Phone Charger + Washi Tape DIY

Who wants a cute 10 minute (or less!) project? Yes? YOU DO? OKAY.

If you guys are anything like us guys, you have a handful of technological things laying about your house...phones, cameras, laptops, Kindles, etc. And you guys probably know what comes with technological things...chargers. The amount of chargers we have accrued over the past few years is rather ridiculous, and the Fabulous Mr S and I are always trying to sort through the wad of cords and cables and prongs to figure out which one belongs to which device...and I usually end up accidentally unplugging something important in the meantime. SO. If that sounds like you...

Ingredients

- Your phone charger...{or laptop or kindle or camera}

- Decorative Washi tape 

{Most craft stores have this...look in scrapbooking! Joann's had a bunch of rolls for 2/$.97}

- Scissors

1) Take your tape...

2) ...and your charger {Camera charger (minus the cable)}...

3) ...and your other charger {phone}...

4) ...and simply cover whichever parts of your charger you deem necessary! You can do stripes or do a solid cover on the top...whatever you fancy!

Camera chahghah after! I just cut equal strips of tape to fit the top :)

Phone charger after! I used the flowered print for the top and the blue and white pattern in a strip around the sides. I also added a piece to the part that plugs into my phone!

See? Easy peasy lemon squeezy! I think I am going back to the store today to get another pattern or two for my various other plugins! 

Total cost: $0.97

You can do it!

**UPDATE: I went back to the store and got more tape! Yay!

{My Thrifted Closet + Transformed Threads} :: $1 Valentine's Day Dress

Hey fabulous people! After some thought to where I wanted this blog to go, I've decided to started a series called 'My Thrifted Closet.' A lot of people probably think thrift store clothing = your grandma's clothes...which is understandable, 'cause, a lot of it IS your grandma's clothes (say noooo to high waisted gramma panties!). 

BUT. 

You CAN shop at the thrift store and look cute! 

wat. no u cant.

Yes! You absolutely can! And the plus side? You pay SO many less dollars! I dunno about you guys, but I have a hard time bringing myself to pay $45 for a shirt. Or $100 for a pair of pants. INSANITY I SAY. A good 85% of my wardrobe is from thrift stores, and yes, I wear it out in public ;) 

Which brings us to today's installment...my everso dire need for a Valentine's Day dress!

I picked up this largeish, rayon-y, and exceptionally shoulder-padded-y dress....thing...at my local GoodWill for $1. 

DREAMY. Very Mrs. Claus.

I picked it up because it had so much going for it (believe it or not);
1. It was red. Valentine's Day...red...BUENO!
2. There were no STAINS. Stains....NO BUENO!
3. I loved the lace at the hem...you can't tell but there are also these darling little pearls sewn all into it as well.

4. It was several sizes bigger than me.
{{When re-doing clothing, its always a good idea to start with a garment a few sizes bigger than you are because it gives you a bit (or a lot) more wiggle room and extra fabric to work with. Like in case you mess up. Not that I'd know. That neeevveerrrererer happens. O.O}}

I didn't end up taking many any in progress shots with this one (which I will do in the future!) because I was mildly crunched for time. Read: I started this 4 hours before we left for dinner.

Sooooo here are the afters! I was really jazzed at how it turned out!

A quick breakdown:
Chop off the sleeves
Chop off 3/4 of the skirt

Unpick the side seams and darts

Try on and take off dress like 4,506,203 times

Spend 30 minutes looking for your box of pins

Don't find pins

Take in the seams and darts

Adjust the height and width of arm holes

I randomly decided I liked the buttons down the back better...I love button backed things! I think it gives the back a nice little surprise. Or somethinseomthin.

Its terribly floofy and swingy! I kinda swayed my hips a bunch as the Fabulous Mr S and I were out and about :)

OH. And those weren't my cute sassy shoes. Cute sassy shoes rubbed cute sassy blisters and I traded them for my flippy floppies.

Yay! I loved wearing it! I will definitely wear it again...sometime in the future after the baby gets here, most likely. I am starting to enter the 'My clothes don't fit right around the ever expanding abdomen' phase, and it gave me a little bit of trouble with my normal sizing routine. BUT. I was super pleased and Mr S winked at me several times so that's perfect in my book :P

I hope you all had a lovely love-filled Valentine's Day!

DIY Magnetic Poetry

I have an unnatural fondness for small, random things. And refrigerator magnets. And words. So when I came across the Magnetic Poetry Kit in a little downtown gift shop I reallyreallyreallyREALLY thought I needed it. NEEDED IT. They had one of the kits on display on a metal board and I stood in the store for a good 30 minutes shuffling the words around.

 

However, $15 seemed kinda steep to pay for a bunch of word magnets, and they didn't look that hard to make. So LET US MAKE OUR OWN.

DIY Word Magnets

:: Adhesive Magnetic Sheets 

{These are large flat magnets that have a peel-y sticky side. I got mine at Walmart}

 

:: Microsoft Word or other computer word processor program

:: Printer

:: Magazines

:: X-Acto knife

:: Scissors

ONWARD.

STEP UNO : Your first task shalt be to open your word processor on your computer; Microsoft Word, Notepad, so forth. 

STEP SECOND : FUN TIME PART! Type random words! Seriously. Just go crazy and type whatever words come to mind. If you need some help with words, check out this website that generates random words, or this blog post that has several great examples of some standard words. I just started by typing random sentences. Note the 'Taco Bell'. Taco Bell plays a very important role in my life. WatcanIsay.

