How to Convert a Dress into a High-Low Tunic

Saint Patrick's Day is upon us, and I realized I have very little green in my wardrobe, which is unacceptable. I searched through three stores, not finding anything green that looked good on me, and finally found a cute green dress at the local thrift store in town, AND it was half off day, so the grand total for this dress? $2.50. Only, it was a bit. . . frumpy? Action had to be taken.

I decided to modernize it by making it into a high-low tunic. It was actually a lot easier than I was expecting and only took me about 30 minutes. I love any sort of thrift store find (half my wardrobe is from thrift stores or consignment shops), and I love all things upcycled and restyled.

Here's my tutorial, so you can try it too.

STEP ONE
First, put on your dress/skirt/extremely long shirt, whatever you are converting. Mark the length of the front hem with a pin exactly in the middle (I would actually use safety pins--one of mine fell out when I took off the dress). Do the same with the back. Obviously, the back is going to be anywhere from 3-4 inches longer to, well, as long as you want. Drama, baby.

Front pin (hard to see with that pattern, but it's there):

Back pin:

STEP TWO
Next, you're going to cut your hem. Remember to leave 1-2" of seam allowance.

To mark the hemline, lay the garment on its side, with the side seams matched up. This should leave your marking pins on the fold lines for the front and back.

Side seams matching and folded exactly along the front and back:

Draw your line for your hem (remember seam allowance). This is probably the trickiest bit. Remember you're going to want to hit the fold at a right angle so you don't create a point, and you're going to want most of the "high-low" movement to happen at the sides, leaving the front and back fairly level.

I used a white fabric pencil to mark my line:

I used a rotary cutter to make a smooth cut. Fabric scissors will do the same thing though. Cut through both layers of fabric at the same time. Once you've cut your line, try on the garment again before hemming, to make sure you like the line. I realized my cut wasn't curvy enough the first time, and cut a tiny bit more off, after I lined everything back up again.

My finished cut:

STEP THREE
Once I had my hem line like I liked it, it was time to iron the hem. Turn up however much you allowed, and iron. You're going to want to finesse this a bit--you've got some curves and that's always a bit tricky to get to iron flat, but most fabrics will adjust if you work them a bit.

Raw edge turned up:

Then turn the raw edge under again, making it meet the ironed fold and press.

Raw edge turned under again towards fold:

Once that's all done, stitch the hem down. You can use a machine or hand sew. I chose to hand-stitch my hem, but a machine will do the job just as well. Just make sure to ease as you go, since you're sewing curves here.

Hand stitching my hem down with matching thread:

Then wear your new tunic with pride! I love how mine turned out.

Also, one of my friends calls this hemline a mullet hem, and I'm pretty sure that wins the internet.

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Tatertots and Jello

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Inexpensive Organizing

This is Part 3 of my How I Organized My Entire House for $0.00 (Really!) series.
Part 1 (Intro) is here.
Part 2 (Simple Rules to Create Organization that Sustains Itself Plus Master Bath Organization) is here.

Some things I've learned for organizing on the cheap:

