Sunday, January 30, 2011

the promised projects post

I'm not sure how exciting this post will be to any of you, but I wanted to document some of the things I've been working on lately.
A couple weeks ago the kids were out of school ALL WEEK due to snow so I accomplished most of these projects while we were snowed in.

First up, new pillows for our new couch!!! Yay! We finally got a new couch at Christmas (we've really needed one for quite some time...)! Here it is in all it's sectional glory:We weren't really wanting a sectional but this is the leather couch we wanted and we got it for a steal. What I do like about it is that each piece is separate and so we can actually configure it several different ways depending on the room/house we have it in. And of course, everyone looooooves the 3 reclining spots. :)

I couldn't just put the old pillows on the new couch, now could I? Well I did use the old pillows....but I made new "slipcovers" for them. Have you shopped for pillows lately? They are quite expensive. So instead of spending all that money on new pillows I raided my fabric stash and went shopping in some unexpected places for material to use. You can find a tutorial for making pillow slipcovers here or here (just skip down to the bottom of the post) or here.

I saw this tip on one of the craft blogs I read but of course I can't find the source now--oops. Anyways....here is the easiest pillowcase EVER. Buy a placemat that is made with two pieces of fabric. Pick open one of the seams, insert pillow form (or you could use PolyFill, I guess), then sew it back up. I found these placemats at Target.
See how cute? The pillow form I bought was actually slightly smaller than my placemat so I sewed an extra seam all the way around to give it a tighter fit.
Another great place to find cute pillow-making fabric is in the cloth napkin section! I bought this pack of 4 napkins at Target (they have such cute things). I could have just sewn 2 of them together but I bought some clearance decorator fabric instead for the back.The rest of my fabric was either something I already had or bought on sale at Hobby Lobby.

Another project I finished was re-organizing my recipes. I have been collecting Internet/blog recipes for years and up until recently they were all kept in a hugely ginormous 3" binder that had seen better days. I just had too many recipes to keep all in one notebook. So I decided to split them up into categories and put them in their own notebooks.

I also organized all my piano sheet music that was floating around by sticking them in page protectors and putting them in a 3-ring binder. Now I can find what I'm looking for soooooo much faster!

And last, but not least....I made this cute address book by following this tutorial (seriously, what did we ever do before the Internet?!). Another long-overdue project completed!
The most exciting project of all was FINALLY completing my 2009 AND 2010 blog books at blurb.com. They are uploaded and ordered. Can't wait to line them up next to my 2007 and 2008 blog books. :) I've said this before but it bears repeating....SO much work, but SO worth it!


Next up on my project list: painting my bedroom (it's always something....)

8 comments:

The Hales said...

Jen, Would you like to come to my house? I need some help in the recipe organization department. It is one of my projects to get done sometime also. Good luck in Hawaii and have lots of fun.

danakat said...

Oh my WORD!!! I am so excited to see all your fun projects. I am super impressed with every single one! The pillows are CrAzY good!!
I'm even impressed with how you documented in this post. :)


You are my hero for the week.

Charity said...

Wow- you were very productive! I love your pillow fabrics, so cute! I have had recipe organization on my TO DO list for about a year, maybe that would work for me too! Great job!

kg said...

Look at you!! I love your new couch and I your pillows!! I LOVE that top one, the placemat one, can I have one please? I think I'm going to copy your recipe book idea! Can't wait to see what you do in your room...you will need a vacay after all this work...how about Hawaii!? :)

Jennifer M. said...

Jen, you are SO talented. I love your new couch AND pillows! Great ideas all around!! Thanks for sharing. :)

Natalie said...

You have no idea how excited I am to see this post, especially the pillow tutorial. I am going to be copying this idea very soon. Thank you for posting!

Everything looks so cute!

Denise said...

#1...I LOVE all your projects! Wish I had the time now...but alas...I DID do something over the Christmas break. I'm always itching to do a project.
#2...I love your books. I also use Blurb and love my books. I just got back he one for 2010! And I did do better at keeping up all year because doing the work all at once...yikes a mania! (to say the least)

good job....Have fun in Hawaii!!! you may already be there at this point...if so...hope it is much sunnier and warm than the normal Feb freeze!

Quincy Sorensen said...

An exciting and inspiring post! I love your projects!