Ironing Board Makeover

I finally buckled down and finished ironing all of Tyler’s work clothes.  Have I ever mentioned how much I loath ironing?  Well, I do and to prove my point I will admit that it took me approximately one and a half months to iron maybe 15 shirts and 5 pairs of pants.  Ugh!

As I was ironing, I was once again reminded how much I hate my ironing board.  It’s just your basic Target model that I’ve had since college, but it’s seen better days.

The padding under the fabric is minimal and drives me crazy because it shifts all over (notice it peeking out the side there?) and leaves places where I’m ironing without it.

The fabric for some odd reason doesn’t even fit all the way around the board anymore (even though I’ve never washed it) and it will slide up the sides and bunch up when I pull fabric across it.

And one of the huge things I hate about my ironing board is it SQUEAKS… badly!  Every time I take it out and put it away I brace myself for something similar to nails on a chalkboard.

I hope you’re convinced now of my utter distain for this thing.  No wonder I hate ironing!

So after ironing what seemed like Tyler’s entire wardrobe I decided I’d had enough.  Marie and I took a trip to JoAnn’s and found some pretty fabric, plush batting and all the other essentials to complete the project.

Before we left for the store though, I did some research online to find out just how to go about constructing your own ironing board cover.  It seems there are a few different ways, some more simple than others.  With all the problems my current cover had I decided to go with instructions from this site, which seemed like a very sturdy, well constructed cover to me.  I wanted something that will last, not that I would have to change with the seasons.

So, here’s what I got:

1 3/4 yards of cotton fabric

1 yard of cotton batting (mine was 90” wide so I didn’t need the full 1 3/4 yards like the instructions say)

4 yards worth of extra wide double fold bias tape

4 yards worth of 3/8” elastic

2 buttons

thread for the sewing machine

I basically copied exactly what the website says but I’ll run you through the steps just so you can see what I did.

 

After I washed and dried both the fabric and the batting, I marked 2 1/2 inches around the ironing board and cut out the fabric.  Then, using the fabric as a template, I cut out the batting.

If you notice, I folded my batting over so it would be double the thickness.  I wanted my padding to be nice and plush.  One yard gave me just enough, and thank goodness because I would’ve been sad had I ended up with just not enough and couldn’t double it.  Next time (if there ever is one…) I’d get 1 1/4 yard of the batting to be on the safe side.

Next, I pinned the fabric to the batting so it wouldn’t slip when I stitched them together.

Side Note: In all the traveling and chaos from Christmastime I never blogged about my spankin’ new sewing machine my parents got me for my birthday.  Thanks Mom and Dad, I love it!

Ok, on with the progress…

Once I had pinned the pieces all together, I baste stitched them together along the edge, nothing specific, maybe a 1/4 inch inseam.

Then, I took my two pieces of bias tape and stitched them together to make it long enough to go around the cover.  Pressing the seam open so it would fold back up nicely.

Next, I found the middle of the short back end of the cover by folding it in half and marking it with a pin (see below), this is where you start sewing the bias tape to the cover.

I sewed the short side (I hope that makes sense) of the bias tape to the batting just along the first crease.  Lining the edge of the bias tape up to the edge of the batting.  I also folded over the edge of the tape where I started so it would have a nice finished edge when it was all done.  When I got all the way around I left about an inch of space without any bias tape to allow the elastic to come out and be tied together.

Then, I sewed my two pieces of elastic together haphazardly to make it long enough.

Starting where the elastic would come out the opening of bias tape, I lined the elastic up with the edge of the cover on the fabric side and wrapped the bias tape over the elastic and stitched it closed all the way around.  Being very careful not to stitch through the elastic or it wouldn’t stretch later.

There were a few places where I got very close to stitching through the elastic and in hindsight using a 1/4” wide elastic instead of 3/8” would have saved me a bit of headache.

After the elastic was all encased, I pulled it from the two openings to gather the binding so it would fit snuggly onto the ironing board.

The last step after fitting the cover to the ironing board was to sew the buttons onto the elastic so it wouldn’t be lost once it was untied.

Viola!  My new, and much improved, ironing board cover! Although I may not like ironing any more than I did before, at least I have a nice ironing board cover to look at that won’t give me grief.  Now all I need to do is fix the squeak!

P.S. Bravo if you’ve made it to the end, this post was long!

Caffeinating…

A few years ago I went with a friend to paint some pottery.  This is what I made.

It’s a coffee mug, and I really like it. Unfortunately though it gets really hot when it’s full of coffee so I have only used it a few times.

A while back I ran into some homemade cup cosies from sewtara and thought it was the perfect solution for my unused mug.

What do you think?  Isn’t that cute?

I might try to expand my embroidery skills and give this a try. 

A Costume in the Works

I started sewing a costume for Marie today, and since this is my first attempt at costume making I wanted to keep it pretty simple.

I’m not sure if we will be taking her trick or treating this year, but Tyler’s office is letting all the little tykes come in on All Saints Day (Nov. 1st) to get candy from everyone’s desk.  I thought it sounded pretty cute.

The only stipulation – they have to come dressed as either a saint or a figure from the Bible.

Can you guess what Marie will be?

I’ll give you a clue – lots of white fabric and blue ribbon – that pretty much sums it up.

Ok, ok so some of you may say that Blessed Mother Teresa isn’t a saint yet… well give me a break!  She’s close enough and her outfit seemed like the easiest one by far!

