Frou FruGal

Master Bedroom Makeover - Hand-stamped bench slipcover

2012-05-25T15:26:00.001-04:00

My first attempt at making a slipcover is finally complete and I have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised. I think it turned out rather well. What do you think?

If you didn’t see how I stamped the fabric for the slipcover, I’ll sum up as follows:

Once I had the fabric finished, I watched Miss Mustard Seed’s slipcover videos to get her tips and ideas. I’m a pretty good sewer and already had a good idea of how to make the slipcover, but I wanted to hear what she had to say since she’s made so many of them.

Because this is a unique shaped bench, I won’t give you step-by-step instructions, but will show you some tips that I think are universal to any slipcover you make.

1. Make Slipcover Inside Out

When you are pinning and cutting the fabric to size, make sure the wrong side of the fabric is showing. This allows you to pin the fabric in place and then sew where the pins are located. You are making the slipcover inside out, so keep that in mind if you are lining up patterns and such.

I pinned the fabric up to where the pleats were located on the bench. I then gathered the fabric for the curves instead of pleating it. It was too complicated to figure out backwards pleats. I like the gathered look for the arm as it echoes the gathers in my bedding.

2. Pin, Remove, Adjust, Sew

When forming areas like this curved arm, it’s important to trying to pin things in place as much as possible while the fabric is on the bench.

Use as many pins as needed to hold gathers and seams in place.

Be careful to not pin the fabric to the piece of furniture you are covering. You want to be able to remove the pinned section so that everything still stays together as much as possible.

After you remove the piece, try to see how it comes together off of the furniture.See how the top right edge wings out when it’s flat? The surprised me a bit, but once I understood that was how it needed to lay in order to fit right, it helped me make sure all the gathered edges did that.

You will need to readjust the gathers. I knew the gathers needed to be evenly spaced between the top of the fabric and that horizontal pin just under the gathered area. Once you have readjusted the gathers, sew everything in place. I use a long stitch length my first time so if I need to make any changes, I can easily pick out the stitches.

3. Finish Your Seams

It may seem kind of obvious, but take the time to finish the seams, especially if you are working with a loose-weave fabric like this drop cloth.

You can see how big of a seam allowance I left. Since slipcovers are made to be removed and laundered, you want the seams to withstand the cleaning process. I have yet to wash this slipcover and you can already see threads pulling free.

4. Sew Close to Piping

If you are using any kind of piping, you want to make sure you are sewing the pieces as close to the piping as possible. I use a zipper foot to get as close as I can to the piping.

I bought this Waverly cording form Goodwill for $1 for about 6 yards! It was originally $5.99/yard so at 3.5 yards, I saved about $19.97. Woo Hoo! At any rate, I couldn’t get too close on the first pass.

You can see how my seam dips down where the edge of my zipper foot caught on the piping. When you have all layers of fabric together, though, there will be a layer of fabric over the piping. This allows you to get your zipper foot right along the edge of the piping for a tight fit.

Sew the piping so it lays up and not down for the best overall look. Trust me on this one. I did it both ways and up is better.

I sewed my pleats the same way I did for my pleated pillow sham.

5. Leave An Opening

The curved arms of this bench required some kind of opening at the sides to help ease the cover on. I thought about sewing the front side closed and just leaving the back open, but after taking the slipcover on and off a few times, I thought it would stress the seams too much. I wanted something that would hold things tightly, though, so I came up with a good solution.

I dug in my stash of ribbon and found some large grosgrain ribbon with velcro on the ends that I had saved. They came with a couple of blankets we bought a year or so ago and I threw them in my stash thinking they might come in handy some day. I love it when I do that.

These ribbons were a great solution to hold the sides down. I also dug through my stash for some buttons for each of the side panels. Whenever I have a dress shirt that is ruined, I make sure to harvest the buttons off of it before tossing it.

Now, if you’re an eagle-eye, you can see that my buttons are closer together on the right side then on the left. Meh. I noticed, too, but I honestly don’t care. If you knew the depths my perfectionism has sunk me in the past, you’d know that I am well on the road to recovery just by that statement alone.

I briefly debated re-cutting the side panel, stamping the new panel, ripping out the pleats and the cording and the gathers and re-sewing everything. However, no sooner did the thought enter my mind than I kicked it to the curb. I can handle wonky button placement over picking out gathered stitches.

