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Sewing: Tassel Pillow

Ever since I got a new duvet cover for my bedroom, it has sadly been bereft of throw pillows. The pillows I had been using on the bed no longer worked and I have been slow in replacing them. Recently, I added a new pillow and took one step closer to having it complete. And this new pillow? I love it!!

Just curious, how many of you make your bed everyday? I will admit, I don’t. But my husband does. Why? Because he is seriously awesome… and I’m lazy :) That is probably why I have been so lax on making new pillows. He makes the bed but he doesn’t usually add all of the throw pillows anyway so it’s only when we are having company (or I’m taking photos for the blog) that I take the time to make the bed look complete. On a day to day basis I don’t think about it that much. Last time we had people over, I was frustrated by the incompleteness of it. It just looked kind of sad! That is how this new pillow came to be. And hopefully, there will be more on the way.

I have been super into tassels lately and my bedroom was the perfect place to add some since it needed color. I saw a tutorial on Design Love Fest and pinned it for later. That pin came in handy when I went to tackle this project a few weeks ago. Tassels are easy to make and so instead of making them for just the four corners, I decided to add a bunch of them to two sides of the pillow. So first, I made a bunch of tassels using the tutorial in different colors of embroidery floss. Then, I laid them out in what order I wanted them to go in.

I used some bias tape to attach them together and then hand sewed the tassels to it.

Once that was complete, I made the pillow. The measurements I used were 12″ x 18″. When I got to the sides where the tassels would go, I just sewed the bias tape right into the seam. Super simple!

The fabric is from Joann’s and it’s by Dwell. Really, this project looks harder than it is, it was super simple. I promise!! Just make your millions of tassels while you are watching TV :)

One step closer to a completed bed set. I will get there. Just in time to change it up again! Haha!

It’s really bothering me that I didn’t adjust the lampshade to make it straight before I took this photo. Oh well…

A funny side note. I made this pillow 2 or 3 weeks ago. Just yesterday I saw this sheet set at Anthropologie. I don’t remember seeing it before. That doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t, I just don’t remember it. I thought it was funny that I made pretty much the same thing without meaning to. So if you don’t want to go to all the trouble of making one, you could buy something similar at Anthro.

One down… a few more to go :)

And speaking of pillows… doesn’t this one from Urban Outfitters remind you of the recent pillow I made for my living room?! I think so :)

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Tagged: DIY, Sewing, Tutorials

Sewing: Double Sided Napkins

Whew! What a busy week it has been around here! Remember how I told you I am redoing our windows outside? Well, it has been quite the project and I have been working on it non stop. Which has caused any other fun projects to fall by the wayside. This week I was especially working against a deadline because I had to remove all the panes in the large window in the kitchen. For 3 days we didn’t have any glass in our window. We kept covering it with plastic through the night to hopefully keep out the bugs. Once the panes were removed, I had to clean up the window, prime the frame, and put them back in. I thought putting them back in would be the easy part. Oh no. I was having trouble putting the glazier’s points back in place without breaking the glass. Not to mention I had already broken some panes while taking them out, now I was breaking them when replacing them. I ended up breaking 10 panes out of 24 and had to order some new glass. We are now waiting on the last four panes to be cut to size and we will pick them up and I can install them. And I hope I don’t break anymore :) Thankfully, glass is cheap. What a project this has turned into! Good news though, this should be the only window that I actually have to remove the panes from. This particular window had mildew under the glass which is why I had to remove them all so I could clean it up. None of the other windows have that problem. I am so thankful for that or I would start to feel very discouraged. Instead, I am envisioning how nice it will all look when it is done :)

Today is the first day all week I have taken a break from my window project. You can imagine how dirty the house was (especially the kitchen) after a week of sanding and paint scraping. So today was house cleaning day. It’s probably one of the few times that cleaning was fun. It allowed me to put my project on pause and boy was I ready for a break! So now that the house is on its way to being clean, I figured I would blog and try and get caught up here too.

Enough rambling… let’s move forward onto more exciting topics. Like napkins. Surely that is more exciting, right?!

Several weeks ago I saw some napkins at Target that were double sided. I thought they were so cute and I couldn’t get them out of my mind so I decided to make some of my own (big surprise!). I gathered some fabrics from my sewing room and got to work. I figured I would make it easy and keep them small. I made the pattern 12 x 12 and used a scrapbook paper as a template.

I cut out squares from each of my fabrics using my pinking shears, cutting 2 different fabrics for each napkin.

Next, I placed them in pairs, right sides together and sewing around all four sides except for a few inches in the middle on one side. You can kind of see it in the photo where I left it open.

Then I snipped the corners and turned it right side out and ironed it flat.

Lastly, I ironed the opening to match the rest of it and then sewing all around the outside, sewing the opening shut. Super easy, right?!

I wanted to use lots of different prints for fun. Look how cute they are!

Stripes and florals together are wonderful.

Since they are double sided, when I create a place setting I want both sides to show. Here is how I used them. Fold the bottom up first…

Then flip it over and fold one side over.

Then fold the other side over and flip it back to the front.

Ta-da! You have created a little pocket for the silverware. And, even better, you can show off both patterns at the same time.

