Vintage looking pillowcases

I've been working on some pillowcases that have a colorful vintage flare to them.  I saw some recently on pinterest and just had to give them a try.

They're so simple to make using french seams to give them a more professional feel and then adding crochet trim to give them a sweet homemade touch.  These are just three of about fifteen (I went a little crazy at the fabric store as usual.)  They're fun and add so much cheer to the beds.  

I've got enough for more than I need and thought I might sell some on etsy but as each one comes together I decide I can't part with them!  Ha, ha!  I've always got to fight the hoarder within.  All the girls are begging for a stack of them too because one just isn't enough.

The girls are so close to being done redecorating their room.  They just need me to help them with bed skirts and I think I've finally come up with an easy plan that will work.  Once it's finished and cleaned up I'll try to get some decent pictures to share.  One side of the room is a little on the messy side...Madison's an artist and you can tell it by the way her side of the room looks, bless her heart.  Grace is a crafter extraordinaire and a seamstress so she has supplies stashes coming out her ears but usually manages to keep her side pretty clean. Growing up, my poor sister had to put up with my messes too while she was always super neat.  Sorry, Jen!   

I know summer just officially started not too long ago, but it's already flying by way too fast.  It always does.  Homeschooling my kids nine months out of the year makes me really enjoy our summer breaks just as much as they do.  We've been filling our days with swimming and sewing and swimming and toasting marshmallows and swimming. 

I've been having a lot of fun with little housey projects like making these cafe curtains:

I also painted the bathroom door (finally!) and added chalkboard paint to the center of it.

I'm not so crazy about all the chalk dust that's always on the floor now but the kids have been requesting another chalkboard for a while so I obliged.  We made a huge one at our last house which you can see here, but we left it behind in our mad moving rush.  I wouldn't have a wall big enough for it at this house anyway because we have so many windows.

Some other house projects have screeched to a halt however, like the siding.  When we went from average temps in the 70's to an all of a sudden nationwide heat wave with the temperatures averaging 100 plus, it got pushed to the back burner.  I don't know if you've noticed or not, but it's hot out there.

I hope you all are staying cool!

Making do

Living in an unfinished house with a multitude of things that need to be done a.s.a.p. on a limited budget has a way of helping your priorities stay in order.  When your showering and you feel a breeze so you look up and at the ceiling, spying between the rafters and the insulation and spot daylight, it's hard to justify buying a new rug whose main purpose is to just sit there and look pretty.  Or how can you justify buying $60 worth of paint just to paint the subfloor which will be covered someday when after storms you have to add a few more staples to your two year old house wrap, hoping it will hold up just a little bit longer?  And when you see that it's time to roll on a new layer of contact paper that serves as your counter top because you've got a few to many knife holes and pasta sauce stains on the current layer, it is again hard to justify buying new living room chairs.  Especially when your old, oversized, ugly brown chair is still holding up just fine...but I did it anyway.  I caved.

I'm chuckling to myself as I type about the breezes, house wrap and contact paper.  While true, I happen to find it humorous.  My kids are going to enjoy telling their own children stories of their "impoverished hardships" growing up and laugh to themselves as the little ones gasp in disbelief.  Heh, heh.  It also helps me keep things in perspective by remembering that we chose to live this way.  I know there are far too many people in the world who are truly impoverished and suffering while I am truly blessed beyond measure.

I didn't buy a lot of new stuff or anything terribly fancy but it was just enough to perk the place up a little for me.  And like I always have to preface...it's still unfinished, as if you couldn't tell.

Let's start with a before picture, because if you've ever caught the tail end of a before and after program on HGTV and have been disappointed with the after and thought to yourself, what's so great about that?  And then you think, maybe this is a flash back to the before shot, until you see the homeowners come into the room and start crying and/or laughing and you realize it is, in fact, the after and then you think to yourself, I would be crying and/or laughing too if that was my house.  Yes?  You know what I'm talking about?  Okay, then you know why it's necessary for me to show you this terrible, awful picture. 

Brace yourselves for sheer horror because here comes the before (which is actually from shortly after we moved in because it was the ONLY picture out of literally thousands of pictures that I have of what it all once looked like.) 

