DIY Fur Infinty Scarf

I have to give myself a reality climate check every fall down here in the South.  It’s something like - H E Y, I know everyone and their cousin is posting pixels filled with spiced lattes and covered toes but you live down where it’s still, not technically, but actually summer.  The humidity is still here to slap you in the face upon the exit of any a/c-filled abode and building and, your deoderant, yeah, it’s still working overtime.  You’d think I’d be used to it by now but no, no, no.  I actually grew up in the midwest where fall really feels like fall and summer stays back in summer.  But, I’m not complaining.  Sure, I miss the snow but I don’t miss the months on top of months of it and it’s great to not have to dress the kids up with 75 layers and then their Halloween costumes every year…you know, so they can actually go out as a little butterfly without looking like a stuffed butterfly. 

Anyway, the past couple of weeks have seen a little bit of chilly weather (chilly as in under 70) and so I jumped at the chance to finish a little project had started last fall…and by started I mean, I pulled out the fabric one day, threw up an Instastory about it and then never got around to moving it to my sewing machine.  But, with Gianna and Sebastian doing their synchronized napping thing, I was able to whip this up in a half hour and get the regularly scheduled homeschooling in with the twins one day last week.  #werkit 

Without further chatter, let me introduce my new, faux fur, infinity scarf:

jacket:  hand-me-down, altered // similar
button-down:  Target via Dirt Cheap // similar
jeans:  Old Navy (I heard great things about the Rockstar Built-In Sculpt jeans from ON last year and was so excited to try a pair but when I did, I was sadly disappointed.  I felt like they smashed my rear end down and were really uncomfortable.  Darn.  When I returned them, I tried their Rockstar Super Skinnies instead and LOVE them!)
wedge booties:  eBay // Amazon (I bought mine new off eBay three years ago and they are still going strong.  They’re really comfortable too!) 

Want to make a fur scarf of your very own?  You know you do!  And guess what?  You could hand sew one in under an hour, maybe even in under a half hour.

DIY Grommeted Curtains

Hallelujah!  I got to do something “fun” whilst getting ready for this sell-our-house thing!  I’m tired of painting the kitchen ceiling, touching up loads and loads of trim paint, cautioning the kids against touching anything (“Do NOT drag your toys along the walls pleeeeease!!!”), washing siding and trim, etc…

I got to make curtains!

If you’ve been a long-time reader, you might remember that once upon a time, I scored a long curtain rod at Dirt Cheap and flanked our living room’s french doors with some long curtains to make the room feel more “homey”, as I put it.  I started out with some sheers and then later made some tan and white, geometric-printed curtains that I loved for a long time.  Well, I wanted a change in pattern so I sold those and found some plain white, thick fabric remnants that I thought would be a perfect medium to do knock-off these curtains from West Elm with…but then I decided that I wanted the curtains to be more subtle and blend into the walls a little more so I just kept them white.  There’s still a chance they’ll look like those West Elm curtains someday but right now, I am loving them as-is.  Phew.  That all sounded like a mind-making disaster, didn’t it?  If you’re looking for someone to pick a design and stick with it, don’t look here.  The winds of change blow quite frequently in this casa. 

The parts I love the most though, are the grommets at the top.  I’ve always used rings to hang curtains because it was the easiest to just sew a big rectangle and hang it up.  But then a good friend of mine put grommets at the top of her living room curtains and told me how easy it was and I just had to.  I mean, look at how they fall!  I toyed with them a little before I took pictures but really, for the most part, the grommets create those big folds that go from top to bottom and they hold them there.

I bought these grommets at Walmart.  They’re the exact same grommets sold at the fabric stores I looked at, only without the coupon mark-up (I’m convinced stores that always have running coupons mark their items up…these are $12.99 at JoAnn Fabrics.)  You can also find them for a little bit more on Amazon.   

So, let me tell you my grommet story.  It’s so easy.  You’ve gotta make some grommeted curtains.

