Our First Sewing Project

This past week Emma and I made our first project ever on our sewing machine!!!  Excuse all of the exclamation points but I am excited!!!

I followed the tutorial here  on this sweet lady's blog.  So thankful people take the time to explain things in real people terms to those of us who don't sew well...yet.

Poor Emma had to watch most of the time as I figured out what in the world I was doing.  Shamefully TWO years ago I was given a sewing machine from Nick's amazing Aunt.  In those two years we had to research what it was missing, special order those parts, wait for those parts, figure out how to install those parts, figure out it still wasn't working, ask a bajillion people what was wrong with it (I assumed in all actuality that there was nothing wrong with it but rather I just didn't know what I was doing), figure out it really did have something wrong with it, take it in, have it repaired, pick it up, figure out again there was something wrong with it, reask the same bajillion people what was wrong with it, take it in again to be looked at, and have it repaired by some specialist.  Whew!

But alas we have it back and it works...praise be to God!

So we made this dress which I love. I have quite a bit of the fabric left so the next step is to try to make Emma a dress out of the same fabric.

Wish me luck!!!

DIY: Valentine's Day Wreath

Every year I loathe the day Nick tells me that I have to take down the tree. 

I really wish I could be one of those crazy cat lady people who keep it up all year. 

That's not weird, right?

But alas Cal's Birthday is the 7th of January and we like to have a party and so I have to get all of the Christmas items cleaned up before people come.

This year in an effort to not cry everysingle.day after the tree is gone, I've decided to decorate for Valentine's Day early.  Usually Valentine's decorations consist of me throwing stuff up about a week before the day. 

But not this year my friends, not this year! 

But alas I found, I had no wreath!  How can one not have a Valentine's Day wreath? So I decided to make one!!!  (Impressed aren't you???) Here it is friends:

What do you think?  Cute? 

 I started with these items.  I am considering this a free craft because I didn't go out and buy anything for it...but of course I had to of bought them at some time, right? I bought the wreath form a huge long while back, but then could never figure out what to do with it. 

<Update> You do not need to have one of these forms!  You can fashion a wire hanger into a circle, cut out a circle from an ice-cream bucket, anything.  Get creative!

The yarn I bought from Goodwill when Emma had a kitty cat party and we hung yarn from the ceiling...I got a trash bag of yarn for $2.00.  Not bad for yarn I never really had a use for...until now!

 So I wrapped the yarn around the hoop thing (was that some type of pioneer game?  No?)  for what felt like a kajillion nights of tv.  until the darn thing was done. 

By the way, I know you're loving my pjs...cooking utensils on pajama pants are hot, let me tell ya. 

 Then I simply free-styled some felt hearts and hot glued those puppies on.  Just felt pieces I had left over from other projects. 

I hung it with some sweet lace that Nick's Aunt gave us.  I love when people bring me huge boxes of remnants and say "here"  LOVE that...it's like a treasure!

So voila!  Look around and see what you can create today!  Has anyone made any fun (and maybe cheap) crafts for Heart Day??? 

DIY: Shoe Painting

11/08/2015 Update: I just wore these shoes to church this morning and they are still in great been-painted on condition!  No cracks, bleeding, running, or anything!  

Earlier this month I painted my shoes.  Weird, I know.  Nick was way skeptical of me painting shoes.  And I was too.  He called them "hobo shoes" :)  

I like to think they look better than hobo shoes.  

Anyway, 

 So I bought these shoes last year from land's end.  They were pretty expensive.  I bought them as silver, sparkly shoes.

 But as you can see them, they are no longer silver.  Or sparkly.  Everything has rubbed off of these shoes and they were just "ek". Yeah, okay, maybe hobo shoes. 

 I also have needed black flat or shoes I could wear with blackish outfits.  I had been loosely looking for new shoes and just hadn't found anything I liked.

Bottom line was that I had these shoes and was going to have to pitch them because they didn't look good enough to wear out.  So I figured I might as well try to paint them.  If they turned out horrible I could still just throw them away and not be out anything.

 First thing, I scrubbed them down with cleaning wipes.  These were the wipes I had on hand.  I hate them, do not buy them.  They smell like funky, monkey butt.  Ugh, at least I used a few of them up on this project :)

 I then used masking tape to tape off the section I was wanting to paint.  I just eyed my tape lines and then pushed down really, really hard.

 These were the paints I used.  The blank paint was less than a dollar and the glitter paint was about $1.50. You can buy some paint for yourself here if you don't have any at home, you poor paintless little thing.

 I used one of the kids Paint Palletes to paint with...it seemed to work really well.  I used a foam brush rather than a regular paintbrush.  It seemed to work pretty well as far as not leaning lines.

 I painted it this way towards the toe, then I would paint from side to side.  I used 4 coats of paint to make sure they had a nice layer of paint on them.  I did this over the course of a morning and afternoon.  I'd just come back to them every now and then and add a coat of paint.

In my last coat of paint I added the glittler black paint into the regular black paint.  I did this so it would give it a little bit of sheen and so the paint would coordinate with any remaining shimmer left on the shoes.

And ta-da!  Here is the end result of my work.  I think they look pretty good.  They have kind of a mod look  to them and paired with jeans the black and silver just peak out from the front of my pants.  I should add that     before I removed the paint I mod-podged the shoes, over the paint to seal them.

I've worn them about 5 times since I've worn them and have had absolutely no problems with them.  Last week we went to a murder mystery at a local mansion/museum and I wore them to that.  It was absolutely pouring and to tell the truth I was kind of worried. I was scared my shoes would start to run and then there would be huge black streaks behind us on these gorgeous, expensive rugs.  But they were fine, everything looked great, and I still haven't had any trouble.

These by far are not shoes I wear every day, so I have no idea of the wear they would take on a day to day basis.  But they have been great for a sometime shoe.

If you decide to paint your shoes, I'd love to see pictures of them!  It's so fun and the possibilities are endless!

Note: This blog contains affiliate links.  You can read my full disclosure policy here.