No longer feeling blue

Things have been a bit quiet on the project front at home with a few health issues we have been dealing with, but now that we are back on track, I've jumped feet first into some full on projects.

But I did it. I finally took the plunge and painted my blue powder room.

I have some fabulous projects to tell you about in the next few weeks, but here is a sneak peak at the no longer blue powder room!

Here's a before if you haven't been aquainted:

Blue, isn't it.

We called it the pub toilet. You know, dirty grotty looking pub toilets that are painted strange colours to hide the stains, with graffiti added by its users. The kind of toilet you'd only risk using if you were really drunk and desperate to pee...

But hold the phone, check out that same space now:

OH EM GEE! Can you believe it's the same space? The best bit? The whole makeover of the room cost only $43.00.

Now that I've left you with that little tidbit, I'll be back later this week to give you the whole low down.

11 sleeps til Christmas!

Amy

Placemat Pillows

Hi all,

Life has certainly gotten in the way of the blog these past few months. Lots of ups and unfortunately a few downs too with the sudden illness of two people in my immediate family, along with the passing of another relative. I've also been struggling through flu season as well - it seems that the recovery of one person spells the start of influenza in another! But I hope & pray that the rest of the year will be positive and uneventful!

Despite all that has been happening, I have still had to go to my day job, as well as keep up with my 'weekend' job too. Amongst it all, I decided that I needed a break, my own little time out,away from everything, so on a whim, I booked myself on a little overseas holiday to a tropical island. Fortunately my BFF lives on said tropical island, so it all worked out quite well.

So, after seven days of looking at this:

...drinking plenty of these....

....and doing lots of this...

...I'm feeling suitably refreshed!

But juuuust before I jumped on my flight, I was doing a last minute shop for some essentials and stumbled across some non-essentials that were on sale.

Bright & colourful placemats on sale for $2.00 each. I probably could have used them as, well, placemats, but I decided to turn them into some throw pillows for the lounge.

Honestly, I did this just before heading out to the airport and with my camera already packed, I took some quick snaps on my iphone just to show how quick and easy this project was.

First, I unpicked one end of the placemat. Then I pulled the stiff interfacing away from the fabric and cut it out.

Second, I stuffed the placemat with an old pillowform I had.

And lastly, just a quick stitch to close up the hole and they were done!

What do you think? Not bad for $4.00 and 15 minutes! 

 Looking forward to bringing you some other fun projects really soon. 

Amy  

Forgive me for the little break

I don't know where the weeks have gone, but after receiving some bad news, I've needed to take a little blog break.

You know that saying, when it rains, it pours? That's my life a the moment. My dad has been in intensive care with a heart scare, my aunt passed away, my brother was in not one, but two car accidents and my boy is also facing a major operation.

So please bear with me, and I will be back with some exciting new projects in the next few weeks.

But in the meantime, if you can send me & my family some positive energy, that would be great!

Amy

Who loves a bargain?!

Before I continue, a note for my Aussie readers. Stop reading immediately and get thee to Spotlight!!

THE most ridiculous sales going on there at the moment. Can I share the bargains I picked up over the last weekend?

Fluffy White Bathmat $3.60

Perfect size for our petite bathroom!


Cotton cocktail napkins 20c each.

How pretty are they? I bought a few in teal & white and blue & white. Originally marked at $2.95 EACH!

This roller blind window covering was 60% off! I seriously {heart} that! only $15.00.

 

What makes this even better is that I bought this one on a bit of a whim... I'm still toying with what to do with the blue powder room and thought I'd have a go at fitting this to the window - which is the good thing about roller blinds - you can cut them to size. I brought it home and I totally lucked out - it fit the window PERFECTLY - no cutting required. I was so excited, but being home alone at the time, I could only share my good fortune with the dog. She was quite obliging of my carrying-on really.... poor thing probably couldn't care less.

I also picked up some pretty fabrics for a few new throw pillows for the guest room - A gorgeous yellow stripey one and some slate grey, both 50% off. nice!

