Tutorial: Making Maternity Pants

So, I'm finally at the point where I can no longer wear regular pants and have had to make the move into maternity pants. I have one of the Belly Bands from Motherhood Maternity store, which was like $15.. and it's ok. I don't love it, but I don't hate it, I just have to constantly tug at it to keep it in place. But it's a great idea and it works for a quick solution.
Lord knows I'm not about to buy maternity jeans at that store or any other store that charges over $30 a pair. Sorry, but I don't even spend that much on regular jeans that I wear all the time. Plus, now that I'm working at Target, I needed some khakis. I lucked out and found a pair at the Goodwill that were maternity, so that was awesome, but I needed more than one pair. So this is my tutorial on how I turned a pair of cheap Goodwill-bought khaki's into maternity-wear. I've watched a few other video tutorials. This is basically the same concept.


First I took an old stretchy camisole that I was no longer wearing and cut the top part off, leaving just a tube of material:

Next I took the lucky pair of pants, and cut around the top, basically above the seam of the pants all the way around:

I cut above the seam to give about a half-inch inseam, and I will be sewing right underneath the hard seam of the pants. If that makes any sense.. ?


So next, I take the tube of material, and pull it over the pants, bringing the cut sides together, like so:

Basically, this is how it will look after it's sewn. All right sides are facing out and I pin it together and sew all around the pants.

This picture may appear confusing.. the white panel on the left is the other side of the pants. Where I'm sewing is the inside of the pants and the white material is underneath that. But you see how I'm sewing under the original seam of the pants. I also use that as my guide to make it straight.


I start sewing at the side seam and work my way around. You may need to adjust and tug a little at the stretchy material to make sure it all fits around right... especially around the zipper part. I am careful about sewing over the zipper metal and take this part quite slowly. This particular pair, I left the zipper in, because I can still zip these pants up, but otherwise, you may need to make adjustments to the zipper area.. i.e. sewing it closed.

But you should end up with this basically when you're finished.

and this when you put them on:

this is with the panel all the way up. I actually wear mine with the panel folded down, which is why I sew it the way I do, so that that the inside seams aren't showing when it's rolled down:

Not that you can really even see it when I wear a shirt over it, but, you know, just in case.


and tada!!! Maternity pants that aren't $40!!
Khaki's at Goodwill: $5.00
Old shirt I wasn't wearing anyways: Basically free


Hope this helps!!!

Crochet the Night Away!

3 Scarves :)

Lately, I've been doing a ton of new scarves, and putting them up for sale at my mother-in-law's restaurant here in town. I'm addicted to this riot eyelash yarn, haute fur, and shimmery-shiny-glittery yarn.. as you can see from my 3 latest additions.
On the left, yarn from Hobby Lobby, Haute Fur in Marine Sky

I crocheted this scarf as follows:
Chain 13, DC in 4th ch from hk. Ch 1 & skp next ch. DC in next ch, and repeat to end. Ch 4 and turn
Next row, DC in 1st ch, ch 1, skp next ch, DC in next ch., repeat to end. ch 4 and turn
repeat this until desired length.
Since it's furry, it's really hard to see the pattern anyways, so the pattern is really not important. I added fringe.

The 2nd scarf is my absolute Favorite right now!

I started the first one like this at Christmas time, just throwing together a few yarns I had in my bag, and it turned out gorgeous.
This one is made with
 Hobby Lobby "I Love This Yarn".. Ivory I believe.
 Hobby Lobby "I Love This Yarn".. ivory with gold shimmer
and Riot Eyelash in Champagne, from.. you guessed it... Hobby Lobby :)
I basically did the same thing with this scarf as the previous.. except instead of using DC, I used HDC. It's SOOO warm and fuzzy and soft. I LOOOOVE it. The first one I made sold like a hotcake at the restaurant when I no more walked in the door with it. It didn't even set on the shelf for but a minute and it was swiped up and bought!

The 3rd scarf:

I purchased the yarn from JoAnn Fabrics at holiday time, and it's called Holiday Shimmer.
I'll share the pattern for this one in a separate post, since it's a little more complicated.

Hope you like!

Coming to you LIVE..

from my brand spanky-new laptop! Woohoo!!


