DIY burlap ruffled tree skirt

Slightly off season, but I was going through some old photos and remembered I never posted about our new tree skirt!  I have been wanting to make a ruffled burlap skirt for some time now... and my lovely dogs gave me a reason to go ahead and do so after they chewed a hole in our other tree skirt.

Bummer about the old skirt, but I may make some adjustments to it so it's good as new (they chewed the edges and last time I sewed it up it had a couple "scallops" to it)

Anyways, I started by cutting the largest circle I could with a base layer of white cotton fabric.

DIY tree skirt

Then I cut my burlap into long strips (I believe I had 2-2.5 yards of burlap)  I was SO excited about the burlap, because it had some metallic gold colored threads mixed in with it.

DIY tree skirt

Then I pinned the strips of burlap onto the cotton fabric and sewed each row on to form the ruffled look.  Of course the cat had to "help".  (he had to leave the room when I was using pins)

DIY tree skirt

I used the selvage edge of the burlap for the outer most layer of ruffles and thought it added a cute, slightly different border.

Burlap ruffled tree skirt

After repeating row, after row, after row of placing burlap and stitching it on, the tree skirt was complete!  I really like how it turned out (and the animals do too... they love to lay on it).  If I were to make another one, I would make it larger, by stitching panels of cotton together for the base layer rather than just using the size of the fabric from the bolt.

Also, due to the nature of burlap, it does fray a lot, and with 3 animals that love to roll around under the tree, I don't think this tree skirt will last very long...  I'll probably make a more durable skirt to rotate with this one in the future.

Burlap & Lace Wreath

I've been wanting to make a burlap wreath for so long!  But always forget about them when I actually get to the store, so it was perfect that I nearly walked into everything I needed for the project as it was set up on a cute display in the center of the aisle :)

 

burlap & lace wreath

 

I wasn't quite sure how to wrap the burlap, but thanks to the internet, found lots of helpful instructions.  I bought a medium sized wire frame for the wreath, and one roll of the burlap which had an overlay of lace attached to it.  I can't remember how long the rolls were... but it turns out I needed 2.  You could easily cut your own strips of burlap instead of using the rolls of it, which I may do in the future.

 

After securing the burlap, I attached a couple silk flowers to the wreath and that was it!  Super quick project, it took about 10-15 minutes to make. 

Doily garland!

Last winter, I helped make decorations for my friends baby shower :)  Her nursery colors were blue & orange, and let me tell you, I found it pretty tricky to get orange decorations at the store.  So, I bought some white paper doilies and some orange Rit dye and made my own.  I poured enough of the dye in the bottom of my pot (that I use only for craft projects) and added water to it, so it was probably about a 50:50 solution.

 

Mixed that all together, then added each doily individually into the mixture, making sure they were covered with the dye on both sides, and were not touching each other.  (I could dye about 3 at a time in my container) 

 

GLOVES came in handy :)  Though I do believe I still had an orange finger in the end.

 

Each doily was probably only in the dye about 5-10 seconds, then I took them out and set them on a stack of old rags so they could air dry.

 

Once they were dry, I cut a long piece of kite string and strung the doilies onto it.  After the spacing looked OK, I added scotch tape to the back of the doily (over the string) to keep it all in place.

 

DIY Orange doily garland!

 

It was so much fun to make :)

 

Didn't get a picture of them hanging on the wall though, oh well.

cloth towel "wet bin"

Hubby & I have been using cloth "paper towels" lately and cloth napkins.  To avoid having to run to the laundry bin after each meal, we now have a wet bin under our kitchen sink.  I empty this out whenever I do laundry, or if it gets full.

 

I used a plastic coffee container, and Mod Podge to add a strip of fabric for a little more decorative look, and also to easily identify the bin.

Wood floors! (living room)

Well summer is almost over for me, and it has been very busy!  Hubby & I did lots of home improvements and DIY projects that I can't wait to share with you all now that they're done, so stay tuned :)  (I'll hopefully be able to post a few updates before classes start)

Our largest project was installing hardwood floor in our house.  One of the rooms to get "made over" was our living room.  The carpet was so dirty/gross, it was well overdue for a change.