STEP TREE : Print out your words using your handy dandy printer.

OR DON'T BECAUSE YOUR PRINTER IS MALFUNCTIONAL.

SO since my printer pooped out on me, I decided to go the magazine route instead. Whichever you decide, the remaining steps are the same. 

STEP SECOND (again) : Grab yourself a magazine or four!

and your X-acto knife!

STEP THREE (again) : Go through your magazines and cut out words that strike your fancy! ALL THE WORDS. Anything. The more random the better. Don't forget to cut out the basic filler words also, like 'it' and 'the' and 'is' and 'shrubbery'.

STEP FOURTH : Take your magnetic sheet and gently peel the paper backing off of a small portion. I like to peel the paper as I go so I don't get lots of dusty dirty particles thingies on the remaining sticky part.

STEP FIVE : Take your cut out words and place them face up on the sticky part of your magnet. If you printed off your words from the computer, cut the excess edges off of your piece of paper and place it on the sticky side of your magnet.

 

STEP SICKS : Cut out your words, trimming the excess magnet pieces down.

STEP SEVEN : After you have trimmed up your words, you're done! Slap them proudly on your refridgerator or throw them into an old Altoid tin and give them as a present to that handsome someone in your life :)

This is a great project for a rainy day, and the awesome thing is, you can add to your word collection whenever you want to!

AWESOMESAUSAGE.

Steam Mop Pads from Towels (Quick and Easy Tutorial)

Hi everybody! I bet you're wondering where in doodleflop I've been for the past 8 months. And that is an rather droll story that involves lots of doctors and hospitals; very tedious, super boring. BUT. I have returned and bring you this super simple tutorial for making your own steam mop pads...yay!

The majority of our house is floored with tile, so my wonderful husband picked me up the Swiffer/Bissell Steam Boost a few weeks ago. {You can find it here}

I just now got around to using it and I must say I was very pleased with it. I also really liked the pads it came with...they smelled nice and cleaned well. However, the replacements are about $9 for 20, and over time it adds up. SO I decided to make my own washable ones! Its really easy, even for a beginning seamstress! And what was awesome, I already had everything I needed on hand...and you probably do to!

Steam Mop Pads from Towels :: Tutorial

You shall need...

:: A regular old wash cloth 

{You probably have an old one laying around somewhere OR you can swing by your local thrift store and pick some up for super cheap. ALSO. If your steam mop is on the bigger side, you might want to use a hand towel instead of a wash cloth}

:: Velcro

{I used the thinner size shown on the right. It might be 1/2 inch? I would shoot for no smaller than 1/2 inch just to make sure it stays all nice and fastened and the like}

 ALSO:

:: A sewing machine

:: Thread

:: Scissors

:: Pins

ONWARD!

STEP UNO : Lay out your wash cloth on the ground, and center your steam mop on it so the extra towel fabric is distributed evenly on both sides. Depending on which steam mop you have, you might have to use a hand towel instead.

STEP THE SECOND : Fold your towel over so it is giving your mop and nice warm towel hug.

CUDDLY!

STEP THREE : {I completely didn't take a picture of the interactive part of this step you guys...I'm so sorry! I blame the pregnancy hormones!} So I kinda just eye balled this part, but, you are going to want to mark with pins where your velcro is going to go. HOW VAGUE IS THAT? Does this picture help at all??

You guys see what's happening here? You want to put one piece of velcro in each corner basically, so when it folds around your mop, it can fasten. I left one side of the velcro intentionally long so I can adjust and stuff and things.

Here is one side...with the small pieces of the scratchy velcro...

And here is the other side with the long pieces of soft velcro...

STEP FOURTH : Once you have pinned on your velcro, try it on your mop to make sure it will fit and fasten on nice and snug. Adjust accordingly.

STEP FIVE : Once you've got everything nice and where you want it...SEW THAT VELCRO ON, YO.

TIDY!

STEP THE LAST : Put that puppy on your steam mop and mop with joy knowing you are saving yourself money and things! When it gets dirty...just throw it in the wash!

I've used mine a few times and it works awesome!

OPTIONS AND THINGS.

To get a nice deep cleany clean, I'd definitely recommend using some sort of homemade floor cleaner with these. There are a ton of options lurking around Pinterest and the interwebz!
{Check some of those out here}

If you are looking for more absorbency, you can definitely add another towel layer; just sew them together first.

These can be made with microfiber cloths, which are nice and absorby also!

AWESOMESAUSAGE!

Poison Ivy Cosplay

I recently posted a progress picture of my Poison Ivy cosplay that I was working on, and I have wonderful and not so wonderful news!

The Wonderful : I finished and I LOVE IT.

The Not-So-Wonderful: The convention I was going to wear it to got canceled. Which, quite honestly, I don't blame them. The convention in question was Boston Comic Con, and most of you probably know the horrific bombing that took place earlier this week, which cause most of the city and surrounding area to be shut down.

So I have this costume, and nowhere to wear it...what's a girl to do? 

PUT IT ON AND WEAR IT ANYWAY.

 I decided to make the bodysuit in two pieces; one because I didn't want to have to wriggle out of it every time I went to the bathroom, and two because I didn't want my whole backside hanging out of some thong-like contraption. SO I opted for a not so high cut leg and a more covered tookus :)

I am going to finish my husband's costume tomorrow and show hi-...I mean it off in my next post :)