Three Sides

Hey Monday!  I’m not exactly happy you’re here considering you mark the end of vacation.  But, I’ll get over it with a super easy post about these curtains I made for Sebastian’s room.

I made his closet curtains out of a queen-size sheet, cut in half and hemmed.  The window curtains I made out of some white duck fabric from Hobby Lobby.  To keep things from getting too plain with all that white, I stenciled on some tiny triangles.

Here’s how I did it.

First, I made my stencil.  Using the Rhonna Designs app on my phone, I stuck a little triangle onto a white background and sized it to the size I wanted the triangles to appear on the fabric.  Then I laid some stencil plastic (leftover from stenciling this rug) over the top of my phone and traced the triangle.  I traced two because my cousin was here to help.  Hooray for company and help!
 

Then I pulled out these foam pouncers (affiliate link), originally purchased way back when I dotted these jeans, and squirted a little bit of black acrylic paint onto a plate. 
I didn’t add any fabric medium to the paint because I know it’ll still be permanent even though it might not be as soft.  On curtains, I’m not worried about the feel.  Clothing is a little different.

Next, I put a small amount of paint onto the pouncer and dabbed that paint right over my stencil.  Note:  Use enough paint to just cover the surface of your foam.  A nice thin coat dabbed a few times over the stencil will do the trick without bleeding.  Too much paint will get under the stencil and give you some crazy lines and a not-so-crisp shape.  You might have to dab the plate a few times after you get paint on the pouncer to get some of that extra paint off.

We just placed triangles in random places, scattered over the curtains.  The more imperfectly placed, the better, in this case.
 

I love the triangles vs. regular old dots because I feel like they’re a little more manly for our little man.  Sharp edges and nice straight sides…in other words, tall, dark, and handsome.  Or maybe that’s a stretch but either way, you catch my drift.  :)

Anyway…

Have a great Monday!  I’m feeling the usual ‘overwhelmed’ at all the to-do’s I really want to get done this week and the fact that we’ve been on vacation for the better part of the past week and a half is making that hefty load even heftier.  It’s okay though, usually come Tuesday, I realize that I can’t be a one-woman show and I hack my list in half.  Happens every week.  Vicious circle or sensibility shot?  Not sure…

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So easy you might as well do it…and pin it for when you do.  :)

Crew Cut

I’m not a fan of crew neck shirts.  They feel stuffy to me.  I’m all about v-necks and round necks and square necks and every other neck (besides plunging maybe because, for one, my kids tend to grab onto my shirt during times of slight duress and OOPS!  HELLOO!)  But, I do own a few crews.  In particular, there’s this hand-me-down:This is the only picture I have wearing it and you can’t even see the crew neck so it should be tossed in the irrelevant category but I’ll humor myself again and post it.  This was when I was pregnant with Sebastian.  I laughed out loud to myself when I pulled it over the bump though because it seemed to add a little vavoom to Audrey’s chest area that wasn’t there before…so I took a picture.  :D

Here’s what it really looks like (except in white):[image via Tradesy]

And why am I even worrying about posting a before picture?  You all know what a crew neck tee looks like!  Silly me!

So anywho, one day post-pregnancy, I decided I wanted to wear that shirt again but didn’t want to deal with the stuffy crew neck, so I just cut it off (and didn’t take a single in-process picture…boo). 

I cut right around the existing neck; cutting off the ribbing. 

Cutting around the existing neck helped me make sure I wasn’t getting a wonky cut.  After I had done that, I decided I wanted it a tad wider so I cut another half inch off; following the circle I had just cut.  Since the tee I cut was jersey, there was no hemming needed!

Freedom!

Here’s how I’m wearing it today:
 
[My mirror lied when it told me these ancient trouser jeans are still good to wear.  Looking a little shoddy these days…]

And, per J’s inspiration, I threw this altered blazer over it.

Oh, hold on, my super-sleek, company-supplied phone is going off…

*

Oh wait, that’s just a toddler cry in the arena I call mi casa.

Gotta run.

Bamboozled

Our parish had a yard sale fundraiser a couple of weeks ago to raise money for this summer’s mission trip to Ecuador and we helped plan the event.  Everything in the sale was donated by parishioners, including these two ladies:

Although sturdy, they looked a little sad – the fabric on the seats was worn and the bamboo was discolored and stained in many spots.  So, I did what anyone with a tooth for a project did, I snatched them up and told them I’d make them over so that they could sell them for much more than the $5 a piece they were asking.  :D

So I did.

