I picked up this crazy fabric at an estate sale a few months ago and knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to make something for Anouk with it. The dress came together in a couple of hours as I listened to episodes of Radiolab. The top was originally a black long-sleeved tee that I made into a tank top and then added the skirt (I had juuuust enough yardage for minimal gathers). So simple but because of the print it feels like something special.

fabric: vintage, shirt: H&M, sandals: saltwaters (thrifted)

Happy Monday!

When I get questions from readers, they are usually on one of three subjects: venues around town, what A. is wearing, and thrifting, probably because I can't resist instagramming all of the amazing things I find on our (at least) weekly thrifting trips. The most frequent thrifting related question I get goes something like this... I'm new to thrifting and wondering: what should I thrift FOR?

Every thrift store has its own specialty. Some have great kids clothes, others have a large selection of books and media, some are more like antique stores with the style of vintage furniture they tend to carry. But there's one thing that I look out for at pretty much every thrift store I visit, and usually find lurking on the shelves in the shoe section: Converse All-Stars, in every size, style, fit, and print imaginable.






Some people get squicked out by the idea of secondhand shoes, but I really don't mind it with Chucks, because they are SO easily rehabbable. You can throw them right in the washer with a scoop of Oxyclean, let them dry for a few days in the sun and voila! they are as good as new. You can replace the inner soles, use a Magic Eraser or nail polish remover to clean the outer rubber sole, and change the laces out to make them your own.




They are pretty impossible to wear out, and every pair we've ever thrifted has been subsequently RE-thrifted or passed down to friends with kids with smaller feet.  I haven't paid retail for Chucks in about a decade and have scored some pretty awesome designs. Right now Anouk has several pairs in the next few sizes waiting to be grown into and I'm willing to bet all of them together cost less than the price of one new pair. Can't beat that!

Do you have a question about thrifting (or anything else?) You can email me at wtwgrow@gmail.com or reach me on our FB page.

I got a few comments on Anne's birthday posts here and on Instagram regarding her super-awesome glitter birthday shirt and exactly two requests to share how I did it, and you know I aim to please my readers so... here goes. Anne was afraid that without a sort of outward sign, nobody would know that she was now four instead of three, so we decided to make a shirt using the trusty freezer paper stencil method. She also asked that it be glittery, which was a bit of a challenge because if you have a girl, you will know that glittery clothing -- especially DIY glittery clothing -- does not always keep its glitter after a few washes. But Anouk was adamant. So I headed out to the thrift store to pick up a blank tee and then sat down to research paints and then got to work.



You will need:

• Metallic fabric paint (we used Tulip Metallic in Gold) 
• Glitter acrylic paint  (Martha Stewart acrylic in Gold Glitter)
• Freezer paper
• X-acto knife
• iron
• foam brush

The how to:

Place a piece of cardboard or plastic inside the shirt to prevent the paint from going through the cloth. Prepare your stencil: draw your design onto the freezer paper so that the shiny side will be down against the fabric. Use the Xacto blade to cut out the stencil as carefully as possible. With a dry iron, iron the stencil to the fabric with the shiny side against the fabric. Pay special attention to the edges so that no paint seeps underneath.




With the foam brush, apply thin layers of metallic paint to the stencil until opaque (it took about four thin layers of paint, letting them dry in between). When that has dried, apply thin layers of glitter paint over top of the metallic paint (we did two layers). As soon as the final coat is almost dry, peel the stencil off -- I find if you wait until it's dry all the way, sometimes it gets a little stuck on.

(Aside: This is a great method to use to rescue clothing with stains on it -- I have a gray tee I love that has paint on it and I stenciled a giant glitter gold heart over top to make it look new again. Hooray!)

Anouk loves her birthday shirt and wants to wear it almost every day which means that I can safely report that after about 20 or so washes, the glitter is still holding up. Hooray again!

Anouk inherited this hand-me-down blue corduroy shirt from my friend Molly's son, Z. My kid usually likes lots of glitz and glamour and pink, but I thought this shirt was innocuous enough that it might slip by without comment. No such luck. As soon as A. pulled it out of the pile of clothes: "Mom...this is for a BOY."

The pom-pom idea was something I saw on Pinterest, ages ago. They had suggested sewing the poms (onto a skirt) but I found that the act of piercing them with a needle made them fall apart. And hot glue melted them (I only have a high-temp gun). In the end, we used E6000 craft adhesive, which is usually for working with metals or woods, but it worked great and has been through 2 washes (but not in the dryer!) with no problems.

Anouk loves her quick, cheap, and easy pom-pom shirt! So much so that she was really voguing it up during our photoshoot.



^^ the tongue is her signature pose. SO FASHUN.

I've written before that one of my favorite things to find at thrift stores is fabric. For the beginner sewer (like me), it's great to find lots of fabric to practice on without breaking the bank. I found this vintage curtain panel at Thrift Store USA an age ago, and bought it for 99 cents. Even though it wasn't a lot of fabric to work with, I really couldn't bear to leave the adorable floral anemone pattern behind to languish on the rack. What if nobody else appreciated it like I did? It stayed curled up in my fabric stash until Anouk noticed it one day, and told me she wanted a dress out of it.

I decided to make it work, Tim Gunn style. I used an existing bodice pattern piece, tracing it onto freezer paper and lengthening it to a tunic length, and just managed to make it fit the cloth. I lined it with some muslin, and then tacked the existing ruffle to the bottom (the ruffle is really the best part, with the yellow contrast stitching). Over pants or shorts, it really is the sweetest thing and even if it isn't perfect, I'm glad that an adorable piece of old fabric got some new life (of course its new life was quickly threatened by a handful of rogue blueberries but I managed to get the stains out without ruining anything so hooray!) It's one of my favorite thrift store finds to date. 





Now A. is all ready to visit Rhett at the Atlanta jail and ask for the money to pay taxes on Tara! I'm sure she'll get it, how could she not looking this cute?

Have you found any thrift-store gems lately?