How I fought with a bobbin and lost (aka pillow talk part 2)

Sorry this post is coming late, it's been cuh-razy up in here!  I found another spare few minutes to sew a few pillows yesterday, but first I had to have a war with the sewing machine.  This is why I normally hand sew; there's so many frickin' little pieces on a sewing machine!  You have to wind the thread around about 16 little knobs and spindles, before it makes it's way through the Candy Cane Forest and the Sea of Whirly Twirly Gum Drops (Elf reference, anyone?) on it's way to the needle with the hole in the absolute wrong place.  Holy jeeze!  And IF you can make the thread be obedient until it gets to the needle, you still have to place the OTHER thread in the bobbin.  Two threads?  Hand-sewing me is trying to keep her head from spinning.  Once the bobbin is placed, the needle has to go pick up the bobbin thread (are you confused/frustrated yet?!).  This is what kept me from sewing for about an hour yesterday, until my mom could come and show me what I was doing wrong (Hi, my name is April and I am 8 years old.  Sheesh!).

Turns out, the little thread piece was hanging on the wrong side of the bobbin (obviously??).  I'm telling you, this machine is smarter than me and it makes me uncomfortable.  Anyone else ever been frightened away from sewing just because of the machine?  Tell me I'm not alone, people!  At any rate, I have another "before and after" for you.  Since I was all wigged out from my bobbin war, I accidentally put both pillows into their new covers without taking a "before" picture.  I bought two pillows at Ross for $4.00 each, knowing I wanted to cover them.  They were so CHEAP - love Ross.  So, here's a glimpse of their yucky stripey-ness inside the new cover, try to focus on the old and make the "new a surprise...

Love those stripes?  I didn't either, but you can't beat a quality pillow insert for $4.00!   So, after the addition of some more 50% off fabric (that's again, JoAnn's!) and a few thousand stitches...

Ooh, I love them!  I'm pretty excited about the color they add to the room...

After adding that pop of color to my reading nook, I'm thinking the garden stool may need a coat of bright spray paint.  Any suggestions?  Should I play it safe and go with white (the color of many other accents in the room), or be wild and crazy with a bright blue?  Maybe another color? Opinions wanted!

But, there's something you all should know.  I've been lying to you.  I've been showing you all of these pillows, leading you to believe that they're perfect, when in reality...

...I have yet to sew any of them shut.  I'm definitely going to hand sew these bits, but does anyone have any pillow closing suggestions?  I want them sewn, but just wondering if there's any way to make it look like the seam is done the same way as the rest of the seams.  Hopefully by the end of the weekend, all 10 pillows will be completed!  Maybe we'll get a chance to remove the kitchen lighting and replace it with track lighting while we're at it?  It's getting crazier over here! 

With that, I'm off to finish planning the baby shower I'm throwing on Saturday morning.  I'm using this amazing post as inspiration.  I hope I can make my gathering look HALF as put together.  How do these ladies come up with these amazing ideas?  I'm in awe.  Have a wonderful Thursday, friends!

Pillow talk, part 1

Remember waaaay back in blogland when I said I was going to recover my pillows??  I barely remember.  But, in all the craziness around here (I'm helping my cousin move in with my parents...  Box lifting, organizing and furniture hauling - lots of work!), I found time yesterday to finish one pair of pillows.  And when I say I found time, I mean the 20 minute slot between 11:45PM and my total crash at 12:05AM.  I also made time to take pictures because that's how effing dedicated I am much I love all of you readers.  So, here's the before...

These were given to us by a friend who was moving to the UK (LUCKY!!) a few years ago, and are originally from IKEA.  Being just married, I was so thankful for anything that made the former bachelor pad look more like a home.  But after 2+ years, they were looking tired, and did NOT go with our color scheme.  I chose this IKAT print...

...in an outdoor fabric, as these pillows are 25x25 and end up being floor cushions when my niece and nephew come over.  Durability is key, and the price tag was perfect - the fabric was purchased at JoAnn's with a 50% off coupon (booyah!) for $5.25 a yard.  And I only needed a yard and a half to make the two pillows.  So, after some hard work sewing on my mom's SWEET machine (Can you believe I usually hand-sew my things?  I think I'm NUTS for not buying a machine.  Or really cheap.  Probably the latter.), I had two adorable pillows...

Ahhh!  So cute!  I'm so excited about how they turned out.  I couldn't have hoped for better!  Just to blow your mind a little more (in case you didn't know, pillow transformations = mind blowing.... fyi), here's a sweet side by side....

