Reupholstered Folding Chair

In my bedroom at home, I have a folding circle chair to curl up in while reading books. And I've always wanted a comfy chair in my dorm room to lounge around on and for friends to sit in when they come over, but I have never had enough space. One of the disadvantages of having a roommate I believe. But this year I live in a single, which means I have a regular sized room all to myself! So much room for activities!

So when packing for school this summer, I grabbed my circle chair to add it to my stuff. But then I noticed that the bottom of the chair cushion was completely shredded. Presumably by tiny foster kitten claws from the previous summer. The seat of my poor chair was in no shape to be manhandled by drunken nights and rough friends. At least, not without some extra fabric support. Thus began my first foray into re-upholstery. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures during this project. I only have one in-progress picture.

This is the style of chair that I began with.

To remove the chair cushion from the frame, I had to literally cut it off. Which meant that I had to brainstorm a new way to reconnect the cushion when the job was finished. After cutting the cushion off, my next step was to cut it apart along its seams. This provided me with templates for cutting its new cover from other fabric. The fabric that I chose to be the new cover was actually a blanket. My freshman year I bought this luxuriously soft zebra print faux fur throw from Target. I loved that thing. Until the day I put it in the dryer for too long and it got burnt a little. After that it wasn't that super soft anymore and random patches of the faux fur felt kind of rough even. After the dryer incident, my blanket spent most of its time stuffed in a duffle bag under my bed. But now it could have a second chance at decorating my room!

The blanket consisted of a zebra print panel and a solid black panel sewn together. I ripped out one of the seams and flipped the blanket inside out. Next, I arranged the old cushion pieces on the blanket, pinned them down, and cut the new cushion pieces out. Here is the only picture I have from this process.

After cutting them out, I turned the pieces around so the faux fur side was facing outward with the old cushion pieces pinned in between the faux fur layers. I wanted to reuse the padding from the original cushion for inside of the new cushion so I just used sewed the old cushion inside the new faux fur pieces. After stitching the old cushions inside their new faux fur covers, I reconnected the chair cushion pieces at the original seams that I had separated them at in the beginning. Now I had a new zebra print faux fur circle chair cushion! But I still needed to figure out how to reattach the cushion to the seat frame. It had originally been sewn onto the frame and I had cut it off. I remembered how the cushions for our patio furniture just tie on to the frames, so I decided to try that with this chair. I collected a bunch of black shoe strings and cut them into 8 inch lengths. Then I handstitched them all along the outer edge of the circle cushion. The last thing to do was to tie the chair on to the frame and then admire my first attempt at reupholstery. I love my new zebra print faux fur chair. And now, instead of never using my once favorite blanket or my kitten-destroyed circle chair again, they, together, get used every day.

The floor poof in this picture is another project that I made. I'll show a tutorial for it soon.

Meow

Some Clothing Alterations

Because I've been M.I.A. for so long, I figured that I would post a couple of the projects I've worked on during my absence. I really like to buy clothes from the thrift store and alter them to fit me. Here is a giant pair of linen pants that I turned into a skirt. This was my first time doing this and I am really pleased with the results.

 I always wanted a pair of corduroy pants, but I am not a fan of flare pants. For most other pants, this wouldn't be a problem, but for some reason, corduroys are almost always sold as flares. I found this pair at my local Goodwill and fell in love with their color. They are the perfect shade of peach and work well for fall and spring outfits.

 I turned them inside out and pinned the legs tight to mine. Then I stitched along where I pinned and cut off the excess fabric. Now they fit perfectly as skinny cords!

 Another alteration I worked on was fitting this skirt. I am a women's size 6-8 but this skirt and it's matching blazer were about a size 14. I altered this the same way as I did the corduroy pants with great results.

 Now it fits perfectly. Please excuse my awkward arms in these pictures. I didn't know how to pose them so I tried holding them up out of the shot, except they are still visible.

Well, I hope that these clothing alterations make up a little for my long absence. I will really try to post more often now that I am on winter break.

Meow

Make Your Own Infinity Scarves

I have an irrational love of infinity scarves. I am constantly buying and making new ones. A friend of a friend gave me this old blue gauze skirt this summer and though it's not my style, I held on to it.

So I finally figured out what to do with the skirt-make it into an infinity scarf! Actually, make it into THREE infinity scarves! Here's a little step-by-step tutorial of how I made them:

First, I cut the skirt apart along the seams. This resulted in three extra-wide panels.

Next I cut the panels in half along the long edge. This created six long rectangles of gauze.

For each scarf, I serged the short edges together along one side of the panels. The skirt was dyed ombre so I paired the light sides together so that the gradient of the scarf would go from dark to light and back to dark.

After serging the short edges together, I serged the other short edges so they wouldn't fray. At this point I had a skinny, long retangle of fabric for each scarf. The next step is to fold the long rectangle in half "hotdog style" and serge that long edge. This forms a tube.

Turn the tube inside out so all the seams are on the inside of the tube. Then handstitch the serged short edges together to connect the tube into a circle. And voila! Three new infinity scarves from a pretty blue ombre gauzy material!

