Bringin’ the 80’s Back

I’m not sure, actually I’m pretty positive, that I wouldn’t want to dig up all the fashion trends of the 80’s and insert them into 2012 but there’s one aspect of those glory days of which I spent part of my life in that’s perfect for the twins…

Well, my sister first got me obsessed with baby legwarmers before the twins even existed by adorning my niece’s legs with them and then she took it a step further after the twins were born and made some for my girls out of women’s tube socks.  So, me being me and wanting these uber cute accessories but not wanting to pay upwards of $10 a pair, I took a page out of her book and made my own.

Walking through Target one day with the twins in tow got the ball rollin’ when what did I spy but a tube sock extravaganza in the form of a clearance rack.  I almost went tube sock crazy…there were loads of different styles for 75 cents a pair!  And, they were super long (and my girls legs super skinny still) which meant that I could get two pairs out of each sock.  I hastily snatched up a few pairs, some for now and some for later, chunkier legs and scrambled home to my beloved sewing machine.

To make the legwarmers, all I did was cut off the foot part of the sock and then I cut the tube part in half to give me four larger tubes.  Since my girls are/were so little still, I cut each of those pieces in half lengthwise, which basically gave me four rectangles, and then sewed the ends of the rectangles together to give me eight little legwarmers which I promptly tried on the girls and loved!  I know my future is sure to be filled with lots more legwarmer production!  Here are the legwarmers I made, the ones my sis made, and then socks still waiting to be made into them:

The great thing about them is that diapering is simpler because you don’t have to take off pants yet baby’s legs are still toasty – form and function!  Also a plus, Target’s original price for their tube socks is only $2.50, still an incredible price for some DIY legwarmers!  Even if you don’t have a sewing machine, they’d be super easy to make by hand-stitching or even gluing the one side together.  If you’ve ever made your baby’s legs even cuter with legwarmers or do in the future, put a link in the comments section below so we can all share in the cuteness!

Have a great weekend!

Dreamin’ of a White Kitchen

Day dreamin’ that is because it’s finally d-o-n-e!  AND it cost us just under $1150 (not including the appliances we bought a couple of years ago)…dirt cheap when you talk kitchen remodels!

Let’s see, where’d we leave off twenty million weeks ago…oh yeah, the tile backsplash.  Had we gotten it done sooner than the week right before the double troubles came, I woulda coulda shoulda written up a detailed tutorial but you’ll have to settle for the nutshell version and seek out more wiser sources if you’d like a splash too.  So, first we washed down the wall real good like and then took some sandpaper to it to get it nice and rough for good adhesion.  To protect our nice, new countertops, we simply taped some garbage bags all around.  Then, it was spread mastic on a small section of wall and place tile, repeat, and repeat again…over and over until… 

…there was full coverage of the most modest kind.  

The ends were a source of much deliberation.  We could either have ended the tile aligned with the top cabinets or the bottom, the latter sticking out a couple inches more.  We chose the top cabinet line-up.  Also, we chose to have a bull-nosed look on each visible end  by grabbing some larger bull-nosed tile (we couldn’t find bull-nosed tile in the 3 x 6 variety in stores) and cutting it down with a tile saw.

Then it was in with white grout and a strip of caulk between the bottom row of tiles and the countertop and wala, a shiny new surface had we.

But anyway, back to the bigger picture.  Look how far we’ve come since I took leftover brown paint to the cabinets a few years ago.

Using my highest status of wifey quite efficiently, I finally persuaded Anthony to rip out the ugg wooden overhang and mini florescent light over our sink (but  not before I tried to rip them out myself) and replace them with a new pendant and seven more necessary inches of light.  Hello 2012.

And here’s the other side, taken from a mixed metal mess to sleek stainless with the addition of the microwave.

Read about how we went from cabinet to shelf and microwave here.  Any day now I’ll fill up that shelf with some more colorful cookbooks, probably of the dessert kind just to stay with my craving trend.  Much better than before, don’t cha think?

Then, just for a 360 feel, here’s the before-new-appliances/present view from the laundry room:

And now for the whole shebang: (right before we moved in)

I still have plans to add some much needed color with a painted runner and a couple of other nick knacks and maybe someday we’ll replace the florescent light and Anthony will let me repaint the laundry room with leftover guest bathroom paint but for now we’re loving the new, lighter and brighter look!

Here’s what it cost us:

Countertops:  $850 (Staron solid surface - Home Depot on sale, with a 10% off coupon, and 5% off matching Lowe’s credit card offer)

Sink: $120 (found clearanced from $420 because of an unseen-once-installed tiny-ish dent)

Faucet:  $80 (Southeastern Salvage)

Pendant light kit:  $15 (Home Depot)

Pendant light glass cover:  $15 (Lowe’s)

Wood and supplies for shelf above microwave:  $20

Primer:  free (already had)

Paint (Valspar’s Promenade):  2 quarts at $13 each

Sander:  free (borrowed)

Sandpaper for said sander:  $5 (Lowe’s)

Deglosser:  $5 (Crown Liquid Deglosser NEXT from Lowe's)

Labor and sick skills of one pregnant lady and her adoring husband:  free

Support and safety enforcement of two buns in the oven:  priceless

Total spent:  $1136 ($3350 if you include the appliances)

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And now I must go love on our little bobble-headed babes…happy weekend everyone!

P.S.  I, Miss Pretty D. Proud, typed this entire post with one hand.

