sew – A Smith of All Trades

Pillow talk, part 2

August 13, 2014 Jessica Smith

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my pillow dilemma, so now that it is mostly solved I thought I’d update you guys on what went down.

Earlier this summer I shared with you a bunch of different options I was considering for my couch. Taking a page out of Young House Love‘s (and many other bloggers) book, I photoshopped my options before actually deciding on one.

I opted to go with option 1, buying a single coral poppy pillow from decomodwalls on Etsy.

After I got the pillow I of course wished I had gotten a larger size and multiple pillows, much like one of the other options in my original pillow talk post.

I let the pillow situation fade to the background for a bit, option to live with just one pillow for the time being. Then my neighbor and I got to talking about her pillow situation (don’t worry, we solved that problem!) and I realized that she could probably turn my single pillow into two! You see, Allie is really good at sewing (something I really don’t like very much). And, I had two pillows that came with the couch that had a fabric backing the exact same material as the couch.

So I asked if she would rip apart my new pillow and my two couch pillows, and then frankenstein them together. Being the kind person she is, she happily said “yes!”

The pillows look great and saved me some cash money, too. Gotta love when that happens!

Loving the added color in my living room 🙂 I still might add in a navy pillow, but for now I am quite content.

Craft Projects

Peacock Blue Dress

May 20, 2013May 20, 2013 Jessica Smith

My sister and I make a dangerous pair when we go shopping together — we are both pros. We went out on Saturday to go shoe shopping, which turned into clothes shopping, which turned into shopping for the hubby, too.

I picked up this new dress from Old Navy on clearance for $11.99.

I loved the fit of it and the color, but there was a flaw in the fabric up front and center. For the price, I couldn’t let it slip away. So I bought it with the intentions of dressing up the top of the dress to hide the imperfection.

A while ago, I bought four packs of flat gems with the intention of using them to make a bib necklace. Instead, I pulled them out to jazz up my dress instead!

Each gem had two holes in it, so I double and triple stitched through each hole to secure the embellishments to my dress. I worked out a pattern along the top of the dress, and I would have stopped there but the imperfection was still showing. Then, I clustered the gems together in groups of two and three around the rest of the dress. This covered the flawed fabric perfectly. You wouldn’t even know it is there!

The dress took hours to jazz up. I “watched” half of an Indiana Jones movie and (begrudgingly) Game of Thrones before I was finished.

My hard work paid off and the dress looks great. I’ll be interested to see how the gems hold up since there are only two holes to secure them. You can easily catch an edge and that might cause the thread to tear. Just hopefully not the fabric of the dress… that would suck.

I should apologize now for the crappy quality of these photos…. my iPhone usually does a much better job.

Also, that picture doesn’t do this dress justice… so here I am modeling it for you (my favorite thing to do haha).

Yes, my phone case matches it almost perfectly. And yes, practically everything I won is some shade of blue, teal, mint green or aqua. It’s a life problem for me.

Cheesin’ it on Instagram. See, isn’t the dress cute? Love it!

I may have also bought this exact same dress in pink. I don’t know if I’ll embellish it or leave it be…. oh the possibilities!

Have a fabulous Monday!!

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts

Quick and Easy Heating Pad

March 9, 2013 Jessica Smith

Do you ever hang on to something that you should probably toss, but you’re just positive that someday you’ll have a use for it?

I had one of those moments last night– the hubby’s back is a little sore and I thought, “man, I should really buy us a heating pad next time I see one.”

Then I remembered that I bought a bag of lentils a few months ago AND I had an almost-sewn bag that our duvet cover came in — I could make my own!

This project is really simply, even if you don’t have a three-sided pouch ready for you to turn into a heating pad. You need fabric, lentils and tea!

Take your fabric and cut out two rectangles of the identical size. Place the fabric so both “nice” sides are touching one another, then run each edge through your sewing machine — make sure you leave about an inch gap in one side so you can add your lentil mixture. Since I had this already sewn pouch thingy, I simply sewed across the one edge (I actually sewed it by hand because I can’t figure out how to use my new sewing machine my sister gave me and I didn’t feel like reading the directions last night — pathetic I know).

Flip your bag right-side-out and grab a funnel. In a bowl, mix an entire bag of lentils (you may need more than one depending on how large you make yours) with loose tea. If you don’t have loose tea, you can cut open tea from your tea bags and mix it with the lentils. I love the smell of jasmine, so I cut open about eight tea bags and dump the contents into the bowl with my lentils.

Stick the funnel into the remaining hole of your heating pad and slowly add the lentil/tea mixture. When it’s full, sew the remaining hole shut!

Donezo!

Throw that bad boy into the microwave for a minute and a half and you have yourself a heating pad that smells super yummy.

Fantastic picture of the hubby using it, huh?

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