Recess

Hi everyone!  I wanted to apologize about my lack of posting for the past few weeks and tell you a little story about why.  Don't worry, I have a lot of posts saved up and I even guilted mom into starting to post ;)  Alright, she decided to post on her own . . . it's only taken her four months.

Ok, this picture explains my lack of posts recently.
Can you see the difference between these two computer programs?  The one on the left is the one I was using.  Thing is, it's a student edition.  Which is fine because Sarah is a college student.  When you purchase this product you have 30 days to register it.  Well of course I waited the whole 30 days to register the thing.  Why do something before I have to?  I follow this same thought process when it comes to my laundry.  If I can still walk to my bed around my pile of laundry, there is no need to put it away yet!  Let's just say my future husband is gonna looooove me ;)

Anyway, all was going swimmingly until I realized that I registered the product with the wrong email address!  It was written down wrong by the computer and I registered it with an email address that doesn't even exist.  So I call the little "help" (Ha. Ha. Yeah right) people somewhere in India and asked them what I could do.  Unfortunately explaining a complicated problem to people who barely speak english is a long, convoluted process but essentially they told me that there is only one serial number per product and even though the email address it was sent to doesn't exist, the serial number was still sent out.  So I would have to send an email to customer support explaining the problem and asking for a new serial number.  Too.  Much.  Work. 
So I ordered a new one, one that wasn't a student edition and it just came in the mail!

Now this wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that I've gotten a wee bit addicted to "enhancing" my photos.  Now I know you're probably thinking that I go crazy and change everything and all my pictures are Botoxed, but honestly I'm not even close to that talented! 

What I have is Lightroom, not Photoshop.  Photoshop is like $300 and I don't have a need for it.  Lightroom is a lot less expensive.  What Lightroom does is it enhances photos.  I can go in and make a picture I took without the flash less yellow, I can make the red on an apple more saturated, I can (semi) reduce those big glaring spots you get sometimes from reflections on glass, I can increase the contrast to make an object stand out more, etc.  I'm sure I could do more, but I don't really know how yet.  All I try to do is make every picture I take look like it was taken at noon, on a sunny day, with no glare.  I want the pictures I take and show to you look like what I see in real life.  I don't want anything to look fake, I mean come on you can tell when something is fake.  You know all those personal photography blogs (not every blog, but a decent amount) where the baby has luminescent skin and bright, electric blue eyes?  Yeah, you know that's not natural . . .

So, I got attached to Lightroom and when I didn't have it for two weeks, I had very little urge to write a post because I knew that the quality of the pictures would not be up to my new standards.  I'm a perfectionist like that :)

But I'm back now!  And I've saved up a LOT of material for posts, so you'll be bombarded pretty soon, just wait and see!

<3 B

P.S. If you are taking photos for your family and want to enhance them to make them look their best but don't want to go all out, I'd suggest Lightroom.  It's pretty easy to figure out and can make a decent amount of difference while still looking natural!

Velvet Pumpkins

Look at these pumpkins!  They are GORGEOUS!  I saw them on the Pioneer Woman's blog and immediately fell in love.  She had them as one of her giveaways and since there's in a snowball's chance in Bermuda of me ever winning one of those giveaways I just went ahead and bought some myself.  And boy was it worth it.

The colors are so vibrant.  The velvet so plush and soft.

They are filled with rice so they are heavy enough to stand up but not too heavy to store or display.

One of the things I love the most is that they have real pumpkin and gourd stems.  They're not plastic, they're not fake, they are real pumpkin stems.  I wouldn't suggest holding them the stems or picking them up by the stems, but I did do this with one (for experiments sake of course.  It is my job to inform the public.  I will not volunteer to be one of those people who tries to break their iphone so they can blog about it though.  Why yes if you drop your phone from a five story building it will shatter).  And I can tell you that those stems do not move at all.  I don't know how they anchor them but they are in there securely.

See how the stems are seated in there?  I greatly appreciate how the velvet is gathered and creates the ridges on the pumpkins, just like you would see on real pumpkins.

I purchased the fall colors mix and it's pretty nice that the pumpkins match some of the leaves that I'm seeing.

Ah they make me smile :)

I will definitely be purchasing more from this company.  They're called "Love Feast Shop" at shop.lovefeasttable.com.  They aren't cheap, though.  They also aren't super large.  The package I got came with 6 pumpkins (shown above) and they all are sitting on a cake platter in this picture.  The largest pumpkin in this bunch has two 6", one 5", two 4", and one little bitty 2" pumpkin.  You can buy ones up to 10" and 17" large but they do get pricier the bigger they get.  But they are velvet and very good quality.  I would personally feel comfortable displaying them in the front room or even in our hutch.  They also go well in a family room too.
I know I've rambled on and on about pumpkins but I was very excited about them and wanted to share them with you so you could be excited too :)   

New Pillows!

So I have a confession to make:  I do not know how to sew.  Well I know the basics.  I can thread a needle and tie a knot at the end of the thread and pull it back and forth through fabric.  I can also thread a sewing machine (because the directions are printed on the machine and numbered for you) and sew a straight line.  From watching my mom make Halloween costumes I know that you have to drop the foot on the sewing machine to keep the fabric in place.  Oh and I know that to make the sewing machine go you have to press the foot pedal!  Other than that I didn't and don't know much.  What I'm trying to say is that this tutorial won't be one for the ages and there are still lots of other things that I probably could have done to make these pillows better or faster, but I managed to make pillows none the less!  I had to do a lot of searching on the internet and I had to rip out a bunch of seams but I finished the pillows and I'll show you where I went wrong so you won't have to search the internet like I did!
 

