The Slipcover that Saved my Sanity

Today I'm participating in an event over at Nesting Place, a blog I read regularly.


The Nester has been posting great ideas for 10 minutes to the room you love. This project took more than ten minutes to make, but it would have taken less than 10 minutes if I would have purchased instead of created. Alas, I'm too cheap!


We live in Spain, temporarily. We're here for two years, with about 5 months of that two years left to go. We are blessed with a beautiful yet tiny little apartment while we're here. It's just big enough for the two of us, and not much more! Although we have supplemented here and there, most of the furniture we have came with the place, and will stay here when we leave, including the love seat pictured above. I'm not too picky, for the most part (Vino might disagree!). All I ask for in living room seating is comfort, the right size, and not ugly. Well, I can't have everything. Two out of three will have to do. This piece of furniture was most likely donated, having been very well cared for by the previous owner, who spent the money & time to have it reupholstered. She actually chose this fabric. Here's a close-up:


All it's purple, green & blue majesty just didn't fit in with my style. So what's a girl to do? We have boxes and boxes of old drapes in the attic where we live, and I had free reign to use what I found. What I did find was a pair of ridiculously wide & short, fairly ugly tan-ish drapes. They had a couple of stains here and there, but the fabric was promising. Thick enough for upholstery fabric, but thin enough for me to sew with my limited abilities. I had sewn a removable slipcover once before in my life and had vowed to never do it again. Well, I had to break my vow. I'm sure you can understand why. I proceeded to make the most simple slipcover that I could possibly make. I can't stand the slipcovers that require constant tucking, so I was glad that this love seat has removable cushions. Pretty much all I did was hold the fabric up to each section of the love seat and cut it out. I've said before on this blog that I don't like to measure. I wing it a lot. What I did plan for, though, was to use the existing hems of the curtains for the bottom hem of the slipcover. No use in reinventing the wheel. I didn't use piping, and I didn't bother to make the arms fitted. I wanted something that would hang straight and that I could pull off easily to wash. Plus, I don't do zippers. The cushion covers overlap in the back. I suppose I could have made button holes, but that would have been more work, so I just tacked them shut with a little thread that I cut & retack for washing. Enough talk. Here's the after:


Not too bad, huh? By the way, the rest of my color palette revolved around trying to make the orange chair look like I want it there, thus the orange & green pillow made from Ikea dish towels and the bowl of oranges on the table.

Do you have things in your house that aren't what you would have chosen, but they are what you have to live with? There are almost ALWAYS cheap yet satisfying things you can do to make them your own. So put away that wallet and figure out something great to do with what you have! And be sure to head over to Nesting Place to check out everyone else's 10 minute makeovers!

Someone to watch over me...and bite my face.

This is the way it usually goes.


It's difficult for me to get a photo of the two of us where we're both smiling.



Sometimes I participate. Sometimes.


I've been known to photoshop two photos of us together to get one descent photo. But I wouldn't have it any other way. We have a lot of fun together.


We're two of a kind, and I can't imagine spending my life with anyone else. He makes me a better person, and I hope that more of my good qualities rub off on him than my bad. He's still my best friend. We tell each other that a lot.


And every once in a blue moon, he'll smile for the camera.


I love you, Vino! Happy Valentine's Day!

Crafty: Make a lavender sachet

Happy Valentine's Day! This is a crafty blog post that could be for Valentine's Day, I suppose. However, I made these for Christmas gifts. They could work year round, though!

I have a hard time buying Christmas gifts. It's not that I don't want to give gifts to my friends and family. On the contrary - I love giving gifts! The thing is, I would much rather MAKE the gifts. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, I'm Cheap, and I'm always looking for ways to save money. But secondly, and most importantly, I love to be creative and give people something that they can't go out and buy at any old store.

This past Christmas was no different. I made a few different things, but the items I spent the most time on were lavender sachets that I gave to all the women in my family, and to a lot of my women friends. Lavender is my favorite fragrance, and it is very plentiful in Spain. It makes me happy. I wanted to share something from this country that I love, with those at home, whom I also love! Silly me, didn't take photos of the process, so I'll improvise. Thanks, Mom, for the photo of the final product!


