Happy Halloween from a little Lightening McQueen

Happy Halloween everybody!  

Hope you have a wonderful and magical day!  

As promised, here are some photos of Chuck in his Lightening McQueen costume at a church party.
(And if you want to see my matching Mack costume, click here.)

(Did you see shoes?  Click here to see how I painted his Lightening McQueen Shoes.)

And here are a couple of photos showing how I made it. 

Painting Lightening McQueen Shoes

Here's a fun fact- In the past couple of months, I've watched the movie Cars probably twenty or so times.  By now, I know all the characters' names and I could probably recite 50 to 75 % of the movies' lines from memory.

Why this sudden and intense interest in cartoon vehicles?  Well, it's Chuck.  We're a Cars household because he just loves the movie.  If you ever visit our home, you'll probably find him either (1) racing around on his bike, pretending to be Lightening McQueen, or (2) playing with his toy cars.

This Halloween, Chuck's going to dress up as Lightening McQueen.  I thought it would be fun to try painting him some shoes to go along with his costume.  It was my first time painting shoes. Here's how they came out: 

At first I wanted to get white or red canvas shoes, but they only had black ones at Walmart. Overall I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.  They're super cute.  But, I'm not sure how long (or how well) the paint will last.... so the jury's still up about that.   I'll probably update this post in a couple of weeks to include some notes about wear and tear.... but for now here are some photos of my process in case you wanted to see what I did.

Materials:

• Canvas shoes
• Chalk
• Acrylic paint
• Thin paint brushes
• Pencils
• Paper
• Q-tip
• Paper towels
• Jar with water
• Tray to hold paint

1.  First I placed a piece of paper on top of my shoe and traced the top of the shoe to see how big to draw my images.  Then, I drew and cut out my Lightening Mcqueen.

2.  I briefly lamented not having white canvas shoes because I wasn't sure how to transfer my image to the shoes. (Seasoned crafters out there- do you know of a good way to do this?)  I ended up just tracing my image onto my shoe with sidewalk chalk (way too big, I know... but this was the smallest chalk I had) and sketching out the details.  (There's gotta be a better way, right?)

3.  I pulled out my paint and started painting my images.  After I filled in all the colors (see right shoe), I outlined my images using a pencil dipped into my black paint.  The black outline made my images much sharper and nicer to look at (see left shoe.)  Then, I just cleaned off my chalk marks with a wet q-tip.

And that's all!  Ka-chow!

Chuck's really enjoyed wearing these bad boys around town and I'm just glad that I got to craft something useful and cute.   

How are you getting ready for Halloween?  Happy crafting! 

What's up, Chuck?

Yay!  It's finally Friday.  I've been counting down the days to the weekend since Monday.  Hooray! We made it. 

*Collapses*

The week really crawled by and honestly, by Wednesday I was ready to throw in the towel. (Do you ever feel like this too?  Too bad we can't just build ourselves a time machine and fast forward to Fridays and cool holidays.)  Thank God we made it.  Now it's finally Friday we're going to visit hubby in Pennsylvania.  I'm really looking forward to seeing him and hanging out together as a family.  Cross your fingers that the weather stays sunny for us, ok? 

Hopefully this weekend will be as nice as the last.  We had lots of adventures with family and friends.  Hubby came back from work, we celebrated a cousin's birthday, and I met up with my college roommates in the city.   Here are some photos from our adventures: 

Here's Chuck hanging out with Auntie Grace at the birthday party.  (This kid loves balls, gluten free pizza, rice kripsy treats, and balloon animals.  Luckily for him, the party included all of the above, so we had a blast!)

Me, my sister, and my cousin

I loved seeing this little cutie utterly enchanted by a puffy yellow yarn ball. 

It was so nice just hanging out with old college friends that I didn't remember to whip out my camera.  All I have to remember our time spent together are these sparkly nails.  One of the gals brought some cool nail stickers for us to try out.  It felt like we were back in college, laying on someone's bed, chatting and laughing.  (Can you see Chuck's hand in the background?  He wanted some sparkly nails too.)

This last photo is kind of unrelated but I wanted to include it anyway.  Nana gave Chuck a whole bunch of car socks.  He loves wearing them, but kept slipping and sliding on our wood floors.   I added some black puff paint to the bottom of his socks and now he's got some traction.  No more slipping!  (Thanks Pinterest!)

