Hole-y tights upcycled into new treasures

As I've mentioned before, Annika loves to wear skirts and dresses, and she has an impressive collection of tights to go with them.  There are 13 pairs pictured here in her drawer, plus 3 not pictured.  The majority of them came from my mom, who found a great deal last year when she was in the States (3 pairs for $10) and bought 9 pairs for Annika (so sad they didn't come in my size!).  However, as you probably saw yesterday, they're not all in great condition anymore.  The toes are usually the first to go - then what?  Seems like a shame to just throw them away, so today I went looking for ways to "upcycle" tights with holes in the toes.

I found two different ideas - both great and very easy.  The first idea is the simplest - turn your tights into "fingerless" gloves by simply cutting off the legs and toes and adding a small hole in the heel for your thumb to go through. I absolutely love the second idea I found - turn your tights in leggings.  This took a little longer (about half an hour with my sewing machine, since I'm a little out of practice), but they turned out great (forgive me for the poor lighting in my photos - it's really the same pair of tights, despite the color differences).

Annika loved my new creations.  The fingerless gloves are a little big on her (understandably, since her arms are smaller than her legs), but they've already been referred to as "princess gloves" and a "cast" for a broken arm.  I'm thinking they'll get lots of play as dress up items.  The leggings are great, and I can see her getting a lot of wear out of them.  I'll probably do this with all her other tights, as she wears them out.  Even the ones that are too short for full-length leggings would make good capri leggings for those "in-between" type days (which sadly it looks like we are past - brrr it's chilly today!).

Hurray for upcycling!

Refashion: from t-shirt to dress

Annika is quite picky about her clothes (already!).  She always wants to be "fancy", and that usually means wearing a dress.  Sometimes I'll try to get her to wear a shirt and a skirt (which I would think would also be fancy), but that's just not as good as a dress.  I'm not sure if it's the comfort of a dress, or the style, or what, but a dress is her preferred wardrobe option.  So, that leaves quite a few things in her closet that often get neglected.  One of them is this t-shirt. 

We got it second-hand from a friend, and it's so cute and soft and comfy, but for whatever reason it's never been a favorite of Annika's.  So I decided to experiment with it a little.  I didn't tell Annika what I was planning to do, in case it didn't turn out properly, and I didn't cut the shirt at all, in case that she decided that she hated the finished product and wanted the shirt back to normal.

Here's my inspiration -

You can find the tutorial at "make it and love it" - it's pretty easy (although I did make a few mistakes and had to spend some quality time with my seam ripper. :P).  It's a great idea for making those cute onesies last a little bit longer, or (in my case) giving new life to a t-shirt.

Here's my finished dress -

I used some leftover fabric for the skirt, and I didn't have quite as much as I needed, so it's not as gathered and full as it could be, but I think it turned out pretty well.  It was my first time sewing gathers, so that was a new experience.  Now for the million dollar question -- would Annika like it???

I finished it this morning while the kids were at my mother-in-law's and I brought it along with me when I went to pick them up at lunch time.  Annika LOVED it!!!  She immediately wanted to wear it. 

I think it looks really cute on her (other than the fact that skirt fabric is still a bit stiff - it needs some playing and washing to soften it up!), and I think that it will get lots of wear this summer.  I may even see if there are some other t-shirts in her closet that I can transform!

I actually made something I pinned on Pinterest!

For anyone who uses Pinterest for craft ideas, if you're like me, you probably pin a lot of things that you know you won't end up making.  Sure, you'd love to be able to make all these neat projects, but often you're lacking time, skill or materials.  Probably time most of all.  It takes just seconds to "pin" an idea - it could take hours (or days) to actually make it.  So I was very excited when, the other night, I came across an idea, and I was actaully able to make it that evening.  I had everything I needed at home, Carey was at hockey and the kids were in bed, and it wasn't very difficult.  I think it took me about an hour.  Here is the idea - a funky headband made from an old t-shirt:

Source: sugarbeecrafts.com via Pamela on Pinterest

I found this link that showed how to cut up an old t-shirt into one long, continuous strip.  Then you just tug on it until it rolls up a little to make "t-shirt yarn" (I did this while watching a PVR'd episode of The Office and snacking on some leftover Halloween candy - it was a pretty good evening. :) ).  Here's how my headband turned out.