Hope you liked my tutorial! Happy New Years!

Meow 

Absence

I'm sorry for my long absence. Life has gotten a way from me so I have not had time to blog. I became very busy in October because I started two new jobs. One is as event staff at the event center at my university and the other job is as a research assistant for one of our university laboratories. I quit the track team to focus more time on my studies and I honestly have to say that I do not miss it. I like being physically lazy. But I really threw myself into my studies so I was not mentally lazy. I received very good grades for this fall semester. I brainstormed a few posts but I never actually posted them, so I'll have to get on that now that life has slowed down again. So you guys will hear from me soon!

Meow

Back to School

So like every other college girl out there, I'm finally back at school and I love it. I love my college. I love what I'm studying. And I love my sport here. I've already been bombarded with assignments and readings and next week my first round of exams starts. Also it's finally my senior year and then I'll have to enter the real world of jobs and bills. Eek. But I have to say, there are a couple of school essentials that have been helping me keep track of everything and not go insane during this time. I love back to school shopping so maybe I went overboard, but I really can't function with out most of these things. And the ones that aren't exactly "essential", well they're still a fun addition to your back to school supplies list. Here are five back to school essentials that I like to have for every new school year.

1) A Planner

I don't know how I would be able to sty organized with out this baby. My freshman year I tried not using a planner and quickly learned how stupid that idea was. I've had a few ones that are set up as a little calendar where you write at each day, but I find that I work best with just a plain lined notebook. Each week, I write at the top of a new page "Week of...." and make a checklist of things that need completed that week. Anything that doesn't get checked of that week will carry over to the next new page of my planner.

2) Fun Notebooks

Notebooks are a big deal for me. I know some people who let theirs become a whole jumble of doodles and scratched out sections, but I like my notebooks to be neat and pristine. I think it helps me stay better organized when my notes are nice looking. It makes them look a whole lot better when they're written in fun notebooks. I write my notes on loose leaf paper or in plain spiral bound notebooks during class, but I like to use nice bound books for the final version of my notes. What I mean by final version is that before each exam, I hand write out that section's notes to help me study. The benefit of having your notes in a fun, nice-looking notebook is that later in life, if for whatever reason you need to reference your old notes, everything is all nicely put together in a cute little book. As an Animal and Food Science major, there is a lot of material covering many species and diseases so there's no way I'll be able to remember it all off the top of my head years from now. But I can easily just find the notebook and look the information up.

3) Cute Backpack or Tote Bag

Having a cute bag for school is always a good idea as you will be carrying it everywhere every day. I have a backpack and a tote bag and depending on how heavy the load I need to carry around is or which matches my outfit better, I choose between the two which I'll be carrying that day. I think it's better to pick something cute that matches your personal style because seeing twenty plus people every day with the same L.L. Bean backpack or Longchamp tote as yours gets old. I know because that was me freshman year. You'll want something sturdy yet stylish so choose wisely while shopping. This is a bag you'll be carrying every day so that's why I think it's important for the bag to be cute and so it holds up from daily wear and tear. And don't think that you need to drop big bucks on a bag to meet that criteria, I found my latest two totes in my collection at TJ Maxx for under $30 apiece.

4) Post-it Notes

So I know that Post-its are a name brand, and no, I am not advertising for them. You can use whatever brand sticky notes you want, but I just commonly refer to any and all sticky notes as Post-its, just like bandages are commonly called Bandaids and tissues Kleenex. Now that that's cleared up, let me begin by saying that my system of using Post-its can get a big overwhelming as deadlines build up so don't panic when you have a planner full of uncompleted Post-its. As I receive a project, deadline, or appointment, I write it on a new Post-it and stick it in my planner. Then as I finish each task, I take its Post-it out and shred it. For some reason this really helps me stay more organized and on top of everything than when I don't use them. I buy Post-its in all different colors and assignment a color to each type of task, for example, orange Post-its for meetings and blue Post-its for projects. I think because seeing each individual item on its own Post-it helps me actually understand the volume of tasks needing to be completed, rather than just scanning over the list of everything written in my planner. It's just another method to help remember what's due when and such.

5) Flash Drive

This one's kind of stereotypical, but a flash drive really is a back to school essential. I keep all my important documents, like my updated resume, on it. Also, I save each complete and incomplete assignment on it so I always have a backup in case something happens to my laptop. This came in handy my sophomore year because I knocked my laptop off of my bed and broke the charger port. While my laptop was away being fixed, I was able to finish everything on the library computers because I had all my assignments and projects on my flash drive so it didn't matter that I didn't have my laptop.

Bonus: A bonus item that is essential to me, but is in no way required, is a tablet. I currently have an Apple iPad mini and before that, I had a Samsung Galaxy tablet. I really liked the galaxy tablet, but after switching to an iPad mini, there's no way I can go back. The iPad mini is better than the galaxy tablet but unfortunately I can't pinpoint exactly why, I just like it better. I use tablets to follow along with the power points during lecture and I have an audio recording app to record what the professor says and any questions answered during class. I honestly even use my iPad mini to surf the internet and play games more than I use my laptop. At this point, I only use my laptop to write documents on because I like using a real keyboard better for long documents.

