T-Shirt Necklace / Scarf

This was literally the easiest craft ever, so I feel capable to write a tutorial that won’t make someone end up with a total hot mess of a project.

Start with an old t-shirt.  Mine was one of my husband’s and it was a soft, gray cotton.  I don’t think the size of the shirt matters, obviously a bigger shirt is going to make something you can loop twice and it’ll still be loose versus a smaller shirt will be closer to your neck – or just looped once if you did a child’s shirt.  I did a solid color, but I think it’d be fun to do this with a print or a stripe.

Big ol junky t-shirt.

Start by making incisions along the one side about a 1/4” wide.  Stop when you get to the armpit.

Cut all the way across the shirt – don’t stress about straight lines.  Once you’ve got a bunch of loops, start by just stretching them out a little bit between your hands and you’ll notice they sort of coil up on each other.  I didn’t take a picture of this step because it did require two hands… sorry!  Set one loop aside.

Once you’ve got a bunch of coiled up loops, start lining up the seams in one of your hands – it’s okay if the seams on the other side don’t line up perfectly – you’re going to coil the necklace anyways and it’s meant to look a little imperfect.  (Thus, why this is a great craft for me!)

Once you line them up, take your set aside loop and start wrapping it around the seams in  your hand.  I read a few tutorials that said they used a fabric glue to hold it – I just tied a small knot in the end and tucked the loose ends under.  This is what it looked like:

As I said, this makes a really long necklace or scarf (whatever you want to call this) – I didn’t like the way it looked hanging all the way down. That could just be my preference though….

I recommend making a somewhat constipated look when you take self-portraits.  It really helps you feel like less of a goober than you already do in these situations.

So anyways, I prefer to wear mine double looped – it always helps to hide the fact that the ends aren’t totally even.

And there you go!  T-shirt scarf.  Or necklace.  Whatever.  T-shirt thingey!

Pinterest Party

I often refer to my friend Anne as our "social chair" - and this is fitting considering she is technically the social chair of the one and only organized club I belong to here in Winston, the Resident Spouse Association.  Whether it’s RSA functions, tailgates or dinner parties, Anne is always my one friend who is constantly scheming up new get together ideas.  The best part is she's very creative in her ideas for get together - which I love about her. 
 
Okay, enough ego boosting for Anne. The point of that intro was to say who else would come up with an idea like she did this weekend - a Pinterest party!  It was a simple concept - bring the makings of a craft or food item you've pinned on Pinterest but haven't made yet… and make it.  Such a great idea!  I have 65 items on my crafty board and it is by pure self restraint that I don't have 6,500... yet I rarely make time to do them.  What a better way than for me to put it on my schedule AND know that I was going to be in the company of good friends making their crafts too.
 
(Even better was some people had food pins to test out on us…happy guinea pigs, indeed.)

It was very fun and we all made good progress, if not finished, a craft or recipe.  Katie and Anne did needlepoint, Tommie and Anya worked on crocheting hats, Akanksha made a mason jar soap dispenser, Sarah painted the cutest little "P" using a pencil eraser, Jamie made a jewelry tray and I tackled DIY mercury glass. 

 
My mercury glass project was easier than I expected it to be, but it was just one of those things I had been putting off getting started on.  I bought all these little vases at Goodwill for 25 cents a piece and found the spray paint at Wal-mart for $9.  I read a bunch of tutorials on how to do it and they all seemed to say about the same thing – spray, dry, repeat 5 times, spritz with vinegar, wipe down.  (For more specifics, this is a good example of one of the tutorials I read.)

While my glasses were drying, I even tackled a 10 minute t-shirt scarf project.  Bonus craft!

We had a little mascot overseeing all our crafts…

I loved Akanksha’s mason jar soap dispenser… that might be next on my to do list.

 
I was really happy with how both of my crafts came out.  The mercury glass especially came out lovely – I love seeing them twinkle on my mantle now!

