Green Options

At an Upcycle Exchange event a couple of months ago, I scored the awesomest vintage wallpaper swatchbook ever. I have loads of vintage upholstery swatchbooks that I craft with probably every day, so I was super-stoked to receive a wallpaper swatchbook.

Until I actually tried to work with it. After totally thrashing the cutting mat for my Cricut, I realized that the wallpaper in this particular swatchbook was waaaaay too brittle to do most of the wallpaper craft projects that I’d had in mind.

And of course, there’s no point in actually wallpapering with any of the hundred or so 20″x20″ samples.

Or is there? Imagine a huge number of wallpaper swatches, all in complementary colors and patterns. Are you imagining what I’m imagining?

You betcha! Decoupage!

Encouraging my children’s independence is VERY important to me. Not only is it easier for me to parent two small children who can pour their own milk and put on their own coats and carry their own balance bikes up and down the front porch stairs, but it’s also a priority in my parenting that my girls see themselves as capable individuals who can handle challenges and perform the meaningful work of day-to-day living.

Because of that, carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns can be a really frustrating experience. I do permit my children to cut with sharp knives (with supervision), but not to use them on something as thick and unwieldy as a pumpkin. Although there are around-the-house materials that make pumpkin carving an activity more appropriate for small children (subject for a later post), my girls’ favorite jack-o-lantern craft is something that we call pumpkin pounding.

So, now that you’ve made a nice kid a nice sweater skirt or a couple of nice diaper covers out of that nice (but ill-fitting) old sweater that you’ve been hanging on to, you still have some of that sweater left.

You have the sleeves, for one thing, and the shoulder and neckline that connects those sleeves.

And that, my friends, is exactly what you need to make that nice kid a nice pair of matching leggings to go with her skirt or her diaper covers.

This tutorial utilizes the crotch curve line from a pair of your kid’s own well-fitting pants–using that curve, and applying your kid’s waist and length measurements, you can create a warm, comfy, nicely-fitting pair of leggings that would go well layered with anything else in your winter wardrobe.

Here’s how:

Technically, my girls do have enough clothes. Frankly, thanks to my loves for thrifting and sewing, they have a shameful amount of clothes, from vintage band shirts to hand-sewn bloomers. However, every now and then one child or the other suffers a lack of some thing in her wardrobe.

For my younger daughter, Sydney, who is as roughneck as any little kid but who adores skirts and dresses, this lack came about with the chill autumn breeze, when I realized that she didn’t have any skirts or dresses that were made for cool weather.

Fortunately, if there’s one thing that I have a shameful stash of, it’s vintage or thrifted fabric and clothing for reconstrution.
Sweaters are so nice and soft and comfy, why on earth should they be worn only on one’s top half? I often felt wool sweaters that I thrift or am given to make everything from stockings to stuffies, but for the sweaters that are especially beautiful or especially soft (mmm, vintage cashmere), I have a special use—if they’re big enough, and while my girls are small enough, I make skirts for my girls out of the sweater torsos.

I thrift a lot, and I sew a lot. When I sew, I try to use primarily thrifted or recycled or otherwise unwanted materials, and when I thrift, a large part of what I’m searching for is material to sew with–T-shirts, button-down shirts, pants, sweaters, pillowcases, curtains, sheets, etc. If I find any of these items in good shape and at a good price, and if they sport an especially appealing pattern or image, then I add them to my fabric stash for later crafting.

One of the trickier components of sewing using these thrifted items, however, is knowing how much fabric there actually is there, and therefore what you can sew with it. I know from experience that I can sew one skirt and and one pair of matching leggings for my three-year-old from one adult-sized stretchy cotton or acrylic sweater, but is the queen-sized sheet that I picked up at a yard sale last summer enough to make matching pajama pants for me, my husband, and both our girls?

Questions like that are much easier to answer when you know the standard yardages for standard-sized sheets.

One of my favorite things about working with all kinds of vintage papers is the way in which a unique paper can completely change a project for the better.

For instance, you could make a serviceable bookmark out of any piece of cardstock, but that’s all that you’d have in the end–a serviceable bookmark. But make this same bookmark out of the cover from your favorite (though now sadly scratched) vinyl record, or the box that your favorite cereal or pizza comes in, and you’ve got a personal, original, graphically outstanding bookmark.

And it’s still serviceable.

When LaNisa Allen appealed her termination for taking unscheduled breaks, she probably thought it was a clear-cut case of sex discrimination. After all, Allen was only taking breaks to pump breastmilk for her infant at home. Something that, you know, only WOMEN do.

However, in the case of Allen vs. totes/Isotoner Corp., the Supreme Court of Ohio upheld Allen’s termination, ruling that Allen couldn’t prove that Isotoner, by calling her breaks to pump a “failure to follow directions” and firing her for it, was, in fact, discriminating against her based on her sex.

It’s an old-school way of creating an image, perhaps reminiscent of junior high science projects on one of those lucky days when you got to hold class outside.

Or maybe it reminds you of your undergrad years, spending hours in the darkroom in the basement of the union, a hobby that you gave up a few years later when you got pregnant and the idea of the chemicals started to skeev you out.

Or does it remind you of how you totally want to learn to do gocco or screen printing, but it seems kind of hard and requires more equipment thn you have the money for?

Well rejoice, friends, because this project requires only special paper and the sun, and it can make some surprisingly sophisticated prints. Here’s how:

It’s a brilliant marketing idea.

Although I have long been stalking Spoonflower (a fabric-on-demand printing service), checking out their Fabric of the Week, even subscribing to their promotional emails, I have never bought their services.

I have ideas, of course–fabric printed with the comic strip that my husband and I write, fabric printed with the rainbow patchwork pattern that I painstakingly piece together from a number of fabrics to make my crayon rolls, fabric printed with my pattern design for my dinosaur stuffies, etc. But these ideas have, so far, all remained in my head.

Until today, at least. Today I’m making at two of my design dreams reality. For free.

The nice thing about sewing for kids is that their clothes take so little fabric. A shirt or pair of pants for a five-year-old, a dress for a three-year-old, matching bloomers for both–you could sew any of these things using less than a yard of fabric.

For that reason, kids’ clothes are very well-suited for sewing with recycled materials. I’ve sewed smocked sundresses for my girls out of pillowcases, a pants and kimono shirt outfit for a newborn out of one blouse, two sturdy diaper covers out of a felted wool sweater.

I was afraid of sewing from a pattern when I was a novice seamster, ironically, but now that I sew well, I enjoy using patterns to create more complicated clothing with attractive detailing and sophisticated elements. And so, although they’re pricey, I do buy some of the children’s clothing patterns from Oliver + S each season.