DIY Fitted Sheet

Remember back when Sebastian was about to arrive and we were just finishing up making his co-sleeper out of an old changing table?  Well, along with that co-sleeper, I whipped up a fitted sheet to fit the irregular-sized “mattress” that we cut to fit it.  I didn’t document the process or write a tutorial because I was seriously winging it and didn’t know if I’d be writing a ‘What Not to Do’ post instead of a success story.  But, ‘twas a success and so here we are today with a tutorial.  We went the whole of Sebatian’s time in the co-sleeper with one sheet (a big pain when it needed to be washed) but now that Gianna is here, we need at least two.  So, last week I whipped up another one.  Here’s how I did it and how you can too!

First, grab your supplies.  You’ll need fabric (I used and cut up a queen-size fitted sheet), elastic (you can reuse the elastic from the queen sheet if you go that route), scissors, a measuring tape, a safety pin, and a sewing machine.  (Abby at Sew Much Ado made up a great chart to help you figure out how much sheet fabric you’ll need for what size mattress you’ve got!)

Next, get the measurements of the mattress you intend on making a fitted sheet for.  The mattress on our co-sleeper was a piece of two-inch thick foam I bought from JoAnn’s that I cut to fit inside the co-sleeper – 34.5” long by 17.5” wide.  
With the mattress measurements in hand, you’ll cut a big rectangle out of your fabric.  To figure out how big your rectangle needs to be, you’ll add the depth of your mattress (x2) plus an extra few inches for extra fabric around the back to the measurements of the mattress.  So, since my mattress was two inches deep and I wanted six inches (including the pocket hem for the elastic) of extra fabric to extend around the underside of the mattress, I added 4 (depth x2 for each side) + 17.5 (width) + 12 (6 inches of extra fabric around each underside) to get 33.5; the width of my fabric rectangle.  The length of the rectangle then, was 50.5 or 4 + 34.5 + 12.  Does that make sense?

Here’s my mattress in comparison to the fabric needed to make a fitted sheet for it:
Because I measured and cut the fabric while also tending to the kids, I messed up.  After many, many mistakes made because I wasn’t cutting/sewing/painting with my full concentration on my work (read: while the kids were not napping), you’d think I’d learn.  Oops.  Well, what I did was measure the width and not the length before I decided to cut the rectangle out of the fabric.  I didn’t realize my mistake until I had tossed the remants of fabric so, out of the trash it came so that I could cut out two pieces to sew onto each end to make it the length I needed it to be.  I’m telling you all this because in most of the pictures below, there are two seams on my rectangle of fabric and fitted sheet that are only there because of my mistake.  They shouldn’t be so I put a white squiggly line over them hoping for less confusion.  In reality, you’ll just have a big rectangle without any seams.

Now then, where were we?  Oh yes, your rectangle of fabric.  At this point, you’ll want to serge all around the outside edge to keep your ends from fraying.

If you don’t have a serger or your sewing maching doesn’t have interlocking stitches, it’s ok!  Just iron the edges over just the slightest bit – enough that, when you fold over your edges again to make a pocket for your elastic, that you can sew a stitch right over it to keep it in place.

Now, you’ll have to cut squares out of each corner.  The sides of the square cut-out should be equal to the depth of your mattress plus the extra fabric you left to go around the underside of the mattress.  So, I measured out an 8 x 8 inch square at each corner – 2” (depth) + 6” (extra fabric) = 8”.

Next, you’ll sew together the two sides of your square.

Pull the sides together, right side of the fabric pieces touching, and stitch them together.

Or, if you have a serger, just serge them together like I did.  If you don’t have a serger, sew a zigzag stitch along the very edge to help keep the edges from fraying.

At this point, you’ll have something that looks like this:

It’s time for elastic to come into play.  You’ll need to sew a hem or pocket all around the bottom edge of your soon-to-be sheet into which the elastic can fit.

The size of your hem/pocket depends on how wide your elastic is.  I used 1/2-inch wide elastic so I made my hem 3/4-wide.  So, sew that hem but make sure to leave an opening so that you can insert your elastic.  I left about two inches unsewn.

