Entryway Spruce-Up

My entryway has been kind of boring for a long time. I LOVE my little bench there, but my art was a little blah. I loved my house-rule art, but its frame and mat were looking a little dated (I bought it back in 2001, so it was definitely rocking that late 90s style).

I redid the other area in the entryway some time ago, and loved the bright colors, so I thought I'd do something similar in this corner to spruce things up a bit.

I've got my insta-frame there.  :)  

I gathered all sorts of frames for my eclectic little wall, mostly ones I already had, and painted them either yellow, green, or turquoise.  My house-rules sign (all close-ups of which came out blurry and I'm too lazy to reshoot :) was rematted and painted green.  I like the crisp white mat WAY better than the marbled 90s forest green there previously.  

 

Plus, I finally had a great place to put all my great family portraits from the last few years.   

 

I love my new frame collage.  It makes me smile every time I see it. 

Quote Boards

I've mentioned before that I LOVE pinning pretty (both in word and design) quotes to my Pinterest. Well, I got tired of only getting to see them on Pinterest. But, who has enough space for all the cute printables out there? I sure don't. So, I made a place to display whichever ones I'm in the mood for on any given day.

Normally, I'd frame them, but it's not super convenient to pry off the back of a frame, position it just right, and put it all back together.  I mean, it's not super hard either, but I wanted a space where I could quick-as-a-wink switch out printables.  So, I made some quote bulletin-boards.

I bought some cork at the craft store, traced the glass from the frame as a pattern, and cut out the cork.  Then, I put it in the frame.  Pretty simple.  I used frames I already had, spray painting them to update them a bit.  Plus, the space needed some color so it wasn't just black and white.

Now I have cute decor in my front entry and I get to see inspiring quotes all day long.  If you'd like the same ones in your house, you can download them here:

You Matter Quote, by Reliving the Moments
Charity Quote, by Simply Fresh Designs
Have I Done Any Good Quote, by Me  :)

Entry Table: Before and After

I have been looking for a table for my front entry since we moved into this house...7 years ago.  Until I could find something, I just put a family portrait on the wall and left it like that.  But, the space felt empty.  And, every Halloween I especially wished I had a table there to sit the candy bowl on.

I just couldn't find anything that fit all of my qualifications. It had to be inexpensive, fit the space, and be something I liked. I started scoping out local thrift stores for such a table (though I started to be resigned to maybe having a chest of drawers there at one point). Finally, I found it. It was about $40, fit my measurements, and was cute (underneath the iffy paint).

I especially liked the scallops.  But I didn't so much like it's 90s paint job, even if the details were in my favorite colors, yellow and green.  It was too fussy, too dated.

So, I took some spray paint to it.  I covered it, first, with white primer, and then white glossy spray paint.  And here's the after:

I added a big IKEA frame and a beautiful new family portrait, a funky Target Lamp, and I made some "quote boards," which is a post for another time.  :)

It really livens up the space.  I totally love it.

SYTYCS Entry: The Pillow Chair

As you may recall, I am participating in the So You Think You Can Sew Competition at Mommy By Day... Crafter By Night. This week's theme is "For the Home." I thought and thought and thought about what to make for this challenge. Most things I thought of seemed too easy or too boring. My kitchen curtains would have been perfect, but I made them last spring, so they wouldn't count.

Finally, I thought about making a cute little chair for my 3 year old little boy.  He begs for the mini chairs at Target every time we pass them, so I thought I'd try my hand at making him a little chair he can read or watch TV in.  Here it is!

I think it's safe to say that he LOVES his new chair.  He would sit there all day if I let him.

It's a fun little cozy spot and he loves to sit there and read.

Personally, I love the bright colors.  I'm definitely pleased with how it turned out.

I'd hoped to write you all a tutorial for it, but...I kinda made it up as I went along, which makes writing a tutorial a little difficult.  But, I can tell you a bit about how I made it, so maybe you can figure it out, too, with my help.

I started out by staring at some of the chairs in my house.  I've never made a slipcover or anything before, so I had to wrap my head around how the different pieces of fabric are put together on a chair.  I drew a few (awful) sketches (I may be creative, but drawing has never come easy for me...).  I figured out the general shape and size of what each piece needed to be.

And then, I got out some extra fabric from my stash and got to cutting.  I'm a visual person.  See, my husband could have come up with all the right dimensions in his head.  Not me.  I have to manipulate it and see how it goes together.  So, I literally just started cutting shapes out of the fabric and sewing it together in the way I thought it should go.  I ended up with this:

It's pretty much the right shape.  Yay!  I was now ready to do the real thing.  I unpicked the whole thing (I had machine basted it together, knowing that I would pick it apart, so it really wasn't so bad), straightened edges, and made sure everything was lined up the way it ought.  And then I used my mock-up as a pattern to cut out the real fabric.

I used "Sophia" fabric from IKEA, about 2 yards.  I laid my mock-up pieces out on my fabric, making sure that the stripes matched where they needed to, like where the seat top would be attached to the chair back.