This one I actually gave away as a gift, but I'm looking forward to making more (I've got a whole ball of "t-shirt yarn" now), so I can have one for myself, and maybe one for Annika.  She's not crazy about headbands, but maybe she'll like this one, because it's very soft and stretchy.  Me, I'm just excited that I was actually able to bring an idea to life!

Refashion: dress to skirt



October 2009

Annika has this dress that I am absolutely in love with.  I bought it in 2009 from The Children's Place and it's a size 18 months.  However, she just recently stopped wearing it - 2 years later!  Once the length was no longer suitable as a dress, she wore it as a tunic top with leggings.  The full-length sleeves became 3/4 length sleeves.  However, now it's really too small in the shoulders and so I was getting ready to put it in the "too small" pile.  Then I came across this idea - turn a too-small dress into a skirt!  Genius!!  Here's how it turned out.

 By the way, the color has not faded that much - just poor lighting for my photos and too lazy to try to fix it!



Before



After




Yay!!

A quick refashion - romper into shirt

Now that I'm addicted to sewing, I spend time (probably more than I should) looking at other sewing and crafty blogs and see what other people are making.  A big thing is upcycling or refashioning - taking something old and creating something new out of it.  It's a great idea, as you can get a lot more wear out of your existing clothes (a definite plus with kids clothes that they grow out so quickly!), or you can take something not-so-pretty and create something totally new out of it.  It takes a bit of a mind-shift though, to start looking at things and not just seeing what's there, but what could be there.  I'm slowly learning, though.

So here's my first refashion project.  It's fairly simple, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.  I loved this romper on Emmett (not sure why, maybe it's the little tie), but unfortunately, the weather turned cold before he even grew out of it.  With girls' summer clothes there are ways to extend their lives into fall (e.g. add some warm tights and a shirt underneath a summer dress), but not so much with this romper.  I don't think Emmett would look good in tights, and I think Carey would probably kill me if I attempted it!  So rather than pack away this little romper with a sigh, I found a way for him to get more wear out of it - I turned it into a shirt.  Here's how I did it (it's very simple!).

Take the romper...

Cut off the legs (use a shirt that fits to check for length)...

Hem the bottom and you're done!

I thought about trying to sew on sleeves (cut off from a long-sleeved onesie that doesn't fit anymore) for the faux-layered look, but I gave up on that idea, and decided to just layer it over a long-sleeved shirt instead.  Pretty cute and now we can get a few more wearings out of a fav!

Upcycled: too-small tights into knee socks

I found this idea on Pinterest, and I absolutely love it!  Take tights that are too small and turn them into knee socks!  Annika has quite a few pairs of tights that she's grown out of, so I've got lots to work with.  It's just too bad that it's not really "knee socks" weather any more.  Although that didn't stop Annika - yesterday she wore them layered over top of her leggings!  I think she could also layer them over sheer tights too.  Annika is very into layering lately.  I'll have to start taking pictures of some of the outfits she comes up with. :P

Check out this link for the tutorial to make your own - she's got some really cute ideas for embellishing them as well!  Here's the ones I've done so far - the pictures don't quite do them justice (and the lighting is pretty bad).  I'll try to get some pictures of them "in action" soon!

Before

After

And as for the tops of the tights?  Assuming the waist elastic isn't too tight, you can turn them into skirts, or just leave them as is (like little hot pants) and wear them under skirts or dresses for a little extra coverage in summer - or is my daughter the only one who can't seem to keep her dress down? :P

Denim pocket purses

I made 2 of these adorable little purses (instructions here) this week - one for Annika and one for Annika's little friend, as a very belated birthday gift. 

I actually started this project more than a month ago (hoping it would be done in time for the birthday), however, when I got to the step about sewing the lining into the purse, my brain just shut down.  I could not, for the life of me, figure out how the 2 pieces were supposed to go together.  I got frustrated and put the whole thing away.  Then just this past week, I looked at the instructions again, and suddenly everything made sense and it came together pretty quickly.  And after Annika saw what I had made for her friend, I knew that I would have to make a second one (good thing jeans have 2 pockets!).  She loves hers and was so excited to give the other one to her friend. :)