1. Organizing is about your life, not about how much money you spend (obvious, but it took me a little while to learn. I love pretty, fresh school supplies, um, I think I've mentioned my love of pretty containers, I love pretty interior design--all that generally costs money--even though I try to manage to spend as little money as possible). I used to want it to be pretty and perfect or not at all. It doesn't work that way. It can be pretty later. Right now, it just needs to be organized. In fact, it's better to see if what you come up with works, then buy whatever pretty things to put it in. That way you're not investing a money in a system that won't work for you in the long run anyway.
2. Don't get caught up trying to create the perfect system. Very related to #1. Trying to make the perfect system generally has the effect of making me want to spend $. No system is perfect, but there are systems that work. Like I've said before, if you see a problem, think about how to fix it. Sometimes it's as easy as providing a trash can in the right spot, grouping the right things together, or moving something so that you have easier access. And sometimes it's just accepting that you have to change your habits (hard!).
3. Get rid of stuff. Less to organize! I recently made a goal to get rid of 100 things. This is something I plan to do regularly. Along with that, don't buy new things. I recently read that if you are contemplating buying a (non-perishable) item, put it on a list and wait a designated period of time: two weeks, a month, whatever. If at the end of that time, you still want/need it, buy it.* I find delayed gratification so hard, but it does help a lot with clutter.
4. Use "trash" to organize.** Food comes in great containers. If all you have are oatmeal containers, cardboard boxes from cereal boxes, fruit snacks, peanut butter jars, strawberry baskets, mayonnaise jars, peanut containers, empty spice jars, even boxes of soda, then use those. There are lots of ways to dress them up, if you want.*** Baby wipe containers are also quite amazing--ask friends if you don't buy wipes yourself. I've seen great things done with paper towel rolls--and toilet paper rolls, but that grosses some people out.
5. Use what you have already.**** You've probably bought baskets or plastic containers already. As you organize, you'll find you get rid of things (see #3) or find new systems. A lot of shifting will occur and you can reuse those old containers.
6. To help with costs, go second-hand. Thrift stores and garage sales can be great for finding containers (the flower vase in the picture came from a garage sale). Canning jars are often easy to find and make pretty good storage containers; also, muffin tins. Sites like Craig's list can be great sources for free cardboard boxes people are looking to ditch after they move. This can work great for some things (the free section even has furniture if you are looking for bigger storage solutions--it doesn't have to be pretty--think basement or garage and hide it--and even if it's ugly for a while, if it's free, you won't feel like you wasted money by buying a cheap temporary option). Even cups or bowls you don't use much can make great storage containers.
7. Hit up your friends. Trade around. Find an organizing buddy and see if you might have things they can you use and vice versa. When I told my friend Natalie about my project, she said she might have some things I could use--funnily enough, I just realized she gave me those jars that appear in the picture above! 
8. Another cheap source is the dollar store or bargain stores (although I think this can add up quickly if you're not careful and sometimes you don't get much for your money. Caution.)
9. Make your own storage.***** There are great tutorials out there for sewing your own fabric boxes, and if you use fabric you already have on hand, it doesn't have to be too much out of pocket. Or use the $4 bed sheets from Walmart for the fabric to get a more uniform look. I've even seen sturdy baskets woven out of paper.
10. Make your own cleaning supplies. This isn't really about organization, but it will save you tons of money, and when things are clean, you want to keep them organized. There are a few products that I really love that I still buy, but for tons of things, I make my own. There are dozen of recipes out there, and I will probably do a post on my favorites at some point.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Sunshine Paisley Throw Pillow Tutorial

Ok, here it is. What I've been meaning to write and put up for ages. If I didn't have to keep doing that pesky schoolwork (five more weeks until graduation, five more weeks!), this would have happened a lot sooner.

Once I finished the five embroidered paisley squares (click for pattern), I knew I wanted to make a pillow out of them. I was worried though, because I didn't want it to get too "patchwork quilt." I didn't think that would go with the modern feel of my bedroom.

I wanted to do solid yellows and grays, but the quilt story nearby (Gracie Lou's--sooooo awesome!) didn't have any. This was perplexing. Normally, when I get an idea, there is nothing that can prevent me from doing that idea. I mean, small adjustments, they normally make the project turn out better. Large adjustments like substituting a print for a solid? I will normally not proceed. I think the saleswomen in the shop thought I was being completely unreasonable (although she was very perplexedly kind about it). Like, I had gone into a restaurant and said, "But, these green beans aren't green enough, I wanted more of a Christmas green, not so much an olive green. And I wanted them cut 1/4" longer. Do you have different green beans in the back?" (I did not ask for super-secret back-room fabric, FYI).

 

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

The Pinterest Challenge--A Floor Lamp Make-Over

A little bit ago, Sherry from Young House Love got together with a few of her friends and issued a Pinterest challenge, the idea being to actually use Pinterest to inspire you to make something, and not just to glamour you like a time-sucking vampire with the pretty colors. Oooooo, pretty colors.

Surprisingly, I actually have used Pinterest a few times to inspire real-life projects. How is it that so many projects do not end up on the blog??? My sister and I spent a whole day once doing naughty things to t-shirts (like cutting them up and then not even sewing proper hems on them!) inspired by Pinterest projects. I guess most of those ended up belonging to Melissa, which is why they didn't show up here.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

UFO, I'm coming for you.

Over the past three weeks, I've been working on my unfinished objects. I'm killing them off, one by one. 13 out of 41 are done (although I don't thing everything in my unfinished box is on that list--I may need to do a little revising--still it's close enough).

Some of them have turned out cute. Some of them, not as cute. But, the most important part of this process is that they are done and I can either give them away (even if it's to the thrift store) or start using them or realizing that I'm not going to use them. Such is the way of the things I make. I'm pretty sure that Aubrey does not like the dress I finished for her.

