Pretty Pillows

Over the past several months we have been slowly collecting things for our new little apartment to make it feel more like "Home Sweet Home." Since we are of course your typical newly-wed-struggling-college-students, many of our additions come courtesy of DI and/or homemade. After we found our lovely little couch at DI, my younger brother decided it needed some pillows and was kind enough to purchase some for me (also from DI, we're big fans if you couldn't tell). I dug through my fabric bins to find some home decor fabric and I got right to work on recovering my new pillows!

The first pillow was tricky, as I attempted to recreate "The Easiest Pillow Cover Ever" that I have seen floating around Pinterest, but sadly for me it wasn't so easy... Here's what it's supposed to look like:

However, in retrospect, I think my decorator fabric was much to thick for this particular design, no matter how hard I tried to tie that blasted knot. I gave up and just bunched the fabric together in an effort to strangle the pillow, and one of those miraculous "happy accidents" of creating happened--it actually looked really good like that! So I quickly grabbed a needle and thread and tacked the fabric all around to create a lovely little flower!

For the remaining two pillows I kept it simple, although I did end use extra fabric from the first pillow and made matching piping. The best part was that I made one of these pillows completely wrong-side out, but didn't notice until I was totally finished and admiring them on the couch! I was so bummed out, and probably would have just left it that way, but since it didn't match its twin I had to fix it (my perfectionist gene). In the end though, I am quite pleased with the result:

Home Sweet Home! :)

Oh, and of course I can't forget to mention, my brother actually got me FOUR pillows, but I just couldn't recover the last one--it is perfect just the way it is. ;)

Shirts into Skirt Upcycle

I've been trying to cycle through my wardrobe finally--I haven't done it in a LONG time, and I could definitely use the extra space. I came across a few shirts that I never wear, and as I was about to throw them out, I suddenly saw something in them: could I turn those into a skirt? I was getting rid of them anyway, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I basically turned my shirts upside down; the leopard print had elastic around the hem, so it made a perfect pre-done waistband. The neck-edge had a cute ruffle around it, so I left it intact to become the new hem for my skirt; I then cut off the ruffled hem from the yellow skirt and stitched it to the new hem of the skirt to give it a little extra layering. I chopped off the sleeves and stitched the holes shut, then cut the elastic from those sleeve pieces and stitched it around the back of the hem.

Basically, in the end, I just cut and pasted all over the place and had a lot of fun. With the extra fabric, I cut out some floral pieces and made a big yellow flower for the skirt, as well as a flower pin to match the ensemble.

And voila! Three old shirts now become one brand new outfit! :)