Yes, I'm stalling.

Sorry you noticed. 

Okay, here we go.  Just take a quick peek then turn away, mkay?

Before

Welp, that was traumatizing.   

Okay.

As you can see, all of our living, dining and kitchen space is in one room that's 20' x 22'.  Just a mere 440 square feet.  That's about the size of a lot of peoples living room alone. 

Part of the problem for me (besides all the obvious stuff you can see in the picture) was actually the openness of the living room furniture.  The living area is about 14' x 20' which isn't too terribly small.  In fact, it was too big, too spread out and not well defined.  Because of the open rafters in the ceiling sound doesn't travel very well which makes it hard to have a conversation with someone across the room without yelling, and if we have company and there are multiple conversations going on at once, it turns into a yelling match.  On the plus side, it is very quiet in here most of the time which is essential to my staying alive.  I must have quiet and lots of it or my brain and nerves absolutely start to fry.

Moving on.  Let's start with the kitchen and what it looks like right now.  I just can't bring myself to say after because I haven't really done much in there and it's by no means finished and after sounds like it's done, final, finished, but it's not.  Sorry.  I'm stalling again.  I'll try to stop that from happening in the future. 

So here's the kitchen currently,

Eventually I'll have real cabinets and counters and a real floor and maybe even matching appliances but this is what I have for now and I'm content...for now.  I suppose if it never progressed any farther it wouldn't be the end of the world but I hope that doesn't happen.  (The blue between the rafters is foam insulation which will be covered in wood someday.)

My appliances are a hodgepodge of finishes.  Black, white, stainless and turquoise, so to bring them together at least a little bit, I bought matching vinyl stickers off etsy for my fridge and dishwasher.

They're a little on the frilly side which I'm not super crazy about, but it does kind of help bring the kitchen together a little bit.

I still have my turquoise blue stove which goes well with the styrofoam insulation.  (The small cat-like creature is my little Chili-choo-choo chihuahua, dining at his favorite fast food joint.)

In the dining portion of the room, Jeff added another window not too long ago to give us a little view of the back woods.  (Don't look at my highwaters!  I'll extend those or replace them someday!)

The table is a little 3' x 5' table that everybody and his brother had fifteen years ago.  It seats all seven of us just fine for now, but as the kids get bigger it might become too cozy.  Then, of coarse, I'll just have my personal man servant build me a newer, nicer, bigger table.  (I love you so much, Shnookums pooh bear!)

And last, but not least, the living room.

I arranged all the furniture on one side of the room for a cozier layout and we can actually have real live conversations with eachother now.  It's nice that way.  On the far right is our current computer cabinet in the hole where the fireplace was.  Jeff and I pulled it out and plan to build in a computer cabinet/entertainment center instead.  I've decided I'd rather have the fireplace outside on the back deck.

After I painted the subfloor (which I love better than the unpainted subfloor but hate how it now shows dirt like crazy, by the way) I bought an 8' x 10' jute rug off Amazon for a mere $1,444.00 including $1,200.00 in fraudulent credit card charges.  (I should have used paypal, but at least it's been resolved.)  I love the rug.  It's already been through a violent hazing when all of the kids had a nasty stomach bug a couple of weeks ago.  It cleans up nicely.  You've gotta be tough to survive around here.

 

I also bought a couple of matching chairs which the children are forbidden to even look at let alone touch.  (I'm so mean.)  They came with lumbar pillows that match the green fabric, but I made these blue and white ones for them instead.  I can't have things matching too much.  That wouldn't go with my home's chaotic theme.

Behind the green chair I have some fancy, shmancy wainscoting made up of a couple of old doors laying on their sides.  Nice, huh?  I'm still working out in my head what kind of a wall I want separating the kitchen from the living room.  I'm currently thinking a half wall behind the stove across to the far right counter that meets a full length wall right next to that counter for a little extra visual separation.  That's where the dirty dishes get stacked and I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to see them every waking moment. 

