random.on purpose.

Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

We finished our five-week push to fix up the fixer-upper that Greg's daughter bought so she could move in, so now we're working on our own abode.  We have a gravel area in front of our deck/porch that I always add some color to in the summertime.

Last year I found a baby buggy frame at a resale shop for CHEAP and hung some baskets from it, but I didn't really like the way it looked, so I wanted to find a better way to put flowers in my buggy.  I looked around my space and found a vintage picnic basket that I found at a yard sale a few years ago:

It's not a perfect fit, but I pretty much don't care.  Yes, the basket is cute, and it would be pleasant and romantic to load up a picnic lunch and go someplace pleasant and romantic to eat it, but Greg and I are not that couple.  This basket has been languishing in my attic since I bought it, so why not use it some other way?

I took the lid off, drilled some holes in the bottom for drainage:

and wired the handles to the buggy frame:

Then I filled it up with potting soil and a geranium (which came as a hanging basket - nice and full) and put it in place.  I put some yellow flowers in a watering can my friend Della gifted me to create a little vignette.  Here it is again:

We (obviously) need to clean and stain the porch/deck, and I'm noticing that Greg put the "welcome" sign in crooked.  I think it's where it is because there's a clematis trying to grow up in that corner, and he's trying to provide support for it, but I think I need to straighten it out a bit  :)

Okay - hi ho,hi ho, it's off to work I go!  Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

Almost Instant, Almost Free Art

Good morning, all!  I still consider myself pretty high up the heirarchy of CHEAP royalty.  Case in point: some of the ways I add decor to my home.  Today's post features ways to decorate walls for next to nothing.  First up, this is what I have above the buffet in my dining area:

Here's a closeup of one of the pics:

All four of them cost a whopping $2.00!  I got the frames on clearance for 50 cents apiece, and the "art" is sections cut from this wallpaper border that I've had for a few centuries now:

Cut a section, stick it in the frame, repeat three more times, hang them all up - done!

On a shelf in my bathroom, we have this:

See that teeny-tiny frame on the teeny-tiny easel (which was a garage-sale find)?  I have a stack of Hallmark cards from "back in the day" that were watercolors by Marjolein Bastin.  The envelopes were decorated to match the cards.  That little bit of artwork in that little frame was cut from one of the envelopes.  I also use greeting cards themselves, sometimes:

The companion for this picture is a mix-up, collage-y type affair:

Some pretty silky fabric, a doily (one that my grandmother made), an ancient spoon (tarnish and all), some dried rosebuds, sheer ribbon and - you guessed it - a note card!  All found around my house for free...

We're turning our recently-finished basement into a music room of sorts (Greg just bought some drums and my bass guitar will now have a home more suitable than the guest room closet).  It's not a man-cave, exactly, but the decor is definitely not "foofy".  The way to go here?  Got any t-shirts from concerts or reunions or schools or whatever that you don't wear but don't want to trash?  Me, too!  I wrapped them around frames and pinned them in the back and hung them on the wall:

Greg's band used to play a lot of bike events and bars, so we've got a few shirts hanging around.  Quite a few pins from different rides, too.  I added those to fill up the expanse of black on the "Bikers for Bones" (Arthritis Foundation) shirt:

Take a look around your space and see what you can use to decorate without breaking the bank.  I'll bet you have more than you think!  Just think outside the box a bit and get creative...

That's it for today - thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

Thrifty Thursday - back again

It's been a really, REALLY long time since I've done a Thrifty Thursday post!  I don't know if I'll get back to doing it with any kind of regularity, but I messed around with some stuff yesterday and this morning, so I thought I'd share today and the label fit, so there you go!

So, exactly how much fun can you have for $3.88?  If you pick up one of these tablecloths from WalMart:

 you can have AT LEAST three times much fun as this:

Why do I say three times as much?  Because I made everything you see in the photo above from less than one-third of the tablecloth! (As you may have already noticed, I only used the one on the left - I may or may not get around to playing with the other one...)   I will warn you - this is a LONG post and has MANY pictures!   Turn back now if that will overwhelm you!  If not, let's start simple, shall we?

