We were attending a wedding last weekend and I really wanted to dress up my outfit since it was a friday evening wedding. I thought about a necklace, but my blue dress had a ruffled neckline so that seemed a bit too much. Then I thought I should wear a slight veiled pillbox hat, but I don’t have one! So since I know how to make fascinators, and I had some blue crinoline in my stash I went to work on this beauty.
To make it was a piece of cake. I cut a 10 inch circle of crinoline and folded it in half so that the edges did not quite match up. Then I fanned the folded side about 4 times to give it dimension, leaving the ends straight. I stitched through the fan folds and used the stitching to attach the crinoline to a head band.
Then I decided it needed more drama, so I used acrylic paint to tint the edges navy blue, and used a vintage broach as a focal point. The bonus was that the broach covered my stitches that held it onto my headband.
Apart from drying time, this really only took me 15 minutes. And I let the paint dry while I got dressed and did my makeup. It was a really fast way to dress up a simple dress, and make a subdued statement. I can’t wait until I can wear it again!
I recently bought this thrift store skirt & needed a necklace to match. I made this necklace without buying anything new, just finding things already in my stash. Here’s how I made it:
I used a beading needle & strung tons of beads onto the string (while keeping the string in one long piece on the roll so I wouldn’t have to guess how long to cut it). Then I crocheted the string, catching a few beads with each single crochet. When the necklace was long enough I attached a clasp with crimps.
Two years ago we checked Sand Castles Made Simple by Lucinda Wierenga out from the library before heading out to the beach for a week. I was the only one who was really into making the ultimate sand castle, but my family humored me and tried it anyway. We never succeeded in making one that stood up, and I didn’t think anyone really cared to try again.
But this morning my 5 year old, Olivia asked me about the book, and wanted to know if we were going to be bringing it with us on our trip. I don’t have time to go check it out again, so I went to the trust Google to see if I could find a refresher on how to build a good castle. I found SandCastleCentral.com, which has some of the same information and I’ve been brushing up on the rules for proper sand stacking. Both resources recommend stacking up sand and carving away, as opposed to filling up a bucket and dumping out a castle shape. I think it might be worth it to give it one more shot to build that awesome castle. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I’m still waiting on my swim fabric to arrive in the mail. I am running out of time to finish this project before I leave for the Outer Banks. In the meantime I have been watching videos on Youtube to give me a heads up for what to expect when I get to this daunting task.
This video was very helpful, and is most likely what most home sewers would use to sew in the elastic casing. I have a serger, so I am planning to use it to attach the elastic with nylon thread (it has a bit of stretch) and then when I roll it over I will finish it with a zig zag stitch on the outside. I’ve looked online, but I can’t find a video of the serger/elastic method. If I have any time at all before I go out of town I will make one. This is not a promise, I am running out of time and will probably end up buying a swimsuit I don’t like from Target at this point.
Once again, thanks a million Cal Patch. Her book, Do It Yourself Clothes , is just awesome. If it weren’t for this book and the principals I learned in it, Olivia wouldn’t have had a costume for her international festival. I waited until the last minute, of course, and my plan to buy a brown hoodie and whip stitch fur to it fell through the cracks when none of the three stores I shopped had any brown hoodies.
Instead I bought some brown fleece and used a hoodie Olivia wears all the time and the directions from Cal’s book to draft a quick pattern. It only took me an hour an a half to make the costume from pencil to sewing machine. And she loved it. Three cheers for Cal Patch! Hip Hip Hooray! And seriously, if you sew even a little bit, go buy her book!
Have you ever read the Ramona books? I had read most of them when I was little, and now my five year-old Olivia is reading through them with me. In Ramona and Her Father Ramona makes Tin Can Stilts and clanks around the block singing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.
This was enthralling to Olivia, so we made a set from Juicy Juice cans. The process is so simple! Just cut off the end of the cans to empty them and give them a good wash. Then turn them over so that they are bottom end up and poke two holes with a nail about one inch from the end and on opposite sides of the can. Thread some string through both holes and tie it in a knot so that they are about the length of your bent arm to your foot.
Grab the string on each can in your hand while you climb up on the cans, and figure out how to clank around, annoying the neighbors and generally having a great time. These cans have lasted a good week already with almost no wear. And the two cans of juice only cost me $2.30. Not a bad investment, especially since we also drank the juice!
Have you ever heard about the curse of the Boyfriend Sweater? It’s a curse/urban knitting legend that states that if you knit (or crochet) your boyfriend a sweater, by the time the sweater is complete, he will no longer be your boyfriend. I personally have never made a boyfriend a sweater and, now that I’m married, don’t plan on knitting anything for my husband (he doesn’t get as excited about handmade gifts as I would like).
