Upcycle a Bedspread Into Chair Cushions for less than $10 - Part 2

When we left off with part 1 of this tutorial, we had just cut out our materials and were getting ready to sew.  This week, I'll show you how to make the casing for the piping, sew it to the chair pad, make the ties, sew both sides together and stuff the cushion.  I swear it's not as hard as it sounds.

Taking the strip of 2" wide fabric, measure around your cushion and give yourself an extra 2".  This will be our casing for the piping.  Cut a length of piping the same length.  Wrap the piping in the fabric, wrong sides together and pin so that the fabric is tight to the piping.

Keep the edge of your presser foot on the piping
to ensure a tight casing.

Once you have the piping done, pin it to one piece of your cushion.  You'll be pinning the casing towards the middle of the cushion and right side up.  I found that using the pins at the sewing line in the casing worked well and kept the fabric taut.  Sew the piping to the cushion on the same seam line as before.  Again, if you keep the left side of your presser foot on the piping, you should be sewing on the same line as before.  Seam allowance here is about 1/2".  

Sew the casing to the cushion, tucking one
end inside the other casing for a neat edge.

Next we're going to double check the shape and size of our cushion on the seat we'll be putting it on.  Don't worry if it seems just a bit big right now, that's a good thing.

Yes, my butt shall look good on you!

While you're admiring your handy work, plug your iron in and wait for it to heat up.  We're going to create the ties for our cushion next.  Take the lengths for your ties and fold them like below, then iron them.

How cute, my nails match my ironing board pad!

Fold your tie in half and iron it again.  Use pins to hold the ties together.

I pinned the edges due to my fabric being so thick.

Now you're going to sew the ties.  Stitch the open edge together using a straight stitch, giving yourself about a 1/8" seam allowance.  If you want to get fancy, fold one end in and sew it closed as well to finish it.

Either tuck the ends in and sew those
closed, or zig zag the ends.

Laying your cushion back on the chair, figure out where you want your ties and pin them there.  I have mine pinned to the casing, on the wrong side of the fabric with the finished ends of the ties out around my chair not pinned to the casing.

If you want, baste the ties to the casing.

Get the second piece of your cushion, we're going to start the process of putting them together.  Pulling the piping and ties to the inside, with the right sides of your fabric together start pinning.  Again, you'll see I'm pinning at the seam where the piping is.  You're going to want to sew on that line.

It was this point of the project that I was dreading.  The fabric I have is really thick and 4 pieces of it was too thick to go under the presser foot of my machine.  I know some of you are snickering now, but I really had no idea.  The thing I really had no idea of was that the catch for the presser foot lifts up more than I knew(in my defense it was nearly jammed from never having been used).  I discovered this today while looking at new machines, and figured I'd come home and check mine before buying a new one.  As I was all excited about this amazing discovery, minion #2 comes in and asks if the king had to show me how it worked.  My bubble of happy quickly popped as I answered with 'thank God no, he didn't.'  I'd have never heard the end of RTFM.  Even after 10 years of sewing projects, you can learn something new!

Take your time pinning and sewing this, if you
don't the piping will look messy.

Start sewing just before the first set of ties
 end just after the second set.

As I was sewing my cushion together I met up with Murphy, from his law.  He explained to me that since I was nearly finished with this project and my cushions were looking FABULOUS, he should give me a hand.  As a side note, always make sure you're using the right type of needle for your fabric.  Usually it will prevent things like this from happening.

One broken needle.  :(

Do not sew the entire cushion together!  I left the area between the ties open to put my stuffing in.  Depending on what type of filler you use, polyfill or an actual cushion, the hole size you need will vary.  In my case, I'm using the filling from some old bed pillows.  I took the cases off the pillows and using my template cut the foamy inside to size.

Handy dandy template - trace with sharpie

Sharpen your scissors before attempting this!

With the cushion still inside out, if you have rounded edges, you should clip them.  When you do, make sure you do not cut through your seams, or you'll be sewing again.

