Craft Challenge: Watermelon-themed Pillow

So we've made bloggity-blog-blog-blog friends with another set of sisters! The Wayward Girls! The thing I love about blogland, and you'll read other blogger's comments on this, is that you make penpals, almost. You connect with other bloggers, talk about blogging, crafting, sewing, whatever. I personally don't have a lot of friends who craft, sew or blog. Luckily I have my sisters to enjoy that with, but it's also nice to make friends who do it, too. (Come on, everybody's doin' it....)

Anyhoo, our new friends the Wayward Girls decided to give us a creative CHALLENGE. They gave us a theme and all three of us had to come up with a project reflective of that theme and then blog it.

Our theme?! WATERMELON. Perfect for summer!

My project came to me almost immediately.

Uh, obviously I'd do a pillow! My obsession with pillows runs far and wide.

Except for this pillow, I did red and white stripes with a black button.

No green, I know, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't shake the idea.

The problem I had with this mission was finding the exact fabric I wanted. See, I knew I wanted pretty wide stripes--3 inches or more. But I couldn't find the fabric at my usual haunts. Enter: Online Fabric Store. I knew I could count on them to have the right stuff.

This fabric is screen printed, not the sailcloth-type that I originally wanted. So it was pretty hard to get ironed flat. I'm still workin' on it.
I did a pretty good job lining up the stripes, though, non?

Okay, so that's my WATERMELON project, Wayward Girls. What do you think? Does it remind you of a watermelon?!


Next up........Mols! Look for her fabulous project tomorrow!

Red, White, Blue Star Applique

I saw this fabric in my stash and HAD to try it.  Cute, non? 

But here's my dilemma.  Photographing this girl.  I had grand dreams of her smelling my neighbor's lilacs, but alas it was the best I could do just getting a head on shot of the shirt and applique.

I did a zig zag around the one and a straight stitch around the star.  I thought the star would be cute with some fraying after washing.  

Not enough sun on her face?  Maybe.  Still, like I said, it's head on.

Cuz this is what was happening the bulk of our lil photo shoot.

And while she gave me photography heartburn, the girls and their friend Jane enjoyed popsicles.  Ahhh...summer.

Super cute applique, right?!  If you are lucky, maybe we'll share the pattern.  ;)

OH and by the way, stay tuned.  I'm taking a digital photography class for the month of June.  I may let you in on all my new tricks of the trade!

Bedroom Makeover with Drop Cloth Pillows

What do you get when you mix two sisters, four kids, a bottle of wine and a bag of Starburst jelly beans?

You get the most amazing bedroom makeover ever.

Remember my bedroom inspiration post a few weeks ago?

I really wanted my room to look something like Miss Mustard Seed's guest room: 

Molly came to visit and we set to work making drop cloth pillows that were inspired by all of the feedsack style pillows that you see in blogland and, of course, Pottery Barn:

I'm pretty sure I like ours better.  As in, can I hang in my room all day?  

Take a look.

We made two Euro size pillows with stripes.

Then we added a smaller pillow with my last name initial "B".

Seriously, admit it.  They really are pretty cute.  The little red pillow is tied with creamy grosgrain ribbon.  We sewed that one a little bit differently than the others.  That tutorial will come shortly.  It's shockingly easy.

We initially set out to really, truly mimic the feedsack and have faded stripes but as we got to painting, we decided we wanted a stronger statement so we painted the stripes on pretty heavily.

We used a super easy pillow tutorial from Lemon Tree Creations.  Takes all of 10 minutes.  It would be a great beginner sewer project.

Here is the bed layered up.  There's a creamy white Pottery Barn duvet under there.  The red quilt is Pottery Barn outlet from a few years back.

The bird prints were handed down from the Buchanan's.  The mirror was picked off the trash here in Longmeadow (rather shamelessly by my mother).

This is my side of the bed.  NOT.

So sweet on my grandmothers red chair.  Have I mentioned yet that red is my favorite color?

Tutorials for the pillows to follow soon.  

In the meantime, tell me, what would make your bedroom more inviting to you?