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Weekend Project: Restyle Shorts with Lace and Fabric

This post should be titled “I Love Heirlooms and Heather Ross” but that would only make sense to me and that’s of no help to you guys. It is a true statement though and the beginning of the story to these shorts.

I have a box of lace that was collected by my Grandma and passed on to me. Sometimes with heirlooms, I tend to hold on to them without putting them to use because often making use of them involves altering them drastically. I always question whether the person would have wanted their items the same or if they even would even care at all. I also treat my Heather Ross fabric the same way. Her fabric is my favorite and some pieces I had to hunt and barter for so they are like gold to me. Having these items sit in my closet isn’t any good either so I knew I needed to stop hoarding and just MAKE! I’m such an over-analyzer which is why I had to quit scrap-booking…too many choices.

So, I saw these kids shorts at Target which were a lovely shade of turquoise-y/teal, but they were too short for my comfort on a little girl. Call me old-fashioned but I don’t dig the cheek hanging out of the shorts look. Ok, these weren’t that short but still…what’s up with those teenagers? I decided to add some fabric to the ends and lo and behold, the Heather Ross wildflower fabric from her first Far Far and Away line was PERFECTION. I’ve had this fabric since the day it came out and I’m so glad I cut into it. Next, I added lace to the front and back pockets, hoping that this will encourage my dress-wearing girl to adopt some shorts into her wardrobe!

For the fabric cuff:

1. Undo the current cuff with your seam ripper and unroll the shorts completely. Turn the shorts inside-out.

2. Cut a piece of fabric that is 1/2 inch longer on each side than your un-cuffed short bottoms and 4 inches high. You will need 4 total, 2 for each front and 2 for each back cuff.

3. Iron the WRONG sides of each fabric piece together, matching the salvaged edges. Iron the un-cuffed short bottoms.

4. Match the edges of one front piece to the top and one back piece to the bottom of the shorts. Pin.

5. Sew along the sides of each fabric panel, just outside where it meets the shorts with a 3/8 in seam allowance.

6. Sew the fabric to the bottom of the shorts all the way around leaving a 3/8 in. seam allowance. Go over the thicker parts twice.

7. Repeat with the other cuff and turn the shorts right-side out again. Bring the newly sewn fabric cuff around to the front.

8. You can sew the inside and outside edges of the cuff to the main body of the shorts or simply sew the cuff to the shorts all the way around 1/4 in from the top, so it doesn’t flip up and down all the time. I prefer the latter because I do NOT want to iron kids shorts!!

You’re done with the cuffs and you can totally stop there if you want!

or you can add lace to the pockets…

For the lace pockets:

Simply cut a piece of lace 1/2 in. longer than each side of the back pockets. A lace piece that is long and finished along its edges works perfectly. Line the lace up with the top of the pocket and tuck each 1/2 in. under on each side. Pin and sew around each side of the lace, going over it a second time because lace has many holes.

For the front pockets, find a piece of lace that can tuck inside the pocket. Tuck under and pin any of the salvaged sides of lace that are sticking out. You might have to wrangle this pocket a bit, but you only need to get in there and get that sewing done. It doesn’t need to be fancy because the lace is very forgiving and doesn’t show mistakes like normal fabric.

Now, you’re REALLY done!! If you restyle some shorts be sure to link up below!!

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How to Throw a Tea Party with Minted

When I have a party, I want everything to be beautiful but simple. I was so excited to team up with Minted for Faith’s birthday this year because they totally fulfill both of those requirements in their party decorations. I love seeing new companies make party-planning easier, true, but making the decorating the way I would make it myself…AMAZING!

I started using Minted products back when I bought my business cards in December. I fell in love with their triple-ply cards and I’ve had nothing but an amazing response to them from the people I hand them to. SO, I was definitely excited to play with their party product line that came out recently.

I ordered the Perfect Party Package, which provided everything you see in the photos. The name of the design I chose is “Retro Floral Garden Party”. So many wonderful things and I didn’t have to do anything more than arrange everything.

Now, the food…you know, the best part. I’d love to share some of my new favorite food finds with you. Sound good?

For most parties, I tend to do too much. No, I don’t go so far as to build the gardens of Babylon out of fruit, but I do tend to try to make, create, and cook so many things from scratch. I love making all of it and THAT is the problem.

