Category Archives: Interior Decorating

Pillows, Pillows, Pillows

Posted in Interior Decorating, Uncategorized by

Making pillows isn’t anything glamorous. They were one of the first things I learned to sew. While pillows are fairly simple, there is always room to mess up. I’m not afraid to admit when I make a mistake, and I majorly goofed on these. I’m not sure if it was not ordering enough fabric, or not measuring carefully before I cut the fabric, but somewhere along the way, I didn’t have enough fabric to make the shams I wanted. No huge deal, I had enough to cover the pillows and that’s really all that matters. I did a simple envelope back and slid in the pillows.

For the throw pillows, I also goofed (I thought the pillows I had were 18″, but they are actually 20″), but thankfully I got the end of the bolt and extra fabric for free! Again, I did an envelope back and slid in the old navy blue throw pillows. Along with the floral rectangle pillow I made last week, I love the look!

Today I went to Lowes and bought furniture nails to go around the headboard, the painting supplies that I forgot last week, and a lamp. I couldn’t find a lampshade that I loved, so I bought one with a shape I loved and I plan to cover the lampshade with leftover fabric from the throw pillows. I promise to take great pictures throughout this project. Covering lampshades is cheap, easy, and a great way to customize them match your rooms.

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Upholstered Headboard

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Like so many others, our guest bed was just a mattress and box spring. It served it’s purpose, but wasn’t anything fancy. I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of HGTV. I love design shows, especially those that show you how to complete projects yourself. That paired with pinterest is a dangerous combination. Thankfully this project was simple and cheap to complete. First, I positioned the pillows on the bead and measured how far I wanted the headboard visible. Looking at other headboards, I measured up from the top of the box spring/bottom of the mattress, and decided on 32″ high. I then measured the width of the box spring and added 2 inches (one for each side), and decided on 54″ wide. I gave these numbers to my super handy husband, who had picked up a piece of 1/2″ plywood earlier in the week. He quickly cut the rectangle, and then using a handy-dandy triangle thingie, we angled the corners at 6″. IMG_6179

Once the wood was cut to size, we brought it inside. I laid my batting on the floor and smoothed out all wrinkles, put the headboard on top, and used a staple gun to secure it to the back. I purchased a polyester batting with extra loft that was crib size, and it worked perfect for the full size headboard. On all of my quilts, I use 100% cotton batting, but that is more expensive, and I figured for this project, the polyester was fine. That was $9.99 from Hobby Lobby, but 30% off, so I got it for $7. IMG_6185 IMG_6188 IMG_6189

I went back and forth on what fabric to use on the headboard. I thought about a printed home decor fabric, but that kinda limited me on my bedding. I thought about something solid, but couldn’t decide on a color, and I wanted something with dimension. I then decided on burlap. I wasn’t sure how it would do since it’s textured and you can see through it, but I had some from other projects, and pairing it with the batting looked great. Plus, burlap is super cheap. I purchased 2 yards from Hobby Lobby and used a 40% off coupon, bringing my fabric total to $6. Whoot whoot!! The burlap had some noticeable wrinkles, so I ironed it the best I could, spread it flat on the floor, put the headboard on top of it, and stapled the burlap to the back just like I did with the batting. IMG_6196 IMG_6197

Ta-da! Here it is, front and back. I maaaaay have gone a little overboard with the staples… IMG_6206IMG_6200

We attached legs to lift the headboard up behind the box spring. The headboard now rests against the wall, but is supported by the box spring and mattress. I’m thinking about adding decorative copper finishing nails around the border of the headboard, but that won’t come till later. Pillows were my project for today, so I’ll post an updated picture of the bed soon. I hope I inspired someone else to take on this project. I am grateful to my husband for his help!!!

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Not my day

Posted in Interior Decorating, sewing by

It seems that this always happens to me- a 5 minute project ends up consuming your entire day. This morning I ran to Hobby Lobby for fabric for the upholstered headboard. While I was there I found a funky floral fabric that I thought would make a fun accent pillow for the bed. During nap time, I decided to stitch it up quick to see how it looked. “Quick” it was not.

