Needlepoint Love

Overnight I have turned into a granny. I love needlepoint and embroidery. I find it insanely relaxing. I started simple with some tea towels.
I think it might be the organizer in me but I love the idea of one tea towel a day, clearly marked with the day on it! Monday through Sunday!

 It was really easy, you'll need ink transfer paper (you can find it here or at Michaels), some tea towels (ours are from Zellers), a needle and some thread.
I chose a font one the computer and wrote out the days of the week . . . printed it out on the computer, and using the ink transfer paper, traced out the words on to the towels.

If you wanted you could use a fabric pen from any craft store, and just write the words on to your towels.

Then, pick your thread color and embroider away. There are lots of How To Embroider instructions around the Internet so I'll save you mine (this tutorial was really great).

It was all going so well until we got to Wednesday. Darn Wednesday! I was in a bit of a fog or possibly drunk (haha just kidding, of course), and I spelled Wednesday wrong. Not only did I spell it wrong once, which might be kind of excusable, but I printed it out wrong, read it again, traced it onto a tea towel, read it on the tea towel, then spent 30 minutes embroidering it into said tea towel, then looked at the finished product and thought "That's great, Wednesday's done". It wasn't until a week later when I went to pull Wednesday's towel and thought, "Hmmmmm . . . that doesn't look right". Hahaha

I phoned my mom to tell her how they should have sent me to better schools because I am 29 and can't spell Wednesday. ;) She said that she thought the fact that Wednesday was spelt wrong was charming. I totally agree, I kind of like that Wednesday is spelt Wensday, it's stupidly quirky! haha

It really was easy to do . . . especially if you can spell properly. I really hope you'll consider trying a little embroidery of your own.

I Heart Organizing: Under Bed Storage!

We've had a nice little break over Christmas but if you are suffering from Mini Manor withdrawl (okay, I'll just pretend you are), I have a post up on Jen's I Heart Organizing, with a rare peek at our third bedroom.

An $8 project using Ikea As Is drawers as under bed storage on wheels. The whole How To is on I Heart Organizing, I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you think!!!

Cupcake How To:

I receive a lot of emails about cupcakes! I've made thousands of cupcakes in my life time. If it's a holiday, or a birthday, or a wedding I've made cupcakes for all of them.

I wish I had some secret special trick I could let you in on but the way I ice them is fairly simple. My only piece of advice would be to use the LARGE star tip, not the small one. Then it's just a simple swirl:

Like I said nothing too spectacular or earth shattering! But I'm going to let you in on my one and only little cupcake secret . . . to make fancy fondant toppers use a silicone fondant mold!!! You can find the fondant molds on Etsy in every shape and almost any design you can think of. Personally I like the flower molds. Here's how they work: 

1) grab a small piece of fondant. 

2) Push fondant into mold and remove excess. 

3) Flex mold open.

4) Gently pull our fondant flower. 

You can get great detail using a mold! Detail that you could never get doing it by hand. 

The molds with cost you around $5 each, more for larger ones, less for smaller ones. I think that for $5 they are definitely worth it, they make your cupcakes look like they were professionally made, and everyone will be amazed that you made them by hand ;). wink wink

So that's my secret . . . I hope you find it useful!!!

How to DIY a Lamp Shade for $6

We're BACK!!!! I had a great week off, I read a book, I went to bed early, I woke up late. We entertained friends, we put the finishing touches on some projects, but mostly we relaxed,  and soaked up the sun!

Things are back in full swing around here! And I'm so excited to share with you the first project I tackled . . . a Custom DIY Lamp Shade.

I wanted a patterned shade, but it also had to be a perfect drum shade . . . no taper! I had no luck finding one for less then $70 which I find to be a ridiculous price for a lamp shade, so when I found this at Ikea I was intrigued. When I saw that it was only $5.99 I decided to take a risk and attempt to recover my own!!

The Ikea Lobbo shade is basically a flat plastic lamp shade that, like everything else at Ikea, needs to be assembled! It comes with the metal bars and they fasten through 3 little holes on the side of the shade (pictured above).  The shade fastens at the back with little notches (pictured below).

It was seriously easy and seriously cheap to do:
You'll Need:

• The Lobbo shade kit $5.99 
• and Half a yard of Fabric, our fabric was $14 a yard so $7 for fabric. 
• Spray Glue 
• A hot glue gun and hot glue sticks

Total Cost, including Glue was approx $15. 