Unless you are bending down or standing at a very strange angle in my room, you can’t see the buttons anyway, so it’s all good.

I wish I could have figured out a better way to make the cording come together, but there just wasn’t a good way. It’s thicker than most piping and putting three layers of it there at the join does make it pooch out a bit. Again, not super noticeable, especially if you aren’t looking for it. It’s just one of those perfectionist things in me.

Cost Breakdown:

Drop Cloth – $7.38 (I used about half of a $14.75 drop cloth)
Piping – $1.00
Paint – $.99
Velcro Ribbon and Buttons – Stash on hand

Total Project Cost – $9.37

Total Project Time – About 5 hours, including painting the fabric.

For the record, I thought about painting the legs. Even though they look like wood, they are actually plastic. For now, I like how the legs tie in with the other wood pieces in my room so I’m going to leave them be.

Also, you may have noticed in my first shot that painting has begun. My walls looks a bit like an Easter basket threw up on it. I have finally chosen a color and painting my room this weekend. Also, I will be staining the wood for behind my bed.

Here’s a list of what I still have left to do in this room:

Paint the walls & ceiling
Stain the boards for tongue and groove wall
Install wood wall
Finish trim around closet doors
Finish installing baseboards
Make heater cover
Paint and caulk all trim and baseboards
Hang curtain rods
Make curtains
Make night stands
Repaint dresser or replace dresser – still deciding
Create artwork for walls
Make slipcover for armchair

At the rate I’m going, I may have it done in time for as our anniversary present for next year! We will be celebrating the big 25. Hopefully, I can gain some traction on this list, but once I have the walls and the trim work done, I plan to shift my focus to some other projects around the house that need to be done while the weather is good.

Are you working on projects for the Memorial Day weekend or are you going somewhere fun? We may try to sneak up to Lake Erie on Monday, but we don’t have any set plans.

Suesan

You can check out my other bedroom makeover projects: Bedding/Bed Skirt/Headboard, Pleated Pillow Sham, Custom-designed Chair Seat, Chair Refinish, Pottery Barn Knock Off Quilt, Industrial Lights & Fandelier.

Wallpaper for Windows

2012-05-22T09:46:00.001-04:00

When we moved into our house, there were only four blinds left in the house. Unlike most houses, this wasn’t really an issue for me because living out in the country gives us a lot of privacy.

Our house is up on a hill, set back in some trees. Here is the view to the road from our house.

If you are wondering where the road is, it’s actually those light spots you can see through the trees just above the planter of moss. If you draw a horizontal line out from the planter, any light spot you see is the road.

Here is the view during the winter time. You can see the road from the house now, but because of the angles, privacy is still not really an issue.

Consequently, I still only have four blinds in my home. In any of the other 20 homes I’ve lived in during the past 24 years, getting curtains or blinds up is usually a top priority. In this home, not so much. We have such a great view from nearly every window, I simply haven’t wanted to cover it up.

Also, this home is dark. The south and west sides of the house are shaded by trees and I love me some light. Blocking out the little light we get is not something I’m willing to do. When the folks at Wallpaper For Windows^TM contacted me about reviewing their product, I was kind of torn. I was excited to try it out, but I didn’t know which window to use it on.

I finally decided to change up my back front door. If you are wondering what a back front door is, it’s a door that was once upon a time the front door of the house but is no longer used as such.

Way back when, the driveway to the house had to be reconfigured and the parking and entryway are now on the other side of the house. So we have a front front door and back front door. The boys use the back front door to get to and from the school bus. Everyone else, besides the boys and the dog use the front front door.

Since I rarely use this area, it hasn’t been a top priority for me. However, it’s on the To Do list and I’m working on some of the simple changes I can make right now. The window area doesn’t look so bad from a distance, but up close, it needs some love.

Either a really tiny bird had some serious internal distress issues going on, or an army of bugs smashed into this window at full speed. I’m not really sure what all that white stuff is and I’m pretty sure I don’t really want to know.

Here’s how it looks from the inside.

There are a lot of things we could focus on here. The crammed bookcase with the Build-A-Bear monkey on the shelf, the dirty dog door, the walking stick propped against the shelf or the fact that I have yet to hang any pictures under the word area to the left. Let’s just ignore all of that, ‘kay?

Look at the window.

