Onesie & Pocket Tee {Appliquéd}

I was so excited to hear that my brother's wife had their second son on Saturday, a beautiful baby boy! I am so excited and cannot wait to meet him! :) I wanted to make him something, so.... I had seen various versions of this around, and I wanted to make one myself. So, I came up with a graphic, printed it onto printable fabric (iron-on), and then cut it out and ironed it in place! :) (I toyed with the idea of sewing them on, for added insurance.... BUT I decided that for sanity's sake- I would just "trust the product"! (Here's to hopin' that the appliqué doesn't come off in the first washing!)

I made one for both the BIG and LITTLE brother:

The back of the Tee and the front of the onesie

Close up of the onesie

The onesie (again) and the front of the Tee

And that's it! As for making messes... this was barely even a mess! So fun and easy to do!

Products used in this project:

Onesie

HP Iron-on Transfers for Color Fabrics (6 transfer sheets, 8.5 x 11-inch)

Easter Egg Art {Free Printable}

I am in love with spring time! :) So, I played around a bit and came up with these printables! I made them to fit a 8x10.

Enjoy, and leave a comment and tell me which one you liked best! :)

Blue

Pink

Blue egg with yellow background

pink with yellow background

green with yellow background

multiple eggs

blue egg with yellow background

DIY: Easy Cornice Board

I had a yard of left over fabric from my chair reupholster in the guest room (go check it out), so I figured I would make some sort of window treatment for it,and was a bit intimidated by the project, but after reading this post by Katy Harper, and the post she referenced at Little Green Notebook, I decided that this method was for me!

Here's my "before & after", and it was so EASY, I was done in about 2 hours (not including the "drying time").

Before & After

Making the Cornice Board:

Materials/Equipment needed:

• Material (1 yard)
• Enough foam core board for your project (I used 2 30"x20" boards from Walmart for $10)
• Coordinating Trim (enough to go along the edges of your project)
• Krylon Easy Tack Spray (spray adhesive)
• Pen/Marker
• Duct Tape
• Fabric Glue
• Cotton Batting
• Staple Gun, Staples (3/8")
• Glue Gun
• L-Brackets (2")
• Hooks for hanging the board

What was needed (sans glue gun, duct tape, L-brackets and Hooks)

Instructions:

After gathering the materials, cut the board to size using razor blade or exacto knife (I cut mine to 12" wide). If you can find the board in the correct length for your window, go for it! But I couldn't, so I had to duct tape 2 pieces together. (My total board size was 12"x38" for ~ 36" wide window)

Duct taped boards

Then cut 2 sides for your board to allow it to be in front of all of your other hardware on the window. I needed my sides to be 2", but from what I read online, if you have curtains, you may need to have a 4" side. My sides were 2"x12", and I originally used duct tape to attach them, and thought they were a bit flimsy. I fixed that flimsiness later, but you should do it now! :) Use 1 L-bracket to stabilize the sides of your board. Use whatever size brackets fit your project, my sides were 2" wide, so I used 2" brackets. Oh, and I just used hot glue to adhere them to the board. (there will be pictures below)

A side, sans L-Bracket

An overall view of the sides/middle with duct tape (sans L-bracket)

Next, lay out cotton batting on the front side of the board, and cut it to the correct size to cover the board and the sides. Spray the board with Krylon Easy Tack (or some other spray adhesive) and put the batting onto the board. I left  a little extra to go around the top and bottom of the board too.

Next cut the material to fit the board (about 2-3" more all the way around, so that you enough to work with when stapling it to the board). The hardest part was getting the corners to look square. But I did it, so can you!! :) I forgot to get a picture of this, sorry!

Add the trim: Use fabric glue to adhere the trim onto the board, I chose to put it along the top and bottom of the board.

Laying out the trim

I had to use straight pins to hold the trim in place until the glue dried a bit
 (but don't leave them in too long, or it's nearly impossible to remove the pins!!)

A close-up of the board while the glue was drying

Adding the hardware to hang it

This board is so light that it can be hung from a couple of nails. But this is the point where I decided that the whole thing was a bit flimsy, soooooo... here's the fixes:

Hot glue another piece of foam board over where the 2 pieces of board adjoin.
This worked nicely as a place to adhere (with hot glue) the hooks to hang it on.

Just make sure that you adhere the hooks the same distance from the top of the board, or you may struggle with hanging it level.

A close up of the hook

Then to sure up the sides, we added the L-bracket (which is why I would suggest doing this BEFORE the material was all in place)

See the L-Bracket? It makes a world of difference!!