BEFORE

Changes made to living room:

Floor: carpet to hardwood

Ceiling fan: new unit, now with a light (major difference at night!)

Painted walls

Curtains

Window valance

Throw pillows

AFTER

Only thing I'd still like to change... would be to remove the spindles on our half wall on the left side of the room.  Possibly changing it to a larger platform and have a more modern pillar or something on one side?  Still looking into that, but it wouldn't be until next summer anyways (if at all).

Crocheted dish cloth

This dishcloth was quick and easy to make.  I just chained 30 or so, then the rest is rows of half double crochet.

 

Quick & Easy Crocheted dish cloth!

 

I am so excited for the weekend, and am so tired from classes.  This past Monday morning, while walking to my first lab, I was excited that it was Friday.... yeah, it was destined to be a long week! 

 

I found some sea glass at the beach a couple weeks ago, and am so excited to make something out of it this summer!  I LOVE sea glass :)  Unfortunately I didn't bring any jewelry making supplies here, so knitting and crocheting will have to do for now.

my poor tree skirt

Awhile back, I made this Tree skirt.  Well our dogs have always left it alone, until this year... I was steam cleaning the floor and removed the tree skirt from our tree (yes, the carpet was that bad so I didn't wait until the tree was taken down to clean it).  I set the folded tree skirt in a basket in our living room... and later found out someone bit a couple chunks out of it :(

 

I just stitched it back up and packed it away for the season, but now, instead of a nice smooth border to the tree skirt, a section in the back is now "scalloped".  Now the debate... to make a new tree skirt for next year? or not... tough call.

Simple, inexpensive DIY key rack

10% off in my ETSY store for a limited time!  Coupon code:  HappyFall

 

We've needed a key rack for a LONG time now.  I just wanted something very simple and plain but never found what I was looking for in the stores (at least not for a reasonable price).

 

After losing my keys for the 1000th time the other day, it was time to head to the hardware store!

 

 

We bought an unfinished strip of wood (it was 2" wide 36" long and 1" thick?) they had several dimensions to choose from.

 

DIY Key Rack in 7 steps:

1) Cut wood to desired length (ours is hanging below an 8X10 picture frame... so we made it the same width of the base of the frame)

 

2) Decide how many hooks you need, and mark their spacing on the wood

 

3) Drill holes (smaller than the screw on the hooks) where you marked your hook locations

 

4)  Sand the edges of the wood

 

5)  Stain the wood & let thoroughly dry

 

6) Add wall mounts (I just drilled 2 holes at an angle in the back of the wood)

 

7) Add hooks on front & hang on the wall!

 

 

The hardest part??  FINDING my keys... to put on the rack :)  hahaha.  Haven't lost them since though!

 

 

SIDE NOTE:  Price out the hooks when bought individually, or in a variety pack!  We saved about $6-8 by getting a variety pack of hooks (we did end up making a couple of key racks) rather than buying the hooks in smaller packs.  Now we have extra too for future projects!  

Also, we used squared off hooks rather than the classic rounded hook for a slightly different look.

DIY canvas wall art

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After painting tons of walls and shuffling decor in our house lately, it was time for some new wall art.  I didn't want anything fancy and didn't want to spend much.  So, hubby hesitantly went along with my idea to paint something for the wall.

I was totally into the idea of a bold color with a silhouette of something, and since we were in the middle of taking SCUBA classes at the time I had sharks on my mind.  Here's what came of my super inexpensive DIY canvas art project.

To be honest, I loved the look when I finished painting it... but after its been on the wall for awhile I'm thinking about painting something else :)  Decisions, decisions, lol.


