Recycled T-Shirt Skirts

Here are the T shirt skirts that my friend and I have been making in their debut at Angels. We have been buying up t shirts at yard sales and thrift stores. It takes 4-5 shirts per skirt depending on size. The scarf is also made of recycled shirts.
Sorry about the cell phone pictures- I never remember to take my camera out there and by the time I get organized - the thing has sold! (which is a good problem!) This skirt sold the 2nd day it was out there.

Here is the "guinea pig" skirt- I will keep this one. It was a learning experience so I wanted all of the mistakes on my skirt. If I had a serger this would be easier. I am not crazy about sewing on knit. I have had to play with my knit stitches and overlock to get the best look.

It sits low on the hips, so the only place you have to fit it is the hips and length. The waist band has to stretch enough to go over the hips and not slide back off! It folds back down. That is one shirt bottom. The other four shirts are sewed in a big tube, gathered, attached to the waist band and hemmed. Not too hard! You can make any of the panels be the front- so 4 skirts in one!

I wore mine today to test it out- comfy and cool. My friend is making some for her daughter out of her Hello Kitty Tshirts that she has outgrown. I can't wait to see that one! I found a UNC shirt at the thrift store and will hunt for more. I don't outgrow my shirts and am not willing to cut up any of my favorites! Maybe I can get Mom (hint,hint) to look for some in NC! DO NOT PAY MORE THAN $.50 FOR ONE!!!!

Thrify Finds and Projects

I had a "Craft Day" last week with my thrifting buddy. We worked on a pattern for a recycled Tshirt skirt (pictures to come later) and some altered playing cards. I made this card and later found this small canning jar at the thrift store.

Next up is this tiny nativity set that was almost free....Love it!

From Mexico-

At the same thrift store found this cute jewelry chest and gave it a facelift with some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint-

These shabby little chests never last long at the booth. There is one I did not paint out there that has never sold even though it is much larger and much cheaper. Time to bring it home and paint it!

I found these screen prints from the 70's by Marushka last week. I really love them but just do not have a place for them. And I do not see a cottage by the beach in my future. They are pretty tall - I especially love the one with the jar of shell since I have jars of shells all over my house!

This sad little table was at a yard sale this weekend. A quick coat of ASCP -Graphite - made it a winner! The last table I painted this color sold the same day I put it in the booth!

The big project this week is moving home an office full of 27 years of memories for my hubby. Although he is not as sentimental as I am there are many things that he will want to keep and we will have to find room for them! Today is his last day to work and he is so ready to begin this new chapter!

Happy Birthday Max!

Since we really don't know Max's official birthday, we decided that since he needed a new halter we would make it July 24th! Here he is modeling his new halter!

And here is why he needed a new halter! He is a swimming fool! We did not take his old halter off when he got in the pool and it was always wet! He would stay in the pool as long as he could every day.....

This is his favorite toy to fetch in the pool or at least the remaining half of it!

We decided to get a new toy for his birthday as well...

But he remained loyal to his old piece of toy...

We hid the old toy and replaced it with a new red bone, same size, same shape but not as "squishy"... He would play with it but it just was not the same....

So I went back to the store and got 2 more like the original bone- one blue and one green- maybe they will last through the rest of the summer!

What I Have Dragged Home This Week...

Or at least some of it! Last week I was under the weather- I didn't leave the house. So this week I have been itching to get out to the garage sales and thrift stores. Two of my favorite finds are posing on this cute little end table that had a makeover this week. The table is a good solid piece of Bassett furniture. I painted it this week with one of my favorite colors of Annie Sloan chalk paint- Graphite with a touch of dark wax in the distressed areas. One of the plates is the Southern Living at Home Dress Me Up Plate- new in the box. The other is a beautiful Shenango Plate.
This plate is so thin! With a beautiful embossed band and featuring a Naval Battle from the War of 1812. I found it at a yard sale. It was dirty but I could see how pretty it was underneath and it washed up perfectly! Love!
And these big boys took my breath away! I loaded them into my cart with the speed of light-

After I calmed down I saw the babies, too! And 50% off!!! Next came this wrought iron plant stand and all these little goodies. Rook game, Carrriage sillouette prints, a bunch of jello molds and some Restaurantware.

I have not even counted all of these molds!

The lower plate is Shenango- from the King Cole Restaurant- I might have my Hubby try that on ebay. In a few days he will be making a real life change- retirement! He will need to keep busy with our junking business.

Pinterest Crafts

Pinterest is such a great source of inspiration for me! Sometimes I just search for a supply that I have in my stash and I have instant ideas to keep me busy. For instance -chenille....I am a hoarder of old chenille plus the trims that go with it. I take the fringe off the bedspreads and even save the cotton lining on shams and the buttons on duvets. And here is the result:

A pile of pillows ready to go to my booth. Some are presold because every time I put one out there it sells and some people have asked me to sell them one before it gets sold out from under them!

Each one is unique. All recycled or new supplies from yard sales or thrift stores. I use down inserts and they are so fluffy!

I have used many burlap ideas from Pinterest. These are ready for football season- Auburn colors and Aubie of course!

The burlap Aubie is a door hanger and the one in the back is painted on a recycled cork board. Somehow a vintage Aubie glass from the thrift store got in the picture...

After a recent tragedy in Auburn I have seen a lot of Auburn crosses so I tried one in burlap.

This top is another Pinterest project. It is much cuter on but I failed at taking my own picture wearing it! I have sold many pillowcase dresses for kids this year and this is made the same way. Except bigger and this is a top. I have seen some made from recycled T shirts and men's dress shirts. This was a Ann Taylor XL t shirt $1.99. I cut off the neck and sleeves. Made some self bias to edge the armholes and a casing at the neck. The tie is cut from a navy T shirt I had.

I thought this fabric looked Auburnish! The Hubby said "Cute, you look pregnant"....not the look I was going for!

I'll be back soon with some of my fun Thrift Store goodies this week.........

Lazy!

I have been a lazy blogger. Things have not been very exciting around the swamp. The dogs sleep 85% of the day. Max has moved into the big bed at night and is hard to pry him out of the bed in the morning. He will get up for breakfast and if I don't make the bed ASAP he will sneak back under the covers. I was going to wash the sheets this morning so he got back under the sheets and refused to get up!

Even when I tried to pull the sheets out from under him!

I'm going to try to blog a couple of times this week to update a few things- crafting, thrifting ,life changes.....

Spring Cleaning

Technically it is still spring....until June 21st...so I may be late but I am cleaning some areas of my house that have been neglected for a long time. This corner of my bedroom was so cluttered that you could not see the dust and dirt. It had become the dumping ground for mail, magazines and bric-brac. No before picture -too embarassing. So I moved everything out and purged and scrubbed. For a change I moved the suitcases in and moved a piecrust table to the dining room. This led me to finding homes for some of the bric-brac. I gathered all my birds and vintage planters (bird related) to move them to the dining room.

This led me to cleaning off the dining room table, getting out a vintage tablecloth and some plants - that made a home for these birds-

The piecrust table got dusted and most of the birds and planters landed here-

I made myself obey the "less is more" rule and only put 6 things on the table. All of these are yard sale or thrift store treasures. Most of them were supposed to go to our booth and maybe they will.....one day!

One bird, a flamingo, landed in the hall- which meant I had to clean up the hall- I was running out of steam so I just went shopping around the house for some beachy things and rearranged - no big cleaning here- yet!

-Soon I will be looking at this view in Orange Beach!