Finally, hand the board!! :) My husband put a couple of screws in place after marking where they should go-- and wah-lah:

A finished cornice board, that matches my new chair, and bedding! :)

This project is not as hard as it seems, and really was done quickly! And on a mess scale of 1-10, 10 being messiest. it's was about a 4. 

Thanks for reading all about my mess,

Valerie

Wedding Canvas Board {Subway Art}

I was asked by a friend to make this for her sister's wedding. :) She picked the colors, and frame, I just cut out the phrases, and put them all together! I hope her sister likes it (and yes, I have permission to post the picture!).

Reupholster of Guest Room Chair {Up-cycle}

This was a FIRST for me, my first ever time reupholstering anything, and I did it almost completely by myself! (Husband helped a bit-- so thankful!!)

Before & After

Here's my "photo essay" of my journey to a reupholstered guest room chair.... and the best part, it only cost me $20 to do it. ($4 for the fabric, $8 for foam, $2 for headliner material and $6 for the furniture stripper to remove the old finish from the arms/legs)- now to make a window treatment out of the left over material I got.... but that's a whole other post!

Here's the chair as it was (it has been on my "list of things to toss or fix" for a while now) I "inherited" it when I married my husband, oh nearly 10 years ago, who had inherited it from his parents when he moved out into his "bachelor pad"):

Notice the top piece has batting showing through, thanks to a cat...

The finish looked like it needed a redo, and the seat was sagging

While the sagging seat and ripped top were features that made this chair so "endearing" (especially to my husband), I was ready to do something about it. After watching two DIY reupholstery videos on Youtube, I figured I was good to go! :) One thing that helped me (and was suggested in one of the videos) was taking A LOT of pictures as I took the chair apart. 

Removing the legs/arms

The bottom of the seat

I wanted to save the webbing that was under the seat, so I wouldn't have to buy more... so armed with a screwdriver and needle-nose pliers, I got to work!

Removing the staples, so that I didn't rip the webbing was tough!

But I was able to get it...

Look at all of those staples that were hidden by the webbing... oh no!

I had my work cut out for me! I watched/listened to Les Miserables on PBS while I took off the upholstery. (Do you hear the people sing? I did for hours on end after watching it, instant replay in my head is GREAT!) I think I need to invest in a tool that removes the staples, because it was tough to get some of those staples out!

Most of the seat is finished... see what I meant by "sagging" seat!

The top portion, with the upholstery removed

I tried to be very careful in removing the upholstery since I needed it to be my pattern!

After I ripped out the seams, I have a pattern

I laid the old upholstery on top of  the material and added a couple of inches to the width and length, but cut the "corners" exactly. 

Pinned the "pattern" to the new fabric

Pinned the corners together (right sides together)

The back rest upholstery, I had to rip the seams... (I couldn't believe how dirty this chair was, yuck!!)

After ripping the seams, I used the pieces as my pattern:

Pinned it all together, and sewed--

the completed top piece, attached by stapling the fabric to the bottom of the  back rest

Now, on to the seat:

After removing the old foam-- I added new "foam" (headliner) to the front of the seat:

Then stapled the new foam onto the frame, I had no idea that foam was so expensive, I was glad I got it for 50% off!!

The foam stapled onto the frame 

 Back to the sewing machine, time to sew up the "corners" on the seat fabric:

Then I stapled the fabric back onto the frame, and completed it with the webbing (yes, I did manage to save it)!

The finished bottom of the seat

Now on to the legs/arms:

My arms are still telling me about this part of the project! :) At first I thought I could just sand the old finish away... ha ha ha ha, not so. After a quick trip to the hardware store, I bought some furniture stripper (and boy is it MEAN stuff!!), and came home and took the old finish off. **Note: This stuff ate through my rubber kitchen gloves, I guess you can buy special gloves for this, but I didn't so I went through 2 pairs of kitchen gloves in this process!!**

The arms/legs after they had been stripped

Next it was on to sanding-- twice, once with 150 grit, and then once again with 240 grit (per the directions on my stain).

After staining the arms/legs (2 coats), I let them sit overnight before reassembling.

Finished arm/leg

Now to put it all back together:

Thanks to my husband, it got put back together in record time! 

The finished product:

In it's home in the guest room!

It sure matches the bedding better than the old version! :) Next up on my "to do list"-- the window treatment for the room with the extra material!

Thanks for reading along! 

This mess was brought to you by,

Valerie

This post is partying here!