flower garden dress

I bought this pink linen pillowcase at a garage sale a few years ago. I knew I wanted to do something with it, I just wasn't sure what. I also picked up these white linen pants for 50 cents at a different garage sale, again, not sure what I was going to do with it, but definitely with the intention of re purposing it.

When I saw that Fireflies and Jellybeans iron crafter challenge this month had the secret ingredient of pillowcases or sheets, I knew that it was time to stop procrastinating! The two items sat in a heap on my living room floor last week while the ideas raced around my head.

I finally came up with this sweet little dress for my daughter.

The back is gathered with an elastic band.

I used the white pants as the lining under the pillowcase and left it a bit longer so that it would peek out underneath the bottom.

It's the perfect dress for lazy days hanging out in the garden!

I even added a little gathered ruffle on the front next to the rose shaped buttons.

Very basic instructions on how to make your own: I didn't change the width of my pillowcase, but cut the length to 19", cut the lining fabric to match the size of the pillowcase width, and about 21" in length. Since I used pant legs, I cut the legs open, measured and then sewed the front and back seems together, leaving the hem of the pants as the bottom of the skirt. I then placed the white lining inside the pillowcase and stitched them together at the top.

Make two straps, 15"x5", press the short and long edges in 1/8" and then fold together lengthwise sewing shut with a topstitch.

Cut one of each fabric 13 1/2"x 5" top front band, and one 22"x5" back band. Sew them together at the seams. Finish the top raw edges of the band.

Gather the top edge of the skirt with a basting stitch and line it up with the front edge of your front band. Sew the front band and front of skirt together. Place your straps on the back band about 4" from each side seam. Fold the band in half with wrong sides together making sure you catch the inside edge of the band and gathered edge of the skirt. Leave an opening on each side seam for the 13" of elastic. Thread the elastic through, stitching in place on both side seams, through all the layers. Topstitch the openings closed.

Make buttonholes on the front of the band about 3" from each side. Add your buttons on the straps adjusting the measurements and placement on your child. Embellish with a gathered ruffle, and you are done!

Linking up here

mod podge serving platter

I found this fire engine red serving tray at a garage sale a few weeks back for $2. It's hard to see in the pictures but it's really sort of glittery and reminds me more of a Christmas platter than a summer patio serving platter, which is what I really wanted.

So I brought out some mod podge and tissue paper (both from garage sales this summer) and set to tone down the red a bit.

It sat half finished for the better part of a week. I wasn't thrilled with how it was shapping up, but I was already committed, so I forged on!

And here's the finished product on my patio. Not my favorite thing I have made, but still something I will use. In hindsight, I probably should have spray painted the tray black first, then put the tissue paper on it. I don't love it, but I don't hate it either.

What do you think?

Garage Sale Finds

I had a great day garage saleing. There were tons of deals to be had! I even picked up a brand new Anthropologie dress with the tags ($150 retail) still on it for $1! I got these pictures too...

For 50cents each, I plan on painting over these, and mod podging some new scrapbook paper on top for some new wall art.

And I'm not sure what I will do with this beauty yet...I can't tell which way to use it. Is it a sled? Or a fun little organizer? Either way, it was $1 and I liked the color on it.

What did you find this week?
I'm linking up here

WINNER!!!

I want to thank you all for helping me get to 200 followers! I'm so excited! I feel like I was hovering right on the brink for weeks. As I promised, once I hit 200 followers I would be giving away my Amy Butler Love print sandwich wrap to one lucky follower! I didn't know the best way to do that, but my daughter had a plan. She took some of their play tickets, wrote the numbers 1-202 (how many followers I had at that time),

placed them in a hat...
Closed her eyes...
Drew out a number...
And picked follower number 85!
Who is follower number 85? Well, I went through each of my followers and assigned them numbers.
And the winner is...Lara Stolf. Lara, if you could, please e-mail me at rachelteodoro@yahoo.com with your mailing address.

For those of you who didn't win, no worries, I will be holding another giveaway when I hit 250 followers. The prize next time, is one of my driftwood sailboats. So keep following and thanks for reading along!

Half finished projects

Summer finally came to the pacific northwest and after setting a new record of 272 days without temperatures hitting over 75 degrees, we finally broke it! Needless to say, with the weather warming up, I have been spending hours upon hours with the kids outside. Because of this, I have many unfinished projects lying around.

I did open my mail today and got a sweet little surprise. Don't you just love those? Katy over at No big Dill offered up some of the seeds from her cosmos. Wasn't that so sweet of her. Thanks Katy!


I have spent the past few days trying to paint this boat, and feel like I am getting no where fast.
I also started using mod podge today on a serving tray that I got at a garage sale. Not sure what I think of it yet, but I just keep mod podging along.
And this pile of linen is an old pillowcase and a pair of women's pants. I'm in the process of making a sweet little dress for my daughter. Here's hoping I get it done before she outgrows it!
I'm a girl that loves the warm weather and sunshine. We don't see enough of it, so I take advantage of it when we do. Unfortunately, that means less posts now, but just think of all the unfinished projects that I will have time to finish come winter! In the meantime, enjoy the sun, I know I am!

