I made pillows out of what?

I have been wanting new pillows for our family room foreva. I was tired of the dark pillows we had in there so I've been looking for just the right fabric to make new ones for months. Last week I found a shower curtain that was perfect. (Yes, a shower curtain.) I left it at Homegoods (yes, I know better) and went back a couple days later and all four curtains in that print were gone. What the ??

So yesterday I spent an hour at Joann's looking for fabric and still didn't see anything that I loved. At the end of the day I ran into Pier One just to see what they had, and nada.

I moseyed over to the table linens to look for another option to make pillows that I had seen awhile back. YES, table linens. I found these and they were perfect:
Yep, placemats. Six bucks a pop. In exactly the colors of our family room. I saw this idea a couple months ago on a blog and cannot remember for the life of me where I saw it, so if you know, tell me and I'll credit her!! (YES! Thanks ladies. It was Katie from Bower Power.)

It was sooooo easy to do this people. Sew easy. HARDY HAR HAR. I used a seam ripper to make a hole in the two fabrics:

That took about five minutes per pillow.

I made a hole big enough for my hand to get in:

Then stuffed like a mad woman. Hobby Lobby has their bags of stuffing on sale for $1.99 this week, so I scored on that one. I used one bag of stuffing per placemat pillow:

Stuffing always takes me longer than everything else combined, every time. I finished it up with a really simple stitch. I don't know what it's called, it just closed it up and that's all I care about:

I didn't even use matching thread people. No one will ever notice, seriously.

Oh my goodness, I LOVE them!!:

I love the little beads on the side that are a little I-will-be-pulled-off-by-the-two-year-old-by-tomorrow bling:
I just love the simplicity of them, and the texture of the fabric. They are plain but that's just what I wanted.

I'm so excited because they also had a rust colored placemat that I didn't get yet (I know, I don't learn) but will be back tomorrow to pick up. It will be perfect for the fall and winter months. Glee!!!

Here's the before pillows (water marks and all):

I still love my striped pillows but they are a little worse for the wear.

Here's another after:

Ahhh yes, simple, clean. CHEAP.

Stay tuned for the accent pillows I'm making to add a little more umph. You'll never guess what I'm making those out of!! If you guess you win a dollar. :)

Our unfinished finished basement.

OK, I make a big deal about this project, and for most of you it will probably totally boring. But I think it is the space in our home I am most proud of. AND it involves no molding. Shocking, I know. There's not even much decorating going on.

But there was a TON of decluttering and organizing involved, which I'm a total sucker for.

Our basement is pretty large, and last year I was feeling frustrated with the TOTAL DISGUSTING PIT it had become. (You'll see what I mean in a second.) What a waste of space! And our son was getting to the push toy/ride on toy/large massive take up ten square feet toy stage.

I was on a mission to make the space usable and enjoyable to be in. Which is a feat for an unfinished basement. I started with the stairs. They were unfinished, with white walls and kitty litter greeting you as you went down. Uhhhh...welcoming:

Grody.

So I bought a gallon of paint, painted the walls, replaced the $5 ugly light fixture, and bought carpet and really good padding for the steps that my father in law installed:

I found this massive NYC photo at Goodwill, SCORE!! It is perfect in this space:

I used the stair treads that were on the steps, put them under the stairway, and put the litter in that spot. Perfectly out of the way:

As you come to come down the steps, this is what we used to see:

A bunch o' crap. Oh, just wait my chickees...it gets worse. MUCH WORSE.

This is what it looks like now, as my "craft/tool room":

I purchased three of the white shelving units, not much else. We had everything else, I just made it work. I've decided this area will be my girly area -- I don't have any other space to do this in the house, and it's getting totally girlified:

As girlified as you can get with cement floors and walls, but still. Stay tuned for some updates.

As you walk to the left, this is what it looked like:
AHHHH!!! OH my goodness, I told you! Can I tell you this wasn't even the worst of it? I had already started sorting this area before I took this picture.

This is what it looks like now:

Dang it. I have room to work out.

To the left again, this is what it looked like:
This is it today:

Total play area, and we all love this space. The carpet was a GREAT price, $80 for about 12 by 16 feet. The train table was $10 at Goodwill, the "roller coaster" is being borrowed from a friend who didn't want it in her basement. HA!

As you walk in a little more, this was before:

This is it now. Hubby works down there, it really is that comfortable:

The area to the right will eventually be his office.

As you look back into the basement, this is what you used to see (stairs on the right):

Atrocious.

Here it is today:
And finally, the area in the back, that will be the office:

Is now just storage. Let's count the Christmas bins, shall we?
OK, really, let's not. Really. I still want to do yet another massive purge in this area this year to get rid of half of this stuff. We'll need to in order for it to fit into what will eventually be the workout/storage room.

