I just love shopping at Thrift stores and the Goodwill here in Monterey is so fantastic. Every time we go, Audrey and I find some great treasures. For $28 this weekend we bought 3 dresses, a jeans jacket and three skirts. They also have daily half price items. Today is half off dresses so I am heading back to get some more goodies.
Since Audrey started back to school today (sophomore year!), we were looking for school items. She and Jess also have been working to finish their skirts before the first day. (Only Jess got done so far, Audrey had required summer reading to finish for Honors English).
We started with two things for her big sister, Hillary that only needed stain removal. Sometimes really small stains can ruin an entire garment. I took the white print Banana Republic dress that had several yellow spots and rubbed in some oxcy clean powder after dampening the spots. I let is soak for about an hour, washed the dress and out it came!
This peach colored chiffon skirt had lots of potential. But the tacky brown sequins plus some yellow stains made it look really awful. The good news is, the stains came out and removing the sequins was super easy. However, it made a huge mess on the floor and the sequins kept sticking to the cats feet and legs. He did not appreciate that at all!
I made a simple belt out of a scrap of peach colored satin,with the wrong or "rough" side out for some texture and added a strip of antique lace from my vintage stash. It made a sweet little tie on belt and the skirt looks great now.
Our kitty cat, Lizzy got extremely thirsty watching us sew so he decided to drink right out of my water glass. Than looked at me like I got his face all wet!
I was inspired on etsy by a fantastic seller who does upcycled clothing. Her site is www.Creolesha.etsy.com. Check out her wonderful fairy pixie stuff. I won't become her competition on selling these and hers looks better but it was fun to make and I felt like I just saved the lives of several old shirts and things in the process.
The Fairy Pixie skirt was really fun to make. I took a pile of old knit shirts and "found" scraps as well as a lavender floral dress from Goodwill to make the skirt sections. You just need 3-4 shirts in various colors and some scissors to get started.
First figure out which piece will be the waistband. I used an old tank top that had bleach stains on it in teal green. I cut off the bottom of the tank top, 10 inches wide. I checked it around Audrey's hips and took off enough for the correct length. I sewed up the side seam and folded the band in half. Since I had another shirt to cut up with a purple narrow band on the bottom, I decided to add this to the teal for a more textured waist band.
I zig-zag stitched the purple band around the bottom of the teal band. Now it was time to cut up the other shirts and that dress.
I did not waist a single bit of fabric. I cut off all of the sleeves, and with them folded, cut kind of a petal shape with the top narrower than the bottom. You have to make enough pieces that are wide to make sure the girl wearing the skirt does not have her behind showing. So make sure you cut at least 8-10 pieces between 16-20 inches in length and 8-12 inches across the top. (these go on last)
Strips of fabric that are 1/2 inch and wider also work well and I think some ribbon would be pretty.
Take all the small pieces, strips, ribbon,etc...and sew them around the band every inch or so. I used a zig zag stitch for this part. After sewing the small pieces, gather the tops of the larger (wider) pieces and pin them around the band right over the small strips. Make sure they all overlap a bit so that the skirt has full read end coverage. And sew all of these pieces on also. I finished it off with my serger just to make the inside look better.
This made a cute little upcycled skirt and we spent about $5 on the material for the floral dress. All the old shirts came from our discard pile at home.
It took about 2 hours to make the skirt. Have any of you made anything with upcycled treasures that you would like to share? It does not have to be with clothing. I am interested in others ideas for furniture, housewares,etc....
Please remember to post on the Esty shop give away so you can be my first winner.
Happy Upcycling and Back to School!
I am so proud of these women and feel like I have so much to learn to make my blog more interesting. I have spent so much time trying to attract attention on etsy and neglected blogging! 
