Nothing Says Merry Christmas like ... Pillowcases?

A while back I saw this cute little pattern for pillowcases, and thought I can do that. Then I found the most adorable material. For some odd reason I have been way into owls lately. (check it out here ---->) I bought enough of it to make two pillow cases and then some coordinating fabric for the cuffs. But, I loved it so much I wanted to make something else with the material too. So I went back and bought about 6 more yards of it (it was on sale), and then bought a few different coordinating fabrics. I decided to make a quilt to go with the pillowcases. I haven't finished that yet, more to come on that one.



At any rate I was gushing to my family about how excited I was to make these adorable pillowcases and my family signed themselves up for some as well. A lot of pressure, I am a beginner at sewing and hadn't even made mine yet. I took down what kind of pillowcases they wanted and searched for a couple


months actually for just the right fabrics. My one Aunt wanted lighthouse pillowcases or something that would go good with her lighthouse stuff, and my uncle wanted nature-y type stuff. I bought some material that i was so not inlove with, but couldn't find anything else and was running out of time. I thought maybe it's just not my thing thats why I don't love it. I kept an eye out and one day at JoAnn fabrics saw the most perfect lighthouse fabric and natur-y fabric. I actually loved it. For my other aunt she wanted black and gray fabric to match her bedding. that was a little easier at least to mix and match. I spent about 12 hours one day making pillow cases. I feel like a pro now. LOL. I made my owl ones first, and boy am I glad, they are a little off, but it was my first time. and they still look adorable. Then I made everyone elses. I was quite proud of myself. I didn 't do to bad for my first real patterned sewing project. (get the pattern here. )

I took some of the reminants of the pillow cases and sewed enough to tie around them to make them look pretty. Here are the Black and gray ones I did. Here are the nature ones I did for my uncle all bundled up


A closer look

The Lighthouse ones all bundles up

A closer look.

I've been framed!

I am a new homeowner, and going from a 700 sq foot apartment to a 2700 Sq foot house is a drastic difference. I have a lot of stuff, but not enough to fill this house. Plus I would like to get rid of a lot of stuff I saved"in case" for when we finally got a house. I am however glad I did not get rid of this box of old frumpy frames. A friend game me 2 chairs a few years back that are unique but have never been my style. Well the good news is, I learned how to take the unique frame of this and make it my style. I decided to make the one chair I am puting in my front living room the focal point, and planned my designing around this. I will post the chair at a later time since I am not finished with it. I have the beautiful material I am reupholstering it with. The material's colors are white gray, yellow, and black. I decided red would look awesome in there too. So with this in mind. I looked at the bare walls in our newley painted Living room and knew I needed to get cracking on what to put on those walls.




Being new home owners, we are on a pretty tight budget and a lot of frames are quite expensive, especially when you want a few of differnt sizes and colors. So I looked in my box of old frames. There were two sets of frames that were connected with those little claw brackets you see to the left. I removed those and had 4 usable frames. I played around with the design I wanted on my living room floor. then decided on the colors. Ever since I learned about glazing from Brooke at All Things thrify, I have been obsessed. I decided in sticking with the colors in my chair, that I am designing the whole room around, that I should do the frames in black, gray, yellow, and a red one to make it pop. So Iprimed the ones that needed it with an adhesion primer, since I didn't feel like sanding that many frames, and spray painted them.

After a few coats of paint and drying, I then used black glaze on the gray and yellow ones to give them an antiqued feel. I absolutely love the way they turned out. I was so proud of myself for being so bold as to use the yellow. My husband cringed at first like "um are you sure about that"... but I am happy about my bold desicion. I think once My living room is finally complete and all the pieces have been found and are placed it will look even more amazing. I will have to do a different post, and show how they look on the wall with our pictures. I spent about 14 hours on photoshop getting all the pictures together and editing and adding effects to them for all the frames I had piled in my living room. I will have to show more of my picture and frame projects a different time. but for now here is what the end result was.