This time, I found a few great pastries which I would be happy to serve day or night to my guests. The first one is from Trader Joes. Have you guys had their macaroons from the freezer section for $5?! Amazing, let me tell you. I’ve eaten sooo many. They have the right flavors and colors for serving purposes, as well. You can see them a few pictures above. The second food item would be petit fours. Man, what a time I had locating a bakery that would make me a tray at all or for under $150. After a crazy amount of searching, I finally just decided to make them. I had told my family I was buying them and they were all so impressed that I was attempting changes in my life, I couldn’t let them down and “fully” make them. So, I pulled a semi-homemade. I used a Trader Joes pound cake, filled them with some of our homemade strawberry jam, and bathed them in a white chocolate ganache. They worked out pretty well, methinks! I’ll share more details soon.

I don’t tend to love games at birthday parties, so Faith and I opted for having the girls piece together flower crowns from rosemary pieces and flowers around floral wire. I love the touch that the sign added to my display. Simple and beautiful.

Here was our full menu:

Goat Cheese and cucumber sandwiches

Petit Fours

Blueberry Scones

Macaroons

Strawberry Lemonade

Raspberry Tea (Cafe Moto)

It was fun to play around with my friend Rachel’s new line of stencils. They worked out perfectly for our favor bags! Cute patterns, right? Check out more ideas and options for these adorable stencils on her blog, Handmade Charlotte. You can find the stencils at Jo-ann’s Stores or online at Plaid Crafts. I just bought some new ones to play with!

As a parting gift to her friends, Faith wanted to share her favorite raspberry tea from Cafe Moto. She filled the bags with loose leaf tea. You can find the empty tea bags on amazon here. We sealed the bags with the cutest scalloped stickers that are included in the Minted party package.

Tea Parties are the sweetest, aren’t they?

(I truly LOVE Minted products. The words above are my own opinion about Minted products. I did receive free products in exchange for my opinion and this post, but who are we kidding? Their products are amazing!!)

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How to Decorate a Cake with Kids

(Instagram iphone photo. Follow our Modern Buttercream fun on Instagram here: @agoldenafternoon)

Faith is loving everything about cooking and baking. I’ve spent years training and teaching kitchen skills and I’m so excited to see the results!! We have a lot of fun together and I can ask her to do most things we do every day in the kitchen. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a LOT of work, but like most skills and character traits we are trying to nurture in our kiddos, I know it’s worth it.

Sometimes with our kids, I think we WAY underestimate their abilities. Faith has been in the kitchen for years, but it took me a while to realize I could take her learning to a new level. This year, I’ve been trying to take the time to teach a specific skill, like making pie dough or how to use a knife. This week, we are attacking cake decorating. Awesome.

Craftsy approached me about trying their FREE (say wha?) cake decorating classes, specifically Modern Buttercream, and sharing our experience. People, nothing seems to be FREE anymore so this opportunity is one to jump all over. I immediately thought Faith would LOVE to try this. I don’t necessarily think the classes are designed for kids, but part of taking a kid’s kitchen skills to a new level is teaching them to follow recipes and instructions, just as an adult would. Video Instruction is very kids friendly and that is what the cake decorating classes at Craftsy offer.

If you want to take this Modern Buttercream class with us, sign up below:

Decorate Cakes with A Golden Afternoon

I think you’ll love it. You can go at your own pace, material lists are provided, and you can watch or re-watch as many times as you need to. Perfect for your older kiddos and really…all of us. Plus, it’s FREE, people!

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Chicken Coop Update: We Have Walls!

Ed has been working so hard on this chicken coop! Check out my first post here about this amazing news! We are still gathering and soaking in as much information as possible. Over the last few Saturdays, Ed dug trenches (with a little help from those hard-working guys outside of Home Depot), installed framing, cement blocks, part of the wood siding, the base of the coop interior, frame and installed 2 of our vintage windows, and installed 1 vintage screen door.

Here are some chicken related questions with been wondering about, as well as some things we are learning (PLEASE SHARE YOUR CHICKEN KNOWLEDGE BELOW!):

Do we want to throw a Thanksgiving turkey in the coop and will he get along with the chickens? Not sure if we would be taking on too much with that one.

Where to buy our chickens? I’ve found some local hatcheries here in San Diego. It’s really important to me that they eat good food from the minute they’re born. Why else would we be raising them, right?