Anyway, here's the list as it looks so far.

Spray paint frames
Tree tote bag
Pettycoat skirt
Ampersand
Yellow rosette pillow
Patches on jeans
Long blue tank refashion
Box purse
Let out Citrus halter
Sew pom pom on poncho
Crochet tan bag
Blue and brown crochet hoodie
White floaty scarf
Pink shirt refashion
Wrap around vest refashion
Crochet fingerless gloves
Repair pink and grey hair flower
Hexagon quilt
Thanksgiving wall hanging
Rehang crochet butterfly in kitchen
Garden quilt
Grandkid silhouettes
Gold sweater
Yellow flower/pink flower/pink felted flower/purple headband/pink cuff
Curtains
Green knitted buckets
Painted linen skirt
Blue serving stand
Braided rug
Mom's messenger bag
Santa Claus wall hanging
Repair grey and pink hair flower
Grandma Jensen quilt--blues and purples
Crochet beaded bag
Butterfly embroidery
Wool scarf
Cross stitch Noah's Ark
Blue and Pink diamond quilt
Orange and green diamond quilt
Mom's Christmas present albums
Bag embroidery

Now to the good stuff. Pictures.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

One Window with Curtains!

Woah. One window in my house now has curtains. Actually, it's had curtains for a little bit now, but I did not have the means to show you said curtains. I can probably stop telling you that now, but somehow it seems dishonest to leave it out.

Anyway, we had quite the drama with the curtains. We bought the fabric online and the place that sold it sold it by the half yard. I have never yet encountered such a thing. So, we bought only half the amount we needed for the two windows in our bedroom. I had just enough to do one window, if I added a black stripe to the bottom. I think I like it, although I wish they were three inches longer. I may do something about that still.

For now, I'm loving that I have a window covering and I adore this fabric, which is Waverly Small Talk Blackbird. Heart! Heart! I picked out my color scheme and painted before I picked up this fabric and it coordinates perfectly. Amazing.

A close up, with some folds due to the fact that it is hanging on my window:

These actually whipped up much more quickly than I had thought they would. I wanted to figure out a way to do cheap curtains, but after searching everywhere, I figured out that I could get what I wanted and spend a little more, or get what I didn't want and spend about the same, or I could get what I really didn't want and spent a lot less. I'm scared to add it up though, what with my paying waaaayyy more for the fabric than I needed to pay.

Here they are open:

I have a serious wire problem in my bedroom. That wire is the TV cable. We need to tuck it under the baseboard or something. We have wires all over the bedroom that need some attention.

And closed:

To jog your memory, I painted some leaves on one wall and made over my bedside table. This room is slowly coming together. I bought a new light fixture which I will show you soon. Now to buy more fabric for the other window and make the curtains.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Bedside Table Makeover

Greetings, Faithful Readers!

I have not posted in a while. I have a lot of excuses for this. I'm about to bore you with them. I was finishing up last semester. Enter braggy brag time. I earned an A in my Organizational Effectiveness class. I earned an A- in my Public Speaking class. That minus is making me very, very mad. I could get all ranty about it. I did get all ranty about it to my family. Very often. They are sick of my ranting. I will not bore you with the ranting that I can do. It is impressive ranting. Have you noticed that I am a perfectionist? I am a perfectionist.

Then we did the Christmas thing, which was very nice. I love Christmas.

I have been doing projects. I have been taking pictures of projects. The pictures that I have been taking are not very good pictures due to my broken camera situation, which I have ranted about before (see major themes of this blog lately: perfectionistic tendencies, ranting, broken equipment. Funny, I thought I was writing a crafting blog. Whatever happened to that, anyway?) These less than good pictures have made me reluctant to post to the blog, because I want to show off my projects in the best possible way (I'm thinking that if you google perfectionist, I will be among the top hits).

All that to say--Da-da-dah-DAH!--here's my bedside table that I made over a little while ago for the master bedroom makeover.

David picked up this little guy for free once while buying something else off KSL (the Utah version of Craigslist--it's actually a local TV channel. Not sure why everyone posts stuff to KSL instead of Craigslist, but we do. Quirky Utahans.)

Yeah, yuck. I love that it has three drawers. I need three drawers. The inside of the drawers looked like this:

Again with the yuck. This picture does not show the dirtiness of this drawer.