And here’s how.

First I removed the seats.  You can see they were just attached by four screws, screwed in through metal brackets at the four corners under the seat.


Then I gave the bamboo a quick vacuum with a bristled vacuum attachment and scrubbed them down with some soap and water - I used a wet toothbrush to clean out crevices and to remove a little grime and a damp washcloth to clean the rest.

Once clean, I took them outside to be painted.  I used Rustoleum spray paint in white and to make sure I covered every inch of the chairs that would be seen, I first painted the chairs upside down.  This enable me to get underneath the curves on the backrest and places under the chair that might be seen from above.
  

I covered most of the underside of the chair but I didn’t waste paint with parts that definitely wouldn’t be seen.  Also, I sprayed two coats for good coverage – I painted the second coat about 30 minutes after the first.

After the underside was dry, I flipped the chairs over and sprayed them standing upright.


Here’s where all that painting got me:
 

Next came the seats.


Lots of staples had to be removed in order to freshen these babies up.  To remove them, I used a small flathead screwdriver to pry them up and a needle-nose pliers to pull them out.


First I started by removing the black backing.


Then I removed the piping.
 
I removed the old piping material from the piping itself because the original intention was to redo the piping with the new fabric.  But, in the end, it turned out the chairs didn’t really need the piping…which was good because I didn’t have a ton of time to finish these and I had never made my own piping before.

After I started removing the actual seat material on one of the chairs, I realized that it wasn’t foam underneath but a sort of loose fiber.  We debated on just buying new foam to fit to the seats but then ditched that for the easier route – simply putting the new fabric over the old.  The old fabric wasn’t gross, just worn and faded, so it worked out well to skip a few steps! 

To make sure the new geometric fabric (a mustard-colored curtain panel we purchased at Kohl’s) was straight, I first laid the seat right on top of the fabric, which was upside down so that the wrong side of the fabric was facing the top of the seat.  Then I eyeballed it, making sure it was right in the center of the design.
 
Then, while I wrapped the fabric around to the underside, Anthony stapled.  We did the front (straight edge) of the seat first followed by a few staples at the back center.  Then we did the sides and front corners.  Last we did the rest of the back; around the curved corners.  I wish we had more hands to take pictures because, while it seems fairly easy, there’s a lot of pulling and folding involved to make sure there are no folds along the sides of the seat.  These seats were a little more difficult since they were rounded at the back; a squared seat (like this one) would’ve been a lot easier.

We did one seat one night and the next seat a couple of nights later.  While I love the outcomes of recovering seats, the process isn’t the most fun past time so you can imagine how glad I was after that last staple was in on the last seat…and then you can imagine my grief when I set both seats on their bamboo counterparts and realized the ikat design on one was opposite the other:
 
This is what happens when you do projects while the kids are awake.  #facepalm #facepalm #facepalm

Out came lots of staples and in went more and finally, we had it right and almost done.  Before our last step, which you’ll see below, I made sure that none of the screw holes were completely covered by layers of fabric, making it really difficult if not impossible to get the seat back on the chairs.  I simply cut around the holes if there was too much fabric over them or cut a small hole in the fabric above the holes if I couldn’t cut around them.  Hopefully that makes sense.  Again, I didn’t take pictures of the underside of the seats once we were finished upholstering them (rookie mistake!) but you can see similar scenarios in this post and this one.

The next and last step was covering the underside of the seats.  Because we opted to cover over the old fabric, some of it was peeking out from under the new on the underside of the seat.  Of course nobody really looks under there but it bothered me.  So, I grabbed some interfacing we had left from covering the bottom of the loveseat, and stapled it on there.

First, I cut out a piece a little larger than the area I wanted covered and centered it over the area, placing two staples in the middle to hold it in place.
  
The interfacing I used was fairly thin and allowed me to see the edge of the fabric underneath so I just grabbed a scissors and cut it to size, making sure I was cutting it so that it overlapped the edge of the fabric.  Then I stapled it in place.
 

Much cleaner.
 

And that’s it!
  

