I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season. I’ve enjoyed the time off and have sewn quite a few things for my boys in my spare time…footballs, football pillow cases, owl pillows out of my grandpas shirts from a tutorial that my sister found  at  sewing republic blog. I’ve also made a few purses for gifts, I got the inspiration from theboytrifecta blog. I even bought fabric yesterday to redo my front room slipcovers…hopefully I’ll have some time next week to get them done before I start back to work.

Don’t think all I have done is sew with my time off. We have been to the cabin and the boys are working on perfecting their sledding run. We went and saw the lights at temple square. We’ve been to some holiday parties. We are heading to the firestation tonight to have Christmas dinner with Heber since he works on Christmas. I’ve been out running the neighborhood in the snow…all bundled up of course.

Tomorrow we are celebrating my baby sister’s birthday at the cabin…sledding, hot chocolate, and my famous chocolate cake (tip…undercook your cake by 3-5 minutes, it may sink and look ugly, but it will be super moist and yummy and a huge hit!). She was born on Christmas Eve. I still remember being about 5 years old and my dad taking us to the hospital on Christmas day to meet our new sister. I think it was different back then, I just remember my dad holding me up to look through the window to see my mom holding Nikki. Happy Birthday Sis!!

Anyhow onto the slipcover makeover.

 Here is the before of the room. My client had already slipcovered these couches before and had removed the back cushions that were coming off already. She replaced them with big Euro pillows. She decided to go with a white denim and will probably add a chair in black and white ticking stripe after the holidays and the christmas tree is gone.

 Before of the couch…when cutting off the back cushions, cut outside the seam so you still have fabric covering the springs. If you unpick the original seam holding on the cushion, you’ll be left with a huge hole and exposed springs or batting.

 Here is the after, we threw a couple pillows on from the bedroom to add some color until she gets her pillows made.

Another after shot

You can’t go wrong with neutral slipcovers…you can always change your look with pillows.

 My client picked these items up from a yard sale… $30 each for the chairs and $100 for the couch. They had attatched cushions on the back, so I cut those off and covered them separately.  She was able to find the cream jaguard/matelesse fabric at Home Fabrics for $6/yd. It was beautiful to work with.

She used red denim for the couch. We made arm pads for everything to help with the wear. When I make arm pads I put piping in them along the front to make them look like part of the chair.

I thought these were perfect for the holiday season. She was still going to make some throw pillows to pull it all together.

Here is a close up to show the cream fabric. It washed up well.

I saw this dog pillow in one of her other rooms and loved it, so I threw it on the chair. It’s wool hook looped. I thought it went well with all her new slipcovers.

Here’s the ottoman as well. Yard sale finds can be great!

 So I decided to get into the holiday spirit, I decided to make some new pillows for the front room. IT’s all about the pillows…that’s what I always tell my clients, you can completely change your whole look with just the pillows. That’s why I like to keep neutral slipcovers and then when I am itching for a change, I make new pillows.

I found a quilt that my dad gave to me 13 years ago when I got married. It was made by his grandma Hamilton, a pioneer quilt. I thought it worked great with what I was doing, so I draped it over the back of the loveseat.

My little guy really wanted to be in a picture…he even smiled for me.

Close up of great grandma’s quilt. I made the red pillow with 2″ strips of bias (fabric cut on the diagonal) and sewed ten rows across and gathered it as I went. I love ruffling bias, because you don’t need to hem the edges. I decided to sew the ruffles on with tan thread instead of red to make it a little more rustic.

I was kind of feeling the menswear, and I had a small scrap of this brown houndstooth to make a rectangle pillow. I love to mix masculine with a little bit of feminine…something a little unexpected. The white pillow is made out of a white linen napkin that I sewed burlap strapping down the center and then I decided to ruffle some 2″ brown bias down it to tie in the brown and darker colors. I backed it with a bold brown/red stripe, so I can flip it if I choose to mix it up a bit. You can see the back of it a few pics up.

 I always joke that the reason I like ruffles so much is because I have three boys. I can’t put them in ruffles, so I wear ruffles and decorate with ruffles.