My Weekly Thrift Shop Run

 I find my "second chance" craft supplies, fabric and patterns, as well as my clothing and linens to upcycle in all kinds of places. Thrift shops, yard sales, estate sales, auctions, friends and family and more. The thrift shop pictured above, though, is a weekly stop. They have patterns and fabric for sale on a very regular basis. They bag up their fabric, yarn and other craft supplies in large bags and it's often a guessing game as to what is in the bag. I can spend several minutes per bag trying to determine if the bag is worth buying.

They have a system of coding everything by color. After a number of weeks they start reducing the items. I don't wait for the fabric and patterns to be reduced or I would miss out on a lot of good stuff but when I'm looking for items to upcycle, I look for the items that are 75% off for two reasons. One, because it's a lot cheaper and two because it's had awhile to sell and hasn't. These are usually the items that are worn, stained, have buttons missing or other problems and this makes it a prime candidate for upcycling!

And this is the haul for this week, lots of patterns that I'm listing now on Deb's Patterns. A bag of fabric and another bag of buttons that I still have to go through and take pics and list on Deb's Crafts. A couple shirts for pillows or whatever, a beach wrap with messed up fringe and a stained damask tablecloth, all candidates for upcycling, watch Deb Upcycles for the results once I figure out what I'm going to make.

Time for My Birthday Contest!

Last year I ran a contest all through the month of August for people to guess which day in August was my birthday. Since the answer is right out there for all to see now I can't exactly do that again.

So I was thinking about doing something a little different this time.

Gift Tie-Ons from Deb Upcycles

The prize will once again be a $20 gift certificate to any of my Etsy shops. I have three, Deb's Crafts for fabric and other sewing and craft supplies, Deb's Patterns for sewing patterns and craft books and of course Deb Upcycles for my handmade, upcycled crafts. If I get over 58 people entering (not 58 entries because there will be multiple ways to enter, but 58 different people) I will give away another $10 gift certificate.

Ways to enter will be changing through the month so keep coming back to see what you can do next for more entries:

Leave a separate comment in the comment section for each entry.

1 entry: Why 58 you say? I think it's pretty easy to figure out, so why don't we make that the first way to enter, just comment on the blog and tell me why 58. Just one "guess" per person.

5 entries: Blog about the contest of course!

1 entry per day:  Tweet about this contest: One tweet per day per person unless I change this, use #debupcycles.

Up to 3 entries:  Pin any item from Deb Upcycles to your Pinterest boards, leave the link to the pin in the comments.

2 Entries for the sewers (and even if you don't sew) What pattern from Deb's Patterns would you like to make for someone and who? Post the link to the pattern in comments.

Horatio the blind kitty may help me pick the winner, but then I might use a random number generator. I'm not sure yet.

Contest ends August 31, 2013 at midnight Central Time.

Cleaning Out the Craft Room

I wish I had taken before pictures but I'm not even done and it still looks pretty bad. LOL I spent all of Tuesday sorting out all the stuff I had. I found a ton of things I was going to make pillow covers out of and I guess I need to start cutting them out and sewing them together for my Deb Upcycles shop. I also found a lot of fabric and lace that I'm already listing on Deb's Crafts.

I have three bags of fabric scraps and other items to go to The Upcycle Exchange here in St Louis and another couple bags that need to go to Leftovers, which is a 30 minute drive but I try to get there on a regular basis. As well as all that, I have a bagful of stuff to go to the thrift shop across the street. I don't like to see anything go to waste.

I still have an outrageous amount of patterns that I need to list on Deb's Patterns but I am slowly whittling away the pile.

Busy, busy week.

Patterns, Patterns Everywhere

I made the plunge and decided to open up a new Etsy shop just for patterns. I had so many on the Debs Crafts site that they overwhelmed everything else and I wasn't able to sort them into sections. My new shop is called Debs Patterns (what else?) and I'm in the long slow process of transferring all the patterns from one shop to the other. On top of that I have bags full of patterns waiting to be listed!

I already have about 200 patterns there and have many, many more to list. I've enlisted the aid of my college kid to type up the descriptions. This really saves time as I'm a rather slow typist, at least compared to him. Kids these days grew up with computers and his fingers just fly across the keyboard.  (yes, he has cut his hair since that pic was taken)

On top of all that I need to start working on my Deb Upcycles shop, too. I have stuff to list and half made items. I'm hoping for some great sales for the gift bags but I need to get them finished and listed. Got to start getting ready for Christmas shopping.

Taking the Bus and Train

I finally did it. Actually had it done for me. I'm taking the bus and train, called the Metro Link here in St Louis, these days and no longer have a car. I've been living in St Louis since February and in April was in an accident that totaled my car. I just never got another one. I'm within walking distance to work and everywhere else I go I take the bus. It feels great, I'm getting exercise and have shrunk my carbon foot print.

I've opened a new Etsy shop called Deb Upcycles and where I've been selling things I make out of thrift shop finds. I still have the one I sell second chance craft supplies called Deb's Crafts, too.  I think I'm going to make this my official blog for both Etsy shops because it fits right in. There's a lot of work to be done here. I've apparently lost my background I had and I want it to look nice.

From a Wedding Dress to Christmas Ornaments

I bought this wedding dress at a thrift shop, it was badly soiled at the hem and had some other staining, also. But it was made of this gorgeous antique white heavy satin. I bought it with the intention of cutting it up and putting it in my Deb's Crafts Etsy Shop which I did. There are several listings there that include fat quarters or squares made from the train, I actually haven't gotton to the dress yet, the train had so much fabric in it. Then of course there are scraps. Although I put some of them in my bags of fancy fabric scraps in the shop this dress was creating like way too many scraps.

So this is what I started doing with the scraps. I have these stars for sale in my Deb Upcycles Etsy shop (or at least I will until someone buys them). They are really easy to make, so even though I'm trying to sell these I'll tell you how they're made.

1. Trace the shape you want on the back of the fabric and cut out with pinking shears.

2. Cut out a piece of quilt batting about 1/4 to 1/2 inch smaller than the shape.

3. Make a sandwich with the fabric and batting making sure the right side of the fabric is facing out on both sides.

4. Cut a small piece of ribbon (I used a small piece of leftover ribbon for this too) and attach to the wrong side of one of the fabric pieces using matching thread.

5. With 2 strands contrasting embroidery thread (another thrift shop find, I put a lot of it up in my Etsy Shop) use a running stitch 1/4 inch inside the edges making sure the batting stays tucked in. Then 1/4 inch inside that do it again. You can have as many or as few rows of stitching as the item will allow.

6. If desired, add a matching button to the center.

And that's it. Enjoy your new handmade ornaments.