The side light had a privacy film already on this glass, but we really don’t need the privacy. While I didn’t mind the bamboo, I really missed being able to see out of the window. Look at the view. It’s nice to see a bit of green because trust me, this area of the house is dark nearly all day long. I don’t call it the cave for nothin’!

I didn’t know how long the film had been on the glass. I tried to pry up the corners to see if it would peel off, but I couldn’t get ahold of any of the corners. I broke out my heat gun and applied a little heat to the film.

I melted a bit of the corner area and then peeled the film off. It came off in about 3 pieces.

Again, the close up shots reveal the dirt and the need for some paint touch ups. We are focusing on the WINDOW, remember?

After the old film was removed, I could see just how much cleaning the glass needed.

Even still, look at that light! I love it. I cleaned off the window and door area.

Some of the spots on the windows are between the panes of glass. I used a razor to scrap off old paint from the glass and I scrubbed the bug/bird poop or whatever it was off the red paint.

Installing the Wallpaper For Windows^TM couldn’t be easier. You simply spray the window with water mixed with a couple drops of dish detergent. Wetter is better.

Next, you peel the protective backing off the film and attach the film to the glass. I had my film cut to the size of the glass which was very nice since they figured out the spacing for me. I am using the Allure Leaded Glass See-Through Film.

Next, you need to squeegee out the bubbles. To do that, simply spray more of the water solution on the film and use a straight edge of some kind, like a credit card, to push the bubbles out. I have a mini-squeegee so I used that.

Starting from the center, gently push the bubbles out to the edges. The Wallpaper For Windows^TM film has no adhesive and uses static cling to adhere to the window. If you mess up, simply peel it off and start over.

My film was just a smidge too long. I used a new razor to trim off the excess and I had a perfect fit.

If you plan to cut your own, I suggest having a couple of new blades because this film is thick and you’ll want to make sure you have a sharp blade for a nice, clean cut.

Yes, I am aware that the film covered up the section of the window frame that is not painted. It’s on my list. My list gets longer by the day!

The film now looks like it’s a part of the window, and not something stuck over the top of it. Plus, I thought that little extra bit might dry up and pull away from the window.

I love the new look. It’s simple and clean and allows us to see a bit of the outdoors. It really does let more light into this area. The film isn’t perfectly clear like glass is.

I have since smoothed out the bubbles you see in the picture here, I’m just too lazy to go take another photo. The window film does look clearer from the outside looking in.

Hubs and the boys all like the change as well and it’s a small change that has a big impact.

Again, while I didn’t hate the before, I absolutely love how it looks now! Again, look at the Window. Pay no attention to that groovy banister on the right. Focus, people. Wiiiinnnnndooooow.

Do you have a window or door that needs some privacy or a little oomph? While it would really add up if you have a lot of windows to do, the window film is fairly comparable in price to other window treatments. I would have loved the window wallpaper for the one house I lived in where my kitchen window overlooked the neighbors bedroom window. Every time I did the dishes, I imagined ways I could change the view.

Would you like a chance to try out Wallpaper For WindowsTM and see how you like it? I’m giving one lucky reader a chance to try out Wallpaper For Windows^TM for themselves ($75 value).

There are 8 total chances to win, because I’m awesome that way. Use the Rafflecopter form for the different ways to win. You can even answer the question or Tweet daily for extra entries, if that’s how you roll.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’ll be back in a few days to show you more of this area and my plans for it. Overall, I’m thrilled with the change and would definitely purchase this product for my home.

Suesan

*I was not compensated for writing this post, but I did receive the product you see reviewed here for free. All opinions are my own and I would not endorse a product that I didn’t like.

my most memorable mother’s day

2012-05-11T12:29:00.001-04:00

Mother’s Day is upon us once again and I thought it was time for me to share the story of a Mother’s Day I will never forget. Sit down and buckle up, Friends, cuz’ this is one long, bumpy ride.

Allow me to set the stage for you. The year was 1999 and we were living in Orem, Utah. We were in our third home in two years. Hubs was working during the afternoon to late nights and I worked part-time during the days. Our schedule was such that when one of us was with the kids, the other was sleeping or working. It was a very tough schedule.

Man-child was nine, Baby Girl was seven, Buddy was three and Kiddo was one. Man-child was my only sleeper. Baby Girl was still waking up a couple of times a night with night terrors, the result of a house fire that started in her room with her bed catching fire in the middle of the night. That’s a story for another time, but two years later she still wasn’t sleeping well.