Clipped edges at the corners.

Turn your fabric to the right side.  You should now have a nice, nearly finished cushion with one hole towards the back where you will stuff it.  Before you do that though, put your hand inside and draw a finger along the seams to ease them and the rounded edges out.  Your piping should be nice and neat, laying flat if you eased the seams out enough.

Look at my pretty piping!

Once you have your cushion almost sewn together, and your filling ready, stuff your cushion.  I rolled mine up as tight as I could, and with the help of the king's man hands wrangled it into the cushion.  It was easy enough to then unroll it inside the cushion and push it into all the nooks and crannies.  When you're satisfied with the way the stuffing is, you can hand sew the hole closed with a slip stitch by hand, or top stitch it if you don't mind seeing the seam.

Ignore the pins at the back.  I have to get
a new needle to finish it.

Once I have the back closed up properly, I'll be putting two buttons on each of my cushions so it looks like eyes, staring at your butt while you sit on it, I mean, to hold the foamy insides where they are.  I chose silver decorative ones and they'll go the whole way through the cushion and attach to small white shirt buttons on the other side.  If you only use thread and knots, there is the chance that it will tear the fabric, or pull back through.  By using another button, the chances of Murphy showing up and explaining that to you are slim.

My total cost for 4 cushions with this project, not counting the broken needle was $9.64.  Not too shabby considering the other things I looked at were $40 a piece.

I hope you enjoy your cushions as much as I do!

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Haircut Tutorial for Your Guys.

Shaggy-headed minion

I have three guys I live with.  The king and the two minions.  The King keeps his hair in a high and tight style as does minion #2.  Minion #1 though has a little more flair and likes his in a nice tapered fade.  The upkeep on these alone would set us back about a hundred dollars a month, every month.  If you're like me and can't bear to part with that much of your hard earned money on haircuts, here's what you do.
First, get a set a clippers.  They don't have to cost a fortune, the one I have retails for about $30 (US)  and comes with scissors and a barber cape as well.  If your clippers didn't come with a set of scissors, get those and a barber cape as well. (I've had my set for almost 20 years, so they do last if you take care of them.) Then, sit your minion down, and take a good look at his shaggy little head.

Less shaggy minion

Put a drop or two of oil on the blades of the clippers.  They'll cut better and it keeps then sharp and conditioned as well.  Then, figure out where you want the fade the start.  I start his at about an inch above where his ears meet the head.  Turn on your clippers and using the bare blade with no guard, shave up from the bottom to the imaginary line about an inch above the ear.  Be careful around the top and backs of the ears.  You have to move the ear slightly especially when the kids are small because the clippers are a lot larger than the area you're dealing with.  Just be careful not to nip the skin accidentally.  Strangely, the minions are a bit apprehensive about sitting for the next cut if you nick them.

Almost normal minion

Next you're going to put the clippers down and get your scissors.  I use the thickness of my fingers as a good measuring tool, you can also use a comb if you're so inclined.  Basically, starting at one side or the other, comb a small section of hair so you're holding it between your fore and middle finger and cut it.  This isn't rocket science.  Again, I use the thickness of my fingers as a guide for length.  Do this over the entire head, except for the very front.  The bangs, for boys you can do one of two things depending on what your minion likes.  Leave it longer so they can spike it up a bit in the front, or cut it straight across so it lines up even with where the line is for the fade.  Your choice, or theirs if they're old enough.  Mine likes his straight across.

Cutting the front straight 

Next, we move on to the taper part.  I won't lie, this is the hard part.  Oh, and not cutting your fingers.  That's not an easy feat either with a squirming kid.  While they get their squirm on, grab the clippers and take off any strays that you may have missed earlier.  One you're done with that, get your trusty scissors and convince your minion to hold still again.  Put your comb almost tight to the head and draw it up though the hair until the bottom of the comb is just above the fade line.  Using the clippers, draw them over the comb to cut away what sticks out through it.  Do this the entire way around the head (except the front, or your minion will look weirder than usual).

