Project: Adding Some Color

My landlord left me with one stipulation regarding paint in my house.  Don't touch the living room.....or stairs....or upstairs hall.  Basically, leave the yellow alone!  And its yellow.....very yellow.  A good yellow.....but a LOT of yellow.  And the "accent" wall is about a half a shade different than the rest.  On sunny days its livable, on cloudy days its suffocating.  So I set about adding some color!

 The easiest way to add instant color is throw pillows.  Especially since my couches and my carpet are essentially the same color :(  

The red pillow is actually made from some curtains I had in my kitchen a few houses ago!  Here are the tutorials I used:

Gathered Pillow: Make It and Love It
Bow Pillow: E Tells Tales
Flower Pillow: I just made a standard envelope cover.  Then I took strips of fabric 3 inches wide and sewed a basting stitch down the center of each.  I gathered them, then sewed them in a circle.  Kind of like the pillow here, but instead of straight lines, its circular.

These two are just plain jane zipper pillow covers.  The green one has the pear fabric on the other side

 I pulled out the spray paint and added some color to my lamp bases.  Which I really really love!

 Remember those leftover blocks?  Haha.....here are some more!

I sprayed painted my flower pot and added a curtain to the bookshelf.  Just use a shower curtain rod!  It works beautifully, and is sturdy.  This is my kids bookcase, and it gets used often.  I haven't had the curtain fall down once.

I would totally leave the open bookshelf if it was in a playroom, but its in my living room - I'll take the curtain.

This shelf above the front door has been a puzzle to me since we moved in.  Its at least half hidden, from some angles fully hidden by the chandelier.  What do you put up there?  Not something you want to be able to see well!  These pots (and the frame actually too) were $1.99 each at a local thrift store.  The pots were white with a blue design on them. (Sorry I didn't take a before picture!)  Add a little spray paint and viola!  For $6 I'm happy with it......for now :)

Of course there is the palm tree pot from before as well.  That was a nice stroke of red too.  And I think that about sums it up.

Overall - it is 100% better.  Not as great as a new paint job, but much cheaper and following the rules.

Project: Pinterest Skirt

Have you seen this on Pinterest?

I have!

And it totally inspired me. 

I hopped on over to see  sewingin-nomansland.blogspot.com super easy tutorial and I was sold. I'm not much of a sewer, but I'm learning...so please don't judge. :0)

I sorted through my scrap box and found some cute material to work with. I cut pieces for the skirt, the skirt top and the ties.

I started by sewing the ties, flipped them right side out again and ironed. 

Then I doubled up the skirt top by putting together two pieces of fabric and sewing the top and the bottom leaving the sides open.

Then I sewed together the skirt up the sides, then using a loose stitch, sewed the top and cinched using the skirt top as my measurer.

I then flipped the skirt top right side out, and placed the ends of the ties in both openings, then sewed it shut. 

I kept the skirt inside out, and pinned the skirt top to it. 

Ta-Dah! Here is the front... 

And the back. 

The ties can be brought around to the front for a big loopy bow, or even tied in the back...

Or the ties can be doubled to bring a short knot to the front. Lots of possibilities and super cute for Spring! Now that I practiced, I want to make one for myself! Thanks Pinterest! :0) 

Project: High Chair Cover

Hey all! It's been FOR-E-VER since I last posted on here, mostly because I've been busy with this fun creation. I can't believe he is almost 3 months! He has just started taking wonderful long afternoon naps, and today I decided to pull out my sewing machine. :0) 

Yesterday while cleaning out my garage, I found this little guy...he will now be our high chair for Child #3...Have you seen these before? They just get buckled on to the regular table chair. They come in all sorts of colors and usually have a really cute cover...except we don't, because I put it in the washer...even though the tags on there said not to...yes-the machine ate the cover...my bad. Those people really do know what they are talking about!

Anywho-my little guy really likes sitting in his chair already, so I thought I would whip up a cute cover. 

Out of Jersey material! My fave. I grabbed an extra piece from my scrap pile and sewed up the sides, then I fit it on the chair. To reduce the pillowcase square look... 

I cut rounded edges on the top, and sewed those up. 

After that, I turned it right side out and sewed on a little embellishment on the front. I wanted so badly to go to Hobby Lobby to get those cute patches...but gas is so expensive these days, and I wanted to keep this a nice easy and free project. :0) 

Glorious! Fits like a glove, and will be easy to grab and throw in the wash too!

For my little T man.

Project: Girls Lighted Bed Canopy

Warning: Super fun project ahead!  You will be a terribly cool mom if you make this.

