How Sara Met Sarah

Did you ever wonder how Sara met Sarah?  Check out the story here!

http://howsmets.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-sara-met-sarah.html.

The $20 Hockey Goal

Back in the day, I worked at a sporting goods store.  I remember the Evers family coming in every fall to buy new gear for their hockey playing sons.  They would easily lay down $1500 in that visit.  The moral of this story?  Hockey is an expensive sport!  So when the future Mario LeMieux and Jaromir Jagr in my life started playing hockey, I decided we needed to start economizing now!

Go Fish! A Description

My submission for this challenge (boy toys) is a Go Fish! set. What kid doesn't like to fish? When you cannot make it to actual water, this is a fun stand in.

The How To: Each fish is cut from felt, stuffed with filling, a magnet and then hand embroidered shut. At times (see the coral) I added beads because I thought these fishies could use a pop!

Challenge No. 4 Submissions

Here's what Sara & Sarah came up with for Challenge No. 4 - Boy Toys! We will each post soon with a description our projects!

Voting is Now Open ... Winners Announced Next Wednesday

A Project from the Past

I love spray paint.  To me, it is one of the great innovations of the 20th century.  I'm thinking about naming my next pet Krylon to honor this fabulous product.

I've been itching to get outside and rehab some old furniture.  The problem is, it's too darn hot!  Dang, I'm telling ya, I don't think this Arizona summer is ever going to end. 

Since I can't show you anything new, I thought I show you an old favorite that I did:  the Escaramuza Cupboard.  It all started with this cute little cupboard I found at Goodwill for $20.

Link Parties

We just discovered link parties here at Sara vs. Sarah.  We're going to try to do more of this to get the word out about the fierce competition going on here!  Our very first link party is Made By You Mondays at Skip to My Lou. And, as usual, I'm late because it's Tuesday! Oh well, who wants to get to a party early anyway?

Kids Clothes Week Challenge Project 2: Little Brother Refashioned Vest

Well, here's another project I finished up as part of the KCWC that I worked on last week! Project 1 is here ... and this is a coordinating vest for the little bro. It's made from the same brown sweater, only this time I had less fabric to work with, so I had to get creative!

The front is the "flap" or collar of the original sweater, only it was too short to work alone. SO ... I had to attach part of the original sweater front to the flap it in order to get enough length for the vest to work. Likewise, the back fabric was also too short -- so again I had to attach additional fabric to make the hemlime.

Not. So. Easy. This time around I did have to use my walking foot and it still wasn't enough to really get this to go through my machine easily. At one point, I thought I may have broken the machine! I definitely had to take it apart and clean out all the sweater fuzz - needed to happen anyway. Point being - the sweater is THICK. Sewing through 2 thick layers is serious business!

Anyway - it's done and it's cute. Here are the pics ...

Kids Clothes Week Challenge Project 1: Refashioned Vest

As you may have read, I signed onto a challenge called Kids Clothes Week Challenge. The deal is a commitment to make Kid Clothes for 1 hour each day from September 20 through 26th.

Here's my first finished product ... It's a REFASHIONED Mom Sweater turned into a Childs Vest!

Here are the main things I write about:  crafting, thrifting, and food.  Lately, I haven't crafted much, I haven't found much at the thrift stores, and I haven't eaten anything worth mentioning.  Consequently, I haven't written much at all.

I decided to take a clue from from my blogmate and try to get motivated by committing to something I have absolutely no time to do.  She's sewing kids' clothes for an hour a day, I'm going to try to enter this contest: http://vintagepatterns.wikia.com/wiki/Vintage_Sewing_Giveaway. My deadline is October 1st. Can I get it done?

Challenge No. 4 Announcement

Time for another round of crafting it out between Sara and Sarah; here's what's up next!

Since the last challenge was just a **tad** centered around girly stuff (Hair Bow Holder), we wanted to do something geared towards the BOYS this time. Projects are due next Wednesday, but we'll probably be chatting it up on here in the meantime. Stay tuned...

And the Winner is......

Sara!!!!

It wasn't even close.  Sara is the superior crafter in Challenge No. 3.  Tune in tomorrow to find out what daunting challenge Sara and Sarah will face next.

__________________________

Recap of Challenge No. 3

Projects:

Sara's Hair Bow Holder

Tracy Partridge & the Trellis

A Sew Along Type Thing ...

I'm In!

Call  me crazy, but I have LOTS to do and publicly admitting it and signing up for a "challenge" may just be the inspiration I need to get moving. This week is Kid Clothes Week Challenge for Fall 2010 (I assume this is "fall" everywhere else where in the world - it's still 100+ here). This means that for 1 hour each day between Sept 20 through the 26th, I have to spend making kids clothes. If this is a productive week, I'll be back with my "results"! Wish me luck ...

And if you want to join, here is the link. The blog name is: Elsie Marley.

