Jeans to Lace Skirt Upcycle

I am petite, a whopping five feet tall when I stand up straight.  Because of this I learned to adjust my clothing at a young age.  To make a long story short, I had a pair of jeans that I'd hemmed too short.  I don't know if I mis-measured or mis-cut or grew (haha, right) or what, because they weren't always too short, but they are now.  Anyway, I was torn between making them into capris or a skirt.  While I might be wishing I'd chosen capris this summer, I went with the skirt.

JEANS TO LACE SKIRT

Materials:

- Old Jeans that fit in the waist

- White Scrap Fabric
- Sewing Machine
- Scissors

- Thread to coordinate with your jeans (I used black for the skirt and white for the lace)

- Pins
- 1-1 1/2 yards of Lace
- Chalk or sewing marker (optional)

Directions:

- Measure from your waist to wherever you want the hem of your skirt.  Add half an inch for seam allowance.  Cut off any excess length.

- Rip the stitches or cut the inseam of the pants.

- Flip the skirt inside out.  Match up the inseams of the pants and pin them together.  Then draw or pin a line that extends from the bottom hem up to the top hem.  See the yellow line in the photo below.  Sew your pant legs together along that line.

- Cut a triangular piece of scrap fabric that will fit in the opening of the front inseams.  Then cut layers of lace to fit across the scrap triangle.  Each layer should slightly overlap the last layer to hide the stitching.

- Sew the layers of lace on your triangular fabric.  Start at the top layer and then stitch each layer down then move to the next layer.  If the lace gets in the way, secure it with a pin or two so you don't stitch over the bottoms of any of the lace layers.

- Turn the skirt inside out.  Pin the triangular fabric to the front inseam of the skirt.  I used a zigzag stitch to sew the fabrics together and hem the inseam of the jeans.  The jeans I used are a stretchy fabric and the zigzag stitch will be less likely to pull or break.  It will also help keep the jeans from fraying.  If your pants do start to fray, apply a thin layer of Liquid Stitch to stop it.  I usually only do that if I have problems later on though.  Iron down the seams.

- Hem the bottom of the skirt with a fold over hem and then iron.  You could attach another strip of lace around the bottom of the skirt and sew those together with another zigzag stitch.  I was running out of lace.

This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.  Never miss a thing:

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Pirate Treasure Map

This post is sponsored by Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft.  I was provided a gift card to purchase supplies and for my time.  All content expressed herein is originally mine and 100% honest and truthful.

With the long days of summer upon us, I knew I was going to need some activities to keep my boys entertained.  We are still enjoying mostly nice weather, but it will soon be too hot to play outside in the afternoons.  Curse this desert climate.

When I was contacted and asked if I wanted to participate in Jo-Ann's new Cape Discovery campaign I knew this would be the answer.  Or at least it would help a ton!  So, I browsed through the Spring Catalog and had such a hard time choosing what we wanted to do.  In fact, it was so hard I chose two projects!  They were both super simple and a ton of fun.  I'm just going to focus on the treasure map project today though.  The faux chalkboard sign tute went up yesterday.

PIRATE TREASURE MAP

Materials:
- Brown wrapping paper used for packaging and mailing (I got a whole roll at Dollar Tree)
- Markers

Directions:
- Cut off a section of wrapping paper.  It doesn't have to be square, but that's about the shape I went for.  After the fact, I would have cut it down.  It was just a little too big for Monkey to hold and handle very easily.  But the size was awesome as far as the "surprise factor".  Next Adventure Day we will have more manageable maps though.
- Draw and design you map to your heart's content.  This was my favorite part.  There is NO wrong way to do this.  Add in whatever landmarks you want, where ever you want them.
- Label your map and add any illustrations you want.  Don't forget the compass rose!  This was the hardest part of the whole project.  After "deadman", "isla de muerta" and "treasure island" I ran out of pirate-y things to name all the landmarks.  A quick Google search later and I had everything I needed.  To help you get started, here's some ideas:

• Pirate Cove
• Isla de Muerta (Island of the Dead in Spanish)
• Cannon Ball Bay
• Jewel Coast
• Smuggler's Isle
• Deadman's Caves
• Shipwreck Sea (although mine says ocean instead of sea)
• Hideaway Hills
• Penny Point
• Treasure Beach
• Emerald Isle
• Cross Bone Straight
• Mermaid Lagoon (thanks, Peter Pan)
• Mermaid Point
• Black Rock Mountain
• Rattlesnake River

I also wanted to make sure we followed a specific route on our Pirate Adventure Day quest, so "shark-infested waters" blocked one way and "sea monsters" blocked the other.  There was soo much on this map, we didn't get to hit all the landmarks, but maybe next time.  And it was still way too much fun to draw it all out.

If your kids are a little older (like 5-ish), you can hand over the markers and paper and set them to drawing their own map.  Expand the playtime!  This would be a lot of fun for a birthday party!

Jo-Ann's version of the treasure map uses a roll of cork board, felt, paper, tacky glue, rhinestones and paint. However, when I went to purchase the cork board roll, they were out of stock in my local Jo-Ann store.  So, I got creative and decided on the brown paper instead.  Because my kids are still in the "destroy all things" stage, I just drew the map rather than paint and glue it.  It was faster and that way, if and when it gets ruined, no big deal.  We throw it in the recycle bin and start over.  It would be fun to glue and paint and rhinestone the map though.