And I’ve already worn my t-shirt scarf/necklace out once…

Obviously I loved, loved, loved this idea for a party.  We all definitely agreed that we need to do it on a regular basis - and we're going to leave it up to Anne to schedule it.

Faux Ceramic Thanksgiving Gourds

Since I’m on the topic of being crafty, I thought I’d blog about a project I did last year.  Yes, last year.  Am I the only person who keeps pictures in a folder called “To Be Blogged” and has things in there that are over a year old?  (Sorry, deserted recipe blog…)

But, it’s actually relevant… because I crafted these last year but I didn’t get to use them until this year.  And, bonus points, I did this before Pinterest even EXISTED.  That means I actually used my own creative powers, instead of copying someone else’s!  (Just kidding, I’m quite sure I probably saw this idea on someone else’s blog first.)

It started with seeing some ceramic vegetables on a Thanksgiving table – probably from Pottery Barn – and thinking to myself (yet again), “I can make those!”

And, hurrah, I did!

This time I was at Hobby Lobby after Thanksgiving, so I scored all these little foam gourds for just 50 cents each!

A little white spray paint….

And I had my faux-ceramic gourds!

These have been sitting the garage since last November and it has been driving Matt CRAZY.  He has cleaned out and reorganized the garage at least four times since last year, and every time he asks me if he can throw them out because I hadn’t used them yet.  I swear, if they didn’t make it on to this year’s Thanksgiving table I would have been in hot water for having them clutter up his garage shelves all year!

Fortunately, they fit right in with what I was envisioning for my Thanksgiving table this year. 

I love my little gourds!  And that’s not just the spray paint talking…

Pottery Barn Apothecary Jar Knock Off

There are 61 pins in my “Crafty” board on Pinterest.  And sometimes I have to forcibly restrain myself from pinning hundreds a day.  I don’t craft nearly as much as I’d love to, but on those rare days when a project goes from pinspiration to real life I feel oh-so-satisified with myself.

(Especially when the project is so easy it’s practically criminal to even call it crafty.) 

It started when I saw this in Hobby Lobby, on sale for $19.99.  I was looking for ideas for my Thanksgiving table décor and had seen pictures on pinterest of various Apothecary jars filled with things like pinecones or other fall-paraphernalia.  I pondered this for a second, but I was trying to do my Thanksgiving table on a budget and $20 seemed kind of silly… (Or worse, pay the $69 Pottery Barn version… eek!)

“I bet I can make that,” I thought.

That’s not an unusual thought for me at all.  I think all the time.  What is unusual… is that this time I actually followed up. 

I already had a vase like the top half of that jar that probably came free with a flower delivery.  I bought a candle holder $0.99 at Hobby Lobby and some glass glue.

A few drops of glue and voila….

I have an apothecary jar!  I didn’t up using it on my Thanksgiving tablescape, but I ended up filling it up with dried beans for a general fall decoration.

A few days ago, when I was getting out my Christmas decorations, out with the beans and in went some mini Christmas balls.

Hanging with Mom

It's been such a fun weekend with my momma here visiting.  I bet she had no idea she would come to visit and I would put her to work.  That'll teach her to visit!  Hopefully she had as much fun as I did...

Hot glue gunning...

Cooking...

More cooking... this time for Matt & our 2 neighbors who are doing the deck construction...

She left this morning to go down to Charlotte to hang out with Katie.  It's much easier to say good bye when I know she's only 90 minutes away and that she'll be back in a few days!

A Call to Arms

I have wonderful friends.  Just wonderful.  When I realized that Jamie's baby shower was in less than a week and my to-do list was a mile long, I sent out a plea email:

"Please come make decorations.  I will pay you in pizza and wine."

They came.  They helped.  They poufed.

We are (almost) ready for a baby shower.

The One in Which I Make a Dress

Some people are hoarders. Some people are purgers. And some people keep every single note their BFF in 10th grade passed to them, while at the same time taking bags of clothes to Goodwill on a whim only to discover they really miss that shirt they just got rid of.

