A Secret Sewing Project

A couple of weeks ago I shared this photo over on the Facebook page and hinted at a sewing project I was going to be working on.

Some of you guessed that maybe it was going to be a fall quilt.  I sure wish I knew how to quilt!

Then a few days later I shared this photo and told you that I had the next step of the project completed, but that it would be a couple of weeks before I could share the whole thing.

Well, now I can share.

I was working on making fall themed pillow covers!  I made 13 in all and the reason I couldn't share them yet was because they were going to be gifts.  In my last post I told you that I'm on a little vacation in Tennessee with my mom and her sisters this week, and 8 of these covers were coming with me to be given out to my aunts, my mom, and two of my cousins.  Whenever they get together like this they have what they call Scarecrow parties and gifts are given out all around (the scarecrow brings the gifts instead of Santa).  : )

I decided the cheapest most cost effective thing I could give would be something I had made.  And since I have TONS of scraps leftover from my shower curtain business I decided to use some of them up and make pillow covers.  I made 2 more that won't be pictured here because they were Christmas ones and I'll share them another time.  I also made one for myself and one for my sister.  The total cost of 13 pillow covers was a whoppin' $8...and I still have plenty of fall fabric left over to make even more if I feel so inclined!

I was a busy bee trying to get these all completed before my trip, plus keeping up with making my shower curtain orders.  We pretty much didn't see the top of the dining room table for about 2 weeks, lol!

Let's take a look at what I worked so hard on.

Some of the covers have a pumpkin shape on them and some have a fall leaf.  I used a variety of fabric styles since I don't know the decorating tastes of my extended family members.  The pumpkin up there at the top though, I made that one with my mom in mind.  She wants to change her living room decor over to a lighter color palette of greens and blues and do a coastal theme.  So I made that one to coordinate with her upcoming decor change.  I love the combination of the 3 different patterns, but yet they all coordinate.  I don't know if you can see it well enough or not, but the aqua one has little white polka dots on it.  So sweet.  :)

The other ones I made were more traditional fall colors and patterns.  After I cut the patterns out of the fabric, I then used a spray adhesive on the backs of them and followed the directions for a temporary bond.  That allowed me to move them around and get them centered just right, but yet it held them in place strong enough to allow me to get them stitched all around.  I purposely left the very edges unstitched so that when they got washed they would rough up in a cute rustic sort of way.

I love the paisley and flannel pumpkin!  I made two of those, one for me and one to give away.  I already had two pillow covers that were two different style fall leaves that were done in the paisley fabric, so then I made the pumpkin to go with them.  I wanted it to coordinate, but not be completely matchy matchy.  I think the addition of the flannel pattern helped achieve that.  It's a warm olive green color that matches the green in the paisley fabric.

So....13 covers in all.  Eight were made to give away as gifts, 1 I made for myself, 2 were Christmas ones to be shared later, I doubled up on one of these patterns and made one for my sister....that accounts for 12.  So what about the 13th one?

Well, remember in my last post I told you to be sure not to miss this post?  

That's because.......

SURPRISE!!!

I'm doing an unannounced giveaway of the last pillow cover!!

I made two of these sweet little pumpkin designs and I decided to give one away to one of my faithful readers.  I appreciate you guys so much and I'm so thankful you've stuck with me even though I haven't been a very regular blogger these past few months.

I didn't announce it anywhere and I don't plan to because I want only my faithful readers to be on this.  I don't want any freeloaders hopping over here just because they think they can get something for free and then I never hear from them again.  This time its just for you guys.

All you have to do is leave me a comment at the end of this post and you'll be entered!  Be sure I have an email address to contact you at in case you're the winner.

This giveaway is for the pillow cover only, you'll have to supply your own 14" pillow insert.  It's an envelope style closure, and its made out of drop cloth.  They're easily removed and very washable.  

I apologize for all the wrinkles.  I was running out of time and light to get these pictures done so that I could schedule this post before I left and I didn't take the time to iron them, but you get the idea.