Here's how I transferred my design onto the canvas:

1) Paint the background color on the canvas (on all 3)

 2)  Draw your image on paper (Since my middle canvas was placed vertical and the outer 2 were smaller, and horizontal, I taped computer paper together in that fashion)

3) Cut out your design and determine which parts of it will be on each canvas

4) Trace it on the canvas (I used a pencil) and paint the inside of the image black (take care to make sure that the image lines up from canvas to canvas)

After hanging this on the wall the image didn't line up just right between pieces.  Instead of pounding more nails in the wall, I just got out the black paint and made some adjustments :)

I actually enlarged the drawing I made when transferring it to the canvas, so it looks a little different than the original paper cutout.

Organizing sewing room - AFTER!!

I've been in a mega "home organization" mode for the past few months, and it finally came time to re-organize my cluttered sewing room (check out my BEFORE post).  It's been in order now for over a week (I had problems with my camera, hence my super delayed "after" post) and I have to say I LOVE IT.

This post is wordy.  If you're not interested in the details and reasons behind my organization methods, ignore the writing and just look at the pictures :) 

Short story long... Shortly after I moved into my new home, I posted this post showing how I organized my sewing things.  It worked alright, keeping fabric scraps on the top shelf, and full pieces of fabric and patterns on the bottom shelf of an armoire. 

But, I needed to give that armoire the boot when I got my new sewing/embroidery machines so they could be left out all the time.  So then all my fabrics were separated by type in clear plastic tubs... which then turned into a gigantic opaque tub... which quickly turned into complete chaos. 


Anyways, here are the before and after pictures of my current sewing room storage area:

The logic of this (the before) layout... all the full fabric was stored on the shelves, and the scraps were in the tub on the bottom right of the picture.

The tub of scraps was just NOT working... it was too deep so any order to the fabric was quickly lost whenever a piece from a lower layer was extracted.  Plus it was easy to forget what was inside of this.

 Now here come AFTER pictures and explanations. 

There are tons of ways to store sewing patterns and everyone has a little different method that works best for them. 

You've probably seen it before, because I think it's fairly common, but I take my patterns out of their original envelopes and put them in large clasped envelopes.  Each gets its own large envelope, which is labeled with the company, pattern number, size, style, and any other useful descriptors (just be sure to put the labels in the same order and location on the envelopes and in a place that's easy to see while flipping through them quickly).  Storing patterns in bigger envelopes works well because once you use a pattern, they just never seem to fit back into the original sleeve!

Next, to easily see what patterns you have, I take the original pattern envelopes and put them in clear page protectors which are then organized in a binder.  My binder is organized by style of pattern (ie tops, skirts, dresses, etc.) but there are lots of other great ways that also work.

I store my newly made pattern envelopes in clear plastic tubs, and separate them by pattern company.  Within each company, I order them numerically.  And, of course, I use my trusty label maker to label the outside of the tubs showing which pattern company is inside each tub.

Above you can see my solution for stray ribbon rolls.  I removed the clothes hanging pole from this part of the closet and put a thinner dowel in its place.  Then I strung the ribbon spools onto it and secured the cut ends of ribbon on each roll with tape (so they don't all unroll onto the floor!).

Below is my favorite part, the 9 cubby shelf Hubby assembled for me.  It works perfectly for my fabric collection.  The right hand column of the unit currently holds all my scraps, separated by size and type, I love that they are all visible.

The other cubbies are full pieces of fabric, sorted by color.  Except for the top center cubby, which is dedicated to items for embroidering.

I used plastic shoe box containers to keep my sewing accessories in order and stacked them on top of the shelf.  I have boxes for things like zippers, Velcro, and enclosures.  Plus boxes for felt, scraps from curtains and other home decor, interfacing, and my favorite: a box for my current sewing project.  It keeps all the little pieces in order (extra thread, zipper, buttons, etc.) and all in one place if you have to put the project on hold for awhile.

To keep my sewing machine manuals and books in order I set a plastic magazine holder on the top left of the shelf too. 

Now that I can see and find things, I'm excited to sew some more clothes!

Whew, that was a long post.  If you have other helpful ideas for sewing room organization, let me know :)

3 step Christmas centerpiece

Here's a quick, easy and cheap Christmas centerpiece idea.  Chances are you already have everything you need to make this!