I have a couple of little girls that are scared of the dark.  Okay, for the one is more of a TERRIFIED than a scared.  It is this never ending fight to get her to go to sleep.  Finally one day in December, as I was putting her to bed with 2 night-lights ON her bed (the flower ones from IKEA), a 4 foot lighted Christmas tree AND an outlet night light - I started to see the ridiculousness of the situation.  I knew I had to come up with a way to help her feel safe as she fell asleep at night.

So I began the lighted canopy.

 First, I had an old mesh canopy from Wal-Mart that I dismantled.  That isn't required though.  I found some cheap chiffon curtains at goodwill, and had some others that were sitting in my closet because I don't really need them at this house.  Just find lots of curtains really.  Any color or material works, it just depends on how you want it to look.  The curtains make your life much easier because they are already cut and hemmed.  But you can start from scratch with fabric if you'd like.

 The canopy I took apart had a little, kind of flimsy, metal frame.  I was going to make a rectangle wooden frame, but ended up just using this.  I really need to buy a saw!!  I still think the wood frame would be prettier, probably easier too.  Then you could just feed the curtains onto it, hook the last corner together and mount it to the ceiling.

 But the metal frame works.  It has a little connector, and it works well.

 I gathered the tops of all of the curtains.  For a tutorial see the previous post, or click here.

 I created a casing for the frame.  Cut a strip of material your desired length (the length around your frame).  The width will depend on the size of your frame.  Make sure it is large enough to fold each side in,

 then fold it in half and sew the one side together and still fit your frame inside easily.

 I pinned all of my gathered curtains to the casing

 along with this cute little trim - from the old dismantled canopy.

Thread them on your frame.  I used picture hanging wire, criss-crossed across the circle to hang it from.  Again, how you hang it will depend on what your frame is made of.  If it had been of wood I would have just mounted it directly to the beams in the ceiling.

 Then hang your creation!  I used strands of white Christmas lights - *after Christmas sales!*- winding them up through the frame and down the legs of the bunk bed.  

 We cut shapes out of card stock and the girls had a lot of fun decorating them with glitter.  I just taped ribbon to the back and tied it to the top frame.  And added a little extra ribbon hanging here and there.

 Who wouldn't want to sleep under lots of sparkly stars and hearts?

 I used a strand of tube lights under the top bunk, on 3m hooks.  My older daughter only plugs that strand in in the morning.  She wakes up ridiculously early and reads until everyone else wakes up.  Now she has the light to do so!

Oh, I also hung one of the flower night lights on the wall behind the canopy.  And now the canopy is hooked to the wall switch, (love the outlets that do that!) so its super easy to turn on and off and...

My girls LOVE IT!!!  

And I do too, because we don't have any more "but Mom, I'm scared" at bedtime.  Who wouldn't feel all warm and cozy sleeping under that?

Just a few more little projects and I can show you the complete "before" and "after" of their room.  The difference is amazing!

Project: How to "gather"

For the longest time I would refer to my sewing skills as "I can sew a straight line?  Nothing fancy like gathering or anything like that though..."

If only I had realized how EASY gathering is!!  I was terrified to try.  But it is so simple its almost painful.  So here's how.

Set your stitch length to the longest possible stitch.  I don't know how it works on the new machines.  But on my old Bernina that I inherited from my Grandmother (they last forever!)  You twist the knob - 4 is the largest, 0 gets you nowhere  :0)

 Start your stitch, depending on how much you want sticking above your gather.  I was sewing mine onto something else, so I didn't want a lot.  Note:  DONT BACKSTITCH!  You know - what you do at the beginning and end so your seam doesn't come undone?  Don't do that....at the beginning or at the end!

When you are done, take a look at the end.  You will see that you have one thread above the fabric and one below it.  (Bobbin thread and top thread).  

Take a hold of the bobbin thread - thats the bottom one - with one hand, and slide your material away from it with your other hand.

 And you have a gather!
Continue to work your fabric through along the thread.  If it gets too bunched up work from the back and loosen them up.

When I get close to the end, I switch sides and gather the end up.  That way I don't accidentally pull to hard and start to pull my thread out!

Tah-Dah!  See, wasn't that easy?

A few things to note.  If the material isn't sliding, DON'T pull harder.  Go to the end of your gathers and slowly work through them until it starts moving again.  If you break the thread you have to start over!  Also, the tighter you pull it, the tighter the gather.  I know that's kind of a "duh", but its worth mentioning.  And lastly - like I mentioned before, don't pull too far and pull your end thread into the stitches.  You have to start over then too.

OOOHH!  I can't wait to show you what this was for.  Its pretty much awesome!