Do you have upholstering chairs under your belt?  My friends Pam and Oscar are in the process of doing their dining room chairs and look how great they’re turning out!  I love the floral fabric they chose!
 

And my friend Natasha did hers too!  So classy, right?


It’s a really simple update anyone can do!  Like I said above, the more square the cushion, the easier but if you can tug and pull, you can tackle any shape!

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P.S.  If you live in the Mobile area and are interested in buying these lovely ladies (or even just one…they’d make great desk chairs!), email me at beaninlove@gmail.com

P.P.S.  A huge virtual hug and cheeky kiss to all of you who voted for my outfit for the Goodwill Fashion Challenge!  I got second place – a $100 gift card to Goodwill!  I’m going to pass on a small token of appreciation to one lucky voter so if you voted, keep your eyes peeled because that just might be you!  I’ll pick a winner before the end of the week!  Seriously, thanks again!

Laced

Once upon a very long time ago, my sister and I were inspired by some strappy sandals we saw somewhere; who knows where anymore.  I’m talking like ten years ago.  But, we were inspired and we had to have some, but for some reason we wanted to make our own (probably because the real deals were out of our college student budgets).  So we set out for the perfect shoe to refashion.  I remember it took us awhile.  We both always had our eyes peeled and then one day, while we were strolling the aisles of our local Old Navy, we found the perfect sandals to use and they were on clearance (for $8, if I remember correctly).  We snatched them up and got to work…but what I really mean is we snatched them up and Farrah got to work.  Anyway, enough with the vague talk. 

These were the sandals we bought, only this is after we started our project.

Before we started, they looked similar to these Old Navy sandals (currently on sale for $13!)…

…but had some sort of embellishment on the top that we removed.

So I’ve had these unfinished sandals tucked away for all these years and last week I finally pulled them back out to finish what we started.  And now I am scratching my head in wonder that we didn’t finish long ago because they’re amazing done!

 

Here’s how I made them and how you can too!

As you can see in the picture of the sandals Farrah and I found above, we clipped the straps so that they were about two inches long.
  

And then Farrah started sewing the unattached end to the attached end by folding it over and making a few stitches at the base of the strap, making sure to stitch through both ends. 

[Allow me to show you by continuing where we left off.]

She got half of my straps done (and probably none of her own because she’s selfless like that) so I finished stitching the other three down this week.  I’m not sure why we decided to fold down the strap so that the end was visible from the outside of the shoe but we probably should’ve folded them in so that they were less noticeable.  Excitement took our brain apparently.  Or maybe we just didn’t want that part rubbing against our feet.  Either way, in the name of consistency, I sewed the rest of them the same way.  Also, I should mention that when we cut the straps, we cut them at a diagonal so that when they were folded over, the end would run along the bottom of the shoe (look two photos up for a visual).  Make sense?  I hope so…

And that was that.  The shoes were ready for the fabric ribbon I made.

I had thee worst time choosing fabric for this project.  Too many options, too little time, and too many little hands grabbing whatever they could while I was looking.  I walked into JoAnn Fabrics that day hoping to find one fabric but walked out with two.  But that’s the great thing about these sandals – the options are endless! 

Here are the two I grabbed:

[left & right]
I only bought six inches of each fabric and only ended up paying $3.50 total (I don’t think either were on sale and I didn’t have a coupon).  First things first, I needed to straighten out the fabric.  The lady that cut the fabric for me was awesome.  She made sure to cut straight across the design.  Whoever had previously cut the fabric didn’t do that so I had one wonky side and one straight side.  So, I just trimmed off the jagged side; getting it nice and straight.


Then I cut each piece in half – two shoes; two ribbons.  I didn’t measure because I’m lazy pretty good at eyeballing.
 

Now it gets a little picture-happy.  I went full on with the details on how to make fabric ribbons, so if you’re not interested or you’d rather go the easy (smart?) route and use pre-made ribbon, you might want to scroll right on past.

I made two different types of ribbons, a pair with pointed ends and a pair with squared ends.  We’ll get the point-ended ones out of the way first because they’re a tad more difficult (but not hard!…you could totally do this!).

First, I grabbed a couple of large safety pins and pinned them to the middle of each end, just past the selvage.

Then I folded the entire length of my fabric in half; right sides together.
 