Now, grab your elastic.  This is the elastic I used:
(This is post-unpackaging obviously…in case you were wondering where I got invisible elastic )

For the first fitted sheet I made for this co-sleeper, I took the elastic out of the queen-size sheet I used to to make the sheet.  I just used a seam ripper to rip out the thread holding it in and easy was it.  I used 52 inches of elastic, or the equivalent of two sides of my mattress, in the fitted sheets for the co-sleeper.

To make threading easy, stick a safety pin in the end of the elastic.  You may also want to pin the opposite end close to the opening in your hem so that it doesn’t get threaded into your pocket.

Use the safety pin to help your fingers guide the elastic through the fabric pocket.

Once it comes out the other end, sew the two ends of elastic together.

Then sew that opening shut.

Now you can make your bed/crib/co-sleeper/whatever it is you’ve made the sheet for.

And then daydream about all the cute fitted sheets you’re going to make now that you have thousands of cute fabrics to choose from and not just the pre-made sheets found down the aisles of stores!  I mean, look at these! 

In other news, you might’ve noticed that we added some fabric straps to Gianna’s co-sleeper.

We were 98% comfortable in the fact that our newborn wasn’t going to pull herself up and out of her bed through that space between the top two rails but for the sake of the 2% of worry, I just cut out some strips of fabric we had leftover from our headboard and tied them in knots along the top.  They’re not hemmed or anything so they’re fraying a tad but I guess we’ll call that the rustic vibe.  ;)

So anyway, now that we have two sheets for the co-sleeper, we’re not hastily washing the one sheet before the next nap arrives but just swapping out clean for dirty.  It makes life over here a little less harried and chaotic…emphasis on a little less.  :)

Maternity Pants Refashion - Khaki-Style

That’s what Jake, from State Farm, is wearing and that’s what I’m here today with.

Although, I can pretty much guarantee you his look way better than mine:

Or at least way better than mine looked.  Mine might have a fighting chance in the fit arena now.

I snagged these Gap maternity khakis from Goodwill ($4) when I was pregnant with Sebastian and never got around to fixing them to fit me…until yesterday.  I was motivated to pull them out and take them to my sewing machine asap after last weekend, when I really had the worst time finding something that fit to wear to church.  It was partly because my brain wasn’t quite awake when I was scouring my maternity wardrobe, partly because all of my other church-appropriate maternity pants were in the dirty laundry and partly because, hello, this might be my last pregnancy so, better get on that stat.

I didn’t take pictures during the process because I used the same process I’ve used to slim down every other pair of pants I own that needed it (see here and here) but I did play dress-up so that in the coming days, I’d have some idea about what to pair with these “new” pants during those moments when “I have nothing to wear with themmmm!”

Just humor me.

And then, answer me this…are pregnant women even allowed to wear belts?…because the idea looked great in my head not to mention, I love belts so I’ve been going through a little bit of a withdrawl.  I tried it way back when and I liked it but this time it kinda looks like I’m wearing a woven support belt.  Maybe it’s because my jean vest might be a little too short to pair with a belly therefore exposing the entire belt when just the front would suffice?  Either way, here we have something I can sport on the daily:


This one’s my fave and it would’ve been perfect to prance around in on an Easter egg hunt with the tots:

For all my grocery store/Target runs:

And I don’t even know what the scene would be for this but this beaded top is one of my favorite (non-maternity) tops and I’m millimeters away from not being able to wear it anymore so I might have to indulge before that happens.  Plus, a blazer sounded fun.

And this is when a humongous, monster bug went flying by and for a split (terrifying) second, I thought it was inside the screened-in patio with me.  Self-timer didn’t miss my reaction and I’d be remiss to not include a blooper so…

May all the bugs always, always stay on the other side of that screen and may the rest of your day be glorious.

Amen.

