Saving Money Saturdays

This week I'm going to talk about how to spruce up your couch without spending a lot of money.

If you are crafty at all and can sew a straight ish line, you can make these!

I absolutely love to change the decor in our apartment from season to season. One of the easiest ways to achieve this is by making new pillow covers for our couch. It's super easy and doesn't take much time.

This time I was looking for something with a bright, summery feeling and I came up with these...

Nice and bright. The good news is that it only cost me about $8 to make both of these 18" covers! How's that for saving money and changing the decor?!

It's really easy to make and can be done in a short amount of time!

Sewing for my Business

I love sewing. It's something that I started doing randomly a couple of years ago and really got into last summer. Once I decided that I enjoyed it so much, I made the decision to start up a business!

I started making and selling clutch purses online on my Etsy shop and mostly at craft shows. I get tons of compliments on them, but they're not a hot ticket item. They are, however, really cute.

I also made some quilted cosmetic bags and wristlets that didn't sell well at craft shows, but they were a hit with people I knew!

A custom one for the school I was working for.

Since those weren't selling too well, I started branching out and making fleece scarves and felt rosette hair pins for kids and boy did those sell!

Which got me thinking...maybe baby and kid stuff would sell better at craft shows! This got me into making some new things for the craft show at the end of the month like...

Customized burp cloths...

Pacifier Clips...

And bibs!

I'm hoping that these items will be much more received (and purchased) since the price point seems to be more of where people are comfortable spending.



Summer Projects

One of the (many) perks of teaching is having the summers off. You work for most of the year and get an extended "break" to recover, get new ideas for next year, and have a little fun.

This summer marks the first summer where I have officially had off and let me tell you, it has been glorious! I have been doing a number of projects around the house that has been occupying a good part of my time. 

The first project that I did was to redecorate our apartment. Since Phil and I didn't live together until after we were married, it was a bit of a struggle to have to merge together all of our stuff. I mean, seriously, I have enough stuff to keep the apartment full on my own, but we had to bring some of his belongings over and we needed to make some space for it all. This project has really been more of an on-going task as new things come and go, but it has allowed me to not only go through and organize things, but to decorate as well. 

The next project was to cook more at home and eat out less. It's really unhealthy and expensive to eat out all the time and cooking is really something that I enjoy...so I was able to sign up at e-mealz.com and have an affordable meal plan with recipes that we can choose from each night for dinner. Score!

The most recent project has been a favorite of mine. I am in the process of fixing up a chair for my sewing table. I found a cute chair for $8 at the Goodwill and was able to repaint it to a nicer color and I'm going to change the wicker seat to a cushion seat. I have everything I need except for the wood for the seat itself, which I plan to get *hopefully* this weekend.

As you can see, this summer has been great for getting things done around the house and I'm so happy to have another month until we go back to school. I've already started shopping and planning for my classroom, but I am thoroughly loving getting things done around the house.

What have you been up to this summer?

Recent Craftiness

When I was younger people would constantly tell me how creative I was. I loved to do arts and crafts and would always find something to create. Over time that has really fallen by the wayside. Even as a nanny there are many times where crafts would be great to do, but I'm at a loss of what to do. Getting this sewing machine has been a great thing for me. All I want to do every night is some kind of new project. I don't know much about sewing except for how to thread a bobbin, thread the needle, straight stitch, and now zig zag, but I've been able to do an apron, pin cusion, and small tote with it! I seriously only have been taught how to hem and turn inside-out, but with some creative thinking things have come out better than expected! Here's the tote bag I made out of the same material from the apron because I have tons of extra:

Apron Project

Last night I attempted my apron project. After work I went to my local JoAnn's Fabrics store to get some fabric and thread for the project. Earlier in the day I looked up patterns online, but didn't find anything that really struck my fancy. After a lot of thinking the decision was made to make a short apron, one that goes around your waist as opposed to a full apron. Here's the end result:

phil was a great sport letting me use him as a model...i think he looks kinda cute in it too ;)

Overall, I think it came out great for my first "by myself" project considering I know nothing about sewing. I literally thought about how it could work, did a lot of hemming and straight-stitching and this is how it came out! I thought about pockets, but when they were pinned on I didn't think they looked right with the apron so I am still undecided about those. Maybe I'll do a reverse one with the brown and white polka dot fabric for the main part and the blue swirl fabric for pockets and ties. If anyone has any suggestions let me know!

Sewing project

 This is my new sewing machine! It is a Singer 717 from 1971. I was lucky enough to get it from a friend for free! It is in great condition and sews perfectly. When Amanda first brought it over the bobbin threader was broken and she didn't know how to fix it. Determined to make it work, I took it over to Phil's parents and had them look at it. Dad said it was the bobbin winder tire most likely and a new one should be able to be picked up from Jomax to replace it. So, this morning I headed out to Jomax, picked up a new tire, brought it home, and tried it out and guess what...it works!!! This will make things much easier than going over to Phil's house to use his mom's machine to thread bobbins and it only cost $3 to fix! My first project is placemats for my table. I started on them yesterday with Phil's mom and will hopefully have them done this week and will post pictures.