Craft Room Chaos

As you can tell, I do a lot of projects around here. I'm pretty good about cleaning up the place where I did the project right away, but recently my craft room has gotten a little out of control. Refer to evidence #1:

The West Elm knock-off felt bins were overflowing. The craft table was a mess. Bottom line, it was a disaster and needed help. Since I've put myself on a spending freeze (the whole summer's off thing is great, except for the no paycheck aspect!) I didn't want to spend any money to organize the space. I was enthusiastic to get started, unlike my friend here:

I started by returning anything that does not belong here to its proper home. Then I cleared out the felt bins to see what fabric I had in there. Since I have two bins, I separated the fabric into two piles - stuff I've used before and stuff I have yet to use. I folded it all up and put it back in the bins. While I was emptying the bins, I found a bunch of piping and other types of fabric edging. Luckily, a few months ago, I bought an office organizer for $7 at Walmart and it has just sat empty, until now. I even made a cute little label for it:

 It worked out perfectly because it came with those dividers. I simply rolled up the edging and secured the rolls with twine that I had.

I tend to be a pack rat save anything that I think may eventually come in handy. For instance, I saved the cardboard that came in the package when we bought new sheets. A little weird, yes, but I knew that one day it was going to be useful! I have several photo mattes that needed to be corralled and they all fit perfect tucked into the cardboard. Unfortunately, the cardboard had seen better days. Probably before it was used in the packaging for a sheet set. Anyway. I grabbed a few pieces of scrapbook paper and Modge Podge.

Its been a long time since I've used Modge Podge and now I'm wondering why, because this stuff is great! I painted on a thin layer where the paper needed to lay and then put the paper in place. A few minutes later, I used the Modge Podge as a sealer so the paper would not tear as I was trying to access the photo mattes. I made another label, and voila!

Sorry the picture is so blurry, I'm obviously still trying to figure out this new camera.

Lastly, I took advantage of having a zillion vases/candle holders and used a few of them to hold my supply of ribbon. These few projects really cleaned up those shelves!

The rest of the organizing process was really just straightening up and putting things back where they belonged. The finished product is a pretty big improvement though:

There are still a few things I want to do in here, like cover an ugly bulletin board in fabric to make it prettier and hang it. The white walls and plain curtains are also starting to drive me batty, so they might get tackled soon. Luckily I have nothing but time to do more projects until school starts - well once this week's APPR training is over. I'll certainly keep you posted.

What type of organizing have you accomplished recently? Any free/easy ideas? Please share!

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen

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A Lucky Coincedence

After I made the cushion for Simon's bench the other day, Bill requested that I make one for an outdoor bench we keep by the front door. Of course I was happy to oblige!

I went to JoAnn's and found this lovely yellow outdoor fabric and bought a yard and a quarter of it. I also bought some navy blue piping since I had such success with it the first time I used it. By the way, I think I like most of the outdoor fabric better than the indoor stuff lately. They have some really cute stuff to choose from.

Anyway, I measured the bench outside and made a cushion following the same directions I did when I made Simon's cushion. Once I had finished it, I realized that it perfectly matched a few outdoor pillows that I had picked up in Target last year. What a nice coincedence!

Looking at the pictures really makes me notice that the bench is in rough shape. That might be a project for when the weather is a little more stable!

Ignore the leaves under the bench. Whenever is gets windy the leaves get trapped up in this corner of the house.

Simon chewing up the memory foam has really afforded me the chance to complete several projects that I wouldn't have done otherwise. I'm definitely looking at the bright side! I hope everyone is enjoying Spring Break! Is anyone else completing any projects around the house? Do tell...

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen

Two-Faced, in a Good Way

I've been seeing a lot of pillows on pinterest and other blogs that have writing or designs on the front of them. While I was in Micheal's the other day, I picked up some black fabric paint so I could give this a try. I played around in Word until I found a font and symbol that I liked. Then I made the font huge, like 750 or something ridiculous, and printed it out. Here are my supplies, all ready to go:

Basically, I put the printed out symbol under my fabric and traced it with the paint. I used a cheap linen fabric so I wouldn't be heartbroken if it didn't work out well. Luckily, after about 15 minutes I was left with a nice looking hand-painted ampersand.

In order to make the pillow a little more interesting, I used a different fabric for the back side. I sewed the pillow just like I learned in middle school and then used some stuffing from the yucky pillows that came with the furniture to fill it. Lastly, I hand sewed the bottom shut. Ta Da!

Here's the front:

And the back:

I tried to get a picture where you could see both sides, but it was a little difficult. Here was my most successful attempt:

For now the pillow is living on the couch in our living room. The fabric is so versatile that it might make a move. Our guest room needs a little love, so maybe it'll go in there.