Hope you like my back to school essentials list!

Meow

Bookworm

Who doesn't love a good book?


When I can get my little paws on a good book, I'll sit there and read as much of it as I can in one sitting. This oftentimes leads to me reading a book cover to cover and loosing a solid 6 hours out of my day. Sadly, when I'm at college I don't really have time to read due to my classes, homework, and track practice. To make up for this lack of stories, when I'm home for the summers I will read as many books as possible. I just finished Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and I loved it. I've always had a small wanderlust beast inside me but have been able to properly keep it tamed. After reading this book though, the beast has grown and is throwing a tantrum trying to break free. I'd love to just drop everything and leave. I don't really know where I want to go but isn't that the point of wanderlust? You just need to travel for the sake of traveling.

Since finishing Into the Wild, I'v bought four new books and unearthed two previously unread books from my bookshelf. I plan on finishing as many of these books as possible before my heavy senior workload sets in this fall. I literally just finished reading Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, and I absolutely adored it. There will be a movie version of the book released and now I'm impatiently awaiting for it to hit theaters. I want to see how they pull off portraying the futuristic technology and what the director's interpretation of what the alien "buggers" will look like. We'll see how finishing all these novels goes though because I'm a horrible procrastinator, even when it comes to things I actually want to do, such as reading or sewing. Which reminds me to mention, I have an entire basket of sewing projects that I also need to finish before the fall semester but I keep putting them off. It bugs me that I'm not doing anything else productive that can be my excuse for putting off all this sewing and reading, I'm just sitting around/sleeping all day and then spending my evenings at the night class I'm taking. Oh well, c'est la vie. Here's a shot of the other books I want to read this summer:

Meow

Playing Dress-up

Hello people!

I kept meaning to write a new post but just hadn't been able to find the time to sit down and upload pictures and such until now. Because I've been thinking of a couple of things to post about, this post will be a two for one! I'll show you guys what I wore today and also give a review of the new lipstick I've been testing out. The reason this post is titled "Playing Dress-up" is because whenever I wear lipstick I feel like a little kid playing with my mom's makeup. Combine that feeling with my attempt at dressing stylish and I really feel like a little girl playing dress-up. Sometimes when I wear my lipstick I even refer to it as my grownup lipstick because real grownups wear lipstick, not little baby me. Even though I am a legal adult and a college senior so I technically qualify as a grownup.....

So without further delay, here is what I wore:

Don't you just love my cheesy pose and the horrible background? My camera was dying so I snapped this shot just before the battery ran out. The reason why I wanted to show this outfit picture is because I altered these pants myself. They were these awful gauze capris that are meant to be worn just below the bust. Yuck. So I shortened the crotch of the pants by simply stitching new seams along the top of the inseams and the crotch seams and the serging off the newly enlarged seam allowance. Next, I seam-ripped the hems, unfolded them, serged the edges, and sewed the folded over serged edge back into a new hem.

             



The second part of this post is a review of the lipstick that I've been wearing lately. Putting on and wearing lipstick has always made me feel sophisticated. Although, like I mentioned earlier, lipstick also makes me feel like a little girl playing with my mom's makeup. Is it really possible to experience these two opposing feelings at once? What contributes to the little girl feeling even more is that this lipstick is a Mary Kay Creme lipstick that I "borrowed" from my mom's vanity. Growing up, I remember Mary Kay makeup being the only makeup my mom ever wore. For my thirteenth birthday gift, my mom invited her Mary Kay lady over to teach me how to properly apply makeup and give me my own set of "grownup" makeup. Unfortunately, over the years, Mary Kay's makeup just hasn't kept up to the standards that it previously upheld. My mom no longer wears their makeup because she feels that drugstore makeup is a better value and better quality now. I still stay true to my Mary Kay Velocity face wash and moisturizer that I started using after my thirteenth birthday, but I won't buy any of the brand's other products. Every once in a while though, my mom still orders a product or two in an attempt to see if the brand can redeem themselves. The latest purchase was of the Creme lipstick in Toffee. My mom didn't like the color in person though and so it was never worn until I stumbled upon it in her vanity one day.

The lipstick goes on very smoothly, I really like that. I also really like the appearance of the shade right after application. It's a nice pinkish brown that is a bit darker than my natural lip color so you can tell I'm wearing lipstick but it's not overpowering like a bright red would be. This lipstick has no staying power at all though. I'll put it on in the morning and it'll be gone by noon. The only time it stays put is when I don't do anything that involves my mouth such as talking, eating, or drinking. Unfortunately, the staying power of a lipstick is really important to me so I can't give this lipstick a good review in the end. If it stayed put, then it would be awesome, but since my cheap $1 lipsticks have been staying power than this $18 one, I've got to say this lipstick does not justify the price and gives yet another smudge to the Mary Kay brand name.

Just after application

Bonus pic: my new favorite flats that I wore with my outfit

Meow