When I looked at the back side of the fabric, I could see that the bobbin thread was bunching. I did what anybody with a sewing machine would do, retreaded the top and bobbin thread and tried again. Bunching was still there. I trouble shouted some more and took out the whole bobbin case, blew out the dust. That wasn’t it either. I changed the needle, tried different thread, tried different fabric, consulted Dr. Google, messed with the tension- which helped somewhat, but not enough. I eventually ended up on hold with Singer for over an hour before speaking with a human.

I understand that the average person probably is clueless. She walked me through threading my machine, asked me if I was using Singer needles and bobbins, and troubleshooted changing tension settings before telling me that I needed to take my machine in for servicing. Not what I wanted to hear. My machine is only 9 months old, so thankfully everything is under warranty, but the closest warranty center is almost an hour away. I already planned to visit my family on Thursday, so I’ll drop it off then, and pray it’s a quick & easy fix. It makes me physically ill to think about being without my machine, but it needs to be fixed.

I write this post so that hopefully someone else who’s having this annoying issue can look here and see they’re not crazy. I’ll update with my diagnosis too. Here you can see the top of the fabric vs the back. The zigzag stitch is the worst. The different lines are different tensions. The higher the tension, the better the bobbin thread is.

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Here is a close up of the back of a straight stitch. The thread kinda loops.

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And here’s my pillow. I’m in love!

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Fabric!!!!!!

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Fabric arrived today for my pillow shams and the throw pillows for the bed. I am so excited and it’s just as beautiful as it looked online. Fabric.com is my favorite place to order fabric. It’s easy to navigate their site, they have a huge selection, and they’re based out of Atlanta, so I get my fabric in just a few days. In case you didn’t know, I am kinda impulsive and I hate waiting for stuff. Last night I put the new duvet cover on the bed. As expected, if fits great. Ikea sizes are slightly different. They offer twin, full/queen, and king. The current comforter is a full/queen (also purchased from Ikea), as is the new duvet. Sometimes full size comforters seem too small on full size beds, queens can be too long, but the full/queen is perfect.

Yesterday I mentioned the vintage rocker, but didn’t post a picture. I found this at a local consignment shop. My grandmother has a rocking chair that is similar, although her’s isn’t upholstered. I used that chair to rock Zac to sleep when we visited (back when he let me rock him to sleep). When I saw this chair, I had to have it. I bought it with the intention of putting it in our front room, but when I got it home realized it clashed horribly with the curtains. I already knew I wanted to give the guest room a makeover, and decided that this chair would be the inspiration. I found the aqua paisley fabric first, and went from there. I decided on the white duvet cover because it’s classic and will match anything.

While I am super excited to start this project, I have actual work that needs done before I can start on this. I am currently working on a t-shirt quilt for a customer, and I have orders for scarves, bibs, and one of the Wild Things pillows that need to be completed first. Don’t worry though- nothing will happen in this room without me sharing it on the blog. Hoping to buy paint and the wood for the headboard this weekend, and get started next week. Until then, here are some pictures for today.

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Guest Room Makeover

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We’ve been in our house just over 8 years. Crazy to think we’ve been here that long. In that time our guest room has gone through several changes. It was first a guest room, then man-cave/office, then a guest room/office, and now it’s back to a dedicated guest room.

I love watching DIY shows and HGTV. I love decorating, especially when it involves me sewing something. A few weeks ago, I got the idea that I wanted to make an upholstered headboard for the guest room. My husband OKed this project. I then decided I needed to paint the room. He OKed that project too. Somewhere along the way the project went from paint and a headboard to those, plus new bedding and pillows, window treatments, and a new chair. (Adding the new chair involves moving the existing chair downstairs and reupholstering it… Another post for another day).

If you’re still reading, hats off to you! Today, I made the trip to Ikea for the new duvet cover. If you aren’t fortunate enough to live close to an Ikea, I’m sorry. It is seriously one of my favorite places. I was able to bribe my mom to meet me and Zac there today to help. Ikea with a 2-year-old is not something I ever want to do alone.

I plan on blogging along with each step of this project, so stay tuned for updates! I got an email today that the fabric for my pillows shipped. I feel like a kid on Christmas!

No blog post is complete without pictures. First is my “before”. You can see the peg board on the wall from when it was my husband’s man-cave/office. The chair that is there is moving downstairs and I have a super awesome vintage rocking chair that is taking it’s place. I’ve also included a selfie of us from Ikea today. I am typing this out as I sit in the backyard, so I’ve included a picture of that too.

