By looking over my last few posts, you might think I have a thing for stripes. Well, I guess I do! Especially when it comes to these colors!
This oversized t-shirt dress had been hanging in my refashion closet for some time. It was to be a simple refashion, really just an alteration, but I never got around to it. Well, my husband I were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary by spending a few days on the Oregon coast and I thought it would be a perfect time for some "guilt free" sewing. You know, no housework to do, no meals to fix, no taxes to calculate, etc.! He was going to enjoy reading and relaxing, and I figured I would sew. We had a great time and I was able to get a few projects finished. Plus, an added bonus was having the beautiful Oregon coast as a backdrop for the "after" pictures!
Only one process picture in this tutorial because, well, that's about all there was to it!
We enjoyed walking around Old Town and found this great vintage car parked in front of a cafe. The color matched my dress perfectly!
While packing for our getaway, I grabbed a few necklaces to bring along. This one happened to match perfectly with the dress. And, the best part was that I picked it up for only $2!
The rest of the pictures were taken on the dock at the Port of Siuslaw.
I guess ombre is popular even in nature! Check out these barnacle-covered piles!
If you've been following along, you'll remember from "Stripes Are A Good Thing...Part One" that it all began with an oversized blue dress and a men's polo shirt.
Part one ended with this dress...
Next is part two, using the leftovers....
...which resulted in this skirt.
A fun, comfortable skirt with patch pockets on the front.
A buttoned slit at the back.
And, stripes down the side.
It was beautiful, but slightly windy day at the Oregon beach!
My youngest daughter is expecting her first child in March. She has decided to decorate the nursery in a woodland animals theme. While shopping around for a comfortable swivel rocker for the nursery (which we found a perfect one at Value Village for only $7.99!) we luckily came across the perfect footstool to go with it. Well, it had the makings of the perfect foot stool, we just needed to change it up a bit!
We started with this brown, furry mushroom-shaped foot stool...straight out of the 70's! In fact, if this would have been orange, or yellow, it would have fit in perfectly with my junior high bedroom back in the day!
I picked up this plain navy blue dress the other day for $2. Since it was polyester with some lycra mixed in, my first thought was to just take it in on the sides for an easy pullover dress. However, when I brought it home, it happened to match perfectly with a striped polo shirt hanging in my refashion closet. The wheels in my head started turning and I decided to kick it up a notch with some stripes!
The end result was this....
Keep reading for the step-by-step on how it was done.
At this point, the refashion could be finished, but I wanted the neckline a little higher, plus I thought the added detail would be nice.
This next step was just to get a better fit. It worked well since the fabric had some stretch to it. With non-stretch fabric it would probably be better to remove the sleeve, trim everything down and then replace the sleeve.
And that's it! Pretty simple, very comfortable, and the best part...enough fabric left over to make a skirt! Coming soon!
Our church always has an annual Christmas dinner. Sometimes its the usual sit-down dinner with some light entertainment. One year it was a breakfast at the North Pole. We have even had Christmas in Nauvoo. But this year, we went all the way back in time to Bethlehem. We have done this before and its always a lot of fun.
Upon arrival, each person must stop and sign the census, pay their taxes (canned food for the needy) and pick up a bag of coins to purchase things in the marketplace. Everyone is encouraged to come dressed in biblical attire. If you don't have a costume, you can visit the tailor shop upon entering the city and get outfitted for the festivities. Townspeople enjoy walking around the open market of Bethlehem for good food, music, and the smell of spices in the air. The kids have fun making beeswax candles, shaping things from clay, and making wooden mallets in the carpenter's shop. Each family can pick out something from the gift shop. If you're tired, and you want to spend one of your gold coins, you can sit in the inn to eat your food.
A garland of bagels helps to define the bakery shop filled with many delightful home-baked goodies.
Next to the bakery was a shop offering lentil soup and smoked salmon. Further down was the Pita Inn offering delicious pita pockets filled with chicken salad and cucumber slices.
Jasper, the donkey, was watching over the photo area. Just a side note...Jasper is a well traveled donkey. He has been south of the border, to Nauvoo, Bethlehem, and other various locations (depending on what church activity we're having!)
The fruit stand offered a variety of fresh fruit.
The gift shop was filled with ornaments depicting the nativity, small clay figurines of the nativity (some from red clay, others from fimo), simmering spice potpourri, and other small items.
Other shops were the dairy, serving cheese cubes and olives, and the "winery" serving grape juice.
The pottery shop allowed the kids to sculpt something from self-hardening clay.
The shop also had some pottery on display.
The other two shops were the candle shop, where beeswax candles could be made, and the popular carpenter's shop where a lot of enthusiastic pounding was taking place!
After everyone had enjoyed the market place, townspeople made there way into the chapel for a reenactment of the Christmas story and the singing of hymns, ending the evening with our thoughts toward the real reason that we celebrate Christmas. I am thankful for the birth our Savior and for the life that he led so that we might have a perfect example to follow. May we all strive to be more kind, more patient, more loving, more forgiving, more like Him!
Below is a beautiful, short video about the most important gift ever given.
This is a fun activity, but needs a lot of advance preparation for it to be a success. You can find several ideas for this if you search the web. A couple of things we did the first time was to get several castoff sheets from a local hotel. I cut a cardboard stencil and used spray paint to make the stone walls surrounding the city. I also dyed several sheets brown, blue, burgandy, and green. These have come in very handy for covering all the tables. The upright supports for all the awnings are 2x2's that are attached to the table legs with duct tape...lots of duct tape! All of the baskets, pottery, fringed fabric, table runners, greenery, etc. were purchased over time from thrift stores (a fun assignment to have, I might add!) We're lucky enough to have two large plywood boxes that fit on the roll-around carts under the stage for storage...and they are filled to the brim! It takes several hours to build the city of Bethlehem, but with enough workers, only about 45 minutes to take it all down...yay!
