Decorating on a budget, DIY sweater throw pillows, and stump side tables

I love throw pillows. I also love to switch them up for the different seasons, but it's not always in our budget to pay for brand new pillows. Not to mention that many stores sell the feather pillow inserts separately from the pillow cover.  So not only do you need to buy the pillow cover, but then you also have to factor in the price of the pillow insert.  And since nice feather pillow inserts can run anywhere from $14-$26 at places like Pottery Barn, updating a room with a few new throw pillows can get expensive pretty quickly.

Of course you can buy cheaper pillows at places like Target, but I've decided that I really like the feather pillow inserts so much better than pillows stuffed with polyester filling.  Feather pillows are softer and squishier and they always plump back up very nicely.  They don't lose their shape over time either like cheaper pillows do.  And once you have invested in all the feather inserts you need, you can just switch out the pillow covers seasonally or whenever you're ready for a change.  So I've decided the investment in feather pillow inserts is worth it.  But since I am just beginning to build our feather pillow collection, I needed to find ways to do it within our budget.

I read one day on the Nester's blog that to save money, she buys feather pillow inserts at thrift stores and then just runs them through her washing machine and dryer to sanitize them.  Sounded kind of genius to me, so the last few times I've gone to the thrift store, I searched through the pillows to see if I could score any feather pillow inserts. And what do you know... I've found quite a few.  Yesterday, I found five.  They are only $5 each, so I stocked up.

Since Fall has hit here in northern Virginia, I have really had an itch to get some cozy pillows on our couch.  I've been dreaming about some sweater pillows like these:

But, even on sale, these pillow covers cost more than I want to spend right now.  So since my desires are the mother of my creativity, I decided to try to make my own sweater pillow covers from thrifted sweaters (since I didn't have any old sweaters laying around).  

While I was thrift shopping, I looked for well-made, quality sweaters that were soft and had interesting patterns, textures, or lines in them.  I also checked for stains, holes, pills, etc...  Be picky.  Find something you really like or walk away.  Always keep your end product in mind, because you want to love it when you're done.  It's also important to make sure that the sweater you pick is big enough to cover your entire pillow or you will be sad when you go to make your pillow and it doesn't fit.  

Besides sweaters, I looked through men's plaid shirts and women's skirts for any other fabrics, textures, or designs that I thought might make a good pillow.  In the end, I bought two gray sweaters to use for my sweater pillows and a women's linen skirt that I thought could work for a pillow cover too. 

I'm not going to go into any kind of sewing tutorial for you here because I am not a good sewer.  I just try to cut and sew straight lines.  I sewed three sides of the pillow on the sewing machine, then flipped my pillow right side out, stuffed the pillow insert in, then hand-sewed the final side closed.  Pillows are probably one of the simplest things to make, so if you've never sewn anything before, this would be a great first sewing project.  Give it a shot!

Here are how my two sweater pillows turned out

The first one:

The second one:

Our couch and my swinging chair are instantly cozier now!  I'm pretty happy with them both.  Total cost for each pillow including the feather insert and the sweater was about $13 each.  So I think that's pretty good.  They have at least partially satisfied my desires for sweater pillows.... although I may need to make a few more for our couches in the basement.

As a side note, I've been wanting a stump side table for quite some time now.  A few weeks ago, a neighbor set a whole bunch of wood out on the road for the trash truck and I spied a good log in the pile that I thought would make a good side table.  After hauling the log over to my house, I peeled off the bark, sanded it smooth, wiped it clean, made sure it was dry and had no bugs in it, and then I painted and distressed it.  Although it's not perfectly flat across the top, it's perfect enough to hold my books and coffee when I'm sitting in my swinging chair.  And the best part ... it was free!!

What about you?  Are there any fun ways you've found to decorate on a budget?   

Snippets of Fall

Hooray! It’s officially Fall!
I’m pretty sure I say this every year, but Fall is my absolute favorite time of year.  The cool crispiness in the air, brightly colored leaves, pumpkin spice coffee, cozy blankets, warm fires, boots, sweaters, and scarves… it’s all my favorite.
And pumpkins!!  I’m addicted to pumpkins!  We found a pumpkin patch this year that grows all different kinds and colors of pumpkins, squash, and gourds.  There were so many to choose from that I might have gone a little bit overboard. I just couldn’t help myself.  Honestly, I do this every year now. Growing up, I thought pumpkins came in one shape and color – giant orange jack-o-lantern pumpkins.  There was nothing very exciting about that. Then a few years ago, I discovered that there were so many more colors and sizes and shapes of pumpkins than I ever imagined.  And I couldn’t choose just one pumpkin anymore.  I wanted them all!  But for the sake of my marriage and our bank account, I restrain myself (kind of).