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Pinterest Inspired Bathroom Makeover

Posted in Interior Decorating, Kids by

I love Pinterest. I feel like I need to write Pinterest projects into my budget, because I am notorious for looking at pictures online and then recreating them in my own house. A few months ago, I pinned this picture an an inspiration for my son’s bathroom-Image

I love this nautical theme because it is fitting for a little boy, but still looks sophisticated for guests who will also use the space. I also like it because my son won’t outgrow this like he would if it was decorated in the Lightning McQueen theme I was previously pondering.

When I get an idea, I usually run with it. That was the case here. I showed my husband this picture and he said, “looks nice.” I took that as his permission to order fabric. I quickly ran upstairs, measured our existing shower curtain, and ordered 4.5 yards of madras fabric online that very night. I don’t think I would have been able to make my own shower curtain had the fabric not been a true madras. Because the fabric was actually patched together, you cannot see the seam. I used navy fabric that I had from a previous project as my strip across the top. I actually laid that navy piece of fabric under my old shower curtain to use as a pattern for where the holes needed to be for the shower curtain hooks, and sewed button holes there.

Once the curtain was finished, I got to work on the towels. I used scrap pieces of the madras on the bottoms and embroidered appliqué crabs on the hand towels- it is a child’s bathroom after all. Next up was artwork. I searched pinterest and etsy for inspiration and decided that I wanted an anchor and a wheel. A good friend is a graphic artist and she was kind enough to turn my inspiration into a reality and even took my barter of an infinity scarf over payment.

My very talented husband is a talented woodworker. If you’re interested, check out his blog! He made the stool for the bathroom, and I painted it. The final touches were a new trashcan and bathmat. I love how this space turned out and hope you do too! Image

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New Work Space

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Sew Sassy Creations operates out of our dining room. This is for a couple of reasons, mainly so that I can work some during the day while still being a responsible mom. The problem- our entryway opens up into our dining room, so anybody who comes to our house walks through my “office.” The way our house is set up, blocking the space off with doors isn’t an option, plus that defeats the purpose of being the responsible mom. We discussed getting rid of the existing furniture and organizing the space better, but we would one day (sooner rather than later) like to sell our house, and so we will need to be able to quickly convert the space back to a traditional dining room.

Side note- why do homes have formal dining rooms? Personally, I think having a formal dining room is such a waste of space. Our family has 3 people, yet we have 2 tables with 6 chairs at each. That makes no sense to me and in our next home I want 1 space where I can have a farmhouse table with chairs on one side and a bench on the other…

Ok, back to this project. The table needs to stay and the room needs to still look like a dining room. I found shelves that I really liked at Ikea. They would work for organizing my stuff, but easily would fit the decor of a traditional formal dining room. On a whim, I listed our existing china buffet for sale and it sold within an hour. Game on! I cleaned out the kitchen cabinet above our refrigerator and moved my great grandmother’s china (that in 9 years of marriage we’ve used once) into that now empty cabinet. That happened on Monday, I went to Ikea on a Wednesday, and by the weekend I was sitting pretty in my new space.

I am horrible with “before” pics, but I have one that kinda shows what the room looked like before. What you really can’t see in that picture are the baskets that lined the walls of the room and all of the crap I had stored elsewhere in our house. What I love about the new shelves is the cabinets below- great for hiding things, and easily lockable, preventing my toddler from reaching havoc. The cabinets are deeper than the shelves above, providing me a small workspace for trimming fabric or preparing shipments. The baskets house my fabric stashes for embroidery and smaller projects. I have all of my shipping supplies in another basket. The singer sewing desk was my husband’s great-great-grandmother’s. It was given to me by his grandmother last year. I love that I’m able to display the desk and use it as a functional workspace for my embroidery machine. My favorite new piece is the lime green rolling chair. I will sound incredibly lazy, but I don’t’ even care- I LOVE being able to sit in the chair and kick myself from the embroidery machine, over to the sewing machine, and then to the serger. Plus it just looks super cool.

In the last picture you’ll see my embroidery thread rack- another thing I’ve dreamed about for a long time, and beside that you will see one of my all time favorite things. Last summer, my friend Susan took pictures of Zac. The framed picture was taken at the very end of our photo session and I didn’t even realize she had taken it until I got the finished pictures from her. I love this picture and will cherish it always. PS, the capes are available for order in the shop.

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