How to Repair an Adjustable Dress Form

Lola, my trusty adjustable dress form mannequin, has been through some wear and tear. Her cover is peeling and her base is constantly falling over. It's no wonder, really. After so many years of being poked and prodded with pins I’d be a bit tipsy and unglued too.

Poor Lola.

Lola is still usable and I especially rely my dress form’s adjustability and functionality for commissioned sewing projects. She just needs a little makeover and refurbish that keeps her adjustable and not as a decoration. 

 

The sewing mannequin's plastic dials are difficult to adjust and need attention too.

 To renovate my adjustable dressmaker mannequin I decided to start at the bottom and work my way up.

How to Make a Faux Holly Berry Garland

I bought a prelit holly garland to use as a Christmas decoration. Almost immediately, the fake foam holly berries either chipped to show the white foam underneath or fell off the plastic stems completely.

The LED lights still work and the holly leaves look fine although the garland looks a little naked without the holly berries.

I made faux holly berries for my Christmas garland. Here’s how.

 

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How to Make Faux Fake Holly Berries

How to Make a Christmas Dinosaur Decoration

I took part in the best Christmas Gift Exchange where the theme was Handmade, Regifted, or Thrifted. I made my person some lovely chocolates and wanted to tuck a little extra thing into their gift.

Once I spotted a plastic T Rex toy, I found my joy, and went about turning the T Rex toy into Chompy the Christmas Dinosaur decoration. Chompy not only delivers presents to the good little girls and boys, but he also takes care of your enemies and those who give you grief.

Let’s make Christmas Dinosaur Decorations!

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You will need:

How to Use Any Brand Razor Blade in a Leaf Safety Razor

I decided to give shaving with a safety razor similar to this one a try after seeing the rising cost of disposable razors and cartridge razor blades. I got a nice, nick free shave the first time I used my standard safety razor. Great! I finally found a solution I thought. (Disclosure I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience.)

Until I nicked, gashed, and cut myself on every shave since.

I was ready to dump the safety razor until I read a thread from someone in a similar situation on a frugal living forum. Many folks in the comment section empathized and even more recommended shaving with a Leaf safety razor like this one. The difference being that the Leaf safety razor has three blades and a pivoting head just like the cartridge razors I used with much better success.

The Leaf is more expensive than a standard safety razor but I decided to buy one because that was the only negative anyone had to say about it. Particularly since this was a frugal living group who want good results for less money (eventually) and not a green living group that will put up with bad performance for the sake of a zero waste living (glares at my safety razor.)

The only concern I had was that Leaf razors use what looked like a proprietary safety razor blade. Turns out, you can use any brand of safety razor blade that looks like this in a Leaf razor if you cut the razor blade in half. 

How to Install Standard Safety Razor Blades in to a Leaf Safety Razor

 

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