T-shirt Up-cycle

We've got stacks of old, stained, holey t-shirts around here that I can't bring myself to throw away. A couple have been cut up into cleaning rags, but come on, how many cleaning rags do you need?

My solution...

I cut those puppies into long strips and turned them into "yarn," then taught myself how to crochet a rag rug. Seriously.

It's not even close to being perfect, but I made it myself, and I love it! It fits great in front of the sink or stove in the kitchen. 

I've been wanting to make a rag rug for awhile now, but the idea of sewing coils and coils of braided fabric together makes me want to scream. Plus, I prefer rectangular rugs, so I learned to crochet instead!

I used YouTube to learn a simple single crochet stitch, and went to town with it. Each color is a whole t-shirt (between 2x and 4x sizes) cut into strips, so my pile is 7 shirts shorter!

 I was inspired by this rug made by Cassandra from Flight of the Pook out of bed sheets:

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and this awesome denim rug from Alison King made from 100 lbs. of up-cycled jeans. Holy moly. I Love it!

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Maybe I'll use denim for the next rug. For now, keep your eye out for more t-shirt up-cycle projects to come!

Nursery Decor

Living in an apartment kind of limits what we can do with decor around here, especially in the nursery. This is what I came up with for now.

I was going through some boxes and found all the cards I saved from our baby showers. They are all so cute, and I thought many of them would make cute wall art for his nursery, but I didn't want to frame them. I thought a clothes line would be fun. I like that they add some color to his white room, and being so far away from most of our family, they remind me how many people care about us. :) On the opposite wall I put another row.

Below the second clothes line of cards are mirrors. They are right across from his crib, and he loves them.

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