I never thought that I could hand paint something and it would be nice enough to display in our home. There was a little cheating involved since I was just tracing, but I'm still proud. File this one under another cheap and easy project! My sewing machine is getting a lot of use this week. Bill said that sewing machine Christmas sure beat yoga Christmas since I'm actually using the machine so much! Who else has projects going on this week? The weather is so gross out that we're only focused on the inside this week. We can't be the only ones!

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen

Linking Up at Making the World Cuter

No Sew Fail

My first ever project with fabric was this table runner. I just ironed over the edges and called it a day. It looked great on our dining room table and on the dresser in the kitchen. 

As part of my spring cleaning, I decided it was time to wash the runners. Suddenly my no-sew runners turned into a big fat fail. When I took them out of the washer, they were a tangled mess. The edges had frayed and they were ugly. I put them in the dryer and went to bed, ashamed of the turnout.

The next day, I took them out of the dryer and started trimming the frayed edges. I ironed them again and then sewed a quick seam on one of them and put it back on the dresser. It was a quick fix and now I can wash it without worrying about what will happen. Instead of just fixing the second one for the dining table, I decided to make place mats. I measured some place mats that we already had and realized that the runner could easily be cut into 4 place mats.

Each one was going to be 13" wide, before sewing the edges. I simply measured this and cut the fabric.

 
Once I had the 4 pieces cut, I ironed a hem around all 4 sides of each one. This was the most tedious part. Then I pinned down where I had ironed so I could sew them. I even clipped the corners so they'd be nice and neat.

It took about ten minutes to sew all four of the place mats. Now I have 4 pretty place mats that bring some pattern to the dining room table. We always use place mats on the table because I don't want to scratch or damage the table.

I'm looking forward to making more using different fabric for different seasons and occasions. It was such a simple project, especially if you have a sewing machine. I'm sure it wouldn't take that long to hand sew them either. I never really changed my decor with the seasons, except for Christmas, but I think that's going to change now that I have so many options! Do you change items in your house based on the time of year? Or do you only decorate for holidays?

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen

Piping Hot

I never thought I'd say this, but I love my dog. Those of you who know me, know that I never ever even wanted a dog. Then when I got married, I needed to compromise. Luckily, we found Simon and he is the sweetest dog. Well, the sweetest dog until he starts chewing things.

Last weekend when I was washing the sheets, Simon decided that he wanted to chew on the memory foam mattress topper on the bed. He took a few big chunks out of the foam. He didn't actually ingest any, so that was the bright side.

A few positives came out of this: we bought a brand new mattress (nothing fancy, but certainly more comfortable than the old one) and now I have all this foam to use for projects.

My first project was the make a new cushion for the bench that Simon sits on in front of the window in our mudroom. Surprisingly, he chewed through a corner of the cushion that came with the bench. Who is surprised by that? Oh right, no one.

I am starting to feel pretty comfortable with my sewing machine. I knew that I could made a basic cushion for the bench, so I decided to jazz it up a little with some piping. The piping did prove to be a little challenging for me and my tiny sewing machine. First, I measured the current cushion so I could use those measurements for the new cushion. I cut out 6 rectangles - 2 for the top/bottom, 2 for the long sides, and 2 for the short sides. I decided to use outdoor canvas fabric so it will (hopefully) hold up better.

I consulted with a sewing expert, my mom, on how to properly attach the piping. She suggested that I sew it to one piece first instead of sewing it in between the two pieces at the same time. So I laid the fabric right side up and then lined up the raw edge of the piping with the raw edge of the fabric. I pinned and sewed this all the way around the fabric for the top of the cushion. 

 I was really excited when I folded the piping over and found this! Success!

The next step was to attach the sides to the top piece. Again, I lined up the fabric with right sides facing and the piping between them. I pinned and sewed one side at a time, with the side that had the original stitching facing up so I could follow that line.

I was so surprised and excited by how good this was turning out that I wanted to just quit while I was ahead! Luckily for Simon, I forged ahead. I attached the bottom piece onto 3 of the sides, leaving one end open so I could eventually stuff the foam inside. Next, it was time to cut out a piece of foam. I used my electric knife to cut through the foam and it worked like a charm. Fortunately, Bill was distracted by a video game and didn't know I was doing this until after I finished! I thought it was good that I finally used the electric knife for something!

Anyway, I brought the foam up to my craft room and stuffed it inside the cover. It fit! Things were really going too smoothly at this point!