That's it!  I hope you have a wonderfully relaxing and refreshing weekend friends.  See you next week!

Guest Post: DIY Sugar Skull Shoes

Earlier this week I shared that Allison from Dream A Little Bigger and I were doing post swaps.  On Monday I visited her blog and showed how I made these cute and colorful perler bead bracelets.  Surprise!  Today Allison's over here, presenting this super cool sugar skull shoe tutorial.  With Halloween and Dia de los Muertos coming up, this craft is a great one to do.   It'll certainly get you into the spooky spirit!




 Hello! My name is Allison and I'm a crafty cat lady that blogs over at Dream a Little Bigger. Crafting and creating is what I love to do and I'm so happy that I'm able to share that with all the sweet readers at Pink Stripey Socks! I'm a huge fan of Leslie and I'm so excited to be guesting here today! I've kind of sort of got this huge thing for shoes. Not fancy or designer shoes or anything but shoes I've made up and crafted on. It's a pretty big deal and so far I've made almost 60 DIY shoe tutorials. Don't believe me? Check this gallery 
out.

DIY Fake Sleeve Tattoo

So... what are your thoughts on tattoos?

I don't have any, but I really love them.  They're beautiful to look at and often times come with a touching or inspiring story.  Every year or so, I toy around with the idea of getting one.  But I never do because they're so permanent.  Even though I love the ways hearts and sparrow tattoos look today.... I'm not sure how I'll feel 10, 20, or 30 years from now.  (Although... sometimes I like to imagine myself as a crazy old grandma, rocking some really gnarly skull tattoos.)

With Halloween just around the corner, I lived out my tattoo fantasies with this DIY sleeve tattoo.

Interested in seeing how I made one?  Well, in the interest of full disclosure:

• This craft took much longer to complete than I initially thought.  It was really, really tough to color on hosiery.  So, if you aren't digging that... you can just buy yourself a sleeve from the store.  Or, you could just draw and color in one tattoo.  I love the way sleeve tattoos look, so I went in whole hog. 
• I found this sleeve tattoo tutorial from Urban Threads to be really helpful.

 
Materials:

• Cereal box
• Tattoos doodled with Sharpie on paper 
• Tape (Normal kind and packing tape)
• Scissors
• Old nude hosiery
• Fabric markers

Directions:

1.  Take a cereal box and roll it into a cylinder that's approximately the same size as your arm.  Tape the cylinder closed.

2.  Cut out your various doodled tattoos.  Tape them down onto your cardboard cylinder.

3.  Cut off one of the legs from your hosiery.  Cut off the toe portion.  Roll it over your cylinder.  (If you find that it's getting cut on some of your sharp cardboard edges, round them off so the hosiery slides on easily.)

4.  Color and outline your tattoos.
Notes:

• This was pretty tough to do.  If you color normally, your marker tip drags along the surface.  I found that dabbing worked best. 
• I first used lighter colors and then moved to darker ones (to prevent blurring and smearing). 
• I also looked at tattoos online for color inspiration. 

5.  Let your images dry according to directions.  (I waited overnight.)

Once your fabric paint dried, roll your sleeve right off.   Tada!

And that's it!  Slide the sleeve over your arm and you've got your very own DIY fake sleeve tattoo. 

Here's what a "tattoo" looks like up close:

Happy "tattooing!"  

Jimmy Choo inspired glitter sunglasses

Sometimes I find myself staring at really expensive things... and then wondering if I could somehow get the same look for less.  For example, I saw these pairs of Jimmy Choo sunglasses and loved their fun, glittery vibe. 

But then I saw their price tags and almost had a heart attack.  Oy vey!  A couple hundred for a pair of sunglasses?

Too rich for my blood.

With a little bit of elbow grease, glittery nail polish, and painters tape, I turned a pair of free job fair sunglasses (hooray for job fair freebies!) into this...

Not bad, right?  Ideally I should have used a pair of all black sunglasses, but I had these on hand and made them work. 

I covered the lenses in painters tape to protect them.  Then, I went to town painting the frames with some leftover glittery nail polish.  Once the nail polish dried, I removed the tape and voila!  Glittery Jimmy Choo-esque sunglasses.

Here's what my sunglasses looked like before:

 

And once again, here's what they look like bling-a-fied:

So.... whaddya think?  Would you glitter-afy your sunglasses?