And as you can see from the title of the post, I'll be sharing more pillows as I finish them.  Wish me luck!  I only pinned myself in the finger once yesterday, the gods of sewing must have been smiling on me, because it normally makes me swear like a hardened sailor.  Have you sewn any pillows recently?  I'd love any tips you'd like to share!  I learned one from my mom, but I'll save it for part 2, since it really deserves pictures and I didn't have my memory card with me at her house (fail!).  Have a wonderful Wednesday, friends, and don't forget to share your pillow stories!

linking to Craftomaniac

Colorado in Review

DISCLAIMER: This is one of "those" posts.  I will be posting loads of vacation photos, and you will be forced to look at my short stubby legs should you continue to read this.  There, I warned you.

Since I spent a week away in early July, I know you're dying to hear what happened while I was gone, right? RIGHT!  Mostly, I did some pretty bada$$ hiking and I want to show off, but let's just pretend that you all have been dogging my incessantly asking for photos, mmmkay?

So, as soon as we landed in Denver and rented a car, we went straight to Costco to load up on food, since the cabin where we stay has a full kitchen and we're all cheap (wasn't I lucky to marry into a family that is just as cheap as me? Match made in heaven!).  Do any of your families play silly vacation games?  Mine always has, and I passed it on to my in-laws who embraced it whole heartedly.  The game is called: Mullet Spotting.  Yep.  Self explanatory.  But you MUST take a picture, which can be tricky.  Eric and I were in the lead right away when we spotted this beauty at Costco, see if you can find it...

  (hint: he's on the right!)

Post Costco, we settled in and decided to take a hike the following day - strong possibility of altitude sickness be damned!  We are rock stars and can definitely go from 1000 feet above sea level to 10000 feet, no prob.  *bad choice alarm!*

We ended up all being fine, but it really was a stupid idea on our parts.  It was so SNOWY!  The locals told us that it was as if it was still late April from the temps and the snow levels *shiver!*  Us AZ folk were LOVING it though (it was 120 degrees here the day we left!).  Here's the trail completely covered in water - it basically became a river...

 

Short Stubby Legs Photo 1.  They look even better in the mid-calf hiking socks.  Yum.

This trail took us past Ozul Falls, which was breathtaking.  To avoid actually stealing your breath, I chose a picture with Eric and I in it.  It toned down the awesome factor considerably, so enjoy still being able to breathe after looking at this...

Our final destination was Ozul Lake, where my borther in-law and father in law went fly fishing for about an hour and the rest of us enjoyed the (thin) outdoor air (lake was nearly above tree line), and I read some German fairy tales.  Side note: I'm a GIANT nerd and am working on translating the Grimm's fairy tales into English from their original German.  Now you can make fun of me for this and my legs - have a field day.  ;)  We took a group shot, minus my father in law, with the new 3-d capable camera.  We tried to pose in such a way to give the picture some depth...

Classy, right?  I must have channeled Michelle from the picture posted here.  Love me some raptor claws.  If you view this post on a 3d TV with glasses, we will look extra cool.  I'll wait while you go do that....

Here's what the last 1/3 of the hike looked like - gorgeous!

We went on another hike, two days later.  It will forever be affectionately known as Suckfest 2011.  Just kidding... kind of.  We decided to try a triple summit: Flattop Peak, Hallets Peak, and Otis Peak, known as FHO.  We needed to make it to the summit (along the Continental Divide - holy crap!) of all 3 peaks, and SLIDE down the GLACIER on the far side to make it back below tree line before NOON.  Yep, you can't be above tree line when a thunderstorm starts (usually sometime after noon), or you're a sitting duck for lightning strikes.  Nice.

Near tree line on the way up, the trees get all gnarly and lean-y, for lack of better terms...

Eric decided their lean-y-ness needed more emphasis. What a cutie ;)  As we hiked further up, we saw amazing sights...

 

Here's Long's Peak, a 14er (over 14k feet) that we were supposed to hike on Thursday of our week in Estes, but it was so snow covered it became a technical climb (read: ropes needed and me not interested).  All of a sudden you come to the top of a switchback and see this below you...

That's right.  You see my sweaty face.  And also Crater Lake, which is amazing!  Do you see how it's still half frozen?  It was COLD at 13,000 feet!  But the air was so thin and we were working so hard to breathe that we weren't having trouble keeping warm. 

After hiking across what felt like the largest glacier EVER...

(can you see us waaaay on the right??)

We finally made it to the summit of Peak #1 - Flattop!

