Sew pajama pants from vintage sheets

Sew Pajama Pants from Vintage Sheets

Sew Pajama Pants in just 15 Minutes

Pajama sets can get a bit pricey, some of them don’t have the best quality even. Why not make your own PJ pants? This is one of the easiest sewing projects out there especially if you’re a newbie. Keep on reading to find out how to make PJs!

If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you know that I love all things vintage. Lately, I’ve been especially fond of vintage sheets, afghans and, quilts. I’m always brimming with ideas for repurposing these treasures, and I even sell my finds in my small Etsy Shop

I shared an article with genius ways to repurpose vintage sheets, and I fell in love with the idea of sewing pajama pants from vintage sheets.

Vintage sheets are really easy to sew and aside from that, they’re very cheap and effortless to find. Those are the top reasons why I gravitate towards this kind of fabric every time I want to create some pajama pants. I highly advise you to try sourcing out age-old linens because they remain super soft even after several washes.

Even if you wanted to buy a cheap set of pajamas from a store, you can obviously see the quality not being at its greatest. They sometimes can get too thin, flimsy, or even worse – very itchy. Why not try using vintage sheets instead? For its affordable price, you get your money’s worth, and even more!

What could be better? The soft feel of summer sheets is paired with gorgeous vintage patterns and didn’t even break your wallet! Read on to learn how to make this.

Sew pajama pants from vintage sheets

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Countdown to Christmas with 15 DIY Advent Calendars

Advent Calendar Round-Up

Thanksgiving has passed, and it’s now  socially acceptable to begin the count down to Christmas. But let’s be honest, you’ve secretly been waiting for at least a month. One of the best ways to celebrate the most festive month of the year is with an Advent calendar. Instead of buying a generic version at the grocery store, craft your own calendar,and put it on display. I’ve pulled together a list of 15 of my favorite DIY Advent Calendars to inspire you.

Round-up of Inspiring DIY Advent Calendars | Five Marigolds

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Felt Christmas Tree Advent Calendar

Years ago I hand sewed a Christmas Tree Advent Calendar, which has become such a sweet tradition for our family. Ever since I was a young child, I absolutely loved Advent Calendars – usually the perforated paper variety in our home – to count down the days until Christmas. The anticipation was overwhelming each year.

I wanted to have that same tradition in our family – and I wanted to create something we could use year after year. I stumbled across this sweet calendar by Stitch Craft Creations. I fell madly in love with this idea and got to work, using her calendar as my guide. Felt Christmas Tree Advent Calendar | Five Marigolds

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Make a tooth pillow for the Tooth Fairy using upcycled baby clothes | www.fivemarigolds.com

Tooth Fairy Pillow Using Upcycled Baby Clothing

Looking for a  way to upcycle those baby clothes you can’t part with? When Dub lost his first loose tooth, I decided to use his baby clothes to create a tooth pillow – a tradition my parents started with me. The concept is that the tooth pillow makes it easy for the Tooth Fairy to find baby teeth and deposit money (I’ve heard she hates to loose those first baby teeth!).

To make the pillow, I combined a chambray shirt and a little plaid shirt, with snap button pockets, that Dub wore as a baby. He actually helped me dig through his baby clothes to find just the right combo.

Tooth Fairy Pillow Using Upcycled Baby Clothing | Five Marigolds

Here he is at just 3 months old sporting one of the shirts.

Tooth Fairy Pillow Using Upcycled Baby Clothing | Five Marigolds

My mom used her fancy sewing machine to embroider some letters and voila! An easy, free tooth pillow that he absolutely loves.

Do you have any Tooth Fairy traditions?

 

DIY Advent Calendar – the beginning

advent calendar

DIY Felt Advent Calendar | Five Marigolds

 

As a kid, I absolutely loved Advent Calendars.  You know, the little paper calendars with the perforated doors.  Sometimes there was a Christmas picture behind the little paper door and sometimes a bible verse.  It didn’t matter, I loved the process of opening on each day.  I wanted to create an Advent Calendar tradition with my own children, but I wanted to create a keepsake – something they would look forward to getting out each year.

So, I went to the interwebs to find something to inspire me – and the pickings were slim. This was in 2008, a pre-Pinterest era, and there just wasn’t a lot out there I loved.  Enter Stitchcraft Creations with her super cute felt calendar.  With her pretty version as my guide, I embarked on “adventures in Advent Calendars.”