These are beanbags - probably the easiest thing on the planet to make!  Here's what you do:

Cut a piece of the tablecloth that is three full squares high, with a half-square above and below, by seven squares wide, with a half-square at each end, like this:

  or this:  

 

 

 

 

 

 

depending on where you want the pattern to be on your finished beanbag.  Fold in half, wrong sides together, and begin stitching almost at the end of the side opposite the fold, and right where the red and white squares meet (make sure the back is lined up with the front):

Stitch to the corner of the white square, leave the needle in your work, lift the presser foot and pivot your work 90 degrees, sew down the next side to the corner, pivot, turn and sew the edge by the fold - continue until you are sewing down the side you started on, but only go about an inch down that side.  Clip the threads.  You should have this:

See that opening?  Using a funnel if necessary, pour rice or popcorn into the opening until your beanbag is as full as you'd like, then sew the entire edge on the machine to close the opening.  Trim around the edges with pinking shears to remove excess fabric and make it pretty , and you end up with this:

  or this: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you don't want to make beanbags, you can use the exact same pieces and make coasters instead.  Just go all the way around all four sides instead of leaving an opening, then trim.  I thought they'd be cuter if I also stitched along the lines between the squares, too, so I did:

Want to make a pouch to carry the beanbags in?  Sure you do!  Here's how you do that:

Cut a section of tablecloth that is eleven full squares wide, with a half square at each end, and five full squares high, with a half square along the bottom, and a three-fourths square (more or less - I just cut along the tops of the hearts) along the top.  Also cut a smaller strip seven full squares wide with halves at each end, and one full square high, with halves at top and bottom:

First we're going to hem the top edge of the larger piece.  Do this by folding that 3/4 row to the wrong side, tucking the raw edge back under to meet the fold, and stitching.  I used a zig-zag stitch.  (I also forgot to take a picture of this step, you can see the wrong side in the photo below this one):

Fold the piece in half width-wise and stitch along the half-heart row, so you only have full hearts on the finished piece.  Trim the seam and stitch the raw edges with a zig-zag stitch to finish:

 

Leaving the piece exactly as it is, sew across the bottom where the half square and full square rows meet:

We need to square the bottom, so this is how we accomplish that:  Open the corner and manipulate the sides and bottom until the seams of each are lined up and you have a triangle.  Stitch across the triangle where it is two full squares wide, then trim the excess:

  


Repeat for the other side.  Since there is no side seam there, just line up the bottom seam with where the fold was.  You can look inside to see where you are, if it helps:

Turn the entire thing right side out, and you have this:

Now we need a handle.  That smaller strip that you cut earlier - you can see it in the pic waaay up there - is going to become the handle.  Lay it wrong side up, fold the half-square rows to the center, and stitch right down the middle with a zig-zag stitch to catch everything and hold it together:

  

Tuck the half-square at one end inside the top edge of your pouch, lining it up with the top edge, and centering it on the side seam.  Stitch it on (I used a zig-zag stitch, and double-stitched it).  Repeat for the other end of the handle on the opposite side of the pouch, centering between the two full squares on the other side (since there's no side seam):

   

And that's it!  Four of the beanbags will fit in this little pouch:

The purse is made basically the same way - hem the top edge, sew the side seam, sew the bottom seam, square the corners - with a couple of changes and additions.  Cut the body piece twenty-one full squares wide, beginning and ending with a red row.  It is eight full squares high, beginnng with a white row and ending with a red one.  The handles (there are two) are fifteen sqares wide by one square high + half squares top and bottom.  The picture below shows seventeen squares wide, but I ended up trimming my pieces when I went to attach them - I thought that they were too long:

  

The hem is a full square folded to the inside, instead of a three-fourths square.   When you sew across the triangles to square up the bottom, sew across three full squares instead of two:

  

Make the handles the same way as you did for the beanbag puch.  To attach them, I left the entire piece inside out and flattened it back out like it was before the bottom was squared up.  Lay one handle wrong-side up on the table, lay the purse body over it, with one square of the handle aligned with the top edge of the purse body, and at the edge of the full square closest to the side seam, as shown below.  Lay the other handle, right-side up, on top of everything else, again lining up one square with the top edge, and making sure everything is even:

  

Stitch across the top ege through all layers of the handles and purse body.  Leave the needle in the piece and pivot 90 degrees, stitch until you get to the edge of the hem, pivot and stitch along that edge until you get to the other side of the handle, pivot and stitch back up to meet where you starte, pivot and take a few stitches to reinforce and finish off:

  
  

Repeat for the other side with the other ends of the handle strips, making sure that you don't get them twisted.  You will now have this:

Turn the entire thing right side out.  Now we're going to make a piece to stabilize the bottom.  Cut a piece of cardboard 3 3/4" wide x 8 3/4" long.  Lay it on the tablecloth and cut around it, like so:

Flip the fabric over so it is facing wrong-side up.  Center the cardboard piece on it and trim off the corners.  Put adhesive around all four side of the cardboard, fold the fabric over and press into the adhesive:

  

Turn it over and tuck it inside the bottom of the purse, right side up.  Now all we need is a closure!  Cut a strip of the tablecloth one full square wide, with half squares on each side, and four full squares high.  Fold the half square rows to the wrong side, then fold the entire piece in half.  Sew down one side, from the raw edges to the fold, pivot and sew across the fold, pivot and sew back up the other side to the raw edges:

  
  

You will end up with a finished flap.  Tuck it inside the top edge of the center back of the purse as shown, and stitch across the entire flap with a zig-zag stitch (twice) to sew it securely to the purse.