Spiked and Braided T-shirt Bracelet

I can't believe that September is just a week away.  Eeek!  Is it just me, or does every store sign seem to scream "Back to School?"

Growing up, I loved this time of the year for two reasons.  1)  I loved school. (Yeah, nerds!) and  2)  I loved back to school shopping.  New blank notebooks?  Swoon.   New clothes and shoes?  Double swoon. (Was anyone else like this as a kid?)

But, buying a ton of new items gets costly quite quickly. 

Fueled by my thrifty nature, I made these spiked and braided t-shirt bracelets.  They came out pretty cute. I like to imagine some creative, quirky gal wearing them to the first day of school. 

The colors are quite girly, but the spikes show that you've got some spunk!

Materials:

• Multicolored T-shirt
• Fabric scissors
• Spikes with screwbacks
• Pen (Optional)
• Needle and thread
• Tacky Glue

DIY Scalloped Jean shorts

DIY Scalloped Jean Shorts

It's Memorial Day Weekend.  How are you going to celebrate?  We're going to eat burgers, attend a wedding, and nap.... a lot.  (<--If Chuck lets us... that is...)  Inspired by all the lovely lazing about that I hope to be doing next week, I made myself a pair of comfy scalloped jean shorts from a pair of old jeans:

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Use fabric paint and painters tape to paint a purse

This month is going to be a busy one for us.  Hubby's relatives are arriving next weekend and staying with us for a couple of weeks.  I'm also going to Massachusetts to attend the long-awaited, two day wedding celebration of an old college friend.

I'm super excited for both big events, but time is just passing by way too quickly.  Right now we're busy preparing our apartment and I'm still on the search for wedding appropriate clothes.  (Sadly my old dresses just don't fit.  After having the baby, my body is a whole new shape.  Moms out there... is that normal?)

Even though I have yet to find two dresses, I may not have to worry about finding a purse.  Awhile back, I acquired a lovely, gently used purse.   I really like its gold chain (not shown) and woven outer design.  Since I enjoy painting things, I thought I would paint a bunch of white stripes on it to make it a little more summery and fun.

Front:  Ooh.  I see some stripes.

Back:  Wham!  Stripey.

I'm sure you can guess how I made it.  But in case you want the details, here's what I did:

I taped stripes onto the front and back using painters tape.  I also taped the edges to protect them from paint.  Then, using a sponge brush, I covered the area with fabric paint.  After my paint dried, I gently peeled off the tape to reveal the striped design.

Overall, I like how the purse turned out.  The white lines really pop and the design is (mostly) clean and graphic.  However, I was sad that the tape slightly damaged the trim.  Boo!  If I were going to try this technique out on another purse, I would make sure to test my painters tape on a small area first.

Boo scratches!

DIY Studded leather gloves

Guess what I made while Chuck took a nap yesterday?

A pair of studded black leather gloves for a tough chica friend

Although Spring is right at our doorstep, I had been meaning to make these leather gloves for quite awhile.  Last winter, one of my college friends came into town and we did a little window shopping.  She found a pair of black leather gloves at Urban Outfitters and debated whether or not to get them.  In the end, she left them behind.

I kept thinking about her studded gloves for the next couple of months.  When the weather got warmer, tons of stores had winter sales to clear out their merchandise.  Once I saw this pair of black leather gloves on sale, I snatched them right up.

Here are the materials that I used:  
- Black leather gloves
- Sharp pair of fabric scissors
- Chalk
- Golden cone spikes

The spikes contained two parts:  The sharp spiky cone and the screw 

Directions:
1.  Use chalk to mark where the spikes will go.

2.  Use the pointy part of your fabric scissors to pierce the top of your gloves.  (Make sure not to pierce through the bottom as well!)  Poke your screwback through the leather and screw the cone on.

 And that's basically all you need to do to make a pair of tough girl gloves.  The spikes are surprisingly easy to screw on and the screwbacks didn't bother my hand one bit.

What do you think?  Rock star fashion statement?  Or, tough chic weapon? 

I heart peeps (freezer paper stencil)

Ok, ok, you got me.  I have a thing for freezer paper stenciling... but it's just so easy to make cute, customizable shirts for the holidays.

Take this "I heart peeps" shirt, for example:

I just used the same freezer paper technique that I used for St. Patrick's day and my "left" and "right" pants.  The results are always so clean and neat.  Here are some photos of the process:

Hooray! Now Chuck has something to wear for Easter.

