Rockin' Chair

Behold, a glider.  It's a glider my mother-in-law rescued from either a curb or someone ridding themselves of extra furniture...I forgot the real story.  Either way though, it was free and my sister-in-law took it in as her own with hopes of reupholstering it and making a new seat bottom.  And that's where I come in.  :)  Making a trip up to New York (where Anthony's fam is from) for a wedding, gave us a great weekend to recreate this glider together.  It was my first experience ever sewing upholstery and it actually turned out pretty darn good...although I had an incredible sister-in-law-sidekick who actually did most if not all of the actual sewing...her first time too!  I tried to take a bunch of pictures of the whole process but we were so hard at work I ended up limited in the pic department but I'll do my best to explain.

I might mention before I start too, that this was a very, very low budget project (the story of my life).  With that in mind, we first had to find a seat cushion.  In comes my wonderful mother-in-law.  She found an old couch cushion that we cut up just a little here and there, fit together like a puzzle, and glued back together.   

I know the picture looks a little rough but before making a fabric slipcover for it, we used some "improvised batting" to smooth it out.  You see, normally we would have just used regular, store-bought batting from the store, but we didn't think about buying it while we were there, went home without it, and then didn't want to make the trek back out to the fabric store.   Soooo, we used...one of Alicia's old fleece blankets! I had heard once before of someone using fleece as a substitution for batting but never had the chance to try it until now.  Basically we just wrapped the entire homemade cushion up and then glued the fleece together along the one and only seam. 

 Then we concocted our new fabric slipcover.  Unfortunately, I didn't take one picture of us making the slipcover but basically we sewed together six pieces of fabric - a top panel, a bottom panel, and four side panels.  Pinning the fabric together inside-out over the seat cushion, then removing it with the pins intact to the sewing machine helped us to get a perfect fit.

As for the seat back cushion, we decided to just sew a fabric slipcover right over the existing fabric to make life a little easier.  However, the existing fabric was a little too textured to remain completely smooth under the new fabric so first we covered it with...yep, the same fleece blanket!  First we wrapped the cushion in the fleece, glued it together along the seam in the back, and then pinned our way along the curved edge.  After sewing along our pinned edge, we had a perfect fit.   

To make the new fabric slipcover, we used the same pinning technique using two panels of fabric.  We pinned along the cushion while the fabric was on the cushion, removed the cushion (very carefully so none of the pins came out), and sewed along the pinned edge.  Here's the finished slipcover, ready to be put on:

Alicia then used her mad hand-sewing skills to sew both slipcover openings (top and bottom cushions) closed.

That was the extent of what I witnessed that weekend.  Alicia was left to recover the arm rests herself...and she did an incredible job!  Here's a picture she sent me a couple weeks ago of the finished product:

Doesn't it look incredible!  It's a whole new chair!  Seriously!  Add a cute, patterned throw pillow, Alicia, and her future babes and it'll be one rockin' chair, huh?  :)

The fabric Alicia bought was from JoAnn's.  It was a soft, faux, blue suede and cost around $30.  I can't remember how much we bought so I'll have to put in an update once I find out.  Everything else was F-R-E-E.  So, 30 beans for a brand new glider and a wealth of sewing experience for both of us...not too shabby! 

Anyone else taken on revamping a glider?  I'd love to see pictures!  Send 'em on over!

Have a great weekend everyone!  I'll be back next weekend to tell a couple of secrets we've been keeping from y'all!  :)

Oops...and an Update

So, you Saturday readers of mine, you might've noticed I just might've made an oops last Saturday in the form of zilch for a blog post...so sorry.  We got some ground-breaking news on the home front (I'll divulge later, gotta love cliff hangers...whatever keeps you coming back, right?) Friday and then celebrated our four years of blissful marriage in New Orleans on the day when I should've been pressing PUBLISH.  (I was just gonna write this here post a week late becasuse of my blunder but my kindly sister sweetly reminded me that she had been looking forward to a blog post last weekend and guilt-tripped me into this little post here...just kidding, she just provided the mid-week motivation I needed.)  Ah well, it's now Tuesday and I'm currently in the middle of whipping up some oh-so-good enchiladas for dinner so I'll give you a spoiler for being so patient with forgetful me.  Since I don't have time in the present to write a whole this-is-what-I-did post for ya, I'll just post all the delish pictures and you can figure out your own story line until I get a couple of minutes (or an hour) to fill in all the words.  So, here ya go people!  Imagine away!



