sewing – Page 3

The months of August and September have been crazy busy for me! I thought for sure that when the kids were back to school that I would have SO MUCH TIME to get all of my housework, work-work, volunteer-work, and DIY fun-work done that I would be literally searching for something to do…WRONG!

Housework has been on hold, work-work has picked up, and volunteer-work comes in almost daily. This means that DIY fun-work gets squeezed in at all hours of the night while everyone is in bed and I am desperately trying to catch up with my “Mom-only” guilty pleasure shows (Mistresses, Devious Maids, Real Housewives of Miami…)

Here’s my latest midnight project:

My Easy DIY Vintage Sewing Cabinet Makeover

My daughter has been asking for her own desk since school started, but she doesn’t have a lot of space in her bedroom. As I was searching for a small table I could transform into a desk, I came across this vintage sewing cabinet at my local thrift.

These are a fairly common item at garage sales and thrift shops. In fact, there were two different ones for sale on the day I found her. Yep, it’s a her….

She was marked at $35 because she came with a working sewing machine installed, still a pretty good deal, but I really just wanted the cabinet. The tag showed that it was the 7th day since she had been put out for sale, so I asked the manager and he brought the price down to $20, machine and all.

This girl weighed a good 40 lbs, so even if I wanted to just tuck away the machine, I knew it would just be way too cumbersome to keep installed. I unscrewed the bolts and set the massively heavy machine aside for my upcoming charity yard sale.

As part of my search for a desk, I had come across a new (to me, at least) line of chalk paints at a local home goods consignment shop and I decided to try some out.

I fell in LOVE with this coral color called Gypsy by Vintage Market & Design Furniture Paint. I coordinated it with some Annie Sloan Provence, used the Annie Sloan clear wax and left the hardware with its existing patina. Not much work, but boy, what an update!

My daughter LOVES it, and it fits right into the little corner of her bedroom. I’m still debating whether to hang a basket in the hole where the sewing machine was or to cover the hole completely with a thin piece of board, but for now she can do her homework in the comfort of her own room.

Adorable, right?? Now on to search for the perfect chair!

Click here to see the amazing sites where this and my other projects are linked!

Other\ fun parties:
Saavy Southern Style

Every November, when Target has their costumes at 75-90% off, I pick up a few for my kids. These have worked beautifully in the past for the Halloween Parties, Trunk or Treats, Storybook Parades at school, and countless other opportunities my kids have had to dress up prior to the actual day of Halloween. This is not only super fun for my daughter, but preserves her “real” costume until Oct. 31.

Last year was no different. I picked up three adorable costumes at $3 each and thought my daughter was set for this holiday. Boy, was I wrong!!

We are in a whole new world up here in Virginia. We weren’t invited to any pre-Halloween costume parties and her school doesn’t allow them to come to school in costume. Lo and behold, her school DID decide to try Trunk or Treat last Friday night, and since she knew she wouldn’t get to show off her costume to her friends, I allowed my daughter to wear her “real” costume to the event.

So let’s talk about this “real” costume. Mommy has been very busy, so I assumed my ever considerate daughter would pick one of the three costumes hanging in her closet for the last 11.5 months—and she would have—had I not shown her a picture of an adorable Queen of Hearts costume on Pinterest. My kid is a mini-me in every way. Her wheels started turning, and even though we went to the fabric store intending to make her the Queen of Hearts, we came out with purple, black, and green tulle, some pink and black tights and The Mad Hatter on the brain.

What we created was Mad Haute….

I made her skirt using 9 yards of tulle, elastic and a simple tie-on method. Click here for a tutorial. I love how it looks torn and industrial…dark and moody. I added some tulle to a mini hat hair clip we found at Pier 1.

Next I made the floppy bow tie, tying in the colors of her tights. I safety pinned that into a heather-gray long sleeve top to continue that industrial look.

I cut the fingers off of some simple winter gloves we’ve had forever, and I dug up an old vest I’ve had since my hipster days. JK, I was never a hipster, but I did rock the mini vest back in 2006ish.

I tied her hair in two twisty knots, and attempted to recreate Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter make-up, to no avail. We ended up just using lots of eyeshadow, mascara, eyeliner and lipstick to finish off the dark, Tim Burton-esque look of this costume.