Finally, the piece de resistance of the whole shopping trip?

THIS!

I spent easily an hour walking around the upholstery fabrics, trying to redeem myself after the failed chair recover project of 2009. I saw this fabric immediately, but of course, ummmed & ahhhed about it too long and got confused. In the end, I just went back to the first one. At $12.00 a metre, it was going to be another expensive stuff up if it didn't work!

But wouldn't you know it, it rang up at the insane price of only $4.00 a metre! can-i-get-a 'HELL YEAH!!' 

Anywhoo - enough showing off! Hope my fellow spotlight'ers out there have managed to bag a few bargains too.

Amy

P.S. Spotlight didn't pay me to write this. I just love the joint so much I had to share.

Chair Cover Project - Take 2

  

So you've alread heard a little about my ongoing dining room chair saga here and here. Call me crazy, but I decided to give them another go.    

After an incredibly successful fabric shopping trip to Spotlight, I picked up some fantastic upholstery fabric - originally marked at $12.00 a metre, I was over the moon when it rang up at the register at only $4.00 a metre! Three metres for me then, thankyouverymuch!!  

When I got home, I couldn't help but get straight into making some new chair covers.

I love the texture of this fabric, it's surprisingly soft!

Call me extra crazy, but I didn't have a pattern for these and decided just to wing it. I'm a bit like that. It doesn't always go to plan I can assure you!

Firstly, I decided on what I was going to cut so I took measurements from all parts of the chair. Here is my very rough illustration of how I did it.



One long piece #1 (dotted lines are folds) and two of piece #2.



To keep things simple, I used only three pieces of fabric to assemble the chair. One super long piece, which incorporated the back, of the chair (a) the backrest of the chair (c) the chair seat (d) and the front of the chair (e). Then I cut two 'side' pieces, which were cut by measuring (d) and (e).

The width of the main piece was (b) which fortunately, was the same width the whole way around the chair. If definitely pays to take lots of measurements to make sure everything measures up or you'll have a chair cover thats too tight to fit or too big to sit neatly.  

I then added a small seam allowance to all the measurements and cut out my fabric. Before assembling the pieces, I hemmed the (b) ends of piece #1, as well as one (d) side of the #2 pieces

To assemble the slip cover, I  flipped the fabric so the wrong side was showing upward and then pinned down the sides of the chair, and then pinned on the #2 pieces on each side.

After that, It was just a simple straight stitch along where the pins were placed and I was done.

Sewing the along the (e) lines were a bit more tricky, but once I got the hang of it and trusted my pinning technique, it worked out really well.

A quick turn out the right way and the covers slipped straight on.

I'm so pleased with how they turned out. It took me about 30 mins for each chair and with only having to purchase the fabric, this whole project only cost me $12.00. Gotta love that!

Here's a before and after of the full table setting.



Before...





and after.



the first failed attempt

and the final finished product!

They look like new chairs!

Thanks for seeing my tutorial. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. It's been a really rewarding & quick project - particularly as I've been procrastinating on it for so long.

Amy

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Repurposing a Kingsize bed quit cover

I was going through the linen closet last week, trying to have a bit of a cull. I live in an older home you see, which has a distinct lack of storage space. I’m takin’ no wardrobes, no linen cupboards and no junk closet to, well, hide all the junk. Instead, we have a bunch of Ikea wardrobes – they take up a hunk of space, but are seriously necessary. Space is at a premium, hence the cull!

I pulled out my Marriott duvet cover, which has been lurking in there for a while now.

image courtesy of Marriott UK

Now before you accuse me of being one of those take-everything-that-isn’t-bolted-down hotel guests, I actually won it. Yup – a duvet cover. Actually, it was more than just the cover – I won a kingsize bed, gorgeous linen, pillow topper for the mattress, a bazillion cushions, a duvet and the kingsize duvet cover.

Cool huh!

The king-size bed wouldn’t fit in my room though, so we sold that, but held onto everything else. But the duvet cover? I already had a spanky looking one on my bed, so it’s never been used.

