Trading posts, with denim!

Welcome to another addition of Trading Posts! This is where me and my bloggy friend, Caroline of Artfully Caroline, get together and craft. Yeah, bloggy friends turned IRL friends are awesome. If you missed the others, check them out {here}, {here}, and {here} This round ended up being a little short, I had just gotten back from NY and ran straight over to her place to craft and I was exhausted.

(Ugh. I keep posting horrendous pictures of myself. I'm gonna scare you away with my face! Please don't stop reading just because I look awful.) We played with lovely dark washed, light denim. Upcylcing at it's very best! Out of one pair of old jeans we each made a funky belt to add to our spring wardrobes.

I love how mine turned out! A simple denim tube turned inside out, with two rectangles to hold them together. Each rectangle had four eyelets added to include the lace up and a simply lace embelishment. This was my first time playing with eyelets, and let's just say that I am very far from perfect and Caroline had to step in and perform many "surgeries" to get out my destroyed outlets and redo them for me!

Caroline was really clever and used the old pockets as embellishments. Then she added a seriously cool buckle and a lace "skirt."

Can you believe that buckle was free? I love how each of our belts turned out.

Romantic summer dress, {a tutorial}

As promised, here is the tutorial for that gray and yellow dress I posted the other day!

I loooove this dress, it's one of the favorite bits of clothing I've ever made! And what's even better is that it was SO EASY! There were very few "ingredients" and took very little time. Just how I like it. You wanna make one too?

You will need:

• A dress that fits that you can use as a pattern
• An oversized T shirt ready to be upcycled
• A yard or so of coordinating fabric (I actually only used between a 1/2 and 3/4 of a yard, but better to err on the side of too much.)
• Seam ripper
• Scissors
• Pins
• Fabric marking pen (not pictured, oops!)
• Regular sewing crap: sewing machine, coordinating thread, all that jazz. 
• On that note, make sure you use a BALL POINT needle when sewing with knit fabrics. It will make your life incredibly easier. 

First thing to do is unpick the sleeves from the rest of your shirt. I do this because the sleeves keep their original shape and it's easier to sew back onto your shirt. So unpick those suckers and set them aside.

You should end up with a too big, sleeveless shirt. From this point on my pics start to get a little funky to try and get everything in the frame so bear with me!

Take that dress you already have and turn it inside out. Tuck in those sleeves to that it looks sleeveless. Lay it out on your T shirt (which should be turned inside out as well) and line up the collars perfectly, otherwise your dress will be off center. Smooth it down so there are no wrinkles (obviously this is a "do as I say, not as I do" kind of thing.)

Using the dress as a pattern, trace around the entire dress with a fabric marker. Make sure you trace 5/8" away from the actual dress to allow for seam allowances. Otherwise, you'll end up with a one size too small dress.

Cut out along the lines you just drew.

Grab those sleeves you cut off and line them up next to the cut out dress. The fold lined up with the top of the arm hold, the fold side down by the arm pit. Using the fabric marker, draw a line exactly where the little "point" of your new arm hole is. Don't cut anything!

Take a break and eat your all time favorite food. This is a necessary step, don't try and skip it! Kraft mac and cheese for me (if I've got all beef hot dogs I add those in too!) Oh my gosh so delish. Excuse me for a minute.....

Now back to work. Sew along those yellow lines using a ZIG ZAG stitch, it helps the knit keep it's stretch. On the sleeves, sew directly on the line your drew with the fabric marker. Oh, and make sure you are sewing right sides together.

Pin the sleeves onto the arm holes (right sides together), making sure to line up the two seams in the armpit. Sew all the way around each sleeve, using zig zag again.

Now we can embellish! I ended up using a different coordinating fabric, so don't mind the change. I wanted to add a little bit of length to my dress (5 inches), so I cut two strips of fabric each 11 inches wide (and the whole length of the piece of fabric, so 45 inches or so) to make a ruffle at the bottom of the dress.  Sew the two strips together, right sides together.

Set your machine to a straight stitch at the longest length. Fold your strip in half WRONG sides together. Yeah, wrong sides together. Pin if you so desire (totally skipped it here).

See how the fabric changed? Teehee. Sew a straight stitch with 1/4" seam all the way down (no backstitching!) When you get to the seam from sewing the two strips together, pick the needle up, cut the threads, and start it again. Don't try and sew it all the way across, it will give you hives to try and ruffle all of that.

Aaaand I totally blanked on taking a picture of the ruffling process, so refer to {this} tutorial if you need help with the ruffling process. When you've ruffled, make sure the ruffle is as long as the hem of your dress, and pin it to the hem, right sides together. Sew using a zig zag stitch all the way around.

Your almost done! I love how the two layers of cotton kind of "poof" out instead of drape nicely. Makes me feel fancy. PS I originally was going to leave the sleeves elbow length but at the very last second I chopped them off.

