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Today at the beach Tater Tot pointed to our big, red Radio Flyer All-Terrain Cargo Wagon and said, clear as day, “wagon”. Well, yes, that is our wagon. First new spontaneous word of the day. Then she is running on the beach and, since The Daddy had been doing some marine biology education last weekend, she points to the kelp that had washed up on the shore and says “kelpo”. Well, yes, that is kelp, Honey! What a smart girl! Second new spontaneous word of the day. While bathing with The Mommy after getting all sandy and gross, she points to The Mommy’s blue exfoliating glove thingy and says “blue”. Well, yes, you are knocking The Mommy’s socks off today by recognizing that the glove thingy is blue! Third new spontaneous word of the day. The dots are connecting and it’s so fun to see.

I also just have to say that, even with the occasional tantrum (okay, sometimes more than occasional), she is at such a fun age and I am so grateful to be able to stay at home with her. Not that it’s all fun and, as I mentioned yesterday, it makes a HUGE difference that she is taking 1 1/2 to 2 hour naps once a day. But most of the time we’re just havin’ a great time! She does this thing that makes me laugh and melts my heart every time. She presses her forehead and nose against my forehead and nose so our eyes are really, really close together and we’re basically cross-eyed looking at each other. It is so unbelievably cute that I can’t stand it!

On a totally unrelated note: Just Call Me “Sucker”! I was running with Taylor around our neighborhood this morning and I saw this wicker chair out with the trash a ways down our street. I might have passed this by but, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m fixing up the balcony outside Tater Tot’s room and trying to do it for free or low cost. Also, I’m just the BIGGEST SUCKER IN THE UNIVERSE for a renovation/rehab project. I like to take things that are old but still usable and rehab them. It’s actually more than a like. It’s kind of an obsession. So I checked it out and it looked pretty good. A little unraveling of the wicker around the bottom of the legs but otherwise not bad. Nothing a hot glue gun couldn’t remedy. Now for the real test: is it sturdy enough to hold the weight of my Mommy Butt? It was! There was minimal breakage to the wicker overall. So, after our run, I loaded The Tot in the truck and off we went to retrieve my treasure! Just now I checked to see how it would clean up/sand off and it looks like it’s do-able. The top layer of grime sands off pretty easily so I think I’m going to sand it down, stain it a honey color, and buy a cushion to match the chaise lounge cushion I bought. I love it when things come together!

Update: The Tot has added “turtle”, “roggie” (froggie), and “comb” to her spontaneous new words for the day! There were a couple more but I didn’t write them down. Everyone around here knows that if I don’t write it down it doesn’t happen.

The past two days have been really, really nice. Yesterday I got to go get my hair done and I did not once think about, worry about, or otherwise occupy my mind with how or what Tater Tot was doing. I knew that she would be having fun with The Daddy and that I could relax and enjoy myself. Today The Daddy watched her while I worked on fixing up the deck outside of her room. I went and picked up a market umbrella that someone was giving away on Freecycle, scrubbed the deck down, and moved some plants up there. I’m far from done but it was nice to make some progress. I’ve got one of the lattice screens sanded and painted and the other one isn’t in as bad shape as the first so I’ll get that one done soon. I’ve got the chaise lounge up there and I’m going to get a cushion for it in a print that matches the color of the umbrella I got today and incorporates the other paint colors that I’ve used.

I hate to say it but it was just nice to do what I wanted to do for once without having to keep track of anyone but myself.

It is finished! I finished the Hideous Chair Project yesterday afternoon while Tater Tot slept and it is so cute! It’s pink and purple and soft and fuzzy. Well, let me quit describing it and get on with the before and after pics!

Click to make me bigger!

Before: really “interesting” gold and beige velvet upholstery! But it’s low and looks like it has potential for a really cute reading chair for Tater’s room. And it’s only $5! Can’t beat that…

Click to make me bigger!
After: Cute, pink/purple, soft, fuzzy Big Girl Chair that Tater Tot loves! She really likes how soft it is and that it’s a little lower to the ground than the adult-sized recliner we had in there before.

Let me tell you a little bit about what this project entailed in case you think you want to tackle something like this for your child’s room. It wasn’t that hard, really.

Materials List:

* 5 yards of $1 a yard fabric to make a “pattern” for the slip cover (this is optional but a good idea if you don’t know what you’re doing like I didn’t!)