Hrmm... and since we're talking about peeps, now I've got a hankering for a large pink rice krispy peep treat... yumm...

Freezer paper stencil "left" and "right" pants

Nowadays when things get stressful, I get a craftin'.  Last night I freezer paper stenciled a pair of Chuck's pants.

Who knew?  Apparently I have a thing for typography on clothes.

First I stamped "hello" on a pair of pants, then I stenciled a "lucky charm" shirt, and now... well... it just felt like a good time to make some "left" and "right" pants.

Hmm... whose left and whose right? . 

They were pretty easy to make because I used the same freezer paper stencil technique from before.  Here are some photos of the process:

Hrmm... what should I make next?

"Hello" stamped pants

Since I've been making tons and tons of stamps, I thought I'd take a short break from card stamping and decorate a pair of pants for Chuck.

They were really easy to make, but I'm just going to include the tutorial down below in case anyone feels the urge to stamp "hello" on a bunch of clothing.

Materials:
- pants
- fabric paint
- pencil
- paper
- scissors
- craft knife
- glue
- cardboard
- paint brush
- craft foam

Directions:

1.  Create your stamp.  I just wrote out the word "hello" on a piece of paper in a font that I liked.  Then, I cut out my word, traced it onto a piece of foam, and used my craft knife to cut it out  Then, I glued the word backwards (mirror-image!) onto a piece of cardboard.  Then, I just trimmed my cardboard. After letting the glue dry overnight, I had a lovely "hello" stamp.

2. I followed directions on the fabric paint bottle to properly prepare my pants for painting.  (Ooh!  Alliteration.)

3.  I slipped in a piece of cardboard into my pants leg to make sure that my fabric paint didn't go through to the other side.  Then, I painted fabric paint onto my stamp, and pressed down onto my pants.

4.  Hmm. The initial results weren't quite as bright and vibrant as I had hoped.  So, I took out my paintbrush and carefully painted over my word.

5.  Then, I just followed the directions on the bottle and laid the pants flat to dry.

We've already worn the pants once and put them through the wash.  The paint stayed put  and still looks good.  Phew!  Now Chuck has some happy and friendly pants to wear around town.  Easie-peasie.   I'd like to decorate some other clothes.... once I emerge from my card-making dungeon.  (Ack! Is anyone even going to buy my cards?  Freak out time!)

Bleach Pen Decorated Scarf

Hi everyone!

Happy Monday.

I'm semi-stressed about the upcoming craft show (ahhh! It's this Saturday!), so I won't be able to post lots of crafts this week.  However, I'll try my best to upload something every day ... (even if it's just a photo of the stamps that I'm working on) so that you'll get a glimpse into my harried card-making world.

Anyway, here's a fun craft that I made last week.  I finally took the plunge and tried my hand at using bleach to decorate a recycled t-shirt scarf.

Ooh.  Looks nice, right?  (And btw- can you see that pimple?  Well, it ain't the only one.  Curses, acne!)

Materials:
- Scissors (I used fabric shears)
- Old t-shirt (<--crap!)
- Cereal box (<--crap!)
- Bleach Pen
- Rubber gloves
- Pen

Directions:

Step 1:  Cut an old t-shirt horizontally under the armpits.  (This medium black shirt shrunk in the wash, so it was perfect.)  Now you should have a fabric loop.  Stretch your loop so that it's longer.  Save your unused material.

Step 2:  Doodle some possible designs.  (I debated between two designs, but ultimately chose to doodle flowers because it seemed easier and more fun to draw.)

Step 3:  Place a piece of cardboard between the top and bottom layers of your fabric loop.

Step 4:  Shake your bleach pen very well.  Then, draw on the topside of your t-shirt loop.

Note:
- You must shake the bleach pen.  Otherwise blobs of oozy bleach water will leak out of the pen.
- Even after shaking, I still found the bleach "ink" to be pretty runny.  It had the consistency of watery Elmer's glue.
- Bleach fumes are strong.  Don't work in a tiny, stuffy room.
- Be careful and don't touch the bleach.  (Yeah- I learned that one the hard way.)



Step 5:  Once you've completed one side, let your bleached fabric sit there for as long as you want.  When you get the fading that you like, put on your rubber gloves and rinse the bleach out.