  

We're going to sew the hook side of a Velcro closure to the free end of the flap by sewing a big "X" across the square.  We're going to sew the loop side of the Velcro to the front of the purse by stitching in a sort of hourglass shape:

  

And that completes the purse!

Want something easy now?  How about a tube?  Cut a strip three full squares wide with half squares on each side, and nine full squares high, with half squares top and bottom.  Hem the bottom by folding one and a half squares to the wrong side, and topstitching across a full square on the right side.  Then fold the whole thing in half lengthwise, right sides together, and sew the side seam (the usual half-square dealie-o).  Trim excess fabric:

  
  

Turn the tube right side out, cinch the hemmed end with a rubber band, and tie a bow around it to cover the rubber band.  Tuck in a square and a half on the unfinished end, then fill the tube as you like (candy for the kidlets or, like I did, two bottles of Stickles for a crafty friend).  Tie a ribbon around the unfinished end to close (no need for a rubber band here), and you're done!

 

One last project for you - tired yet?  This one is an envelope.  Cut a section of the tablecloth five full squares wide with half squares on each side, and eleven full squares high with half squares top and bottom (I trimmed the top edge of my piece after I took the photo below - sorry!).  Hem the top edge by folding a double hem and stitching, as we've done on the purse and pouch, only this time we want to end up with a half square row along the top, as shown below:

  

To form the pointed flap of the envelope, fold the strip in half lengthwise, and sew across the bottom along the half-square line.  Clip the corner, trim the seam, finger-press the seam open, and turn the point right-side out:

  
  

Topstitch across the flap to hold the self-lining in place.  Fold the hemmed edge up, right sides together, to form envelope body.  You want to pay attention to the bottom edge, making sure that you have the fold exactly between two rows of full squares:

  

Sew the side seams along the half-square edges and trim the bottom corners.  In order to make a nice, finished look when we fold the envelope shut, we need to do the following:  Fold the side seam and the bit of the flap that's not in the seam toward the inside of the envelope.  Stitch from the edge of the flap to the bottom of the hem, as shown.  Repeat for the other side.  Turn envelope right side out.

  

We're going to sew the hook side of the Velcro to the flap, but this time we're going to stitch around the heart instead of through it (you can do this - take your time...).  Figure out where the loop side of the Velcro needs to be on the envelope front, then stitch it on - I did a square around the outside edges this time:

  

And now that project's all finished!

Here's the group shot again:

So, was that fun or what?!  If something is unclear or you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me or leave a comment.  Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

The "Day Job" Doesn't Always Suck

While the majority of my days are filled with things that "have" to be done, rather than things I "want" to be doing, sometimes the project(s) I work on have an element or two that make it kinda sorta fun.  I've made the pillows for Hannah's room, and it was fun to figure out how to use the scraps from her "memo wall" to make decent-sized pillows:

Hannah is mostly into giraffes (as opposed to the other animal skins), so I used bigger pieces on the wall, which meant smaller scraps to use for the pillows.  One answer was to use a strip of it with two smaller strips of the cheetah for a neckroll (made from a strip of batting left over from another job rolled into a "tootsie roll" and whip-stitched together), with taffeta cording and buttons.  A 17" strip of the iridescent taffeta was fashioned into a shirred, round pillow with button tufting.  I had a big piece of the tiger left over, so it became one side of a 24" square  pillow.  The other side is pieced together with a giraffe square surrounded by mitered cheetah strips, with taffeta cording between:

I used larger welt cord to make the cording for the outside edge of the pillow.  Hannah's comforter is solid brown, so these pillows should look pretty good against it.

In other news, I finished my coffee-table-turned-patio-bench:

It's hard to see because of the lighting (or lack thereof), but the bench itself has several coats of black spray paint, followed by a couple of coats of "hammered black" spray paint.  Here's a better look at the top of the cushion:

And, since it 's reversible, I'll show you the other side, too:

Not bad for FREE, eh?  (Well, almost - I did have to buy the webbing to support the cushion and the spray paint)  Next up: staining the Adirondack chairs.  They're going to be RED - the stain color is called "Sangria" - I'm pretty excited about it...