* 5 yards of whatever fabric you’d like to use to make the slip cover. I used what JOANN’S calls “cuddle” fleece which is a fuzzier, stretchier fleece than what you normally think of when you think of fleece. I bought it on sale for $2 a yard! I bought 4 yards and then remembered that I needed 5 after I was already home. Typical for me. It turns out that I had bought the exact same material in pink on sale last Fall so that’s where the two-toned idea came from. I would recommend a thick fabric with some stretch, depending on the lines of your chair. This chair needed a little stretch to get the slip cover over it.

* Thread to match the fabric for the slip cover.

* Hideous Garage Sale/Thrift Store/Free chair

I think that’s it. Oh! A sewing machine, of course. Nothing fancy. I just have a basic model.

I started by tracing the shapes of the existing upholstery. It had seams where the panels were sewn together so it was easy to just follow how the original upholstery was put together. I added an inch seam allowance to the pattern before I cut it out just to be safe.

Then I pinned the pattern to the slip cover material and cut it out. Easy.

Actually getting the slip cover to be fitted was a teeny tricky but the best way I found was to turn the pattern pieces wrong side up and place them on the chair and pin them together. If you’ve ever watched “Trading Spaces” you’ll know what I’m talking about. I went slowly and only pinned a couple of pieces together at a time. Which ones you start with will really depend on the lines of your chair.

I sewed a few pieces together, rechecked the fit with the above wrong-side-up method and then went on to the next pieces until the basic slip cover was done. I chose to slip cover only the chair part and to recover the cushions because it was just easier.

The idea of the ruffle at the bottom occurred to me because I didn’t think I could pull off a pleated hem and I thought that I was a good enough seamstress to make it look good to just continue the slip cover to the ground. The ruffle really makes it easy to hide any lack of skill in the sewing area, I’ve found!

How to do the ruffle: Measure around the bottom of the chair and then double the number. Measure from the bottom of the chair to the ground and add two inches (one inch on top and one on bottom for seam allowance). Cut a piece of material as long as the doubled number and as wide as the other measurement. Baste 1/2 inch from the edge down one side of the piece. If you’re new to basting, set your sewing machine to the longest stitch possible and sew away! Pull one of the threads at the end to create the ruffle to the desired “ruffled-ness” and pin to the bottom of the slip cover, right sides together. Sew.

For the seat cushion, I made the pattern like I did the other pieces of the slip cover by tracing the shape and adding an inch seam allowance. Cut two of these, one for the top and one for the bottom. Depending on the shape of your cushion, you may have to do something different than I did for the middle of the cushion. I ended up cutting several pieces based on the shape of the cushion, doing the wrong-side-up pinning method to get the fit right and then sewing it to the top. To sew the middle to the bottom, I machine sewed it as far as I could while still being able to fit the cushion in. After inserting the cushion, I hand-sewed the rest. It doesn’t have to be neat because it’s on the bottom and nobody will see it!

For the back cushion, I pinned the material tight around it (with the right side of the material touching the cushion) and cut the material around the pins one inch out for seam allowance. Create a small ruffle like you did the large ruffle. Unpin the pieces of material for the cushion and pin the ruffle on the inside. Machine stitch as far as you can and still be able to fit the cushion inside. Hand stitch the rest.

And that’s it! It sounds like a lot but, if you do it in bits and pieces like I did, it’s actually fun and you kind of lose track of how much it really is!

Now it’s time to rest for a couple of days before I start the next project!

I am almost finished! It has only been two weeks and I am almost finished with the Hideous Garage Sale Chair Project. This is a miracle. Ask The Daddy. This is the type of project that could very easily have languished in our garage for months. But my Mommy Butt has been busy, busy, busy while Tater Tot has been napping and after she goes to bed at night. And it’s turning out much better than I envisioned. I had a loose idea of what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and what type of fabric I wanted to use but I let it come about organically instead of holding on too tightly to my vision and I’m so stoked about how it’s coming out!

I knew that I wanted to do a slipcover but, not ever having done one before, I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. I fully expected to have setbacks, get frustrated and, quite possibly abandon the project before its’ completion. But, so far so good and I’m almost done. I even have some good ideas about how to get around the tricky parts and I should be done by tomorrow or Monday. Imagine that! I’ll post some before and after shots when I finish as well as how I did it. I’ve got some basic sewing skills but nothing fancy so chances are you could swing something like this, too.

Well, I’ve got to go put some deodorant on because The Daddy and I are going on a date to the baseball game. Yes, it is sad that deodorant is the extent of my gussying up for a date these days. Huh. Maybe I’ll take my hair out of a ponytail, too. See ya’!

