Citymade has come to the realization that each house only needs so many of these Christmas hand towels.
Why not turn the rest of them into Christmas bibs to give little ones as gifts. Â We simply cut a whole in the middle of the towel and sewed a piece of bias tape around the raw edge. Â These bibs are great because they just slip over baby’s head, they are absorbant, and they cover most of baby’s clothes.
We had this great red satin women’s shirt in our stash of items to repurpose. Â I had always pictured it as a Christmas dress for Anna.
The time came to refashion the shirt into a dress so that she would have it for a school Christmas singing event. Â She tried it on and I pinned all of the places that needed taken in. Â I took in the shoulders, the back and the sides and surged all of the seams. Â I also noticed that it was a bit short so I added a ruffle to the bottom. Â Luckily we had some red satin fabric in our fabric stock that matched the shirt. Â Anna looks so grown up in her new Christmas dress.
Anna’s sister Lauren couldn’t help but jump in front of the camera.
What looks nicer on an evergreen tree than pine cones? Â Glittered pine cones of course.
Gather pine cones from your yard, if you are lucky enough to have an pine tree, and bring them in for a simple Christmas decoration.
Start by tying a ribbon around the top of the pine cone. Â Squeeze some glue onto the pine cone, regular school glue works fine, and sprinkle with glitter. Â We chose a white glitter to mimic snow but you could experiment with different colors and designs.
Here is a fun way to repurpose your old metal cookie cutters.
You can use glue to back the cookie cutter with decorative paper, an old Christmas card or a photo. Â Tie a ribbon around the cookie cutter for hanging.
Or leave the cookie cutter plain and simply attach a ribbon.
Here is a simple ornament idea using felted wool. Â Our wool came from an old sweater that we felted. Â A sweater can easily be felted if it is at least 70% wool. Â Simply wash the sweater in hot water and dry it in the dryer. Â Repeat until desired felting is achieved.
Once the sweater is felted cut out a mitten shape using a mitten template. Â To complete the ornament thread a ribbon through the mitten and hang on your Christmas tree.
We bought a used piano a few years ago and it came with a lot of old sheet music.
We didn’t want to just throw it in the recycling, so we decided to turn it into Christmas cards.
We traced shapes and glued them on to card stock.
We also made a musical instrument ornament (more ornaments later this week).
With our handy subscription card Rolodex, we can write out our unique cards.
We just have to make sure the Burk boys don’t try and use their actual piano music for cards. . .
Do you get annoyed by those pesky subscription cards that are put into magazines?
Well never fear. We found a way for you to actually be glad to see them and even want to save them.
The subscription card Rolodex.
Once you take the card out of the magazine, write a friend’s or relative’s contact information in the lines provided, then file it away.
Writing Christmas cards just got easier.
Here is one more idea for a repurposed stocking. Â We took a burlap coffee sack
and cut out two pieces using our stocking template. Â Burlap can be a little tricky to work with so we just topstitched this stocking and sewed a little red ribbon to add some color. Â We like the simple rustic feel of this stocking.
We often get odd things given to us with the phrase, “This is for you to repurpose.” Â Sometimes we get an idea right away and go to work. Â Other times our minds go blank and we decide to stash the item away for a later time. Â This faux velvet dashboard cover that we received in the summer was definitely in the “stash for later” category.
Now that we are focusing on Christmas the red “velvet” caught my eye. Â We decided to make another stocking out the material. Â By adding some white fleece leftover from Lauren’s halloween costume the stocking easily became a Santa stocking.
We are very thankful for everyone who has given us items and/or ideas for our repurposing challenge. Â We wouldn’t have made it this far without all of your support.
Now that we have started our countdown to Christmas our next several posts will be repurposed Christmas decorations.
We had a small amount of this green striped sweater from our re-purposed sweater week back in February. Â We decided it would make the perfect sweater socking.
Using a stocking template we cut out the stocking and sewed it together with right sides together. We took a piece of wool from the ribbing of another sweater and made the top of the stocking.  This was done by sewing the small green piece into a tube, placing it inside the stocking, sewing around the top edge and then flipping the piece onto the outside of the stocking.  Last we sewed on a  small loop of green bias tape for hanging.
It would be fun to experiment with different combinations of patterned and colored sweaters for this project.
Here is the finished product