Buddy, was a restless sleeper and for the some reason, the freedom of a big boy bed was too much for him. He would wake up a couple of times a night. Kiddo was over a year, but was still waking up 1-2 nights. Kiddo was born 6 weeks early and although he was long, he didn’t have the body fat to allow him to go very long between feedings.

Between the three kids, I was getting woken up about once every two – three hours a night. If I went through a four-hour stretch of sleep, it felt like a dang good night. This had been going on for over a year by now and to say I was exhausted is the grossest understatement of the word possible. I thoroughly know and appreciate why sleep deprivation is prohibited by International law. Unfortunately, my kids weren’t not exactly willing to follow the rules of the Geneva Convention.

By the time Mother’s Day was rolling upon us, life was more difficult than I wanted it to be. Hubs job had never panned out to be the job we were expecting and we were actively looking for new work. For a newspaper editor, a new job means a new location and another move. Money was incredibly tight as well. If you are one of those who think that newspapers pay well, let me inform you, they don’t. I believe we were in the category of the working poor. Moving destroys a family budget for about a year and we were still recovering from two moves and planning for a third.

A week or so before Mother’s Day, we got a call asking if Man-Child would be willing to give a talk in Sacrament meeting. For those of you who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sacrament meeting is our main worship service. Since the Mormon church is lay ministry (no one is paid to serve in the church), the services are given by members of the congregation. The services for this Mother’s Day included people from all age ranges speaking about mothers.

Normally, I would have helped Man-Child prepare his talk, but it kind of felt like writing my own eulogy. I’d asked Hubs to help with the talk and reminded him several times beforehand to make sure it got done. He assured me it was taken care of and it was nice to not have to worry about the talk.

On Sunday morning, we were sitting in church. We were about 5 or 6 rows back from the pulpit. Our building was a stake center, which meant the chapel area is bigger than a normal ward building. Our particular ward had many older members whose adult children and families often attended our ward on big days. The building was packed.

Seated behind me was this one sister. I will call her Sister Perky, since I have long since forgotten her name. Sister Perky was everything I was not. Her kids were past the torture stage. She was cute and tiny and obviously had money. She had many friends in the ward and every time I saw her, she was laughing at something. I’m sure she was a wonderful woman. I pretty much hated her. Her teenage daughter sat next to her, a younger version of her Momma.

Finally, the services began and soon it was Man-Child’s turn to talk. I’m not sure what I expected. I knew I wouldn’t be gushed over, and in all honesty, I can’t remember much of the talk. Here’s what I do remember. “My talk is on Mother’s Day. I’m not sure what my mom does. She sleeps a lot and is always laying down. She loves to read romance novels and someday she wants to write one.”

Oh. My. Hell! He did NOT just say that to several hundred people just now. Breathe, Suesan. He didn’t really just lay your most private desire bare for all the ward to see right now. Breathe, damnit. Why can’t you breathe?! Tee hee hee. The stereo giggling of Sister Perky and the Perkette confirmed that yes, my son had really just said that.

Really? Really!! That’s all you know about me, kid? What about the many, many hours we played Nintendo together. Or the hours we’d spend outside shooting hoops and playing HORSE together? Huh? What about that? How about the 9 years of reading a story every night every. single. night. or the hours of homework help or the dozen or so kick-butt costumes I’d made for him?!! What about the ridiculously awesome cookies I bake or the millions of dinners? Where was the kudos for that?!! Not found in the lines of this talk, I’ll tell you that much. I sat there, stunned, with some weird smile frozen on my face. I didn’t hear the rest of the talk, just the frequent tee-heeing behind me, letting me know that more “joy” was being heaped upon my head.

I glared at Hubs. I said, “I thought you helped him with this?” Hubs didn’t find anything wrong with the talk. He knew that what Man-Child was saying was truthful but it never occurred to him that I might want something different said about me. The talk finally ended. What was less than five minutes felt like five years of my life. I could not get the weird smile off my face, though. I’m okay, people. Nothing to see here. Move it along. Pay no attention to the lady behind the crazy smile.