Next I cut three two inch strips form the leftover fabric for the braided collar.

Pin them all down and loosely braid. I left the raw edges because I thought it would look cool after it's washed.

The last picture I took was bad so hopefully this one works! Take the long braid and pin it to the collar of your shirt and then sew right on top. Easy peasy! I love this braided collar, I got the idea from {this} tutorial from Welcome to the gOOd Life.

Then be totally awesome in your used to be a dollar store t shirt, now turned pretty summer dress.

See where I link up {here}.

Oh, happy day

Today is a good day.

..................................

"Why is it a good day, Amie?"

I thought you'd never ask! Well, today, the mailbox had a little present for me in it...

A little package from {Better Life Bags.} I sprinted back inside you get the scissors!

And opened up my luscious little package.

Inside were four reusable snack bags to match my fantastically awesome...

Market tote! (Bad face day, don't mind me) A little while back, Rebecca had a pretty sweet {facebook} deal (50% off! Yeah, seriously.) I'd been wanting a bag from BLB for a looong time and I figured it was the best time to order! I ordered the {Picnic Package} and I couldn't be more pleased with my order. It's "design your own" so I got to choose the fabrics I wanted and the design is wonderful. I can fold up that little market bag and stick in in my purse so I always have it with me. And when the hubs and I go on picnics I'm all set.

Thanks Rebecca! 

Romantic summer dress

A little while back, I asked the lovlies on my facebook page what they'd like to see here on KC&A. {You should totally like my fb page, btw. All the cool people hang out there.} Reader Kaytee suggested a summer dress, and I've been trying to fill the request ever since!

It's no secret that I love gray and yellow together. {I'm also a huge fan of pink and black, but that's another day} I had a huge gray t shirt in my stash just begging to be transformed, so with a little bright yellow polka dots I gave it new life. With a braided collar and sweet girly ruffles, it's totally comfortable and pretty!

And cool. Oh so cool. Tutorial will be up in a few days.

Giveaway over at Alililly!

The sweet Ami (who's husband's name is David!) over at AliLilly is having a 600 follower Crazy Awesome giveaway week!




So what does that have to do with me? I'm helping celebrate!

{Click here} to enter to win this lovely pearly bow bracelet! One of my favorites I must say! I'm the fifth of the week and there are 10 other giveaways to go enter! Don't miss out!

In New York!

With the bff, saying things like "brunette head" and "fabrizio."
Bbl.

Also, there are bagels all over the parking lot. Who throws bagels? Honestly? (name that website.)

Paint chip note cards {a tutorial!}

I totally meant to get this up yesterday, but I wasn't able to touch my computer for 36 hours. I was dyyyyyyyying!! But it's all good now, and now you get a fun little tutorial!

Fun little note cards! Embellished with paint chips. I have a small stash of paint chips left from other projects and when I found a little circle hole punch on clearance at Michael's I knew what I wanted to do! I didn't know it was take three months to get there...but I did it. :)

I like to think of it as "real" card making, since unless you are a really awesome cardmaker like my former roommate {Brielle}, you don't have fun stamps, embossers, paper, and other little card thingys lying around to make a really beautiful card. Not only are they cute, they're super easy to make! You will need:

• Paint chips, whatever color you want
• Circle hole punch
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Paper cutter (optional, but nice!)
• Scissors (if you don't have a paper cutter)
• Letter stamps
• Ink
• Cardstock (it's white and under all the other stuff, I sweat it's there!)
• Glue 

First, take the hole punch to the paint chips to get colorful, fun little circles.

Cut out some cardstock to create the card. Fold it in half and create a very nice crease with the side of the ruler.

Glue on those little circles to your hearts. I'm a huge sucker for gray and yellow, so that's what I experimented with first.

Then, using the stamps and ink pad, add any message you want to the front.

And just like that, you've got yourself a personalized, handmade card to use! You can whip out a ton of these very quickly, make them for invitations, thank you cards, thinking of you cards, whatever! Add a few new hold punches to the mix and your possibilities are nearly endless!

I had a lot of fun mixing colors, textures, and creating one folds and no fold cards. I've even tested a few of them out!

What did I write in this I love you card?

A little note to the hubs for while I'm away in NY this weekend. :)

Click my "link parties" tab to see where I link up!

Stir Fry

Huzzah! Last weeks Foodie Friday post that disappeared reappeared today! Yessss! To celebrate, I'm posting it a day early. :)

If you saw my post last Wednesday, I mentioned that I was going to make stir fry with some delicious looking veggies I got from the farmer's market down the street. (Yeah, like a half mile away. Be jealous.) This stir fry was so fantastic that there were NO leftovers. I even used each of the veggies in my "trifecta of nasty veggies" (which are: onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms) and even I devoured it. A real winner!

