DIY: A New Throw Pillow And A Bonus Accessory!

I have been finding the most random items at the new thrift store I patronize. A few weeks ago, there was an entire section of pieces of fabric. The offerings were so awesome that my mom picked up a fairly decent amount and decided to make a quilt out of it! I lingered for a moment and decided to grab a little piece myself. Not for anything as worthy as a quilt. I figured I could cover over a plain little pillow I had.

So, I got my little pillow and my little piece of fabric:

There are lotus flowers and tigers on my fabric!

I then proceeded to make the pillow case and not take any pictures of the process. Oh well. I pretty much just cut the fabric down to size, folded the fabric in half, sewed up the sides and hemmed the open edge. My pillow was too fluffy and I was too lazy to try to make the pillow case any more permanent. This is what I ended up with:

I absolutely love the design on the fabric!

And this is the back of the pillow:

I probably should've ironed it. Maybe later... (-;

I left the fabric pretty long so that I could fold over the open edge. I ended up with this cute little pocket. I have several other pillows that I'd like to cover over when I redecorate my bedroom. So, expect to see a lot more pillow refashions in the coming months!

Anyway, I had a little piece of fabric leftover and I had the most perfect idea of what to do with it:

First I hemmed the raw edges on two opposing sides...

... Then I folded it in half and sewed those edges together...

Doesn't look too fabulous yet, but just wait and see!

I ended up with a long tube. This is exactly what I needed! I've been thinking of doing this forever and I'm glad I finally did because....

I'm stylin' now!

.... everyone in Joe's family has similar cameras to ours and now maybe we can easily tell them apart! The tube is a little short for the strap, but it gets the job done. Now I don't have to inspect my camera to make sure it's mine when I pick it up!

And to think, I might've just thrown that little bit of fabric in a bin and forgotten about it!

Mitchell's Boxed Cake And Store Bought Frosting Cake!

Not to complain again, but March was complete madness in our family. Between all the stuff we wanted to do and all the stuff we had to do, I found very little time to make a big deal out of Mitchell's 2nd birthday. I am only able to sleep at night because I threw that kid the party of all parties for his first birthday (not to toot my own horn.. not really, haha).

At least the kid got a cake, albeit boxed, with pre-made frosting. I did find a moment to frost it pretty nicely. And even though it wasn't completely homemade, it was delicious! Here are some pics of the finished product:

I made much a mess of those little ball thingies!

A not-so-great picture, but you get the idea.

I made the cake to be eaten on a specific day, but plans were changed around and so the cake sat around for almost a week before we were able to celebrate Mitchell's birthday. And we ended up finally singing happy birthday and cutting the cake at 9pm the night we got home from the funeral of a family member.

We don't normally dress up this much for birthdays.

So, that's my boring post for my kids' birthday party. I really dropped the ball on this one.

DIY: A Flowy Skirt Into...

As I mentioned last week, I've had a lot going on the last month or so and that was my main reason for blowing you guys off. I don't think I mentioned another pretty big reason I haven't found the time to blog: Books! Ever since I got my library card earlier this year, I've consistently been reading 3-4 books per month and this last month, I read 9 books!

Anyway, I am in between books right now (just finished "The Girl On The Train" by Paula Hawkins and "Sharp Objects" by Gillian Flynn. I loved them both!! But I won't be getting a new book for a week or so), so I have some time to work on some stuff I've kept on pause. I started with this skirt:

I was having a skinny day this picture was taken. I wish I had those every day!

I picked this dress up out of a pile of clothing. I was specifically looking for something made of about 2 yards of cotton fabric in a light color. This dress was perfect. I did have a moment of apprehension when I realized this dress was new, with tags, and originally sold for $34.99! To hack or not to hack?! Considering I got it out of the $0.25 bin, I figured, what the heck.

This lamp has been sitting in my basement for 3 years!

Let me back this story up, so you get an idea of where I'm coming from. My sister gave me this lamp like 7 or 8 years ago. I had it displayed prominently in my old house, but when we moved to our new house, it didn't really fit in like it had before, so it was relegated to the basement. I had no idea what to do with it. That is, until I got on Pinterest and realized this lamp had life in it yet.

I wanted to give that lamp shade some flair but just in case I royally screwed up, I bought an additional shade from Goodwill for next to nothing:

Super plain, but that's just what I was looking for.

I had a lamp. I had a shade that I didn't mind ruining. I had a dress. I had some time. It was time to start my project...

I also grabbed scissors, a needle and thread, and my teeny, tiny glue gun.

Let the longest project I've ever worked on begin!

These scissors definitely got a good work out!

First I cut the dress up. I had to cut the hem off of the bottom of the dress. I also had to cut the cotton part away from the lacy part.