Step 1: 
Cut you fabric close to the same size as the plastic, it doesn't have to be exact just close will do.

Step 2: 
Spray your Spray Glue onto the plastic and then lay the piece of fabric on top! Pressing down as you go, making sure there are no wrinkles. It was seriously easy!!!
Wait 1 hour or how ever long your spray glue says to wait, ours was 1 hour.

Step 3:
 While your glue is setting, cut a thin piece of fabric as wide as you like ours was 3 inches wide. The piece of fabric should be as long as your plastic piece.

 Step 4:
Iron your fabric in half, then re open. Fold in the left side into the middle,  then do the same for the right side.

You should end up with something that resembles bias tape. You'll need to do this process twice, once for the top of the shade and once for the bottom.

 Step 5:
Trim off excess fabric from the plastic.

Once you've trimmed the fabric, assemble your shade by interlocking the tabs at the back, Ikea includes instructions for this part!! ;) It's pretty straightforward but a little bit finicky! Attach the metal structure in the middle.  It should look like this:

Step 6:
Once your shade is assembled then you can attached the strips of fabric we created in step 3 and 4.  Do this after you assembled your shade, it would be easier to do it before while the shade is flat but it won't work as well and you'll have puckering.
So once it's assembled attached the trim fabric using hot glue, glue the front on first,

then glue the back on.

It should be neat and tidy when you're done!!

Then you're done! It was surprisingly easy! Dare I say it was even a little FUN!!
And the finished product was better then I thought it would be . . .

 I was so happy with it I went straight back to Ikea and bought two more Lobbo shades! I don't know where I'm going to put the other two, but I do know that this one is going to become a hanging pendant in the basement, hopefully we'll get it up this week!! :)

Piped Pillow Tutorial

Last week during our Green, Green and More Green post, about our new bedroom pillows. I promised I would write a how to post. I had never sewed a pillow cover with piping before, so the first one was a bit of a struggle, but by the third one I had it down to a science.
If you've followed our envelope pillow case tutorials before, then your set. If you haven't you'll need to start HERE, then comeback.
So once you've cut your fabric, here's what you do:
1) Lay your front piece right side up.
2) Sew your piping (just wrap your thin strip of fabric around your cord and sew as close to the cord as possible).
3) Lay your cord on top of your fabric. Making sure the cut end is facing out.
4) Add your two top piece right side down (making sure there's an overlap) and pin in place! 

 5) Sew all piece together, making sure your stitches are as close to the cord as possible.

That's it! It's actually really easy! I hope that helps anyone who was looking to make a couple of piped pillows of their own! ;).
Lots of Love.

Fake Roman Blind How To:

I've finally done what I said I would do (last week) . . . I've finished my Fake Roman Blind Tutorial! yay!

Here goes nothing:

So if you take a long piece of fabric and hem the edges that's your start!! You could also use a pre made table runner if you found one the right width. If your fabric is thick (like a table runner) then you're done. If it's thin, like mine was (like quilting fabric), then you might want to line the back with some iron on interfacing!

Then you start pinching. Basically you make big loops, pinch them together and sew! Super simple! Just make sure that Each loop drops down low enough to cover the stitches of the loop below it!

For the top we attached the velcro, then made a slightly larger loop.  Of Coarse still making sure that the loop was long enough to cover the next loops stitches! 

 And lastly,
To hold the other side of the velcro on the window, we used Command Adhesive Strips!! They work great!

 Hope that Helps anyone wanting to make one for themselves!
&

Hope you have a great weekend!

Fireplace How To:

First thank you so much for all of the bedroom fireplace Love! We were so thrilled to read all of your very thoughtful comments!!!

We had a lot of different options on the table when we decided to tackle the bedroom fireplace, mantle vs. no mantle, new wood vs. barn board, palette wood or construction timber? I think that the fireplace would look amazing with some old reclaimed barn boards but for the style of our home, we could only add a touch of rustic, so we choose construction timber.

Your cost will vary widely depending on where you buy your insert! We found ours on Craigslist! It's a really great option, they had TONS of fireplaces . . . literally TONS! Gas inserts, electric inserts, even some Gel Inserts.
You'll need your insert before you construct your fireplace surround because you'll need those measurements!