T.E. Dious

For the past three weeks I’ve been working on the most time-consuming, am-i-insane project ever…but it’s done now and was “wall” worth it.  Let’s backtrack though before we get to the good stuff.

As you might recall, we’ve been transforming our master bathroom into light and bright over the dark and outdated it was.  So far, we’ve ripped up the laminate tile, laid down new, ceramic tile, painted the cabinets, and painted the laminate countertops.  Most recently though, I took to painting the walls and adding some accent wall flair with a stencil.  I’ve always loved the idea of having a tiled accent wall, using either some gorgeous glass subway tile or round penny tile in a bathroom but, on a budget, those dreams remain just what they are…dreams.  :)  But the next best thing is a free stencil, right? 

So, using the same stencil (downloaded from Jones Design Company) I used to spice up these pillows last spring, I first penciled the stencil, then grabbed a small paint brush and leftover cabinet paint (Promenade by Valspar) and played Picasso.

Here’s the wall before I started:

   Of course, this is after I painted the entire room – Smoked Oyster by Valspar.  It’s a sort of dark grayish beige, or greige if you’re into mixing words like that.

This is in process…when I was questioning why I did this and also came to the realization that my hand wasn’t as steady as I had previously thought…:

 And this is done:

The whole process took me almost three weeks to finish, me working on it about 4 hours a week…yeah, for one wall, that’s crazy!  Tell me about it!  One of the reasons it took me so long though is because I used an el cheapo paint brush we had lying around.  It was not very short of a kids watercolor brush.  But, once I started with it, I had to continue because if I had gotten a nicer, stiffer brush it wouldn’t have looked quite as hand-painted…which I wasn’t necessarily going for but actually looks really good on the completely finished wall. 

Any imperfections are unnoticeable because when you look at the finished wall, your eye doesn’t know where to land so they just blend in…even though after I was done I did take some of the greige paint to fix a couple of “oops” spots.

I’m really happy with the end result even though I’m not sure if I’ll ever take on this stencil again…it made the $40 - $50 wall stencils look cheap and maybe worth it in the future.  But, when the day comes where I forget how long this took me but remember how cheap it was to do, I’ll probably stick my foot in my mouth and do it again.  :)

Just to jog your memories, here’s where we started:

And here’s where we are so far:

We have yet to add some floating shelves to the wall in between the two mirrors, make a roman shade to adorn the window, and add some other decor in the way of pictures and such before we can officially call it a done deal but the big projects are d-o-n-e.  Thank goodness, because the loveseat’s a-waitin’.  Look for a post on her next week…yes, we’ve made progress!  Until then, have a great weekend! 

Happy Feast Day!

Today is the feast day of St. Cecilia, who happens to be the incredible saint I chose for my Confirmation in eighth grade to be the saint I would imitate and who would be my guide and leader to our one, true, and loving God...a.k.a. my heroine.  :)  So, because of her day and her awesomeness, she deserves a special, it's-not-Saturday blog post.

(image found here)

There are so many words I could type to describe this holy woman but I'll stick to the stories that pluck my heart strings and that glorify our Lord, proving His powerful presence and undying love for us.

Cecilia was married to a man named Valerian, an arranged marriage, but vowed to remain a virgin.  On their wedding night she revealed this vow to her new husband and also told him that an angel of God in her presence, guarded her virginity and would let no one touch her.  She told Valerian that if he were to believe in the Lord and be baptized, he too would see the angel that guarded her.  He did and upon returning from his baptism, he saw Cecilia praying in her chamber, beside her an angel with flaming wings who placed two crowns of roses and lilies upon each of their heads.  Can you imagine?  Sometimes I wish God would allow us all to see the angels that roam this earth so that everyone would believe, but I know that we would either pass out or die just looking at their beauty.  And, what's the value of faith if everything is handed to you on a silver platter, right?

