Chevron Curtains

I finally finished my Chevron Gray and White curtains!!! I was so intimidated for the longest time, so I was afraid to start them (sort of like the 2 chairs I have in my garage that needs to be re-upholstered.)

This is my lovely Target lamp and the shade I covered with left over material from my pouf! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the lamp and base combo! I love that mustard yellow color!!!! The curtains were not hard to sew, but they intimidated me, and once I got past that, they were easy!!!! (It's just sewing 4 straight lines with the top and bottom a bit wider than the sides) I also took great effort to make sure that if they were pulled shut the pattern would match up between the two panels.

I spray painted some black grommets I purchased on sale white since I thought the black would stick out too much. They were very easy to paint and look great!!
I love how light and flowy they are compared to the brown curtains that were there before. I am glad I finally got over the intimidation of finishing these and actually finished them!! Now to actually start those 2 chairs that are in my garage. When I actually find the time I know I can do it after my last few projects!

Little People Frame

Don't you love it when you have so many things on your to do list, and decide to just tackle a random project!

Next week is my little man's second birthday and among the many million other things going on I have a HUGE HUGE HUGE to do list! Page and pages long of a to-do list.....

Over the weekend my mother in law handed me a huge bag of the old un-safe Little People. So today I hot glued them to a frame and ended up with this fabulously cute little frame!!! I LOVE IT!! Its so cute! AND SO EASY!!!

These are the Little People that my husband played with when he was a little boy, so I love the sentimental factor of the frame!

With my huge to-do list, I actually have finished a few projects, but it's just finding the time to blog them :) So for now I am sharing my frame, but hopefully this week I will have lots more fabulous things to share!!

How to cut burlap

I am not a fan of burlap at the moment, but only because we used it to make my sister's shower invitations and it makes a huge mess and smells a bit funky!

I originally gave my mom the task of cutting the burlap into strips. Well that did not work so well because we did not realize there is a WAY to cut burlap and in case you do not know how, here is how you do it! We were even considering ordering burlap ribbon because it did not look nice once cut! But this easy trick saved us the $20 for a roll of burlap ribbon!

Determine where you want to make your cut and pull out a piece of the string as shown below. Continue to work the entire string all the way out.

Then you have a nice line where you can make your cut!
Use your sharp scissors to cut along this new line!
Look no fraying!
And now you have a nice piece of burlap!

My new chair

A few weeks ago or so when I was on one of my many trips to Target on I stumbled upon this chair that at the time was an online only chair (they now sell this chair in the store) so it was on sale for $49! I didn't think twice and grabbed it!

While it's a very nice gray colored chair, it didn't really go with any of my rooms. I originally thought I would recover it for my master bedroom, but after thinking about it, in our family room if we have people over we seem to not have enough room for seating, so I decided to keep it on our first floor to move around as needed.

For this chair recover project, I used fabric I bought this past fall when I was in New York and went to Mood. So I sadly have no clue what it is called and have not seen it anywhere else (if you know what it's called let me know!!)

I don't have many during pictures because this was NOT as easy as I thought it would be. I pinned, pinned and re-pinned. The bottom cushion was not as hard, but the top was a bit more of a challenge. I found that pinning it in sections was the easiest.
I pinned and sewed the top in 4 different sessions.
I took out chunks of my fingers while sewing this from the pins! (My poor fingers still hurt!!!)

I was so happy when I thought I was done, only to realize that I ran out of thread on the bottom and it didn't sew the last part..... so I had to re-pin is AGAIN!!!!!
Here is another before shot! Once I had the slip cover sewn, I used my staple gun and my glue gun to attach it to the chair. (And I burnt a finger with my glue gun..... so my hands really hurt after this project!)
Here is my finished chair! AND I LOVE IT!!!!!
I purposely took the time to make sure my top seat cushion lined up with the bottom seat cushion. (It would have looked VERY VERY funny had I not!)



I love my new chair! And am so glad it's done! I thought it would take one nap or so to finish, but it took a lot longer than that!!!

Lot's to do!

Back on January 30, I posted my To Do list! And I have to say it was VERY ambitious!!

I had 9 things on my to-do list and currently have one officially crossed off. By my deadline of April 1 I should have 3.5 of the 9 done.

My little man turns 2 on April 1, so I am busy getting ready for his birthday!!!! Plus I under estimated how much time wedding invitations for my sister would take! (But they are DONE!!!!!! YEAH!!!!) and planning her wedding shower.... AND to top it all off we decided to add a surprise week long birthday trip for my dad's 60th birthday! (We told him last night, he is VERY excited!!!!)

So I have been VERY VERY VERY busy lately :) With birthday party details, wedding details and figuring out how to sanely travel with a 2 year old... (AND I AM A HORRIBLE FLYER!!! I HATE TO FLY!!) Plus I have been working on a few "fun" projects... though I am not sure a project were you take a chunk of your thumb out with a needle is fun....