After another 4 miles of hiking along the Continental Divide we reached Andrew's glacier slide.

Any geology nerds ou there?  How perfect is that glacial valley?!

Here we are hiking a bit down the glacier to the slide... (bored of this yet??)

Here's my bro in law sliding down the glacier (didn't get any other photos b/c I had the camera and I went 3rd out of 4)...

We had to tie trash bags around our bums to keep dry, and my bro in-law had a little snow "gift" afer he was done.  On the left is me paralyzed with laughter.

Meet Snow-Turd 2011.  Win.

Here's the slide we went down!

B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! Shortly below this we all fell and nearly slid to our deaths.  On sharp rocks.  For real.  I can't believe we didn't break our necks - we were waaay unprepared for the snow.  This was when I decided I was done hiking and going to stick to Frisbee golf.

Here's the pic of the peaks we hiked.  All the way along the highest ridge (seriously, the ENITRE length of the picture - am I nuts?!?!) and slid down a glacier.  BOOM.  Told you I wanted to brag.

We also went fly fishing.  And let me tell you, waders are one of the more attractive pieces of clothing...

Seriously, try to keep the drool off your keyboard, people might be watching you.

Here I am hard at work catching NOTHING with my father in law.  It was COOOOOLD.

We always take a family pic by our cabin.  This year we were in Mountain Ash (on the YMCA grounds - great family vacation if you're in the market!!).

Terrible angle, but that rock was all we had as a tripod, and we couldn't convince it to grow any taller.

We also enjoyed time with good friends while we were there - vacationing with friends is so fun!  Here we all are after go-kart racing and an amazing BBQ lunch.

 
We had a GREAT trip and can't wait to go back.  If you're looking for an AMAZING family vacation on a budget, become a member of the Estes Park YMCA and rent a 2bed cabin with a fireplace and full kitchen for under $200 a NIGHT.  Mini-golf, Frisbee golf, internet, tennis, archery, kids camp, library, laundry, and much more are INCLUDED.  Plus it's gorgeous and you can WALK into Rocky Mountain National Park.  It's a great fun for our hiking-crazed, go-kart-racing, mullet-spotting family.  Where's your favorite vacation spot?  Do you go to the same place every year, or try to shake it up?  I'd love to hear!  Happy Tuesday, friends!

weekend happenings

This is how my weekend started - looks exciting, huh?

 

I know, I know - you're jealous of my life ;)  Eric left town for business on Thursday afternoon, and I thought I'd try to paint the back shelves of my pantry like the pinterest picture I posted here.  I was going for a creamy yellow look, something that would brighten up the sadness that was my white pantry.  I chose a yellow by Martha Stewart at Home Depot and hurried home to get painting so I could surprise Eric.

After a few hours of prepping and painting (and a bit of stenciling- trying something new!), I had this...

 
Holy burned corneas!  I could hardly stand to look at it, it was so YELLOW!  Ugh.  I gave up and admitted my color-choice defeat.  I headed to Sherwin Williams on Friday morning (after giving blood-more on this later) for some advice from a professional.  A very nice young man who noticed that I was unmarried (forgot my wedding ring after painting all Thursday!) and then got very embarrassed when I told him that I was taken, advised my choice of "Cottage Cream."  He said that if I only wanted to do one coat and let the crazy yellow shine through a bit that it might have the effect I originally intended.  So, I started repainting...

Muuuuuuch better.  I like its softness and how it doesn't attract too much attention.  It just adds a little something extra to the space.  I'm satisfied.  Oh!  I mentioned I gave blood earlier that day... DO NOT give blood, forget to eat or drink anything for a few hours and then attempt to paint a pantry.  Especially if your pantry painting involves you having to wedge yourself into tight, humid spaces.  It is almost certainly a recipe for passing out.  I made it out unharmed, luckily -I'm just dumb like that sometimes  =)

Eric was pleasantly surprised when I showed him the pantry - he liked my re-thought color choice and was only mildly annoyed that I'd paid for crazy yellow paint I can't use in the foreseeable future.

Only a slight difference, but one I like.  So, what did all of you do with your weekends?  I'm hoping to get some serious projects done this week.  Namely hemming my drapes, and sewing my pillows.  You also might notice that I've added a "to do" list of sorts to the left sidebar of my little bloggity blog.  I'm hoping it helps keep me focused on things I need to get done around here.  They're somewhat arranged in order of importance, but it's a "loose" organization.

