Bragging Rights

Have you heard of the "Own Your Look" Prom Dress Contest sponsored by JoAnn Fabrics?  The 2011 contest was open to teens who made their own formal attire.  Requirements included an original dress design and coordinating accessory created with fabric and products from JoAnn Fabrics.  This contest isn't something to sneeze at: the first place winner receives a $50,000 prize--something any college-bound teen can appreciate.  You can view all the entries into the contest here.

I'm excited to announce that one of my sweet nieces, Rachelle, entered her Senior Prom dress into the competition.  I couldn't be more impressed with the beautiful dress and matching headband that she made.

A Pretty Apron

This week I'm republishing a popular post from last spring in honor of The CSI Project's Refashions {Upcycled Clothing} Challenge.  

Once upon a time, I dropped by Goodwill to check out the glass aisle.  I was in the mood for making more apothecary jars--and possibly some cake stands, too--for my sewing room.  On the way to the glass aisle, I passed the Wall of Dresses.  I rarely ever give the Wall of Dresses anything more than a passing glance.  Usually that passing glance lands upon someone's old bridesmaid dress, and I have a quiet giggle.

This time, however, was different.  My passing glance paused upon these two dresses.

 It was the fabric that did it.  The fabric and that ruffle on the brown one.

True Confessions: My Sewing Room

Remember when I told you I was redoing my sewing room?

{crickets chirping}


Really?  You don't?  That could possibly be because I made that declaration over a year ago.  Oh dear.

I told you all of my good intentions for that room here.  I even provided an oh-so-charming "inspiration board" for the so-called Aqua Poppy Sewing Room.

Then I set about giving the room a complete overhaul.  I mean, really, it needed it.  Remember?  Piles of stuff everywhere?

{more crickets chirping, owl hooting}


Oh, you don't remember that?  Well, let me provide you with a link to my before shots of the sewing room...

Monday

Hello, Friends!

I have been curiously absent from the blog lately, have you noticed?  My reasons are really not earth shattering, but I do have reasons:

• I started attending early-morning fitness boot camp.  It starts at 5:15 A.M., M/W/F, and I have to leave my house by 5:05 sharp if I want to arrive early enough to keep from getting singled out by one of the instructors to do push-ups in front of everyone.  I am absolutely not the kind of gal who feels the need to put on make-up or even run a brush through my hair anytime before 8 A.M., especially if I'm going to be sweating.  (There is a lot of sweating going on at boot camp.)  However, I really don't like to sweat when wearing glasses, and my eyes just can't handle waking up and immediately getting contact lenses jabbed into them.  So, my alarm is getting set for 4:35 A.M. three days a week.  It's killing me, I tell you.
• So, since I'm getting up super early, I'm trying to make a dedicated effort to go to bed as soon as I get my kids in bed.  Some nights that works better than others.  But it's killing my blogging time!  You know that quiet two hours between kids' bedtime and grown up bedtime?  That's perfect for writing. That time is gone to me, now.  With the wind.
• My sewing machine is giving me palpitations.  Seriously, I have nearly said several naughty words about it in the last week.  My curtain project has been totally derailed.  It caused me to have such a tearful, dramatic outburst on Saturday that my husband was almost moved to hand over the checkbook so I could go get a new machine one.  I was sorely tempted to sob a couple more times to seal the deal, but in the back of my mind I had a sneaking suspicion that PMS might be more to blame than the actual machine.....so I agreed to call a repair shop, first.  After all, it is a vintage machine, and that's so on trend.  I've never been so on trend before in my life.
• I've been on two field trips in the last two weeks, track meets began, it's teacher appreciation week, and we had the Pinewood Derby.  Need I say more?

Oh, also....I started another round of the Game On Challenge.  Considering how many push-ups and squats I've been doing for the last few weeks, I should be seeing some serious results, this time around.  Shouldn't I?  If I don't, that vintage sewing machine might get thrown out a second-story window.  I'm just saying.

Something Special Saturday - 3/26/11

It's that time again!

This week, the official week of our semi-annual Great Sort (read about it here), I have clothing on my brain.  Specifically, spring/summer dressy outfits for my girls, since I need to get going on some dresses or skirts if I am going to have them ready for Easter.

I've been looking at the Matilda Jane website and thinking about how to replicate this or this dress for Superkid, and this skirt for Endeavor.  Totally doable.  

Have you been to Hawthorne Threads, yet?  I {heart} this site.  To be honest, I've never actually placed an order, but my goodness I have a lot of fun looking and getting inspired.  One of my favorite things about the Hawthorne Threads site is their color grid.  You can click on any color in the grid, and a slew of beautiful fabrics featuring that color will appear on the screen.  Click on any fabric, and there is a group of coordinating fabrics shown below it, as well as similar patterns in alternate colors.  My sister and I had waaaaaay too much fun playing with the color grid last summer, when I visited at her house.

Here's proof that I've been playing with the color grid again while I've been thinking about sewing for my girls.  How do you like these combos?

Enjoy your weekend!

