I get my craft on...and survive an earthquake

So yesterday, I got to spend the day with my friend Holli who lives about an hour away from me. We go way back to the days of teaching English together in China..so many good times! Anyway, she has been inspiring me on her blog to try my hand at refashioning--a verb that means seeing the potential in a cheap thrifted something and turning it into something cute. Last week I went on a thrifting rampage and bought a ton of crap, including a new desk and chair for my own craft space--all for less than $100: score.

So, I bought a bunch of dresses from my local Goodwill, and refashioned it yesterday with Holli's help. She also reminded me to take a before picture so you can see your end results. So, here you go with the before shot:

The good thing about buying a size 20W dress is that you have plenty of fabric to work with!!
I decided to keep it simple for my first refashion and turn it into a skirt. All it took was a little cutting and sewing, and VOILA!

This cost me a total of THREE DOLLAS. Sweet! I really like this fabric and still have some leftover, so I'm trying to see what else I can do with it.

Anyway, in the midst of this, Holli had put her her babay down for a nap, and soon after, we started feeling the building shake. When it started to get worse, Holli immediately booked it to the baby's room. I look out the window to see if anything outside is shaking, and seriously it looked like nothing was happening outside, and the construction guys outside looked completely unfazed. This had us questioning our sanity for a while because there was still nothing online posted about there being an earthquake. Sure enough, we finally find out that it was indeed an earthquake.

After it all happened, I said to Holli, "look at you being a good mom and immediately running to protect your baby!" Her answer was, "I just didn't want her to wake up from her nap!" Well, either way, you're a good mama, Holli.

So yeah, that was my day. Full of plenty of excitement. And I got more phone calls and texts that day from people than I usually get in the course of a week. Nothing like an earthquake to make you feel loved.