Up-cycled Dress-up Wardrobe

It must have been about a year ago that I reached a breaking point of dealing with Lucy's 1/2 broken dresser.  The bottoms of the drawers always seemed to know the absolute worst time to crash through.  I had seen so many up-cycled kids furniture projects on Pinterest and showed this one to Rudy.  He embraced the idea and did this project 100% by himself! 

He haggled for the pink drawer knobs a few months earlier at a flea market, bought butterfly fabric for the inside, found butterfly stickers and mirrors for the outside, painted it obnoxious pink, reenforced the "floor" of the closet, fixed the bottom drawer, and added the clothes rod. 

We filled it with dress-up clothes and gave it to Lucy for Christmas.  I'm not sure that as a 2 year old, she can fully appreciate it, but she certainly is enjoying all the dress-up things and I appreciate that it contains them all and that it is so freakin' cute!

Advent Books

I feel like it is still way too early to start thinking about Christmas, but it seems like everywhere I turn, decorations are going up.  So let the preparations begin... 

My parents always got me an Advent calendar each year to count down to Christmas.  Sometimes it had chocolate, sometimes toys, and one time, my favorite- little wooden ornaments.  I knew this was something I wanted to do with my kids but was trying to think of a fun, unique variation.   I realize this year Lucy probably won't grasp the concept of counting down to Christmas and Henry is still way too little, but I thought it would be a fun regardless.

 Well, Lucy LOVES books! This summer I started collecting Christmas books at yard sales, library sales, and thrift stores.  With the help of some friends, I finally found the last few I needed to hit 24. I wrapped each one and labeled it with a number so we open one each day.  Now I just need a basket for them!

On December 1, I will pull them out and let Lucy open the first one.  I don't know what order they are in, so I'll be surprised by each one also!  I hope she has fun with it and I know I'm in store for a lot of bedtime book reading now...

Upcycled Wool Mittens

Some of you may be wondering why I had scraps of wool sweaters lying around to make Lucy's Christmas Stocking with . . .  I have been making WOOL MITTENS!  They are so much fun to make and I absolutely love the way they turn out!  I gave a few as Christmas presents this year and some I am still working on.  They are so easy to make and it has let me fulfill my desire to discount shop, as the best place to get a variety of fun colored wool sweaters is yard sales, Goodwill, etc. 

A co-worker was recently talking about how expensive handmade wool mittens were at a local shop and that it couldn't be too hard to make a pair.  So I found a pattern online and adjusted it a bit to what worked for me and voila!  After a couple test pairs of liners to get the sizing right, I started cranking out mittens!  They are wool sweater material on the outside (after it has been washed in hot water/ soap and dried on high heat to shrink up the wool)  and the inside is new polar fleece.  So far I have made solid colored mittens with the exception of this one pair with the grey palms.  Soon I might venture out into mixing and matching sweater colors to be a little more festive.

  

Bring it on, WINTER!

Yard Sales with a Purpose.

Rudy and I LOVE yard sales.  For years we would go with no plan in mind.  We would end up with all sorts of random crap that will end up in our own yard sale someday soon.  We moved this past spring and realized we have way too much random, underutilized crap. So we decided from now on we would yard sale with a distinct purpose and made a little list of items we would search for at yard sales.  If it isn't on the list, there has to be a very compelling reason to purchase it.  The things on our list aren't really need right away, just things we would like to have if they are the right price or that we will need within the next year.  It is kind of like a treasure hunt list.  Some of the things we have found this year so far was a Chicco hook-on travel highchair ($4), a microwave ($8), and today's find was a lot of 13 wooden embroidery hoops for $4!! I have a great craft in mind for the hoops, so as soon as I am able to I will share the finished product.