We have grand plans for this space, but it will still probably be next year before we finish it. Until then, I've turned it into a whole floor that we really, really do use, comfortably. Total, the stairway transformation cost more than the whole basement did. It cost very little for remnant carpet, new, brighter lights and some storage.

Oh, yeah. And getting rid of your crap is free. Just sayin'.

I luuuuurve basements. What about you -- do you love them, hate them? Do they creep you out? Give you the heebies? Or do they make you feel all warm and cozy? Is yours finished? Or an indoor pool?

I. am. pooped.

Well helloooo there!

I hope you all had a fantastic Fourth!!
We did!
Missed (step)daughter all day but otherwise had a wonderful time with family and friends.

I love being with my two favorite guys. Sigh.


Tonight I am SO tired.

Must.
Sleep.


Tomorrow I will show you my lastest finished project that only took a year to finish!!
Yes. A year.


Have a great Monday!

Retail therapy.

So I was in a deep dark depression the day after the concert. OK, it wasn't deep dark but it was like a shallow grey depression. I know. I know. I've already heard enough slack from my Hubby. I know.

It's just all the build up for months, looking forward to it, had a fantastic time...then it's done. Kaput. Sayonara. Kabosh. Buh bye. So on Tuesday, I took the Bub to daycare and decided to treat myself to a few hours in one of my favorite places to search for treasures.

Midland Arts and Antiques Market in downtown Indianapolis is absolutely amazing -- a massive warehouse, two huge floors chock full of all kinds of dreamy items you can spend hours and hours drooling over. I walked away with a few goodies that I'll show you at the end of this post, but I had to share some of what I found:

Isn't that fantastic? It was labeled a wine jug. I don't care what it is, I loved it.

I've seen these spritzer bottles all over lately, and this one was just loverly:
You like a bird cage, eh? Reheeeaally like them? Check this one out:

Wow. Just wow. It's like the Taj Mahal of bird cages.

Check out the handmade island it was sitting on. Ooooo la la!!:Those corbels and molding are killing me. I could die. Just. Die. (Die! Die! Die! Name that show!)
One shop had these huge letters from an old store sign:

Be still my heart:This pitcher and bowl were only $26 for the set. It killed me to walk away from them. Just beautiful. I had to pass them up, especially not knowing exactly where I would put them.

I loved this X bookcase. Looks like it belongs in the Ballard Designs catalog:

(It had a price to match though.)

Another massive bird cage:

I lurve the iron work on the base of this table!:

And on the front of this wine cabinet:
It was one of my favorites. I'm a sucker for any scrolly and old combo.

I thought this grape cluster light fixture was absolutely adorable!:

This old dress form was so cool. And look what the generic size for women's clothes used to be:

Funny how things change.

The place was overflowing with beautiful cake plates:

These glass orbs were another one of my faves. I was thisclose to getting a few for the guest room, but I'm still not sure on the color I'm going with. I hope they will be around for another week or so just in case:

This apothecary was breathtaking. It was $8600 and I can't even imagine how old it is:And finally, the biggest bird cage I've ever seen:

I find you have to spend a good amount of time in an antique store -- you'll find a lot of (way overpriced) junk. You'll find many items you could find at Goodwill, (overpriced again.) And you'll find a few odds an ends thrown in you could get just about anywhere. There's also real antiques that are completely out of your price range, but if you take your time, you'll find some really great deals as well.

My routine is to case the whole joint, find a few items I love, then go back to find my favorites. (If they are not there anymore, I cry a little and then move on -- my mantra is if I was meant to have it, it will be there for me when I get back.)

So what did I get? Squeal!! I love them! Check out the milkman bottles and carrier I found for $26:

It even had flowers in it, but I added some wildflowers from the preserve in our neighborhood and some lillies from our yard:

GORG! I thought about spray painting it for a split second (quit yelling at me! I don't know what I was thinking!) but really love the rusty parts of it now:

It is antique, after all. I love that I'll have to be good at keeping fresh flowers in the house with this baby in the kitchen.

I had to get a big metal "S" from the old sign -- the front was missing, but I have a few ideas in mind:

I soooo wish the front looked like the back:

I love how chunky it is! And it was only $5!

And finally, you've seen them all over blogland and I couldn't resist these:

I don't even know if I like the whole fork and spoon thing coming back. I mean, I like it in all the other houses I've seen on blogs, but I don't know if they are me. Aren't they adorable though? I figured if anything, I'll sell them on Ebay. :)

Hope you enjoyed the tour! If you ever get a chance, get over to Midland. (And call me if you do!) You won't regret it!

Have a GREAT Fourth of July!! I'll be back later this weekend to either share our basement transformation or the start of the deck transformation -- we'll see what I get done first. ;)