Hey, there all you Crafty Mommies! I was cruising Jo-Ann.com
for some crafty supplies for my projects and guess what I saw! A code for 50% off one regular price item ordered online TODAY! Use the code APRH750 and save your butt off! Go now! Get that die cut machine/sewing machine/scrapbook organizer/dressform/expensive whatever that you haven’t been able to justify buying at 50% off!

Click on it! It gets bigger!

It’s almost overwhelming in it’s hideosity, isn’t it? This bargain-basement, $5 garage sale chair represents my life today. Let me explain.

Last night I actually managed to get to bed at the time I had appointed as “bedtime” back when I set the goal of getting to bed on time in March. Things were lookin’ good! Of course I woke up at 10:00 and 1:45 but I got back to sleep quickly at 10:00. It was a different story at 1:45. Toss, turn, toss. At 2:45 I decided to get up and do something, even if it was just having a piece of toast and watching a little bad TV. The thought occurred to me that I had been meaning to make and freeze some chicken nuggets for Tater Tot’s meals lately but just hadn’t gotten around to it. What better time? So I set about making my toddler food, eating my toast, and watching bad TV until the nuggets were baked. At 4:00 I thought I might actually be able to get back to sleep. Miracle of all miracles, I fell back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 5:50 when I heard my little Tater Tot talking to herself. I thought to myself “I’ll just close my eyes for a second” since get-up time is 6:00 and when I opened them again it was 6:10! I really could have gone back to sleep even then but I wanted to keep to Tater Tot’s schedule so I got my groggy Mommy Butt up and started our day with a little Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies for the Film Curious George (Jack Johnson) (the first song is a great wake up song!).

Breakfast as usual except that I decided, due to my wack-a-doo night of semi-sleep, I would have a cup of coffee. Hmmmm. Here’s The Mommy’s brain. HERE’STHEMOMMY’SBRAINONCOFFEE!! We set out on our 2 mile walk/jog/pant as usual. During the Spring, Summer and Fall in our area there always seems to be a lot of garage sales (ya’ see where I’m goin’ with this?) and this Spring is no exception. We were jogging along on our merry way, stopping to touch some leaves and flowers when we saw our first garage sale sign. Nothing too interesting or cheaply enough priced to get excited about but it was on our regular route so no harm done. As we’re turning up the last leg of our journey, one block from home I see two more garage sale signs. Oooooh! Let’s go check them out. Tater Tot has been going down for her nap later lately so I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a little extra time.

So I head down the hill with Tater Tot fervently hoping that the sale wasn’t so far down the street that we’d have to hike up the hideous hill toward the end of the street. Guess what? It was. Right up at the top of the hill. I saw the gold velvet chair out of the corner of my eye and was oddly drawn to it. I looked around at other stuff, trying to ignore it. But it was calling my name. I liked how low to the ground it was and it looked comfy. I thought it would make a great little reading chair for The Tot’s room when she gets a bit older. “I could slipcover it” I thought to myself. I still tried to ignore it but just couldn’t so I asked the price. Five dollars. Five dollars? Five dollars. I sat in it. Very comfy. Hm. Seeing as all I had was a stroller, I couldn’t have bought it then anyway. So we head off back toward home and the second garage sale.

Again, not a lot that I was interested in but I saw a good-looking, nice-sized table that looked perfect for a sewing table. Too rickety. But there was a sale around the corner so off we went again. Nothing. Back to the other sale for the sewing table. Looked underneath and it looked like it just needed to be tightened where the legs attached. Asked the price. Ten dollars. TEN DOLLARS? Ten dollars. But there was a man that had asked about it while I was at the other sale and he was off asking the wife. Of course she said “yes”. Aw crap. I was beaten out by a couple of minutes. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Meanwhile, my tummy was growling since we had been running, walking and shopping for over an hour and The Tot looked sleepy so we headed off home.

Mommy Tip: Make exercise more fun by trying a new route or following the garage sale signs! I jogged/walked twice the distance today because we were following the signs.

The Daddy got home from surfing just as we did so I asked if he would be bummed if I brought home a hideous orphaned piece of furniture that I saw potential in. Nope. Do whatever you want. Wooohoooo! Put The Tot down for a nap and off I go to rescue my poor little chair. Of course it’s still there (because who else but me would want that monstrosity?) so I forked over the $5 and left with my treasure!

When I got it home, as expected, The Daddy thought it was hideous but we agreed that $5 is not too high a price for my happiness. And this chair makes me happy. I don’t know why. It’s not that I need another project because I definitely DON’T. But here it is. And I WILL finish it (she said with a look of determination on her face). It may not be finished today or tomorrow (or next week or next month) but it will be finished! I’ll post a before and after when I do. (Don’t hold your breath)