Thursday, July 21, 2011


Even better with a throw pillow and back in the babies' room! I forgot to mention in my last post that I used this tutorial to make the skirt. Easy to follow, and relatively easy to execute. Still can't decide if the skirt is an inch too long. Should I shorten it?

Miss Mustard Seed's Creative Blog

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

skirt

My husband has a hand-me-down rocking chair that was his grandmother's (?), and frankly, it's not attractive. It's got a nice shape, and it could be cute, with a full scale refinish and reupholster, but I'm simply not up for such tasks. I decided this week to slipcover it, and failed at the full slip attempt. I downgraded to a skirt for the seat, and I have to admit that it turned out quite cute! It's certainly a TON better than the nasty stained and faded turquoise corduroy seat of old.

before:

after:

The rocking chair skirt was re-fashioned from the white slipcover that I bought dirt cheap on uglysofa.com for my living room. I didn't like stark white in my living room and replaced it with an identical dirt cheap but off-white version. The one that became the skirt looked like this one, except it was couch sized, not love seat sized. The love seat lives in my bedroom.

Woo hoo for being able to recycle a slipcover that the potty trainers got to before I could return it!

I do still plan to have the rocking chair refinished and reupholstered in the near future. But at least I won't have to cringe at that nasty seat fabric every time I walk past it until then.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We love Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar in this house, and I thought the bright primary colors in the book would make an excellent choice for a shared room for my three year old boy/girl twins. With a little bit of help from my sewing machine, and a lot of help from Target and Ikea, I proudly present Hazel and Charlie's new room!

"In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf."

"One Sunday morning the warm sun came up and--pop!--out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar."



General info: the leaf, sun, red chairs, and red L-shaped shelf came from Ikea. The red and blue solid quilts, the yellow sheets, and the lime green black-out panels came from Target. I made the valance and the pillowcases, along with the "art" from the hungry caterpillar line of fabric, purchased from fabric.com. I love the rain gutter bookshelves. We had one in the old dining room playroom when they were baby-babies and I've wanted another one ever since. I think all it needs now is a cute plush caterpillar to throw in that rocking chair. Maybe a crocheted one like this would fit the bill (photo from pattern on Ravelry).