I fall in that last category. I'm unabashedly sentimental when it comes to holding on to some things, but I simulteanously love nothing more than pulling everything out of a drawer or closet and getting rid of things I haven't touched in a month ...

(To discover I want them back a month later.)

I think that's why I love the idea of upcycling so much. (I had to google that word, to make sure I was using it right. So trendy, right?) I like the idea of taking something that I'm not using it and finding a 2nd life for it. It's not holding on to something useless, but it's also not purging something I still like.

My first attempt at upcycling (or repurposing, or refurbashing, or being a total cheapskate and figuring out ways to rationalize not throwing things out) was to create a dress out of a Goodwill-destined t-shirt and some fabric I had bought for a long-ago neglected project.

I've been drooling over this blog for the last year (go back to older posts for tutorials) and have had this particular post bookmarked for nearly the same time frame. I'd dabbled in a little bit of t-shirt re-creation (and was totally blogstar-struck when Lexi commented on my post here), but this was a little bit of a loftier project. (Read: I needed to actually measure things, and I'm not talking about measuring fluid ounces of chardonnay.)

Measuring, or precision, is not really my strong suit. Good Enough is my slogan, and I was a little bit nervous about tackling this project.

To be honest, it was super challenging. I measured, but I had a hard time estimating how big the skirt would be once I ruffled it and it was way, way too big the first time I sewed it on to the shirt. So I took it apart - one tiny stitch at a time - with the seam ripper and tried again.

And again.

And again.

By the time I was finished taking apart and reattaching my dress three times, it had gone from a normal waist to an empire waisted dress. And with every take apart, my t-shirt material became a little more puckery, leading to a less-than-perfect seamline. Oops. But whatever... it was MY dress, I made it and I'm so freaking proud of it.

Of course, I had to have my sister come over and give me the go-ahead on whether I could wear it out in public, because of said puckery seamline. (Anyone know how to avoid that in the future?)

Now I know why people just go ahead and shell out $100 to Anthropologie for this stuff.

But hey - I saved one of my favorite t-shirts from being banished to the Goodwill pile, I finally used fabric that had been sitting in a pile in my sewing room, I proved to myself I CAN measure things and I. Made. A. Dress.

Good enough.

(And also? Under the "Good Enough" category? A phone pic of just half the dress. I kept intending to take a real one and maybe, um, brush my hair... but... 2 weeks passed, and well, here you go. Good Enough.)

A Stitch In Time

When my mom was cleaning out my grandparent’s house, she came across a huge stash of doilies that were made (crocheted?) by her grandma, or my great-grandma.  She brought them back to her house, and while I was home for my HS reunion, I went digging through the box.  I came across these two, which were sewn on to powder puffs.  I immediately had an idea what to do with them, and asked her if I could have them.

I snipped them free from the powder puffs, and started sewing them to a t-shirt.  It took a little longer than I thought it would, because I wanted to make sure they were secure but the stitches were hidden so I did lots and lots of tiny stitches.  Hello, neck cramp.

I was pleased with the end results.  It’s just a little detail on the shirt, but I love it.  I love imagining my great-grandma working on these, and never thinking that one day they’d up in her great-grandchild’s hand. 

(Excuse the cheesy self-portraits.  It’s impossible to do these without feeling totally awkward.)

Then, since I was on a sewing roll, I tackled another project.  Awhile back, I had chopped up t-shirts that Matt and I had worn for a softball team, and turned it into this shirt.  I never liked the way it still looked like a t-shirt though, and rarely wore it. 

Chop, chop, stitch, stitch.  Voila, sleeveless shirt.  I had a little trouble with the seams on the arms but it turned out okay.  I like it much better than way.

Self-timer pics leave plenty of room for creative expression.

I’d say I need to get a hobby, but clearly I’ve got that part of life covered.