Refashioners Challenge 2016

The Refashioners Challenge 2016 is here! This year it is a challenge to make something new out of old jeans. Find out about the contest here. The contest runs through August and September and you are to post your creation on the refashioner's pinterest board or through instagram.
I have already decided what I will do. Stay tuned!

Words

"If you can't say somethin' nice don't say nothin' at all!" says Thumper in the movie, Bambi. What a great message for kids! But wait... hmm... it's a great message for adults too.

The lyrics from a song by Hawk Nelson called, "Words" expertly points out what words do: 
They've made me feel like a prisoner

They've made me feel set free
They've made me feel like a criminal
Made me feel like a king

They've lifted my heart
To places I'd never been
And they've dragged me down
Back to where I began

Words can build you up
Words can break you down
Start a fire in your heart or
Put it out

Let my words be life

Let my words be truth

I don't wanna say a word
Unless it points the world back to You.

Words have likely brought us where we are today. I remember overhearing my grandmother say to my dad, "When Gail sets her mind on something she really can do it! Where there's a will there's a way!" And that sums up the course of my life - I've always been determined to get places and if I didn't know how- I learned. Those words and the encouragement behind them were wind beneath my wings. After I had my first baby I said to my mom, "I love him so much!" and she replied, "That's how I always felt about you!" Wow. How could I ever go wrong in life with such love and confidence in my choices?

So, what are YOU saying to your kids? Are they words of discouragement, anger, disappointment, or fear and anxiety? I hope you are speaking words that build them up. Fill them with truth - that they are loved, wanted, gifted, and fun to be with!

And now ... a fashion for you:

This is a summer shift made from colorful fabric from Sew Over It. I used a downloadable pattern from the shop, which is in London. 

Downloadable patterns are nice in that you can quickly get a pattern without waiting for a paper pattern to be mailed to you. The hard part is that they are printed from your printer onto 8 x 11 sheets of paper that you have to tape together carefully and then cut out the pieces. 

I wanted to compare Lisa Comfort's shift dress pattern (Sew Over It) with a similar shift pattern from New Look that I bought at Joann Fabrics. You can read my complete review here. The short of it is that  I made a couple of mistakes due to my unclear understanding of Lisa's directions. New Look was pretty easy to follow and took me under 4 hours to complete, but Sew Over It took a little longer, however it was very fun and versatile. The next one I make will be a wiz since I'll know what I'm doing!

Blessings!

Training Children to be Parents

So, did you take a course in school to learn to be a parent?
Did you major in Parenting?
Maybe you sat in on a workshop or a seminar on disciplining techniques?

If you did, congratulations! But chances are you learned parenting from the school of hard knocks, by trial and error, and by the seat of your pants. And since most of us parent similarly to the way we were parented, we learned from our own parents.

Which brings me to my main thought for the day.... you are training your kids to be parents!

When I stop and let this sink in, I am overwhelmed, awed, and I tremble in fear and trepidation.

Our kids will talk to their kids the way we talk to them. Our kids will express anger, exhibit stress, manage their time and money, and even crack jokes the way we do. What would change in our discipline if we remembered that our kids might speak to their kids exactly the way we speak to them?

My friend grieved when he confessed calling his son, "You stupid!" He instantly remembered his own father calling him that and the pain that caused him.

And what could be different in our children's life decisions if our own were more self-controlled or righteous?

Another friend was confronted with his own chaos of life management when his daughter seemed to escape their home by running into the arms of a young man whose anger issues concerned him. Another friend has deep concerns about her adult son who can't seem to get off his computer to find a job. She realized her distant relationship with her own parents contributed to the lack of communication with her own son.

The Cat in the Cradle, hauntingly makes my point:

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and there were bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away

And he was talking 'fore I knew it and as he grew
He'd say, "I'm gonna be like you, dad
You know, I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when
We'll get together then, son, you know we'll have a good time then"

When my son turned ten just the other day
Said, "Thanks for the ball, dad, come on and let's play
Can you teach me to throw?" I said, "Not today
I got a lot to do" he said, "That's okay"

And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
Said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah

You know, I'm gonna be like him"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when
We'll get together then, son, you know we'll have a good time then"

Well, he came from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and he said with a smile

"What I'd really like, dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later
Can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, son?" "I don't know when
But we'll get together then, dad, We're gonna have a good time then"

Well, I've long since retired and my son's moved away
Called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, dad, if I could find the time"

"You see, my new job's a hassle and the kid's got the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

eah, and the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, son?" "I don't know when
But we'll get together then, dad, we're gonna have a good time then."

So what can your do now to be the best parent for your children who will in turn pass on good discipline to their own children?

*First recognize you are a sinner raising sinners and you won't be able to raise perfect kids. I know. I tried! Trust God to fill in the gaps! I'm sure that while you are similar to your own parents, you've moade positive changes in your life. Your own kids will too!

* Choose words that you'd like to hear come out of your kids' mouths when they are speaking to their own kids.