Birthday Party Prep

Around here we are busy getting ready for a big birthday party which is in a couple of weeks. I'm going the simple route this year - I don't have to make any food except the cake - and I am thrilled! That means that I can make some other things instead! :-) I've always liked these fabric buntings so I wanted to try making one myself. I love how it turned out and think it'll be a fun thing to put up for the girls' birthdays every year.

This was easy to make: I cut the trianges from scraps, cut some felt into triangles, used heat 'n bond to put the letters on the bunting, added pom pom trim and put it all together with some pink bias tape! Oh I did sew the fabric triangles to the felt ones too. :-)

Things to Buy and Not to Buy at a Thrift Store

I popped into a few Goodwills tonight and one of the things I bought was a macaroni and cheese cookbook.  That's right, an entire cookbook devoted to mac and cheese.  Of course, the second I saw it, I had an overwhelming craving for a bowl of the stuff so I came home and whipped up a box of Kraft cheese and macaroni.  While I enjoy this culinary delight, I thought I'd tell you about a couple of things that I think any self-respecting thrift shopper should buy, and one thing I saw that you shouldn't ever buy, at least not at a resale establishment.

Tracy Partridge and the Trellis

Oy.  Where do I start?  This one wasn’t easy for me.  I’m not 100% happy with my project and it suffered due to my poor time management over the last two weeks.  The Great Deadline War, now in its 44^th year.  It won this battle, but I’ll come back.

I’ll say this, I love the concept which I think of as “Tracy Partridge and the Trellis.”  I didn’t intend for the little girl to look like Tracy Partridge, but she sort of ended up looking that way, didn’t she?  Try picturing her with a tambourine.  Now does she look like Tracy Partridge?  Tracy is hand-appliquéd and I developed the pattern from the drawing on an old sewing pattern. 

Tracy was originally intended to have a headband that would be loose and could have things clipped to it.  I couldn’t make that work.  The sash, however, is loose and can have barrettes or small hair clips hung from it.

The trellis is the main place for storage.  My thought was that in addition to clipping bows, barrettes and the like to the ribbons, the flowers could be used to hang necklaces.  Now look at my picture at the top of this page and consider the fact that I have no daughters.  Ya, not a single hair bow to be found in this house to demonstrate the usefulness of the hair bow trellis. 

Sara's Hair Bow Holder - Challenge No. 3

This was a fun challenge for me, especially given the fact that hair accessories have taken over one of my bathrooms! I wanted a place to stow all of the ponytail holders, headbands, ribbons, clips, bows, you name it. There is so much, I went with making two coordinating items. This is how they work together ...

Challenge No. 3 Submissions

It's that time again ... to see what Sara & Sarah have created! Our challenge this round was to make a HAIR BOW HOLDER. Here are some pictures of what we've come up with! We'll each have a post about our "submission" that has a little more explanation about our projects with big pictures!

Voting is now open; pick your favorite and register your vote!



iPad Cover Tutorial

Hey everyone, the iPad Cover Tutorial is done and posted.   You can find it here:  http://svstut.blogspot.com/2010/09/ipad-cover-tutorial.html.

Now, I had better get working on the Hair Accessory organizer which is due on Wednesday.  I'm way behind!

Sarah

Did You Guess Right?

So in Challenge No. 2, we posted our projects anonymously because we thought it would be fun to see if people could tell whose was whose.

By now, you've likely seen that Sarah crafted the winning iPad cover - how cool was that? Sara cannot wait for the tutorial, so she can make one (you know for her imaginary iPad).

On the other hand, Sara made the camera strap covers ... she loves them, but YOU have spoken and she will pass the tiara to the new champion - Sarah! Big Congratulations Sarah! A tiara does suit you ...

Did you guess right?

Thanks again for playing along ....

Sara's Past Crafts 1 & 2

The Sara vs. Sarah competition has kept me busy lately, so not much new going on craftwise, SO I thought I'd show a couple of dresses I made a while back just for fun.

These two cute dresses are made with the Sweet Little Dress Pattern by Leila & Ben. I switched it up and used a knit for both dresses and love how they turned out!

First, I made the pink and orange one ... that dress is a combination of LOTS of different things! I actually used some very old and incredibly soft undershirts and dyed them using this Tutorial from MADE. The day I was dyeing, I made some pink, orange and brown; three of my favorite colors. I still have some pink and orange left and have yet to do anything with the brown ... future project material! So, I started making the dress and loved it, but wanted to use 2 colors and given my affection for ruffles, I decided to add a big fluffy orange one right down the front. I love the way it turned out!

Then, for the "night night" dress, I used a XXL black tee shirt that had never been used (so it's nice and black!) and made the same dress. All along, I was aiming to add stars and a moon on this dress. There are tons of tutorials for "freezer paper stenciling" but of course I used the one from MADE. Hey, if you know a blog is a great source, why go elsewhere, right? This technique is SUCH FUN & the possibilities are endless! I used my paper punch for the stars and just drew a moon for that ... a couple of layers of bright yellow paint and the dress was all set!