Supplies:
Candle (in a jar) - Mine is evergreen scented
Flat bottomed tray (or bowl with a large flat portion in the center)
Christmas ornaments
Gift wrapping ribbon

I ended up buying a new black tray for my centerpiece.  It was only a few bucks at Hobby Lobby, in the party section.


Directions:

1) Set your candle jar on the center of the tray and make sure it is stable.

 2) Add a few ornaments around the base of the candle jar (I used a package of 6 red glitter ornaments from my collection)

3) Cut long strips of wrapping paper ribbon and drape them over the ornaments.  I didn't curl the ribbons, they had a natural "large curl" just from coming off of the roll.

Fall Decoration

Last week, Hubby & I decided (last minute) to take a road trip to FL to visit his Grandpa. It was a 2 day drive each way (with an overnight at a campground wherever we felt like stopping) and we stayed in FL a few days. It went by so quick, but it was fun and really great to see his Grandpa!

Hubby started his busy work schedule right when we got back, so I'm in mega catch up mode around the house and haven't had much time to craft.

However, I saw this cute Fall Leaf Initial on The Thrifty Abode and knew I had to make one this year!

Check it out:

Well since it's now October, looks like I should get back at sewing Hubby & my Halloween costumes. I meant to get them done early... but things keep coming up.

I probably won't be blogging much in the meantime, since I'll be focusing my craft/sewing time on that project. I'll post about it closer to Halloween though!

Recovering lawn chairs (part 3) complete!

I've been working on recovering a couple of patio chairs, here are links to the earlier stages:

Before the chairs were recovered
Making the pattern and assembling the chairs

Now, here's a look at how the chairs were completed!

My last post about recovering the lawn chairs ended with the fabric sleeve (new seat cover) being slightly too large. So, I sewed it smaller (about 1/2") and then reassembled the chair.

Since I was now satisfied with the fit of the cover it was time to sew the fabric at the bottom of the chair together.

To do this I folded the raw edges to the inside of the chair and used clips to keep it in place. Then, with an upholstery needle and sturdy thread, I hand stitched the fabric together.




Pretty simple. Here's how it turned out:




I have an extra yard or so of fabric, so I'm thinking about making little removable pillows to tie on to the back of the chair. We'll see!

Recovering lawn chairs (Part 2)

You may recall Part 1 of my attempt to recover lawn chairs. (or skip ahead to see the completed chair)

Here's where that project went since that post:

1) I cut fabric (with seam allowances) based on the paper pattern I made for the chair.

2) I sewed right sides together leaving the bottom edge open (I will hand stitch this together on the chair when it is complete)

3) I reassembled the chair (having to make holes in the fabric for some screws in the frame to fit through)

** for fabric reinforcement where the screws were to pass through it, I had a strip of two additional pieces of fabric that followed the frame, made button holes and used fray check around the screws location**

I made putting this chair back together more annoying than it had to be :)



4) Inspect the new fabric cover for the chair (before sewing the bottom shut)

In my case, the fabric cover was too large. (hmm I guess it would have been a good idea to actually make measurements hahaha)


More to come on this project, right now I need to take the chair back apart and sew the fabric case 1/2" smaller.

Recovering lawn chairs (Part 1)

A year or two ago, Hubby's parents gave him two lawn chairs they didn't want anymore...

We recently purchased a new patio set (table and chairs) so I was hoping all of our old lawn furniture (some from my parents too) would be thrifted now that we had a matching set (and the old chairs were hard to store). Unfortunately, Hubby felt differently and wanted to keep the ones from his parents.

Since the chairs were full of grime and holes, I agreed to keep them if they could be recovered. Hubby liked that idea.


Before taking the lawn chairs apart, I made a pattern and marked key locations of the chair. Usually I just use the old fabric as the pattern, but it seemed easier to use the paper in this case.



Yuck. Hubby told me he'd clean the chairs up way back when... that did not happen. I'm pretty sure this is even after I sprayed them down with a hose.