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My Couch Baby

Ever since the screened-in porch on the back of our house was just an idea, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for a great wood or bamboo couch to settle in back there.  The tough thing though, is having the idea and then actually finding something that would be perfect, only to realize that you have zero room in your house to store a couch to put in a space that may or may not happen.  Sometimes I feel like that’s the story of my decor life, I find something that would be perfect in some space in my mind but a space that I don’t have or don’t have yet in my house.  Womp.  Two years ago when we were searching for the perfect entertainment center to turn into the girls’ play kitchen, we stumbled upon the coolest wood frame couch in a thrift store in town and man, I wanted it for the porch we had just started saving up to build.  Like, I wanted it bad.  It was marked at $60 and it had clean lines and a concentric, cut-out circle pattern in wood on each side and in white, it’d would’ve been amazing!  I left a piece of my heart with it when I walked out those thrift store doors that day.

But it all turned out okay and I have no regrets because right after the screened-in porch was built, I was at another of my favorite thrift stores here and out on their front stoop they had a wood frame couch with a piece of computer paper taped to it that said “Please take.  I’m free!” 
I guess they had tried and tried to sell it but nobody wanted it.  I can’t imagine why…

It wasn’t my style at all – too many big curves – and the springs holding the bottom on were broken.  The fabric was awful (but I planned on reupholstering whatever I bought anyway) and the wood faded and in need of a good sanding and paint job.  But, it was FREE.  I was so torn.  Either way, at the moment I saw it, I had all the kids with me and no way to get it home so I snapped the picture above and home I went to later bring it up to Anthony.

Then, as fate would have it, we drove by a few days later on our way to church and the couch was still there.  We decided that, since we really wanted to get our porch put together, that’d we’d go grab it and see what we could do about making it look more ‘our style’.  Better than in a landfill, right? 

Here she was, home and in all her vintage glory:

And this is the story of how we made her a little, or a lot, happier…

First, Anthony removed all of the springs/metal rails that held the bottom in.  Like I said above, many of them were broken which made sitting in this thing impossible or dangerous at very best.  Then, I unscrewed all of the metal loops that held the springs in place along the inside of the couch. 

Now since there weren’t any springs, there wasn’t anything besides the two support bars left to hold seating.  This is where holding onto pieces of construction material for long periods of time comes in handy.  We have had a sheet of plywood stored away from our previous home (yes, we moved down the country with it) just in case we ever needed it.  Well, that day came.  Anthony cut it to fit down into the recess of the couch seat where it sat snugly atop those two wood support bars.

It’s so much more firm and sturdy than springs; nobody’s falling through now.  Stay away Dumbo.

To reign in slivers and to keep up appearances though, I grabbed some thin cotton fabric at JoAnn Fabrics and upholstered the side of the plywood that would be facing up.  It was as simple as laying my fabric out on the floor, cutting it so that I had a few inches of extra fabric all around, wrapping it around the plywood, and stapling it down.Since no one was going to see the underside of the couch lest they were a feline or pup, I wasn’t too particular about making straight cuts.

Lazy?  Maybe.  Efficient?  I vote yes.  ;)

Next up was prepping for paint.  After I had all of the looped screws out, I had to pry the fabric-covered piece off the front of the couch.  I didn’t know what it looked like underneath but there was no way on God’s green Earth I was keeping it there so find out, I would.

A flathead screwdriver did the trick nicely followed by a needle-nose pliers to get any remaining nails pulled out.  Luckily, all that remained was the flat piece of curved wood at the front of the couch and some nail holes.  After filling all the holes left behind by those nails and giving the entire couch a good sanding (a workout, let me tell you) to roughen it down to a matte finish, I was ready for paint.

Because it was wood and wood can bleed through latex paint, I opted to prime the couch with two cans of RustOleum spray primer in white.  Spray paint is typically oil-based (or maybe it’s all oil-based?) and better at inhibiting wood-bleed.  (Don’t ask me where I read this little rule but I’ve found it to be true in both following and not following that direction.  I’ve seen wood bleed through latex paint and primer and so I’ll stray from that combo as long as I live.)

