repurpose.remake.reuse.reclaim

My creative husband who was born and raised in San Francisco has been on a hunt for quality vintage replica of the City's trolley route signs.  But to no avail.  They were either reproduced poorly or sold outrageously expensive ($1,000 range!)   The idea of recreating his own was within reach but time-consuming.  With his workplace sponsoring a fundraising effort for Haiti Relief, he took on the challenge and intricately reproduced the bus route sign he took as a young boy. He individually designed each type to match the original artwork.  He's a perfectionist and cannot tolerate bad typography.  After laboring many hours, it was ready to be printed on high quality canvas. After the ink has completely dried, he crumpled the beautiful 26.5x66" piece of art for an authentic look!  Ugh...I couldn't stand it being beaten up.    I was hired to punch the holes.  Not the most exciting job, but someone's gotta do it.  And it has to be almost precise.  

The horse is God's gift to mankind.   ~Arabian Proverb Kiwi loves horses. She would own one if she's allowed to keep them. So you can say that her horse t-shirts are one of her valuable possessions.  She has several of them and most of them are getting shorter but not tighter. To salvage one, I cut off the lower part of the shirt saving the main image.  I took one of her dad's old gray t-shirt (shhhh, don't tell him...), gathered it before adding it on.  The shirt is a little loose after sewing it together so I added elastic in the back (not pictured). Here's a baby doll shirt that should last, hopefully, for a couple more years. Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children. — Charles R. Swindoll

A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. - Carl Sandburg Here's a cute little tutu for a baby girl who was born a month early. I think it'll fit her just right by now.  This pink & white rose fabric were scraps from a receiving blanket I made for someone who turned 13 years old this year. Yes, I kept them.  I cut a long piece of the fabric and sewed the lace trim (which I already have in my batch) to its hem.  Then I gathered one side and attached it to the onesie. Made a little rosette with a cute little button. Tada!  I could've added an applique and some trimmings on the arm and neckline.  Next time.  It's pretty easy, once you have everything.  Check out the  link  where I got my simplified version.

“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.” ~Abraham Lincoln  "You're so tall!" A comment my kids are used to hearing but not necessarily endearing (esp. to my eldest). "Yes, I am." Standing even taller. "You should play basketball, be a model, be this, be that." Big sigh... Well, I've accepted the fact that my kids will always be very tall and long (for Asians anyway, and for their age =.) We have no qualms with that.  The only problem is that they grow out of their shirts/pants faster (lengthwise) and it's difficult to find outfits that fit them just right.  It's either too short or too loose.  Plus it gets expensive. For a quick solution (time-permitting, of course) is, you guessed it, refashioning! For instance, TC loves her Blue Marlin shirts but the sleeves and the waist were getting too short.  To revive it, I took one of her old shirts... Cut off the sleeves and the waistline area...  And

Have you ever read any of Herge's Tintin books?  DSL is a big fan of the young Belgian reporter. He's always borrowing them from the library.   Les Aventures de Tintin  is a series of  comic strips   created by  the  Belgian   artist,  Georges Rémi  (1907–1983), who wrote under the pen name of  Hergé .   I learned of him when I did a short-term mission work in a French camp near the Alps for a whole summer.  A group of young Bostonian kids came to volunteer for a week and on their time offs, they will go to a local bookstore to buy Tintin books.  I ended up getting my own copy of  Le Lotus Bleu , in French no less. And I bought now-hubby a souvenir shirt.  After more than 20 years, the shirt is still around, somewhere.  Until I found it all tattered up.  I guess I couldn't throw it away.  It's priceless (that means it cost me a lot of Francs to buy that shirt.) The graphics are still intact.  So, I originally planned on cutting it up to apply it on one of DSL's

The word that is heard perishes,  but the letter that is written remains.  ~Proverb What do you do with those old wall calendars, old magazines, scrapbook paper with really nice images, or just plain nice quality paper.  Well, here's one way to revive them. Make envelopes.  Just open up any used envelope for a template.  Trace and cut away. You can bring this project anywhere...while waiting in the car or at any sports practices/events. Before you know it, you have a dozen made.  Just enough to have a stationery set to give as gifts. To go with the envelopes, TC did a calligraphy for one of her dearest friends' birthday with her initial, "L". She scanned and we resized to fit 2-up on an 8.5x11 cardstock. Final touch: tie the cards and the envelopes together with ribbons from my recycled stack. Black lace looked very elegant, don't you think? And off it went to Lee-Anna for her birthday whom TC regularly corresponds via letter (a