Next, it was time for the Primary children to sing. Buddy and Baby Girl went up on the stand to join Man-Child for the songs. Buddy was three and being one of the youngest up there, he was moved to the front so he could be seen. I knew that he didn’t know the words but he dutifully stood up there to “perform” with the rest of the kids. Buddy was one of those super-cute kids. The kind that just oozes personality and cuteness. The kind that strangers stop you to tell you what a cute kid you have and that store owners just give him free stuff simply for being so cute. The music started and Buddy got cute, but not in the way I could appreciate.

Buddy stuck his finger up his nose and kept it there for the entire song. “Mother Dear, I love you soooo,” Tee hee hee. “Your happy, smiling face.” TEE Hee hee. “Is such a joy to look at…” TEE HEE Hee. “It makes home a lovely place!” TEE HEE HEE!!! No amount of gesturing or meaningful looks could convince Buddy that his nose was not a finger holder. And, yeah. People noticed. It wasn’t just Sister Perky giggling throughout the song. By this point in the services, I felt like there was a Klieg light shining right on me! The frozen smile was still there, but I was not happy.

The next speaker got up and began to speak and things settled down for a few minutes. Kiddo started fussing and Hubs, giving me a break, took the baby out to the foyer. That left me sitting on the bench with Baby Girl and Buddy, who were prone to fighting given more than 2 minutes together. I quickly moved a child to each side of me to nip any problems in the bud, when Buddy turned to me and loudly said, “Mom! I gots to PEEE!!!!” Tee Hee Hee! Thanks, Sister Perky. I guess you heard that one, too. I’m pretty sure half the ward heard it.

There was no possible way I could have brought myself to stand up and walk out of the chapel with everyone looking at me. I couldn’t do it. Since Hubs had just walked out, I sent Buddy out to find his dad. Several minutes passed. I still was not able to hear anything the speakers said. I focused on breathing and trying to bring my heart rate back down out of the red zone.

Then, I heard it. Sharp, loud intake of breath followed by chuckling and giggling. It started at the back of the chapel and rolled towards the front of the chapel in a wave of snickering, gasping and giggling. I was not sure what the commotion was, but somehow I knew it had to do with me and my child. I turned around to look and there was Buddy, heading up the aisle with his corduroy pants around his ankles and his Barney Butt underwear flashing the ward.

Oh. My. LANTA! I could not catch a break! Dear Lord, take me now! Just open up a portal and drop me in it. Please?! The snorts and laughter coming from Sister Perky and the Perkette have no sound I could replicate. It’s that weird laugh you do when you know you shouldn’t be laughing but you can’t keep it in. Silent guffawing, if you will.

The meeting from Hell finally ended and I spent the next two hours trying to laugh it off as members of the ward tried to laugh it off with me. I pretty much figured that my sole purpose for attending church that Sunday was to help every other woman feel better about her efforts to be a good mom. They could all say, “I may have problems, but at least I’m not Sister Kennard!”

It was the single most humiliating day of my life. As I have told people the story over the years, there has been much laughter. My mom told me, one day you will laugh about this. If I had been Sister Perky and had a front row seat to it, I would have been her. I would have giggled and laughed and silent guffawed my way through the service, too.

It’s been 13 years, and I still am not laughing because here’s the thing that no one knows. When we got in the van, all my humiliation and hurt and embarrassment were more than a seriously depressed, sleep-deprived woman could handle. I was mad at Hubs, convinced that somehow he could have stopped some of that from happening. I was overwrought and pushed to an edge I didn’t know existed. As we left the parking lot to drive the three-blocks to get home, I made a plan to kill myself.

Orem is at the foot of Mt. Timpanogos. There are foothills and sharp cliffs and canyons. My plan was to drive up to the top of one of the cliffs and just drive over the edge.

I was fully committed and determined to do it. Three blocks doesn’t seem like a lot of time to come up with such a plan, but if Hubs hadn’t refused to leave me alone in the van when we got home, I’m certain I would have done it. I know that God had heard my short prayer that basically said, “If you don’t want me to see you in a few minutes, you better intervene here.”

I honestly don’t remember much of the rest of the day. I know I cried. I called my Mom. I slept. I probably yelled. It was a day I have tried desperately to forget and I’m not sure if I will ever be able to laugh about it.

The thought of killing myself may seem a drastic reaction to you, but it wasn’t the first time I’d wanted to hurt myself. Shortly after the fire, I started fantasizing about cutting my wrists. Scared the hell out of me the first time it happened because I was actually holding a knife at the time. I thought how nice it would be to just cut my wrist instead of the vegetables. It would only hurt for a moment and then all the pain I was feeling would go away.

