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Why yes, I do commission custom handmade clothes

May 25, 2012 in Jack, On a Personal Note... with 4 Comments

I’m a total cheapo when it comes to clothes. Money was tight for me in college and grad school and somewhere along the line I just decided that clothes were not something I wanted to make a priority in my spending. I’m a little more comfortable financially these days than I was back then, but now I’d rather spend my moolah on my house or on time with friends and family. So while clothes may be a perfectly acceptable indulgence for some other folks, it’s just not for me. I have very few clothes and I wear them for years and years.

Taking a minimalist approach to my wardrobe was coming along swimmingly until I got pregnant. One by one I grew out of nearly everything I owned. I had to buy all new stuff! And my usual go-to shopping spots–the thrift store and the clearance rack–weren’t exactly overflowing with modern, flattering maternity wear. Let’s just say there were a lot of “mom jeans” involved. Add to that the fact that I’m super short and finding flattering maternity wear on the cheap was nearly impossible.

I posted back in February about how I tracked down a pair of skinny jeans for $40 online and hemmed them to fit my oompa loompa legs. Would you judge me if I admitted to the internet that those are the only jeans I’ve worn this entire pregnancy? And I wear jeans to work pretty much every day. I’ve got a few dresses with empire waists that still fit for a while and I did buy one maternity dress on clearance at Kohl’s, but as the Louisiana summer started heating up (and my rational perception of body temperature went out the window anyway), I needed something with a little more ventilation than denim can offer.

I wasn’t hopeful about finding something suitable and affordable from any of the big maternity retailers, so I turned to etsy. The vintage section was definitely a wash, but I found some promising options from handmade sellers. When I found Charity’s shop A Dainty Button I fell in love with the simple and versatile lines of her skirts but wanted something in a solid color for maximum mix-and-match-ability. And as long as I was making special requests, why not skip the part where I have to hem it and go ahead and just order it in a shorter length? Charity happily agreed. And how much do you think I paid for a made-to-order piece of clothing in the length, color, and fabric of my choosing? $30! Can you believe it? I feel like I definitely would have paid that much or more for something not nearly as perfect that was mass-produced.

The soft jersey cotton is so lightweight and breathable and the cut and color are perfect for pairing with the couple of shirts that still fit me. Plus, since I usually fold down the waistband to slip under my belly anyway, I’m feeling hopeful that I may even be able to wear it post-baby.

Can I just say that I am completely in love with Etsy? Sometimes I’m just amazed by technology. It’s so awesome to be able to connect with talented folks I never would have met otherwise, and while you’d think that buying handmade (and custom!) clothes would cost a fortune, it’s actually a very reasonable option when you’re looking for something specific like this. That said, I hope I don’t have to buy any more maternity clothes! With only six weeks left and my working days coming to an end very soon, hopefully I can just keep making do with the few things that still fit.

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The Mobile That Tried to Kill Me

May 24, 2012 in Crafty Goodness, Jack, Nursery, Projects with 5 Comments

Various versions of yarn ball mobiles are all over Etsy and Pinterest these days, and I wanted one. And of course, suffering as I do from Icanmakethat syndrome (a very real thing) I decided to try my hand at making one myself instead of coughing up the cash to buy one ready-made. I couldn’t find any really detailed tutorials online so I had to just figure it out as I went. Read on to see what I did.

Before we left for Destin last weekend I gathered my supplies: 24 2.5″ foam balls, 12 .75″ balls, yellow and gray yarn I already had, navy yarn I bought for this project, and a 7″ embroidery hoop. I also ended up needing straight pins, hot glue, fishing line (or “monofilament” if you talk like Martha Stewart), a key ring, and a crochet hook, but most of that didn’t come up until later.

For our trip, I packed the yarn, foam balls, scissors, and a pincushion full of straight pins. I got all of my balls wrapped in yarn in just a few hours in the car. It was actually a very relaxing activity. Interstate driving makes me a little nervous if I’m not behind the wheel, so it’s better that I have something to focus on besides critiquing Nick’s following distance.

I used straight pins instead of glue to secure the yarn because it was neater in the car, but you could go either way. I realized pretty quickly that the only pins I even really needed to use were at the very end, but it was best to use at least two at that crucial point.

Back from the beach, I sat down one afternoon after work this week to turn all those yarn-wrapped balls into an awesome mobile. Step one: line them up into five columns. I just kind of played around with it until the arrangement looked right.

With the order of things figured out, it was time to start threading those balls. I hadn’t really thought about this step ahead of time so I had to get creative. Ideally, I would have used a really long needle, but I didn’t have any nearly big enough on hand. I decided to use a small crochet hook instead. First I stabbed my hook through the center of the ball.

I bought some of that invisible craft string at Hobby Lobby YEARS ago for some other project and have used it so many times since. I know I’ll run out of it sooner or later but for now it seems to be an infinite resource. I cut a long piece, then looped it onto the hook and pulled it back through the ball.