To paint, I used a latex paint (Swan White by Glidden in an eggshell/satin finish) sprayed on using this paint spray gun*.  My friend Jesse let me borrow her Critter paint gun I had read great reviews about and then, at Christmas, I used some gift cards to buy my very own on Amazon.  It’s really as awesome as I had heard!  My favorite part is that it uses mason jars to hold the paint so, if you’re doing a big job, all you have to do is have a few mason jars lined up to be screwed on and you’re good to go until you’re done.  There’s no stopping because you have to refill the paint canister.  My other fave part is that it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg…it’s under $50 (I paid $41.97).  (However, it does need an air compressor to run so if you can’t borrow one from someone, you’ll have to tack that onto the cost.)

A few days after painting, I ruined the paint job.  Okay, not really.  I just upped the ante by distressing it a tad.  This part was the most fun of all.  I grabbed a hand-sander and some light-grit sandpaper and went around sanding down some of the edges of the couch.  Nothing to crazy.  Just a slight distressing for a slightly old piece.

So, the couch was painted and distressed and looking quite jolly but the cushions?  Even though the white couch made them look like they might convert to a cute outfit (distressed white jeans below with a plaid button-down up top), they did absolutely nothing to help aesthetics on the couch.  Plus, they were so old and worn that if you rubbed them, they’d start crumbling into tiny pieces.  Ewww…

I’d never reupholstered couch cushions before so the task ahead of me was very (very, very, very, very…) daunting but then I found this tutorial on how to sew box cushions by Christy from Confessions of a Serial DIYer.  I ordered 5.5 yards of this Robert Allen outdoor fabric (it’s says chocolate but after seeing it in person in JoAnn Fabrics, I’d say it’s more of a charcoal gray) from fabric.com and I followed Christy’s directions almost to the T; the only difference is that I wanted to make mine zipperered so I removed the zippers from the old cushion covers using a seam ripper and re-inserted them into my new covers.  I inserted the zippers first and then sewed the side seams and corners.  The foam cushions were in good shape, albeit a tad smelly and minus a large stain one had that looked like a big glass of wine was spilled (or at least I hoped it was just wine or coke or something not gross).  Oh the foam; cleaning it all was an ordeal.  I scrubbed and swelled with soapy water and squished and repeated that process with each individual cushion in our bath tub and then, when I was done scrubbing, I threw each one into the washing machine with some clorox.  My guess is that they had never been washed (because who washes couch cushions?  I know.  Not me.) and, even though they still held their shape, I didn’t want to recover them with brand new covers much less sit in them without knowing they were oh-so-fresh-and-so-so-clean.  Washing those was a labor of love, let me tell ya.

After washing, I cut the top cushions so that they were a tad shorter and only just hit above the back of the couch by sawing a few inches off the bottoms with a serated knife.  The bottom cushions, even though in good condition, had seen fluffier days so I wrapped some one-inch thick batting (from JoAnn Fabrics) around them to fluff them up.
Butttt also, I made the mistake of sewing the covers for the bottom cushions a little too big so the fabric was really loose and wrinkled once on.  I tried to figure out a way to resew and take them in so that they fit more snugly but, with the zippers, I couldn’t, so batting was the answer for that too.  Win, win.

Anyway, in case I lost you on all the details ten paragraphs ago, here’s the 1000% better after:




It’s not pictured outside in the screened-in porch because, in the time that’s passed since I finished this piece, we found a bamboo set for $40 on a resale sight and that couch and loveseat are currently waiting to be snazzed up.  I love you old, vintage, wood couch, but the bamboo really has my heart and so my heart I must follow.  We don’t really need the loveseat from the set so my plan is to fix that up and sell it but the couch will be my resting place all summer so you can be sure I’ll have all the details on that makeover.  I’ll be sure to write some better tutorials on how I sew the new cushions and wash the foam (if need be) on that since my first try was successful and now I kinda know what I’m doing...kinda.  Stay tuned.

