I grew up watching my mom and my aunts sew clothing, pillows, and curtains for their homes.  There were no blogs to showcase their work, just their fellow community where they shared their tips and advice.  It was the late seventies, times were tough, money was tight, and the economy was in the you know what.  Ladies all across the nation were trading patterns and ideas, and sewing up a frenzy of home decor on a budget.  Sounds kinda familiar doesn’t it?

The very best way to soften a space, to add texture, pattern and personality, is with the use of great fabrics, so I believe one of the best tools for an avid DIYer is a basic sewing machine. You’ll find plenty of tutorials online for ‘no sew’ decor, and they are fantastic, in fact I’ve done several myself.  There are lots of times when fusible web, fabric glue, or safety pins have come to my rescue with a simple hem or a window treatment.  Yay for those solutions!  Yet one thing I’ve learned is that having the ability to work a sewing machine opens up an entirely new world.

Do you ever see a swatch of fabric, be it in the form of a dress, an apron, a napkin, a silk scarf, and you think to yourself, "This would make a great pillow!" or you find a great fabric and think "I want to make curtains out of this."  It happens to me all the time!  You can design an entire space around a single swatch of fabric that inspires, be it a damask, geometric, Ikat or simple stripe pattern, whatever speaks to you.  I am constantly inspired by patterns I find beyond the racks in fabric stores, and I’m a big believer in reinventing them into new things.

For example, take these inexpensive napkins I found in a local kitchen store.  Beautiful robins egg blue background with an apple green botanical pattern.  Love!  In fact, I loved them so much, I turned them into a pillow!

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Hey everybody, how’s your week shaping up ?  Mine is soooo full of activity -  I’ve got one daughter finishing kindergarten and another graduating from high school this weekend – how crazy is that ?  It makes for plenty of excitement around these parts. 

Last week, I finished the laundry room makeover, and many of you inquired about the window treatment.  Here’s the play-by-play on how I made this fixed flat fold shade.

The room is on the second story and never in need of darkness.  I’ve made roman shades before, but this time I made it a fixed shade.  Yep, it’s true, this one’s a big fat faux, fake & phony – it doesn’t go up and down.   I wanted just the ‘look’ of a functioning flat fold roman shade since I never intended to raise or lower it for light control.   When I was researching fixed shades online, I found this fantastic tutorial by Darby and I was completely inspired.  

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I was just fa la la la la-ing my way through the fabric store the other day, in search of more velvet for those stockings I have every good intention of sewing whenever I get around to it. 

Darn it, why did I have to spy those bolts of faux fur ?  I was completely stopped in my tracks.  I couldn’t think about stockings, I could only see a fabulous tree skirt trimmed in that cream colored fur.  I’ve never ever ever had a tree skirt -  it’s one of those luxuries I’ve just never bothered to purchase.  In years past, I simply wrapped a piece of crimson velvet around my tree trunk.  In truth, that worked just fine since the fabric always seemed to be covered up with Christmas presents relatively quickly. 

This year, after spying that fur, I just had to make myself an authentic tree skirt.  I wanted a skirt with a luxurious look, but without the big price tag. 

So I came up with this purty little number. 

Here’s the quick and easy way to make this simple sew faux fur trimmed tree skirt in one afternoon.

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When I first got married ten years ago, I started collecting Christmas decorations.  Christmas is my favorite time of year, and I’d always dreamed of having my own home filled with the sights, sounds, and scents of the season.  Every year, I like to add something new to my growing collection.

This year I was inspired to create some decorative pillows with felt. The nice thing about felt is that it is inexpensive, it doesn’t fray, and it adds just the right amount of coziness for those upcoming winter months.  I wanted to create something bold, something stylish, but nothing too busy.  Poinsettias were my inspiration.

Here’s what I came up with:

Red version, up close:

If you want to create your own version of these simple sew poinsettia pillows, here’s the step-by-step.

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