Recycling

This was a fun project from last spring.  Thanks to a women's sewing organization in Turkey who has posted a link to this project on their website, this little project has garnered international fame.  (Well, at least I like to think so.)  If you missed it last year or you aren't Turkish, here's a little

Fashion Friendly Recycling!

I created this outfit using materials I had on hand.  Here's the before:

Ribbon Trimmed Canvas Curtains

Earlier this week, I showed you how I made several things to insert bright colors and a fun pattern into my otherwise neutral décor. 

Remember how that valance was originally a tablecloth?  It was a pretty big tablecloth, but after two pillows and a long valance, I was starting to run low on snowflake fabric.

Originally, I planned to make another snowflake valance to top the window in my dining room (the other end of our large great room).  I played around with a couple of ideas, but finally came up with something completely different.

Canvas Pillow Cover

I’m showing off some of my winter projects, this week.  Yesterday was all about my cheery snowflake tablecloth that found a few new things to cover.  Did you notice the pillow that was being propped up by some of those snowflakes?

This lovely canvas number was another one of my snow day sewing projects.  I’ll be forever grateful to this pretty pillow for helping me figure out how my sewing machine works. 

I started this pillow cover with one thing in mind: ruffles.  I wanted something ruffly on this pillow, but I didn’t want it to scream, “I’M A RUFFLED PILLOW!”

It Snowed Inside

I know that today is the first day of March, and I should probably be thinking of spring….but we’re still experiencing winter where I live.  Just humor me, this week, while I finally post some of my winter projects.

Yesterday, this little pillow was in all the pictures of my newly slipcovered chair.  See if you can find a couple of its relatives on the other side of my family room:

Here’s another snowflake pillow on the couch…

….with more snowflakes over the window!

Believe it or not, it cost me all of $1.98 to make both pillows and the valance.  What’s my secret to scoring such a great deal on fabric?  I didn’t buy it at a fabric store. 

All that fabric came from a tablecloth I found last year during Target’s post Christmas clearance.

My Slip is Showing, the Sequel

 Remember waaaaayyy back when I started sewing my very first slipcover? 

I actually finished it—ta da!

Slip it under the Table

This post is like opening my underwear drawer.  Is there anyone else who has places in their house, like this, that just seem to collect stuff?  Tell me I'm not alone.

Tell me that your children come home from school and dump their backpacks on the floor and run away, too.

Maybe yours don't.  Maybe you are one of the lucky moms who has a gorgeous mudroom with nicely painted lockers to corral all of the stuff that your kids and your husband and your dog bring into your house.

Today's blog post is for the rest of us.

The ones that have stuff randomly dropped on every. surface. of. our. homes.

Before the first week of school ended this year, I had totally had it with stuff on the floor.  It seemed that every afternoon, I was tripping over backpacks and shoes and papers from school and math books and homework in progress.  I blamed two things: a) we don't have a closet within 40 horizontal feet of our front door and b) we didn't have a designated homework spot.

This led to a highly productive discussion between the Bionic Man and I.  The discussion began with me demanding a whole-house remodel and ended up with us discovering some more reasonable solutions.  One of which was the eventual installation of a closet in the vicinity of our front door.  (Hence, the blue tape lines you see in the corner of the picture up there.  We're trying it with tape, first.)

Right there.  That corner has always perplexed me.  (I'm actually starting to wonder if the builder just forgot to frame in a closet in that spot.)

What about the backpacks and school papers?  Ever ready to knock down a wall or two, I suggested that we move our laundry room upstairs and remodel the existing laundry room into a homework room.  (Yes, I do appreciate the fact that I have the kind of floorplan that allows for that kind of thinking.)  The Bionic Man suggested, alternately, buying desks for the children's bedrooms.

That helped me recognize that I didn't want the children upstairs in their rooms doing homework.  They've been gone all day and I like to enjoy having them home after school.  Their homework time is when I prepare dinner, so if they were upstairs doing homework, I'd have to choose between preparing dinner in a timely fashion or overseeing their homework.  It also made me realize that the perfect homework spot was our EXTREMELY UNDERUTILIZED kitchen bar.....the household magnet for everything that no one knows what to do with.  We've never put barstools there because of the carpet on the other side of the bar; we thought we were being smart and saving the carpet.

Newsflash:  barstools cost way less than remodeling!

We found these barstools at our local Target.  I had originally picked out something much different on Target.com.  Fortunately, my first choice was backordered--these actually fit the space sooooo much better than the others would have and cost $50 less.  The brown leather seats match the sofas in the adjoining room, and the oil rubbed bronze legs match all the hardware and lighting in our house.

I love them as much as my electric griddle.  They've changed my life. 

So, how did I solve the problem of what to do with the backpacks?  That was trickier.  The closet won't materialize until the Bionic Man's time off over the holidays.  I've always wanted to have a small table behind one of our couches, so I decided to find something that could do double duty as backpack storage and cute-table-behind-the-couch.  Pottery Barn has this, but I don't have $700 lying around.  Then I realized I had something already that would work.