What should we feed them? After looking at loads and loads of websites and local store options for feed, I’ve concluded that I will be making my chicken feed and scratch, among other things. Sheesh. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Chicken feed, even organic, is FULL of corn and fillers. What’s the point? Everything I’ve read says feed chickens corn as a treat and yet it’s the first ingredient on every bag I look at. This is not ok therefore I am searching for balanced recipes. This one looks perfect and well researched. Recipes?

How to keep pests away? I am searching for the right kind of containers to store food in to keep rats and moths away. HELP!

How do I take care of these little ladies? Right now, we are reading, having the kids read, and are reading to the kids, “A Chicken In Every Yard”, “The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals”, and “Farm Anotomy” to gather information! Favorite books?

What is the best way to reap the benefits of chicken poop? I currently have to buy chicken fertilizer for my garden so I’m searching for the right kinds of cleanup methods that are best for getting the most out of chicken droppings. Hey. Nothing wasted, right?

Names!! I think it’s safe to say that every one of us is excited about naming these ladies! I’m expecting names that reflect Star Wars, book characters, hilarity, and maybe something slightly inappropriate coming from my husband. We are splitting them up to name them so everyone will have their chance to pick!

To follow the every day chicken and backyard homesteading adventures, follow us on Instagram.

PLEASE share anything you’ve learned below!

Here’s the coop progress by the man who is constantly surprising me with making my dreams coming true…even chicken dreams…

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Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe

Backyard chickens are all the rage right now and laundry detergent is totally next on he list, in my opinion. I see it being made left and right. I attempted to use some a few years ago and it was a failure in my mind then. It didn’t clean the clothes the way I wanted, so I couldn’t switch over. Then, over the years we’ve started to make huge changes in our family’s health. Each year, we changed a few things which have now added up to many, including eliminating all toxic chemicals from our house. So, I thought it was a good time to share this recipe with you.

Let me just say, I love Method cleaning products. Branding, packaging, partnerships with cool designers, and plant-based products. I still use them in other areas of my home. I just new in my heart that I could easily be making laundry detergent.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

1 box Borax

(also named sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, whitener and deodorizer)

1 cup washing soda (sodium carbonate, dirt removal)

3 bars of grated soap, your choice

(see below for my research of which to use)

Use 1/2 cup of homemade detergent

Optional additions at the time of doing laundry:

1/2 cup vinegar (acetic acid and water, natural odor remover)

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and store in an air-tight container of your choice. You will need a large one! You can follow instructions for making liquid soap by dissolving the ingredients together with water but this powder has worked totally great and saves the step!! Mix and your done. So easy! All ingredients can be found on Amazon (I made a list here for easy shopping).

Why you should make laundry detergent:

Better Health:

When a person starts living a chemical-free life, you begin being ok with clothes that are not washed as well as the ones that have toxic chemicals. Yes, I have totally become one of those crazy people who is appalled by that junk. Eek! It’s like a conversion experience of sorts. I can’t believe what I used to be breathing every day. My whites are not as bright as a person who uses bleach, but I can live with that if it means cleaner air for my family to breath in. I believe this change a few years ago was one of many reasons my daughter has been relieved of asthma. She had just been diagnosed after a few years of wheezing and some really bad attacks. We used that inhaler so many times. Now, she hasn’t had so much as a wheezing moment for over a year. I’m so thankful to God for His healing and the wisdom He gave me to know these changes can make a difference. I’m not saying a chemical-free life will cure asthma. I just know what we experienced and the way our eyes have been opened to the way chemicals can trick you into thinking they can reside in your lungs without doing definite damage. Don’t believe me? Watch the reaction of one of my kids when they go near bleach. You’d think it was a skunk or a rotten egg! They are so sensitive to it, having not been around it for their whole lives that breathing it is unbearable. For a lot of people, they have been desensitized to it over years of exposure. Craziness!

Chemical-free life:

I chose this soap because of much research on which would be the least toxic whilst also not ruining my clothes. It has a pink dye in it but I weighed that against its homemade laundry soap competitor, Fels-Naphtha, which also has dye. The dye in Zote soap is used as a brightener and I was ok with that in this context. HOWEVER, since making the batch in these pictures, I discovered something better and the reason for the switch might only matter to me so I didn’t bother to re-photograph everything. More below on that. Changes like this are always a process.