I dropped the knife and ran out of the kitchen because I had never had such an overwhelming desire to hurt myself before. After that, the thought came more often and was just as scary to me every time. Not for how ugly a thought it was or how squeamish I am, because I am squeamish, but because of how strongly I wanted to do it.

It has been a thought that has stayed with me for the last 15 years or so. Whenever my stress is high and my personal resources are low, that is the thought that plagues my mind. However, you should know that in all that time, I have never once actually cut myself. Never.

I have taken a red pen and have drawn across the place I’ve wanted to cut. I even drew the line up my arm one time, knowing that if I ever cut myself in that direction it wouldn’t be a cry for help but a six minute countdown on the rest of my life. It has been very, very hard to not follow up on such strong feelings.

Despite the overwhelming desire to cut myself, I have fought off those feelings and desires for one reason – my kids. I could never hurt them in that way. Here’s the thing. No matter how inadequate or bad I have felt as a mom, I have also known very, very clearly how deeply my children love me. They have seen past my flaws and have adored me from day one. That has always been very clear to me and I could never, ever harm them by hurting myself. That is something I could not live with. No matter how terrible things have felt to me, the love my children have for me has stopped me from hurting myself.

Pretty horrifying, right? For most of my adult life, about 25 years now, I have dealt with depression in one form or another. Most people who find out I have depression are genuinely surprised. I am a fairly positive, upbeat person. I laugh a lot. I have a lot of natural optimism, so my natural demeanor is not one of an Eeyore. I’m more like Tigger, full of fun, fun, fun. But less Bouncy. Depressed is not an adjective easily applied to me, and yet, it has been a struggle throughout my life.

I felt impressed to share my story because I know there are many women who struggle with depression. If my story can help someone understand what they are going through, then I’m happy to share. I will share a bit more in later posts to share the strategies I have developed over the years to manage my depression. If you are struggling, get help. Reach out to someone and find a ways to deal with the stresses of your life. Do not ever give up.

I also wanted to share because I think we all reach a point where we feel inadequate as a mother. Raising children is not for the faint of heart. Children can be embarrassing and demanding and challenging. You may feel like all your efforts are unnoticed or unappreciated or in vain. You may at times feel like there is a spotlight on you, highlighting for the whole world how much you suck at being a mother. Or, maybe that was just me.

But if it is also you, please remember that while those feelings may feel very real, I guarantee that they are not true. Things do get better. Not usually in one fell swoop, but in tiny increments, things improve. Kids grow up and the seasons of your life change. Those efforts you are making to teach and love and raise your children do make a difference. You may be blessed to see snippets of those differences along the path of motherhood. Mostly, it takes time to see that you have done a good job and that you are enough.

It takes time to realize you can’t do it all, you could have done some things differently, you probably should have made some different choices along the way, and that you did the very best that you could at the time. But the good that you do by being present, listening, loving, participating, encouraging, disciplining, strengthening and just showing up every day to try again – well, that matters. Probably more than you can ever fully appreciate.

You are not alone is this journey. You are not the only mom who’s kid threw a public tantrum and got permanently banned from the library. Other mom’s have had kids get stuck in the washing machine.

There are plenty of women who’ve had the police call them to tell them their kid got picked up for shoplifting. You are not the first mom to be lied to or thrown up on or whose kid has poop squishing out their diaper and landing on the department store floor without a diaper bag handy so you can clean it up. Other moms have gone through it, too, and have managed to survive. You will, too.

There are plenty of moms who can’t volunteer at the school or go to every single 936 baseball games or soccer matches of the season. Many, many, many moms bring store bought treats to school events, buy their kid’s Halloween costume off the rack and don’t throw themed birthday parties. Not every single event can be a Hallmark moment and if you snap a picture or take a video of more than half of your kid’s life, you’ll miss out on the other half just trying to watch it all. Not all of us can or even want to do it all. Give yourself permission to be enough right where you are right now.

As I celebrate this Mother’s Day, I am so grateful for the chance to be a Mom. I would never exchange one minute of my experiences for anything in the world. I have been greatly blessed. I am so amazed by the wonderful people my children have grown into. I am so thankful that my challenges and inadequacies have not harmed them. They are the very best part of me and I am so proud to be their mother.

