Christmas felt ornaments

In following with this year's theme of "follow through," I thought I'd make something I've been intending to make for years now: hand-sewn felt ornaments! I can't tell you how many of these projects I've pinned on Pinterest over the years. The peace sign and heart are my own free-hand designs, and the angel pattern is from the Bugs and Fishes blog. These were so much fun that I'm sure I'll be making more--which is good, since I have quite a bit of felt in my stash to burn through!

summer of spraypaint -- project dos

Okay, so I have been dying to try this new spraypaint since I read about in my magazines. Sea glass?!?! Yes please! When we finished a Pace salsa, I thought "hmmm ... that's not a bad vase shape." Perfect for my first trial!

And the verdict? LOVE! It really is the perfect amount of translucence. I will for sure be using this spraypaint again!

summer of spraypaint--project uno

 

Long time readers may vaguely recall this dresser ... we spray painted it "ballet pink" and attached cute wood animals on the drawers for one little girl's baby nursery a long time ago ... and after more than five years, it was looking shabby. Note the crayon, and missing felt from some of the poor animals' features ...

It was high time for a "big girl" makeover for this dresser. We wanted to keep the pink top and sides (and only paint the drawers), so I picked colors that coordinated. I found a very similar pink (ballet pink was no longer in stock at my local sources), a nice purple and pulled my old can of turquoise spraypaint leftover from this project out of storage.

This was a multiple day process, with nine drawers to update. I used a flat head screwdriver to loosen and "pop" the animals off each drawer, and then an exacto knife to remove glue and the bar code sticker I failed to remove prior to attaching each animal (lesson learned--the sticker stuck the most to the drawer!). Did half one day, then finished the rest on another. I tried using wood putty and sanding to even out the "holes" from the removed paint, but that was only moderately successful. The surfaces were still pretty bumpy if you looked close after painting.

 

What to do? Vinyl removable wall stickers from Walmart to the rescue! These are strategically placed to hide my flaws. Love, love, love how this turned out--and so does my big girl! This is the first of many spraypaint projects I've been working on this summer, so be prepared for more to come ...

curtain crazy, part 2

So, my kitchen windows have remained "undressed" for years ... I never wanted to block the view of my backyard or any light! But since I caught a curtain sewing fever, it made me reconsider the idea of adding a little pop of color in the kitchen.  So this is my second curtain project using printed cotton duck. These curtains are kind of like valences, I guess--they sit on a tension rod inside the top of each window. I only had one yard of the print that best matched my kitchen, so I cut it in half and found a print to use for the back side that I would enjoy when I'm on my patio looking toward the house. I wanted a curved edge to make it a little interesting, so I carefully made myself a pattern. Then I hemmed the bottom curved edge including pom pom trim along the way (my favorite part!), and then sewed the top seam. Pressed the bottom seam, and done! So these used up two yards of fabric total.

view from outside

pom poms!

And in my last fit of curtain making, I tried something different for the window in our big family room. I wanted something even shorter to better be able to see the backyard. And this print had a fun design to it, so I thought I'd let the design dictate the shape. I'm not 100% convinced on this one. Sometimes I adore it, and other times I think it looks comically too tiny. But for now it stays! Another yard out of the stash.

home dec mania

I like to start the new year off with a clean house ... and a lot of times, that means this last week of the year gives me the push I need to finish some home dec/fix-it projects that I've had on the "to do" list all year long. Do you remember when I first recovered my dining room chairs back in 2012? I did all six side chairs, and stopped before doing the two end chairs. Three years later, the seats were starting to look stained and shabby so it was high time I finished this project!

before

 after

This is our well-loved chair. It is humongous. And comfy. And showing it. The worst is the ottoman, since it becomes a defacto "table" for the kiddos. No before shots this time, just the after. I recovered the top of the ottoman. I have enough fabric leftover to recover the bottom cushion of the chair too--but that's a project I've never done before and I hope to do a trial run first!

 after

Last but not least, we have been in dire need of new kitchen table chairs all year. Luckily, we have an awesome Flexsteel factory outlet store here in town. Back in July I got the brilliant idea to do mismatchy chairs from there, unifying the chairs by spray painting them all black and using maroon shades of vinyl to recover the seats for easy cleaning.

 seat cushions before ...

 

 after

after

 after 

Now I just need to luck out and find two more chairs at the outlet to finish the set! It's a game of patience, as you never know what they'll get! Phew. I've never used a staple gun so much in my life!

framed earring display tutorial

So in addition to all my sewing and knitting this summer, I've had another goal that I've been feverishly working on: organizing the house. Part of it was motivated by necessity (e.g. I came back  from our big road trip out west with my late grandmother's china which needed a place in my kitchen display cabinet, hence forcing a purge/reorg there), part of it was things just driving me crazy. My jewelry organization tutorial is the result of the latter! I had been using two jewelry stands from Pottery Barn for at least eight years now, and they worked fine but not great. Add a little girl who wanted to "admire mama's sparklies" and it became a tangled mess! Every single time I looked at it it just bugged me, and this summer I finally decided to do something about it. One thing that always bothered me about the old jewelry stands was that pin back earrings got lost in the shuffle, since they rested in the trays. And I always seemed to not notice everything I had. So that was the first thing I wanted to correct: I wanted everything visible, so I could see my collection at a glance. I also wanted something that would look pleasing on the wall, so I knew I wanted something framed.