I only have a few more yards of ribbon to sew and this little costume is done.  I’ll be sure to show our little Mother Teresa all dressed up with her candy loot that we are looking forward to eating for her!

Fall Bouquet

A few weeks ago we drove through Colorado and had seen all the aspens changing a beautiful golden yellow. I have been sort of disappointed since then noticing that very few trees here in Denver have begun to change colors.  I guess it just hasn’t been cold enough.

Anyways, I wanted to have some fall colors around our place but I really didn’t want to go buy some fake leaves at the store.

1) They aren’t as good as the real thing.

2) They just look fake.

3) If I don’t have to spend $$ I don’t want to.

So, Marie and I went for a walk today to see if we could find some festive fall leaves and, to my surprise, we did! 

I was a little hesitant to just walk around our neighborhood, imagining some home owner running out his front door yelling at me for pulling branches off his trees.  Luckily, we have a nice path that runs through a park across the street and then follows a city drainage way.  I kept to the path thinking whatever I could find along the path would be city land and not private property.

We found lots of beautiful leaves and even some berries!

These were some of my favorites, I just love the multiple colors on one leaf!

Not Bad for $2!

With all my time at home yesterday I was able to finish my wreath.  I’m actually pretty pleased with how it turned out too!  And for $2, you just can’t say no to this guy!

I’d like to think it brings a bit of fall flavor to our living room, but I don’t know if book pages could really count as fall decor.

Since I got it done yesterday, and still have a day without my car, I think Marie and I will go on a hunt this afternoon for some colorful fall leaves to decorate with.  I just love getting our place all spruced up and ready for fall, even if I can’t spend much money doing it.  I guess that just motivates me to be more creative!

What Can You Get for $2?

I stopped by the Goodwill yesterday just to see what kind of neat junk they had.

I stumbled upon a wreath form for 99 cents and remembered a fun project I had seen on jones design company blog a few days back. I picked up the wreath and headed over to the used book section. I had a plan! I perused for a few minutes and finally chose a book that I liked because of its yellowed pages and neat titles on every page. At 99 cents for the book, this project was well on its way to becoming my cheapest yet!

I’m homebound for the next few days while my car is in the shop. So I’m taking this opportunity to try and get this thing done! I’ll be sure to post the finished product and hopefully it’ll be worth the wait!

Too Good to Pass Up

When shopping do you ever see something you love and then look at the price and think “Do I really need this?”.

“Do I love it enough to spend that much?”

I do this a lot, and a lot of the time I don’t buy said item because I have a tight budget and I want to be sure I’m making my money count on the things that really matter and that I really love.

A few Sundays ago Tyler and I were driving home from church and we passed an estate sale sign. Just for fun we stopped and I went in as Tyler stayed with a sleeping Marie in the car. As I walked in the guy by the door said, “It’s our last day, everything’s 50% off!”. Score! As I walked through I admired an old ornate buffet, a beautiful old dining table and chairs, a ‘way not my style’ couch and chair set that looked like it belonged in a parlor in 1890. Tons of fun stuff, but nothing I wanted to throw my money at.

It wasn’t until I got to the very end though, the garage to be exact, that I spotted this beauty!

I checked the tag on it… $225. Ouch! And then I thought, “Ok, 50% off… that’s only $112.50!”.

Still a little steep for my budget but I really loved the lines of it and it’s crazy claw feet. So I went back to the car and made Tyler come take a look at it. He wasn’t as impressed as I was. So… we left without it. The guy at the door let us know that they would be there until 4 o’clock if we decided to come back.

We went home and talked a little more about it. I really loved the dresser but I wasn’t sure if 1) we really needed the dresser, or 2) I was willing to spend over $100 for it. I mean, it wasn’t in perfect condition. There were missing knobs and scratches, which meant a bit of time and money were needed to fix it up after I laid down cash for it.

        

Tyler came up with a good solution ( I love my husband!). We would go back just before 4 o’clock and see if it was still there. If so, we would put in an offer of $50. If we could get it at that price, it would be worth it.

So, I did. I took a good friend with me to see if the beauty was still there. As we got there I noticed that many of the pretty things I had seen earlier were gone, and a moment of fear struck me. I was sure my beautiful dresser would be gone (I mean, the couch and chair from 1890 had disappeared and my dresser was much nicer than that!). We made it back to the garage and whew…. there it was!

I asked the guy if he would take $50 for it and he looked at me, thought about it and said, “I’ll do $75, and that’s my last offer.”

“Let me think about it,” I said.

Ahhh!! What do I do? Tyler wasn’t with me to approve the increased price and true to form I had forgotten to bring my cell phone. I was ready to walk away thinking I had lost. Until… my friend encouraged me to counter offer with $60. It wasn’t too much above my original offer after all.

Now, I’m not usually one to haggle but what did I have to lose? I hesitantly went back in and gave him my counter offer and he said… Yes!

So, long story short, I got my dresser and for only $60! I was pretty impressed with myself!

Now that it’s in our place, I’m trying to figure out how to fix it up a bit. I bought a new knob to see if I liked a different look, not knowing if I would be able to replace the wooden knobs. I like the wooden ones, but only having six out of eight and two that don’t even match is not the look I would want to go after.

      

I’ve also seen a lot of painted furniture lately which I love, but am not sure if I could bring myself to paint it (probably a white or cream). What do you think?