No more oh-my-goodness slow-ness from the other computer.. seriously, you have no idea how happy this makes me. The other computer was SLLLLLOOOOOOOWWW.. it was driving me nuts.. especially on days when my nerves were already totally on the edge... if you know what I mean ;-)


So.. the big news of the day/week/month..
I'm going to start working from home starting Monday..! well.. little loop-hole.. I'll be still working my current job on a part-time-type basis, but basically.. I'll be home :) Yay!


I was so blessed with the opportunity to get offered a job working part time from home for my brother-in-law's business, along with watching my little cutie-almost 1-year old nephew :) Soooo, then came the really hard part of coming in to work that next Monday, and talking to my boss about the dreaded 2-week notice.. eek! For me, this was a very difficult thing to do.. I'm a total creature of emotion, and totally hate doing things that I think hurt people's feelings.. But.. I was able to have a good conversation with him, and as of right now, we're going to try to work out a deal to where I can still do this job part-time, and do the work-from-home job too. Oh my goodness :) I'm so excited! It's quite possible it could be a little hectic at first trying to learn new things, learn a new schedule and figure out the best way to handle all of this, but I think that in the long run, this could work out great.
 I believe that God answers our prayers and guides our lives when we allow Him to, and I had been secretly praying for a way to be home. I love being home. I might be one of the weirdest people on the planet, but home is so comfortable. I love being there and cleaning, and working on projects, recipes, having dinner ready for my husband and all those goofy house-wifey type things.  :) Call me old fashioned. Call me weird. Call me Donna Reed :) lol


So on to other fun stuff!!
I got my new sewing machine for my birthday!!! WOOP-WOOP!
This gorgeous puppy here:

I love love love it!
I'm soooo geeked about all the fun projects I get to work on. I'm waaay too loaded with ideas. In fact, I need to kind get my ideas organized and work on one thing at a time. I get a little anxious and obsessed with things I want to do and my hobbies and I tend get in over my head. But oh well :P


For now though, I've been setting up my little hobby workshop upstairs. Now I just need a trip to Ikea, the most wonderful store for major organization ideas and items.. and maybe some money to make the trip and actually be able to leave the store with items. But for now I will work with what I have :)


Speaking of workshop.. I recently made these adorable puppies from felt for my little step-daughter for her Halloween costume. 

She wanted to be an elf-santa's workshop-worker-girl.. so we made it happen.  We shopped the Goodwill for little dresses, and with the wonders of my sewing machine, we made her a little Christmas dress. It was so much fun. Halloween costume for $5.. right up my alley!

I have a dress-makeover project I'm just finishing up that I will post here shortly. Just have to get the rest of the pictures taken.. my phone and my computer all sync up and make it so much easier.


Well, I'm totally outta here for now. We're headed out tonight for another  family skate night. :)
Much more to elaborate on later!

Spooktacular October!

Oh boy.. the big 3-0 Birthday coming up this week. Yay for me. lol. I'm not totally distraught or anything about turning 30.. I don't feel old, or think I'm going to have a panic-attack because I'm 30. Really I'm quite thankful for the journey I've been on to this point. I'm thankful to be healthy and able to enjoy my hobbies and live a wonderful life... ok so I feel old sometimes.. lol... especially since I want one of these for my birthday:

hehe.. I'm not OLD.. I'm just CRAFTY :)
I've been wanting a sewing machine for a while now. I actually had one many years ago.. I think I was 11-12?.. maybe.. sorry, I don't remember waaay back then. (kidding).. That machine has seen better days. It got used to death. Literally. So, I've been checking Craigslist.. my latest online addiction. Hadn't really found anything decent priced enough for me. So, my mom says she thinks for my birthday she'll get me one :) Yay! I can't argue with that! I'm sooooo thrilled! I want to go to take it home today! (yes, I'm kind of a dork, this I know). Walmart even has this one in the picture! So. Next will be the trip to the grandiose October Flea Market to pick up some awesome cool fabrics and whatever other wonderful-finds I can nab up. (hint hint.. I'll need a sewing box, pins, spools of thread..) Just thought I'd throw that in there. ;)
So that's my big thing for the week as of now.

My husband and I may be able to do something Saturday evening together.. maybe throw a few friends in the mix. We'll see. I'm not all about throwing myself some huge party. We just had the wedding. That was a big enough party for us. We could have a few friends over, a little bonfire, food & beer and sittin around. That sounds good to me. I do wish some of my Michigan family and friends could be here.