There's just one thing we gotta get straight......I don't claim to be much of a seamstress at all, I can accomplish basic things, but I'm certainly not a professional.  SO....if you happen to be the winner you have to promise me that you won't make fun of my lack of skills....mmmmm-kay?  Just remember, it's the thought that counts and I made this with love for my faithful readers.  : )

So just leave me a comment below and include your email address and in a week or so I'll do a random drawing and let you all know who won!  

Happy Fall Y'all!

 *This giveaway has now ended*

                                                               

A Vintage Farmhouse Fall Vignette

I'm so excited y'all!!  Tomorrow I'll be taking off for a few days of R&R in beautiful Pigeon Forge, TN!  I can't wait!  My mom and her sisters get together every year for a few days for a Sister's Retreat, and this year they rented a snug little cabin for 3.5 days.  I invited myself along.  : )  The kiddos are spending the week with my husband's parents, Hubby is fending for himself, and I am SO looking forward to a few days without responsibilities.  And nice chilly weather.  And hopefully some beautiful fall foliage.  And maybe even some hot chocolate.

But....I didn't want to leave you hanging for the whole week without something from me, SO....to make your life feel complete I'm treating you to some fall decor pics while I'm away.  : )

Today we'll be focusing on this little corner of the living room in between the two couches.

I've created a cozy little vignette on top of my crate I rescued from the curb.

I replaced the cheery and colorful red and yellow lamp with a black one.  Black pairs so nicely with fall colors and helps tone them down a bit so your eye doesn't get overwhelmed.  It gives your eye a place to rest so to speak.

Typically with vignettes you always want to work with odd numbers.  Things always look better grouped in 3's or 5's and so on.  Evenly paired groups never look quite right.  When I first started putting this little grouping together I didn't have the old mirror underneath and it didn't look right because the lamp made the 4th item.  I liked the grouping though, and didn't want to get rid of anything.  So, by placing the mirror underneath the other items it gives them their own boundary and the lamp is no longer part of the grouping.  The eye sees it as a separate thing.

I love how the mirror takes the place of a tray that you would usually see used in this sort of a display.

For the other items in the group, I placed some faux bittersweet in a thrifted pitcher that's sitting on top of a an old book with its cover removed.  I also added a vintage Bingo card under there for added interest.  Even though technically the book and the pitcher are two items, because they're stacked together they become one in the vignette. 

There's also a little chicken wire basket I found in the craft section at Walmart.  I added a candle and some hickory nuts to it.  I love using real gourds in my decorating and this little splotchy one with its curvy stem was just perfect here.  They make for an added expense each year, this is true, BUT at the end of the season they're ready to be pitched and I don't have to take up valuable storage space finding a place to keep them.

Tucked in the back there is my old orange grove ladder that I've had for 13 years now.  I love changing out the quilt on it from season to season.  During the summer months you might remember I had the red and white penny square quilt here.  Now I've replaced that with one that has a more warmer and more subdued color palette.  

I absolutely love this little corner and am really happy with how it turned out.

As you can see, I'm not one who loves the all neutral fall style.  I still love the warmth and coziness of the reds and yellows and orange.

Even though I'll be away from the computer for a few days, I have a post scheduled for later in the week, on Thursday, so check back for that.  If you follow me over on Facebook then you know I've been hinting at a sewing project I've been working on.  I'll finally be sharing what that was all about.  

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Savvy Southern Style - Wow Us Wednesdays #245

A Little Lamp Makeover

Today I'm bringing you another little makeover project I completed recently.  

My 8 year old daughter had been wanting a desk in her room for quite awhile.  She had pretty well outgrown the kitchen play set that was in there, so we moved it out and began looking for a desk for her.  It worked out perfectly that my sister was getting rid of this "double decker" desk and she let us have first dibs on it.  We got rid of the bedside table/small bookcase that was there previously and the desk slid in that spot just perfectly.

The only problem was that her cute little lamp that I made over years ago was too tall and wouldn't slide in under the shelf. 

 Because it stuck out so far it took up a lot of useable surface area.

*Side note* - Here's what the too-tall lamp makeover looked like.  This was about 4 years ago, before I ever had this blog.  The lamp had been in me and Hubby's room and I was going to sell it in a yard sale, but then realized it would fit her Shabby Chic room style perfectly with a little makeover.