As for this wood couch, we staged it for a blog and sale picture and sold it within four hours of listing it.  It’s a little bittersweet but the sweet lady who bought it is putting it in an old building in her backyard that she’s fixing up to be a little retreat; pinterest-style.  It sounds so delightful and this mom’s happy my couch baby went to a good home.  Okay, couch baby Sheena?  I know, forgive me of my unhealthy attachments to furniture…

But, it’s yet another furniture project in the books; quite possibly the most demanding furniture project to date.  I’ll be taking a short break from those to recover and working on some simpler stuff.  If you’re sitting back wondering how I got this thing done with three four kids under my belt, know that this took me weeks to finish.  I know it all looks like I did this in a day or a weekend but let’s be realistic, shall we?  Things around here happen slowly.  Just ask Dwija.

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So, let’s talk Labor of Love’s:  Home Edition?  What’s been yours recently?  Maybe painting a room?  Sewing?  Remodeling?  Give me all the details!  It’s my love language.  This week I’m deep-cleaning the kids’ bathroom and you know what that means…project in the bathroom time!  Here’s a sneak peek if you’re interested.  :)

Have a fantastic week eeerbody!

*affiliate link to paint sprayer gun I purchased

Bean Refashioning: Military Jacket

Hand-me-downs.  Love them.  Half of my closet was my mom’s and sisters’…and then there’s one piece from my Grandma.  Yep, you read that right.  This jacket…
…was my Grandma’s.  She asked if anyone wanted it over Christmas and it took me a minute, but I knew it had potential, so I grabbed it. 

But, obviously, something had to give if I was ever going to wear it in public.  First, I took out the sleeves to make them a tad longer.  I took out this seam…
…and that’s it because there was another seam underneath that kept everything nice and finished.
 
I’ve never taken in a jacket before so I was a little intimidated by this refashion, I’ll be honest.  But, since it was free, I didn’t have much to lose if I messed up.  A bunch of seam ripping and another try was Plan B and donating it was the worst case scenario.

First, I zipped it up and turned it inside-out.  Then I laid it out so that the side seams were right at the sides and the jacket was flat along the edges.
There was a litte more fabric in the front of the jacket than the back so that’s why the above picture shows a little buckling on top.  It was more important for the sides seams to line up since that’s where I’d be sewing than for the jacket to be laying perfectly flat…if that makes any sense.

For sizing, normally I might just try it on and figure it out from there but with a belly and no waist, there’s no figuring out anything that way.  So, I grabbed my favorite white blazer that I know has a great fit and used it for sizing.

First I marked out how much I wanted to take the sleeves in.
I lined the two sleeves up along the top and used a white sewing pencil (technical term?) to draw a line onto the military jacket that followed the bottom of the white blazer’s sleeve.

Then I lined the armpits up, starting at the point where my line for thinning out the sleeve ended at the armpit seam, and used the same pencil to draw a line down the military jacket that went right along the edge of my white blazer.

I made sure to press down the white blazer with my hand along the place I was penciling so that it was totally flat while I traced its edges.

Next, I pinned everything into place, making sure my edges and armpit seams were lined up, and sewed a straight stitch right along my white line.

A repeat on the other side of the jacket, a pinking shears to cut off the excess fabric (eventually I’ll serge the edges), and that was that.

military jacket:  hand-me-down – $0
sequin-embellished top:  hand-me-down (mom’s) – $0
maternity jeans:  hand-me-down (friend – thanks Grace!) – Old Navy
boots:  Target (purchased on sale 2-3 years ago but here’s a similar pair* on clearance!) – $22
grand total:  $22

I can’t exactly zip it up at the moment but that’s totally fine by me – spring and summer don’t necessite zippers unless it’s the fly really, so looks like this chick is in the clear. 

I’ve had a military jacket on my wish list for awhile now so I’m happy I came across one for free, even if it did cost me a little bit of time.  :)

Thanks again Grandma B!

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*affiliate link similar to combat boots I purchased from Target