I did, however, crochet him an afghan the first year we were dating. Since this was made specifically with him in mind, it was extra long (he is 6′4″!) and I used colors he liked (greens and gray). I spent about two weeks while he was out of town working on this afghan. In the last seven years, he has consistently used this afghan every winter. He wraps himself up in it while laying on the couch and walks around the house with it draped over his shoulders. Every year that we take the blanket out he comments on how he can’t believe how warm it is.
This year when I pulled the blanket out, I noticed something frightful. The center of one of the squares had come undone! I didn’t feel like fixing it so I ignored the problem only to find my husband sticking his toe through the hole when he used the blanket. I finally decided that it needed to be fixed. And what a simple fix it was. I found the tail of the original ring that the square had been crocheted around and pulled it out. I used a smaller crochet hook to pick up the loops that had fallen off the tail yarn. I pulled the tail yarn through the loops and then through the original know (that I had found and loosened). I tightened the know and there you have it. This blanket will live to see another winter.
I’ve been craving this navy and white combo ever since I read this post on Darling Dexter, so I used some scraps from men’s dress shirt overhauls to make some flower hair accessories. They are so quick and adorable, I’d love to share the tutorial with you. Now we can all wear some springy and sporty nautical bliss.
If you don’t want to wear this as a hair pin, swap out a pin back and make a broach, or attach a jump ring through the fabric, and make a necklace pendant. But I will showing how to attach this clip to a bobby pin, my favorite way to attach pretties to my hair.
Remember how at the end of each school year, Mom would grab the scissors and cut the legs off all your jeans, and that would be the summer’s shorts. Well, my kids don’t really wear jeans, so we don’t get cut-offs in our family.
Vively Online has a post up today about some of her summer clothing remakes for her kids. The first project, a pair of shorts from a t-shirt style dress, inspired me to dig through our play clothes for some unwearables to turn into shorts.
These two t-shirts will make great shorts for the baby, using the Vively method (which happens to be a great illustration of the way I already make kid pants). I also plan to go through my adult t-shirts to make some shorts for the older girls. Finished projects to be posted soon. It’s going to be warm this week, so shorts will be needed.
Vintage is in and has been for a long time now and my guess is that it is here to stay. Whether it’s clothing, jewelry, dishes or furniture, there is something truly lovely about beautiful vintage goods. The whiff of memory and nostalgia, the authenticity and uniqueness, the refreshing quality of something old made new again through use in a different age. Sustainability is also a factor – there are so many talented artists and designers recycling vintage into gorgeous new things and rescuing heaps of fabric, metal, woods and plastics from overflowing landfills in the process.
My personal style is quite simple and minimalist but within that I have a collection of elegant vintage jewelry, china and silverware, much of it gifts from my dear grandmothers. Jewelry is a popular topic here on Clever Nesting so I thought I would share a couple of ideas about how to wear vintage brooches.
The easiest way, of course, is to just pin them on. I love the look of a sparkly brooch on a coat or jacket and they are lovely on sweaters, especially as a substitute for buttons or clasps. Lately I’ve also been wearing several of my brooches as necklaces. This is such an easy thing to do: string a chain or ribbon through the closed clasp of the brooch, swing it over your neck and voila, a unique and creative accessory that will leave you smiling all day long.
If you already have a few prized hand-me-down brooches try looping them around your neck the next time you’re thinking of it. And if there’s nothing sitting in your jewelry box yet, ask around at the next family gathering to see what the generations before you may have stuffed away in their dresser drawers or start scouting antique shops, garage sales, consignment stores and other treasure troves. I highly recommend the latter as a fun, indulgent and inexpensive way to spend a day and spark your creativity and the former is a great way to share in stories from the past.
We were attending a wedding last weekend and I really wanted to dress up my outfit since it was a friday evening wedding. I thought about a necklace, but my blue dress had a ruffled neckline so that seemed a bit too much. Then I thought I should wear a slight veiled pillbox hat, but I don’t have one! So since I know how to make fascinators, and I had some blue crinoline in my stash I went to work on this beauty.
I recently bought this thrift store skirt & needed a necklace to match. I made this necklace without buying anything new, just finding things already in my stash. Here’s how I made it:
Vintage is in and has been for a long time now and my guess is that it is here to stay. Whether it’s clothing, jewelry, dishes or furniture, there is something truly lovely about beautiful vintage goods. The whiff of memory and nostalgia, the authenticity and uniqueness, the refreshing quality of something old made new again through use in a different age. Sustainability is also a factor – there are 
If you already have a few prized hand-me-down brooches try looping them around your neck the next time you’re thinking of it. And if there’s nothing sitting in your jewelry box yet, ask around at the next family gathering to see what the generations before you may have stuffed away in their dresser drawers or start scouting antique shops, garage sales, consignment stores and other treasure troves. I highly recommend the latter as a fun, indulgent and inexpensive way to spend a day and spark your creativity and the former is a great way to share in stories from the past.