So anyway, on to the sad and a little gory, but glorious part of her life...her death.  Because of her outward love for God in a time when religion was persecuted, Saint Cecilia was condemned to die, first by enduring extreme heat and thereby, suffocation.  By the grace of God, and I mean by the grace of God (oh my gosh!), it had no effect on her - she didn't even SWEAT!  Seeing the ineffectiveness of her "death sentence", an executioner was sent in to sever her head.

(image found here)

  After three blows, he gave up trying.  He had succeeded in severing her head partially but she still lived for three days, preaching and praying to God.  After the three days were over and her death came to pass, those around her knew she must be in heaven.  It was around the year 177 A.D.

Now my fave part...in the year 1599, her body was exhumed and found incorrupt - meaning it did not show signs of decomposition!  If that's not proof of a working, magnificent God, I don't know what is?!  Things like this don't just happen! 

Presently, Saint Cecilia is buried in a church built in her honor in Rome.

The picture above shows a sculpture in St. Cecilia's in Rome that was handcrafted by a sculptor who was present at the time her body was exhumed and found incorrupt.  He formed his masterpiece based on what he saw, Cecilia's body 'distored but somehow graceful'.  The pavement in front of the statue contains a round marble slab with an inscription of the artist's statement, made under oath, that Cecilia's body was found incorrupt:

Behold the body of the most holy virgin Cecilia,

whom I myself saw lying incorrupt in the tomb.

I have in this marble expressed for you the same saint in the very same posture.

(Quoted from here.)

Her story takes my breath away every time I hear it and causes me to love God with a renewed fervor, counting on his unending mercy and hoping to one day be in the His presence and that of all of His saints.

Saint Cecilia...Pray for us!

.           .           .

To read more about Saint Cecilia, click here and/or here.

To read about more incorrupt saints, click here.  (Yes, there are lots more!)

To read more on what the big deal about consecrated virginity is and why it's special, click here and/or here.

Nothing New

Happy Saturday everyone!  I for one am estatic that's it's the weekend because it happens to be the only weekend in three weekends that I've been home!  Last weekend, I went on a road trip with three high school crazies -

- to visit my alma mater, Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.  The two weekends before that Anthony and I were retreats, one as chaperones and one as 'retreatants'.  All of the days in between it was work, work, work and no play, play, play (which you all know in my case is translated diy, diy, diy).  However, to keep you entertained and coming back, I've got a better-late-than-never AND I promise that next week's post will be 'wall' worth it!  :)

Anywho, let's take a trip down memory lane, circa this past summer, back when our tomato plants were pumping out those little, red, succulent, maters like it was no one's business...

and when more than one of our daily meals consisted solely of homemade salsa and chips.

Well, it was during those hot, humid, glory days that some friends and I decided to have a craft night.  We cranked out a couple of plain-shirts-made-fab-with-embellishments that night (neither of which I have pictures of...shame on bad blogger me) and the much pinned melted crayon art project.  The process is as follows:

1 - Glue

2 - Melt with hair dryer

 3 - Admire

We liked it upside-down.  :)

Twas much fun!

It was also around that same time that I stumbled upon this criss-cross, geometric fabric

at a local discount store (for $5 a yard),  in exactly the amount I'd need to do what I had in mind and proceeded to drive just a little bit over the speed limit all the way home to make these:

(Sorry for the awful picture.)

About a year ago, I adorned our french doors with sheers and this time, instead of replacing the sheers with the new geometrics, I simply layered the two.  :)

And that's all I've got this week...pitiful, I know.  Time has not been my friend.  However, due to Thanksgiving, I have the whole week off next week and I've already got a list started...enough for, hmmm, let's see, five future blog posts?  Busy bee I will be...a busy, happy bee that is.  :)

In the meantime, I'm off to try to steal Anthony away from his studying to help me start reupholstering the loveseat!  :) 

Have a great weekend everyone and a Happy Thanksgiving!  Thanksgiving day also happens to be my beloved's birthday this year so I'll be celebrating my blessings times two!