* Talk, talk, talk! Talk about mistakes your parents made, and your own mistakes in life. Tell your kids how you are making changes. Encourage them to always seek wisdom.

* Don't be afraid to say, "I'm sorry" when you recognize you've handled something wrong. You can break the cycle of generational sin with confession and change. I'm always amazed how quickly and eager children are to forgive.

* Enjoy your kids every day by spending quality time with them. You won't regret it! It will bring joy to your heart to see your own kids love their own kids in the same way! (At least that's what I'm expecting to happen. I'll see firsthand after my first grandchild is born this September!)

And now for a fashion....

This time I'd like to share with you a dress made from fabric I purchased from Sew Over It in London.  Lisa Comfort is one of my favorite sewing bloggers. Her fabric is just beautiful and it didn't take long to arrive in the mail.

I chose New Look, pattern number 6145, dress A.  Many of their patterns are easy and the directions are clear.

Check out my tutorial on my technique for putting in a zipper.

I have another beautiful print from Sew Over It that I plan to make a similar shift from one of Lisa's downloadable patterns. I will have a review so say tuned!
Blessings!

Gardening with Kids

The first year my husband and I were married Steve suggested we have a vegetable garden. His mom always had one but my mom, being a city girl, did not. So I was dubious but very ready to try something new. Besides, he said, it will help our grocery bill.

So the two of us set about transforming a garden plot. It was a community plot set aside for gardeners in the trailer park where we lived in Park City, IL. We really enjoyed going out there in the evenings to water, weed, and watch things grow.

When the kids came along I still continued to garden. I would bring the baby's walker and pop him in there while I worked. It got a little trickier when Rachael was born. Now there was a toddler and an infant to manage while I worked. But she was content to watch the goings on while Ben played in the dirt.

The kids always seemed to enjoy going to the garden with me. I couldn't spend hours there, of course, but snippets of time as their attention span allowed. They loved digging, and eventually picking and eating! Soon they wanted their own little plots.

One day I took the four of them to a Botanical Garden. Ben was enthralled. At age 10 he came home and asked if he could make his own Botanical garden. "Well," I told him, "there is a garden bed in the back of the house that I've never had time to develop. How about if we weed it and get it ready and then you can plant flowers there?" He was so excited.

Steve's mom came to help Ben. They worked and worked back there. She gave him some of her perennials and they went to a garden shop. Ben made a sign for his garden: Ben's Perennial Paradise. Now at age 28 he's an archaeologist and still loves to play in the dirt!

Our girls all loved flowers too. Rachael was enthralled with roses. Lydia, who is named for the Lydia in the Bible who was a seller of purple cloth, wanted to plant purple flowers. Anna had read a book about plants named for animals so she wanted to make a bed of animal-named flowers. She planted foxgloves, hen and chicks, lambs' ears, and cranesbill flowers.

There is so much to learn from gardening! Children learn hard work, patience, beauty, wonder, identification, etc. etc. etc. Happy Gardening!

And now for my latest sewing project...

I splurged and bought fabric from one of my favorite sewing bloggers, Sew Over It. It is a dusty pink with grey polka dots. It's a heavy cotton weight, perfect for this skirt:

 I chose a skirt pattern from New Look (#6326). It was easy to follow the directions. Skirt D looked like it would compliment the fabric best. It only took a few hours to put together.

And here it is again. I just love my garden!

Blessings!

Teen Tee Parties

When my girls were little, they loved tea parties. They would dress up, and then using a real, lovely tea set that I purchased from an antique shop, they would pour the tea and sip and chat about all sorts of things. They loved it and would do this for hours.

Then when my girls turned into teenagers we would do "Tee" parties. I had taught them all to sew but our interest in refashioning blossomed at our Tee Parties. We would gather big old T-shirts and cut them, sew them, tie them, etc. until they turned into something fun and new. We got our inspiration from the book, Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt by Megan Nicolay. (Warning: this book has, what I think, to be a few very immodest recreations of T-shirts, so preview it first.) Of course there would be refreshing iced tea to sip while we worked!

T-shirt refashioning is so much fun. Jersey fabric doesn't frey so it's easy to work with. You don't even need to sew, if you don't want to. Many times I preferred the finished look of a sewn hem but my daughters liked the just-cut look. We made sleeveless summer tops, skirts, pillow cases, quilts, and tees with braids on the sides or fringe on the bottom. The sky is the limit!

The best part of our Tee Parties was the fun we had being together around the kitchen table sewing to our hearts content. We talked and laughed. Ahh... memories.

But then we were privileged to teach our techniques to other teens. My girls gained teaching skills by hosting parties for their friends. And now I'm doing the same thing with some girls in my class who expressed interest in my refashioning. The fun doesn't stop!

And since it's so much fun, I am having my own personal Tee Party with a shirt I got from World Vision after sponsoring our youth group's 30 hour famine. It was a large, so I cut a few inches off the bottom and sleeves. Also I cut off the collar rim.

 Next, I snipped itty bitty slits around the neck so I could weave a strip of contrasting jersey.