Chicken stir fry

• 2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
• 4-5 cups cut up vegetables (I used onions, peppers, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, and zucchini)
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 10 oz. rice sticks (thin rice noodles)
• Stir fry sauce (scroll down to see recipe)

Directions

1. Get some water boiling for the rice sticks.
2. Heat oil in skillet over medium high heat.
3. Add chicken and cook for 5 minutes or so. It does not have to be cooked through at this point, it will have time to keep cooking.
4. Turn off the heat to the boiling water (not the skillet!) and add the rice sticks. Let them soak for 5-7 minutes while you keep cooking. 
5. Add veggies to the skillet with the chicken. I added the "harder" veggies; the onions, peppers, and carrots first since they take longer to cook, then I added the softer ones, the zucchini, broccoli, and mushrooms. 
6. Fry everything together until the chicken is cooked through and veggies are crisp tender.
7. Drain the noodles and rinse with cold water. Add them to the pan.
8. Fry everything for a minute or two to let everything set up and come together, then add stir fry sauce.
9. Allow sauce to come to boil, and boil for a minute or so to let it thicken. 
10. Stir some more to mix and serve!

Stir fry sauce (originally found here)

• 1 -1 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2 Tbsp. cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 pinch ground ginger (or a bit of fresh minced ginger)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup soy sauce or 1/4 cup tamari soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. cider vinegar or 1/8 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 3/4 cup vegetable broth or 3/4 cup beef broth or 3/4 cup chicken broth (I use chicken broth if my stir fry will have chicken, etc.)

Whisk to combine and add to the stir fry when needed. Makes 1 1/2 cups.

 Aside from chopping it honestly took me longer to write this post than it did to pull this dinner together. If you do some prepping chop work you can whip this up in no time at all!

Giveaway over at Artfully Caroline!

I'm not here right now, because I'm over at Artfully Caroline giving away some crap for her 500 follower celebration! Er, and by crap  I mean some really pretty new jewelry I've just designed.



If you've been reading KC&A for more than a few months you'll know that Caroline is a bloggy friend turned in real life friend. Yes, we live just minutes apart from each other! We love to get together and craft, shop, take pictures and eat delicious cookies.

 If you've been feeling the need for a beautiful new bracelet and earring set, you should head on over there.

{CLICK HERE}

A little blog revamp

I bet you saw this one coming! First, reasons for the blog changes:

• I'm working full time and applying for new jobs. Takes hours and hours and hours out of my week.
• The hubs has month long break between his job and I want to spend some time with him before he starts working 8am-11pm everyday.
• I have many non crafty goals I want to achieve.
• Tutorials take a LONG time! Making the craft, taking the pictures, editing the pictures, and writing it up takes hours sand hours and hours. 

Really, not much is going to change. I'm not going anywhere, there are still going to be tons of tutorials, giveaways, spotlights, and recipes. They just aren't going to be in specific days anymore. I want to give you quality posts with great tutorials, and feeling like I "have" to have one posted just makes me rush through something to hurry and get it posted. Not cool. I'll still have Saturday Spotlight, because I really like that one. :)

So what is it in simple terms? Same stuff, just not on specific days. And who knows, maybe I'll get bored of this in a few weeks and change it back to have a schedule. You know me, I'm ridiculously ADD.

10 BFF points of you've Nyaned before.

Where there's a will, there's a way

I love twofer posts! And by twofer I mean I'm killing two birds with one stone! Man, I'm crafty like a fox. The first, the promised picture of all 53 bracelets I've made for {Craft Hope!} I've worked on them ALL week with almost all of my free time. My poor neglected hubby. I plan on making a few more before I send them off, but I reached my goal of 50!

Second, this weeks photo challenge over at Bugaboo, Mini, Mr, and Me! I had a really hard time with the title "where there's a will, there's a way." I could not think of anything fitting! That is, until I was done beading, looked down at my pile of bracelets, and realized that BAM! That was it! I wanted so badly to reach my goal of 50 bracelets (the will) that I used up alll my crafting time this week to reach my goal (the way!) I wish you could actually feel how heavy this wrapping-paper-roll-filled-with-bracelets weighed. It actually took some effort to hoist that over my head.

I feel like 50 bracelets just isn't enough, but when I look at the pile I'm like "Holy crap!"

I had a pretty good mix of both beaded elastic bracelets and {braided bracelets.} I had so much fun playing with different braiding materials and beads. Since these are going to girls between 4-18, I tried to include some more "grown up" bracelets as well as some teeny tiny bracelets with colorful pony beads. 

I'm so happy I accomplished my goal. :) Did any of you make any bracelets for Craft Hope? {Send me} a pic if you did, I would be tickled pink!

Oh! And there is good news for you! While I was experimenting, I came up with another version of the button bracelet! {Original bracelet here} If anyone wants a tutorial let me know and I'll write one up.