Aren't they so cute sitting on my front porch?!



So when the leaves start changing and the mornings turn chilly, I get the urge to start cozying up the inside of our home.  As much as I usually love bright colors in my home, I am drawn to warm and cozy neutrals and lots of soft textures in the Fall and Winter.  I don’t have a lot of Fall decorations, but I really like using things from nature to create a warm and inviting feeling.  Not to mention, pinecones, acorns, leaves and branches are all free.

Shopping the house is another free way to switch things up.  It’s always a bit of a creative challenge to make do with the things we already have. I found neutral colored books, a candle, and a cozy fur for the hanging chair just by looking through different rooms in our house. And if need be, I’ll break out the white spray paint and spray paint something… like that vase holding the branches.

I had some leftover birthday money so I did splurge on this birch wreath from Target because I loved it so much.  And I picked up those two acorns at HomeGoods.

That little white candle needed a pick-me-up and I’ve had that fabric flower sitting around for months and months because it fell off of a pillow and I never sewed it back on, so I just decided to hot glue it to the candle.  Instant cuteness.

I found this little wooden potato crate the other day at an antique market and thought it would be fun to use on my table or coffee table to create a centerpiece.  At first I didn’t even think about putting pumpkins in it, but the lady checking me out said, “Wouldn’t this be cute filled up with pumpkins?!”  And I totally agreed with her. Genius!

I had some leftover chalkboard paint, so I painted a small chalkboard spot on my pumpkin.



Happy Fall!!

Deal of the day

You’ve heard the saying, “Good things come to those who wait.”.  Well when it comes to creating our home, waiting isn’t always my strongest attribute. But I’m learning that waiting is so important to getting an end result that I love.  It’s important to first figure out what you love and usually that takes time and research.  Pinterest is great for that.  And then it usually takes even more time to find what you love at a price you can afford.

 

We’ve had these Ikea dining chairs for several years now.  They weren’t really my favorite, but I bought them at a time when I wasn’t willing to put the time and energy into finding what I really wanted. I just wanted something immediately and Ikea was cheap and those chairs were good enough. We’ve since learned that buying on impulse just to fill a void in your home is the first step down the wrong road and it ends with having to turn around and do things over.  You lose both time and money that way.  So we’ve stuck with the chairs just because replacing them wasn’t necessary and wasn’t really in the budget.  But recently the bolts that hold them together have been falling out of them one by one.  The holes were stripped, so even after we tried to screw the bolts back in, they would eventually just find their way back out.  We got down to four chairs that were still holding themselves together properly.  Over the last several months, I’ve been looking around to see what style of chairs I loved because I knew we were going to need to replace our dining chairs in the near future.  I paid attention to dining chairs on Pinterest and blogs and I would also randomly pop in on Craigslist to see what I could find there.  We didn’t have a lot in the budget for kitchen chairs, so I was hoping to find a good deal. I honestly didn’t know exactly what I wanted until I stumbled across this next picture.

 

This is from Joanna Gaines farmhouse.  Have you seen her show, Fixer Upper on HGTV?  It’s my new favorite show.  She and her husband, Chip are so inspiring to  me.  And I love her style.  You can read her blog, here.

Anyway, after I saw that picture, I knew I wanted metal chairs.  I loved the look of the white wood table combined with the vintage metal chairs. And we already had the white wood table.  As usual, first I checked Craigslist.  I found four metal chairs on Craigslist that were originally from World Market. 

These

 

The owner wanted $500 for the 4 chairs and a table.  I wasn’t in need of a table, so I emailed the owner and asked if I could just buy the chairs.  I was hoping I could buy 4 chairs from him for around $300, then go to World Market and buy a few more. At this point, we were hoping for 6 chairs total. The chairs were listed at $119 each in the store.  It wouldn’t be super cheap, but by buying a few from Craigslist first, we would at least save some money. 

I didn’t hear back from the seller immediately, so in the meantime, I decided to go to World Market to sit in one of the metal chairs and see how I liked them.

But, while I was there, I saw that they were having a clearance sale on all their summer furniture.  Everything was marked 75% off.  And they had a variety of metal dining chairs marked down from $100 to $25.  I think possibly my mouth fell open in shock at that price.  Holy cow! What a deal!  The problem was that there were only two that were the gunmetal color that I wanted. The rest were yellow, orange, or blue.  A lady at the store tracked down a few more gunmetal colored ones at another World Market and by the end of that day, I had bought five chairs and Tim had three more on hold at other store locations across the DC area. 