These bottom ones are the ones we have on the opposite wall of our yellow frames. Husband has a burgandy framed picture of the Boston Temple, that is just beautiful that I wanted to kind of frame with our wedding pictures. I used the gray and black ones you see above in the design on either side of the Temple pic. The red one is an accent frame I want to place on an entry table that I have yet to find. Still on the hunt, I know what I want for this room but have yet to find just the right peice.

These are the yellow, gray and black ones and they layout of how I placed them on the wall.

Here is a close up of the detail on the 11.5 by 14 yellow frames. I LOVE them. I can't say that every chance I am inclined to take will turn out like these but I am definatly happy with them.

Okay well this should have been at the top I guess here is a before on some of the frames.

Nightstand

So back before the snow fell and the fall was still pretty warm, the husband and I went yardsaling. Well we didn't set out to yardsale, but as we saw signs for one I made him go on a hunt to find it. He was none to happy. But, we did find some great bargains. At this particular yardsale I walked away with a run down old wood chair that needs some major TLC for $1, 2 old mirrors with crazy designs, they were pretty nasty looking, they were $.50 each, and a nightstand for $5.00. Spent $7.00. not bad. The night stand you see to your left there had descent harware, didn't like the super shiney knobs, so I spray painted them with a hammered metalic charcoal color. I am not sure of the exact name, I will have to put it in a post at a later time.

The drawers would not come out so I had to work on it with the drawers in... Not an easy feat. I will later have to put fabric or something inside the drawers since the particles of the spray paint stained the inside of the drawers. I lightly sanded the imperfections and raised areas on the nigthstand, and since the materials were kind of a shiney vinear type, I had to use a adhesion primer to help the spraypaint stick and not just bead up and roll off. I rolled on two coats of adhesion primer then two coats of satin black spray paint. Then I added the newley spray painted knobs to the nightstand. I reall love how it turned out. An inexpensive find, that I was able to transform into what I needed for very little. only the cost of spray paint. (I already had the primer)

Bargain Dresser

My Husband and I went to Frankilin Idaho, which is just past Logan Utah for thier pioneer day to visit my aunt and Uncle who had a booth set up. Well there was a yard sale going on down the road and my aunt asked if I wanted to walk over there with her. I said sure. So we get there and there is this dresser sitting there. Its old and needs some TLC, but it was the right height and size I was currently looking for to use as a TV stand in our bedroom. I asked the lady how much, and she is debating, I am thinking she would say like $20 or more, she says $3 and its more of a question as if I would think that was too much! I was like sold! Mind you were were driving my little Aveo at the time, and I didn't think about it fitting, although it did fit, thankfully. I brought it home and painted it and bought new hardware. the hardware costed about $27, and I already had the primer and paint.

So I came home cleaned it really good inside and out with Amonia. Sanded it down a bit and primed it with some adhesion primer. I painted it with a couple of coats from a can of paint that I got at Lowes, though it was supposed to be black the lady said it was black and just mixed it, when dry it is kind of a charcoal gray. I am not really impressed with it. My bedroom set is black, you can tell it is a different color.



At any rate here is what it looks like for now. I think I at some point if I ever run out of projects am going to refinish it again and spray pain it, or roll it so I don't have all the brush marks. I may even do it a cream or turquiose color and maybe glaze it. This way it stands out in my room. This was one of my first projects when I started out this last summer. Not sure if I love it. I love the hardware, not so much the color. The original hardware was wooden knobs and they weren't even all there.

Also, the insides of the drawers were really bowed and falling apart and I wanted to use it to hold all of our DVD's. The drawers had slide in bottoms, so I took them out and fliupped the bowed part around and put wood glue in the slots, slid the bottoms back in and then used little brad nails to make sure they were good and in there.

I want to make a duvet cover and curtains for our master bedroom, and when I do that I think I will put matching fabric in the bottoms of the drawers when I re do it again. It was a nice starting project. But I know that I can make it look even better. I want it to make a statement and I know that it will eventually get there.. But for now... here it is... a work in progress.

Fit all our DVD's perfectly.