Black Lace Leggings

While working on piecing together a costume without a pattern, I realized that I needed a little extra flush underneath, but did not want to add a lining or under traditional under skirt. They say necessity is the mother of all invention - this was true as I came up with an idea for something a little different - I took a different twist on leggings with some black lace I happened to have on hand. I am sure to find other uses for these unique leggings.

From Stockings to Gloves

For the perfect Halloween costume a girl needs just the right accessories and the one accessory that makes any a girl happy is a pair of gloves (well, at least they make this girl happy). As a great lover of accessories and gloves I made a super easy pair out of an old pair of a fine mesh fish net to go with the new Halloween costume I am working on. (Recycling with having fun with fashion - what could be better?)

The whole project took about 5 minutes to make with just a few snips and no sewing.

I started with one old pair of stockings I had on hand (black fish net in this case). I just cannot throw something like this out because I know there will be some project they can/will be used for.

Taking a pair of scissors, I snipped off the end of the stockings to the desire length. I wanted short gloves, so kept them shorter.

Laying one on top of the other, I made sure they were the same length (trim off the excess as needed).

I then snipped off the toe end of the pieces - I laid them on top of each other to keep them the same length. This opening will be where the four fingers go (but not the thumb as that comes next).

Carefully I snipped a bit on the side of each glove where the thumb would go. Unstretched the snip was about half (1/2) inch, but plenty of room for my thumb. And with that - I have a new pair of gloves.

Knitted "Sage" Scarf

This was a recent gift from a friend about to move. I love the mostly green olor with other bits of color in it - reminds e of a herb garden, espeially sage.

Really makes me want to pick back up on teaching myself to knit with the scarf I was working on.

T-shirt into Yoga Pants

I used an old oversized tie dye t-shirt to make into a pair of lightweight yoga pants fro a pattern I found. When I found the pattern I couldn't wait to try it. They have been a huge hit to breath new life into a shirt that I was only using as a sleep shirt mostly. (If you're anything like me you usually have plenty of t-shirts.)

Find the original pattern HERE.

Clowning Around

Ever thought about clowning around? Laughter is important to life and how we deal with. What better way then to clown around?

Years ago, I attended a weekend workshop on clowning and got hooked. I ended up doing a 4-H project on clowning and the importance of humor, which led to more clowning opportunities at camps, pre-schools, a couple church events, and even at the Ohio State Fair as a 4-H representative. The costume I have used through most of this was one I got to design and build as I continue to get use out of it with volunteering and working with kids of all ages.

The original costume pattern was for a "Hippy" costume that I adapted. I added green triangles to bottom of the pant's original pattern as well patches of green. The pants are purple with flowers with green accented fabric with little bees The vest is made from matching purple flowered fabric. The shirt has a small opening on on the top back made from white fabric with images of smiley faces, word "love," and swirls. The accenting scarf (originally used to cover my hair before I found the right wigs) is from the green with bees.

The hat was a plain black rimmed hat I found and added silk flowers and a bird nest with hot glue. At one time there was a little yellow bird perched on the nest and plain black shoes I added silk flowers to as well. (The shoes and bird have disappeared over the years.)

In later years purple and black stripped tights were added underneath in place of socks (Love post-Halloween sales!) with a bright pink straw bag to hold my toys and twisty balloon supplies and a green and white wig.

Camp Tales - Underground Railroad

Many camps offer a variety of activities that not only get the kids outside and having some sort of adventure, but also teach. At the camp I spent the most time working, we offered an Underground Railroad program. It was a combination project that gave the kids a background in the Underground Railroad, then divided them up into groups, and sent them through the woods to go through a number of "Railroad Stops", while not being caught or shot (water gun) by slave chasers (often their counselors). Each stop had different things they had to successfully maneuver, while getting their entire "family" group safe into the North. It was a combination of adventure mixed with history. One summer one of the staff decided he wanted to bring an new element to the project and offered to dress like a runaway slave and give an mini scene as part of the presentation. He came to me about creating a costume for him.

Using an old white shirt from the paint shirts in the Craft Hall I went to work dying it in multiple couples from my tie dye buckets to give it a dingy appearance, let it dry. I even rolled it in the dirt, stomping on it as I went. (Receiving a few interesting looks from passing campers and staff that didn't know what I was working on) I placed it on his body then armed with a pair of scissors I went to work shredding the sleeves and edges, then made slips across his back like whip marks.

Using what I had on hand, which happened to be make up, I bloodied up the edges of the whip marks with red lipstick mixed with mascara and blush.

We completed the costume with an old pair of jeans he had, a beat up pair of unlaced boots, a chain we borrowed from something on camp, and a walking stick he found on camp. Using more of my make up, I made marks on his skin underneath the slits on his shirt with my light colored concealer (it looked great on his dark skin for this effect), red lipstick, black mascara and eye liner, with a mixture of eye shadow and blush.

He prepared his own scene to introduce himself as a runaway a slave before the kids were sent off on the journey and was waiting for the in the "North" when they got there. The reaction of the kids to his character and the whip marks we created was amazing to us both. A couple of the kids forget we were playing and were afraid that touching his painted arks would cause him pain. It had a definite impact on a number of us and brought a new depth to the project that any of them had participated multiple summers.

Fiery Top Hat

Sometimes we all need a little fire in our life. This hat was a plastic top hat that I painted with a combination of red, yellow, and orange paint to give a fire appearance. I'm sure I'll fine the perfect costume for it. (I always do.)