And that's pretty much all I have to share with you today!  Something a bit different from the paper creations you're used to seeing, but I'm trying to share more of all of the different things I do, not just cards and such...

I'm delivering Hannah's pillows today and faux-finishing the walls of the sunroom at the same house, so I doubt I'll be back around later.  Have a fabulous weekend!

TMI + DIY Shelving (a tutorial of sorts)

I am about to reveal to you two of my pet peeves.  They are odd, but hey, we're dealing with Odd Brain, remember?  The first is bifold doors.  I know that the concept behind them is to save space because they can be opened and closed in a smaller area than a normal door, but I've never encountered a bifold door in my personal living space that was not causing me grief on a regular basis.  They are always on the closet that I need to be in and out of constantly, so they are always open, so they are always in the way!

The second pet peeve is drawers.  I know - can you even believe it?  Here's the deal:  I am impatient on certain fronts, and when I need something, I need it NOW, so unless the drawer is shallow enough to allow me to see the entire contents at a glance, I am losing precious time and getting annoyed.  This does not apply to dresser drawers, so much, since I rarely have a t-shirt or underwear emergency.  I'm referring to drawers in my work/craft/sewing room.  Many a fabulous project has been derailed by the need to plow through a drawer for something.  The hazards are twofold:

1. I will lose interest in the project by the time I find the needed item
2. I will get distracted by other shiny things in the drawer and forget why I was there to begin with

Quite the dilemma, yes?  This is exactly how extreme my peevishness in this area is:  I have some of those plastic three-drawer units you pick up at WalMart that are all stacked up nice and neat with all of my ribbons and flowers in them, and those are neatly contained within clamshell boxes (stamps from Stampin'Up! came in them, originally), and there are only two layers, but I inevitably need the clamshell on the bottom, so I have to move the one on top to get to it every single time.  I know - I'm ridiculous - but I have to live with me, so I try to work around these little idiosyncrasies and accomodate them as much as possible...

All of that nonsense is background for today's DIY project:

TUTORIAL (sort of): DIY Shelving:

What you will need:

• A dresser you hate
• Screws (details below)
• A drill and/or screwdriver
• Shims

I started with this dresser:

It was appropriately hideous and missing hardware (what appear to be handles on the bottom drawer is actually wire...) and the drawers were deep enough to hold all manner of crap treasures, which, in my case, quickly became "buried treasure", so they had to go.

One dresser yields TWO shelving units.  The first is incredibly easy. 

• Step one: remove the drawers. 
• Step two: admire your completed shelving unit

Wasn't that fun?!  Since it's hideous, move Shelving Unit #1 to the unfinished side of the attic for storage (mine holds alterable items), or the basement, or the garage, or wherever.  Shelving Unit #2 is only slightly more attractive - we're going for function here - but it's going to be in a closet, so who's to care?  A few more steps required, too:

• Remove all the hardware from the drawer fronts
• Determine what size of screws you will need, and acquire them.  Screws are sold by gauge (#4, #6, #8, etc.) and length (1/2", 3/4", 1 1/2", etc.)  You can find the correct gauge by using the screws that were holding the pulls onto the drawer fronts.  The length needs to be the thickness of the drawer front + the thickness of the drawer back.  Do not exceed this length or you will regularly impale yourself on screws that are sticking through where they have no business being!  Make sure that the heads of the screw are larger than the holes where the pulls were on the drawers.
• Acquire several sheetrock screws as well.

You will be building this unit upside down, then flipping it over to install it.  Here's how:

Take the smallest drawer and set it on the floor on its front (where the pulls used to be).  The back of the drawer should be facing up.  Take the next drawer and set it on top of the first, again with the front down.  Keep the bottoms (which will become the back of the unit) lined up.  Using the drawer pull holes as a guide, screw the drawers together.

Continue on with the rest of the drawers, moving from smallest to largest, until they are all screwed together.  Flip the unit right side up and place it in the closet (or against the wall) and place shims under the front edge to level it so that the back sits flush with the wall.

Mark the shims with a pencil line across where the edge of the drawer sits, remove the shim and cut off the excess; replace.  (I never cut mine off, as you can see in the first pic - oops!)  Use the sheetrock screws across the top of the unit  to screw it to the wall, so it doesn't come crashing down on you when in use.

Stand back and admire Shelving Unit #2!

