Tidings

Hey all! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the well wishes and prayers for the twins! Pregnancy has amazed me and at the same time made me wonder where "I" have gone...I haven't felt like myself since week five but it's all good and great and completely worth it. We are just so blessed to have our 'two little souls' growing and changing, ready to take on the world together.

Also, sorry I haven't been good about my blogging. The buns in the oven have also taken away much of the motivation I once had and replaced it with lethargy, an immune system too busy to fight a bad, two month cold, and a working-overtime gag reflex. :) More than that though, we've been in Nebraska for the past two weeks visiting family for Christmas, and though it was incredible, my plans to blog from a distance were spoiled when I forgot to grab my camera cord...hence, the 'technical difficulties'. But we're back as of last night, in business, and playing a little catch-up this week.

This post is a dedication and showcase all in one. I owe all of my creativity and love for interior design and decor to my mom and my aunt. My mom could make the smallest room look huge and like it jumped straight out of a mag with a little imagination and sweat. My room growing up couldn't have been more than 10 by 10 feet but I had no less than 11 pieces of furniture in it that all fit perfectly and made it a room fit for a princess. I had a slight obsession with Minnie Mouse and my entire room was filled with her. I my early teens I decided I wanted a canopy over my bed but having a sloped ceiling, a traditional canopy wasn't a possibility. Mom came to the rescue though with some metal hooks and fishing string and gave me my canopy. I could go on and on but I'd bore you to death with good memories. My aunt, much like my mom, could be handed bobby pins and a vase and make an enviable centerpiece. She also taught me the importance and value of spray paint...a tip essential to my livelihood...well, not really but what would I do without it?

While we were in NE the past two weeks I stayed at my aunt's house for a week and got to revel in the eye candy otherwise known as her idea of decorating for Christmas.  That was what I was planning on sharing with you last week but obviously failed with so, since Christmas isn't yet over, here's the rain check back.

Aren't their stockings the cutest ever?  I have plans up my sleeve next year to make four of our own.  :)

Her centerpiece is different and so awesome every year.  The best part?  It's made with Christmas decor and other things she already has laying around the house.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Eve

Happy Christmas Eve! I'm just checking in this lovely Saturday without a usual lengthy essay. Let me tell ya, I fully intended on a full post this week but I'm having technical difficulties with the 'ole point and shoot so I'm going to have to take a rain check and get this week's holiday flavored post up next week. Sorry! I'm off to wrap the remaining few presents we've got to give and then family will be my top priority! Have an incredible Christmas everyone! Thank you Lord for this day of celebration, for sending your Son so that we might know what love is!

Introducing...

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!