Sunday, October 4, 2009

Second Hand

My poor second child. He gets all the hand me downs. Shoes, clothes, toys - you name it. He even wears a bathrobe with Henry's name on it. I just couldn't justify buying another when he would soon out grow it. Same with his backpack. Henry had one with his initials on it for preschool and needed a much larger one for kindergarten. What did John get? The old back back.


I thought I was so clever by ripping out the monogram and throwing it in the wash - that would surely remove the stitch marks ...






As you can see, my attempt was in vain. John has been going to school with a mutilated bag which, bless him, he doesn't seem to mind. He is still in the stage of enjoying having Henry's things.


I just had to do something but I wasn't sure what (that mommy guilt will get ya sometimes). I tossed around making this back pack by Made By Rae but who am I kidding ... I just don't have time right now. A quick fix was in order. I pulled a few pieces fabric from my stash (and let John pick which one he wanted and immediately got to work.



It's still a little rough but it does the job. John is just tickled. Now the only elephant in the room (as far as I'm concerned) is on his backpack instead of what was once on it.

Mommy guilt in check - second hand is repurposed - oh happy day!

7 comments:

Mary Grace McNamara said...

Good for you Adrienne! And it teaches the kids a good lesson..use what you have and be happy with it! That's one best learned very early in life.

MGM

Michelle said...

What a cute solution! I run into that problem too, with having 3 boys. How nice that you were able to make it special just for him.

Ruth said...

Cute idea!! It's great that you can pass things along. They don't use them for long and usually they grow out of it before it wears out.

Ruth

Unknown said...

I think that fix worked splendidly!

periwinkle said...

it's exactly the same for Gabe , he gets all of Milo's things - personally I can't justify buying a whole load of stuff when everything else is nearly new

Anonymous said...

Believe it or not ... one day John might just remember what a cool Mommy he has.

Your post inspired me to call my own mother and give her a good laugh. I was the second child too -- and I also got all of the "hand-me-downs". The one that I remembered (and called my Mom to giggle about) was when she gave me my older sister's snow boots. They were white vinyl and were pretty scuffed-up. Not terrible - but obviously not new.

She saw my disappointment, and the next time that I opened my closet ... she had drawn designs on them with some sort of fabric marker. I'm sure they weren't very cool and anyone could tell that they were DIY, but at the time, I thought they were the coolest thing since sliced bread :)

Kris said...

I bought a bunch of the monogrammed bags at LL Bean (we have an outlet near us) and then went to Walmart to see what I could find for the iron-on appliques (you know, the thick-ish ones). Worked like a charm :) You can still see the stitching on the inside, but the kids don't care!