LOVE Pillow. Freezer Paper and the Cricut.

I have been pinning pillow ideas like mad on Pinterest. I don't know what started it. I have a whole board dedicated to pillow ideas. Ha.

So I finally took all that inspiration and did something with it. I had pinned a simple tutorial on creating a pillow slipcover. Here's the blogger's post on her site. It really is simple.

The thing that made me want to do a slipcover instead of just a regular pillow was the ease of sewing a slipcover (two seams and no sewing little holes closed after stuffing) and the ability to fold and store the slipcover with my holiday/seasonal decorations.

First I cut out my stencil using freezer paper and my Cricut. (Well, technically it's Elizabeth's, but I have taken it over.) You put the shiny side down on the cutting mat for the design. The shiny side is also the side you iron to your fabric.

The cutting settings I used successfully for the freezer paper were: Blade 4, Speed 3 (medium), Pressure 3 (medium). Here is a good site with more settings. I figured out the setting for freezer paper with trial and error on my own.

I bought drop cloth at Lowe's to use. It's a cheap way to get canvas. I washed it first and ironed before cutting it out. I put my stencil on my unsewn canvas to see how I wanted to space it out.

Why not do the stencil after I've sewed it? I envisioned messing up and having a whole slipcover already made that was unusable. If you're confident you won't do that then you can sew the slipcover first and then paint it on (with something protecting the underneath for possible seepage of course). Being my first, I wasn't feeling confident. ;)

So I ironed the shiny side down on my fabric with a hot iron (NO steam). Make sure it's all ironed smoothly down.

I used a round foam brush to blot it on but will probably use a regular foam craft brush next time. The paint did not seep through the fabric like I thought it might. I grabbed some papers from our paper recycle and had 2-3 layers of paper behind it. The first layer barely got any on it. If I did this on burlap then I imagine it would bleed through a lot more.

After I did my red paint. I felt it needed some "dimension" so I picked another red from my acrylic paints and with a dry brushing technique I added a little accent color.

I was hoping I hadn't messed up by adding the second red. It was all still rather wet. The good thing is that if I didn't like the color I could have gone back over with my other red.

After it dried I peeled the freezer paper off. It came right off - no sticking or pulling of the fabric. I have read that the freezer paper stencil can be reused. When I did remove mine, the bad thing I discovered was it obviously was not ironed securely on a couple of places.

See, that is why you don't sew it all together and then worry about things like this happening. ;) It didn't bleed a lot. I happened to have a beige paint color out from another project (more to come on that later!) and wondered if......

Yep, it covered it well. I buy cheap acrylic paint, folks, but if you want to know the color that covered, it was called Beachcomber Beige by Plaid Apple Barrel. You can buy it for less than a dollar at Walmart.

After that little bit of paint dried, I sewed my slipcover following the link I gave above.

I made my pillow 14x14 because that was one of the sizes of pillow inserts I had on hand. It looked cute. I was so so happy and excited and had to promptly take a photo with my phone and send the picture to a couple of my friends.

Andrew shared my crafty excitement too. He wanted to immediately put the pillow on the foyer bench (as I had planned) when it was completed so down the stairs we went from the craft room to the main level and foyer. :) It looks GOOD!

What I learned:

• I thought I would be helping the process by "using" the hemmed edge of the drop cloth for a few of the edges. It was fine for the one edge of the back for the tuck-in part of the slipcover but not for the seams. I was able to sew it but it was extra thick in those areas.
• I felt like my placement for my words were a bit off after the fact but really, who is going to walk in my door and analyze my pillow. Hopefully, they'll walk in, think "cute" and move on.
• I cut my pieces 14 1/2" even though I knew my insert was 14" because I had read it's better to have a tight pillow than look baggy. I agree.
• I need to *really* make sure all my freezer paper is ironed down next time.
• The possibilities of this is limitless. I have some more ideas up my sleeve. I cannot wait! Think St. Patrick's Day. Think monogram. Think...well, there are a lot.

Here's a sneak peek at what else I've been working on for Valentine's Day. It includes paint, tissue paper and vinyl plus some other fun things. I hope it turns out so I can share it. Ha ha.

DIY Projects. Fabric Flowers & Phone Stands.

When you get caught up in blog-hopping, time can pass quickly and inspiration can make you wonder if you'll ever get any cleaning done. Honestly though, I routinely set inspiration aside because my guilty conscious of being a good housewife takes over and I know I must wash laundry, vacuum carpet, polish mirrors and cook dinner. However, I do like to copy and paste all these great tutorials I find into Word and save in a folder I call "Sewing Projects". Many of my documents don't fall necessarily under that category but most of those tutorials do have to do with fabric.