I think that about wraps it up for now.  If you made to the end of this post, I thank you...and I'm sorry you had to see all that.  I'm glad I got this out in the open though, so now maybe I can start lookin' you people in the eye! ☺

Recently we've been getting back in gear working on different projects around the house.  We finally got rid of the clanky metal extension ladder that we were using to get to the second floor.  That thing was really loud anytime the kids were shimmying up or down it and it's right in the middle of the house so it was a major eyesore too.  Since Jeff knew he would be needing the extension ladder to put the siding on he spent a day building and staining a new wooden ladder.

I also recently painted the front door which was still primer white.  I'm so ashamed that I waited so long.  There's just no excuse for not painting a door.  My bathroom door still hasn't been painted either.  Maybe I'll get that done this week if I can decide on a color.  There's no sense in rushing these things, you know.

Like everything else in this house, it's pretty snug.  There's just enough room to get up or down with the door open. 

We still don't have any trim and I just recently painted my subfloors.  Trim and flooring are both near or at the very bottom of our very long to do list.  



Keeping my glass front door clean is also near the bottom of that list. 

The kids helped me out in my recent living room mini makeover by painting some 8" x 10" canvases for us to hang on the wall. 

I have six more canvases that I want them to paint and add to the "collection" when we find a spare day with nothing else to do.

I also recently made my very first slip cover following the video tutorial made by Miss Mustard Seed.  Jeff brought home this old office chair a while back that is very comfortable (and it rocks, spins and rolls which makes it a fun chair!!)



As you can see, it's kind of gross looking even though I've scrubbed it (and it doesn't smell even though it looks like it could be stinky!) I've had plans of reupholstering it but when I started taking it apart I found that the arms were attached magically and I could not figure out how to get them off without destroying them.  That's when I finally conjured up the courage to try making a slip cover, something I've always wanted to try but thought I could never pull off.  Oh my goodness!  It turned out to be another one of those things that I should have done a long time ago.  Slip covering is time consuming but way easier than I imagined.  At least it is the way Miss Mustard Seed does it.  Her video tutorial is excellent and she didn't leave out any details.

It's by no means perfect but I'm much happier with the chair now.  I used cheap canvas drop cloths from Amazon and I even made my own piping!  (She includes directions for that too.)  

Just a hint about drop clothes that I've "learned" the hard way (more than once):  If you buy the long skinny ones that are say, 15' x 4' you'll have fewer seams (if any) to work around as opposed to the larger, wider sizes like 9' x 12' which seem to always be full of seams like a patchwork quilt.  That hint is probably really late to the drop cloth party and most people have probably moved on the next thing...whatever that is.  I do pinterest, but I still don't always know what's going on in the decorating world outside my own microcosm. ☺

I don't think I've ever shared pictures of my (unfinished) kitchen or living room, but I think I'll post a little of that next time.

  

Hall floor

It's been such a long time since I've posted anything about the homestead.  Where has the time gone?  We've been working mostly on farmish sorts of things like fences, animals, fences, gardening, and fences.  I'm learning that on a farm fences are everything, especially if you have goats in your repertoire.  Speaking of goats, I recently learned how to milk one.  Not too long ago I never, ever would have imagined I would ever learn how to milk a goat or even own goats...or chickens or cows or five kids for that matter.

Anyway, we really haven't done much to the house over the past year, but a couple of weeks ago I got a wild hair and painted the subfloors.  I absolutely hated the way it turned out so I painted it again and I'm satisfied with it for now.  I rarely get paint right the first time.  Once I had Jeff spray and entire house (about a 3,000 square foot house) a color that turned out to look a little pinkish to me in the evening light so the next day he had to respray it all a new color.  He's surprisingly patient with me.  I once painted a kitchen seven times in one year.  SEVEN.  And I still wasn't happy with the color, but all the texture on the wall was beginning to disappear so I had to stop.

In the midst of all my most recent painting and repainting I decided to try a little free hand painting on the hall floor.  I usually regret the free spirited things I do but I figured it's just the subfloor so it's not our permanent plan and I can always paint over it if I don't like it.  Like with everything else I do I went overboard because I apparently live by the motto if a little is good, more is better. 

