Cush for your tush

5/12/10

Here's my latest project:

(Madelyn age 3, Jan 2008)

See those pillows?? We've had the same boring ones forever. They were gross and beat up, so thanks to my friend Brooke at All Things Thrifty (to the rescue once again), I decided to make some new covers for them. With some scraps from my fabric stash and a couple remnants from Wal-Mart, I was in business.

The whitish pillow on the left now looks like this:

Admittedly it's a little feminine looking for our living room, so I may switch the ribbon out to match my bedroom.

The tan pillow with circles looks like this:

(My technique is obviously lacking, but hey, it was my first try)

And the black pillow looks like this:

OK, so I bought this cover from Target. It's plain and I should probably embellish it somehow, but Madelyn likes it.

Anyway, I cut apart the discarded black silk cover (it was falling apart--otherwise I would have left it on its original pillow) and sewed it onto a placemat my mom gave me to make this:

The back looks like this:

The tutorial for the envelope casing is HERE. By the way, Wal-Mart sells these 12x16 inch bare pillow forms in their craft section, and they're the perfect size to cover with a placemat. Think of all the possibilities!

And this old pillow

became this:

If I can face dragging the sewing machine out again, I'll make it a little smaller to fit the pillow more snugly.

Of course what I really would have loved to do is go buy all new throw pillows, but since I can't afford to pay $15-30 a piece, these will do for now.


Oh, and if you decide to try the puckered one, which I did by twisting off 1/2 inch nubs on the underside and then sewing across them (yours will probably turn out better--I had the fabric doubled over because it was too thin), do yourself a favor and square off the raw edges FIRST before you start going crazy with the puckering. Then maybe it won't take you till 1:00 am to finish. Just saying.

And I know you've all been dying to see our wall:

Voilà. There it is.

It's big. It stands 6 1/2 feet tall and I don't know how many feet long. When I look at it, I try not to notice all the $$ signs etched into the mortar.

You can see the top of Madelyn's head there at the bottom. I kept finding her outside watching the wall being built. She would hang out on an overturned bucket or on top of our big, black garbage bin "So I can see what's going on." Eventually we'll build another gate so the whole backyard will be closed in. It's going to put a serious cramp in her style, but will at least keep the coyotes out.

No, we don't really have coyotes. But if we could keep the neighbor's dog from pooping on our front lawn, that would be really be something.