DIY high waisted swimsuit

This is by no means a tutorial- I am an amateur seamstress at best. I can do a few straight lines and thats pretty much it.

I have been wanting a high waisted swimsuit for a while now. I was having trouble finding one that would cover the belly button. I usually wear one pieces because I loathe my belly button so much. I always have- I even pierced it at 16 in hopes that that frowny looking thing would look cuter but NO. Now after pregnancy it is stretched out and scarred from my piercing.

Alas.

The suit.

I bought this suit because it is SO CUTE. Ugh I love it so much. It was hard to cut it, trust me. 

I got the suit here and when it arrived I was so bummed because the cups were gapping open. I am super flat chested so there was really no fixing that. I did remove the padding to see if I could replace it (which is why in the before the left side is so sad looking) but no luck there.

So I cut the top portion off, double folded it and sewed a straight line. Then cut off the extra fabric.

I also had to take the sides in about an inch on each side because they were loose.

There you have it. Nothing too crazy or hard to do. I paired it with a top from Target. 

Dining Room & My shutter!

Our dining room is open to the rest of the house, and while at first we didnt see a need for a formal dining room we now love it. Of course, its far from formal! We redid the dining set and I am so in love with it. The shutter was given to me by our neighbor- he is actually pretty grumpy and recently moved but this shutter will always remind me of him. Awesome but not awesome. The initials I have been wanting to do for so long. The W is from our wedding, still holding strong after 6 years and several paint jobs. And it looks like we can squeeze one more initial there next to the E? Just one more is all we want! Hopefully soon!

Here is the before:

This is from right after moving in 3 years ago.

We stripped the chairs and table and did a grey whitewash on the wood. 

We love how it turned out- light, bright and FUN! We love it!

Polka Dot Dining Room

Our dining set has always been a hand me down from my parents. It was great and served its purpose for what we needed, and it also gave us time to save money for what we really wanted. We have done a lot to our home since we moved in 3 years ago, and mainly done most of the work since Christmas time. Chris and I could not decide on how to paint the kitchen nook, like we got into multiple fights at Home Depot over this. He wanted a metallic wall, I wanted bead board. I think Chris caved on this one, but we finally decided on a polka dot wall with subtle metallic dots. He still makes fun of this wall and wants to do another pallet wall in place of the polka dots, but I adore this wall. This room has become easily my favorite in the whole house.

Here is was the room looked like upon moving in 3 years ago:

Its sooo bad, isnt it!

We have since retiled, repainted, and gotten the new set and light fixture. The farmhouse style table is from DownEast Home, as well as the metal chairs. The yellow wooden chairs are from Ikea, and painted. The metal light fixture is from Home Depot. 

Penny Wall

I mentioned a few posts back that my husband did a penny wall in our house. He loves copper, and became obsessed with this idea. He wanted to do our backsplash in pennies, but "settled" on this (I was not originally a fan of this idea). Let me tell you, yes it looks cool, but it is very time consuming. This alcove in our house took about $42 worth of pennies and was done over the course of 4 days. We attached them to the wall using liquid nails. I think it turned out very cool! A fun idea.

DIY cheetah flats!

I've been wanting some cheetah flats- especially the Target ones that are in stores now. Then, in my garage I found some cheetah fabric that my mom had leftover from a project of hers. Lightbulb!

I decided to take an old pair of flats ( I am so glad I hesitate to throw shoes away!), and recover them in the fabric. It was so easy, took maybe an hour tops. I am so excited to spruce up a few other pairs of flats that are too far gone to wear as they are now.

These are my old shoes before. I cut off the bow. The eyelets worried me a little bit but they didn't show through the fabric. 

This is what you'll need. Shoes, fabric of choice, fabric glue, mod podge, a foam brush, and scissors. I had all this on hand- so this project cost me nothing! Free shoes whoo-hoo!

Cover the shoes with your fabric glue. Be generous.

Drape the shoe with the fabric. Begin rubbing the fabric onto the shoe so it sticks. Do this for a few minutes, be aggressive.

Pull the fabric down and around the tip of the shoe. Keep rubbing! Let it dry once the fabric is on the whole shoe and very close to the sole. Add glue under the fabric if you need extra (I did, especially on the edge of the sole). Then you will cut the extra fabric around the sole. Hold your scissors very close to the seam between the sole and shoe so you get a close straight line. 

Now cut a hole where the foot goes into the shoe. Try to follow the line of your shoe, giving yourself about half an inch overlap.

Cut thin slits in the fabric so its flexible covering the opening of the shoe. 

Put glue on the inside of your shoe and fold the slits you just made down. 

 Once you are done, cover the whole shoe in mod podge to set them. Let dry. 

Ta- da!

Alphabet Wall

When I found out I was pregnant, I knew what I wanted to do with the nursery. I had seen an alphabet wall on a blog and fell in love. I remember even saying, "I hope its a boy so I can do this wall!". Well, things happen and we didn't do his nursery like that.
We did, however, turn our one lonely empty bedroom into a playroom! Yahoo! I had to convince Chris that we needed a playroom. I decided it was the perfect time to do an alphabet wall when I found a clock for a dollar at the thrift store and thought it would make a great "O". The boy loves clocks!
I had a few letters already just hanging around the house. I had the word "LAUNDRY" in our laundry room and hated it, so I used those. I also had a big "S" from when we were going to name Everett 'Sawyer', and I also had 'PHX MKT' from a work project Chris did years ago.
Over time I collected the rest. I needed coupons and sales! Last weekend, it was done! I love it!