diy: fabric mobiles

bff, sarah, from lovely chaos, created this diy on fabric mobiles, and as soon as i saw it, i knew i wanted one for london's room.

so finally, i reeled in dear friend missy (although reeling her in was pretty easy as she loves projects!), and we got busy. well, as busy as we could with 5 kiddos to keep an eye on while working. after two work sessions and some time working on our own, we each finished our mobile.

we followed all of sarah's tips and suggestions. the only differences are that we used wire to connect the hoops, and we added one extra larger ring than she did, so ours are a bit bigger and took a bit more fabric. we estimated that we needed roughly 110 strips of fabric (however as you'll see at the bottom, i had tons left over).

we wired our rings first:

next, we ironed and cut all of our fabric strips:

then we began layering on the fabric strips using tacky glue. we started with the bottom ring and worked our way up:

and up (only one ring left to go in this picture):

and the final product...

here's mine:

here's missy's:

i had a lot of fabric left over; however, i think i should still add a bit more to the mobile to fill it out...make it look thicker. what do you think?

leftovers:

overall, i'm quite happy with my mobile, and i plan to hang it over london's cradle, and later in her room (when she gets one!).

thanks for the idea sarah, and thanks to missy for creating one with me!

every kid should have a play house

i stopped in to city sprouts today with friends jenn and shawn, and of course wanted to buy a thousand things! i haven't been in the store for a very long time, and i remembered why today...too many amazing things, not enough cash flow! 

one of their products i fell in love with was this play house. it's just made out of cardboard (that you can buy at the store) and decorate however you like. i'm a big fan of the patchwork roof and the way they outlined the stone exterior, windows and doors with yarn. noah and his little friends had a blast playing in it. i might have to be on the hunt for a HUGE cardboard box now!

a couple of weeks ago, shanna sent me this idea for a play house. it's completely adorable, and again, you can personalize it however you like. and if you use felt, you wouldn't even need to own a sewing machine, just a little fabric glue and some good scissors.

this site sells a pattern for this project.

reduce, reuse, recyle - t-shirts

matt (my mr.) has a plethora of old, kind-of nasty, yellow pit stained undershirts. i've recently been replacing them with new ones, and so i'm left with this massive pile of the old. this picture is just what i took out of his drawer a few days ago. i have another huge bag stuffed in my closet.

it hurt my heart a little to think of just throwing out such a large stash, and since i have no idea how fast cotton material decomposes, i just couldn't do it. giving them away is not an option since they are slightly disgusting, so my search began. 

i found some ridiculous ideas, like making a dress out of them (just dumb - who wants a dress that looks like your man's undershirt?), and some overtly obvious ideas, like using them for cleaning or waxing your car - i already have a stash of rags for those purposes. anyway, i did come across clever ideas, so if you have this same problem, here's what you can do:

-save a few for coloring your hair, or painting, or anything else messy you or your kids do

-use them for packing christmas ornaments away, or as packing material for shipping

-cut up small squares to keep for cleaning eyeglasses or polishing jewelry

and if you have a baby, these ideas are fantastic, and will probably be how i will end up using my t-shirt stash:

-cut up squares and use as reusable baby wipes for diapering or clean-up wipes at meal times. if you're already using cloth diapers (which we did for noah and will for baby girl), then you can just throw them in the wash together. i read a tip to double the material when making, so serious messes don't leak through so easily.

-t-shirt trash liners (aka, trash bags). those of us who use cloth diapers are probably trying to save money and the environment, so natalie from old made new, came up with this brilliant idea to line your cloth diaper pail with a t-shirt-created liner, rather than buying and wasting plastic liners. and again, just like the wipes, you can throw it in the wash with your diapers. so smart!

-and finally, along similar lines, natural violet gives a great tutorial on how to make your own cloth diapers from t-shirts.  if you dare to be so ambitious, they are super cute!

source 1

source 2

need a serving tray?

it is no secret that i love picture frames, and i've just come across a brilliant idea!  i've actually been looking for a large serving tray to use when i carry our dinner and drinks outside, but haven't been able to find one i like.  i saw this idea to turn a picture frame into a serving tray while looking through my grandma's sumter county newspaper.  brilliant! basically, you just add a handle to each end of your frame.  so easy!  i did actually find some step-by-step instructions here.

i'm so doing this when i get home!

i heart garage sales

i just love going to garage sales, and this weekend friend jenn and i did it up!  2 starbucks stops and 6 hours later, we both went home with some serious bargains.  the last hour or so was even in the rain.  jenn told one of the sellers that we were committed, and i think that said it all. we were all in, rain or shine. here is some of what i got:

heavy duty bunt pan: free

books for noah: $0.10-$0.50 each

homemade rolling bin (for noah's toys in the garage)came with two soccer balls: $5

xylophone: $0.25

antique silver collection: two tea pots, sugar and cream cups, soap dish, and several platters: $4

antique dresser: $20

five old frames (actually from the previous weekend's garage sale): $2

ornate picture frame: $2

candelabra (also from previous week's garage sale): $2

so many new projects to work on now!

what would you do with some of these items? i'm always looking for new ideas.