The arsenal of supplies:


Here's how I made these little heavenly smelling numbers:

1. Gather the lavender flowers. Fortunately for me, this was easy. Lavender is EVERYWHERE in Spain. They use it for shrubs in medians, it grows wild on hillsides... I spent a few months collecting lavender wands whenever I would see them (that didn't look owned by someone else! I have some growing in pots, but it didn't do well last year. So I trolled the neighborhood and found a giant hillside with a path down the middle. On one side of the path was all rosemary and on the other side was all lavender. Score! At the end of the summer, city maintenance guys come along and cut it all down. And THROW IT AWAY! Shameful. Anyways...my friend Crystal and I cut two large tote bags full of lavender, since they were going to throw it away.
2. Dry the flowers. I like to keep them on the wand, but cut off the leaves. They just get in the way. Keep them open to the air. I put them in a large box lid, fluffing & rotating them every once in a while. If you don't dry the flowers first, before putting them in a container, they start to get kinda moist & rotten smelling. Defeats the purpose. They'll probably mold, too.
3. De-flower the wands. It's much easier to do this when the flowers are dry as opposed to fresh. You can just run your fingers down the wand a few time and that will get most of them. I'm kinda anal about not wasting one single flower. I'm weird like that. This was an activity that I liked to do while watching movies, since I can't sit & watch something without feeling guilty if I'm not also accomplishing something else. I stored the flowers in cleaned out bean jars, but use whatever you have.
4. Cut the fabric. I don't measure, if I don't absolutely have to. I also don't mark. I do a lot of eyeball-ing. I used the TELKA dish towel from Ikea. They were only 39 EURO cents each, and I got 9 sachets out of each towel. Talk about thrifty! Basically, I cut the towel like this: For the long rectangular pieces, I folded them in half so that one side had a red stripe at the bottom and one side was just plain white. For the shorter rectangular pieces, I just put those together so that each side of the sachet had a stripe at the bottom.
5. Decorate the fabric. Do this before sewing, in case you mess one up, then you haven't wasted the time of sewing. I used a bird stamp and a red stamp pad for the image. The bird had nothing to do with lavender, but I liked the image, and no one seemed to be bothered by it. :) I have this set that my mom bought for me. I love it! Cavallini has some beautiful stamps. I also used a red sharpie to write "Spanish Lavender" above the stamp. I tested the fabric first to make sure it wouldn't bleed.
6. Sew the pieces together. I used a sewing machine I borrowed from a friend, but these could be done by hand. Put the pieces right sides facing each other & sew the edges together, leaving about an inch and a half open on the end. Clip the corners and turn right-side out.
7. Fill with lavender flowers. I made a little funnel with a piece of paper because I didn't have a funnel on hand, but it would be easier to use a real funnel. Spoon in the lavender and fill the bag mostly to the top, packing it down a little as you go. Leave enough room at the top to be able to sew it closed.
8. Hand-sew it closed. Self explanatory, I hope.

These are great to put in with your sweaters, under-things, etc. I had a headache the other day and fell asleep with one of the sachets on my pillow in front of my nose. Mmmmm. I made about 40 of these things and they cost me hardly anything. They were quite time consuming for that quantity, but it was worth it. And I never once got tire of smelling lavender in my house. Happy smells. :)

baby Cora

Cora passed away. You can read her story here.

{ sniff, sniff...grrrrr }

I Intensely Dislike jacked up hormones.

Things that make me happy

It's snowing again, which is REALLY odd for Madrid. It doesn't look like any is accumulating, though. It's cold (about 36 F - cold for here, heat wave at home for a Nebraska winter!) and gloomy out. We've had a lot of rain lately, and I get happy feelings inside when the sun peeks out on those days. It's a reminder that the dreary days will not be here forever.


Today, Friday, is produce market day. A few vendors come to our tiny little town and set up stalls where they sell the most colorful produce. I'll take my camera some day, but not today. Because it's snowing. And overcast. Vino likes to get grapefruit there because he likes eating them. I like to get grapefruit (pomelo) because of how the the colors look when they are sliced in half on our turquoise colored plates. Silly, maybe, but it makes me happy.


Today I will go to the market and buy more mandarins for Vino, as requested, who is STILL confined to the couch, recouperating. We have another doctor's appointment next week. Poor guy.

Yesterday I turned 37, and he felt bad that he couldn't do much to celebrate. But he made me this, and it made me happy:


That's him on the balloon. I love Butterfingers, and we can't get them here. This one is from his dwindling "stash" in the cupboard. It really didn't bother me that we didn't do anything elaborate. It's not like he can get out and go shopping for me. I like homemade stuff, anyways. It always means more, no matter how humble. :) We ordered Chinese food and rented "The Secret Life of Bees" on iTunes, and had a nice evening at home. Maybe later we'll go out and celebrate. When it's sunny and warmer. That would make me happy.

pray for baby Cora

This is Cora, and she has cancer. You can learn more about her at themcclenahans.blogspot.com


I took this photo from Meg Duerksen's blog whatever, and added the reminder to pray. I printed it out and put it in a place I will see every day. If you want to do the same, here it is 4x6. Please pray for this little one who needs a miracle!