Bargain Buys with a side of Crafty Goodness

I really need to start learning to just take a photo and write a quick blog when I buy something that is a real 'bargain' instead of waiting for weeks on end. I rarely buy anything unless it's cheap. This includes clothes. I really can't get over the price of clothes. I mean - as a girl, I want a fairly large mixture of clothing and paying $100.00 for a pair of jeans just seems ridiculous to me. It'd cost a fortune to stay fashionable!

So I buy things on clearance and with coupons and I ask for lower prices and I haggle and do anything I have to to get that price down.

I've bought 2 pieces of clothing in the last few weeks.

This cute little sleeveless dress that I had planned on wearing to our pumpkin patch wedding (it was canceled due to weather).

Original Price - $54.99

What I Paid - $8.00

It will make a cute summer dress next year. I still need to do a few alterations though. It was on clearance (as in, here-take-it-we'll-pretty-much-give-it-to-you clearance).

Then I bought a pair of jeans from Maurices. I love that store, it makes us heavier girls feel like we're normal but the prices reflect the effort, I assure you.

So I went in expecting to walk out empty handed because even their clearance stuff is usually too expensive for me. These had a price tag, (already marked down a couple of times, mind you) of $89.99 . Yeah, um...no thank you.

But upon looking a bit closer, they were on the 75% off CLEARANCE PRICE rack. Now that I can do!

Original Price - $120.00

What I Paid - $22.50

The catch here was that they were literally six inches too long. Plus they were hugely bell-bottom, which worried me, but I took them anyway because HELLO! Did you see that savings?

So this morning I attempted the 'hem your jeans while keeping the original hem' thing. Guess what? It worked! I LOVE my jeans that are finally JUST THE RIGHT length!

This is my half, I pinned it and then sewed right along the outside of the hem.

The best thing? It's really simple to do.

1. - You pin your jeans where you want them hemmed just like you would for any other type of hemming.

2. - Measure how much you need to take off and divide that in half, but don't include the hem. Then pin the half in place instead of the full amount.

The finished product! It's not completely straight (I'm still a beginner here!) but you'd never be able to tell unless you were really looking at them. And look at that wonderful frayed hem that was part of the jeans all along!

3. - Sew right along the outside of the hem on the inside of the pant. If you have crazy bell-bottoms or flared jeans like I did, make sure your side seams line up!

4. - You can either cut off the excess or just iron it in place (good idea for the kiddos) from there. I cut mine off. Then iron the front side of your jeans so that the jean lays right again.

My directions are never the best, so go check out this tutorial for a more detailed look into the process. Pretty awesome, right!