So, I sanded it down and painted it black and added some wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby (I geeked OUT when I found out we were getting one nearby--I nearly passed out in the car when David pointed it out to me) with mod podge for drawer liners.

Then I added zebra print drawer pulls, also from Hobby Lobby. My goal is to have a touch of zebra print, a mirror and a clock in each room of the house, so here's the zebra print for the master bedroom.

 

Ahhhhh, much better than the before, even if the pictures are not the best and my wires are out of control. I'm going to work on that. . .

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Project Progress: Kitchen Update Week 10

This is one of those projects that you think is going to be a simple project, but is not a simple project, but is instead a very hard, very long project that only looks very simple. Yeah.

On the other hand, this project is 100% free. Not "free" as in "sometime in the past I bought this stuff and am now getting around to using it" free, but free as in "I did not pay a cent for the materials" free. Except for the thread. I did buy that.

My mom worked for a while for an swanky furniture/interior design shop and she brought home loads and loads of sample books, some of which she passed along to me.

So, a few weeks ago, I went through some of my books and took them apart and got all the dark greens and blues and cut them into rough strips and sewed them together and started braiding them to make a wide-striped rag rug for my kitchen. I'm going to have three bands of dark and three bands of light neutrals.


That's a total of 25 braided strips and 24 seams between them.

Some of the ones I haven't done, hanging out in my laundry basket:

I'm hand-stitching the braids together and that is what is taking me forever. It takes me 1.5 hours to do one seam, approximately.

No clue why I'm so incredibly slow, besides the fact that I really want it to stick together and some of this stuff is hard to sew through. Thimble on hand at all times. This is serious hand-sewing here.

I've done seven seams so far.

You can see I'm getting much better.

Some one please threaten to take away all my sugar and Dr. Pepper for a month if I even consider redoing that first one I did on the left that's all wonky. Please.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Project Progress: Kitchen Update Week 9

I know. I can't believe I'm still working on the kitchen. It seems like such a huge project. And I'm sorry to report that things at our house have not stopped breaking. One of the boys broke my tripod, which puts a wrench into the whole blogging thing, since I use it nearly daily to take pictures. I won't mention which boy it was, because he felt really bad about breaking it. So, that will have to be replaced soon too.

Luckily, it's not nearly as bad as replacing a dishwasher, which we have now done! So, yay, new dishwasher! It does great. Except, there is a leak under the sink in the line that goes to the dishwasher. So the water to the dishwasher has to be turned off until David can get to fixing the leak, and turned on when I want to do a load of dishes. Yeah, not too great.

David will fix it soon. David will fix it soon. David will fix it soon.

The home ownership gods are laughing at our rather eventful initiation passage.

Anyway, I finally went out and bought the primer, spray paint and clear vinyl I needed to recover my chairs. We got these chairs from an ad on KSL. For some reason, in Utah, KSL is the place where all the ads get put. It's a local news station. You can find some things on Craig's List, but KSL is where everyone goes. Anyway, we saw these chairs for $8 a pieces and bought 8 of them. I knew I could make them amazing.

Yeah, that's green metal and bright orange vinyl. Picture in our old basement apartment.

When we got there, the lady selling them said they were related to the people who ran the Provo Leatherby's, which sadly closed a while back, and that is where all the chairs came from. We loved Leatherby's. They still have a few Utah locations open. Anyway, when we were living in Provo while I was pregnant with Griffin, we used to walk to Leatherby's several times a month and eat there. They have good food and the most amazing ice cream EVER.

Once, I went to a Two Peas in a Bucket Utah gathering and we met at Leatherby's and I totally did a caramel "shot" which means I drank straight caramel out of a cup. It was yummy.

Anyway, it's pretty awesome that these were the chairs from Leatherby's.

So I took off the seats.

Lightly sanded the metal. Primed it.

Then David sprayed the charcoal metallic finish on for me, because we are discovering I'm not very patient with the spray paint when it comes to a big project like this.

Then I recovered the seat cushions. Added clear vinyl because have you met my kids? Well, probably not, but you've heard about them. They are not neat and tidy children and I want my seats to last more than 10 minutes.

I cannot even describe the process I went through to pick out this fabric. I could write a full-length novel on it. It would be the most boring novel ever, even worse then Ulysses by James Joyce, but maybe read by more people, and it could rival it in length. Anyway, when I found this fabric, I liked it a lot and thought it might work, so I called David to come check it out, and he liked it, so I bought it, and now I love it and can't image anything else. It's Modern Meadow by Joel Dewberry for Westminster Fibers.