This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.
If you'd like to get more While He Was Napping, you can find me here:

DIY Faux Chalkboard Signs

This post is sponsored by Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft.  I was provided a gift card to purchase supplies and for my time.  All content expressed herein is originally mine and 100% honest and truthful.

This little project went along with our Pirate Adventure Day and our Treasure Map project.  It was another project idea from Jo-Ann's Cape Discovery collection.  I love the versatility of these Chalkboard Signs!  You can adapt them to almost any adventure day or party theme.  They are super easy and fun to make.  They took less than an hour and my boys played with them for about three days after our Adventure Day... and that's only because they were sword fighting and broke them.  Boys.

FAUX CHALKBOARD SIGNS

Materials:
- Black Foamcore Board (my local Jo-Ann store was out of this, but I found some at Dollar Tree.  I've also seen it at Wal-Mart and Target in the office supplies section)
- Sidewalk Chalk
- Clear Spray Paint
- Razor blade
- Wooden Skewers

Directions:
- Decide on the shape you'd like you signs to be and trace it lightly with the chalk or a pencil onto the foam board.  I went with a stretched pendant shape, while the Jo-Ann signs are rectangular.
- Use the razor blade to cut your signs out.  Be careful and don't cut yourself!
- Use the sidewalk chalk to write on your signs.  If you mess up, you can use a lightly damp cloth to clean it up, but don't do this too often.  You'll make your signs soggy!  If it hadn't been 1:30 in the morning, I would have embellished the signs a little more.
-  Spray a thin layer of clear spray paint over your signs to seal the chalk in so it won't smudge.  Notice the "Pirate Cove " sign in the photo above.  That's what a smudged sign looks like.  I wanted to try it out and see if it made it more pirate-y, but ended up liking the bright and bold effect better.  I left it so you could see the difference.
-  I then cut my wooden skewers in half and shoved them into the top of one sign and the bottom of another sign to create the stacked sign post look after we had used them during our Adventure Day.  Now Monkey has a little souvenir from the day.

I didn't put the foam borders around my signs because, well, I forgot to get it at the store.  Mommy brain moment.  I thought they turned out okay though.  Below is a side by side comparison of my signs and Jo-Ann's version of the signs.  You can find Jo-Ann's directions HERE.  I love that you could line the boarders of these with lace and ribbons and go all girly and frilly with this project too.  Wedding signs?

Find more fun summer crafts for you kids at Jo-Ann's Cape Discovery.  Also become a Jo-Ann's Preferred Customer and receive a 20% off coupon!



This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.
If you'd like to get more While He Was Napping, you can find me here:

Weekend Wander #123

Welcome to another party.  It's been quite a week here.  Mother's Day was... a little disappointing, honestly.  But I won't bore with my woebegone tales.  We have been enjoying the aquarium Mr Napping and the boys got for me though - just as risky as flowers, but much more entertaining.  It's actually a combo mother's/father's day gift, who knew glass tanks and resin-casted tree stumps were so dang expensive?  It's been fun and, so far, nobody's died.  Success!  Mr Napping and I made a trip over the mountain to GG's house (my grandma - the boys' Great Grandma) to get a play fort out of their back yard so we can put it in our backyard.  Luckily, my family is awesome and they kinda shuffled the boy around while we were gone.  Scored a break for mama, yahoo!  And a great big thank you to all the babysitters!

On the bloggy front, I've got a project that will turn out oh, so cool, but it's taking a lot more time (and WORK!) than I'd first figured.  I started it a couple weeks ago and got a little overwhelmed.  Then my in-laws came and stayed in our craft/guest room, soo there was no crafting that week.  And now I'm getting antsy to get it done.  I did finish up a skirt upcycle that I started before the in-laws visited though.  Watch for that next week...  I also bit the bullet and got my very own custom domain name... so now I'm a .com!  Fun stuff.  Oh, and have you joined the newsletter?  The first issue goes out next week and you're not gonna wanna miss it.  Sign up in the sidebar.

Features:

I love peanut butter cookies!

I must try this recipe @ Growing in Grace.

Chunky peanut butter, why didn't I think of that?!

Crazy Good Cookie Bars @ Posed Perfection

If they're crazy good, it's a must try!  These look a lot like

a blonde brownie recipe my mom used to make.  YUM.

But SOO much easier.  Added to my to-do list.

Little Monkey loves places to stash his goodies and treasures.

The Treasure Box @ Powerful Mothering would be perfect!

We will be putting this on our list of summer activities.

We love to read at our house.

This collection of books @ The Jenny Evolution is fabulous.

It includes many of our favorites, along with a few we will have to check out!

 Featured? Take one of these and show it off!

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Thank you to everyone who linked last week.  What a fun collection!  By changing the opening day, we actually double the number of links!  Yahoo!  It was so hard to choose just a few features from the awesome collection.

I can't wait to see what you've been up to... you know what to do!  Link em up!

And grab a button or post a link back so others will come and party too, pretty please!

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This post was written by Krista and originally appeared on While He Was Napping.
If you'd like to get more While He Was Napping, you can find me here:

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