Back in May I finally bought some fabric for a particular project I wanted to try. Here's the tutorial I found online for Hair Flowers. My intent wasn't for hair flowers. I have a daughter that while she's not a tomboy, she's not a girly girl. So my intentions were to make them for us to have as brooches and to attach to a headband or whatever if needed. This was purely an exercise. An experiment. ;)

Here is what I did.
I cut several haphazard circles/ovals and used a lighter to curl the edges. With the fabric I used I did not have to touch the fabric to the flame but just close to cause it to curl.


Going through all my drawers of blingy supplies in my craft room I found some rhinestones. I cut a small circle of felt to sew on the back of the stacked fabric circles just using a few whip stitches.


Then I hot glued the rhinestones on.


Simple. Fast. Pretty cute.


Next time I want to layer it more. Next time I want to make it bigger. Next time I'll try a different fabric. Next time I'll mix fabrics.

It served my purpose for whipping it up back in May. Elizabeth's fifth grade was celebrating Mount Olympus Day. She was going as Andromeda and needed a way to fasten the silky aqua fabric over her sundress without an ugly safety pin showing. This little flower worked great.


All the fifth grade chose a Greek mythology character to dress up as. They decorated large panels which they stood up around the middle of the gym in a large circle. The other grades came in and listened to the fifth grade tell stories of their character and they passed out a token to each student. Elizabeth gave out small glass gems to represent the sea where she was chained by.


On to my phone stand or caddy or whatever you want to call it. Cord hider. In this post I showed the CD basket I bought on clearance with intent of spray painting it to go with the phone, hide the cords and go more with the kitchen decor. (Not sure where the phone was in the before picture. LOL)


It's still not the ideal phone look I had wanted. But really, does it exist? I would like some classy, small, black wood stand or shelf like thing that has a drawer to hold our cell phone chargers. The drawers would have openings in the back where the cords go through to be plugged. Until I find one or until I build a house that doesn't have an ugly phone jack coming out of the wall so high up then this will do.

One last picture of something I did for the house. I had bought these prints to go in my dining room for only $10 each but they had antique brass frames. I did not want that color for my frames but black to match the room. I covered the glass with newspaper using painter's tape and spray-painted them.


Yay! I love poppies. And I love cheap decor.

September Here I Am. Happy Things.

A new year. I don't make resolutions, but I have decided to work on a few things this year. One being this forgotten blog. :) The quote that comes to mind is that we judge others by their behavior, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. *sigh* So I was reminded of my resolution decision last weekend while in Asheville eating dinner with some fellow owners/employees from my husband's firm. The couple at our table were older and we were talking about kids, grandkids, etc and the things they say. I was telling them some of my kids' recent antics and quotes. She responded, "You need to write those down! You will forget one day." I know it's true. What all have I already forgotten since my last long ago blog post? Here goes trying to get back in the swing of blogging . . .


September catch-up:
One fun thing I did for my friend Patty the first of September was do a free photoshoot (amateur!) for one of her clients. The girl, W, is graduating high school and couldn't afford the outrageous prices the schools charge for the senior pictures. I also took some of her beautiful little girl, J. We were running around snapping photos for about an hour and a half. I was pooped afterwards. I am happy with the results though. I hope W was too. She is a very pretty girl and easy to photograph.


W told me that J had never had her photo taken anywhere so I tried to get some good ones of her. She was an easy subject even at her young age (2).


And a few of mommy and daughter together.


My dear friend, Staci, gave birth to her third little girl, Alexia. Now Alexia is four months old and such a beautiful, good baby.



Elizabeth and I went on the middle school trip to St. Louis, Missouri. I have started a blog post about it (um, like back in late September) and will eventually finish and post. (Don't hold your breath though.)

Looking back at my photos I see that one thing I failed to mention for September that was important was the finding of two new collie dogs for my parents. Their third collie dog had passed away recently and they wanted another. Full-blooded collies are expensive as most pedigreed dogs are. My mom told me she was praying about it on Wednesday. On Thursday I saw a friend had posted on Facebook that her sister-in-law was having to give up her two collie dogs (sisters) because of moving. She had posted a video of them, and I immediately sent a private message to ask questions about them. I got her address and phone number, called my parents that next morning (Friday) and my mom and I were out to visit before 11:30 am. They were in my mom's van coming home with us by noon that same day. Ha ha! The girl told my parents they could have them for free if they would take them both to keep them together. Their names are Cloe and Zoey. *snicker* They are really sweet dogs and my parents have enjoyed them a lot. Plus, God answered my mom's prayer quickly. Photographing these two young dogs is worse than trying to photograph a two year old. They would not be still.



