How to Clean Surface Spots Off Suede Shoes

Okay, I actually just figured this one out. I bought a pair of Ugg Clogs at the thrift store today in hopes to make a buck on eBay. However, when I got home to take pictures of them, I realized there were little like...grease drops?...on them? I guess the original owner dropped food or something.

On eBay, the difference between tiny grease spots or none can be $10 or more.

So I got an idea. You could probably do the same with fine sandpaper, but if you are female, you can use an old emery board. Simply sand over the spots, and voila! They disappear!

Ta da! All ready for sale!

You're welcome!

The End.

Blue Ridge Orthopaedics Dress from an XL T-Shirt

I have worked part-time at an orthopedics office for the past two years, but have never bought a T-shirt from there. It's not that I never wanted one. It's just that I have a million T-shirts. When a lady at work brought in a bag of her old T-shirts and sold them for $2.00, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make one into a dress!

If you remember the dress I made a few months ago here, this dress follows the same basic idea, but way less work to do it. If you want to do this yourself, just get a T-shirt about 2 sizes too big for you (I wear S/M, so this shirt was an XL). Then cut the sleeves off, put elastic around the sleeve holes. Cut the sleeves open and sew them together and then to the bottom of the shirt (You'll probably have to put a couple of pleats at the hips to make the sleeves fit). Last step: find your waist and gather two pleats of material into the middle front and sew them down. (I'll show you close ups). That's all!

A close up of the sleeve hole:

A close up of the sleeves added to the bottom. Notice the pleats:

Close up of the middle front pleats:

The End!

Christopher Kane Inspired - Bejeweled Shoulder Cut-Out Sweatshirt

Marie Claire's February 2014 magazine featured Drew Barrymore wearing this Christopher Kane sweatshirt that retails for $3045!!! (No doubt because of the jewels on it.)

The cut-out is cool, but kind of really big. I liked the idea though.

It's kind of a specific color, though. Sort of nude pink. I had a skirt in my closet that I never wear because it's made for someone without hips, but I never got rid of because I love the color:

It took a lot of planning, because the fabric was REALLY limited, so I couldn't make any mistakes. I had just enough material to make this:

As you can see, the hole is smaller. I just felt it was more tasteful.

I thought about putting a necklace around it, but I didn't really have anything that would go, so I used pretty buttons instead.

This is all that was left of the skirt!

The End!

Apple Peel Black Satin Pants - Based on a Pattern from "Pattern Magic"

I got a little money for Christmas, so I spent it on a bunch of Japanese fashion construction books. Why Japanese? Because American styles are so booooooring. . .

The book I used looks like this:

Basically, to make these pants, I had to draw a pattern for a regular pair of pants that fit me, and then cut them into pieces and curve them around like this:

This makes the pants hang like this (which is why they are called Apple Peel Pants):

When they lie flat, they curve around, but when you wear them, they ripple down the outsides of the legs:

I added pockets to mine!

This is what they look like on:

I really like how they fit around the foot. The inside seam is shorter and the outside seam hangs down. (They put cuffs around the ankles on the ones in the book.)

The End!

Make 32oz of Your Own Liquid Castile Soap for $1.00...Apologies to Dr. Bronner

Here's another thing I did over the holidays. I read about how to do this on another blog, so I'm kind of a poser on this one, but in case you haven't read this blog, I'll tell you how I did it myself. I did it more quickly and my result is more concentrated (i.e. the same consistency as Dr. Bronner's) than hers.

The key ingredient is Kirk's Original Coco Castile Soap (or any castile soap for that matter, Kirk's is just the cheapest I've seen). I found this at the Walmart in Central, SC in a three-pack for $3.00. (For people in Seneca, it's not at our Walmart, I checked.) You could also check Big Lots periodically, as they get organic/natural stuff from time to time.

Sorry, Blogger put my picture in sideways:

As you can see, there are no harmful sulfates or weird-to-pronounce ingredients:

I know it's not as exotically ingredient-ed as Dr. Bronner's. In other words, if jojoba oil was the selling point to you of Dr. Bronner's then...buy Dr. Bronner's. Otherwise, if you are all about the saving of money, continue reading...

With a Dollar Tree grater, I grated the entire bar of soap and shoved it into an old 32oz. empty bottle of Dr. Bronner's.

Then I boiled 32oz. of water and poured the boiling water into the bottle. In a few minutes it was all dissolved. (Learn from my mistake: Maybe don't shove the soap shavings into the bottle. Maybe just dissolve the 32oz. of water in a separate non-melty container and let it cool before pouring into the bottle...Because look what I did to my bottle!)

Oh well, even though the bottle is warped, the formula works just like Dr. Bronner's! You can use it in place of Dr. Bronner's in any of the homemade soaps and shampoos on my or other people's blogs.

The End

Make A Pillow/ Blanket/ Bag Playset for a Baby Boy....and a Headband for Mom

So. . .I bet you thought I was lazy and didn't do anything blog-worthy over the holiday! Well, here's one of the things I did.

About a week before Christmas I came across this piece of really cool Michael Keaton Era Batman fabric at a thrift store:

As some of you may know, I am the proud owner of a new nephew, so I knew I needed to make something for him out of this. The piece of material was about 60"x45". (I'm not even kidding when I say that the man behind me in line at the thrift store, who looked like Santa before his hair turned white, gave me the money to buy it! It was destiny!)

The problem is that there are very few cool sewing projects to make for young boys. I Googled and Pinterested for about an hour and then just gave up and did what I had in my head to begin with. This project took about an hour from start to finish. I cut the top 12 or so inches off the top and turned the cut portion into two pillows (filling courtesy of an extra bed pillow we had lying around). Then I folded the remaining 30ish by 60ish piece of fabric in half and made a blanket. I left two holes in the sides and inserted parachord around the perimeter of the blanket and that way it could be both a blanket with pillows:

Or gathered up it could be a bag with pillows in it for easy transportation:

I like this project because it's really gender neutral and can be used by any child for years and years, not just the cutesy newborn phase. (Is it wrong that I can forsee him tying this to a stick and pretending to be a hobo?)

I had a few inches left, so I made my sister-in-law, a super-heroine in her own right, a Catwoman headband. (Sorry, I wasn't wearing makeup, so...the top of my head is all you get!)

The End!

Jesus Messiah - A Christmas Song to the Tune of "Ave Maria" by Bach

I made this video as a digital Christmas card on Facebook and forgot to put it here as well. 

Better late than never, and the theme is always relevant: God's Love story (aka. the Bible) is about the person of Jesus Christ.

Arrangement used by benevolent permission from GIA Music.

Background track used with benevolent permission by ChoirParts.

Lyrics and Vocals by Jessica Jones.