I can't wait to read about all of your weekends.  I'm listening to the rain here (finally, monsoon season turns into something!), and LOVING it.  I know I'll pay for it tomorrow with the humidity, but it's worth it to hear the tapping of the rain on our roof.  *sigh*  Happy Monday, friends!

Friday Oops

First of all, thank you all for the love on my feature yesterday at Decor and the Dog.  I was honored to be a part of Michelle's favorite project series!  And since i've been a bit on a project roll, I decided to tackle painting the pantry last night!  This was my inspiration picture via Pinterest....

 Gorgeous right?  And mine turned out.... TERRIBLY.  Oh my goodness, sometimes you make a choice that is the absolute WRONG one.  And this was one of these.  The color is waaaaaay too intense for my small space.  And consequently I'm feeling turned off o the whole "yellow" thing altogether.  Ugh.  I'm trying to fix it (i.e. prime and start over), and we'll see what comes of it.  Anyone else ever make exactly the wrong choice when it comes to decorating?  Please share so I don't feel like such a doof!  Not to mention this means my whole pantry is scattered throughout my kitchen and driving me batty.  The price I'm willing to pay for a cute house, I tell ya! ;p

At any rate, I took a nap yesterday (I'm on summer break - be jealous!) and when I opened my eyes, this is what I saw...

Holy cuteness attack!  What a face - why he loves to have his head on a pillow like a human, I'll never know, but it makes for cheerful wake ups!  Sorry for the bad pic quality, but I had to capture it with my phone so as to not miss the moment.  Here he is again, just because I'm melting of cuteness and I wanted to share...

 

What a doll.  It looks like he was enjoying the heck out of that nap!

What are you up to this weekend?  I'm going to be fixing the mess that is my kitchen/pantry.  And I'm thinking of going a nice neutral cream color - safe, but it won't burn my corneas, so that's a plus.  And don't worry, I'll document the whole thing on Monday (and yes, I did get pictures of the yucky color, I'm just holding you in suspense, muahaha!).  Have an absolutely wonderful weekend, friends, and happy Friday! 

Guest posting at Decor and the Dog

Hello friends!  Today I am honored to be guest posting over at Michelle's blog, Decor and the Dog.  Michelle is an avid DIY-er (check out her addition of bead board to her kitchen island, or her West Elm headboard knock-off) and pharmacist who, along with her husband (of course) and her sweet dog, Ike, has built not one but TWO homes!  Head on over to see my post on my favorite project, my kitchen remodel.  Speaking of which, I was on Zillow last night and happened to find a picture of our kitchen and how it looked on the day that we moved in...

W-O-W, wow.  It certainly has changed since then!  Head on over to Decor and the Dog to see just how much!   And while you're there, check out the rest of her blog.  She's talented, funny, and Ike is about as cute as can be.  Enjoy!  And happy Thursday, friends!

Laundry room re-vamp

As we've been clearing out the house, it feels like one room is always the dumping ground for the little things that have no permanent "home."  It used to be our office, but we've cleared out every room except two... our bedroom (total DISASTER! It will improve soon), and the laundry room.  Since our garage entry is through the laundry room, I found myself getting annoyed every time I came in.  Does anyone else ever feel antsy or annoyed when things are dirty or cluttered?  I hope I'm not alone in my neurosis!

My laundry room started out looking like this...

You can see it's basically a dumping ground where things go to die be forgotten until they're covered in dust.  It was actually even worse a few moments before this, because part of our improvement was to hang those shelves.  Imagine everything on the shelves piled onto the floor.  Blech.  

(Did you catch the glimpse of my Lazy Susan as it was drying?  I guess my laundry room is good for something...)

We were obviously going to need a storage solution, and I wanted something that would match and be inexpensive. *Cue Jeopardy music* And... Enter IKEA.  I have a love/hate relationship with IKEA.  It makes so many of my projects possible, but it's also the cause for many of my projects.  I can afford the IKEA price point but I don't love how generic everything looks.  I end up doing projects to fix the things I buy from IKEA to make them look more custom, most recently my Lazy Susan (I feel like you should be playing a drinking game here and taking a shot every time I mention IKEA - that's five, people!)

I came home with this (post assembly, obviously)...

Let me tell you - those large boxes are a pain in the TUSH to assemble.  Ugh.  But don't they look nicer than random bags and bins?  Of course, Ted helped assemble in his own special way, as he always does...

(Anyone want to buy that couch - despite the fact that the picture makes it look terrible since the slip cover is untucked?  PLEASE get it out of my house, I'm begging you!)