Andrew started a new flag football season and his second season being on the Redskins team. He played one of his first games against his friend Luke's team. We got him contacts to wear before football season started so he wouldn't be losing/breaking his glasses and the optometrist said sport goggles just didn't work well.


I'm going to stop with September for now and do the rest later as not to overwhelm myself.

Recent things.

• Tax season has officially been in swing for the last few weeks. That means days like today (Saturday) he is gone to work most of the day. Sort of sad but it also means the kids and I pretty much laze around all day in our pjs. He's working 5:30 am to 5:30 pm during the week to get his hours in and so he can be home with us in the evenings. The down side of this is that he has to go to bed by 9 (just like a kid! LOL), and I am NOT ready to go to bed then.
  
• Oh, hey! Elizabeth got braces! I say that excitedly but my purse is quite empty because of it. ;) She is doing well great with them; if only I could get her to brush good enough.
  
• Speaking of braces, Andrew lost two back molars this past Sunday. They had been loose so I told him if he would get them both out that day then I'd give him $3 a tooth instead of $2. Yep, all tooth fairy and Santa stuff if over at our house nowadays. (More on that later.) So of course he had them both out by that night. In fact one came out before we left for church.
  
• I mentioned being in Asheville, NC last weekend. That was for the annual partner's retreat. We got to stay at the beautiful Biltmore Inn and eat that evening at the restaurant in the winery. It was very good food. That Friday morning one of the wives picked me up and we all met up together for breakfast at Panera and then to go on to Asheville early to shop while our husbands met. It was a great day. I had lots of fun.
  
• The weekend before last I went to Pigeon Forge with members of my old scrapbook group. Oh the memories of when we used to meet once a month at the scrapbook store. I miss that. No more stores in our area and most of us rarely scrapbook anymore. I did bring my sewing machine and sew a bit. I made these without a pattern (tutorial found here) as you can maybe tell. I am always forgetting something on these trips. Next time I hope to do a better job. I want to send one in my birthday packages to my nieces in the coming months. (I'm seeing now I should have worked on the smooshed teal corduroy owl's face from where he's been stored. Oops! Just look at the link above and see how they are supposed to be made.)
  
  
• Winter has been in full swing around here for a month now. The kids missed I think two days of school in December and missed two days last week as well as two days before that. I'm hoping it's done. Global warming. Pshaw.
  
• I have attempted to begin working out again. Not at one of the local fitness centers but doing videos at home - p90x, Slim in 6, Turbo Jam, etc. A kind friend has lent me over a dozen DVDs to try to see what I like. I started a week and a half ago and have done a video 7 out of the last 10 days. I don't know what finally clicked that made me want to do it again but I'm enjoying it.

I do want to end with some recent things that have made me happy:

1. The mirror I ordered from Ballard Designs came yesterday. Super quick shipping! I can NOT wait to get it up in my dining room. Since I last blogged I have ordered and received a buffet for my dining room too. I have all my inherited dining pretties stored inside and can't wait to complete my room. We do use it. Almost every day for dinner. Eventually I'll have to share a photo of my completed dining room. (Photo from Ballard's website.)


2. When I was putting the kids to bed the other night Andrew had come in Elizabeth's room to kiss and tell her goodnight. She whispered something in her ear. I found out she had asked him to pray for her for the Geography Bee the next day at school. Sweetness. It makes me happy to know she feel she can rely on her brother like that and that she can rely on God too. She had study so she wasn't asking for divine intervention on anything she didn't know. LOL

3. I found a fellow Tennessean on Etsy right after Christmas who makes custom stamps. I have wanted either custom address labels/stamps or an embosser for a while now. I had Christmas money from my nannie so I ordered two (the spiral address stamp and the birthday cake stamp). One has already been used - the birthday one when my dad celebrated his 64th birthday last week. Purple Lemon Designs - check her out. Great prices!


I keep thinking about making my blog private so if you come one day and find it that way, don't be surprised. :)

Paula Deen Caused Our Fire. Fun-filled Week.

Did ya know that Paula Deen about burnt our house down this past Monday morning? Well, we did have a small contained kitchen fire thanks to her Baked French Toast recipe (which by the way is delicious and has never happened before - check it out and print it!). Yeah, the culprit was those two sticks of butter that were in it. I am almost positive!!! Duh, what do you think?

I had made it the night before and baked it that morning. I saw some had spilled out in the oven, but I didn't realize to what extent. For lunch Andrew wanted one of those small frozen pizzas so I preheated the oven, stuck it in and a couple of minutes later, Andrew says, "Mom, there's smoke coming from the oven." I look and don't think much about it at first but see that it's really pouring out of the back vent. Then I make the big mistake of opening it to look and then the chaos commences!

