Easy little girl skirt and leggings

LMS insists on wearing skirts most days, so I recently made several more leggings to keep her legs warm now that it's getting colder. I check the women's sock section every time I'm at Target, and buy any knee socks that are cute. They usually run $2/ a pair, but I have gotten some on sale for less. I've been saving them in my to-do pile, and knocked them all out in an hour or so. I followed the same method I used here.

We also stopped by Goodwill awhile ago and found some inexpensive clothes to make more skirts for LMS. The first skirt I made started out life as a 3T jumper. It's a cute pink corduroy jumper, but way too short for LMS's long torso.

I cut the bodice off (as close to the arm holes as possible),

made a simple casing for elastic, then inserted the elastic. Done!

 Hmmm. Not sure about the whole outfit (especially the boots), but she picked it all out and was happy with it. I do like the argyle leggings with the skirt. And they were very inexpensive, which makes me happy :)

Repurposing: Socks to leggings, part 2

I made another pair of leggings for LMS. She doesn't really need them, but I couldn't resist the pair of super soft knee high socks that were on sale at Target. I love the argyle detail!

I used the same technique that I used on the purple leggings- quick and easy.

They were on sale for $3.48. A little more expensive than each of the purple leggings, but you should feel how soft these are- snuggly soft!

Since I already explained the process here, I won't do it again, but I did take more pictures.

Total cost: $3.48

Repurposing: Giving Pants a Second Life

I've been seeing more and more peple talking about repurposing clothing. When I first saw it, I thought, 'eh, I'll never do that- I don't have any extra clothes sitting around to cut up, and we're not close to any thrift stores, so I wouldn't be saving any money by buying thrift store clothes and cutting them up'.

Then I decided it was time to retire the stretched-out, shapeless yoga pants I've had for about 9 years. I realized I could make a pair of play pants for LMS out of my pants. They're not pants to wear out and about, but they're great for playing outside in the dirt.

I used this tutorial to get started.

I used a pair of pink stretchy pants to make a pattern and cut out the pieces for a pair of black pants for LMS. I used the original hem for the hem of the new pants, meaning I only needed to put a waistband in after sewing the legs.

I wasn't too worried about how they turned out: the original pants are well past their expiration date in their current form, so being able to use them for something else is just a bonus.

Overall, I think they turned out well, and I feel confident in trying more projects as the materials present themselves. (this is one of the projects I posted on my other blog)

Repurposing: Babylegs... my way

This is a post that I posted back in November on my other blog. I thought it went well with the theme of this blog, so here it is again.

I love BabyLegs, and have several pair for Little Miss Sunshine. However, they're a bit expensive- $12-$15/pair (plus shipping if you can't find them locally).

About a year ago I tried making some myself- I'd heard of people doing it and figured I could make some myself too. For my first attempt I used a pair of tights and just cut off the top and bottom of each leg, then hemmed each end.

I wasn't thrilled with the end result. The hemmed edges didn't stay in place and they stretched out a bit more than they should have.

I recently found a tutorial here that shows how to make leg warmers from a pair of knee high socks. I bought a 3 pack of knee highs at Target for $6.99. I kept the boring grey ones for myself and made the two purple pairs into leg warmers for LMS.

I laid them out on the table:
Then cut the heels and toes off:
I folded the middle of the foot in half and pinned it to the cut end of each sock:A quick zig zag all the way around, and I was done:There's ribbing on each end, so they actually stay up, and they cost a fraction of the price of BabyLegs. Each pair cost $2.33 plus thread that I already had, and it took all of 15 minutes to make both pair. I'm much happier with how these turned out! As soon as I find more cute socks I'll make some more.

LMS modeling the polka dot pair:

Thrifting

Growing up, we did most of our clothing shopping at thrift stores (with 9 kids in the family, it was the only way to not go bankrupt). As an adult, I've gone to thrift stores, but not on a regular basis.

Over the last year or so, I've developed a desire to spend more time thrifting, so naturally there are no thrift stores in the area. The closest is about half an hour to forty five minutes away. That's too far for me to drive on a weekly basis to maybe find some good deals.

I've been doing a lot of blog hopping over the last couple months, and it has really opened my eyes as to the potential of things that I would have classified as ugly junk previously. Old, out-dated dressers can be re-finished to look quite nice. Good thing, since we need to find at least one or two dressers when we move. We sold one of ours shortly after moving here because it was MDF and we've never been real happy with it. Now we have to replace it. Oh darn. And we need other pieces of furniture as well...

Anyway, I've been getting lots of ideas and learning to look past surface ugliness. Once we move, I'll be searching for and refinishing some pieces of furniture, and I'll share the process here.