Upcycled Baby Hats

Fall is finally here, and the weather has been getting cooler. I love this time of year because it's cool enough to go outside without sweating buckets, but just cold enough to break out the sweaters.  The littlest minion, although he is very cute, is quite bald and his little head can get cold.

See- very bald!

I found a great pattern online for the Sweet Pea Pilot Cap that I thought was just adorable. Being both thrifty and crafty, I decided to make a few out of my older boys' outgrown t-shirts. We have just recently gone through all of their clothes and gotten rid of any outgrown or worn out clothing, so I have quite a bit to choose from. I have 5 trash bags of clothes in my basement now waiting for a trip to the thrift store! I took a few shirts that had holes or stains on them and made these:

He loves his hats, and seems so happy to have a warm head!

While I was cutting apart the shirts to make hats, I decided to use the sleeves from a long-sleeved shirt to make some pants. I didn't use a pattern for these, I just used a pair of pants we already had as a guide. Here was the result:

So far, I've made 5 hats in a couple different sizes and 2 pairs of pants. The best part? It cost me absolutely nothing to make all of them because I used stuff we already had. Yay for free baby clothes!

Keeping Baby Frugal Part 1 - Baby's Room

Now that our new little one is here, I figured I'd share some of the ways we stay frugal when it comes to having a baby. Just like many of you out there, our family isn't made of money, so I try to save whenever and wherever I can. But let's face it- babies are EXPENSIVE!!! All those toys, tiny clothes, diapers, cribs, and stuff that goes along with having a little one can cost big $$$, and it all adds up fast if you're not careful.

A lot of families save on baby gear by passing it down to younger siblings when they come along. This is a wonderful way to save on big ticket items such as cribs, clothing, and furniture! Unfortunately for us, this couldn't happen with this baby. We have moved since Thing 3 was born and had gotten rid of most of the baby stuff to make room in our crowded house. Even if we had saved some things, safety standards had changed pretty drastically in that time, so many things would have to be replaced anyway (namely the crib and car seat). We basically had to start completely from scratch with this baby, just as we did with our first. This time though, I had learned a few tips and tricks that saved us loads of $$$

Let's start off with the baby's bedroom. Here is where you can easily spend thousands of dollars buying cribs, changing tables, furniture, decorations, and cute themed bedding. We managed to spend only a few hundred dollars for everything, and most of it was purchased brand new. Many items were handmade to not only save money, but also give us a custom look that we couldn't find in any baby shop. Here's a little breakdown of what we spent in the baby's bedroom:

Crib

This is a must-have item in my opinion. Baby needs somewhere safe to sleep! This is also where a huge chunk of cash can be spent. Cribs can range in price from a few hundred dollars to over a thousand dollars, depending on which one you get. That's right folks, they cost just as much as a full-sized bed for an adult. Add to that the cost of a crib mattress, and you're wallet is pretty empty. Safety standards for cribs have changed drastically in the past few years, so we weren't comfortable purchasing a used crib. We saved money here by shopping around for the best price and combining sales and coupons to make it even cheaper. The best price we found was on sale online at Babies R Us. We just happen to be on their mailing list and received a coupon for 20% off any item that we combined with hubby's employee discount. The original cost of the crib was $200, plus shipping of course which was another $20. Pretty inexpensive compared to most cribs out there. The mattress we chose cost $60, so we're in for a grand total of about $280 so far. What did we end up paying? After the coupon and discount we ended up paying just under $200 for everything, so it was like we got the mattress for free. This crib can also convert to a toddler bed and a full-sized headboard and footboard, so we can avoid paying for those down the road. Once we are done with the crib we plan on selling it and making back some of the money we spent.

Dresser

Dressers can cost even more than a crib, if you can believe it. We got lucky here and had a dresser in the basement that belonged to Thing 3. Huzzah for hand-me-downs! It was really banged up from some serious abuse from the boys, so it needed to be refinished and repaired. The total cost of paint and materials to refinish it was about $50. Originally, this dresser would have cost around $300-$400, so we saved a big chunk of change with this. Our dresser also doubles as a changing table, so we were able to skip buying that completely. The changing pad on top was purchased for $5 at a yard sale.

