Several months ago Kathryn bought a town house on Davis Island in Tampa. Since then Darin and her have been busy fixing it up. Kathryn’s on a budget and pretty frugal so a lot of her purchases are at garage sales and flea markets and even a few dumpster dives. Darin rescued an Ikea coffee table that was missing a leg and had numerous dents and dings. Terry replaced all the legs, I filled in the dents, painted it and then made a cushion. Now they have a bench in their bedroom. I had some of that fabric left and I’m trying to use up the old stuff before I buy anything new. Time for the bench to get a matching pillow!
Here’s the bench from back in May.And here’s the bench now!Left over fabric plus a pillow that Kathryn wanted recovered.
Envelope-style pillows are incredibly easy. Especially if you don’t use piping. I typically do but I wanted to give this to Kathryn ASAP. If you can sew a straight seam, you can make a pillow cover!
It turned out very nice, even sans piping.
This is the back, the “envelope flap” keeps the pillow closed but no zipper nor hand sewing any seams. I hate hand sewing.Maggie wanted to keep her new pillow. No, no Maggie.And here’s the pillow at Kathryn and Darin’s place now that Maggie gave it up!
And look how happy Darin and Kathryn are with their new pillow!
I’ve posted the instructions for the “envelope-style” pillow before, but just in case you don’t have it bookmarked, here’s a PDF:
If you don’t know what an Ikea Expedit shelf is, just go out to the web or pinterest and do a search. Apartment Therapy even calls it the Worlds Most Popular Bookcase. It’s quite popular in our house. We have five plus the desk attachment. Cheap, versatile, and worth the drive to Tampa to buy them.
I’ve purchased a few Expedit storage boxes and they are relatively cheap. But there’s always the challenge of making my own that match the room’s décor. So I made a few for the guest room but wasn’t really happy with them. While the boxes matched the rest of the room, the Peltex Interfacing was expensive and the boxes were a bit floppy. Okay since I only store sheets and the grandkids’ clothes in them. But I wanted better. I wanted to use plastic canvas which is sturdy and less expensive.
This is Plastic Canvas. I use this for the bottom of my totes. You can get this size at Jo-annes.
I also wanted to use up some extra fabric from the sunroom update.
And I think the color combinations go really well with these storage containers that I purchased at Home Goods and are in my laundry room.
My laundry room is still a work-in-progress. I want to do something fun with these cabinets. Another DIY project!
And here they are:
Three Boxes for the Expedit Shelf
Have to say that I stole the insert idea from Michelle! She showed up one day with a tote that I made her and she had put inserts into it so she could safely carry homemade strawberry jam. These will be great to store candles and other breakable items.I just reused inserts from liquor boxes. Perhaps having so many liquor boxes around could be a sign of a problem?
And I totally cheated on this storage box. I had an almost perfect-sized liquor box and just enough fabric to cover the front. I used modge podge to glue the fabric but I probably could have used spray adhesive. I did sew the handle but that could just be a cut out for a hand-hold.
No-sew version for Michelle!
These are the two Expedit shelves in the laundry room. They are on 6″legs which you can also get from Ikea.
Two Expedit Shelves on legs. There are two white storage boxes from Ikea on there, too.Just another view. Magazine holders are from Ikea, too. I should own stock!
Okay, I cheated on the one storage box, but for the other two I followed the instructions from the blog Make It & Love It. This was just what I needed but the fabric storage boxes from the tutorial were too small. Just 9.5″ tall by 11″ wide by 8.5″ deep. Basically, she uses fusible interfacing to make the fabric stiff then makes pockets for the plastic canvas on all sides and boxes the bottom. Very clever.
So I got my thinking cap on and figured out a formula to use her instructions and create Expedit-size boxes. 13″ tall by 12″ wide by 13″ deep. I did not use seam binding on the top of the boxes, I just turned them under 1/2″. The first box I used plastic canvas for the inserts but on the second I used cardboard that I cut out of liquor boxes. I actually liked the cardboard better–and it’s free. I also tried two different fusible interfacings–one that was midweight and the other was craft. I probably liked the midweight better but the craft was cheaper. So you know I’m going with the frugal version in the future.
This is not an easy DIY because making the boxed bottoms is confusing and sewing the top edge is awkward since the inserts are already in them. If you are interested in making your own Expedit boxes, I’ve created a PDF which you can click on below.
Coming back from a vacation always puts me in the mood to create something new and I’ve got all kinds of ideas. But I also wanted to clean up some old projects. I don’t have much storage–houses in Florida do not typically have basements and the attics are too hot to actually use. I have numerous baskets and trunks that I use for fabric storage tagged with the appropriate label. But those hiding places are overflowing and after doing a little inventory I decided that some of this stuff must be used before I buy anything new.
I had these matching fabrics which would really make a cute nautical tote bag for the beach. But I’m really not into making tote bags right now. And summer’s almost over.
I used this stuff years ago to make cushions and pillows for my sunroom which is outside of the main guest bedroom. (Sometimes it’s a bedroom, it’s more often Terry’s office and my workout room.)
I’ve had this rocking chair for 36 years! I bought it right before Jes was born. It was a dark pine with an awful orange upholstery which I thought was GREAT back in 1977. When I came to my senses a few decades later, I couldn’t strip the dark stain so just painted it white. My first piece of painted furniture that I did way back in the 90s!
My friends gave me this glider for my 50th birthday. It was rusted but in otherwise good shape, so I had it powder coated and now it’s beautiful!
The navy blue and white is the same color scheme in my laundry room and there are two expedit shelves in there which need some boxes. More storage! I’ve been wanting to try a different method to create the boxes so thought that this would be a perfect DIY.
I planned on giving the instructions for this box today but wanted to make it twice. One time creating the directions, the second time following and fixing my babble . But I ran out of interfacing. Tried to get some at WalMart (which is the only shop that we have here in Homosassa) but no one actually works in the fabric department. It’s just there for decoration. So I’ll be headed to “far away” to pick up some raw materials today and will give you the tutorial next Friday!