After several arrangements of boxes on shelves, a few decisions as to what should go where, and a SERIOUS lint wipe down (how does that stuff get out of control so quickly?!  It's like a tiny army of lint soldiers!), we had this...

 

Not bad, eh?  I mean I'm not going to win any design awards here, but it looks a heck of a lot better than it did before!  I'm using the boxes on the lower unit to store laundry supplies...

...since my husband's tools have taken over what used to be my laundry cabinets (can't complain though, it means he does a lot more handy things around the house!)  Do you love the cinder block on the floor?  Me neither, but it's weighing down a piece of our old cafeteria style tile that's being glued back onto the floor.  Don't you just LOVE 1970's homes?  The flooring will hopefully change someday.  Anyway, my old magazines are being stored in the black holders on the top row of the shelving, along with spare bits of hardware and smaller household tools.   And things that need easy and regular access are in the buckets.  Things like...

I made (read: I got to color and stamp for a real project! wahoo!) that little sign - I think it's fun and a little whimsical.  If only I could find all of my patterned scissors to give the edges a bit of spice.

I know the room is not complete. I want to paint the walls something fun, maybe do a stencil like Elizabeth over at The Mustard Ceiling? But it's MUCH more functional for now.  So, instead of showing you a "before and after," I'll show you a...

We're not done, but we've made progress.  It still feels good!  How about you all - do you pile all your junk into one secret holding place?  Does it make you antsy to see it lying about?  Do you feel the same way I do about IKEA (that's 6 shots, people! Maybe you should wait to comment until you can produce coherent thoughts)?  Happy Wednesday, friends!

Lazy Susan makeover & chevron stipe tutorial

Remember how I told you I'm addicted to projects?  Well, once I started this one, I just couldn't stop!  We went camping this past weekend, and the moment I got home I started taping and measuring my Lazy Susan.  I'm sick, I tell you. S-I-C-K sick.

This Lazy Susan began its' life as a $7 IKEA piece...

And after seeing so many amazing chevron patterns all over the blog-o-shpere, I wanted a little piece of the lovely in my home.  I decided on lime green and white chevron stripes, so I began by spray painting the entire piece with Rust-oleum Painters Touch in Glossy Key Lime...

 
My college calculus work makes an appearance again on my ghetto outdoor project table.

Once I had spray painted the whole thing green, I had to leave on vacation =( At least I had something to look forward to when I got home!

Once I got home, the hard part began.  I know there are a million tutorials out there on how to make the perfect chevron stripe, but somehow, they all still seemed super complicated.  So I tried my own idea.  Maybe it will be helpful for you too?

First I taped a succession of paralell lines with my painters tape all about an inch apart, since my painter's tape was one inch wide.  I eyeballed the distance, and made sure to leave myself plenty of spare tape to wrap over the curved edges of the Lazy Susan.

You can see that once I had taped all of my pieces going one direction, I decided on an angle for my chevron peaks (around 110 degrees, just a bit larger than a right angle - can you tell I love math??) and started taping yet another set of equidistant parallel lines...

Until it looked like a pie out of a Dr. Suess book.  From here, I chose one "path" to be my first chevron, and started peeling back the tape...

I was careful to make sure the edges were VERY crisp, and the tape was taped down TIGHT, so as to avoid and  the bleeding and fuzziness, as there can sometimes be with some spray paint jobs.  I continued peeling back every other "path" until I was left with nice, clean chevrons...

 (excuse my crap all over the table, I'm a project fiend and I can't be bothered with cleaning up my table/I am lazy)

When you're done, fold the edges of the tape under the Lazy Susan and make sure they are tight!  Mine looked like this...

Once I was all taped and ready, I needed a few coats of this...

After pulling up the tape while the paint was still tacky (pretty much immediately after I finished spraying it), getting paint all OVER my hands, and letting it dry for 24 hours, I had this beauty...

Yes I did take a picture of it on my floor.  It looked better in the picture than the table top.  Feel free to judge me. =) 

 

I love how it looks on our table - it adds a great pop of color, not to mention a ton of fun to our dinners.  And the stripes came out perfectly crisp!

 

I can't have imagined it coming out better.  Wouldn't you say this Lazy Susan went from drab to fab? (<-can't BELIEVE I just said that!)

Spray painting win!!  I'm so excited, I LOVE how it looks!  Have you attempted any spray painting this summer?  Are you liking your results?  I know I love mine.  Stay tuned tomorrow for my laundry room re-organization. I'm a woman on a project mission, people!  Happy Tuesday, friends! =)

Linking to Home Stories A to Z, and here:

Young House Love