Remember this cheap, sad little card table?  As it is, it's not very pretty.  Even with the artful designs Superkid added to the tabletop a few years ago.

It was the right size....I just needed a way to cover it and conceal what was underneath.  Canvas to the rescue!  Look at my messy little table, now:

 

 

There was nothing complex in the making of this table cover.  I turned the table over on top of a canvas dropcloth and traced the tabletop.  I cut it out.  Then I measured the perimeter, and cut out more canvas in the length I needed.  I measured the distance from the top of my table to the floor and added 1/2 an inch.  I made sure that the cut of canvas I used was already hemmed (dropcloths come pre-hemmed on all sides) so that I didn't even have to bother with that.  Then I matched the pieces up and sewed a single seam.  I had to allow for some slight gathering at the corners.

I layered the middle strip of fabric with the other two pieces, allowing for easy access underneath the table.  It kind of gives the tablecloth a pleated effect.  Note that I do not believe in ironing.

Now, for less than $10 and waaaaay less time than it would have taken to refinish a piece of furniture, I have a temporary storage solution that is easy on the eyes.

It will be fun to decorate this little tabletop for the seasons.  Hopefully that will keep the floating junk pile away!

When my children come home from school now, they do their work at the bar, while I prepare dinner at the island.  I can answer questions and quiz them on spelling words while I chop and stir and fry.  Their backpacks are nearby, easy to stow and easy to go!

That's one thing checked off my list to make our home more organized.  Is there anything you are doing to make life at your home easier?

Has this worked for me?  Click here for the follow up.....

I'm linking up to

The Nester's 31 Days to a Less Messy Nest

 

My Slip is Showing!

Got your attention, didn't I?

I now present....the slipcover project!

 There is a corner of my family room that needs a chair.  Not wants a chair, needs a chair.  Otherwise, it is just a strangely empty corner that throws the balance of the whole room.  Because I'm too cheap to actually spend money on furniture if I don't have to, I've had a wing chair from our front parlor filling the hole.

It's part of a set: two wingbacks and a sofa.  They are the best furniture purchase we never made.  We got them for free from friends in Connecticut who were ready to set them out on the curb.  Would I have made that fabric selection if I'd purchased them?  No, but I am not one to say no to free furniture that looks like it has never been sat upon.  Does that complicated floral pattern match my family room?  No, but I needed a chair and that one had to do.

Finally, one day, after searching online for inspiration, I said aloud, "I CAN MAKE A SLIPCOVER FOR THAT."

And then I nearly passed out from the effort of just saying I could make it.  After reviving myself, I decided that attempting to make a slipcover would be waaaaay more fun than helping the Bionic Man clean out the garage.  Besides, I had plenty of cheap canvas from dropcloths that I could use, without feeling too badly if I messed up and wasted a bunch of fabric.

So, I just kept referring to this picture from the Nester, and reading her blog post about slipcovering throughout the day for encouragement.

By Saturday night, I'd used every pin in the house, nearly said some bad words, had pricked my fingers mercilessly, and had talked my 11 year old into making dinner.  But I'd also made a slipcover!

It really was easier than that description makes it sound, just nerve-wracking for a novice like me.  I laid my oh-so-forgiving canvas over the chair, cut pieces out to "match" the various shapes of the chair, pinned those shapes together on the chair, basted the shapes together just in case the pins fell out, then took the pinned-together cover off the chair and sewed all the seams.  The beauty of the canvas is that there is no wrong or right side, so I could just flip the sewed pieces right-side-out, and throw it on the chair.

The Bionic Man was very impressed.  

As you can see, it's not quite done.  I haven't covered the seat cushion, yet.  I ran out of canvas. 

I need to decide on the length for these curtains in my dining room, so I can cut off the excess and use it to cover the cushion.

 Also, I didn't finish sewing up a couple of the seams before I tried it on the chair.  I was worried that it might not fit.

And, I'm definitely not done with the hemline.  I'm thinking a ruffle would be just the thing, there.  But hey, I've made enough progress now to know that I can do the rest.  I feel like such a smarty pants!

In fact, I'm pretty confident that I could make a slipcover for the other chair and it's matching couch, which live in our front parlor.

What do you think?  Should I do it?  The whole project has me thinking of creamy white board and batten and chocolate brown walls for this room.  Like in this room I found:

mckevitts

Let me know if you are interested in getting more detailed instructions with pictures if/when I slipcover the other chairs.  I didn't have a camera available while I was working, so I have no photographic proof that I actually did this.  Or a means of showing you how, for this post.

Okay, so remember how I told you the waterproof camera died?  Well, like Lazarus of old, it is back from the dead!  Actually, unlike Lazarus, the camera was not actually dead.  We had a package of defective batteries, apparently.  While this means, unfortunately, that I still stuck taking photos with a dumb ol' waterproof camera, it also means that the Bionic Man has started shopping for the kind of camera I want.  Probably because he's so impressed that I made a slipcover.