From Old Curtains Come...

I was strolling through the thrift shop one day, in the merry, merry month of May, or was it March? Anyway I was taken by surprise by some very colorful curtains.

 The colors just screamed 70's to me although I had no idea how old they actually were. I swear I had sheets with this or a very similar print when I was a teen.

Anyway, visions of pillow covers and other things danced in my head and I decided to spend the outrageous price they were asking for them (I think they were $1 per panel, so $3). I put them away and forgot about them.

Yesterday I was looking for some Hawaiian shirts for some pillow covers I knew I had (Coming Soon!) and found them again. So this morning I cut them. I was even able to use the side seams for the envelope closure in the back. I sewed them up this afternoon and am so pleased with the results. The set made two 16" pillow covers and three 14" pillow covers with a nice piece that was too small leftover, to do something else with.

If you think you could give them a good home, they can be found in my shop at Deb Upcycles.

16" Pillow

14" Pillow

My Garden and Shops

Wow, I've got to start taking this blogging seriously again. Have a lot to say, lot of different things going on. I have a great garden this year, my new landlord actually built me a couple raised beds for it. I've been out watering it everyday because of the heat, not real efficient on the water conservation but I haven't had to buy many fresh veggies lately. What I do buy is bought at our Farmers Market. It's a little bit more expensive but it's local and organic. The money I've saved growing my own, covers the extra expense.

I've also been working hard on my Deb Upcycles Shop on Etsy. Made some more gift bags and a few more pillow covers. I'm working towards the day I no longer have to have a day job. I don't know if it will work but I'd love to try

I've added a lot more to my other two shops, Deb's Crafts and Deb's Patterns. Both of them are stocked with sewing and craft supplies I've saved from thrift shops and yard sales.

A New Freezer!

OK it has nothing to do with crafting but it is a big step towards eating better and saving money. I've been following the program at SparkPeople.com and have already lost 20 pounds. My problem is that even the so called diet foods are still loaded with a lot of sodium and other yucky stuff.

So I decided to cook from scratch in large batches to save time and energy. I very quickly filled up the freezer on the top of my fridge. I went shopping for a freezer that would be big enough for my needs but use the least amount of energy and not cost too much.

I'm planning my first "oven full" of cooking. It's going to depend on available items and what's on sale. I'm also planning to use up the extra room in the oven while the turkey is cooking to make some things to also freeze.

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.

Hawaiian Shirt Bonanza!

Sometimes I just get lucky. At the thrift shops around here Hawaiian shirts are usually few and far between. I don't know if it's because so few donate them or if they sell before I get to them. This is the midwest after all. The thrift shop across the street from me (my favorite because I can walk there) was having a sale on mens short sleeve shirts because the season is over. Not only that but someone apparently just donated a bunch of Hawaiian shirts because I was able to buy ten of them.

I love the patterns and I love how they look as pillow covers. I've made a few out of the shirts I was able to find before, like this one

The one I really loved though was this one:

So, the next week or so I'll be making these shirts into pillow covers, if one of the patterns catches your eye let me know. I'll be glad to reserve it for you when it's finished.

A Pillow for Kaitlin

My neighbor's daughter just left for a college over 1000 miles away. I wanted to give her something that would remind her of home. Her grandfather passed away last year so I thought it might be a good idea to make her a pillow out of one of her grandfathers shirts. I talked it over with her mom and we chose this shirt for the pillow. The picture is rather dark, you can see the colors of the shirt better in the last picture.

 I took it home and measured it and decided what size to make it. A lot of times I can't save the pockets,  but with a little fudging I was able to save the pockets on this one. I think they look great with the pockets and give you a place to tuck away little things. After all Kaitlin will be in a dorm room with two other girls.

Here's the finished pillow, Kaitlin loved it and recognized the fabric as her grandpa's shirt. It made me feel good that I could give her this little memory to take with her.

I normally just sell the covers, but this is a gift so I had to include the pillow form. Since this is the one I use to model my pillow covers, I may not be posting any 16" pillow covers until I can replace it!

I've made quite a few pillow covers out of shirts and other clothing and other things. Check them out in my Etsy store Deb Upcycles.