I am a on the cutting edge!! (Sorry, I love that movie. I couldn't help myself!)

I cut all the fabric from the skirt into workable strips. I wasn't worried about the length but I wanted the width to be about 3ish inches.

There's the easy way and the way I did it.

I'm sure my sewing machine has a setting that makes ruffles, but I wanted to do this the hardest and longest way possible. Actually, I wanted to do this in a way that my peeps that don't have sewing machines could do. I did this for you! I stabbed myself 50 times with that needle for you guys! Lol.

Aww.. it's getting so cute already!

So, yeah, these pictures show how I made the fabric all ruffled. I threaded the needle, poked it through the middle of the length of fabric, and pulled tightly until it I got a little ruffle. This part took forever. 5ft of fabric, ruffled, becomes about 1.5 ft of fabric.

About 1/10th of the ruffles I'd need for this.

Hello there, tiny glue gun!

Once I had a fairly decent amount of ruffles, I decided to start hot gluing them to my lamp shade. Before I show you the "half way" picture, let me just add: I started with a bland shade and a darker fabric for the ruffles, so I didn't cover the shade in my new fabric first. If you happen to take on this project, you might want to keep in mind that you may need to cover your shade with your new fabric so your old lamp shade color doesn't bleed through.

Ok, back to the process:

Yup, I'm a Diet Coke drinker.

This constitutes about two hours worth of work. But, so far so good. It's starting to look like what I had in mind!

I took a lunch break, played with the kids and finished the rest of the lamp without incident. This is what I ended up with:

For the sake of pictures, this is in Quinn's room, but I think it will end up in my room.

A close up view.

Another close up. Pictures don't do it justice!

I love it!

I am so thrilled with how this turned out. It's hard to believe that this one little shade took enough fabric to cover me from waist to ankle! Oh and did I mention that the skirt had a little built-in slip? Yup, I used that, too, and had almost nothing left over!!

Jill Can Cook: Sausage Rice Skillet

Before I get to the interesting part of this blog post, let me apologize for not keeping up with my blog the last few weeks! Who'd have thought that March would be a busier month  than December. Me and the kids all had our yearly check ups with the doctor (of course, all on different days!). Plus, not only were our kids birthdays last month, but half of our extended family had birthdays last month as well. We went out to eat probably triple the amount we usually go (I secretly loved it though!). AND... On top of all that, I haven't been finding too many clothing items to upcycle for you guys. Don't get me wrong, I've been finding lots of great items at the new thrift store, but they don't need any tweaking! It's both a blessing and a curse. Anyway, back to the food:

I saved this recipe from Laugh With Us Blog a long time ago on my Pinterest account. The picture of the food looked so delicious and it didn't look like it had a lot of ingredients. I like easy recipes, as you can tell. And, as per usual, I had some sausage links leftover from another meal that I wanted to use up.

Sausage Rice Skillet

Ingredients:

1 (1 lb) Sausage

2 cups long grain rice

1 packet dry Lipton Soup

water

Directions:

1. Brown Sausage
2. Add rice, 4 cups water, and soup mix.
3. Bring to a boil.
4. Simmer on medium low for 20 minutes.

 

 

I don't have that many pictures of the process. I attribute this to the fact that my sausage was precooked and also that there were so few ingredients. I'm really not trying to be lazy! Hahaha

 

Reheating the sausage in the skillet before I add the other ingredients

 

The skillet after I added the rice, water, and lipton soup mix.

 

So, this is where I complain for a minute. I should not have used precooked sausage for this. I cooked my package of sausage the best way for my other meal, but that was not the right way for this meal. I think that had I taken it out of the casing and cooked it that way, it would've infused more flavor into the dish.

 

I added a little salt and pepper. That helped add some flavor.

 

 

The other way in which I went wrong was in making too much rice. We ended up with way too much rice leftover and not enough sausage. I also think that had there been a little less rice, it would've been more flavorful. As it is. Joe wasn't all that impressed and told me I didn't have to save that in my recipe binder any longer. But I have high hopes for this one! I don't want to give up on it just yet. I'm sure I can make it better.

 

My pictures are a lot less appetizing than the pictures from the original blog! Sorry!

I'll give this recipe a C as it stands now. But I'll let Joe forget about it and then I'll be back. I'm thinking of making the tweaks I mentioned, plus adding some onion, possibly also garlic. Stay tuned!!!

 

 

Ohhh I almost forgot: Happy Easter!! I've made a few appetizers to bring to my parents house for their Easter party, so I'll blog about that soon! Plus, I made a cake for Mitchell's birthday, I've got that to blog about, too.. And I also have a few surprises for you!