Next create your frame. We can't give exact measurements because they depend on the size of your insert, if you have a knowledge of framing . . . well you're ahead of the game, if you don't just make sure that the insert is supported from the bottom, we built a stand for it inside the frame (see image below), and make sure you secure it to the wall!!!

Insert the insert (haha), Place your fireplace insert into your frame!

Lastly add one last piece to the front of the fireplace, something extra to nail the facing too.

Next add all the boards to the exterior. We fastened them at each end and in the middle with brad nails.
Once the boards were up, they were primed and painted them. We found that the closest match to the Ikea bonte wardrobe was Martha Stewart's HEAVY CREAM!
Lastly we needed trim!

We used 3" baseboard for the top of the fireplace. Because our ceiling is slanted we went with really simple trim, if your ceiling is flat, some crown would look nice too.
Next we trimmed out the sides using corner molding. It's in the shape of an 'L' so it can wrap around the edges covering the unfinished ends.

Lastly, we added the 7 1/2" baseboards to the bottom of the fireplace. We also added 1" quarter round above the base, it covered a small gap between the base and the insert. It also gave a nice little detail!

We filled the nail holes on the trim, but left the nail holes on the boards. I liked how it looked a bit more rustic with the nail holes.

The whole project took Lee about 1 full day and 2 half days. The first day he framed it out, that took about 3 hours, because of our slanted ceilings it took a little bit longer then normal. The next day it took about 6 hours, securing the fireplace insert, fixing the fan, adding all of the facing. We also primed and painted the boards. The next day was about another 4 hours, attaching the trim, doing some finishing work around our existing molding, and touching up paint. Not too long at all. Like I said it might take you a bit less time if you don't have slanted ceilings to contend with.

Tools you'll need:
-A hand saw.
-A power drill and screws for the framing
-A brad nailer, although you could just use a hammer with finishing nails.

Recap:
$191.40 +  Simple tools +  14 hours  = 

I hope that answered any questions anyone had. Please if you have anymore, post a comment below and we'll answer them as best we can!!

How To: Sew Napkins!!

Since Lee bought me a new sewing machine for my birthday (in November), I've been sewing like a crazy old lady making outfits for her cats (that just means a lot!).
I started with our recovered ottoman, moved on to some curtains, made a couple dozen bar mops, sewed some table runners for Chinese New Year, and now I'm making napkins!

I Love Napkins . . . They're the more eco friendly choice over paper towel, they come in great fabric, and they make the dinner table look AMAZING!!!

In the words of Montell Jordan "This is how we do it"

• I use quilting fabric (usually from Jo-Ann Fabrics)
• It takes 1 yard of Fabric to make 4 napkins. (That's 1 'fat quarter' for each napkin). There is NO wasted fabric!
• And your iron is almost as important as your sewing machine.

1) Lay the fabric out flat and cut in half, then cut each half in half (so that you'll roughly have the size of napkin you want!!)

2)Iron you fabric, then fold a 1/2 inch seam down one side and iron into place, fold a 1/2" seam down the opposite side and iron into place.

3) Now fold over and iron 1/2" seams on to the other two sides.

 4) Now, I do a double fold because I like a nice finished edge, yes it's the back of the napkin, yes nobodies going to see it . . . but I still like the nice edge!
So if you're like me and still want a nice finished edge, repeat step 2 and 3, and fold those edges over on more time, in the same order.

5) For the corners I like them to look like a little miter corner, so I fold under the top fabric in each of the 4 corners Fold back over and Iron in to place!

5) Start sewing in a corner, and work your way around, when you get to a corner leave the needle in and turn the fabric, making sure those mitered corners are lined up before you sew them down!

End result:

Napkin making might be my new obsession, there are so many fabrics and so many different combinations.

So far I've created Yellow ones (my personal favorite):

A set 4 of Chocolate Cloud Napkins:

Chocolate Brown Paisley a set of 6:

Leafy multicolored ones with a red polka dot stripe running through them. To do these ones I just followed all the steps I listed above, then I took a strip of fabric and sewed it to the napkin just like I did with the Bar Mops I made a couple of weeks ago.

I also sewed in a little M :)

Making your own napkins is super affordable!! A yard of quilting fabric will cost you about $7. The Yellow fabric was $7 for 4 napkins.
The Chocolate Brown paisley was free because it was leftover from a recent pillow project!
And the red/multicolored napkins were $5 for a set of 4!

I think Napkins are the best part of a table! So what do ya think . . . planning on sewing some anytime soon??!!