 
The rest of the project actually went just as smoothly. I hand sewed the final side closed and then was finished! The cushion fits perfectly on the bench. It took a little coaxing, but Simon eventually climbed up and he seems to enjoy it.

This is his happy face, I swear.

 Simon and I are thrilled with how the cushion turned out. He's sleeping out there on the bench as I write this! The piping was really pretty simple to work with once I got the hang of it. I bought a little extra and can't wait to use it again for another project. It makes the finished product look more professional than homemade. Have you ever worked with piping? How about had a project turn out way better than you expected? I'd love to hear about it in the comments. :)

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen Linked up at:

Another Knock Off

I am a huge fan of West Elm. Bill and I even worked a stop in on our anniversary trip to Boston a few years ago. Unfortunately, we live about two and a half hours from the closest store. That's probably a good thing for my wallet though! I have been pining over this felt storage bin since seeing it in their catalog several months ago. I had some gray felt leftover from an organizer I made for school, so I decided to try and make one for myself.

I sketched out a rough drawing on my chalkboard wall. I'm a very visual person, so its super helpful for me to see something drawn out before attempting to create it.

I wanted the bin to fit on the shelves in my craft room. Since the shelves are 11 inches deep, I planned for the bins to be the same. I laid my fabric out on the bed to cut out four 8 by 11 inch rectangles and one 11 by 11 inch square. I turned around to grab my scissors and then saw this:

Either Simon finds felt really comfortable, or he wasn't too excited about me spending time working on a project that doesn't involve him. I'm going with the latter!

Once I finally convinced Simon to move, I cut out the felt pieces that I needed. The assembly was very easy. I sewed the rectangular sides together first, and then attached the bottom. I was very excited to see the results of my handy work, but instead I got this:

Womp womp. The bin needed some structure to keep the sides standing up. I went down to our recycling bin and grabbed a pasta box. After cutting the box into strips, I sprayed each one with some adhesive and stuck them inside the bin. This worked like a charm.

Working on all of these projects has resulted in having a lot of extra fabric to store. Luckily the bin served this purpose well.

Unfortunately, there was still more fabric that needed a home. I had plenty of felt left, so I just whipped up another bin. Now all of the fabric fits perfectly, with space to spare for future projects. The bins fit perfectly on the shelves in the craft room.

They're certainly not fancy, but I like that they match and they are able to fit a whole lot of fabric. I especially like that they were free since I already had the felt. That sure beats the $24 price tag for one of the West Elm version! I would like to jazz them up a bit. I wish I knew how to embroider, but that's a no go at this point. I'm thinking about using some sort of iron-on thing to create labels for them. What do you think?

Have you DIY-ed something lately because you didn't want to pay for it at a store? This seems to be happening quite a bit around here lately!

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen

Protecting the Goods

We recently purchased a new camera, but instead of buying an ugly camera case from the store I decided to make my own. I saved some foam packing material that came with the delivery of the new ink for our printer. This, along with some batting leftover from the ottoman, would be the perfect cushion to protect my beloved new camera.

I layered the foam and batting and then used some leftover jersey knit fabric to sew a pocket for it. I used chalk to outline where the padding would fit into the pocket and then pinned along my marks. Sewing this was very similar to sewing a pillow. Make sure you leave a portion of one side open to stuff in the padding!

Once the padding was taken care of, it was time to turn my attention to the pretty part of this project. I picked a navy blue patterned fabric to use for the visible part of the case. I never used any measurements for this project, I just folded the padding in half to see how large the bag needed to be. I also knew that I wanted to have a top flap on the bag so I'd be able to keep the bag closed.

Once I sewed the bag and finished off the edges, I sewed on a button and used some elastic thread (like I used on the pillow) to keep the bag closed. My next sewing machine will definitely have a button-hole feature!

To finish off the flap and cover where I had sewn the elastic thread on, I added some ribbon. The green ribbon added a pop of color and functions as the perfect cover-up to the elastic.

Here's a view of the inside of the finished camera case. There's between one and a half and two inches of padding to keep the camera protected. I also left space for the rechargeable batteries and the camera cord to live.

The complete project took about two hours. A lot of that time was spent figuring out how big I needed the case to be and how much padding I wanted to use. I'm really happy with the finished product. In fact, I used it as a clutch last night when I didn't need to bring my camera out.

It's certainly pretty enough to carry on its own, but it's also small enough to fit inside my normal purse. Have you made something for yourself lately because all of the store bought versions are just too ugly? Since the jersey fabric, batting, foam and ribbon were all leftover from other projects, this only cost a few dollars for the pretty fabric. Time and money well spent!

