Tuesday, October 02, 2007

A few more projects

One of the perks of being friends with creative people (beside the fact that they're just plain fun) is that I get to mooch off their great ideas and tweak it to my personal liking. Most of the crafts and projects I do come from something I've seen elsewhere. I may be a creator of sorts, but I surely am not an inventor.

My friend Erin came up with a great idea of turning placemats into throw pillows. Kohl's had some great microfiber cloth placemats on sale, so I decided to follow her lead and make some of my own. It was a fun, easy little project and I was happy with the outcome. I made two of the dark brown pillows and just the one two toned harvest pillow. She gives basic instructions and the two things I'd add are:

1. Notice the type of stitching the placemat has. The two toned had a double stitch and was a little harder to work with. Not so hard it couldn't be done, but it made it a little more unruly and added an extra step.

2. When you go to sew the edge back up, pin it really well or it will slip and you'll have to redo the stitch because it didn't even catch the backing.



I also have been working on getting some thank you cards made for the baby shower. They're coming along. Simple, but that's generally how I keep my paper crafts.

10 comments:

Lindsay said...

That's an awesome idea. I just might have to borrow as well. :)

But seriously, there are so many things you can do with cloth placemats! One thing I did to teach my former Activity Days girls how to sew a straight line on a sewing machine was to turn a placemat into a scripture bag. All you do is fold it in half, sew up the sides, and add ribbon handles. So easy. ...Or should that be SEW easy. Heh heh....okay, that was cheesy. Sorry. :)

Celia Marie (W.) B. said...

Erin and I thought the brown one would make a cute tote purse using your scripture bag method.

Jessica Baird said...

projects are the way to go. I'm going crazy because I was hoping to have a baby by now. We just had an enrichment on 72 hr kits, so my new project is to get ours up to par and start the habit of rotating them at conference time. If she's still not here when I'm done with that, then I'm thinking of making some matching pjs for my girls, but that seems too hard, so I'm trying to find other projects in the meantime. That's such a great idea to do scripture bags and pillows out of place mats, they are so cute!

Brian & Veronica said...

So, I thought that was the best idea ever! I just bought new, red bedding for our room, gorgeous. But, I wanted a lime green accent pillow (red, brown, green....). I found a sweet place mat at target for just under $4, put it next to my bedding and pretty much hated it. Darn, I had to return the mat. It was cool, but just did not fit the style! Still, it's an awesome idea! Can't wait to try it with other stuff : )
Love, V

Celia Marie (W.) B. said...

V- i love it! I hope you can find one that's just right!

Marie {Make and Takes} said...

I saw your name out there in blogger land and had to stop in and say hi. I love to see who else is blessed with the name Marie!! Fun Blog and great pillows!

Marie {Make and Takes} said...

Opps, I just read that your name is Celia. But I still love that your blogger name is Silly Marie!

Celia Marie (W.) B. said...

Haha. My middle name is Marie. When I was born one of the neighbor kids went home and told his mom that the Watermans named their baby Silly Marie (instead of Celia Marie). I have a brother-in-law and a couple friends from High School who called/call me Silly. But Marie is a great name!

Lady Steed said...

Cute cute cute.

Lady Steed said...

...I remember those far away days when I could do 'projects', I wonder if they will ever come back.

Also, i didn't know that story behind your screen name--very funny. I had always thought you had chosen Silly because you perceived yourself as a person who laughs easily. I like knowing the true reason.