This was the old pillow.  I hate them.  Oh they're not that ugly just the stuffing isn't good anymore, I don't find them comfortable to sleep on, and the colors and pattern just blend in.  Anyway I'm over them.  But I like their size.

 

So I measured the pillow using my trusty craft ruler.  It's served me well.

Then I cut a piece of cardboard about the same size as the pillow.

See about the same size.

Then I took the cardboard piece (Don't worry I made sure the edges were square) and put it on the fabric we picked out.  and traced around it.

Then I knew I needed some extra fabric around the edge for the seams and the piping  So I took an engineering scale and aligned it along the edge of the cardboard square and traced along it's edge (I'm really high tech aren't I).

See, about an inch of seam allowance.  When you're tracing out the pattern you can trace on either side of the fabric.  I like to trace on the back side or the side that won't be seen just in case the pencil I'm using doesn't wash out.  But you can trace on either side just make sure your marking tool is washable or can just rub off.  Chalk pencils work well.

Oh fabric remnants.  I have so many fabric remnants in my life right now.  I hate throwing away good fabric.

Here is my pillow square all cut out!

To make sure that it's square, do the elementary school trick of folding it in half diagonally and trimming any excess.

Then I took a piece of glass (that I knew was square) and double checked that the corner of the fabric was square.

And here's the piping!

I want the piping about and inch from the edge, so I used the ruler to measure one inch away (or you can just pin on the pencil line you drew).  MAKE SURE you pin the piping to the FRONT side of the fabric, the side you will SEE when you have a finished pillow.  You also only have to pin the piping to ONE square, not both.

See one inch away from the edge.

Pin the piping to the fabric.  You'll sew on the red fabric behind the pretty rolled, shiny, piping that you'll see.  That red fabric allows you to attach the piping to the pillow without damaging the look of the piping.  Use one continuous piece of piping for each pillow.  When you get to the point where you have to turn the corner, cut through the red fabric behind the piping but STOP when you get to the piping.  Do NOT cut through the piping itself.  This will allow you to have clean corners.

When you're done pinning the piping you will have a square with piping pinned to it and one square without piping.  This will make one pillow.

I'm making four pillows so I have eight squares.  Four with piping, four without.

Alright, you now have to thread the machine.  Here's where I needed the most help from the internet.  The bobbin is on the left and the bobbin holder thingy is on the right.  The bobbin is wound with red string.

The bobbin fits inside the bobbin holder.

Put the bobbin in the bobbin holder.

Now here's the tricky part.

Take the string and put it in that little line right there.

Pull it up and under the metal flap.

Pull it to the opening.

Now that the thread is coming out of the opening you'll get the correct tension.

Here's the bottom of your sewing machine (mine is a Brother).  Put the bobbin holder with threaded bobbin inside into the slot.  The thread needs to be hanging out.  With the top part of the machine threaded, turn the crank on the side that moves the needle up and down.  This will magically make the top thread go down and catch the bottom thread and bring it through the top where it needs to be.

Alrighty now you're FINALLY ready to start sewing!  (Don't worry it goes really fast from this point on).  I'm using a zipper foot.  This allows you to get the needle right next to the piping.  With the regular foot it would be about a 1/4" away from the piping which means your finished pillows would have piping and a 1/4" of the red fabric which isn't exactly what you want.

It's easier to sew the piping all at once.  You just have to do a couple steps when you have to turn the corner.  Btw, see how the red fabric behind the piping is cut until is reaches just behind the piping?! 

Alright, you have reached a corner.  Lift the foot that presses the fabric to the machine and turn the needle crank so the needle rises up.

Keep the needle and the presser foot up as you rotate the fabric.

Now drop the presser foot.

And crank the needle back into the fabric.  Now you can start sewing again!

When you get to the end where the piping overlaps, make sure the end of the piping is lying on top of the start of the piping.  This makes it easier to sew the piping down so it won't bunch up as you sew across it.

Once the piping is all sewn on, take the other square of fabric and put it face to face with the side you just sewed the piping to.  So the piping is sandwiched inbetween the fabric and the pretty sides are facing each other.  Now since you can't see the piping I used my fingers to press down on either side of the piping so I can sew right next to it again.   

Here's what it will look like.

You'll want to leave a small section un-sewn so you can turn the pillow inside out.  I left about 6-8 inches un-sewn.

To make the corners look prettier, cut the corners off on a diagonal.

Turn the pillow right-side-out.  See here is the hole from the right side.

My pillows are almost done!

I decided to re-use old pillow filling instead of buying new pillow stuffing.  I'm thrifty like that ;)

Once you're done stuffing the pillows, sew the 6 inch opening closed.  You can do this by hand but I just stuck it back on the sewing machine because it was faster.  And here are my pillows all done!  Surprisingly they're a bit smaller than I wanted even though I cut the fabric larger.  Oh well, no worries I'll just make bigger pillows to go behind them and have these be the accent pillows in front.  Although the colors in the pillows match the colors in the couch perfectly, they are still too different and don't blend as well as I'd like.  So now my goal is to make bigger pillows with a very neutral fabric that has the color of the couch and the cream color of the accent pillows so it will tie is all together.  Stay tuned for the update!