 Strips from an old T-shirt make great ties by stretching them. 

 Then I weaved the tie in and out of the slits, all around the neckline.

 It's going to be about 90 degrees tomorrow. I'm glad I have a cool T-shirt!!

Blessings!

The Temper Tantrum

When your child has an all-out temper tantrum it can be maddening, frustrating, hilarious, troubling, perplexing, time-consuming, etc., etc., etc. A new parent approached me a few weeks ago to ask how best to manage their 1-year old's tantrums. Children can be VERY young , less than a year old even, when they begin expressing themselves with all-out screaming fits.

I think there are two main things a parent should do right away. First, always make sure there is nothing hurting the child. You would hate to ignore a screaming child when she has a pin stuck in her behind or something, right? But when you know she has a clean diaper, her belly is full, and nothing terrible happened, then you move to the second thing you should do.

Always reassure your child that you love him. Give him a hug and a kiss, and verbalize your love. Even when you know your child is reacting to an adult's, "No, you can't have that", you affirm your love. You are reinforcing that your love is unconditional and that no matter how upset she is or how crazy out of control he is, you love him.

Now comes the tricky part that really depends on the situation. Often temper tantrums come when a child is tired. That's easy to remedy - just put him to bed! And often young ones just need to blow off steam. Pop her gently in her crib or a playpen to scream it off for a little while. Put on some quiet music, gently reassure her you are right there and you love her very much. Most of the time children settle themselves and go to sleep.

Sometimes temper tantrums come when he wants something that he can't have. Please remember that you are the adult. Your "no" should mean "no". Don't give in. If he screams and cries and stomps his feet and you give him what he wants anyway he will learn really quickly how to get whatever his heart desires. Another no-no is to make deals. By making deals with your little ones you are teaching them they can still get their way. Again, your no should mean no. But be consistent with your rules. It confuses a child to be allowed to have something one day and not the next.

Effective techniques include sitting behind your child and wrapping your arms around his body in a gentle hug, helping him to calm himself. Another one is to place the child in a safe place, a crib or a playpen, but just as soon as you hear the child quieting down, reward him by allowing him to get up. Once the child is old enough to reason with, you should ask the child if he thought about anything. Guide him into recognizing that while you love him very much, you do not like the screaming and he is never allowed to throw his toys. It is disrespectful. "What is a better way? Yes, use your words."

I hope that helps!  And now for a refashion...

Here is a very pretty dress that I wore many times. But it was just a little tight in the hips on me and sure enough when I bent over it ripped. No worries, I just patched it back up. But then it happened again. Alright, now I just need to admit that it doesn't fit me. What to do?

Refashion into a top, of course:

 I just shortened the sleeves, and cut right below the back zipper. I hemmed it up and in about one hour it was ready for me to wear.

I am wearing one of my steampunk necklaces I created out of keys, buttons, and watches.

And the back...

Blessings!

                                                     

Between the Lines and Regailing

Katie from Katherine's Corner put the call out to bloggers over age 50 to participate in her Between the Lines series. I accepted the invitation because I'm... well 54. I'm relatively new to the blogging world, having just started nine months ago. My daughters learned to blog way before I did but I figured you're never too old to learn something new! Quite honestly it has helped the Empty Nest Syndrome which has hit me pretty hard.

I have four amazing children and I homeschooled them all the way through. So for twenty five years I had the time of my life learning with my kids, traveling, going to museums, putting on plays, doing lab experiments and science fairs, dissecting cow's eyeballs, you name it!  And then one by one they each spread their wings and flew off like I knew they would, just like I trained them, but wow... it sure is quiet around here.

 I realized that I did a pretty good job (can't take all the credit as it was God's grace in my life and lots of wisdom, love, and help from my beloved hubby). I have a strong passion to pass on some of that experience to young parents.... so why not try my hand at blogging? To fill up the empty hours in my days I returned to the classroom and began to teach seventh and eighth graders Math and English. Our small private school decided to spend this year focusing on the habitat and wildlife in our backyard which happens to be an amazing wetland. I thought it would be a terrific motivating study to have my students regularly blog about their observations of the wetland. But yikes! I'd have to get serious about learning to blog first! And so regailing was born.

My hobby is sewing and creating things out of old stuff. So I thought I'd regale about that too. I really enjoy reading other people's blogs, particularly ones about refashioning and sewing. I enjoy trying out their new techniques. I've enjoyed viewing the blogs Katie features in her Thursday Favorite Things Blog Party.

Here are a couple of my refashions. I just take old clothes from my closet and turn them into something more updated!

Here's another Before and After for you. I started with a man's shirt from the thrift store and made a short jacket that's just right for a day that's on the cool side.

             

I also like to regale about my my jewelry.

                       

                                           
Here is a necklace I made using keys, buttons, and mechanical doo dads - they call it steampunk. Fun! I hope you enjoy my blog.  Be sure to stop by and see the other 9 featured bloggers over 50! Blessings!