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen 

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Trash to Treasure - A Pair of Chairs

Twice a year in our town, there's a week when you can put anything you want to get rid of out on the curb and the town will come and pick it up. Most people use this as an opportunity to get rid of a lot of junk that's taking up space in their house or garage. I tend to take really long walks with our dog Simon and check out all of the goods. A lot of it is junk, but you can also find some good stuff. Once I spot something worth grabbing, I hurry home with the dog and rush back out in the car to pick it up.

Last spring, I found these chairs in our neighborhood. They were beat up and had definitely seen better days. Lucky for me, their former owners were over them and I was able to snatch them up. I didn't remember to take a before photo of both chairs, so here's a pic with one finished and the other one in all of its beat up glory.

The chairs were wood and pretty beat up. I sanded them down to remove years of grime and old stain and then turned to the trusty spray paint. I did a few light coats of gray spray paint on each chair frame.

Recovering a chair seat is one of the simplest projects out there. I bought about a yard of fabric in this bright teal geometric print. I laid the fabric face down on the floor and then placed the cushion on top of it. I used the same method as I did when I covered the cushion for the ottoman and put one staple on each side and then worked my way around. Even the corners on a seat cushion are pretty easy. Just fold the fabric over and staple it down.

I love how the chairs almost look like old fashioned metal office chairs because of the gray spray paint. The geometric patterned fabric really pops as well. It's nice to add a splash of color with such a simple project.

Originally I picked up the chairs because I needed some chairs for my computer tables at school. Fortunately, I found 4 other chairs during the freebie garbage week that I could take to school because these came out so great. The chairs now live in our mudroom.

 

There isn't too much I love about our mudroom, other than these chairs. There's reclaimed wood on the walls that's ok. It makes the space pretty dark, but does give it a little character. I do enjoy the hooks so we have a place to hang up our coats. I also can't wait to replace the tile in there. That's on the "to do if we win a bunch of money" list!

  Since I only had to pay for the fabric and spray paint, this makeover came in at about $20. Pretty good if I do say so myself!

Does your town have a junk pick-up week like this throughout the year? Its amazing to see what some people put out on the curb. Have you fixed up anything that was someone elses trash? It's pretty gratifying to make some pretty and useful again. Does anyone else have a "to do if I win a bunch of money" list? It can't just be us!

Thanks for reading,

Kathleen

Easy DIY Pillow Cover

When I made the ottoman the other day, I had a strip of leftover fabric. The piece was about 2 feet long, and since it was the decorator fabric it was 54 inches wide. This was the perfect size to make a quick pillow cover for one of the ugly pillows that came with our couch. I'm making it my mission to cover all of these pillows eventually. I can't stand that they are the same color as the couch. Does that drive anyone else crazy?

This pillow cover was especially easy to make because I did not have to line up a pattern on the fabric. I simply hemmed both edges of the fabric so I would have nice clean edges along the opening. Since I wanted the cover to be removable, I needed to fold and sew the fabric so there would be an opening in the back, not along the bottom of the cover. I folded the fabric into thirds, with the right sides in and a little bit of an overlap.Lastly, I sewed both of the long edges together and turned the fabric right side out.

I stuffed the pillow in at this point and realized I had two problems: 1) the pillow cover was humongous and b) the pillow stretched out the opening in the back and you could see the ugly brown pillow.

Since I wasn't worried about lining up a pattern on the fabric, the first problem had an easy fix. I just turned the fabric inside out again and sewed another seam about 2 inches further in. This made the pillow cover about 2 inches smaller in width and that was perfect for my pillow.

The second issue took a little creativity to fix. I bought some buttons a few weeks ago, but I didn't realize that I needed a special setting on my sewing machine to make a button hole. Womp womp. Fortunately, I had some elastic cord laying around. Since I had sewn a hem to make clean edges at the opening of the cover, I could sew a loop of elastic in there without it being visible from the outside of the fabric. Then I sewed the buttons right onto the pillow. I'll let the pictures do the explaining.

The elastic and button do a great job of keeping the ugly brown pillow hidden.

 The pillow will live in our living room for now, but its so beautiful out today that I could not resist taking the pictures outside. Seventy degrees in March in upstate New York? I'll take it!

Don't mind the dead grass in the background. It is only March after all. Snow is not out of the realm of possibility yet! Simon's loving the great weather this week too. He was such a good boy posing for the picture that I had to share it!

 He's such a mama's boy, and I love it! :) I hope the directions were easy enough to follow. Have you made any pillows recently? Before this year, it had been about 18 years since I had. Junior high home and careers class baby! Are you enjoying this beautiful weather? Let's hope it sticks around!

Thanks for reading,
Kathleen