I tied the other end around a straight pin and stuck it back into the ball just a smidge over from the big hole made by the crochet hook, securing the ball onto the line.

After that, I just used the crochet hook to thread the rest of the balls onto the line. I didn’t worry about spacing them out at this point, I just let them stack on top of each other.

Once I figured out my technique it only took me about five minutes per strand. With all five strands completed I brought them into the office for assembly. I looked at some inspiration pictures online and decided to make each one 24″ long. So I laid each strand down on the floor alongside the tape measure and spread everything out until I liked the way it looked.

Then, I secured each ball in its place on the line with a dab of hot glue.

I’d already painted the embroidery hoop green the other day using leftover paint from my sewing desk. The point of the hoop is to make the strands spread out from each other a bit when hanging.

I separated the two concentric rings of the hoop and started securing each strand to the inner ring with hot glue, leaving about 6″ between the hoop and the first ball. I later decided the whole operation was too tall so I went back and scraped off the glue so I could push the hoop down lower, but then the strands got all tangled up and I regretted it.

Juliet saw the tape measure on the floor for what it was: a golden opportunity to finally get an accurate nose-to-tail measurement. She is officially 27″ long.

Once I had all five strings attached to the hoop, I put the outer ring back on and then threaded them all through a small foam ball with the crochet hook. I noticed in lots of the inspiration images I saw online that something like this was used to bring all the strings together again before they were attached to the ceiling. In retrospect I don’t think it makes much difference. I could have just tied the strands directly to the ring they eventually hang from and skipped the yarn ball entirely.

See what I mean about ball and hoop working together to bring the strings together and then spread them out evenly?

Above the small gray ball, I gathered all five strands together and tied them around a key ring. I have a whole box of these because I use them to hang curtains, but you could always just steal one from a keychain you didn’t want anymore. This isn’t the knot that I ended up using. I decided I wanted it to be shorter, so I undid this knot and tied another one lower down and then secured it with some hot glue.

Ta-da! I love it.

This project was pretty straightforward until I tried to adjust the height, so if you’re trying this at home I recommend planning that out ahead of time a little better than I did. Or you could just buy one on etsy like a normal person, haha. Despite the tangled mess I had on my hands towards the end, it all turned out exactly as I’d pictured it. We just hung it up from a regular ‘ol ceiling hook (the same kind I use to hold my hanging plants on the front porch) and thankfully we’ve got a few weeks to see if it falls down before there’s a baby sleeping there.

Since I had a lot of supplies for this project already on hand, I probably ended up spending only about $25. The foam balls were by far the most expensive part. And I’m not gonna lie–there were moments when I would have been willing to spend twice that much just to have it done (mostly in that awkward period when I was trying to adjust length and it got all tangled). But in the end, I love the way it looks and it really wasn’t too bad. One more nursery item checked off my list! How exciting!

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The Most Elusive Ottoman

May 23, 2012 in Jack, Nursery with 5 Comments

In these older pics of the nursery right after it was painted, you can see that there’s a big useless space just to the left of the fireplace. It’s partially blocked by the door, so not really a great spot for a dresser or anything like that.

I’m planning to use the space mostly to stow some of the clunkier baby gear (swing, bouncy seat, etc), but I also thought it’d be a great spot to stash a storage ottoman. So far the rocking chair is the only place to sit in here, and I thought it’d be nice to have at least one other spot for someone to plop down in a pinch. Plus I hear babies and kids tend to accumulate quite a lot of stuff, so the more spaces to store it the better.

Finding what I was looking for was so much harder than I thought, though! I didn’t want to spend more than $40 or so, which surprisingly eliminated most of the options on the market (why are these things so expensive?). I also knew I didn’t want one with a hinged top. The storage bench by our front door has one and I hate that you have to pull it out from the wall to open it. And I know this is completely stupid, but I hate it when the lid of the ottoman is wider than the base. It makes my eye twitch. Plus I wanted my new ottoman to be able to support at least 200-250 pounds so my 6’4″ husband could sit without fear. I searched high and low for the perfect candidate, and finally found this one calling my name from the virtual aisles of Target.

Target

Isn’t it adorbs? And at $25 the price was perfect. The website said it was only sold in stores so I clicked to verify that I could find it at my local Target and, total bummer, it wasn’t available. In fact, I quickly realized these ottomans must be being discontinued because there were not any available within 100 miles of me. The closest one was in Monroe, LA, a good three and a half hours from here. I mourned the death of my ottoman dreams. But guess what! When I realized that Nick and I would be driving to Destin last weekend I checked the availability at various stores along our route and discovered that there was “limited availability” at a Target store we’d be driving right past between Destin and Pensacola (in Mary Esther, FL). We stopped there on our way home Monday morning and, sure enough, there were three ottomans lined up on an endcap. One brown, one black, and one pink. I was a little bummed to see that there wasn’t a green one because the color was just so peppy and fun, and even checked with an employee to see if they might have one lying around, but was totally happy to take home the brown one instead.

