Friday Night Project: Wine Cork Magnets!

What better way to spend a Friday night than doing a little bit of crafting while catching up on my shows after a long week?

I have a plethora of wine corks! My parents gave me a bunch of them because they didn't want to throw them away and knew I would put them to some kind of use. Of course!

I started with this bread bag of corks and this package of peel-and-stick magnet tape.

Then I used M's knife to carefully cut the corks in half. After cutting a few real corks, I cut some of the newer, synthetic kind and realized that they are so much easier! So I ended up with a good mix. 

Then I cut small rectangles of the magnet strip using kitchen shears. It was easier to cut than I thought it would be.

Here is what they look like on our fridge!

Have a wonderful, relaxing, crafty weekend! :) 

Socks From Old Sweater Sleeves!

Wow, it has been a while!

Since it is warming up, you can go ahead and add this to your project list for next year! Bad me, waiting until Spring is almost here to post a tutorial about how to make warm socks! :)

You might remember my very original post about how to make mittens from an old sweater. Well, I hated wasting the rest of the lovely sweater I kept since I was 18 (and could still fit in it), and it was such a beautiful color, so I decided to make warm, cozy socks to wear around the house out of the sleeves.

I started with cutting the sleeves off.

Then, I turned the sleeves inside-out and sewed down the wrist cuffs. I also turned down the raw edges, pinned them, and sewed them down. 

I left a little spot for elastic, snaked it into the hole I left, and sewed it shut. 

Clyde really wanted to help. :) 

BAM. Warm socks. 

Old Sweater Mittens (how original)

I am sure you all have seen a million DIY posts about making mittens from old sweaters. Here is yet another one for you. :)

There was this old sweater I found at Goodwill when I was like... 19. I loved the color, I love the kind of mohair-ish look, and it fit me perfectly. Back then. Now, not at all! It is basically a belly shirt.

Somehow I ended up keeping it, all through my time in the military, back and forth across the country, West, East, North, South... and then I found it in some of my old stuff right before we moved. I still love the color of this sweater and with so many memories, I didn't want to just donate it. Plus it is so soft!

I decided to make mittens out of it so I could keep some of the sweater I loved so much.

First, I drew a mitten hand on a piece of paper and then drew another line outside of that, making room for stitching.

Next, I cut out the "pattern" I made and pinned it on the sweater. I used the finished edge at the bottom of the sweater for the bottom/opening of the mittens. 

Then I pinned the pieces right-side-in and sewed them down. 

I had to make a few adjustments to make them even (the chance you take when eyeballing something). They turned out pretty well and are so warm! Excuse the picture, M took it for me, since of course I can't do anything with a touchscreen phone while wearing these beauties!

Since the original sweater had some buttons up on the shoulder, I decided to take those off and add them to the backs of each mitten.

I am really happy with the results of this simple little project!

Have you made these before? Happy New Year!!! 

Santa's bringing homemade sugar and salt scrubs this year!

This year, M and I have been totally stumped thinking of Christmas gifts for our families. Our parents already have everything they want, and our siblings pretty much do too. Because of that, we decided to do a lot of little things for our family members, and to try and go handmade as much as possible. Who doesn't love something handmade that they can use? I hope our families will love these homemade sugar and salt scrubs. 

First, I made a Pumpkin Pie Scrub, and found the recipe here. I added just a little more pumpkin pie spice than the recipe called for and it came out perfectly! 

Next, I used the recipes I found on that page to make a tangerine vanilla face scrub (which can be used pretty much anywhere, not just your face). To make that one, I added 1/2 cup of sugar and almond oil, 1 tsp. vitamin E oil, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, and 9 drops of tangerine essential oil. 

Then I found this recipe, and made both a lemon and thyme salt scrub and a lemon and lavender sugar scrub using it. 

Here is what I used... (sugar not pictured). We even grew the thyme ourselves during the summer! 

I love lemon zest!

I doubled the recipe... so here are my two teaspoons. Smells amazing already!

The final product! Pictured here: lemon thyme sea salt scrub, lemon lavender sugar scrub, brown sugar pumpkin pie scrub, and tangerine vanilla sugar scrub.

The only thing left to do is to cut out some pretty pieces of fabric to wrap around the top of the little jars and make cute little labels to tie on with festive ribbons. 

I used some of the pumpkin pie scrub in the shower yesterday, and it is AMAZING. I smelled like a cookie and it made my skin so soft! 

Are you doing handmade gifts this year? What are you making? I would love to hear about it. :) 

Infinity Scarf From Old Tee Shirts!

Fall is coming! Comfy coats, pumpkin everything, cool weather, cuddling, boots, fall colors, and... SCARVES! 

This is the perfect time to start getting ready. Do you have any old tee shirts around your house? Personally, I hate throwing things away when I know they still have a lot of life in them. Why not make yourself a soft, comfortable infinity scarf for fall and winter? :) 

Guess what? I have already made one of these. I made one last fall when I had some of my husband's old tee shirts and didn't know what to do with them. After it turned out so well, I was totally kicking myself for not taking pictures along the way.