So that's about how crazy things have been lately!!! But's all been fun :) and it's keeping us all busy!!

Runners Award Display Board

I've already had one of my three sister's as a guest poster on my blog. Today I have my youngest sister's project to share!

She recently ran a half marathon and a full marathon and has run several shorter races. Being that it is an accomplishment to run a marathon she decided she wanted a way to display her race bibs and her awards.

She searched around Etsy and other places for something to display them and could not find anything. So she made her own!

I am not really going to go into the details on how she made it. She followed the directions of the Subway Art Sans the Silhouette post I posted in January (my other sister's creation!)

She started with a white base coat and added her saying.

She spray painted a couple coats of black. Removed the word Run and distressed the board.
She added 4 hardware metal hooks on the front for the bibs and medals. It is also important to note that you need to hang TWO hanging hooks on the back or it will not hang right!


Thanks again to my sister for sharing her project!!! I love that I have creative sisters!!

My entry into Show Me Extraordinary sponsored by Appliances Online and Bosch Washing Machines.

I am on Facebook

I finally started a Decorating the Dorchester Way Facebook page!

Come on over and follow me if you like!

St. Patrick's Day Onesie Vest and Bow Tie

I am on my 3rd try on this project! And it's going to work this time, right? My fails first!!

My first try! I made my vest sides - even sewed a nice white liner on the back! BUT my template was way off and these don't fit on a onesie. I am still trying to figure out something to do with these. I could try and turn them into an actual vest...

V2, I again lined my vest and this time we made it past the is it going to fit the onesie. It did! BUT I had a major fail on the sewing it to the onesie phase.... It was looking SO horrible!!

I even made a fake pocket for this one!
And THIS is what happens to a onesie when you try and remove the stitching. (Or at least what happens to me when I try and remove the stitching!!!)

So 3rd time is the charm, right? So this time I did NOT line my vest. I spent a significant amount of time creating my template for my vest. I used the onesies as a pattern. This time I used my new favorite friend - Wonder Under. I ironed the material using the directions on the package and then traced my template and cut it out!

My two sides of the vest....
The most important part.... is it going to fit on the onesie.... IT DOES!!! V1 passed!
Then I ironed the pieces together. And it still all fit together so well!!

I then debated for a while if I should attempt to sew the outline of this again.... Since it was working out, I did not want to ruin yet another....

I ended up sewing around the boarder of the vest. I took my time and was very slow and it worked this time!! You can't REALLY see this in the picture, but its there!! And it looks fabulous. I started to sew on 3 buttons, but decided that since this was for a newborn, I did not want to risk the button falling off...... so no buttons!

I then made and attached a Little Man Bow Tie to the top of the onesies.

Seriously can you believe it took my THAT long to make this onesie!!! But I love it and am so happy with how it turned out!!! This one is actually a gift, so I do still have to figure out if I am going to make my little man one like this or try and fix / use version 1!!

Little Man Bow Ties

In case you missed it, I shared a tutorial on how to make Little Man Bow Ties on Between U & Me. Check them out! They are really rather simple and do not take all that long to make!

First, I cut a 3.5in x 6in scrap of fabric. I then attached it to some fusible interface. Follow the directions on the package!! (I quickly learned I needed to use a cloth between the fusible interfacing and the iron, but it all turned out!)

Now to assemble the bow tie, first fold the long way so the corners meet in the middle as shown below. (This fold does not have to be precise, just eye-ball the middle.) Then for the short fold I used a ruler to make sure my fold met at the 3 inch mark. This fold is a bit more important since it is what you will see on the front of the bow tie.
Then I sewed a zig zag stitch down the middle of the entire thing (through all layers). I then cut the piece for the middle of my bow tie. (In the picture there are 2 pieces showing, I made 2 bow ties at the same time, but you only need one piece!) I cut my piece about an inch wide and the length is not important as long as there is enough length to go around your bow tie. At this point I was feeling slightly lazy so I just ironed my edges back so my piece was about .5 inches wide.
Now to create a bow tie shape! First grab your fabric from the bottom with your thumb and bend a 1/4 of the fabric back, then bend with your fingers a 1/4 of the fabric to the front, then the next 1/4 to the back again and the last 1/4 bends to the front. From the side it would look like an accordion divided into 4 pieces. Play with the bends until you have the look you like! When I had the shape I liked, I wrapped the middle piece around the center and add a few hand stitches to hold it all together!

I then attached my finished bow tie to a onesie, but you could add it to a ribbon or a clip! Here my finished bow tie!

Knock Off Decor Feature

I am so excited that my pouf was feature over at Knock Off Decor last night!

Stop on over at Knock Off Decor and check it out!! I LOVE Knock Off Decor, there are so many fabulous projects to view!

Between U & Me Guest Post

I forgot to mention yesterday that I was a guest poster over at Between U & Me!

I showed how to make Little Man Bow Ties!

Go over and check it out!