Nathan, my Man-Child. He stole my heart 22 years ago. I have never wanted it back.

Ryley. My Baby Girl/Daja. She is 20 and beautiful in every single way.

Noah. My Buddy. He’s 16 and still cute. One hug from him is enough to cure whatever ails me.

Sam. My Kiddo who towers over me at 14. He’s 6’3” and no where near done growing. He needs a big body to house his giant heart and spirit.

Happy Mother’s Day. May you always remember that you are enough!

Suesan

ps. If you know someone who can relate to my story, would you please share it with them? Thank you!

a quick fix, fabric stamping & a winner

2012-05-07T09:38:00.001-04:00

I am still chugging along on my bedroom makeover project. The last couple of weeks have been cold and rainy and since I still don’t like to paint when it’s cold out, my walls are still pink and my ceiling is still dingy. Here’s hoping that this week will be the last days of the pink.

I decided it was a good time to turn my attention to the bench at the end of my bed.

I have to admit that I don’t mind the toile pattern with my matelassé quilt, but it’s still not my favorite. The fabric is dirty and snagged in places and with the new pillow shams it kind of bugs me.

If you are new here, let me recap by telling you that I have two looks for my bed. The matelassé cover above is my warm weather bedding, while my winter bedding is what I like to call the Hades quilt for how difficult it was to make. It looks so divine on my bed, though, I’m thinking I’ll need to rename it soon.

Again, the bench doesn’t look bad now that it’s not against the muted rainbow that was my bedroom before the makeover began. It’s just not what I want.

Before I could makeover the bench, I needed to do a quick fix. The corner piece that holds the leg on broke and needed some attention.

The welds on the corner piece broke and the fix required me to break out my best McGuiver skills.

I started out with these tools.

Someone wanted in on the picture and wasn’t budging.

What? Me? You want me to move out of your way? I don’t understand. Don’t you love me?

He’s such an attention pig. At any rate, my first fix went something like this.

After I did the steps above, I put it all together and attached it to the bench, using a brace from my old dining room chairs that I’d saved from when I made my chair bench. I put it all back together and it looked like this:

Originally, I didn’t pry off both sides of the grooved pieces, and I used washers to fill the gap on the side that I did pull off. That fix lasted about three days before the failing. I took it all apart again, pried off the other piece, bolted it tightly to the corner brace and then put L-brackets under the corner brace for added support. I don’t have a picture of it but it pretty much looks exactly like the picture above.

I re-stapled the felt underneath and the new fix is holding nicely.

The legs are a weird plastic material. I have a set of wooden legs out in the barn so if this fails again, I’ll go to plan C. I do plan to paint the legs, but I wanted to wait until I had the slipcover made.

I know I could reupholster this bench. As far as upholstery projects go, it’s not as hard as a chair, but with the curved arms, it is a bit more complicated. I’ve never made a slipcover and I’d much rather try that first.

I hate picking out fabric. It stresses me out. I had some fabric I liked in mind for the bench and had even bought a yard of it. When I went back to get more, though, it was all gone and since I had a drop cloth from my chair redo, I figured I could just use the drop cloth for the bench.

With all the cream fabrics on the bedding, I didn’t think a plain drop cloth slipcover would be very exciting. I decided to try my hand at stamping the fabric to see if I could create a design I like.

Back in the day, I used to be a big stamper and would get together with a bunch of friends to make cards and other things. After I moved from that town, I’ve rarely stamped anything, but I’ve yet to part with all my supplies.

I pulled out my large hydrangea stamp from Stampin’ Up and used some DecoArt Americana acrylic paint in Light Avacado.

You can see that the stamp is bigger than the bottle of paint, to give you an idea of how large this stamp is. I made up a stamp pad by putting a piece of felt over a scrap of Fun Foam. I squirted some paint onto the felt and rubbed it in with my finger.

This worked out really well. Even though it looks like there is too much paint on the stamp, it inked up the stamp just fine and the extra paint did not blur the image at all.

I have a large piece of Fun Foam that I like to put under my paper or fabric when stamping. It helps me get a crisper image. Because this is such a large stamp, you really need to use two hands to stamp the image.

If you only stamp with one hand, your image is clear on one side where the most pressure was put and muddy/fuzzy/unclear where there wasn’t enough pressure.

