Stairway to Awesomeness - Stair Makeover

It was time to give the stairs a facelift!  The oak finish was old, boring, and blah. 

I went with Rust-Oleum Ultimate Wood Stain in Kona.  It's a very dark brown.

First step was to sand, sand, then sand some more.  I used coarse sandpaper to remove the existing finish.  There was a lot of sand to vacuum up!

Then I applied two coats of stain because I wanted it super dark.

Goodbye, Oak.  Hello, Kona!

This is with two coats on stain.

This is with one coat of stain.

This is before the polyurethane.  It's way to shiny for me.

After applying two coats of stain, I lightly sanded with steel wool.  Then applied 3 coats of Rustoleum Ultimate Polyurethane in Satin.  I lightly sanded with steel wool in between coats to keep everything nice and smooth.  The satin finish gave it a nice muted finish.

After applying three coats of polyurethane.

Aerial view from the second floor.

Next step is to repaint the walls and then repaint the trim!

$5 Red Suede Studded Clutch Purse

While perusing through the thrift store, I found this bad boy.  It was red. It was suede.  It was awesome.

 I picked up a some gold studs at JoAnns ($3 for a pack of 50 studs.) 

The studs have little metal prongs on the back of them.  So, I just poked the studs through the suede and then pushed the metal prongs in place.  Easy-peasy! 

I opted for a simple row of studs along the top of the purse.

 I wanted to add a few studs down the sides, as well.  I removed the stitches from the inner lining so I could get to the inside on the suede.  Then I add 5 studs to both sides of the purse.

My new rockstar-studded purse.  What do you think?

Embroidered Anniversary Pillow

The husband's grandparents were celebrating their 60th anniversary.  That's something worth celebrating!  60 years is no easy feat.

First, I scoured Pinterest for some ideas.  I saw some cute personalized anniversary subway signs which inspired me to make a pillow version of it.  Off to JoAnn's we go!

There were so many great fabrics to choose from!  I settled on the following fabric selection.  A nice Fall upholstery print for the pillow, a cream bottom weight for the embroidery fabric, and three coordinating embroidery thread colors. 

Next step was to create the embroidered words.  I downloaded a 30-day trial version of BuzzWords.  This application easily converts fonts into embroidery fonts.

BuzzWords application in action

After I was happy with the wording, I transferred the embroidery from my laptop to my sewing machine.

Getting ready to do some embroidering

Here's a picture of my bottom weight fabric, the 360x200mm hoop, and some tear-away stabilizer.

The supplies

My stabilizer and fabric all hooped and ready to go!

I pressed the 'START' button and let the magic begin.  It took about 1 hour for it to finish embroidering.  It was a very nerve-racking hour, too.  I was so worried something would go horribly, horribly wrong!

The start of the embroidering..

Almost done with the green font!

Here is how it looked after it was done embroidering.  I had to go through and cut all the jump stitches.

Look at all those jump stitches!

It didn't turn out perfect.  There's lots of puckering... I think next time I'll use a twill fabric and a cut-away stabilizer.  (Every project is a great learning experience.)

Now, it's time to make the pillow cover.  I folded and pressed the sides in about 1 1/2 inches. 

I cut the pillow fabric into a 26"x26" square giving it a 1" seam allowance.  Then I lined and pinned the embroidery to the center of the pillow fabric.  Once it's all lined and pinned, take it to the sewing machine and sew a straight-stitch down both sides.

Then sew around the perimeter of the pillow fabric to close it up.  Make sure to leave 3/4 of one side open so that you can stuff your pillow form inside of it.

Sew around the pillow fabric.

All ready to be stuffed!

Here is the finished product!