Although we first thought we just needed six chairs, we ended up deciding it would be best to have eight since we enjoy having people over for dinner.  And since they were so cheap, we felt that we could afford to buy a few extras.

With added coupons, I got all 8 chairs (across 4 different stores in 2 different states) for $196.10 total.  Originally, those eight chairs would have cost $800!  It was a steal!!  I’m pretty certain I couldn’t have gotten a better price anywhere, not even on Craigslist.

 

And I love the look. The dining area is both eclectic and vintage, with new and old pieces mix and matched together in a way that is unique and fun to me. 

Anniversary in Paris Part 2

I’m back with Part 2 of my Paris trip. 

(This is a painting that we bought together one evening when we were walking along the Seine River.  I’m not super big on a lot of little souvenirs or trinkets, but I wanted something meaningful to bring home and I loved this painting the moment I saw it. I also liked that it was not just a mass produced photocopy, but was painted by a local artist.)
So, my last blog left off on day 3.  My body hit a wall that day from the jetlag and also from the previous evening’s long walk along the Seine River. I was worn out, stiff, tired and everything hurt.  Tim had to work that day and I felt like I “should” get out and do something since I was in Paris. But a short painful walk down the street to grab breakfast convinced me that I really just wanted to go back to our room and rest all day. So I spent my day blogging, reading, resting, and recuperating.  It was exactly what I needed and I ended up doing a lot of that on this trip.  Whenever Tim was in meetings or working, I read in our room or sat out on our balcony, enjoying the view and people-watching.  I let myself do nothing and be lazy and it felt so good. In my every day life, reading for hours or just laying around is not an option and I knew my body/mind/spirit really needed the break. It was wonderful.
The following day (day 4) was our actual anniversary.  Although we didn’t really do anything super exciting, this was one of my most favorite days. We enjoyed walking around together, eating at the little street cafes, and seeing the sights of Paris. And really, that was the best thing about this trip… just hanging out and being together without kids.  We held hands, we laughed, we talked (without interruptions!), we reminisced, we ate when we wanted to eat, where we wanted to eat, we took pictures of ourselves… it was so much fun just being together.

Tim and I have always had fun together. We get along easy. He’s always made me laugh.  He really is my best friend, my most favorite person, the love of my life, my dream come true.  He is. But you throw a few (three) kids into the mix and all of a sudden, life gets a little bit stressful. Tension levels can rise at the drop of a hat. There are parenting decisions to be made, schedules to keep, discipline problems to handle, fights to break up, interruptions, distractions, meltdowns and tantrums, dinner times and bathtimes and storytimes and bedtimes to coordinate and make happen every day, and little people that seem to constantly need our time and attention.  And things are coming at us and between us all the time.  And so for these few days, we had NONE of that.  And it was heaven.  It was bliss.  It was just us and it was amazingly wonderful. 
At one point, we stumbled upon this little grassy spot away from the crowds, so we stopped and took some pictures.  If you’re curious, I used an app on my iphone called Timercam to take these.


This is one of my favorite pictures ever…


That evening, Tim’s work buddy went with us to take some fancier pictures of us in front of the Eiffel Tower with my real camera.  I’m so thankful for these (below).  I’m sure you know by now that I am a picture person. 
This one will most likely be blown up and hung on the wall.




And that night, we went out to eat at our favorite little French café.  It was delicious.  The French don’t know how to drink their coffee (can someone introduce them to half and half?!), but they do know how to cook.


The next day (my last day), Tim arranged for a driver to take us out to Giverny to see Monet’s house and gardens.  Of all the things I wanted to do, this was on the top of my list.


His gardens are beautiful and I don’t really feel that my iphone pictures do them justice.




This is his famous lily pad pond.  This was the part I most wanted to see. You can see his house in the upper right hand corner of the picture and the bridge in upper left corner. 


That night, we decided to do what the French do and get a baguette and cheese and eat it along the Seine River.  Earlier that day, our driver had highly recommended goat cheese, so we decided to give that a shot.  Never again. It was disgusting. 


Leaving was sad and hard. I didn’t want it to be over.


But I am so thankful for this trip.  It meant so much to me that God arranged all of this for Tim and me.  I am overwhelmed at times for His deep love and care for me, for us.  His ways are so intimate and personal for each of us. He knows our hearts, our desires, and our needs and goes to great lengths to provide exceedingly more than we can imagine. Paris for me will always be a reminder of His great love to us.