Ben & Mia Pants

I have been lusting over the Ben & Mia pants pattern (among others — how cute is this and this?) for a long time, but I just felt like I had too much on my plate to justify yet another project. Then I got a wild hair and said screw it, and just bought the damn thing. I mean, it’s like $7. Cheap.

It was my first time EVAR working with piping. I was scared, but it was so, so fun and I love the interest that it adds to the pockets. I omitted the back pockets though, because those aren’t nearly as important. And how cute are the tabs on the waistband?

I wanted them to be Valentine’s pants, but really I don’t care that much. I thought it would be cute to use heart buttons on the tabs, but chickened out so they could be more multi-purpose. I got some light-weight denim and used leftover scraps from this jacket lining to do the pockets and waistband lining.

They’re a little more wide-legged than I envisioned, but the fit is super comfy and relaxed. They were very quick to sew up, and I’ll be making more for sure, maybe in corduroy. The girls were actually excited to wear them, even though they weren’t skirts. Yay.

Tights refashioned

Do I ever get original ideas anymore? I guess not. Another amazingly genius idea from Pinterest: cut off the legs of old holey tights, and sew some women’s knee-high socks in their place. New tights without having to spend $4-6 for them.

I think I’ve mentioned that my girls practically live in skirts, and I’ve had to throw out countless pairs of tights that were unsalvageable. I found a pair when doing the laundry that had one giant hole up on the thigh, and figured I’d test this idea out.

The older sis donated a pair of knee-high socks that she doesn’t really wear anymore, and the girls are pretty thrilled with the results.

The feet that I cut off the tights were still usable, so I just cuffed them and turned them into sort-of boot socks. I kind of can’t wait until they get more holes in their tights.

Full tutorial from Choose to Thrive.

Hama bead earbuds

I saw this adorable project and lo and behold: I had a huge tub of those beads sitting right next to me on my desk. The girls love making those peg-board projects where you iron the beads to fuse them together. You know what I’m talking about? I’ve seen them called Perler beads and Hama beads, maybe it’s a brand-name thing. I don’t know, but I can tell you that this was fate. I had to do this project.

I didn’t have any cuticle scissors, so I just started chopping away at those things with a box cutter. Okay, that sounds terrible. I was careful, I promise.

I thought the project would be easy, but it was a pain to cut those little suckers open, and shoving them onto the headphone wire was a nightmare. I used a very skinny paintbrush to help: I cut the bead, poked the paintbrush into the center to open it, and then slid it on to the headphones. At the end of the whole thing, though, I was a total pro at it.

Super fancy!

Leggings from hell

My kids are crazy. Even when there’s snow on the ground, they will fight me (literally) to wear a skirt or dress outside to play, or go to school, or whatever. If they had their way, they’d burn their pants and never wear another pair again. I don’t know *where* this behavior comes from, but there it is. Nutballs, I tell you.

They do have tights that they can wear, but they aren’t nearly warm enough. Since I am tired of listening to them cry themselves hysterical every day, I decided we could compromise with leggings. I saw the Lil Blue Boo pattern, and decided to order some knits and give it a go.

Okay, so first — the pattern doesn’t give you full leggings. It gives you capris. You have to know the length and extend the pattern out to make full leggings. I don’t know about everyone else, but that really annoyed me. I think if it would’ve said that it was a capri legging pattern to start with it wouldn’t have bothered me so much, but it didn’t. So.

Next, I made them up and even though I checked the stretch of the knit, it obviously wasn’t stretchy *enough* so the seams popped on each pair I made them. Twice. Color me enraged.

There was no saving those, so I threw them in the trash and re-read the instructions to see if there was something that I missed. Well, of course there was. If you (ahem) read the words, she clearly tells you that if the knit isn’t stretchy enough to go up a size. I was so disappointed with the whole thing that I had to walk away from the project for a day or three.

When I calmed down they still needed leggings, and I still needed to make them. So I redrew the leg and did it again. This time they seem to be holding up much, much better, although in the middle of the last pair my sewing machine stopped functioning. I believe the universe is probably telling me that these leggings hate me and wish I would die.

I had to finish these bad boys on Phoebe’s beginner machine. Note: I have no idea why it’s a beginner machine. That thing is such a piece of crap that if you didn’t know how to sew and tried using that thing, it would make you hate sewing forever. I almost hate sewing when I have to use it. I can’t wait to take mine in to be fixed.

Anyway, to make a long story even longer, I made them each a black pair of leggings. It took 75 years, and killed my sewing machine. Not to be swayed, however, I had some super-stretchy grey knit in my stash and used it to make each one more pair. 2 pair each, 4 pair total. Suck on that, universe.

All in all, once everything was all sorted out, it was about 10 seconds to make a pair from start to finish. I would like to make more, but we’ll see. This project really kicked my ass, and reminded me why I hate sewing with knits.

The end.

Valentine's Day

This Valentine’s day, instead of buying the kids those cheap little boxes full of ridiculously tiny paper Valentine’s cards, I decided to make them. I saw this (genius!) idea on Pinterest, and decided to copy it. Immediately.

I took the girls’ pictures outside, and I tried to position their little fists so that there would be room above and below, and the lollipops wouldn’t block their heads. I think Phoebe’s is too low, and their fists should’ve filled more of the image, but whatevs. It’s still going to be cute.

Also? Snapfish was having a deal for 99 cent prints, so I got both of the girls 30 prints each, and the total was less than 5 bucks (with shipping!). All I need now are the lollipops.

Full tutorial here, from 24-7-356. I *almost* made these foam mustaches and lips instead, but the picture idea seemed much easier. Maybe we’ll do the other idea next year.

Oh, Pinterest. What would I do without you?