Toy and Clothes Hammocks

Or, you can do a corner pocket, like I do in the bathroom to hold bath toys. (First picture, blue cloth between toilet and cabinet.)

Here is how I do it. First, you need a square piece of fabric. I use uncut square pieces for both types so that I can reuse it for something else if I want to.

On a flat walls:

Simply fold cloth in half so that it creates a rectangle and staple the corners to the wall, creating a pocket.

You want to let it droop a bit. The more it droops, the more you can put in it.

On corner walls:

Staple two corners of the fabric onto the two walls. The fabric can droop, but it doesn’t have to.

Staple the other two corners as close to the corner of the wall as you can, but up higher to create a shelf.

Cost: piece of fabric and 2-4 staples (or nails), or purchase from Amazon for $12.79 (+$5.95 Shipping).

This is good for lightweight items, like stuffed animals and clothing, but I wouldn’t use it for books.

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Who Wears the Pants

This is part of FAQ Friday. If you have a question you would like me to address, please add it to the FAQ page.

Question

Most “Fundie” women don’t wear pants. Do you?

Answer

Whether or not I am a tried and true Fundamentalist is a topic for another day, but I would say that I’m not sure that I am. Oh, I would like to be, but Fundies don’t generally see me as one of their own.

That said, this isn’t something I talk about often because it isn’t something I think about often.

I don’t wear pants. Well, actually, I have two pairs, one black pair, and one pair of jeans. My post-pregnancy body doesn’t quite fit into the jeans yet, but the black pair is versatile enough for me to wear well into pregnancy. I wear them once or twice a month. The rest of the time, I wear skirts and dresses. I went to a college that required it and I liked it. I built a nice wardrobe around that dress code and just kept living by it.

Modesty
I think modesty is important, but it has little to do with why I wear dresses. Pants can be just as modest as skirts if done correctly and many dresses are not modest at all. This is where I depart from most dress-wearing fundamentalists.

Beautiful
I like dresses because they make me feel beautiful. I like looking nice and a dress is an effortless way to do that. This is really my primary reason for wearing dresses.

Sexy (For Married Folks)
It is important to feel sexy. A husband will think you’re sexy even if you don’t feel it, but if you don’t feel sexy, you likely won’t feel sexual, which is kind of important in marraige. I have a few completely immodest dresses I call “housedresses” because I won’t wear them out of the house.

Easy
Dresses are the easiest clothes to wear. It is a one piece outfit. You don’t need to put in the effort of making a pants and top ensemble and I think the results are better. I don’t wear pantyhose, even though it was part of my college’s dress code, but if you think they are required with a dress, than dresses become a hassle.

Standards
I have two modesty rules. One is that clothes must go to my knees, standing and sitting. I sometimes will put a skirt under a short dress that adds a few inches and extends my wardrobe. The second rule is no cleavage. Because I buy new clothes, this has become a problem. I have to pair a lot of my clothes with a tank top under or a sweater over. Anything beyond those rules is a judgement call.

Shopping
Most of my new clothes come from mystery shopping. When not mystery shopping, I can find good deals at thrift stores if I want something. I don’t buy many clothes for myself at yard sales because they don’t have a dressing room at yard sales. I will buy clothes at yard sales if the fabric is pretty enough for me to use for something else if the garment doesn’t fit right.

Style
I love black and white. I have some colored tops and a few skirts with color, but they are always paired with black or black and white. Other than my one red housedress, all of my dresses are either black or black and white, and dresses are my favorite.

Some Thoughts…
I think modesty is important, but beauty is too. Christian women have been pushing beauty aside in order to pursue modesty, but they are not mutually exclusive. Modesty is not something we should seek in our marraige. We should be immodest with our husbands. Likewise, beauty is not something to hide, but something God created and showing it glorifies him.

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Halloween

In our home, Halloween is dress up like a Star Trek character day.

We’re not big on Halloween because it’s just not something we care about. We’re also not anti-Halloween, because if we rejected all holidays with pagan roots, we’d be skipping Easter and Christmas, too. But we love Star Trek. And a day where the whole gang gets to dress up like the crew of the original series is a great day indeed.

What do you need?

Black pants or skirts for everyone
Long sleeve shirts, either solid red, green, yellow, or blue
Masking tape
Black electrical tape
Band aids (optional)

It’s obvious what you do with the black pants. Put them on. Now, we’re going to fancy up the shirt a little. The electrical tape goes around the collar. I just put it around the front.

I make a basic emblem cut out of two pieces of masking tape. I also rip the masking tape into strips to make the rank braid around the cuffs that show the rank of each officer. This one will be a lieutenant.

The band aids I use to wrap around the top of one child’s ear, making a point. That’s how we get our Vulcan, or Romulan if you want to be real creative with the Star Trek timeline.

Maybe this post would have been helpful before Halloween. For those of you without any ideas, this one is pretty easy.
What, if anything, are your kids going to be today?

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Weekend Wonders Gets Dressed!

It took a long time for me to feel that it was alright to buy clothes and shoes at garage sales or thrift stores… but I’m over that now! Actually, I’ve been “over it” for quite some time since I realized the incredible savings I have received since shopping this way.

This Saturday, I went out to a few garage sales and to our local thrift shop with my entire family. The objective: clothes and shoes. I have a couple of children who are growing rapidly and they don’t stay in the same size very long any more.

My son found two nice pairs of shoes for $6.00 and $7.00. Now he has a pair for everyday use and a pair for dressy occassions.

This was his real find, though, a pair of inline skates at only $5.99! They are in like-new condition and fit great. Now he has something to do with all of that boyish energy!

For my son we also found five pairs of pants/jeans—which he desperately needed—at a garage sale for only $5.00!

While there, I also found two skirts for me and a few tops for my daughter for a total of $5.00! What a steal!

Sometimes you can meet the nicest people when at a garage sale. The owner of the home where we bought the items above began talking to us and the topic turned to her lovely yard. She mentioned to me that she doesn’t have much time to tend to it now that her work is taking up so much of her time. At this point I introduced her to my son who has started his own lawn business. My son gained a new customer, and his first job will pay back all we spent at her garage sale, plus much more!

Don’t you love it when the Lord works everything out that way?

I have one more item to share with you that I bought at this friendly woman’s garage sale, but I will wait until next week to share it with you. It requires a little project so you can see the before and after pictures. Stay tuned!

What goodies did you find this weekend?

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From Econobusters.