We kept an eye out at thrift stores and yard sales for a smaller lamp, but we just never found one.  One day at Hobby Lobby she spied this little one and even though she didn't care for the black color of it, she loved the frilly shade.  I assured her we could change the color of the lamp itself and since lamps were 50% off that day we purchased it for $12.  She also really wanted the shade to have dangly "crystals" hanging from it, but the ones they had in the lamp department would have cost us another $16!  We visited the fabric department instead and bought 1/2 yard of trim for $1.75.  :)

We brought it home and gave it a makeover to make it more her style.  I dry brushed it with two coats of aqua craft paint, painted the button in the middle pink, and used some craft glue to attach the dangly trim to the shade.

She was SO happy with its new look!

Much more her style.

And it fit the space under the shelf just perfectly.

Another thing we had already changed about the desk was the knobs.  Originally it had these very basic silver and white ones.

We replaced them with pink and aqua ones instead.  

So much more character now, and again, much more her style.  

(Notice the chippy stool tucked in there?  We couldn't use a regular desk chair because they're all too wide to slide underneath and we couldn't have it sticking out because her closet door is directly to the right and she needed to have room to get it open. We discovered that this little stool, which normally resides in the master bathroom to hold a stack of towels, slid under there just perfectly tucked out of the way.)

We found the pink knobs at Walmart.  They're made to look like glass, but they're actually acrylic.  We found the center aqua knob at Hobby Lobby.

She is loving having this desk in her room.  She loves to sit and "work" at her little laptop/game computer, and take pretend calls on her pink phone.  :D  She also enjoys doing her school work here as well.

I love being able to find thrifty solutions to problems that come along.  :)

                                                                 

A Thrifted Chalkboard Sign Makeover

I found this chalkboard sign at the thrift store for $3 a couple of months ago.  It sure was ugly, but I liked the idea of a freestanding sign and the size was perfect to go on top of a section of my kitchen cabinets that have thus far been bare because I didn't know what to put up there.  

I didn't want to do anything drastic to it, just update it.  The tole style vine painting and green chalkboard were out of date and it was just dirty and grimy looking.  

Had someone attempted to glaze it to make it appear aged?  Or was it coated in layers of nicotine?  I wasn't quite sure, but either way it looked gross.

I started the process by cleaning it and then swiping on some brown craft paint here and there that I wanted to peek through in the final product for a chippy look.

I've read about using Vaseline for aging a piece, but had never tried it before so I decided this would be the perfect thing to experiment on.

I (and my 5 year old son) dabbed a bit of it on the spots of brown.  Well...I dabbed, he smeared, lol!

Apparently I forgot to take any pictures of the next steps, but here's what I did.  I taped off the wood parts leaving just the chalkboard exposed and gave it a couple of coats of black chalkboard paint.  Once that was completely dry I covered the chalkboard area with newspaper and started spray painting the wood parts white.

For some reason, the spray paint was not covering up the leaves and dark brown spots well at all, so I switched to white craft paint and a foam brush.  It covered much better.

Once the white paint was dry, I went back and wiped/scraped off the areas of Vaseline.  I could easily tell where it was at because the paint had sort of bubbled and cracked in those areas and had never dried...thus the whole point of using the Vaseline.  The brown paint peeked through in the areas I wiped away giving it a nice chippy look.

In hind sight, I shouldn't have let the 5 year old help quite so much.  I had better results in the areas where it was thickly dabbed on than in the areas where he had smeared it all over.  Oh well....nothing hurt.

The neat thing about this sign is that it's double sided.  Both sides look identical and each has a chalkboard area.  

Let's compare the before and after.

I thought it turned out pretty well, and since I already had all of the supplies I needed, this little sign only cost me the initial $3.

So what did I end up doing with it?

I put it right where I had envisioned it from the beginning, up on top of the kitchen cabinets.  

I love that I'll be able to change out the words on it as the seasons change or as the mood strikes.  And since it's double sided, I also think it would be really neat used down the center of a table as part of a tablescape some time.

In other news, the weather is finally starting to cool off a smidgen here in northern Florida and I'm enjoying the cooler mornings and milder days.  

I hope you're enjoying fall as well.

