Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Waste Not, Want Not

I love to re-purpose fabrics and materials. I plan to have a 100% homemade Christmas this year and would like to reuse and re-purpose as much as possible.

One of my best finds recently (and by "finds" I mean I found it buried in my laundry room) was a no longer in use canvas laundry sorter. I'm going to use the canvas to make quiet books for the boys and a topsy turvy doll for my daughter. Other things I am re-purposing or have re-purposed include:

Old dress shirts into dresses (removed pockets will be used in the quiet books)
Pillow cases into dresses, skirts and wall organizers
Yard sale sheets will be dyed and turned into tents and skirts
Old jeans will be taken apart and used for quiet books, a car play mat and a skirt
Flannel baby blankets will be turned into diapers, bags, pillows
Old t-shirts can be used for braided rugs, pj pants, skirts, diapers, baby balls
Terry cloth robe turned into cloth baby wipes or used in place of toilet paper
Fleece robe or sweat shirts turned into winter hats and mittens
Wool sweaters turned into longies, shorties (I've seen a quilt made from wool sweaters and it was awesome. It's on my "someday" to-do list.)

What do you re-purpose? Want to share it with more than just me? Visit A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa and join the Simple Lives Thursdays blog hop.

7 comments:

motherhen68 said...

It must be so nice to be able to sew! You've given much so much inspiration, but I can't sew! LOL.

Heather said...

Sewing is easy and I'm certain you can do it! Baby wipes and pillows were my first projects. Then I did curtains to practice sewing in straight lines.

Erin said...

Heather you are an inspiration. I found an easy site for making cloth napkins that you can either sew on the machine or by hand. It showed how to make the corners so nice. I'll try to find the site again and link it on my site under my home keeping link. enjoy your little ones Erin

The Local Cook said...

You know the best part about those gifts? They will be cherished for years to come. My mom saved all the baby clothes that we received as gifts that were handmade, and is now giving them back to my cousins who are having babies. It's so touching when they get something that their mom or grandma made.

I really need to get back into sewing!

Plain and Joyful Living said...

Such great ideas! I have started a handmade holiday series on my blog if you are interested.

Diana Bauman said...

Heather, I really need to start re-purposing more. I need to take a sewing class as I would love to learn how to make simple cloth napkins, aprons, and kid clothes. Thanks for the encouragement and linking up to Simple Lives Thursday.

Heather said...

Diana: We have friends in common. I am more than willing to teach you how to sew.