I didn’t want to give it away…but then I had a brainwave. I’d cut it up!

Crazy huh – a gorgeous, brand new duvet cover, worth about $200 and I was about to cut it into pieces.

But I did.  

Firstly, I made a smaller duvet cover for the king single bed in our guest bedroom.

Then I made a matching pillow case

Then a pillowcase for the European pillow (this pillow was one from the prize loot!)

That duvet fabric just kept going!

I decided to make two smaller pillows for our main bedroom. I originally only had one square pillow, with a Sheraton pillow slip on it. Now it SERIOUSLY looked stolen, but I promise I didn’t!!! It was given to me when I went to one of their resorts for a famil (a shmancy term for a people in my industry who have to check out hotels and venues for their appropriateness to our work. Sweet job, huh!) So I cut the pillow form in half and made two matching pillow slips for them.

They’re very sweet, but I kinda thing we need a little texture there… I might remake them with a pleated front or something.

So there you have it – from one unused king-sized duvet cover to a new duvet cover and four different pillow slips. Not bad huh! Plus some fabric to spare… maybe some pretty napkins? A simple window cover for the blue bathroom window? Who knows, but I’ll let you know what I come up with!

Amy

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A Blogging Nightmare

The worst thing that can happen to a blogger, just happened to me.

My internet connection died....

For FOUR WHOLE WEEKS!

Bad huh. But it got worse. What could be worse than 4 weeks without internet you ask? Having a VOIP phone connected to said internet connection. So - no phone, no internet. 4 weeks.

Finally, after numerous *expensive* hours spent dealing with my service provider over my cell phone, a handful of visits from various phone cable technicians (If I hear "anytime between 8am - 1pm" again any time soon, I'm going to do an ugly cry) and a new modem later, I am reconnected to the world.

Sadly, the most frustrating part of it all was that after all that too-ing and fro-ing, it turns out that some silly Telstra phone guy accidentally unplugged our cable and everyone that came and tested the line, totally missed the fact that it wasn't plugged in at the telephone exchange place.

SERIOUSLY!! GAH!!!

ok, so rant over now. The only blessing about not having internet access for so long was that we got to watch a lot more tv got through a heap more projects around the house! Including tackling the ever-daunting chair recover project, which was an outstanding success. Step by Step tutorial coming really soon!

If you've come this far, thank you for allowing me a little self-indulgent rant & rave. Stay tuned for my next post about converting a duvet cover into... wait for it... another duvet cover! oh and a few other things.

Happy Monday & have a lovely week everyone.

Amy

5 minute tutorial: DIY jewelry stand

I have some beautiful brooches that my grandmothers have given me over the years, but sitting in a box of other trinkets, I always forget to wear them.

So here is what I came up with in order to have all my brooches on display.

5 Minute Tututorial: jewelry stand

What you'll need.

A photo frame,

Some fabric of your choice as well as some tulle and double sided tape.

Carefully remove the glass and backboard of the photo frame. You won't need to use the glass so either discard or store carefully for another project.

Using the back board as a template, cut a piece of fabric and a piece of tulle, just bigger than the photo frame.

Apply some double sided tape along each edge of the backboard

Pulling firmly, tape the fabric down around each edge.

Now repeat with the tulle.

But this time, allow the tulle to have a bit of 'give' in it so that you can attach your jewelry easily.

Snip out the corners to allow the fabric to lay better on the corners.

Reassemble your frame and your ready to display your pretty things!

This is also a great way to display your earrings as well.

I love this project. Firstly, it was so quick to assemble- it took less the five minutes to make! On top of that, be a use I used materials already on hand, it was FREE!

Some alternatives:

Instead of tulle and a photo frame, you could use a cork board (just either paint it or cover it in pretty fabric) and use pins to hold up necklaces, earrings and bangles.

Have a lot of jewelry to display? Why not use a large frame and hang it on your bedroom wall as a beautiful and unique decorative feature.

This would be a really sweet gift. Why not try making one today!

Amy

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