See those bifold doors?  I've been battling them for a year - they are gone, baby, gone!  I'm going to put up a pretty curtain instead.  I can leave the curtain pulled back until company's coming, at which time I can pull it neatly across to hide the crap treasures on the shelves.

I used mine for punches (previously way too visible, as seen in this post) and other unsightly items that I need to have handy, but don't want to look at all the time.  I installed a curtain rod inside two of the drawers (if the brackets are 3" down you will have enough room for this configuration) and used wood blocks (intended for mounting rubber stamps) to support yardsticks cut to length to create shelves for more punches.

The border punches have wings? legs? arms? extended pieces on them that I just tucked under the shelves.  Some of the punches were sizes/shapes that didn't fit in, so they got dealt with differently.  Taller wood blocks with yardstick shelves and an unfinished wood pencil case turned on its side help out this group:

And a wooden CD crate helps out here:

I also have a mongo jar of glitter, gesso, UTEE, my date whomper, and my stash of paper bags and coffee filters here.  On the very top shelf (you can see it on the first pic of the post) is my iron and some other things like mineral spirits and acrylic sealer.

I positioned the unit away from the side wall so that there was a gap wide enough to slide my ironing board into, and installed pegboard on that wall  to hang gridded rulers, squares, yardsticks, cutting mats, etc.

And that's the rest of the story!  If you want your unit out in the room for all to see you could "prettify" it easily enough with paint, papers, etc.  I didn't have any enthusiasm for that, since it's not part of the decor, per se.  It's functional and I can hide it if need be and that's all I care!

I promise not to be so wordy in my next post!  Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week!

Tinfoil Tile and Other Kitchen Re-works

Hello again!  True to my word, I'm back with the first of the "big projects".  We've been doing more work on our house, concentrating on the kitchen this go 'round.  A remodel isn't in the budget right now, so we're just trying to make the existing crap-ola more palatable until we can do what we really want to do.

Here's the "after" picture of a corner of the kitchen that I'll be going into more detail about in a minute:

Just for contrast, here's the "before" (taken on our walk-through prior to closing when we bought the house last year):

I painted the countertops gray right after we moved in with Rustoleum Countertop Coating, and we tore out the peninsula/bar (on the right) and moved it to the sunroom so the kitchen was more open to the dining room and everything was less claustrophobic.  I also stripped wallpaper and painted.  I didn't decide what - if anything - I should do with the cabinets until a couple of weeks ago, though.

They are now painted black and have new hardware.  I also painted the walls in the kitchen and dining room a better color and we installed new vinyl tiles on the floor.  I still had this tile behind the stove, though:

Yes, I know the stove is yucky.  I have a brand-spankin'-new one in the basement waiting for our friend to install a gas line for us before we can bring it up, so I'm dealing with this monstrosity for now... 

Back to the tile project:  I saw this post on Vintage Revivals  (one of the blogs I've started following recently) and the ideas started stirring in Odd Brain.  This is what I did:

I got my Cuttlebug and my Shapeabilities dies and some excess cardstock and cut out a bizillion little shapes and decoupaged them to the tile (slight exaggeration - I think there are 150 or so of the fleur de lis, and 32 medallions).  They are arranged sort of checkerboard-style, with alternating rows of medallions and fleur de lis.  This is what that stage looked like:

Closeups of the individual tiles:

Next, I started decoupaging foil onto the tiles, pressing it into the spaces of the diecut shapes and around the edges for some definition.  I started around the edges because I wanted to get all of the straight stuff first, before I started tearing the foil into non-straight pieces:

Here's the whole deal covered in foil:

And a closeup:

After all of that was done, I tinted some glazing medium black and applied it to get this:

It's really hard to get a decent picture of a shiny wall, but the closeup shot gives you a better idea of what it really looks like:

It goes MUCH better with my black cabinets and gray counters!  All for a total cost of...$0.00!  I already had everything on hand to pull this project off - hooray!  I - on purpose - wasn't fussy about light-and-dark variations in the glazing.  I was going for an Old World, handmade type of look, so variation was in keeping with that...

Elsewhere in the re-do - this is the new floor tile:

and before (ugh!):

I still need to make a valance to go above the window and possibly come up with a new solution for the paper towels (since I'm noticing how un-lovely they are in the first pic), but I'm oh-so-happy with things so far!  MUCH better than the countrified, timeworn, not-me look the kitchen had before!

And that's the end of the story?  Thoughts?  Poems?  Anecdotes?

Thanks for stopping by, and check out the other fabulous things Mandi does over at Vintage Revivals - well worth the visit!  I'll be back with more a different day, too!