Activity/quiet book

For Dub’s first Christmas years ago, I decided I wanted to start the tradition of making something homemade for my kids for each Christmas. I ambitiously took on an activity book project to kick off the tradition, knowing I could add pages to it each year.

I drew inspiration from the interwebs and used a few patterns  But mostly, I just winged it.  Ididn’t want it to look perfect, I wanted it to look inviting and fun!

  1. I did a lot of web surfing for inspiration.  I used a few patterns from one of my favorite bloggers, Homemade by Jill.
  2. From there, I narrowed down the pages and activities I wanted tobe in the book and madea list of the supplies I needed.  I was patient with this and used 40% off coupons at Michael’sand JoAnn’s for several weeks to avoid paying full price on the more expensive supplies.  Pre-planning is the most important step to any project, because having allthesupplies on hand means fewer half-finished projects laying around that were never picked back up after the inspiration left!
  3. As a working mom, I made it my goal to complete at least two pages every weekend.  This made the project much more manageable for me to take on.  Looking face-on at a full weekend of sewing probably would have killed my motivation to start!
  4. After all of the pages were complete, I paired pages two-by-two and sewed twosheetstogether back-to-back.
  5. I then punched three grommets into each set of pages, like you would if you were going to add them to a binder.
  6. Finally, I used loose leaf rings to secure them together.  I chose to do it this way so I couldrepair pages or continue to add pages as I had kids.

Materials used:

  • White felt pages from the craft store (around 25 cents each)
  • Additional felt pages in various colors
  • Scrap fabric and notions, like a zipper and ricrac,
  • Assorted buttons I had saved over the years
  • Metal snaps (these are easier for little hands to use vs. the plastic snaps)
  • Chalk Cloth fabric
  • Loose leaf rings
  • Grommets
  • Finger puppets from Ikea for the Noah’s Ark page (pictured below).  These are no longer available through Ikea but they pop up on ebay all the time!

Number Counting Duck Pond Quiet Activity book | Five Marigolds Activity Quiet Book Inspiration Rocket Outer Space | Five Marigoldsbird laces

Activity Quiet Book Inspiration Noah's Ark Finger Puppets | Five Marigolds 69998_PE185334_S3

Activity Quiet Book Inspiration | Five MarigoldsActivity Quiet Book Inspiration with Chalk Cloth | Five Marigolds

Activity Quiet Book Inspiration Art Pages | Five Marigolds road

Activity Quiet Book Barn Animals Finger Puppets | Five Marigolds Activity Quiet Book Inspiration | Five Marigolds

Activity Quiet Book Inspiration | Five MarigoldsActivity Quiet Book Barn Animals Finger Puppets | Five MarigoldsI’m happy to say that 4 years later, this book still gets used by Dub and now Eve, too.  It’s held up and only needed 1 small repair.

In retrospect, I wish I had more carefully documented the sewing process and made patterns for each page. It took me a long time pull this book together and it would have been so much easier if all the patterns had been in one place. I often wonder if I should go back and make the patterns to share for the next person. If you would like to see that in the future, please be sure to tell me in the comments below!


Perfect Pink Lemonade Birthday Party

I was so excited for Eve’s first birthday and I knew exactly what the theme would be – Pink Lemonade, for my sweet and sour little girl 🙂

Well, then there was an out of state family wedding the weekend of her birthday which meant significantly toning down the birthday plans. Which was hard for me, because I just love a good themed party. Side note: do you know what else is hard? Accidentally deleting all the photos in my camera from said party, and then racing to take just a couple to prove my baby had a party. Ugh!

So to plan the un-party, I started with the basics.  One of the things I’ve done for all of my kids is purchase just a few birthday items that we bring out every year, including a pendant banner, centerpieces with photos of them over the years, and a “My special day” seat cover.

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We also use this seat cover for all special occasions, from birthdays to the first day of school and other milestones.  It’s a tradition that has become very meaningful to us – when the kids come downstairs in the morning and see their seat cover, they know we’re celebrating them that day.

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Next, I added some cute polka-dot napkins, cups and cute paper straws from Target.  I served a basic lemonade some frozen strawberries. Yum!

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I made these adorable cupcakes.  I’d scoured the interwebs for the best pink lemonade recipe and landed on this one.  Unfortunately, they were just a bit too tart for us!  No problemo – that just left more room for the homemade ice cream we made (and Mmmm does our family love homemade ice cream!).

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So there you have it – a very simple, sweet Pink Lemonade birthday.  Check out my Pink Lemonade Pinterest board for more ideas for our next Pink Lemonade birthday. Enjoy!

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