Camp Tales - Fashion

Living at camp and need something nice to wear to dinner? Why not make something out of what you have on hand... like black and white garbage bags.

One warm afternoon, while our quarters were being bug bombed, we were trying to come up with something to wear to a "nice" dinner. Lucky for us, I had a stash of plastic garbage bags in the Craft Hall. We fashioned dresses fro large black trash bags accenting them with strips of white garbage bags for bows, belts, and even hair ties. Once we were all 'gussied' up we needed needed dates to escort us with we made from balloons with drawn on faces. They were a huge hit with the campers, counselors, and other staff. You use what you have, and we had garbage bags.

Medievel Dress

I believe that we are never too old to play dress up. (That does help explain the love of theater and the amount of time I have spent costuming myself and others.)

While still in my 4-H days I made this burgundy and ivory medieval dress as a sewing project one year. It's all one piece with a zipper down the back, made of an under skirt and under skirt, puffing sleeves, and fitted bodice. The burgundy over skirt is made from four panels, each panel big enough to wrap around my waist. The bodice was fitted to my body, but fits a little differently than it did ten years ago.

Over ten years later and it still gets a lot of use, I wore it for a camp skit one summer (with a piece of lace underneath as a kind of modesty piece), and have worn it more than once at for the Ren Faire, and a couple Halloweens.

Camp Tales - A Rustic Life

Five Girls - One Shower

Camp is a different world and if you have never gone, it's hard to understand. When you live and work there for an entire summer it is a VERY different world. There is a rawness that seeps from and through every aspect. AT one camp my craft hall consisted of a pavilion with a storage space on the end I shared with the naturalists, at another I had a real room, but it was still on the rustic side. Showers, meals, cabins... everything tends to favor the rustic side of life, even the staff. For many kids, it is their first time away from home and their parents. It is not uncommon for counselors to have to strongly remind campers to shower or brush their teeth. Admittedly, the staff often looks a little different than they do in real life as well, adapting to life in the middle of now where. It's not surprise that camp life often a attracts people that tend to favor what many might consider among the hippy variety. While we showered and I know of no staff that let personal hygiene lack, I admit that it was no uncommon that my one roommate and I had a tendency to wait to brush our hair AFTER breakfast. As staff we couldn't get away with pajamas in the dining hall (dress codes), but we highly valued our time sleep time in the morning, choosing to make our tea and pulling hair into pony tails or loose knots over taking the time to actually do something with it. We brushed it, after breakfast when we had more time.

Even when we weren't pulling our hair into a knot for breakfast, camp brings out a different part of a person and their appearance. My long hair was usually pulled back into a variety of pony tails, braids, and pig tails. While the staffs I lived and worked with embraced the more natural and rustic life, we also looked forward to dressing up a bit. One summer on one of our first visits off site our excitement evolved from a heading into town for dinner to being able to wear the things we couldn't on site (tank tops & halter tops not going with our working dress code) to actually going through the process of doing our hair and even applying some make-up. The guys we lived with shook their heads, but later that evening many of the campers we spent our days and meals with didn't recognize us. I would find surprise later with campers and counselors that I ran into after camp was done and we all went back to our regular lives.

Yes, camp life is different. It's special and allows a bit of rawness that the rest of the world doesn't always have a place for. For some people it's just a summer, for others it gets into their blood.

Teaching Colors

A few years ago I spent my summer not at camp, but taking care of a three-year-old on a daily basis and traveled with the family as their nanny. Everyday we tried to do projects that would help her explore her world and learn new things.

She knew her colors, but in exploring how to mix colors we did tie dye. (Because tie dye is awesome.) Using dye in the three primary colors (red, yellow, & blue for those who weren't sure,) and various shirts her mother had pulled (it was a great way to being new life to those light colored shirts with stains that every kid's parent has stuffed away), she learned all about how to mix the three primary colors to create the secondary colors (purple, green, & orange). We used bottles to make make things more usable for a little girl and created a rainbow of creations.

Pieced Denim Skirt

What do you do when you have a pair of jeans that fit around the waist, but the legs are falling apart? Make them into a skirt... of course. (Waste not, want not, and all that stuff.)

This pair of jeans was literally falling apart at multiple places on the leg, but they still fit pretty good. Piecing the salvageable parts of the old jeans with a light weight red fabric and side panels from the legs of another pair of scrap jeans I patched this denim skirt together into a wearable piece of art. Patches, yarn, and embroidery floss were used to decorate,  stabilize weak places, and cover holes or tears.

Some of the pockets were in really weak condition and patch work had to be done by hand with patches or stitching. It was very much a labor of love using both the machine and a lot of hand work to secure and reinforce. (I guess lucky for me I learned hand work first and for many years preferred it almost entirely over the use of the machine.) The bottom edge has a straight stitch sewn all the way around around about 1/2 inch from edge, the the outer edge left raw.

Backside

I wanted a longer skirt (this one coming to about mid calf) that was comfortable, easy to wear, and unique. I love the contrast of fabrics for spring or summer days. Instead of going out to buy a new skirt, I got want I wanted by my own hand and I got to bring new life to something that might have otherwise been thrown out. Be who you are and who you want to be - express you.

Felt Doll

This felt doll and her clothes were made using a pattern I found on Martha Stewart's crafting site, with a few adjustments of my own. I had found the pattern and decided to use what I had on hand to try out the pattern. I used brown and gray felt for the body (there wasn't enough brown so I used gray for the legs), black yarn for hair, embroidery floss for the eyes and a heart on her chest, and some pieces of material for the shirt and pants.

Most of this was done by hand.