This kind of free for all paint party was right up Madison's alley so I invited her to jump in which she was more than happy to do.  She also believes more is better so she's partly to blame for the outcome.  She's also why I love it.  We worked out a plan together and spent the better part of three days crawling around on the floor in a little 7' by 7' area together only taking breaks occasionally to whine together about the pains and muscle spasms in our hands and backs.  My left hand is still crippled from the experience which is making it a little hard to type.

I started by rolling paint on the floor and let it dry for a few hours.   Then we picked out some acrylic craft paints and went to town painting.  I used a circular foam brush for the dots down the center in a repeating pattern.  (I accidentally repeated a row where I shouldn't have and messed up the pattern a little, but I'm not a perfectionist so I just went with it.) 

I didn't bother to seal it because I think as the acrylic paint wears it will only add to the look.  (The base color is interior wall paint that's zero VOC which I've used in other places like the girls bedroom floor and I'm pleased with how well it holds up over time.)

Now I'm in the middle of giving the living room a little makeover.  I've wanted to do it for a long time but always put it off thinking I should at least wait until the house is finished but then Jeff surprised me with this beautiful arrangement he made for me in his car while driving home from work on his birthday. You should never pot plants and drive, by the way, it just isn't safe.

He thought I might like something pretty to look at but this very sweet gesture backfired on him because I'm pretty sure it's what triggered the kick I'm on that's costing him time, energy, and money.  I've got him building things for me that require sanding, welding, painting, and staining.  I've also become best friends with Amazon, Overstock and Etsy and I'm fixing to tackle my first ever chair upholstery project.  (That's always intimidated me!) 

Maybe I'll remember to post pictures when I'm done but for now I just wanted to share some of my oldest babies handiwork.  Now it's time for school so I've got to run! ☺

Can we get a little privacy, please?

***

Thank you all for the kind comments about my last post.   They were each very encouraging and sweet and I really appreciate them!

***

We finally finished a pretty simple project that we started two or three months ago.

Jeff and I originally thought we'd go the traditional route and use normal doors in the house, but we ran out of time to install them before we moved in.  Since moving in however, we no longer feel rushed to make decisions about the unfinished parts of the house so we decided to do things we really love and we really love old doors on tracks. (I nearly fainted the first time I saw ALVN's door!)  Naturally this lead us to abandon the traditional door and hunt down an old one for the bedroom.

After a few unsuccessful attempt to get Jeff to go flea marketing with me, I kidnapped my sister for a few hours until and made her chauffeur me around instead.  I'm so glad I did, because she took me to a new flea market I didn't know about where we found this beauty...

It was perfect.  I wasn't necessarily looking for a door with a window in it but because of the window, I couldn't pass it up.  It was love at first site.

Jeff hung the barn door track (purchased from Lowe's) and the door right away because he's a go getter.  Me, on the other hand, I like to take my sweet time getting anything done and waited a good two and a half months to paint it. 

Actually, "running to the store" to pick up a quart of paint with five children in tow is about a three hour task and not having an abundance of spare three hour time slots, I quickly forgot about the paint and got used to having an unpainted bedroom door with a huge window and no glass.  Who really needs privacy anyway?

Then I read that Kim at Twice Remembered is painting a door in her house and she shared some beautiful examples of what she likes which reminded me that I have a door I need to finish too.  Thanks Kim, you were just the motivation I needed.

The technique I used is also how I finished the top of my coffee table but with a lot more layers of watery paint.  The Flea Market Style magazine I got from my friend Lisa had a beautiful example of this type of paint technique in it too.

I love the blue cabinet on the right which actually has fresh paint on it, believe it or not.  It looks like it was painted years and years ago.

So here's my attempt at a lighter colored version of what they did.

First, pick your color in latex paint.  I chose Jade Island from Valspar.  Then mix a little of the paint with water in equal amounts...half paint, half water.  Then paint on layer upon layer, wiping up the drips and puddles as you go.  You'll want to let the layers dry between coats so that the color can build up.

First layer

Second layer.

It's a little bit time consuming, but the goal is to have a paint that's a little bit transparent so you can see each layer which you can't do by painting with undiluted paint.