Supplies (for both projects):

• 11 x 15 " open wood frame (Hobby Lobby)
• 12 x 12 " burlap covered frame (only $4.97 at Walmart!)
• one can of spray paint that coordinates with your home decor
• one 12 x 12 " cork board tile for your pinback earring board
• a package of screen door/window repair material (Lowe's)
• staple gun
• kitchen shears

How to Make Your Dangly Earring Display

Step one: cut a rectangle of screen door material that is approximately two inches or so larger than the actual opening of your open frame. I was able to easily cut my screen door material with good kitchen scissors. Be careful though: the cut edge of this material is sharp!

Step two: using your staple gun, carefully begin stapling the wire screen door mesh to the back of the frame. I started on one side, and then pulled tight to make the mesh taut when stapling the opposite side.

What your finished staple job will look like:

Step three: using your kitchen shears, trim off the excess wire screen door material.

Step four: start arranging your dangly earrings in a way that appeals to you!

Ta da!

How to Make Your Pinback Earring Display

Step one: unwrap the burlap off of your burlap covered frame. (holy cow, this was the biggest bang for my buck of the entire project--$5 for a 12 x 12 frame, plus the burlap material to cover the cork board!)

Step two: spray paint the frame your desired color and allow to dry fully.

Step three: Do an initial trim of the cork board tile to fit the interior opening of your frame. (but don't go too crazy trimming, you'll fine tune your fit in the next step. Gently wrap the burlap material around your cork board tile, but don't adhere it yet. You'll need to easily access the tile to do some trimming in the next step.

Step four: Wiggle your burlap-wrapped cork tile into the frame and test the fit. If you have sections that bow out from being too long, pull everything out and carefully shave off some more cork board to achieve a better fit. (this is honestly the trickiest part of this project)

Step five: Once you are happy with the fit, adhere the burlap to the back of the cork board tile. I just folded the excess material and pinned it, but you could use a spray adhesive for a neater finish. Now you're all set to add your earrings! (I put the earring backs in a tray in my jewelry box on another dresser)

 Ta da!

For those of you who are super observant and noticed the necklaces in the "before" picture, here's what I did to better store them. A shadow box! This one has a magnetized door, and I found it at Hobby Lobby (just wait for a 50% off sale or take one of their great coupons!). Needless to say, these display boards make me soooo much happier than my previous storage solution!

making a big girl room

This week I have a non-knitting finished object to share ... remember when I'd celebrated finishing the crosses quilt and mentioned that my summer project was to create a "big girl's room" for my daughter? This is the end result! If you take a peek at the full-bed photo in that blog post, you'll see a good "before" shot. I had no headboard and boring beige walls ...

Step one was clearly jazzing up the walls with a great shade of purple paint ... then tracking down some furniture. I had no idea how hard it is to find headboards online (well, wooden headboards that is ... there are plenty of great upholstered headboard options out there). The majority of the online furniture offerings consist of entire (and expensive) bed units that are platform style. The platform style is nice in that you can skip purchasing a boxspring for the mattress, but I already had a mattress and boxspring set. I was really really tempted to buy a Jenny Lind bed from Land of Nod (still love that bed!), but it seemed silly to purchase a bed and then have to figure out where to store the no longer necessary boxspring. So a headboard it was! I finally tracked one down on sale at Pottery Barn Teen (the Coraline headboard). I searched a long time for a nightstand with a little character, and this is the Juliette Side Table from Pottery Barn Kids. I fell in love with the turned feet!

While I love the shape and styling of this headboard, I found myself cursing Pottery Barn at several points in this process. The first time was over the color (which I accept as no one's fault but my own, and is one of the perils of purchasing things online ...). I selected the Charlotte Blue color, which looks very classy and mature online. In person ... it's very a greenish blue. Definitely not the shade I was going for, and it clashed with the purple walls. I corrected that situation with some Krylon spray paint in a much funkier, brighter light blue. The second time I cursed? When I realized that the headboard's pre-drilled connecting holes in no way possible would line up with my twin bed's standard metal frame. So much for "compatible with standard bed frames." The holes were way too wide and tall for the frame I had ... a situation which still boggles me, since twin bed mattress measurements are pretty standard.  Thankfully that situation was fixed with a drill to create properly aligned holes. Despite these frustrations, I am soo happy with the end result!



The next big project I had for this room was adding a large, fun decal wall decoration. I'm probably way behind the times on this trend, but I couldn't resist this cute one. It wasn't outrageously priced (especially if you consider the cost of original artwork), and is removable/repositionable so I can easily take it down when she grows out of it. If you take a look at the orginal design, you'll notice that I modified the design a bit. My wall wasn't long enough to apply the decal exactly as designed, with the branch holding the two owls being too long. That was easily fixed by trimming the length of that branch decal, and getting a little creative with placing the "scrolls" at the end of that branch. The decal set comes with a "color by number" style plan that tells you where to locate each sticker, making the process super simple. It took me only a couple of hours to install, and one of those hours was while toting a baby in my front carrier! I am totally in love with the contemporary colors and prints within this set ... I could make a quilt inspired by some of these combinations!



Most importantly, the room has received a stamp of approval from the big girl herself! Check out the other finished objects this week over at TamisAmis!