So I've also been a Craigslist-scavenger-hunter on the lookout for one of these or something similar:

I soo want this on my front porch-area. We don't have the wonderful-huge-wraparound porch that I really would LOOVE to have, but I could manage to fit one of these puppies on there, and plop a few pumpkins on it :) We even have some scrap wood from when we re-did the deck that might even work to make one!.. Maybe I'll have to post this picture on the fridge for my husband to see, and give him a GREAT idea for a birthday gift for me :) hehe. A subtle hint.

I've been working a little on Fall decorations around the house. I bought 2 mums and have those out front with a little scarecrow-on-a-stick and a few pumpkins. It's not totally done, but maybe I can pick up a few other things. And I have a few indoor things I've put together. I would love to share pictures, but they come out really crappy looking, so I'll hold off on sharing those for now. But when I do, I'll share my DollarStore Deco! :) Decorating on a budget!.. another topic of conversation. Budgeting!
Dave Ramsey says that October is the most critical month of the year to stay on budget and have a well thought out and well executed financial plan (in his words! read his article here.. it could change your life..).. So that's what we're doing! We're on a path to get caught up and demolish our debt! Christmas comes at the same time every year people, it doesn't come as a surprise and you should be able to PLAN for it!!

So needless to say, Fall decor has to fall within the alloted spending amounts.. therefore, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar are my BEST FRIENDS this month. As well as the local nursery next door that has great prices on their pumpkin variety! Better than Walmart's even! They even have bales of hay for $4! I think I see a bale of hay in my front porch area holding up my $1 pumpkins in the near future! :)

I'm also working on crochet and (soon-to-be) sewing projects for Christmas gifts. Anything I can craft by hand will lighten the Christmas budget fund tremendously..., and who doesn't love handmade gifts?! I can't think of a female that doesn't need a nice warm scarf for the winter! :) If I can get enough made for gifts, I should be able to have a stock of items to sell as well. When I do, I'll list them on my Etsy page here..which is empty for now :(  But bookmark it now so you don't forget!

 These aren't my makings or designs... but ideas of what I have in mind and currently have in progress :)

Ok. I think I'm going to end for now. I needed to post since I haven't in a while. Hopefully I can get some decent looking pictures of the Fall decorations and share those.

Now off to figure out costume ideas for Halloween!.. as well as a costume for a skating routine my husband and I will be involved in for the local church Christmas play.. how exciting!! I'll share more on that later!

ciao!

Welcome~!

HI! Welcome to my HodgePodge Blog..

My name is Andrea, but pretty much everyone calls me Onny. So you can too.
Since this is my first official post, I will use this opportunity to introduce myself and share a few things about me and whatever the purpose of this blog is.
This is me :)

I am currently on the countdown to the day I will marry the most wonderful man that God brought to me. It’s pretty much all I can think about right now. So my first few posts may very well be about weddings, or maybe just my wedding ;) and all that jazz. It’s just a forewarning that I’m in total wedding mode right now. I’m sure after this month, I will move on to other topics… you know, about being a Newlywed instead.

I have a multitude of hobbies that I never have enough time for, but would love to share with you, and hope that it’s helpful to someone, or at least enjoyable to follow along. I hope to share life experiences, how-to’s, and any other randomness I come up with. I promise I will do my best to not ramble long & drawn-out, off-topic, though it’s in my nature and is very likely to happen occasionally quite often. I am very thankful for all the talents and gifts God has given me, but I’m not sure that I’ve been blessed with the gift of being a writer; however I will do my best.

I totally LOVE shopping for bargains. I love organizing, decorating, re-decorating, painting, and cleaning, yes, cleaning my home. Ok, sometimes I don’t LOVE the day-to-day cleaning over and over, but for the most part, I do. Yes, I’m weird. My fiancé definitely reminds me of that on a pretty regular basis.
Some day down the road, we’ll have children, and it is our ultimate goal for me to be a stay-at-home mommy, and I can’t wait!

I intend to use this blog to share DIY, Crafts, decorating, gardening, living on a budget and many other things along those lines (like I said, I have MANY things I like to do, and will be sharing most all of them). And Food. I love food. I love finding new recipes and making up things.
I’m sure you’ll find I will have days of plain ole rambling and nonsense, journal-like babble.

I hope you enjoy reading, and come back for more, if I didn't scare you off already!