Buttons! 

My mom gave me a box of craft sup­plies that some­one else gave to her, and in the large box of sup­plies there was a small box of but­tons. I just tucked the box of but­tons into my craft draw­er for the longest time and only today did I look through it. There were these deli­cious-look­ing green and pink but­tons just beg­ging to be made into some­thing, but I did­n’t know what… and then I went brows­ing on Pin­ter­est and guess what I found? This post on Home­mak­er’s Jour­nal about mak­ing but­toned bob­by pins! It’s such a sim­ple idea but it’s absolute­ly perfect.

I’m in the process of try­ing to grow out my bangs so I use bob­by pins to keep my hair out of my face, and hav­ing a nice but­toned bob­by pin rather than a plain old bob­by pin real­ly bright­ened my day. It’s the small things, you know? :D

 

Also in the box of but­tons was this antique Hong Kong $5 coin, from 1976!

It’s a decagon! (new word I learned today thanks to Google :D) Nowa­days $5 are round, I’ve nev­er seen a 10-sided $5 coin! And here’s the queen on the flip side, of course.

 

That was in the morn­ing. So then I thought, I must wear one of these pret­ty but­ton bob­by pins out some­where. I planned to vis­it the thrift store some­times this week for some back-to-school cloth­ing. I was debat­ing whether I should just take it easy at home or ven­ture out. The bob­by pin gave me the moti­va­tion to go out (it’s the small things, really).

And guess what?

The thrift store was hav­ing a one-day 50% off cloth­ing sale!

So with under $20 I got 4 dress shirts and a cardi­gan. I was real­ly hap­py with the dress shirts, which aren’t all that excit­ing but some­thing I need for work-relat­ed occa­sions (I’ve learned that adding a cardi­gan does­n’t real­ly make a graph­ic tee look more pro­fes­sion­al). But the cardi­gan need­ed some work, because it was too big. (I wish I had tak­en a “before” pho­to with me wear­ing it).

I want­ed a neu­tral colour cardi­gan for a cou­ple of upcom­ing wed­dings, and I do like this one because of its lace pat­tern and the del­i­cate-look­ing col­lar. It was a size-large.

So I took in the sides and the sleeves…

… and cut 5.5″ off the hem, and then re-hemmed it…

… and TA-DA! A cropped cardi­gan! :D

 

I’m quite hap­py with it, though I did­n’t know how it was going to turn out because I’ve nev­er sewn sweaters with the sewing machine before. I was a bit con­cerned that it would all stretch out. But over all it did­n’t stretch much. The cardi­gan was just kind of shaped fun­ny… it was kind of twist­ing (you might be able to see that a bit in the pic­ture) and would­n’t lie flat when I tried to line up the seams. But I think it looks alright! :D

Oooh, and check this out…

The tag on the cardi­gan was all bunched up so I had to stretch it out and pin it like a but­ter­fly spec­i­men to take a pho­to (because the tag says “no iron­ing”, I think). But can you see that it says it’s made of 20% poly­ester and 80% acetate? 

I did not know that one could make cloth­ing out of acetate. By acetate does it mean acrylic? Hmm. I won­der how old this sweater is…

Oth­er awe­some find today that’s not pic­tured: tik­ka masala chips! Mmm curry.

Have a won­der­ful day, friends!