Decorating

This was my first “sewing project” on my new sewing machine. I ordered about 2 yards of blue fabric from Joann’s for about $10. I really wanted to redo some of my sofa pillows and so I thought I’d try to pick out my own fabric and use the good old sewing machine.

Here they are:

My inspiration stemmed from the landscape photo seen above the sofa (taken by my talented brother, David Moodie). I kind of decided awhile ago I’d anchor the rest of the pieces in this room to that photo because I love it so much and it suits our families love for the mountains and being outside.

I also wanted to take a que from my wardrobe (hence the pokadots…I totally love, and would wear!). Sometimes I feel like I have more of a sense toward fashion than I do interior design so I thought my wardrobe taste would be a great place to get ideas from.

I didn’t do a perfect job at sewing the pillows, but it’s a start…

Here’s how I did it:

First, I “youtubed” a video on how to make an envelope pillow cover, and tried to follow the instructions to the best of my ability. But even before that I youtubed a bunch of videos on how to use my Janome sewing machine (wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be!).

For both of the images, I simply found them on bing images and printed them off my computer.

I then used reuseable carbon paper, and traced the image onto the pillow by placing the image on top of the carbon paper and outlining the design with a pen.

Then I painted the images with a fine paint brush, in a medium mixed with a 2:1 ratio of fabric medium and craft paint.

I just followed the fabric mediums instructions, and used low heat on the opposite side of the print to set it (I turned mine inside out). I washed the cover on delicate, with cold water, also inside out.

It was fun, it was easy, and somehow even a little therapeutic (at least when painting the repetitive circles). It brought me back to my younger years where I would draw circles over and over again on a sheet of paper and be perfectly content. A little weird, I know.

It’s neat seeing a little piece of you in everything you make. I think it can beat store-bought pillows, even though there are LOTS of cute throw pillows on the market.

Are you wanting to update your pillows? Any ideas for easy, and cheap methods?

Have an awesome day!

Amanda.

Frugal Decorating, Small Changes: Curtains, a spare chair, and a pillow.

January 10, 2013

A Month of Frugal Living, Decorating

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(If this is your first day, click HERE for the beginning of my frugal living series,where for a full month I blog about my experiment in living well on less).

It’s been said into eternity, but it really is the little things when it comes to life. I made some small changes in our house this past week with two objectives in mind: make it beautiful, and do it on a dime.

Before/After: Sheets for Curtains

I love long white, drapeycurtains…even against white walls! Curtains have been my nemesis for sometime now. I think I never knew just how expensive they were until I got married, and actually stated to think about things like curtains. Plus, I never really liked the material most curtains are made out of.

I decided to plunge in, and take a risk by buying sheets for curtains. Each full flat sheet was 9.99 on sale at K-mart , and the rod was on sale for around 15 dollars at Big Lots. I spent about 35 dollars in total.

When I frist saw the curtain rods I thought “I would like them, except for the ugly brass knobs”, but then I decided to buy them anyway because that’s something I can totally change with a little thing called chalkboard paint (I’ve been using that a lot lately)! If there’s anyone thing I’ve been learning from thrift decor enthusiasts is to overlook things you can change about a potential purchase before you write it off.

The Spare Chair: Solid wood, ten dollars from a consignment store.

I love the idea of having something old in every room, and I’ve been wanting a spare chair for a while. So I took a risk and bought this older-looking chair at a consignement shop. I love the character a little chair like this brings to our bedroom, and you can’t beat the quality of solid wood. Have you every noticed how modern furniture always seems so cheap now? I really don’t know if I can go back to buying cheap, overpriced particle board furniture.

Couch Before/After (Pillow in, slip cover out)

You can kind of see the slip cover over one of our large couches in Asher’s play room. I recently took them off to launder them, only to decide I really didn’t like them anymore. They just started to bug me, and would get all loose and floppy (kind of how it looks in this picture).

Sticking to one of my home goals of changing something if it bugs me, I left it without. I also added a new pillow I bought at TJ Maxx and love (note: the grey one). On a side, not sure why my dog looks very scared in the picture. Poor dog!

The switch just looks crisper to me, and overall just makes me feel happier. I’m loving the process of making our home beautiful on a dime. Can’t wait to keep changing what I don’t like by finding creative, frugal methods. Oh yeah, anything is possible with a little creativity, and resourcefulness. I guess that’s another awesome thing about being frugal, it pushes you to be more creative and resourceful.

Happy thrifty decor!

Amanda.

Day 4: Frugal Decorating, Wall Art

January 8, 2013

A Month of Frugal Living, Decorating

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Welcome to another day of my experiment in frugal lving! If this series if this is your first day, you can click HERE for the beginning. I’ll also be linking up with Betsy, at Romance on a Dime for take it on tuesday.

These are some of my inspirational goals for our home this year:

Contentment with what I have.
Not complaining about what I have, or don’t have.
Open to taking risks in decorating (not afraid to put holes in our walls, to use sheets for curtains, and try something new and crazy).
Loving my home, and making it beautiful.
If something bugs me, do something about it.

I totallly think these goals go hand and hand with frugal decorating. Being content with what I have, using the resources on hand, and making our home beautiful despite the obstacles of frugal living.