Plant-based and Animal-free products:

New info for me:

Most soap these days is made from tallow or animal fat. I eat meat and don’t have issues with using/eating tallow. However, I only eat meat that has been raised locally and cared for in the way I believe God intended them to be cared for. The point made by this wonderful lady, made SO much sense to me. If I am purchasing a soap, be it Fels-Naptha, Zote, or whomever, the beef tallow being used in the soap would be needed in mass quantities and is most likely coming from large farms where the animals are tortured and left for dead, but not before their parts are taken. It’s a rough thought, I know, but it has to be said. If this isn’t important to you then any bar soaps will be fine for this detergent. Tallow is the ingredient that adds lather.

You choose the ingredients:

Just so you know, Zote smells like citronella but only before the clothes are washed and not after. I wonder if this detergent repels mosquitos? That would be pretty awesome.

If you’ve read a million recipes for laundry soap and they all look the same, they basically are. They all seem to included Borax, washing soda, and some kind of bar soap. You get the choice in that bar soap. That’s pretty cool. If you are choosing bar soaps, be sure to check the ingredients yourself. They might be advertising themselves as “natural”, but still include mostly toxic or icky ingredients. Fels-naptha and Zote were the most common ones I saw.

Fels-Naptha Ingredients:

Soap (sodium tallowate*, sodium cocoate* (or) sodium palmate kernelate*, and sodium palmate*), water, talc, cocnut acid*, palm acid*, tallow acid*, PEG-6 methyl ether, glycerin, sorbitol, sodium chloride, pentasodium pentetate and/or tetrasodium etidronate, titatium dioxide, fragrance, Acid Orange (CI 20170), Acid yellow 73 (ci43350) *contains one or more of these ingredients

Zote Ingredients:

Sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate, fragrance (citronella oil), optical brightener, and violet 10.

Ivory soap Ingredients:

sodium tallowate and/or sodium palmate, water, sodium cocoate or sodium palm kernelate, glycerin, sodium chloride, fragrance, one or more of the following: coconut acid, palm kernel acid, tallow acid or palm acid, and tetrasodium EDTA.

Kirk’s Castile Soap Ingredients:

Coconut Soap, Water, Vegetable Glycerin, Coconut Oil, Natural Fragrance

Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Soap (citrus scent):

Organic Coconut Oil*, Organic Palm Oil*, Sodium Hydroxide**, Water, Organic Orange Oil, Organic Olive Oil*, Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Organic Lemon Oil, Organic Lime Oil, Salt, Citric Acid, Tocopherol
* CERTIFIED FAIR TRADE INGREDIENTS
** None remains after saponifying oils into soap and glycerin

I think we’ve found some winners!! Do you see them?!

I feel so silly for not having found the Dr. Bronner’s or Kirk’s Castile bar in the first place. I use the liquid Dr. Bronners Castile soap but because I’ve never seen the bars before, I didn’t know they existed until I searched on amazon for a different Dr. Bronner’s product. Castile soap simply means they are made from pure vegetable oils, as made originally in Spain. Being able to understand your ingredients is important!

Bonus: Sweet citrus smells and the choice of a few other scents from organic oils!!

Saving you money:

Personally, I believe this claim has been exaggerated. Making your own detergent is only cheaper when you compare it to what you are already buying. I had been purchasing Method products, so making it DEFINITELY saved me money. However, if you are using a store brand or just a cheap detergent, this will NOT save you money. For me, the health benefits are amazing and the price is less, so it’s a win-win! A whole container of this cost me about $15. If you find the ingredients cheaper or buy in bulk, it will naturally cost less. I made an amazon ingredient list here, in case you feel the need to make this immediately! :)

Cleaning clothes, naturally:

What most people want to know is, “Will it clean my clothes?” My answer is yes! It will definitely clean your clothes and make them smell fresh. It won’t, however, get all of those stains out. I am willing to accept a few stains for the price of health and no toxic chemicals. I just have to do a better job of soaking my boy’s clothes and also our rags we use in the kitchen that build up musty smells. No biggie. I can share more on that method another day!

Making good choices for your family:

If you are reading this far down the page, you are probably the one who makes decisions about the household. We are the ones responsible for great changes, like this for our family. Go make some! I’m so excited to have finally given this homemade laundry detergent a shot again!

Below is my laundry setup with a dispenser for vinegar (get it now at Target in the seasonal section!!) and one for the detergent (find this lidded glass container at the Crate & Barrel outlet):

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