High Heel Refashion

Okay, here is the project: thrift store high heel refashion! Ohh, I'm so excited to share this! I had been looking at the thrift stores for quite a while trying to find a pair of heels. Apparently, as soon as I want to find just a basic pair of high heels in size 7, there are none to be found. But finally, I found these!

The even better part about these heels, is that they look like they have never been worn! 

I followed a tutorial that I found here.

I did a few minor deviations from that tutorial, but overall its the same idea: mod podge the shoes and cover with fabric! Its actually pretty simple, well in theory :)

Here is my finished project:

Yay :-) Okay, so they are not perfect by any means, but it was my first try! It was really fun, and I'm planning on doing more, especially now that I've learned some "tricks" after struggling through this pair with sticky fingers :)

I think the key is to get all the creases out of the fabric, which sometimes is pretty difficult on the corners.

As a side note, this was my very first time ever using mod podge. I've always heard super good things about it, and now I can agree! It is pretty amazing stuff, especially since you can use it as a top coat because it dries clear. It is awesome!

For the next pair I do, I may venture out and try ones that are peep toe or that have straps. :-)

Finally!

Okay, I know I'm being so bad at posting lately, as my friend Matt lovingly pointed out the other night when he stopped by to visit Andrew and I. I am working on changing that! :)

To build some suspense, there is this project that I've been dying to try out for quite a while now, well I FINALLY have everything I need! Woohoo! I'll give one hint: it involves high heels! :)

In other news, I've made it my mission to not pay full price for maternity clothing. I came to this conclusion because 1. I love to be thrifty and save money and 2. I kind of freaked out seeing some maternity shorts at Target that were $25...yeah. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't even pay that much for jeans, let alone shorts that have waaaay less fabric. I'm not wearing maternity clothes yet, (though I have this fear that I will wake up one morning and not fit into anything) so I've been using this time to hit up all the thrift stores on a regular basis. I've got quite a collection going, lots of really cute summer tops and just today I got 2 pairs of shorts for $3.49 a piece, much better than $25, I must say!

My parents recently introduced me to these bald eagles and their 3 eaglettes (isn't that such a cute word!) that are in Decorah, IA. There is live video streaming 24/7 of this little eagle family and I will admit, I am totally addicted to watching them! I'm pretty sure Andrew thinks I'm crazy, haha. The babies are kind of cute and it's neat to watch the mom or dad feed them (except when they zoom in, then I get super nauseous, haha). Oh, and it's cool that both the mom and the dad help out with the babies, they have been together since like 2007, isn't that just cute? :)
In case any of you want to be a nerd like me, here is the link :)

Okay, I think that is enough randomness for today. I'm off to paint some trim outside in this beautiful weather! :)

We're All Baby Crazy Over Here!

We have quite a few new things going on over here and I'm super excited about this blog post, because I have exciting news (which some of you probably already know) and my first official tutorial! Yay!!

So I won't keep you waiting with bated breath any longer...Andrew and I are excited to announce to the blog world that we are expecting our first baby!!

This was taken last week when I was at 7 weeks. It was SO amazing to see the little flutter heartbeat! I'm so glad we got to see that so early, it really makes me feel more pregnant, instead of just feeling weird and queasy all the time!

I apologize for my absence from the blog for the past couple of weeks. I have been battling many of the classic early pregnancy symptoms (uhhh nausea) along with a nasty cold that has been lingering on. The good news is, I'm starting to feel much, much better, so I'm excited to get back on the horse, if you will! I'm looking forward to trying new projects, and hopefully still some clothing transformations here and there :)

Okay, on to the next exciting thing: tutorial!!

I have a good friend that is pregnant with their first baby as well. They are having a girl and her baby shower is coming up soon. I've always loved those cute diaper cakes, so I decided to make one for her!

I looked online to get ideas, and of course, I don't remember which one I really followed, and probably more of a combination of a few anyway. So, the disclaimer is that I did not make any of this up myself and I'm sure there are a ton of other ways to make super cute diaper cakes!

A couple of notes:

-I decided to use size 2 diapers, so she can leave the cake together for a while as decoration in the nursery if she wants to. Obviously, you can use any size you want :)

-The amount of diapers I used makes a nice medium sized 3-tier cake. I'm sure you could easily use more or less depending on the size of cake you want.


So here is what you will need:

-67 diapers

-Lots of rubber bands in various sizes

-14 in. cake board

-Wooden dowel rods so the cake won't fall apart (I used 3, and got mine from Mennards and had my wonderful husband cut them to the size I needed)

-Ribbon, flowers, baby accessories, anything else you want to decorate with

-Hot glue gun


You start by rolling each diaper up and rubber banding it.

After you have a ton of diapers rolled up, you can start making the tiers. Here are the dimensions:

The top tier is made up of 8 diapers.
The middle tier is made up of 7 diapers in the middle and then 12 around the outside.
The bottom tier is made up of 8 in the center, 13 around the center, and 19 in the outer.

So you stand the diapers up and use a larger rubberband to secure them all together.

The easiest way I found to do it, is to rubber band the sections separately for the middle and bottom tiers. This makes it way easier to handle. Oh, and I rubber banded my tiers pretty tightly so no diapers slip out, and I tried to put all the "seams" toward the inside so that the cake looks nice and uniform on the outside.

After you have the tiers put together, you stack them and slip the dowel rods down all the tiers, making sure not to rip or snag any of the diapers.

I thought it would be cute to cover the cake board with fabric, so I just cut and taped the fabric on to the back.

You could use cute scrapbooking paper or even just leave the cake board white if you wanted to.

After that is done comes the really fun part...decorating! :) You can decorate it in anyway you want really. For this cake, I thought these cute little booties matched the parent's-to-be brown and pink nursery perfectly:

The mom to be also loves gerber daisies, so I thought those would be a good addition as well. :)

I used the glue gun to secure the ribbon down, being careful to not get any glue on the diapers.

And that's it! I didn't want the cake to look cluttered, so I kept it pretty simple, but I think she will like it :)

Animal Print-ish Dress

Sorry I'm a little late on the post this week, its been an unusually busy week.

Onto the dress for this week!
Okay, I have to make a confession right now: when I saw this dress at the thrift store, I thought, "oh, brown with lighter colored dots/circles, thats kind of a cool pattern". I did not realize (don't ask me why) until I got home and started taking pictures that the pattern is actually more of an animal print, haha.

I know, you are all probably thinking that I'm crazy for not seeing this before. I guess sometimes I get so focused in on something, that I can't see the big picture...hmmm, that sounds like it could be a life lesson..

Anyway, any of you that know me personally, know that I have never (and may not ever) be a huge animal print kind of person. I think it can be tastefully done, and some people can rock it like none other, but that person is not really me.

But since you can't return thrift store finds, I decided to go with it; and its nice to change it up right? :-)

I decided that it was pretty cute with just a few minor adjustments. I took the shoulder pads out, took the sides in a bit and shortened it up.

I thought it would be cute with a wide brown belt and some sandal-y wedges:

I think doing those minor adjustments really modernized it. Oh, and since I've been making hats lately, I definitely used some of this fabric to make a pill box hat, it is pretty cute! I'll have to post pictures once I finish it. :-)