Just starting

I found myself with a day unassigned to someone else's project sooooo, I started remodeling this cabinet.  It has been living in my crowded garage for almost 2 years now.  At one point {pre-destroyed look} I put it on the curb, thinking it would be snatched up like back in Arizona.  Anything you put on the curb is gone the next day.  I guess Minnesotans are less scroungy cause after a couple days, and one terrible rain storm that knocked it over and soaked it in mud, I ended up pulling it back in the garage.  A while later there was a freak spray painting accident...and that brings us to today.  

I sanded it all over and started the up-cycle.  I nailed additional boards to the top {seen above} so that I had a base to nail crown molding to it.

Then I added this molding and ran out of molding AND time.  Dinner, running kids here and there, and all the while dreams of finishing this bugger have been swimming in my head.  Maybe tomorrow will be the day it gets finished being messed with and I can start to paint.  

Woot woot!  It is so great to do a little project just for me!

Stay tuned for the finished product...

Sassy Knits

I wanted to show you this little shop I found in one of the Minneapolis neighborhoods a while back.  I just realized I had the pictures sitting here and never got them posted :03

Sassy Knits happens to be situated across the street and down two shops from that fabulous sewing store I showed you a while back, SewTropolis, near 48th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Their entire line of clothing is hand made in the shop!  Not only that, but it is entirely made of recycled knits.  My mind exploded with the thought of the possibilities.  I could actually take my old shirts, cut them up, and make a whole new piece of clothing!  It's like Sassy Knits gave me permission to get creative or something.  

 They have a full line of incredibly comfy clothes for women, as well as totally adorable childrens and infants clothes.  Sassy Knits' one-of-a-kind creations are available for purchase at their store, or at a number of swap meets and markets in the area.

I was totally stoked they let me take a peek in back to check out their creative space.  Big tables, sewing machines, and tons of work space.  You can see their serger in the back.  That big blue thing on the front table, the thing with the handle up in the air...I am gonna go out on a limb and guess that is their snap press.  I have one and I LoVE it!  We used it last weekend when we made our Kitchen Towels.  I even let the little kids use it, it is that easy to use.

Wait!  Can you say sidetracked!?!  Back to the shop...

Check out all those bins of knits!!!  Talk about making money while saving the planet.  I am in total awe at Sassy Knits and their resourceful upcycling of used knits into something unique, fabulous, and new.  I am ready to hit the thrift store all over again and find something unique to play with.  I guess I should probably start with my OWN closet, huh?  

Quick Fix Up

Grandma and Auntie Kallie came to town last week.  

That always means we will be thrifting and we will be doing it A LOT!

Being that we are still fairly unfamiliar with our area here, I did an extensive online search for local thrift stores.  I only found a couple, but we are not that easily discouraged from bargain hunting, so we set out to see what we could find.  One by one we marked the stores off the list, all of them closed {only open on the weekends} or seemingly nonexistent because they had closed some time ago.  I know that the garage sales here are fabulous, but seriously!  There should be a good old fashion, non pocket robbing thrift store somewhere around Rosemount, MN!!!

As an exasperated last attempt before having to pick kids up from school, we stopped at Unique, a Savers store.  Walking in, first thought, AMAZING.  My best way to describe it to Madison when we returned was "Dazzling!"

While it was a Savers store, the prices were not quite as high as the new Savers prices.  In fact, they must have had a saint pricing back in the back because about every other item picked up was actually a reasonable $2 or something.  I don't know if you have experienced the robbed feeling I have had the last couple time I visited Savers or Goodwill, but I have no problem sharing my opinion, and usually rather loudly, about the exasperating prices being charged for DONATED CLOTHES!

I get that it is for charity, but if the prices get any higher I am going to need charity :0}

I will get off that soap box, back to Unique!

I think what made the store all the more magical was that ALL of the clothing and household linens were 50% off that day.  That and the store was freaking HUGE!  It had to be twice the size of any Savers I had ever been in before.  Let me just sidestep here and say just how much I miss Half Priced Saturday at Goodwill back in Arizona!!!!!!!!!!

OK, Long story slightly shorter, I found this cute froggy shirt for $2.  Done.  In the cart.  Little bit later, found this cute pair of florescent green pants.  Love them!  In the cart.  

Just before checking out I was doing my twice over of the cart and happened to realize there was a tear by the back pocket.  My first thought was to nix the pants, but I really liked them and was excited to have a complete outfit when pairing them with the frog shirt.  Since I actually visit thrift stores to find projects, not just clothes, I decided I would spring for the $2 pair of pants {especially since I had turned down a pair at Target that was $12 or $15 a couple weeks ago}.

This is what I did with them

Do realize, in typical "ME" fashion, I had suddenly remembered about 45 minutes before Emmers was to get on the bus today that I STILL hadn't folded or even sorted through my clean laundry.  Rather than facing the mounds of clean laundry baskets currently residing in my master bedroom, I ran instead to the craft room and pulled out the pants purchased last week.  30 minutes.  I could do this!

Found some black polka dot.  Folded over a corner and used my rotary cutter to cut out a heart.

Uh...how 'bout two.  That would be cute.  Cut another one.

Did a quick run through of my oh-so-sorry pile of crafting supplies {SO need to reorganize now that wedding is over} and could not find my heat 'n bond interfacing.

Oh!  That is right!  Glue sticks work great as a fabric stabilizer!  Bet ya' didn't know that ?!?

Stick sticky heart to pants, stitch around the outside with a zig-zag stitch.  Turn pants over and do the same to the heart on the front.

I also had to take about 4" off the bottom of the pants :]  See, Emmalee is kinda hard to fit for jeans, so I usually just buy them to fit her waist and then make them the length they should be.

I tried miserably to do a little decorative stitching over the heart.  Should have just stopped.  Oh well.  Still cute.

And does Cinderella Emmalee Sew*CakeMaker like them???

YES!

.

Real quick I took one of the pant cuffs I cut off, sewed it into a square, and made this hairbow to match.  It is totally ginormous, I know, but I love them that way!  In fact, the school bus driver bent all the way out the bus window today and said, "Nice!  I love the bow!"

She sure made my day. 

 Emmers is gone at school, I actually started and finished something today.  

I guess I can just go back to bed :0}