Then I put the seat covers back on.

And I had one chair finished.

Only seven more chairs to go!

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I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Mini Make-over: My Sister's Mantle

My sister is about two years younger than I am.

One of our first encounters:

We've always been close. It's pretty darn great. I'm the big sister, and I'm a fairly persuasive person. So, I would get my parents to get me what I wanted. And then, once all the hard work was done, my sister would shortly get whatever I just got, riding on all my hard work.

You know, standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.

My earliest memory of this is getting my ears pieced at age 5. I begged for weeks and weeks to get them. After my turn was done, my sister hopped up on the stool and said, "My turn," and that was all she had to do to get her ears pierced.

Aren't we cute all dressed up for Halloween? About a year before the earring incidenct.

She's been doing stuff like that ever since, right up to getting married 6 months after me and having her first baby six months to do the day after my first. It's been fun to do everything together.

My sister (Melissa), me and my cousin (Shanna) on my wedding day:

Anyway, all that to say that she had her four children and my four children for all of a Tuesday a few weeks ago. Yes, she is a saint. She had eight children under the age of seven for an entire day. My kids were even all asleep when I got there.

She was really, really nice when I asked her. I didn't even have to pull out my super effective big brown eyes. I didn't even have to beg or bribe her or offer chocolate or undying devotion (when I say pull out my eyes, I mean use my eyes, not pull out as in remove. You probably got that, but just for clarification).

This clearly means I needed to pay her back big time.

So, I promised I would come over and help her decorate her living room. She already has a lot of the basics, but they needed a little polishing. I'll probably show you more of her make over as we finish up more of it, but here's a little taste of some of what we did.

Her mantle had some great pieces, but it was missing some polish:

My mom and my sister did the faux painting. They are renting their place, but the landlord is a pretty laid back guy. So laid back that he hasn't ever fixed their upstairs shower and they have lived there four years. So, on the downside, broken shower. On the upside, he lets them paint pretty much whatever whichever colors they want.

It's a pretty bright green, but stops just short of neon. In case on your monitor it looks like a lime otter pop explosion, just know that it isn't.

So, Thursday night, I had David cut me out some boards of all different sizes. Last Friday I showed up with them and we got to work.

Then we taped a bunch of newspaper together the size of the wall above her mantle, then arranged the wood in a balanced arrangement. Looks a bit crazy on the newspaper, but I knew it would work.

You can see my numbered map in the bottom. I only glued one pattern paper over the numbers on the blocks, so that worked pretty well, all told.

Luckily, my nephew, Graham, who just turned one a while back, slept through most of this, otherwise DISASTER. He actually slept for most the day, luckily. I think those are Xander's feet in the above photo.

We painted the edges black, then used Mod Podge to glue some scrapbook paper she already had on hand (in some really amazing patterns in grey, black and greens) to the blocks, distressed the edges a tiny bit, and then inked them. We stuck them up with mounting tape, and arranged some things she had on hand and I think we achieved that polished look we were going for:

It's so totally her and her husband, and it's a great start to her new living room!

PS My kitchen makeover is on hold for a little bit. I think I will have a few things to show you next week though, but nothing too big. :)

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I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Share-A-Craft: Cupcake Towers

I saw these adorable cupcake stands ages ago (ages ago in Kara time translates to a few months ago). I've been collecting plates ever since. I had the worst luck in finding the appropriate candlesticks, so I ended up using cups mostly, plus one vase, and a 5-minute epoxy.

We used two of them the other day for family party, and they worked great. We had M&Ms in the top bowls, cookies around the sides and donuts and peanut butter bars on the bottom. They could also work great for cupcakes, or even veggies and dip. I'm sure we'll be using them a lot.

I picked up the plates and bowl for the blue ones from Walmart on clearance, and they were $1.50 each, with the glass coming from the dollar store. Total cost was $5.50.

These plates came from Savers for $1 each, and the glass from the dollar store. Total cost was $3.

These plates and the glass also from Walmart on clearance at $1 each, for a total cost of $3.

I think this is my favorite. The everything came from Savers. The plates were a dollar each, as was the vase and the little metal cup on top, for a total cost of $4.

The 5 minute epoxy was about $4. I also used it for something else, so I'm calling it an average of $4 per cupcake stand. That's a whole lotta cute for $4.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.