It now lives to the left of the fireplace, right next to the big woven basket my sister filled with smaller gifts and essentials as a shower gift. They’re like a small storage dream team.

Right now I just have a bunch of random stuff tossed in the basket and nothing in the ottoman, but as Jack gets older I’m sure both will come in handy for housing toys. Nick and I were both surprised to feel how sturdy it seemed under our bottoms, especially since it’s lightweight enough for my hugely pregnant self to easily pick up and move around (according to the website it’s about six and a half pounds, lighter than the average newborn!). I can’t believe that Target is discontinuing these. They seem very well made and the price is more than reasonable. Maybe they’re not making enough money from them? I was reminded on this recent trip to Target why I do most of my shopping online or at thrift stores/estate sales. Even just the short walk through the home decor department to locate the ottomans and then find an employee had me wanting to scoop half of the inventory off the shelves and into my arms. I seriously wanted to just throw my money at the big red Target and run away with all their pretty pillows and accessories. That place is dangerous.

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Vacation All I Ever Wanted

May 22, 2012 in Jack, On a Personal Note... with 6 Comments

Ever since our visit to the beach last summer, I’ve been telling Nick that I wanted to come back this year. When we found out we were expecting getting to the beach became almost an obsession for me. Pregnant or not, sitting on the beach is hands down one of my top five favorite things in life, but I needed the time to relax this year more than ever. The more my belly grew and grew, the more desperately I craved sand beneath my toes. Nick, of course, thought it was unwise to spend money on a vacation with medical expenses and costly baby purchases looming in our future. He’s so much better with money than I am, but I wasn’t budging. I NEEDED to get to the beach before this baby came. Finally, with only a few weeks left before I’d be too far along to travel out of state, he realized I was serious. And, of course, there were no reasonably priced accommodations to be found booking less than a month ahead of time. So Nick brought back up an idea I’d shot down months ago: asking his great aunt and uncle if we could borrow their condo in Destin for a weekend. I’d originally protested, thinking it incredibly moochy and el cheapo of him, but by the first week of May I was desperate, so I agreed, and guess where we spent the last few nights?

We drove in after work on Friday, arriving well past my bedtime so that we could take advantage of a full day of relaxation on Saturday.

Isn’t he handsome? Since I’m soon to be unemployed maybe I’ll start referring to him as my sugar daddy. The thriftiest sugar daddy of all time.

Puffy feet in the sand. Where, oh where, have my ankles gone? I so enjoyed sitting on the beach, swimming in the crystal clear water, and listening to the sounds of the ocean. I even got past my self-consciousness and bared my belly to the sun for a little while. It was glorious.

I love the beach at sunset, even if the sun doesn’t dip ceremoniously into the ocean in the Florida panhandle. It’s still just so peaceful.

And can I just say that it’s hard to feel uncomfortable staying in someone else’s place when it’s as beautiful as this condo? Seriously. It was lovely.

We’re back home now and I’m feeling relaxed and refreshed. It was so wonderful for us to get away together for one last trip, just the two of us. I can hardly believe that it’s been nearly three years since our honeymoon in Puerto Rico. My how time flies! Now we’re moving into the next stage of our life together and the next time we visit the beach we’ll be parents! I can’t believe it.

And because I can’t help but add a little bit of how-to into nearly every post on this little blog, some of the strategies Nick and I used for a stress free (and less expensive) vacation: we brought bread, peanut butter, fruit, granola bars, etc. so that we could eat breakfast and lunch in the condo. We could have stayed in for dinner, too, if we wanted to, but we didn’t want to. When we went to dinner we left the condo by 5:30 so we could beat the crowds. Both nights we were seated without a wait, saw hordes of people waiting for a table on our way out, and were back in time to enjoy sunset on our balcony. We drove there Friday night and back Monday morning so we each only had to take one day off from work and still had plenty of time to unpack and get settled when we returned home. And we kept any purchases of beach gear to a minimum: just a $2 noodle and two $10 beach chairs from Target. We put them away in a storage closet when we got home so we can bring them with us again next time. As for the pets, we left the cats with lots of extra food and water and a clean litter box and dropped Juliet off at my parents’ house, which was on our way. I’m pretty sure my mom spoiled her rotten with treats, but she was happy to see us when we came back to pick her up. And the cats! We missed them so much. If only they liked car rides, or strange houses, or other peoples’ dogs, they could have gone to Camp Nana too, but I’m pretty sure they’re more comfortable staying home together.

I’ve become more and more of a homebody as I’ve gotten older. I often find even a trip to my parents’ house an hour and a half away moderately stressful. Packing, driving, missing my pets…none of it is fun for me. But this trip was so worth it, especially since the next time I pack a bag it will probably be for the hospital!

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