I think they all look pretty cute :)

I have already used them when we had some friends over last week. And the best part is, since none of them match, it’s easy to add more to my collection if I end up needing more than 8. Even though I completely adore stripes, I think my favorites are the floral on floral. So fun!

And that concludes my week. One of these days I will get around to posting my Instagram photos again. I sort of can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve posted them. I haven’t even been taking very many of them lately. I guess when you are doing the same thing every day (i.e. scraping paint), there isn’t much new to report :)

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend. I know I will because I am taking the whole weekend off from my windows. I’m not even going to think about them :) Haha!

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Tagged: DIY, Sewing, Tutorials

Shiny Tiny Rhiny

Weird title, I know, but hang in there with me and you will understand where it’s coming from :)

I had a great weekend. Jason had Thursday through Monday off and I had Saturday off (Saturday is the only day I work) and so we enjoyed it! Yesterday we had a wonderful day with friends and family and it was good to have some much needed time off. Especially for Jason. I wasn’t ready for him to go back to work today. Plus, that meant that I had to get back to work here at home to. And believe me, I have been working. This is what I have been working on for the past week and a half:

All of our windows from the outside look terrible. Really terrible. The one shown above isn’t even the worst one. And, maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but they have looked bad since we moved in 6 years ago. This year, I finally had enough and decided to start tackling this project. I knew it would be a big job, and it is. I have been scraping and scraping. But I’m hoping to get the bottom back windows done before the weather turns really hot and the humidity sets in because they are the worst. That’s my goal :) Thankfully, now I am armed with a heat gun and it is going much faster! I have to scrape all the windows down, including the glazing, clean them, re-glaze them, primer them, and then paint. I’m still on the scraping part. It could be a while. I have 5 scraped and 15 left (but only 3 more to reach my goal of the back bottom windows) See why I’ve been putting it off for so long?! Yikes!

Anyway, just thought I would fill you in on what I’m up to. Now on to something more exciting: Shiny Tiny Rhinies…

I’ve been wanting a rhino for my wall. Especially the rhino from West Elm. I think they are so cute and when I visited a West Elm earlier in the month I got to see them in person and then I really wanted one. But, the price tag stopped me in my tracks. $99-$199 was not in my wallet at the time and so I got to thinking… Can I? Is it possible to DIY one of these guys? Yes, I think I can :)

I started thinking of how this might work and I was fully expecting this to be a project that went straight into the garbage in failure but surprisingly, it worked. The funny thing is, I had pinned a couple of different photos of DIY animal heads (here and here) but I hadn’t even looked at their tutorials. But it must have sparked a thought that it could be done. Later, I looked up the other tutorials and it ended up that I pretty much did the same thing as this one without even realizing it. And here I thought I was being so clever :)

First, I crumbled up a bunch of paper and sort of molded into the shape I wanted. Using duct tape, I secured it together.

I know, it doesn’t really look like a rhino yet, does it?!

After all of my paper was in place, I duct taped the whole thing so it was nice and secure.

Hmmm… starting to look better. Since this project took me several days, Jason would check in on me and ask me how my tiny rhiny project was going. And that is how it got the name Tiny Rhiny.

After Tiny Rhiny was all taped up, I used Mod Podge and more strips of the white paper to cover it like paper mache.

I did many layers and had to wait for it to dry each time which is why it took me several days.

After several layers I decided it was time for paint. I brushed on several coats of paint and then I also spray painted several coats with a gloss paint. That was how it became Shiny Tiny Rhiny.

And then, after all that work, I hung him up in Jason’s office.

He is on the wall kind of by the couch and when Jason is sitting on the couch he faces the rhino because he likes to sit sideways with his feet up.

The other day I walked down there when Jason was in the room and he said, “hey, there’s a shiny tiny rhiny in my office.” Ya, we’re dorks like that :)

I had so much fun making it and I was so surprised that it turned out so well, now I am wanting to make more. Although, I admit, there are only so many animals I need on my walls. If I think of another spot to put one, I might end up making another. A different animal though. West Elm has a really cute hippo that I like too :)

Or maybe instead of just the head I could try a whole animal. That would be crazy. I just might do it :)

One of my favorite things is how the white looks against the dark wall. Which is why I chose to hang it in this room. It looked way too cool to put him anywhere else :)

And that’s the story of our Shiny Tiny Rhiny. What do you think?!

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Tagged: DIY, Don't Cost A Dime, Tutorials

DIY Breadboard

Since I painted the kitchen, I have been wanting new things for the walls. I don’t have much wall space but that doesn’t stop me :) There is one little area next to the back door that I thought would be the perfect spot to add a little something and somehow I got into my head that I needed a breadboard.

First, I started looking around at breadboards and couldn’t find anything I wanted. I needed a skinny one and I definitely wanted all wood. Plus, I wanted to be able to hang it so it needed to have a handle with a hole. I even bought one, and once I got home I realized it was too big. So, back to the store it went.