Rocking Chair

Here was our biggest splurge in the baby's room. For midnight feedings, a glider rocker is a necessary item to me. Not so much for the baby, but more for my comfort. I spend countless hours nursing my babies in the middle of the night, so having a comfortable place to sit is important. I wanted a glider that was solid wood with nice soft cushions and an ottoman so I could put my feet up and relax while nursing at 3am. This is an item that I was OK buying used, as long as it was in good condition. We weren't able to find anything locally unfortunately, so we ended up purchasing new. Again I shopped around for the best deal and ended up purchasing online from Amazon.com. The price for this was $230, thankfully with free shipping. That's right people, I spent more on the rocking chair than I did on the crib or dresser. Consider this though- some glider rockers can cost $1000 for just the rocker, no ottoman! I'm hoping to get lots of use from this chair, and I'm sure it will be useful for many years after baby is done nursing.

Bedding & Accessories

Many parents really go crazy purchasing themed bedding and accessories to make the baby's nursery ultra cutesy. There are so many options for crib blankets, curtains, crib bumpers, sheets, mobiles- you name it, and all in adorable themes with cute animals or pretty flowers on them. I'm not a cutesy kind of gal, so it was easy to skip all these in the store and just make my own. I found loads of tutorials online and ended up sewing the crib sheets, changing pad covers, curtains, and baby quilt myself in funky black and red fabrics. The crib sheets were made from some red flannel sheets that I scored for free (my favorite price) using a tutorial on the Prudent Baby website. The changing pad covers were made from the same sheets using this tutorial, with a few modifications. The curtains were made using fabric leftovers in my stash and extra squares from the quilt, so they were basically free. I knit the area rug using yarn from my stash that a friend had given me and this free pattern, so again it cost me nothing. We skipped the crib bumper, both to save money and because they can be a potential safety hazard. The only bedding I paid for was the materials used to make the quilt. I had some fabric in my stash already and the rest I purchased with coupons, so it only cost about $20. That's it- just $20 for a custom bedding set!

The rainbow butterfly mobile was also made super cheap. Thing 1 just happened to have origami paper in her room, so I used a few sheets of that along with a wire ring from a broken tomato cage and some scrap yarn to make an origami butterfly mobile for FREE. I found the instructions for the origami butterfly here.

For those of you keeping a tally, we spent about $500 total for all our nursery furniture and accessories. Could we have saved more? Possibly. Still, I'm quite happy with what we have, and it was a lot of fun making everything :o)

Reusable Casserole Cover

Once upon a time, one of my awesome friends left a disposable plastic bowl cover at my house after a party. Although I had seen covers like this before, I never bought them because I thought they were silly. I decided to wash and reuse it after the party 'cuz that's how I roll (see my previous post about my distaste for disposable products). Little did I know just how useful this shower-cap looking cover would be. For those of you that have never seen these silly covers, here an example of one:

I use the cover all the time! It's very handy for covering casserole dishes when there's leftovers (doesn't happen often, but it does happen), and absolutely fantastic for covering bread dough while it's rising. After over 6 months of repeated use and abuse, my silly shower cap was looking pretty worn and tired :o( I didn't want to go out and buy an entire box of disposable covers, so I decided to make a reusable one instead. This one is the same size as the plastic one, but with lots more flair!

It's lined with PUL from the very same mattress cover that I used to make the snack baggies, and covered with an awesome skull print cotton fabric on the outside. There is elastic around the whole cover so it fits snugly on all sorts of different size containers (it measures about 19" square, and is shown on a 13" x 9" baking dish). I just used it to cover bread dough while it was rising, and it works fantastic! It's so easy to clean too- just wipe off or toss in the washing machine. I will definitely be making at least one more, perhaps a bit smaller.

Reusable Snack Baggies

Ever get sick of buying sandwich baggies just so your kids can throw them away at lunch time? I know I HATE buying things just to throw them away after a single use (with the exception of toilet paper, of course). It's such a waste of resources and money! So rather than just complain about it, I decided to make these cute reusable baggies out of repurposed materials. The fabric I used is PUL- polyurethane laminated- fabric that I found at a charity yard sale. It was actually a mattress cover, and I purchased it for the rich sum of $2. It has loads of fabric to it, so I can make as many of these little baggies as I want, though I think 10-12 of each size will do. The large baggie (shown stuffed with green beans from our garden- YUM!) measures about 6" x 6", and the smaller one measures 3 1/2" x 6". I used velcro as a closure so it will be easy for my little minions to open and reclose themselves. The best part about these is that they are super easy to clean! I can just wipe the inside with a damp cloth, or if they get super yucky I can toss them in the dishwasher or washing machine. There is a similar tutorial for how to make these HERE if you're interested in making your own. The kids are excited to use these at school, and they will be great at picnics and the beach too :o)