Well, this time I did. 

Here are the tee shirts before I got to them with my scissors. 

I cut across the chest, so I would be left with only the bottom part of the shirt. I gave the tops to my dad for rags in his wood shop. :) See? No waste!

I then cut the seams off of the shirts on the sides and the bottom, so for each shirt I would be left with two squares. I pinned them together to make one really really long flat strip. After I sewed that together, I folded the long strip together "hot dog style", right sides in. I sewed down the open side so that I would be left with a long tube. I turned that inside out and fit one side of the tube into the other one and sewed it down. I know that sounds like a lot, but it was so easy!

Here is the finished product!

Baby its NOT cold outside... My DIY fail.

So let me begin by saying that I cannot believe how fast time is flying! So much has happened, as I have previously written about. Now, my adoring husband M is here in the DC area (we were living apart for a while due to our desire to both remain employed through the transition for me from student life to working and our relocation to the expensive DC area from Georgia), and it is his turn to go to school while I work. I hardly ever have time to post anymore, but I am trying to get better about it!

Anyway, one of the items on my 14 Before 2014 list (that I completely failed at, by the way) was a DIY Cooling Spray. I wanted to make this mostly for my mother, as she is having some trouble with hot flashes and I hate to see her uncomfortable!

Now that it is actually hot outside, I thought I would make some extra.

I found a recipe for DIY cooling spray here, but decided to change it up just a little bit. I did not have cranberry juice, so instead I used more water and more witch hazel. I did not want the aloe and the glycerin to make it more gel-like than it should have been, so I had to make sure the consistency was the same. I also did not have ginger essential oil, but instead used peppermint. I like a minty finish to things like this, so I thought my mom would like it too.

Here are all of my ingredients:

This recipe only makes enough for one of these little spray bottles, so I

The verdict after using it? A very disappointing sticky feeling. My mom definitely won't like this!

Wahhh. I hate wasting my time on DIY fails! Have you ever had a DIY fail? I would love to hear about it (misery loves company, haha!). 

Loud 80s Shirtdress Refashion

I have had this loud 80s dress for a while now, just sitting, waiting for me to do something with it. Of course... I could not just wear this alone. It is terrible! Especially the shoulder pads... ugh. How I hate shoulder pads!

You see what I am talking about...

Here it is on my dress form: 

Please pardon the mess in the background. I took that picture several weeks ago when it was still snowy outside. So many shoes in the entryway! 

Anyway, I hate some stuff about this dress, but I thought it had a lot of potential, especially since this skirt length is actually in style right now! 

I began by grabbing my seam ripper, intending to remove the sleeves. I realized when I went to remove them that there were some weird little flaps that go over the shoulders (making them even MORE pronounced... as if shoulder pads were not enough!). I ripped those apart too, and took off the sleeves. 

Clyde "helped".

Those flaps left quite a bit of fabric once they were undone (since they were just folds), so I had to cut some of it off before sewing it so that I would not be left looking like I was wearing one of those 80s cut off sweatshirts. 

I then cut off the collar...

And began the difficult task of folding the fabric over to create a finished edge. That part is always my least favorite, as this fabric (along with many others) is slippery and can bunch easily. I pinned, sewed, and added a belt.

What do you think?

I hope you like it! I think this will be great with some sky high wedges too.

Spring Pink Refashion

I feel like I say this WAY too much lately, but it has been a while!

Life has become incredibly busy up here in the DC area, and I am adjusting nicely . I just cannot believe how fast time seems to go by here.

Anyway... recently I had to go back down South to help with some family stuff (which can be so complicated, and is another reason I have been neglecting my blog), and I was lucky enough to get to go to my favorite stuff-a-bag-for-$4 thrift store! I found a few gems, and I thought this outdated pink dress would be the perfect color for spring.

This has to be from the 80s, right?

Please excuse all of those shoes in the entryway! This dress had a lot of positives the fact that I could put a belt with it, the zipper up the back is nice and sturdy, and the color is great. The negatives: WHAT IS THAT WEIRD DRAPEY THING?? and it was just a little too long. It is also just a little bit big for me, but I figured that could be taken care of with a belt. :)

Oh, and of course it had shoulder pads.

I took them out, and used a seam-ripper to detach the weird drape. It was a little complicated to remove the drape because the fabric attached to it from the back formed a kind of pocket that the other side fit into. It was just a little tricky to sew back together without it looking awful.

The next thing I had to do was shorten this just a little bit. I wanted this to be a nice spring dress to wear to work, so I definitely did not want it to be as short as I usually wear my refashioned dresses. I usually get the hem a little crooked, and I did not want to waste time, so I folded the original hem over several times. This made it a little thicker (and probably not what I would do in hindsight), but at least since it is heavier it will weigh my dress down and it will be way less likely to blow up at gas stations. I can't tell you how often that happens to me. Very embarrassing!

I apologize for the terrible selfie, but here is how the dress turned out:

Hope you're enjoying spring! I know I am! :)