Have a blessed day!

                                         
                                                                

The Story of a Sign (Opinions Needed)

I had wanted to get this post shared yesterday on the first day of fall, but that just didn't happen.  Oh well, one day late isn't too bad though.  

I wanted to share just the tiniest bit of my fall decor with you, but mostly I wanted to share the story of a sign.

This cute little chalkboard (leftover from last year's Christmas banquet) is hanging on the corner of one of my very favorite yard sale purchases.....maybe of all time.

I got this set of 3 authentic farm signs from a yard sale for only $10.  But it wasn't just any random yard sale I was at.  No, this one was meant to be and this sign was meant to be mine.

Let me explain.

A couple of years ago I shared the picture below on the Facebook page because I was really excited that I had found a local farm that sold raw milk (plus I loved their cute sign).  We had just recently moved back to Florida and were trying out different churches in the area.  At one of the churches we met the family who lived on this farm and that's how we discovered the local source of raw milk. 

We visited their farm a couple of times and fell in love with how sweet and loving their whole family was.  The last time we visited them they told us that they felt they had been called to go to Romania to be missionaries.  (The wife was originally from there.)  Well, life happened, time went by, we bought a house and were busy moving and such and we never did get back to visit them again.  When I realized it was close to the time they said they would be leaving the country we made one last trip to their farm hoping to say good-bye to them and get some info on how to stay in contact.  But sadly, they were already gone.  

I always regretted that life had been so busy and we hadn't taken the time to see them again.  I didn't know if we'd ever get the chance to see them again and that made me sad.  

Well, about 8 months or so went by and one day I was scouring the local newspaper looking for upcoming yard sale listings.  One of them caught my eye and from the description of it I just knew it had to be them!  I didn't know how it could possibly be since they were supposed to be across the ocean, but somehow I knew it just had to be.  So that Friday morning I packed up the kids and we drove across town in search of the sale.  Sure enough, it was them!  They had gone to Romania, but had to come back for a couple of months to finish dealing with the sale of their farm.

The wife and I stood there talking for probably half an hour as she shared their ministry with me and the miracles that God had done for them while there and how He had amazingly provided for each and every need.  I felt so encouraged and blessed by our talk and so thankful I had found them again.  I gave her our information and asked them to stay in contact with us and to continue to share their ministry with us.  

After we finished talking she encouraged me to look around at what they had for sale and see if there was anything we'd like to buy.  It didn't take me long to spot their milk sign leaning up against the barn, as well as the other two little signs they had used in the driveway.  

I was so excited to be able to take it home, because not only is it an adorable and perfect farmhouse style sign, but it also has a story and sentimental meaning behind it.  Now every time I look at it I think of them and it helps me remember to pray for them and their ministry.  

I love it when pieces in my home have a story.

I made a grouping of all 3 signs on a big blank wall in our dining room.  I had never put anything on this wall because I didn't want to hang up just anything ol' thing.  I knew that someday, somehow, the perfect piece would find me and I would know it when I saw it.

And that's just what happened with this milk sign.  I knew it was meant to be.

The sign is fairly large, over 2 feet wide by more than 3 feet long.  It's perfectly aged and weathered, and beautifully chippy.  Absolutely perfect for our home.

Now let me show you some perspective on where this is at and get some opinions from you all.  This is the wall in the dining room where it's located.  The doorway to the right on the edge of the picture leads to the laundry room as well as what we use as the main entrance to our home.  The doorway on the left of the picture is my son's room.  You can see all of his little art work he's taped on there.  Just keepin' it real folks.  :)  You can also see the corner of the table on the bottom left.

That's a big space to fill!  I don't intend to leave the two smaller signs there permanently.  I'd like to have some other sort of items paired with the milk sign, I just haven't figured out what yet.  The possibility of lanterns hanging on each side crossed my mind, maybe some greenery like a boxwood wreath or something would go well with it.  I'm just not sure and the perfect inspiration hasn't hit me yet.  So for now, the two little signs keep the milk sign company and help fill up the large space until I come up with something better.  

And that's where I need your opinions.  What would you guys put with this gorgeous milk sign?

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Funky Junk Interiors - PJ #298