I stamped away on all the pieces of the slipcover, prior to sewing it together. I didn’t bother ironing my fabric before stamping and there are a couple of spots where the fabric was folded when I stamped, but I don’t mind. Also, it was hard to get a full, crisp image every time with this big of stamp, but I think the variations just add an aged feel to the fabric. I just randomly stamped the image around the fabric.

Here’s how the fabric looks:

I’m sewing up the slipcover today and hope to show that to you later this week. I’m really excited to work on it and think it’s going to be great accent for the bed.

A couple of things to know. Hubs and I use acrylic paint all the time on fabric. Hubs uses it to make a scout emblem and troop number on t-shirts for his scouts. We never add fabric medium to it and the images have held up through many, many washings. We usually never heat-set the images, either.

Another thing to know is that the paint did dry a bit on the stamp while I was working. I could tell when I started to lose some of the details in the leaves. I had to stop a couple of times and wash the stamp off, but then was good to go again.

Finally, it took about one full bottle of paint (2 oz.) to do the whole slipcover.

Cost Breakdown:

Bolt & Nut for fix – $1.97
Paint – $.99

Total Project Cost – $2.96

Total Project Time – About 1.5 hours

Now, for the winner of the Ramsign house number sign, congratulations goes to Jan Elizabeth, who follows me by email. Be looking for an email, Jan!

Have any of you ever created your own fabric design or stamped on fabric? Anyone made a slip cover and have some good advice for me?

Suesan

Ramsign Giveaway

2012-04-27T10:39:00.001-04:00

When I first started blogging, I was pretty good about entering every giveaway that came down the turnpike. I wanted to play along and so I did. Then this amazing thing happened. I won! Not just some little thing, either, I won a Silhouette machine. It was huge. I was shaking and crying and doing that whole Miss America, hand over the mouth excited move. It was awesome.

This is not me. I am not a Miss America winner and I would never wear that dress. However, she does an excellent job at capturing my reaction to winning.

After I won such a big prize, I stopped entering contests. I felt kind of greedy, plus, it’s a lot of work. However, every now and again I see something I really want/need and I enter the contest in the hopes that lightening does indeed strike twice.

A few weeks ago, the good folks at Ramsign contacted me to see if I was interested in doing a giveaway of one of their house number signs. Since I had just finished entering a contest on another blog to win one of their signs, it didn’t take me long to say, “Yes, please!”

If you haven’t seen Ramsign products, prepare to be amazed.

Ramsign has been making porcelain enamel hand-crafted signs since 1991. Every one one of their signs is gorgeous.

I love the classic look of this arched sign. Isn’t it beautiful?

Ramsign is giving one Frou FruGal reader a house number sign (up to 5 numbers) of any size and style.

Sweet! I wish I could enter. I love the round signs.

Oooh. Or the vintage feel of the Highlander style.

Oh, and I love the red in the Lighthouse style, even though I’m trying to get rid of the red on the outside of my house. This sign has me rethinking red.

But, seriously, I really love the cobalt blue of the Metropolitan signs and absolutely love this color outside. *Swoon*

Okay, so it’s probably a good thing the sign is for one of my readers because I’d obviously have a tough time choosing.

How To Win:

Would you like to win a sign for your house? It’s pretty simple, just choose any (or all) of the following entry methods.

Go to Ramsign and tell me which style is your favorite.
Follow Frou FruGal – RSS, Google+, Facebook, Google Friends Connect, Email – I don’t care how you follow, just tell me how you do. If you leave a separate comment for each way you follow me, you’ll have more chances to win.
Like Ramsign on Facebook and leave a comment letting me know.

If you ever wanted to feel like a big winner, you should enter this giveaway. Since I’m not in the same leagues as the big girls, your odds of winning are really, really good!

The giveaway is open until May 4th, 12 p.m., EDT. I’ll announce the winner on May 5th. (Edited: Sorry for any confusion from an earlier version. I am giving this away in May, not April).

One final note: please, Please, PLEASE leave your email address if you don’t have it associated with your Google account. If I can’t email you, I’ll have to pick another winner.

Thanks and May the Odds Be Ever In Your Favor! (Edited, again: May the odds be ever in your favor for the winning part. Killing off the competition is not a requirement for this contest).

Suesan

ps. I am not being compensated for this giveaway. I just love these signs and am very happy to give my readers a chance to win one.