After about four or five layers of Jade Island, I used two more darker shades of blue plus a little white here and there (each color getting its own layer.)  Those last three colors I diluted with even more water so that there was very little paint in the mixture.  I wanted those colors to be very subtle, almost invisible.  Then I knocked off a little paint on a few edges; the holes, scratches and rusty nails were already there.

For the window, we used plexi glass which Jeff sanded on both sides to an almost opaque finish.  He likes the idea of a little privacy.

So there it is...finally.  I still feel the urge to tweak it a little but I'm sure the urge will pass if I keep putting it off long enough.

 

☺

Homemaking

The big jar of flowers are flowers that I picked, the daisies in the bud vase were picked by my 2 and 5 year olds.  The two doilies they're sitting on were crocheted by my grandmother who taught me to crochet and I crocheted the the white blanket.  The sewing table I painted white was given to me by my mother who, coincidentally taught me to sew on that very machine.  The skirt under the table is one of the simpler things I've sewn with those skills.

I've been teaching my children to garden and two of them especially love it and soon we'll be feasting on the fruits of our labor.  I'm amazed at how much I know because the women in my life took the time to teach me homemaking skills and now I'm passing those things on to my children.  It takes a lot of patience on my part because it's always easier to just do it myself, but it's been rewarding to see them taking on more and more responsibility and with a cheerful attitude.  Just this morning, I had the freedom to go take a shower and leave things in the capable hands of my children.  When I got out of the shower, Grace was rocking the baby, Isaiah was playing sweetly with Evelyn and Madison was cooking breakfast for everyone!  My children are only 11, 8, 5, 2 and 8 months yet they are learning already how to behave lovingly and responsibly towards one another.  I can't tell you how it makes my heart sing!

If you have a love for homemaking and learning or passing on those skills you might like to take some time to visit Raising Homemakers.  They're having a fun giveaway right now that you might like to participate in.

I've been taking some time to really enjoy my family and all the things that are going on with the warmer weather and longer days which has somehow all but eliminated time for blogging.  I still intend to share the projects we do to build our little cottage and when I have a few more minutes to spare, I have a confession of sorts for you all.

Right now it's late and time for bed, so I'll see you all later. 

Have a good weekend!

☺

My latest finds and a chicken tractor

Here's a quick peek a couple of things we're working on around the house...

I've been keeping an eye out for a vintage fan to mount on the wall in our bedroom rather than have a ceiling fan.  I love having a fan on while I sleep in the summer, especially with a window open too. 

 There are a lot of these old fans floating around.  A lot of them still work just fine and most of them have a little rust, a few dings and chipped paint.  I love rust, dings and chipped paint but when I found this one, I knew it was the one.  It was still in its original box with the tag on it and all its papers and looked brand new.  It had been stowed away for the past 50 years in someones attic in Michigan and now it's back in Missouri, where it started out...where it belongs.

It's like a sweet homecoming.

The door on the barn track is another project we've got going on in the bedroom.  I found the old door at a flea market and Jeff hung it from the track for me.  I've got to decide how I want to finish the wood and put some opaque plexiglass in the window.  I'll have another door on the same track on the other side of the fan for the closet...one of these days, hopefully. 

Jeff's a busy man.

Recently he's been helping me get a garden ready and building a chicken tractor.

I, of coarse, "supervised" (skimmed through books) from right here...

for all of about five semi-relaxing minutes.  Then it was back to refereeing kids and animals, playing name that bug and 20 500 questions times four chatty children and fetching tools, drinks, sandwiches and bandaids, nursing baby, changing diapers, etc, etc.

Back to the tractor.  While preparing this post, I realized I didn't have any good pictures of the completed chicken tractor, so I grabbed my camera and headed out to snap one or two shots.

As soon as the girls (hens) heard the clickety click of my camera, they started heading over to the tractor to pose for me.  We let them roam free all day and they typically only come to the tractor to get a drink or lay an egg, unless there's a camera involved, then they're all over it.  Even Petunia, our barn cat, got into the act.

Silly cat, she thinks she's a chicken.

She was snacking on chicken feed when some of the hens spotted her and decided they couldn't let her hog the camera.

"Move over cat!  This isn't about you!"