All that super hot grease gets some oxygen and a fire jumps a good six to eight inches high. I hollered at Wade who was home, thankfully and he goes immediately for the fire extinguisher. I do NOT want that stuff in my house (I know a fire spreading is worse, right? LOL) so I try to stop him which doesn't work but is okay any ways because our FOURTEEN YEAR OLD fire extinguisher doesn't work. Ha ha ha. So it wasn't funny at all then, and there was some panicking but all those days in the Boy Scouts became useful again as Wade remembered that baking soda is used for putting out grease fires. He went looking for the box in the fridge, but I got the one out of the cabinet quicker.

Oh the excitement you can imagine that was going on in our house. We turned on the ceiling fans, opened a few doors to the outside and hoped that the smoke alarm wouldn't go off. The reason being that with our security system if it goes off then we don't get a call to see if it's a real emergency, nooooo, they immediately send the fire department (which is how it should be but in gaffes like this you don't want that to happen!).

See this yummy goodness! The perpetrator:


Go ahead and try that recipe. I've made it several times and every time I just want to eat and eat and eat more of it. It's pretty good re-heated too in the microwave. I would just suggest that you check your oven afterwards and make sure you clean it out if anything spills. ;) That was the first time that had happened. I think the problem is I usually use my air-bake 9x13 pan which is larger than the glass 9x13 pan I used this time. And I know they should be the same - NINE by THIRTEEN, right? Well, they aren't.

Wade left on Tuesday for a meeting in Chicago. The kids and I missed him although I think he missed us more being the one away from home. We stayed super busy having something going on every day. On Tuesday I had a hair appointment to get some highlights so they played on their Nintendos the whole time. I ended up taking them that night to spend the night with Nana because I had two more appointments (doc and dentist) the next day.

I stayed up until 2 am that night as I had the whole house to myself. Mostly sewing. (Yes, I'm afraid I've found a new hobby. Shhhh!) And I paid for it the next morning when I had to be at an appointment a little after 9. I am a full-eight-hours-of-sleep kinda gal and feel the lack of it if I don't get it. I made it through the day though, got the kids and went to bed a little after ten that night. :)

On Thursday we went to the Barter Theater with Nana and Jeremiah and saw a FABULOUS play, My Imaginary Pirate. I loved loved loved it! I think it is my favorite I've ever seen by the Barter Players which is the group of performers who do the short-run plays for kids. I laughed and cried. It was good!

The fun didn't stop there though. The kids and I had decided the night before that we would drive to a local drive-in movie theater to watch "Toy Story 3". It was about 35 minutes away and started at 9. It was over at 11 (it didn't really start at 9). We had a great time and enjoyed it. We have plans to go back with Daddy soon. It was only $10 for the three of us though ($6 for adults and $2 for kids 10 and under)!! Woohoo!


On Friday I finished one of my two ongoing projects. They are ongoing because of me. One is the refinishing of the kitchen table and chairs that I started four weeks ago. Yes, I am embarrassed to say that but I've been busy, I got disgusted with the results (of the stain I had bought and then had to sand off again) and the weather has been so hot that I have been shying away from outside. Alas, though I have finished the panels that go on our skylights in the living room. They were on there when we bought the house 7.5 yrs ago and I liked them. They softened the light. The last time I took them down to wash them they basically fell apart they were so old and had been fried by the sun. So I bought some more sheer fabric and made two more.

The second one was much easier after doing the figuring and all for the first. I had looked online for quite a while and could not find anything like this to buy to replace this so I did have to make them. In retrospect I will say that it may have been easier to buy some sheers from Bed, Bath & Beyond using a coupon or somewhere to use the fabric for the design because even with Hancock Fabric's sales they are having right now, these cost me about $15 each.

We were happy to have Wade come home Friday night. It was almost midnight so the kids were in bed. We got up the next morning and had a photo shoot of our family by Holly Rainey. I can NOT wait to get them back!! Afterwards we checked out the farmer's market in the downtown and scrounged up enough cash to buy Elizabeth some colby style goat cheese. We also ate breakfast at Cranberry Thistle. Our waitress was wonderful and we saw they were having live music that night (Bluegrass, yeehaw!) so we went back that evening for dinner and some entertainment. Our waitress wasn't even half as good and I personally didn't think my food was but Wade enjoyed his and we enjoyed the music for an hour before leaving.

I think I'm slowly getting Photoshop Elements 8.0 figured out. I finally got my actions uploaded to it yesterday and edited some photos from our celebration of Tom's 70th birthday (my father-in-law). Pictures to come hopefully in the next day or two!