I love this pattern - it's easy and adorable. You can make dresses or shorten it to make tops. I'm just thinking as they get taller, I'll throw leggings underneath. That seems to be my MO lately!

Fluffy Ruffle!

Love the backside too ...

Sunday Sewing Tip on Thursday

I totally forgot about my Sunday Sewing Tip.  I'm middle-aged, forgetting is what middle-aged people do, right?

This is another storage tip post.  As you know, I love thrift stores.  One thing I'm constantly buying is old novelty planters.  These are great for ort catchers or miscellaneous doodad holders.  Here are some examples from my sewing room.

This is right next to my sewing machine.  I would guess this one is from the 1940s.  It's perfect for scissors, seam ripper, stiletto, and other miscellaneous tools.

These are on my ironing board right next to the bottle of Mary Ellen's Best Press (love that stuff).  The dog planter is an ort catcher (bits of thread or scraps), and the head vase holds a scissors and some other tools.  You could use something else for this, but this is much cuter, isn't it?  I have a poodle planter in my TV room, as well, but I forgot to take a picture of that one.

If you're off to your nearest Goodwill to look for an old planter, keep in mind that an imperfect planter is fine for this purpose.  As a matter of fact, if you can get a chipped or crazed planter for 99 cents to keep your seam rippers in, more's the better.  You don't have to worry if it gets knocked over and it's still cute.   We'll all be old and imperfect soon enough.  Let's hope someone out there still has a use for us.

One more storage tip.  I needed a button keeper.  One day, I came across this old glass humidor at a Savers store.  Buttons are pretty so this allows me to see the buttons, as well as the pretty old humidor.

The Mercury space program era lunch box isn't used for storage, but it's awesome, so I included it in the photo.  Please disregard the dust.  I have better things to do than clean.

So there's your Sunday sewing tip on Thursday.  Perhaps I'll remember the next Sunday sewing tip on Sunday, perhaps not.  But a tip is a tip so let's not quibble over the day.

Seacrest, out.

Challenge No. 3 Announcement!

First of all, thanks so much awesome readers for playing along with us so far! This is so much fun ... and there is nothing like a friendly challenge to make you craft something new every other week!

Recapping ... what happens now? We each have 1 week to create something that qualifies as a "hair bow holder" or that will organize / stow / store all things hair related.

Next Wednesday, we'll post our creations and YOU pick your favorite!

Stay tuned ....

And the Winner of Challenge No. 2 is...

SARAH!  

It was Sarah that put together the cover/portfolio for her pretend iPad.  To celebrate, Sarah will be putting together a tutorial so you can make a cover for your pretend iPad, or even your real iPad!  Look for that next week.

This stylish portfolio is also the perfect size for a small legal pad or steno pad sized notebook.  The great part is, its smaller size is perfect for tossing in your purse or backpack. Won't you be noticed when you walk into that staff meeting with one of these, grab a business card for the new guy out of the the special pocket just for that, then are johnny-on-the-spot with a tissue for your boss who just sneezed so hard the windows rattled?  Don't forget, your cell phone is handy, too, in case you need to order in lunch.

Get yourself ready for Challenge No. 3.  It'll be a good one!  Thanks for  your votes.

Sara & Sarah

___________________________________

Recap of Challenge No. 2

Projects: iPad Cover & Camera Straps

iPad Tutorial

Sara Likes Storage - With a Refashioned Twist

For the longest time, our laundry room was just cluttered and it really bothered me ... there was all this wasted space and a pile of bags on the floor. Not Good. All my craft blog reading comes in handy from time to time and somehow or another, I ended up coming across THIS fun (and free) pattern by JCasa - lots of cool stuff on this blog, worth checking out!

It was a match made in craft heaven ... cute pattern + a trip to Ikea = organized laundry room!

Another fun tid bit about this project is this ... the lavender one (one with pink / white lining) is actually an old linen skirt that I bought from Target when I was pregnant. Thankfully the skirt ended up being too big for me ... BUT it was pretty linen, and lots of it! SO ... I cut it up and used it for this Kidlet! There is still some leftover in the ever-growing scrap pile. The other kidlet is made from khaki linen pants that may have been purchased in high school (yep, over 10 years ago) and weren't getting any use! I dug them out of the Goodwill pile in the garage and decided to convert them into something I actually would use... at this rate, I'll never be able to donate clothes anymore - it seems that I can usually find another use for them!

PS: those patches on the front are actually POCKETS!!

Aren't the linings adorable? Love the pink / white polka dot (thanks Sarah for another great fabric donation!)

Close-Ups. Given their personalities, I think "i" gets the girly one with the pocket books on it ... and "a" gets the one with the cars & buses.

You can see here ... "my" stuff hangs up top, out of the reach of little hands and "their" stuff is just right and perfect for dumping all their stuff into!