I spend a lot of time in Asher’s (our son’s) play room. It just happens that way, and I’ve been thinking if I have to spend a lot of time in there I might as well find it beautiful. The truth is, while I love the space, there are some things I can’t stand. For example, the lack of curtains, and somewhat broken blinds thanks to our dog. The bare walls is another one. I started with one of the walls today by changing this view:

To something more like this:

I think I’d still like to add more, but for now, I’m happy about the change. I moved the two large prints I made away from their isolated walls where they hung by grouping the one seen above with the others above the couch. I took the other one to our bedroom where it seemed to “work” better.

You may remember the large photo print from this post. I really couldn’t stand how the one shown wasn’t framed, but I still really loved the photo, so I made it prettier by using the leftover chalkboard paint I have and painted a frame on it. I love it a lot more now.

I created the deer print today. So easy. I printed this stencil off from my computer, cut it out, and used a spray adhesion to adhere it to an old somerset print. I could have used glue, or something less-intense, but it was easy and on hand. The frame is from a regular picture frame but without the glass. I broke the glass by accident and thought the frame would never be used until I thought of adhereing it together with some 3m adhesive spray! Yay, it worked!

I’m excited to change what I don’t like about our home bit by bit. No more complaining, just action, because I know I can.

Amanda.

DIY large prints (Cheap, cheap, cheap)

December 12, 2012

Decorating, DIY home projects

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Hello, I’m linking up with Betsy, from Romance on a dime again for take it on Tuesday (even though its Wednesday today,shhhhhhhhh). Technically, I did work on it last night, so that still counts right?

My inspiration: Click HERE for Aimee Weaver’s blog post on making large prints for super cheap.)

Mine:

All you do to complete this project is order some prints on staples.com (free delivery), using engineering prints. They come in 3 different sizes. These were the smallest ones shown below, but you can order 2 larger sizes as well. These prints cost less than $2.00, the mid-range size costs about $3.00, and I think the largest ones cost under 6 dollars. In any case, super cheap!

The prints aren’t meant for photos but they still come out decently. After you receive your prints, go ahead and adhere them to a flat surface with some adhesive spray you can pick up from Wal-Mart. The smoother the surface the better (wood, glass, canvas are all good choices). I used canvas.

I mixed it up and added paint to this one, restoring some of the original colour.

I ordered some larger prints that I still want to use, but I haven’t found a surface I can adhere them to yet, but I’ll be keeping my eyes open!

Hope that helps,

Amanda.

Cheap and Easy Christmas Decorating

December 3, 2012

Decorating, DIY home projects

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I’ll admit I’m not a decorating maven, or a craft expert, but I love Christmas, and I love decorating for it…oh, and I love cheap and easy solutions! So here’s my round-up of cheap and easy decorating solutions for Christmas.

My top favorite go-to thrifty materials

Burlap (I paid about 14 dollars at Joann’s for about 6 yards of it)
Ribbon ( I bought satin for wrapping presents, and the bendable kind for decorating the house)
Candles (especially the white chunky ones).
Bulb ornaments
Pinecones, walnuts/ chestnuts (shells on), acorn squash, and clementines/oranges/mandarins. I give extra points for edible decorations because you can eat them later!

My creations:

My favorite is my homemade advent calendar (seen above). This was inspired from a pinterest creation I saw, and a banner creation made by fellow blogger, over at living classical. I hot glued the triangles on, and free-handed the numbers using craftpaint and black permanent marker. Oh, and it helps if you can enlist some help from family members to stencil in, and cut out the triangles. My Mom was over for the week and definately made the majority of them!

I wrote out 25 different fun things to do for each day (with the exception of a few practical items).

I created a bow like shape at the end of the banners, and added a bulb ornament. I like how it kind of looks like a bell.

Ribbon is my fav! I just wrapped it around like a garland. I think it makes it look a little more put together.

I fastened the advent activities with paper clips. If you have something cuter like clothes pins, that would work too!

I loosely wrapped some leftover burlap around the tree for a rustic look. Ha, if you only saw what it looked like before I wrapped it!

I filled a vase with some ornaments, added a red candle, bought some clearance placemats I liked from pier1, and kept the acorn squash out on the table to give it a Christmas look.

If you have any lantern candle holders, adding a chunky candle, and filling it with some shelled nuts can make it look festive. This lantern is supposed to be for tea lights, but I put a chunkier one instead.

I used the extra trimming from our real Christmas tree to make this, and added some green ivy we have around the house, and some fake holly. The trick is using floral wire that you can easily find at Michael’s or some other craft store.

Lastly, if you have some sort of light fixture you can wrap with garland, or hang ornaments on…it can lend a nice touch, and is super easy!

What are your favorite cheap and easy decorating solutions for Christmas? What are your go-to materials?

p.s.Here’s some more information on making your own wreath—> I pretty much applied the same principles making the other wreath I did HERE.

Merry Christmas,

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Archive

Decorating

DIY Painted Pillows.

Here they are:

Here’s how I did it:

Amanda.

Frugal Decorating, Small Changes: Curtains, a spare chair, and a pillow.

Before/After: Sheets for Curtains

The Spare Chair: Solid wood, ten dollars from a consignment store.

Couch Before/After (Pillow in, slip cover out)

Amanda.

Day 4: Frugal Decorating, Wall Art

These are some of my inspirational goals for our home this year:

To something more like this:

Amanda.

DIY large prints (Cheap, cheap, cheap)

My inspiration: Click HERE for Aimee Weaver’s blog post on making large prints for super cheap.)

Mine:

Amanda.

Cheap and Easy Christmas Decorating

My top favorite go-to thrifty materials

My creations:

Amanda.

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