Next I sewed together my unfinished edges, making a curve at the start of my sewing.  This gave me my pointed ends.  The picture below illustrates what I mean when I say I made a curve.

The red represents my sewing.  Starting at the folded edge of the fabric and right under the selvage, I sewed a straight stitch that curved to the opposite side and down.  I made sure to backstitch at the start too to make sure my stitches stayed put.

So then I sewed about a foot down my ribbon, stopped, and backstitched.  Then I did the same curved stitch to the other end of the ribbon but this time sewed until I was about three inches from my previous stitch.  Then I stopped and backstitched.  Now I had a long tube of fabric with a hole in it that was about three inches wide.
  
This hole is critical in getting the fabric right-side out.

Before I went right-side out though, I trimmed the excess fabric off my curved ends with a pinking shears.  A regular scissors would work too; pinking shears just give a cut that will supposedly help prevent fraying. 

Next, I went to one end, found my safety pin, and started feeding it back through the fabric tube I had just sewn.  It’ll bring the end of the ribbon along with it.  This is is how I got my fabric right-side out.


I fed it through and pulled it out the small hole I left in the hem.
 

I did the same to the other end; fed the safety pin through until my fabric was right-side out.

Then I removed my pins and wiggled the pointed ends outward to get them as pointed as I could get them. 

The last thing I needed to do was sew the hole shut.  To do this I fold the unfinished hems of the hole in like this:

And then I went over those folds/the hole with a quick straight stitch.
 

Here it is closed:
 

I purposely made sure the hole was about a foot in from one end so that it would end up being wound up in the knot of the ribbon once it was on the shoe and on my foot.  In other words, not noticeable at all.

Now onto the square-ended ribbons.

First, I cut off the selvage on the ends.  I needed to turn my ends in and hem them later and I didn’t want the selvage showing.


Then I placed a safety pin in the middle of just one end.


Next I folded the entire piece of fabric in half length-wise and sewed straight stitch down the unfinished edge; no curve this time.  After I did that, I was left with one long tube of fabric, inside-out and open on both ends.

To get my fabric right-side out, I guided the safety pin through the fabric tube just like I did with the navy and white ribbons except that this time, it came out the end.  It has to come out the opposite end it’s pinned in so you have to push it all the way through the entire length of the tube.  Once it’s out, pulling the fabric right-side out is easy peasy.
 

So then I had two unfinished, square ends.
  

To finish them, I folded the end of the fabric inside of the tube just a little; enough to get a stitch across the end to hold everything in place.
 
[And also my kids woke up from their naps…all three of them.]
[Don’t mind the nail polish…or what’s left of it.]

Last, I sewed a straight stitch across the opening, making sure to backstitch at each end.
 

Here’s a picture of the first end I sewed shut.
It didn’t look the greatest because I should’ve started sewing on the end without the stitching over to the end with the stitching.  Because I didn’t, my fabric got stuck in my machine and made a little thread mess.  But, you get the picture of what I mean when I say I sewed the ends shut, right?
 
So, there you have it!  Do-it-yourself fabric ribbons, sashes, whatever you want to call them!

Of course you can always just grab some pre-made ribbon at your local fabric store and that would work just great too!  Or, you can cut up an old tee or something made of a no-fray jersey and get ribbons that way!  However you get them, I think you’ll agree that the options really are endless!  There is a way to pair these with most of your closet just by changing out the ribbon!  I actually stole some ribbon from another pair of shoes in my closet and tried those too!  They were a little shorter than my fabric ribbons so I tried tying a different way – through the front loop, back to the side loops, up over the top of my foot where they criss-crossed, and back around to tie behind my ankle.

With the shoes themselves at $8 and the ribbons coming in at $3.50, my total investment so far on these kicks is $11.50.  Uh-mazing.  :)

Here are a few ways I’ll wear them:
 


Oh!  I forgot to mention how COMFORTABLE they are!  I love going barefoot but since that’s not the most socially acceptable option these days, just having a soft strap of cloth holding my sole on is the next best thing.  My feet are loving it!

So anyway, as you might imagine, I have plans to make the girls some because how cute would they look on little feet? 

Too cute!

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Apparently Old Navy makes great shoes and great shoes with lots of potential because I recently refashioned a couple of pairs for the girls too!  See them here.

Check ya lata!