Next, I found one from West Elm that I liked but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a lighter colored wood. Then, I saw the most amazing cutting boards online at Terrain (Anthropologie’s sister store). They were perfect. And expensive. At $198 and $128 I knew they would not be coming home with me. And then I got to thinking… I bet my Dad could make one of these. Right? I mean, he is amazing at all things wood. So I put a little bug in his ear and he was wonderful and volunteered to help me. Thanks Dad :)

We started with a solid block of wood, maple to be exact. This thing is nice and thick, just like what I wanted. My Dad found a piece that had some pretty colors swirled in. I love it :) We kind of sketched what I wanted onto the wood. I wanted to feel handmade and not super perfect. Knowing my Dad, he could have made it exactly perfect if I had wanted that but since I didn’t, it made things a bit easier for me. And since I was doing the cutting, that was a good thing!

 

Next, using a jigsaw, I cut out the design. I haven’t used one of these in years so I was a little rusty :) But it was fun and now I have all sorts of ideas in my brain for how I could put one of these saws to work!

It was a bit rough, but now you can see the final shape!

Another thing I was super excited about was my cool safety glasses:

I had forgotten mine at home and so I had to borrow some of my Dad’s. Imagine my surprise in opening them (they were new) that they said Yoder Cabinets on them. Yoder Cabinets is the business that my Dad started and operated for over 30 years! These might just be the last pair of these floating around :)

Next was sanding. I really don’t like sanding so whenever there is a power tool that can do the job faster, I am all for it. Here is my Dad giving me a demonstration. He tipped the sander on its side to make it easier. Genius!

After sanding, I used a router to round the edges to give it a polished look. I loved this tool. It was super easy and super fun. I really want to play with it again.

See how excited I am?!

Then, came more sanding. This time I got to use an orbital sander. I have used this one many times but only on flat surfaces. My Dad had to give me a little demonstration for rounded corners. It may not be perfect but it worked. Besides, I want it to look handmade, right?!

Then, after drilling a hole and some more hand sanding, we had a cutting board!

I tied some leather through the hole to hang it.

Isn’t the grain pretty?

I haven’t decided if I am actually going to cut on it or not. If I use it I will put some mineral oil on it first. Until then, it hangs in my kitchen unfinished. I like it that way.

The bow hook was one of my thrift store finds that I hadn’t used yet. I love how you have the frilliness of a bow and the simplicity of the wood together.

And that concludes my adventures in breadboard making. And because my Dad already had the wood handy and I had the leather, the total cost of this project for me was $0. That means I saved $198. That makes me a happy girl :)

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Tagged: DIY, Don't Cost A Dime, Tutorials

Jazzing Up My iPhone

I think I have a bit of an addiction to contact paper. I mean, it’s sort of getting out of control. As if my last post weren’t enough… I had another idea for a way to use contact paper. This time, as the title implies, I have used it on my iPhone. And it looks really cool :)

Recently, I bought a new iPhone case. I seriously couldn’t decide between the thousands of cases out there because they were all too wonderful. I knew I didn’t want to spend a ton because I might want more than one but other than that, I didn’t have any idea what I wanted. There are just too many to choose from and so I decided to go with a plain color. I’m glad I did. I really like it. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting a little bit of pattern now and again. And then it came to me… why not decorate it a bit? Heck, yes!

Here is the before photo:

Again, I think it’s cute as is. With the possibility of being better!

First I gathered my supplies. I currently have 4 different kinds of contact paper in the house. White, black, silver, and wood grain. I was just going to make one but then I got carried away with trying different things. It’s kind of fun :)

The first one I tried was with the white polka-dots. I think it looks like confetti. Perfect if you are going to a party and want to look festive. Because I know we all like our iPhone’s to match our mood, attire, and event. Right?! Haha!

Since this was the first pattern I tried, I will tell you how it went. To make the dots I used a hole punch. Couldn’t get any easier than that. They also applied really easily. The hardest part was removing the paper backing from the tiny dots with my butterfingers. They were also cinch to remove. There was a little residue left from the contact paper but it came off quickly with a bit of Goo Gone and a paper towel.

Next up, large black polka-dots. I really like polka-dots. Can you tell? I decided to do hand cut dots instead of punching them for a more organic look. Super easy. Probably the easiest one I made. I did discover that you can’t really go around the corner or it causes some folds. So, it’s better to just fold over on the edges only and skip the corners.

This next one is pretty fun. It also makes me think of a party because it kind of looks like bunting. I thought the wood grain added a fun flair. I was sad to see this one go. But it might make an appearance later :)

And lastly, uneven stripes. You know me, I love me some stripes. This is the one that stayed. I couldn’t help myself :) Just cut some uneven strips and apply. Wow! Genius!

A couple things to note. I have had this on my phone for several days now and they are holding up really well. A couple of the stripes I ended up cutting a little closer in because they were catching on things (see the ones hanging off the corners?) but now they are doing well and I haven’t had any problem. In fact, it makes my phone have a bit more grip.

After doing these few, I have more ideas for patterns that I might have to tackle once I’m tired of the stripes. Fun, fun!!

On another topic… what do you think of the words on the photos? I decided to try something new. I think I like it :)

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Tagged: Before & After, DIY, Don't Cost A Dime, Tutorials