Tidied up minion

At this point I usually take the clippers and with a bare blade even out the taper.  It may be a bit bumpier right where the taper and fade meet up.  Just make it look nice and even.
That's it.  It takes a little practice, so don't get discouraged if yours doesn't look like they just stepped out of the barber shop the first time through.  Remember, stylists go to school or something for this, by the time you do it about five times it will look perfect too.

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Sonic the Hedgehog Cake Tutorial

This years birthday cake creation for Minion #1 was Sonic the Hedgehog for the Wii themed birthday party.  I like birthdays so I tend to put some extra effort into the cake, party, etc.  It's the one day you get that's all yours, so we might go a little overboard.  But only a little.

Sonic is actually pretty easy to do.  Make your cake.  I used (2) 8" cake pans.  One box of cake mix for you gluten devouring people, or two boxes for those of us who are gluten free.  I made strawberry cake (tossed a handful of strawberries in the food processor and splash of strawberry flavor).

Cut your cakes into some semblance of these shapes:

I used a Tupperware cupcake carrier for the base

Next you'll want to mix up your icing.  I used a butter cream recipe  (1 cup butter, 4 cups powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2-4 tablespoons milk.) and a lot of royal blue gel coloring.  When I was ready to start frosting the cake, with a toothpick I drew in the outline of the face, eyes, nose, etc. so I would know where to frost.  Then, attach the hair and ear to the round cake with a little frosting 'glue'.

Hair all 'glued' in place and frosted.

I didn't use a bag to frost the blue, just a small bent frosting knife.

Don't eat till you see the whites of his eyes!

The white icing I piped in with standard round #3 tip and smoothed it with a finger dipped in cold water.

Finally starting to look like a ...something

Using the same technique with piping and wet finger I whipped up some football brown into white icing for the face.

Sonic, in all his gooey glory

Finally, I used some store bought black gel to do the final touches.  If you keep your cake chilled or frozen before you decorate it, you don't typically get the little crumbs mixing into the icing as you go.  I also use gel colorant and not the liquid, it tends to make better colors and doesn't get the frosting as liquidy.

Enjoy!


This post can be seen here as well!

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Get rid of the gray marks on your dishes!

Before cleaning

I was helping minion #2 put dishes away the other day and was noticing just how awful my dishes really looked (the husband says he thinks they're awful too, but has more to do with the pattern than the little gray marks from silverware).  I've had this set of Corelle since realizing I couldn't heft a pile of stoneware (which was WAY more ugly than the Corelle) above my head while I had my right arm in a sling and wasn't supposed to move it for about six weeks.  Which, by the way was roughly 20 years ago.  I really love that it's nearly indestructible, and when minion #2 is putting the dishes away, that's extremely important.  Our glasses have not fared nearly as well.
As you can see, the plates were not looking their best.  A few years of being stabbed and mutilated by silverware has nearly done them in.

Halfway through 

Hand washing them did nothing, nor did bleach or scouring cleanser, also with beach.  I recalled seeing a post from someone a while back, but it was for cleaning ironware.  My logic, was well...if it works on other white dishes, might as well give it a shot.  My grandparents swore by this stuff to clean the copper on the bottoms of pans.  I should mention they also have Corelle, and don't have marks on their dishes.  I'm betting they also know this secret, and haven't told any one.  What is this wondrous product?  Barkeepers Friend.(site has a coupon that will bring it down to about $1.25)  I'm no barkeep, but it's definitely my new best friend.  You don't have to scrub all that hard, just sprinkle some on and be amazed at your 'new' dishes.

Ta da!

I can also say it does amazing things for stainless steel.  My kitchen sink looks a whole lot more like a shiny new sink and less like something you find along the road being thrown out.  Silly sink didn't somehow grow another bowl or get any deeper, but I guess you can only expect just so much from a cleaning product.

Now, if I have any more energy today after sanding the family room, cleaning the dishes and the never ending loads of laundry around here, I might see what it does with my ugly shower floor tile.

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