Little Ellie's first birthday

We spent this Saturday afternoon celebrating my niece Ellie's first birthday. It was the best kids birthday party I have been to in a long time. Probably because it had a visit from the ice cream truck

AND cupcakes from Cupcake Royale ! I'm hoping to secure both for my next birthday!


I made a little onesie dress and matching doll for the birthday girl.

I just took a onesie, cut 4 inch strips of coordinating fabric, ruffled it, and sewed it on. I was definitly inspired by this dress over at Sumo's Sweet Stuff.
What little girl doesn't need a matching black apple doll to go with it?
Happy birthday Ellie! Thanks for the ice cream!

I'm linking up to some of these parties.

Garage Sale Finds

I spent some time doing some power yard saleing this morning at a city wide garage sale. It was rainy and cold, but it's the only time the town can have a yard sale, so it's worth the half an hour drive, even on a rainy day. While this is a craft blog, you don't want to hear about my free game that has occupied my two youngest kids for the past hour (totally worth it!)...but those are typical finds for my weekend.

I did also pick up this boat for 50 cents. It needs a good painting, but once it's all one color, I think it will be a great find.


I also picked up this small cabinet with the intention of painting it. My husband HATES it when I bring home furniture, but for $5, I couldn't pass it up.

Wouldn't this make a great little shelf for my daughter's room? I love anything that has doors so you can't see the mess! Anyway, this bad boy is going up on craigslist to find a new home because my husband is demanding that it gets out of his parking spot in the garage. I'm pretty sure, I can get at least what I paid for it from it, which is all I hope for.

I also got this old window for $3. There was a bigger window at the same sale, but I passed it up, since I really don't know what I am going to do with this one. Any thoughts?

Did you find anything fun this weekend?

I'm linking up here at Debbidoos garage sale finds .

In stitches!

About five years ago we had a new couple move in two doors down. Our kids thought they were pretty cool because they have the coolest jobs...a firefighter and a police officer. They have the cutest little guy that they added to their family two years ago, and he's the only one in the family without a matching TEAM family t-shirt. I asked why and was told that they didn't make them that small. Ah, a challenge! So I whipped one up for the little guy using freezer stenciling.

The little guys favorite thing is balls and it's one of his only words, so when I saw the pocket, I knew I needed to put a ball on there. I just used a circle freezer stencil, filled it in with a few coats of white fabric paint, and then when it was dry used red embroidery floss to made the chevron stitching.

Garage Sale Finds

I picked up a few interesting things this weekend. All of which, I plan to do something crafty with, so stay tuned to see what these turn into.

I got this cheese dome for 50 cents.

This brand new canvas bag for $2. The colors are great (black and tan), and it would make a great beach bag for towels. I'm thinking it needs something in the blank space though. A monogram? A picture of a bird? Hmmmm....

It's funny because we don't live in the country or in a small town, but yet, we could still get milk delivery if we wanted to. My husband grew up having a real actual milk man...how cool is that? I'm just too cheap. Anyway, thats the reason I don't think this milk jug is too old. It isn't the local farm though, and it is a glass bottle, so that made it more interesting. And for free, I couldn't pass it up. Won't it make a fun vase for some wild flowers?!

I also picked up this red serving tray. Another fun fact about where we live, is that less than 1% of the houses actually have air conditioning. The weather in the Seattle area is so very mild that you just don't need it most of the time, but believe me, there are times when we all wish we had it! Most of our houses windows get that nice afternoon sun, which heats the inside up to around 80-90 degrees on a warm summer day. For that reason, it's usually cooler outside! So, we spend a lot of time on our patio and in our yard. I thought this tray would be nice to help me transport those items from the inside out. But I think it needs a coat of paint, and maybe some mod podge.

And that, my friends, is what I found at garage sales. My total for those items, a whopping $4.50!

repurposed tie dye layered dress

I have had an idea for a dress to make for awhile now, I just hadn't gotten around to it. I wanted the whole dress to have layers, all the way to the top. Unfortunately, the best plans sometimes don't work out! This is what I came up with instead.

I had about 4 of my husbands old t-shirts, that I Tye dyed a few months ago, waiting for the perfect project. I already used some of the shirts for this dress . I still had more shirts laying around, so I decided to put them to good use.

I took this shirt, and used this as the fabric for the dress.

Here are the other shirts, I would use too.

I cut this dress out of the shirt, using the existing neckline, and sewed the side seams. I folded under and sewed up the inside sleeves too, and then was ready for some embellishing.

I cut 4 inch strips of fabric from the shirts, and ruffled them using the high tension, high length technique...love that! Then I sewed each layer on starting at the bottom, and went up. I was hoping to have enough layers to make it all the way to the top, but even with 4 shirts, I didn't, so I stuck to just putting the layers on the bottom.

My model is sick with the stomach bug, so the tree gets to model the dress today. Hopefully, these old t-shirts will get some wear this summer as a new dress.