil, then forgetting about it until the entire upstairs is filled with smoke as the 30-year-old fire alarm emits strange and ethereal gurgles.

Guess which way I did it today.

Well, at least it turned out incredibly delicious anyway.


Though it took me quite a while to clear all the smoke from my lungs.


Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Developing a New Talent

Before re-teaching myself to crochet when I was pregnant with Zaylee (I had learned the basics as a child, but forgotten pretty much everything), I tried my hand at knitting. When I realized that I couldn't figure out how to hold the needles and how to purl vs. knit, and the instructions for just about any project were practically a foreign language to me, I decided that me learning to knit was a lost cause and I switched my attentions to crocheting.

Now, five years later, I'm finally deciding to pick up the needles and try knitting again. This time, with more experience working with yarn, and with the aid of several Youtube videos, I am finally getting it! Crochet is still much easier for me, but at least now I can hold the knitting needles properly, instead of having to hold one between my legs...


In practicing, I ended up making a cute little headband for Audrey. The flower is crocheted, but the band itself is knitted. It turned out so cute!


Soon after I took these pictures, though, Zaylee took the headband and claimed it for herself. Audrey hasn't worn it since.


That's okay. It's super cute on Zaylee too.

Feeding the Missionaries...

...Or not.

We signed up to have the missionaries over for dinner tonight. I was so excited - it's the first time since we've been married (five and a half years!) that we've invited the missionaries to our home for dinner. We made delicious chalupa, and lemonade, and brownies with white chocolate chips. We cleaned the whole upstairs - the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, the dining room, everything looked great.

And the missionaries never showed up. They were supposed to come at around 5:00. At 6:00 we went ahead and started eating. Now it's almost 8:00, we've eaten dessert and there's still no sign of them. I don't think they're going to come tonight. Sigh.

Well, I hope that wherever they were this evening, whatever they were doing, they got a decent meal. We'll just have to try having them over some other time.

Cute Cousins!

We drove up to Idaho to visit my family last week and had such a nice time. We watched my sister Marie in her school play, The Music Man, which was a lot of fun. It was great reliving memories of the fun I had participating in plays in high school.

On Saturday Michelle and her family came over as well, and we finally got to meet each others' babies for the first time! Audrey and Daniel were so cute together! I especially love how Daniel kept trying to kick Audrey in the face... :-)




And here's my super cute sister Janelle holding her little niece and nephew. Can't you totally see her having twins one day? Janelle is engaged to a great guy named Danny. They're getting married in May and I'm so excited for her!


And just cause it's so cute, here's a pic of Audrey a couple days ago - I finally caught her smiling!