Before Petunia knew it, she was being ganged up on by the girls and she was run out of town!

The kids named the hen on the far left Eye Pecker, and for good reason.  I'm guessing even Petunia knows about her reputation.  Chickens just can't resist pretty little sparkles, especially that chicken.  "Oh, what's that pretty sparkling thing in your face?" she clucks.  "Here, let me..."  peck, peck.  "OUCH!!  That's my EYE!"  Yep, they're not very bright.

Anyway, for anyone that's curious, Jeff made the tractor out of an old chain link dog pen.  He made an A frame from two of the panels and closed up the ends with chicken wire.  Then made a small coop at one end with a ramp that we pull closed at night.  The roof of the coop is made of left over metal roofing and is only screwed down at the top so we can lift it open to gather the eggs like so...

Every now and then, we find a kid in there, but it's usually just hens and eggs.

He can pull it around the yard with the riding mower when he needs to, hence the name chicken tractor.

Welp, that's all.

Another pillow tutorial (and curtains)

It's time for another pillow tutorial.  This one is so easy, it's ridiculous.

This is the one that Jeff asked me if I knew the "pleats," as he called them, weren't even.  He's a perfectionist in regards to his own projects and I'm possibly the complete opposite so I'm good for him, right?  Right.

Step one.

Cut out your the squares (or whatever shape you choose) for your pillow.

Step two.

Cut a strip of fabric you want to use for the ruffle, or whatever that thing in the middle is.  You'll want it to be 1.5 to 2 times as long as the width of the pillow for making gathers.

The width of the strip is up to you. 

Step three.

The ends of the fabric won't matter, but you'll want to "hem" the long edges of the strip unless you want the edges to have a frayed look when your done making the ruffle.  I folded them under almost an inch and machine stitched it at the standard 5/8" mark.  I also plan to use this line of stitches as my sewing guide when I make it into a ruffle.

Step four.

 

Just eyeballing it, I pinch up the fabric and shove it under the foot all willy nilly with no rhyme or reason as I sew another line to hold these ruffles in place.  That's what gives it the nice (or as in Jeff's case, perplexing) uneven ruffled look.  The key to making this work is to sew slowly.

When your finished, it will look something like this:

Step four and a half.

Do it again going down the other side of the strip.

Oh!  This is important!  Make sure you're sewing in the same direction on both sides of the fabric to insure that your ruffles will want to fold in the same direction.  Whew!  I almost forgot that part!

Step five.

Iron the ruffles down into submission.  My goal, aside from not getting burned, was to get the folds in the fabric to all face the same direction all the while encouraging their unevenness.  You could skip this step if you want to go for a fluffier ruffle.

Step six.

Pin it to the front square of your pillow fabric and sew it on. 

Step seven through ten.

Finish the pillow in the usual way then enjoy.

A tutorial for the white pillow can be found here.  It's easy too.

I used the same ruffling technique for my curtains minus the ironing step.

After making a pocket for the rod, I pinched and gathered and sewed five lines across the width of the fabric then I stitched over those same lines a second time to reinforce them because I don't want the threads to break when I tug the curtains closed, and they will if you don't.  Trust me.

I made them from muslin which, I think, is typically meant as a backer for quilts.  Maybe.  I don't know.

You could use a sheet or whatever kind of fabric you wanted to make these.  Anyway, I use the extra wide stuff so that when the curtains are closed, there is enough fabric to completely cover the window, even with all those gathers.  My curtains are fully functional so that was necessary, but if yours are only for decoration it doesn't matter how wide the fabric is and you might as well save yourself the money and buy the standard 45" wide fabric.

Remember a while back, I said I wanted white billowy curtains that blow around in the breeze because that would make things seem light and airy and relaxing?  Well, it works.

   

The bed keeps them from billowing to their full potential, but that's okay,

it still has a very relaxing effect.

Ahhh.

I'm having fun linking up at:

Poppies at Play:  I'm a Creative Cat

and

Sew-n-Tell at amylouwho

and

Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulou$

and

Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge

and

The Persimmon Perch for Made it Mondays

and

It's So Very Creative

and

Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Design

and

Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

and

Be Inspired at Room to Inspire