The curved piece there is, obviously, the arm of the chair.  The skinny, short, rectangle is the front of the seat.

The almost square rectangle below is the top of the seat.

Here you can see the rest of my "pattern" pieces:

I ended up having to make the back of the seat back longer.  And I had to figure out as I went what size to make the bottom of the chair (as the mock up had no bottom...).  Like I said, I kind of made it up as I went along.  :)

After I cut all the parts of the chair out, I sewed the seat front (B) to the top of the seat (C).  Then I sewed the arms (A) to the seat front (B).  And then, I sewed the seat top (C) to the front of the chair back (D).  

When I finished when all that, I pressed my seams.

Next, I pinned the top of the arms to the front of the arms (A) and the seat top (C) and sewed them together. I repeated the same thing on the opposite side.

Again, I pressed my seams and made them look nice.  Then, I pinned the top of the chair back (the long strip) to the front of the chair back (D), sewed them together, and then did the same for the back of the chair back.

I sewed a couple more arm pieces (A) to the backs of the arms and then sewed the arms to the back of the chair.

At this point I had about the same shape as my mock up.  After pressing seams again, I measured the bottom, sewed on a bottom square, leaving a hole to stuff it through.  Then I stuffed it, using two very large bags of poly-fil and stitched up the hole I'd stuffed it through.  I stuffed it pretty tightly-packed, so it could be sat on without squishing down too much.

It was definitely worth it to make this.  It was much cheaper than if I'd bought something similar, and it's worth it just to see the smile on my little guy's face when he uses it!

I would love it if you'd hop on over to Mommy By Day...Crafter By Night and vote for my project.  Voting is open!


The poll over at  Mommy By Day...Crafter By Night will allow one vote per computer.  Voting will take place all day Wednesday, and Thursday until 8:00 PM EST (That's 6:00 pm for those of you in Colorado!).  Those moving on to the next round will be announced at 10:00pm EST on Thursday night.  I really hope I'm one of them.  :)  Voting has ended and I'm in the top 9!  Thanks, guys!

Kitchen Mini-makeover

I used to have plaid curtains in my kitchen and family room. I never really liked them, but they were the right colors, so I decided they'd work until I found something I liked better. Well, I finally did.  Jo-Ann had a sale on home decorator fabric a while back, and I found a fabric I really liked --and got 70% off--so I decided to redo my curtains.  I used the old curtains as a pattern to make the new ones:

I also recovered the valances over the patio door and in the family room (and recovered the pillows that had formerly been made with the leftover plaid fabric).

I also had been looking for something cute for over the doorway for the last 5 and a half years.  I got these cute plates from Target for Christmas and thought they'd look great there. 

When I first decorated, my house looked a little more country than I wanted, so I've been trying to give it more of a modern-vintage sort of vibe.  I exchanged a "mom's diner" distressed red-painted wooden clock with this retro-style one.  I also got a cute yellow timer of a similar style for Christmas that's now on the fridge. 

The bird plates are new, too.  Aren't they adorable?  I went looking for some new plates for over my sink, since the new bolder red in the curtains made the red in the plates (that had matched the red in the plaid) now look more pink.  I found these cute bird plates at Pier 1, but was sad that they didn't fit in the plate rack over the sink (too small).  I couldn't get rid of them, though, (they were just too cute!) so I hung them over the pantry door instead. 

I feel a little sheepish that my kitchen and family room have so many plates displayed.  I didn't set out to decorate with plates, but I was given the plate rack above the sink and I found a lot of cute plates while setting out to fill it up.  Plates are cheap, and if they look cute, why not decorate with them, right?

So, it's not a drastic change to my kitchen, just a bunch of little ones.  But, I feel like it helps de-countrify my decor.  It's got a little more of my personality in it now.  :)

Bathroom Mini-makeover

My bathroom is a bit boring.  It has beige walls, white and brass fixtures, and beige carpet (yes...carpet).  When we moved in, we didn't want to bother with painting, so the walls have stayed beige.  (And we didn't have the resources to redo the flooring--though I'd like to one day.  Carpet in a bathroom is not my favorite.)

I tried to bring in some color with towels and things, and for the last 4 1/2 years, it's worked fine.  But, it was starting to get to me, all that beige.  I still didn't want to paint, but I needed some more color.  So, I made a valance for the window.

Before:

After:

I used a very pretty purple sheet I found at Walmart and some coordinating ribbon to make my simple valance.  I'd planned a different style (where ribbons tie it up--I don't know what it's called), but simple looked better.  I also bought an inexpensive storage cupboard.  We'd had a trash can in the spot between the tub and the sink for awhile, just to put something there.  The nicer storage cupboards were too wide to fit in that spot, but the Target ReStyle ones do. 

So, now the open towel storage brings in a bit more color, and I have more room in my linen closet now that I'm storing some towels in the bathroom instead of the linen closet!  I'm liking my mini-makeover.  It makes my bathroom a bit less boring.  :)