Dropcloth Ruffle Pillow

Using THIS as my inspiration, I used dropcloth to make more neutral {inexpensive!} pillows for my living room chairs.

Remember the before.....

Here's the after.....

Instead of buying new furniture, I spent about $35 on a 12 x 9 dropcloth

from Home Depot.  

It took 3 packages of drop cloth to recover 2 living room chairs and 6 dining room chairs.

The cute basket on the left was from Goodwill....$4!!!  Don't you just love a great deal!

HERE's the tutorial for the Faux Grain Sack pillows.

Now to tackle the couch......

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Faux Grainsack Pillows

I love dropcloth! It is just so inexpensive to decorate with!

Recently, I have been continuing to work on my family room furniture.  It's about

10 years old and the fabric is falling apart!

Armed with drop cloth, heavy-duty needles and a tutorial from Miss Mustard Seed,

I began recovering my chairs.

Marian's tutorials are amazing and I successfully neutralized my room, but I was still left with the "coordinating" floral pillows.

So using the same technique that I used here with my dining room chairs....

......I made myself some pillows.

I'm thinking about making some red-striped pillows to get ready for Christmas!

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Mother's Day Gift Idea

Do you still need some Mother's Day gift ideas?  
(Maybe one to forward to the hubby for yourself???)

Wendy at Hemmed In made these adorable matching aprons!

They are $54.95 with free shipping and can be bought on www.hemmedin.com. 
She offers a secure paypal checkout system and other adorable styles!


Wendy has also started making camera strap covers....and they are adorable!


I'd show you a picture, but I put mine on my camera right away....much to my husband's displeasure! {wink!}

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DIY Stenciled Pillows

I recently had the opportunity to review the Julia stencil by Cutting Edge Stencils.

I just LOVE it!!


I had a hard time deciding which stencil to review.   Cutting Edge 
Stencils  has so many amazing designs to choose from!





The stencil came packaged with a free stencil and wonderful instructions.  It 
was a lot bigger than I expected.  If I were doing a wall, the coverage
of one pass of the stencil would great.


I've had the stencil for weeks (months!) and couldn't decide what I wanted 
to do with it....there are just SO many great ideas.


I decided to start small and make a pillow.  I've been recovering my living room 
furniture with drop cloth and needed new pillows.


I started with a piece of drop cloth...

Because the stencil was so large, I taped pieces of newspaper under the parts 

that I didn't want to paint.  You can just use blue painters tape on the stencil.

I watched the online videos to make sure that I understood how to correctly

use the stencil.  Even though my project was smaller scale, I still wanted to do it right!

One suggestion was too roll off the paint on a paper towel or piece of newspaper. 

 Because this was my "test" project, I just used regular acrylic paint. I did not add a fabric additive to it.  I plan to do this again because I want to paint a pair of curtains.  I will add a fabric additive that time.

To make the pillow, I used my favorite stuffing method....old bed pillows!

Isn't drop cloth fabulous!  It has given my living room an awesome

new look for very little money!

I love my Cutting Edge Stencil.....it is very versatile and can be used

for so many different projects!  Painting a wall, stenciling a piece of furniture, 

stenciling curtains or even.....a pillow!

What have you stenciled recently?

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Refashion a t-shirt

Are you familiar with the blog Tea Rose Home?

Sachiko refashions t-shirts and other "old" clothes into beautiful designer knock-offs!

When I saw THIS t-shirt refashion a year ago, I knew that I wanted to try making it!

I bought 2 t-shirts at JC Penney using a gift card from Christmas.....I will overlook

the fact that the cashier gave me a little attitude in the eyebrow and said, "Wow,

that's a lot of orange...."

Hmmm....how exactly am I to take that statement??

The best part of this refashion is that you do NOT need a sewing machine!

All 15 flowers were added by hand and...........it was EASY!!!

For a complete tutorial, go HERE.

I love my new spring outfit!

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Decorating with dropcloth.....

I am over at Craft-o-manic today sharing this fun spring craft made from dropcloth!

Hope to see you over there!

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Rosette Pillow

After I finished up my DIY slipcovers, I had a pile of scraps left over.....what if I turned those into pillows???

Some of the scraps even had finished edges!!!

So I found the finished edges and overlapped them to make a pocket....

With the RIGHT sides together, I sewed a square and made a little pillow cover!

Then, I had an old pillow (my favorite stuffing material!) and leftover black cloth from 

my daughter's ladybug Halloween costume.....

I grabbed my hot glue gun and started rolling fabric rosettes!!

And it didn't cost a thing!

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DIY Slipcovers. . . .

I recently embarked on a venture that I NEVER thought I would undertake.....slipcovers!

My sewing machine and I have had a rocky, sordid past....never getting a long very well....but recently, I discovered my problem!

I would be sewing for about 5 seconds and the thread would break.....the stitches wouldn't be even and I

was angry, frustrated, and confused......I kept following the manual diagrams for 

adjusting thread tension and nothing seemed to work.....so I had a brain storm.

What if I started the thread tension at ZERO and worked my way up.....wouldn't you know.....it WORKED! The tension needed to be set between 0 and 1!

I will not even begin to tell you how to do the slipcovers....Miss Mustard Seed is the QUEEN of this

and I sat with my computer RIGHT NEXT TO the sewing machine....

I'd watch ( and re-watch!) the video tutorials and then embark on sewing it....Marian's

tutorials are so AMAZINGLY clear that even a spacially-challenged girl like me could follow them!

One of the best parts??  It's drop cloth, so if I made a mistake, I didn't 

feel like I was ruining expensive fabric!

I am now working on my living room chairs!

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Camera Strap Tutorial. . . .

We spent the past week in the Pocono Mountains enjoying 

fall's amazing colors and spending some quality family time.......

We took school on the road...

hiked in a boulder field.......

enjoyed gorgeous waterfalls...

and drank caramel hot chocolate....

I was also determined to learn how to use my camera to take better pictures....

We've had our Nikon for almost 1 year now and I still have SO much to learn!  But taking excellent pictures is critical to blogging.....

One thing that I have noticed is that many bloggers have these adorable camera straps for their cameras......after taking pictures all week, I was definitely getting "strap burn" around my neck!  Now, I know, that these strap covers are also functional!

Laura Beth From A Step in the Journey linked a wonderful tutorial for a homemade camera strap to this week's Thrifty Thursday....  

I've seen them to purchase all over the place, but this is the first tutorial that I've seen explaining how to make it....(and she made it from an old dog bed!!)

What I love about Laura Beth's tutorial is that she includes lots of PICTURES so that I know what I am doing!!  I need pictures or I just don't follow really well!

So for the complete TUTORIAL for how to make your own, head over to A Step in the Journey!

I've just got to figure out a way to make a manly-looking, but cute strap since my husband and I share the camera.....

Any suggestions???

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