Note:
- I was impatient.  Once I noticed the bleach changing the black cloth, I ran to the sink to rinse it out.  So, my flowers probably don't look as vibrant as they could.
- Rinse your cloth well.  If you don't, the scarf will slightly burn your neck when you wear it.  (Again, another lesson that I learned the hard way.)

Step 6:  Let your cloth dry.  Then, repeat Steps 3-5 with the non-decorated side.

Step 7:  Once both sides of your fabric loop have been decorated, rinsed out, and dried, cut your loop into two thinner loops.*

Step 8:  Now you're going to attach the two loops together to create the illusion of a very long infinity scarf wrapped around your neck.  (Sorry I don't have a photo of this process.)  First, you'll have to make one loop shorter than the other.  To do this, I cut apart one of my loops (making it a long strand.)  Then, I placed this strand on top of the other fabric loop, curving it to make it a shorter loop.  (Does this even make sense?  Is anyone still reading at this point?)  I tied a long thin strip of t-shirt material (taken from the discarded scraps) around the strand and the loop to attach them together.  Finally, I trimmed off any excess fabric bits so that I had a nice clean knot.

And that's how I made this scarf.

(*Psst- Want a thicker, fuller-looking scarf than mine?  Hubby and I think this scarf would have been cuter if I used two shirts.  Then I could have decorated two very thick loops and tied them together.  That was initially my plan, but my bleach pen died after drawing one loop.  So if you want to try that out, you'll need 2 bleach pens.)

Let me know if you try this craft out!   I'd love to see your results.

Hubby alters another dress

Last weekend hubby pulled out the trusty sewing machine to alter a thrifted dress.

It went from looking like a long hippy-ish nightgown 

to looking like short nightgown 

to looking like a dress that I could actually wear out

Three cheers for hubby's sewing skills!

He wore it!

Even though the weather was warmer today, sweet hubby still wore a blazer (and my felt flower lapel pin) to work.

Shnazzy!

DIY Felt Flower Lapel Pin / Boutonniere

It's official!  Fall is now upon us.

With cooler temperatures rolling in, Hubby, Baby Chuck, and I are changing up our wardrobes.  We're putting on long sleeve shirts and pants, no longer shaving our legs (oh wait, that's just me- tmi?), putting on shoes instead of sandals (goodbye sandal tan), and wearing jackets.

Hubby been looking forward to fall ever since we've moved back east because he loves wearing jackets to work.  As a serious lover of all things stylish, he's also hinted that he'd love some small flowers to adorn his lapel (as seen here.)  I peeked around the internet for inspiration and then set out to make him some felt flower lapel pins.      

Here are the materials I used:
- freezer paper
- good scissors
- pencil
- felt in an assortment of colors  (*See note below) 
- iron
- hot glue gun
- bobby pin(s)
- needle and thread

*Note:  I bought cheap polyester felt from the craft store.  (30 cents a piece?  You just can't beat that price.) You would definitely get a more polished look if you purchased nicer wool felt.  We initially created these pins as mockups, thinking that we'd create real ones with wool felt later on.  But, the pins came out so nice that we just decided to use them.  How long will the pins last?  Will they quickly look ratty?  I'm not sure.  Let's see what happens once hubby starts wearing them to work.

Step 1:  I created a flower pattern that was kind of Van Cleef & Arpels meets Orla Kiely.  I traced that pattern onto freezer paper and ironed it (waxy side down) to adhere the paper to my felt.  This process make it easier to cleanly cut my tiny felt shapes out.  (Special thanks to Make It Cozee for the tip!)

Step 2:  I cut out my flower shapes, circle shapes (flower centers), and square shapes (flower backs).

Step 3:  I used a hot glue gun  (it was my first time using one!!!) to glue the squares onto the flowers.  I did this so that my flowers pins would feel a bit more substantial, since I used cheapy felt.  Plus, I didn't want my stitches (step 4) to be visible. 

Step 4:  After the glue dried, I sewed a bobby pin to each square, making sure to not sew through the front of the flower.

Step 5:  I hot glued a circle to each flower to complete my little garden of felt flower lapel pins.

Here's how the pin looks on hubby's jacket.  I just slipped the bobby pin through the lapel buttonhole.  (Note:  I had to cut the hole first because it was sewn shut.)

I think the pins came out super cute and add just the right touch of whimsy.  They'll definitely spruce up hubby's work outfit.  Hmm, but why stop at just work outfits?  I bet these little guys would also look really cute as wedding boutonnieres too... don't you think?