NEVER SETTLE AGAIN...

...for bedding you're not IN LOVE with! i had the worst time trying to find bedding i liked, i looked at target, macys, online, wherever i could think of for bedding for me and ryan and there just wasn't anything i found that i had to have. plus, it's so expensive so i'm definitely not buying it if i don't love it. especially since bedding isn't something you normally just replace, you keep it around awhile.

i made a queen size duvet cover (anyone who's fuzzy on what a duvet cover is, it's basically a bag that holds a comforter, you can remove it and wash it, or change it out easier and cheaper than a regular comforter), and i chose to have a button-style closure, some people use ribbon or snaps, but i like buttons. my comforter is 86"x90" so i wanted this to be about 88"x92" when it was done, and through the process whenever i was cutting i gave myself a little extra room and i think it ended up being about 88"x93" so that's pretty good!

i used 6 yds of fabric for the top and bottom, make sure you account for pattern repeat! the robin's egg goes perfectly in our room, i didn't want anything too dark or busy, and the quilted fabric on the bottom looks so luxurious with it ;) i'm all about luxury, eh?

i'm extremely proud of this project! got some fancy cream fabric for coordinating pillows and a new bedskirt to complete the scene. for the area immediately surrounding our bed, anyway!


anyways, here's what i did:

got this fabric, $100 for top and bottom total. lovely robins egg blue and cream, and quilted cream!

notes on the math before cutting anything

Colby just couldn't wait for it to be put together and on the bed!

2 widths of this fabric were not enough for the entire width of the duvet, so i cut out 6 in strips to piece together to put as a strip down the middle

gotta make sure those lines line up!

line it up with one side, the strip is longer than it needs to be so i can move it without it being too short on either end.

line up!

the back is assembled!

i cut 99" from the fabric for the top piece, and need another 99" to cut the sides from. this is a great way to easily use the pattern repeat. just line it up and cut the excess, then you can rely just on your measurements and not always have to check and make sure you are lining up the design properly

easy measurements again, just cut it off at the same point the other one is cut off

3 pieces for the top just like the bottom. the sides need to be lined up with the design as well

i lost a lot of fabric that way, but i'm over it. :) it's great quilting fabric anyway!

sides needed to be 18" wide

i pinned them this way to get it lined up perfectly

can't even tell? :)

there's that excess fabric! needs to be cut off

now i can move the pins to the outside so i can remove them while sewing. PINCH the fabric FIRST, then move the pin from the inside to the outside WITHOUT moving the fabric

pin on the outside now, and is removable for sewing!

lining it up with the bottom piece after top is assembled, and pinning the edges

the most annoying thing about these big projects is the sheer amount of fabric you are dealing with all the time. it can be tiring. ;)

top and bottom are attached! and gorgeous.

checking for the size on the actual bed, and seeing what the white side looks like.

hem the edges for the button flap, after the bottom edge of the bottom piece is hemmed

double-hem the button flap edge for a much nicer finish

measuring and marking out button holes in flap

my buttons are 1 1/4" and 1 1/8" so just made all the button holes 1 1/4". draw a line that long as a guide while sewing

practice button hole! (since i didn't even know what the buttonholer was before starting this project, side note- buttonholer is funny.)

you use the buttonholer setting for the top, bottom and sides of the hole...

THEN, you use your seam ripper to take out the fabric from between the stitches...

VOILA! buttonhole.

just a shot of the buttonholer working.

sew the buttons on and BAM! duvet cover.

first of a few throw pillows i'm making to coordinate with this beauty. taffeta!

what it looks like on the bed

fabulous!

short&swiz-eet

that's how i like my projects, short, sweet, and awesome-looking. this is a perfect example. we wanted a huge painting in the kitchen, and i went back and forth between ideas for it. different colors, images, techniques...etc. we settled on a silhouette of a stand mixer.

i got this baby done in 1 night folks. 3 hours and that includes drying times so that i could turn it and paint the edges! fabulous.

since it was such a big painting, i went to walmart and picked up a pint of the buttercream yellow color i wanted. it ended up being that i could've probably painted 10 of these with it but i know i can use the color somewhere else in the future!

i started with the silhouette contour (edges), and i painted little squigglies in the places that i knew would be filled in later on

TURNS OUT that me and ryan both really liked the imperfect lines and squigglies that i had planned to smooth out and "fix", so i instead left those, and only brought the background a little bit close to the shape instead of right up to it, so that the contour lines would still be visible.

in its place over our lovely and modern kitchen table set

close-up!

THIS would be a fabulous way to get an interesting piece of art into your home! for the size, this is definitely one of the more inexpensive ways to get an original painting, and i could silhouette anything you wanted! THINK about it.

There are five different types of chairs in this hotel room. That's way too many chairs for one room!

in the beginning...

i tackled my first solo woodworking project! got a great old chair from a consignment shop in town, she thinks it came either from a courthouse or a library. it's really reeeeally nice, real wood, nice and heavy, a great find. but it was USED. lots of scratches, plus it wasn't the color i wanted either. so here we go.

sanded down to most of what i could reach with the power sander. gotta make sure you use good pressure or it'll take forever to get through the varnish

if i do this again, i'll do these tiny parts first that are hard to reach. after you spend hours sanding the rest, these little guys are a real pain.

rubber gloves, stain brush, stain, stir sticks, rag. all of these are required. next time i might use those cheapy foam brushes (a lot of people use those for staining), but for this project i used a brush and a cloth to wipe the excess off. the directions say nothing about wiping with a cloth, but my dad is a great woodworker, most of my general wood knowledge comes from him. GLOVES are SO important. stain will stain your hands and it is SO STICKY.

this 1/2 pint was enough for 2 chairs

stain applied with brush

stain wiped with cloth

you can see the left-to-right motion of wiping the stain

i left the seat for last, and it had stain splattered all over it by the time i got to it, so i hit that with sandpaper again before i stained that part

VOILA! it's beautiful, and it looks like new

the best thing about wood is all the natural variation in color that's possible.

good extra seat for the living room, all it needs now is a throw pillow! i can handle that.