P.S.S. Tag Camille, you’re it…get your kitchen reveal up pronto!  :)

Insta-Hijacked

I don’t have a smart phone and I’ve been especially jealous of all you Instagramers out there.  How my one free arm would love to snap pics of the sprouts and have them instantly available for everyone’s viewing pleasure.  This conundrum has caused me to hijack Anthony’s smartie, download Instagram, and snap away when he’s not looking…okay, so maybe I got his permission first and maybe he’s eternally grateful for all the moments I’m freezing in time like this little gem:

Have a great Tuesday!

Holy Headbands!

I know I mentioned I’d get this little headband post up a little earlier but I’m learning more and more how tough it is to keep up a blog with two little sweet thangs sucking up all my love and attention making anything other than a Saturday post an unreachable goal at this point.  C’est la vie.  I love doing and writing but at this point, posting once a week is all I can do until the twins are a few months older.  But, enough complaining, here’s what we’re really here for:

Here’s how they went down.  First, I grabbed up the extra pillowcase fabric I had left from making the twins baptismal gowns.  Using the lid of a jar that measured about three inches in diameter, I traced a bunch of circles (eight for each headband) onto the fabric and cut them out.  I also used a quarter as a stencil to trace and cut two smaller circles to attach the elastic of the headbands to.  

Then I measured the girls heads and cut two thin pieces of elastic an inch and a half longer than their head  measurements.

Using my handy dandy hot glue gun, I glued the elastic ends to the smaller circles I cut out like so: Side note:  Make sure the elastic isn’t twisted…one of my pieces was and the glue was on and dry by the time I noticed.

Next, I grabbed a fabric circle, folded it in half and then in half again to get this little shape:

Then I glued five of the ‘petals’ around the small fabric circle and then three standing up in the middle.

Easy peasy!  I’ve got so many fabric remnants that I can’t wait to turn into headbands!  As the girls grow I can always attach new, longer pieces of elastic thereby making them cuter than buttons every time they wear them and virtually immune to any questions or comments of “are they boys?” any cray cray peeps pose…especially since pink is a fashion staple every time we go out…   

Happy Headbanding!

Twice Blessed

I don’t know if you’ve seen or heard all the hype about pillowcase dresses (making little girls dresses out of pillowcases for those that haven’t), but thanks be to whoever got that ball rollin’ because that’s where I got the inspiration for our girls baptismal gowns.  You see, right after the twins were born I was given a very old pillowcase made by my great-aunt.  My first thought was, “Pretty, but what am I going to do with one pillowcase?”.  My second thought, hours later and right before I handed it down to someone else more appreciative was, “Omgosh!  Pinterest!  Pillowcase dresses!  It’s a future set of baptismal gowns!”.  And then of course my third thought, “How the heck am I going to make them?  I’ve never made a dress in my life!”  Enter the creative genius and source of my ambition and courage, my sis Farrah.

Following is our rendition of the pillowcase dress trend.  Farrah did most of the work while I either slept or nursed, my two priorities these days, so to her I am eternally grateful.  Here we are with the oldie but goodie: My favorite part of the case was the gorgeous lace around the open end, darned entirely by my great-aunt.  I loved that fact and the special, sentimental value that would be built into the dresses.

So, since we needed to get two dresses out of one pillowcase, the first step was to fold it in half lengthwise and cut down the fold. So far, so good.  Easy-peasy.

Next we had to cut out the neckline and arm holes.  Since we didn’t have an official pattern to go by, we simply grabbed a newborn outfit with a top outline similar to what we were going for and traced it onto the fabric.  We also made sure to pin the unhemmed side of the dresses together to prevent shifting.

To make sure each side was exactly the same, we traced one arm hole…

then folded the entire piece of fabric in half lengthwise…

and cut.

Times two and we had the beginnings of what were beginning to look like dresses.

Next, we (she, Farrah) sewed the unfinished side of each dress up along with the tops of the straps and put a tiny hem around the unfinished arm and neck holes by simply folding and sewing.  We didn’t worry about folding the seams over twice, which would’ve been the “professional” thing to do, because it was hard enough to fold the seams over once making tiny hems and it would’ve required more seam allowances than we had.

All sewn!

See the teeny tiny hem?

Next up, sleeves.  I really wanted a simple ruffle instead of an actual sleeve so Farrah folded the excess pillowcase fabric to create four layers…

cut out the shape shown below, best described as a quarter of an oval, cut it out…

sewed two parallel basting stitches on the straight edge, and pulled to create these: 

Then she pinned and sewed them onto the dress.  After much deliberation (seriously, it took us forever to make up our minds), we decided to go vintage and left the edges of the sleeves raw  instead of hemming them.

So, at this point, the dresses were pretty much finished except that there was no way the twins heads would fit through the tiny head holes without some sort of additional opening.  I decided that the easiest way to add some room would be to cut a six inch slit up the back of each dress and then add some ribbon to secure them once on.  Zippers or buttons would’ve worked even better but I have yet to learn all about buttonholes and zippers still scare me…

Two cuts, 12 ribbons (blue for Mama Mary), and a sewing machine later and the dresses were finished…two days before their debut.

Here are the girls in all their angelic, peaceful, newly-minted Christian splendor…funny because the middle picture was actually taken after they acquired their sainthood whereas the two outside, angelic ones were taken before sooo, in case you were wondering, apparently just because you’re a saint doesn’t mean world peace, smiles, and happiness 24/7, it just means you now have the edifying task of making your parents saints… 

Godparents, Fr. Dan, Megan Rose, Dan, and Lauren – always inspiring us to become better, holier people.  The twins are so blessed to have them as prayer warriors and incredible examples.

 

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I’ll be back sometime this week with a little tutorial on how I made their headbands so don’t stay away long!  Until then, have a great weekend!