The picture below is after I took off a metal support bar from the back of the seat, and the base of the lawn chair.

The chair was ridiculously hard to take apart. So, of course I got my finger pinched by who knows what (nasty!) and was gushing blood everywhere.



I'll leave part one of this post at that... more to come later.


Skip ahead to see how the pattern was made (and tweaked) and the completed chairs!

7 steps to cheap and easy throw pillows

I just finished sewing some super simple (and cheap) throw pillows for our guest bedroom.

Here's how:
1) Cut 2 pieces of fabric in the shape of a rectangle a little larger than the size you want the pillow
2) Pin on and sew ribbon in place (on the right side of 1 piece of the fabric)

3) With right sides together sew along the perimeter of the rectangle with 1" seams

--Remember to leave a small opening while sewing the perimeter so the pillow can be flipped right side out and stuffed--

--Also if you round the corners a bit when sewing the 2 pieces together the corners will look nicer on the finished product. If you sew the corners at a 90 degree angle they usually end up really pointy--

(wrong sides of fabric shown above)

4) Clip at an angle near the corner seams (not too close to the stitches though!)

5) Zig-Zag stitch close to unfinished edges of fabric if it is likely to fray (again leaving the same opening to flip and stuff the pillow)


6) Flip pillow right side out and stuff it (I used stuffing from the couch cushion beagle destroyed)

7) Hand sew the hole used to flip/stuff the pillow shut

Here are the completed pillows on the bed comforter that they will go with.
(notice Gator at the bottom right of this picture... he sneaks into them all!)

Cat bed

I finished sewing both McCalls M5538 views that I was making for Hubby and I (posting soon on how mine turned out) and found myself with a lot of leftover gray fleece. Originally I told Hubby that I'd be making Beagle a matching jacket so the three of us could show some style.

Luckily for Hubby (and Beagle) I put the fleece to better use. My cat loves sleeping on our living room couch. He's trying to change the color from red, to orange & white by using all of his energy to shed as much as possible only while laying on the couch. So, I decided to make him a cat mat or cat bed to place on his favorite spot on the couch.

We usually have a junky looking towel stretched across the couch when we don't have company to prevent the couch from collecting cat hair.

Maybe... just maybe... Gator (my cat) will choose to lay on his new cat bed instead of directly on the couch. I know chances are slim, but it was worth a try to me!

While I was out...

I messed around with my embroidery machine a bit more in the last couple of months (not much though) but just didn't post about it.

Here's a super simple (and cheap) embroidered washcloth. The cloth itself was in one of those packets of 12 for $4 (or something like that?) from Walmart. Putting a "P" on it took about 2 minutes, pretty easy.



I embroidered a couple more dish towels, and also made some drapes that I will write about soon. The drapes aren't fully done yet... they are functional, but I'm not happy with the outcome so they will eventually get some more attention.

Pillow for the couch

I saw an awesome tutorial for Herringbone tuck pillows at the blog Artfully @ Atelier Caroline and fell in love with them. I knew immediately I wanted to try making one.

I decided to make a pillow out of the same fabric I used to reupholster the chair for my living room, thinking it would help tie the furniture in with each other.

Meticulous measuring is not my thing, so I did the best I could in pleating and ironing the fabric with a few measurements. (I've been eyeing up pleating boards for awhile now) I believe I made my pleats every 1" and sewed them at 1/4".

I decided to change things up a bit (ultimately avoiding more measuring) and sewed a bunch of random straight lines at different angles, rather than parallel to each other.

Here's how it turned out:

And, here's the corner of my living room with the reupholstered chair and new pillow for the couch:

embroidered dishcloth

I've totally been in the dishcloth embroidery mode lately. This is largely because it's the only thing I have supplies for/that I can think of that is functional and I can randomly make. I'm open to ideas for other projects if anyone has any :)

Here's one for my Grandma, I haven't seen her yet since making it, so she doesn't know about it (I hope she doesn't see this post too soon!)

(The cat design was from a Brother embroidery machine)