A lovely mum at Niamh’s pre-school the other day offered me some of her son’s old shoes for Rohan. She was careful to add in the disclaimer – “that is, if you don’t mind hand-me-down stuff. I know some people do…”. I had to smile – that day in particular, Niamh was wearing op-shopped pants, and Rohan was in an op-shopped top and pants I made from an old pair of my own. I most certainly do not have a problem with hand-me-down. I can’t quite believe anyone would turn down a well-kept pair of (originally quite expensive) kid’s shoes. Would they?!
Anyway. In my creative space at the moment, I’m contemplating the future of some more Op Shop* finds. A bit of refashioning is in order for a few skirts I picked up a while back. The first has already undergone the chop:
It started out looking like this:
Meh. Not really my cup of tea. But perfect for cutting up and making more doll clothes!
The other two are much kinder to the eyeballs. The brown one is a few sizes too big for Niamh – I’m not sure whether I’ll try making this one into a top or just stick with something simple and do a downsized skirt.
The pink one is going to become a light summer dress – it has shirring at the top, so I’m planning to cut it down to size and use the excess fabric for straps.
Actually, I’m not sure how any of this will happen today. Thursday is crazy with ballet-piano-swimming attendance, and later tonight I’ll be popping in to Cathy’s exhibition ๐ But possibly I’ll carve out a little bit of time in there somewhere.
See what other creative folks are up to today, over at Kirsty’s place.
*Op Shop = Thrift Store
I love the brown skirt! My mum used to modify her old cloth to fit me and I loved modeling them as she pined the skirts and dresses! What a lovely creative space!
They’re such great op shop finds. I’m amazed that more parents don’t accept hand-me-downs. It’s so expensive to clothe kids and they grow out of everything so quickly! Back in the 70’s, we only ever had hand me downs.
hand me downs for kids are great! Shoes are especially great cos they are much softer than hard new ones! Much more comfy for little feet I think!
The skirts look great!
The brown skirt with blue flowers looks great!
Hooray for hand-me-downs & for refashioning too.
I love hand me downs!! and my kids actually enjoy receiving them too. The clothes they receive from friends are in wonderful condition and I am ever so grateful. Great finds.
Wow that’s very creative piece of clothes! Especially I liked the last pink skirt with the cyan blue decorations!You gave me an idea. I should look at closet with the old clothes, I’m sure there is some nice pieces that can be well combined!
Ooooh pretty. I love our op shop finds. Although not being so handy with the sewing machine I tend to just let the girls wear clothes as is. Op shops are so wonderful.