Sewing fun at The Lunenburg Makery

The Lunenburg Makery is a place for learning, making, and gathering around craft. We are a multi-purpose craft space including sewing facilities, a library and reading area, a retail space and studios. We offer workshops and courses as well as drop-in projects, sew-by-the-hour, evening craft circles, and studio space.

The Lunenburg Makery is one of my favourite places in Lunenburg. It’s a great shop that sells fabrics and yarns and crafting kits and does clothing alterations and hosts workshops that teach you how to make all sorts of crafty things. They also offer sewing lessons, and if you buy an annual membership for $65, you can use all their sewing equipment for free!

A while back, I blogged about the stool Brian and I recovered in Summer Fun fabric from Minted.

I LOVE this fabric, and after covering the stool, there was still enough fabric to make a cushion cover. Except I don’t know how to make a cushion cover, and I have absolutely no sewing supplies. So I took a sewing lesson with Rita at the Makery. She’s a great teacher – very knowledgeable, encouraging, and gets you to do rather than watch.

Rita had a great idea – she suggested that I used a plain fabric on the back of the cushion cover, and that way I would probably be able to get two cushion covers out of my piece of fabric. I came up with the idea of using two different colours on the back, and I chose turquoise and coral.

There were a few boo-boos along the way, but after a couple of hours of hours of sewing and lots of laughs with Rita, I finished my very first cushion cover :-)

Yesterday, I went back to make cushion cover #2. This time I was able to do most of the work on my own. I’d already cut all the pieces with Rita’s help at my lesson,  so it was pretty much just a matter of sewing hems on the backing pieces and then sewing everything together. Except nothing with me is ever simple ;-) I was pretty happy with the hems on the backing pieces that I sewed all by myself. But when I went to pin them onto the front piece of fabric, they were too small. I had sewn the herms on the scrap pieces of backing fabric. Oops! Oh well, extra practice :-) Once I got the right pieces done, things went smoothly and pretty soon I had cushion #2 all done :-)

        

I love my new cushions! Thank you Rita at The Lunenburg Makery, and thank you once again to Minted for providing me with the beautiful fabric :-)

Happy weekend!

Bedroom beautification – Let’s take a tour

I’ve shown you my night table makeover and my super-cheap headboard made from cupboard doors. The master bedroom still isn’t completely done, but I think it can make its official debut here on my blog :-) There are still some things I want to do, but I’m pretty happy with how it’s looking so far.

OK, so  here’s the original bedroom – as you can see, not too pretty! I had started prepping the room to paint before I realized I  needed a Before picture, but you get the idea. The turquoise curtains were my attempt at adding colour to the room. But they’re kinda skimpy and too short, and looked more sad than cheerful.

Just painting the room BM Gossamer Blue made a huge difference.

I love this colour for a few reasons – it reminds me of the sky and water. It changes throughout the day from lighter blue to almost turquoise, depending on the time of day and the sunlight. And it actually is a great neutral backdrop for all the colours that I’ve brought into the room.

Here’s what the bedroom looks like now, complete with wrinkled bedding from Walmart ;-) Sorry, I don’t have an iron! Each piece is sold separately, so I decided to mix up the colours a bit with the pink pillow cases and blue sheets. I don’t love the duvet cover, but I can’t really buy a new one when we have this one plus another two back in Ottawa. I mean, I COULD, but then Brian would have a conniption fit ;-)

I decided to go with the boat cleats for drawer pulls on the night tables. Thanks for the feedback on that dilemma :-)

I picked up the lamps at an estate sale a couple of weeks ago. I love the bases, but I’m not sure about the burlap shades. I’m thinking of either covering them with fabric or painting them.

The box spring and mattress are still on the floor, but it all looks more like a real bed now with the headboard.

I covered the box spring with an old fitted sheet so it looks a bit less dorm-like ;-)

I LOVE the fabric I got from Minted a couple of months ago. I used it to recover a stool, and there was enough left to make a throw cushion. I went to The Lunenburg Makery last week to take a sewing class and use one of their machines, and I made my first-ever cushion cover :-) I need to get a bigger insert though – I forgot about the trick of using an insert that’s one size bigger than the cover to get a really plump cushion. This one is  little baggy :-)

I picked up this frame at a garage sale for $1.00. I spray painted it navy and put in a note card from The Maritime Painted Saltbox. I found the piece of driftwood on the beach.

I wanted a round mirror to hang above the dresser (which I picked up from Kijiji for $45). I found this one at HomeSense for $12.00. My original plan was to paint it white or silver, but I like how it repeats the black frames that are on the opposite wall. The artwork is by three Lunenburg artists. I didn’t intend to hang them together, but I kind of like how they look as a threesome. I don’t really know why I hung the mirror offset from the dresser – I just thought it looked better that way :-)

I haven’t quite decided where the basket will go or what I’ll put into it. But I love the bright colours :-)

I’ve developed this thing for buoys. This one came from a cool little shop in Blue Rocks. The paddle is from an antique shop in Mahone Bay, and I picked up the stump from the beach.


 

I asked the guy who owns our rental house if he would be open to changing all the light fixtures, and he said sure. Wooohooo! So down came the boob light and up went this sparkly chandelier. A great deal at Costco for $100 :-) I love the pattern of light on the ceiling.

So that’s where the bedroom is at now. It won’t make the cover of any magazines, but I think it’s a big improvement from before :-)

   

What’s you favourite way to spruce up a room on a budget?

Linking to…

       

A Stroll Thru Life – Inspire Me Tuesday

Summer Fun in the house

When I got my cool buoy print from Minted, I also got one yard of fabric. It took forever to narrow down the choices to just one because there are a LOT of cool designs. I was originally going to go with something nautical, but then this colourful print by Simona Cavallaro called Summer Fun caught my eye. I love the bright & happy colours and the design – I think it looks like watermelon and sunshine and water and grass :-)

 
Summer Fun (Also available in six other colourways)

While I was waiting for the fabric to arrive, I came across this little stool at a yard sale for $4.00, and just like that I had a plan for the fabric – turn this baby from dark & drab to bright & fab!

Now, keep in mind that I don’t have an iron, I don’t have a sewing machine (and if I did, I wouldn’t know how to use it), and I live 1.5 hours away from stores that sell the right kind of decorative trim to finish things off. So your expectations are pretty low now, right? Good ;-)

To be honest, Brian did most of the work – I was the brains behind the operation and in charge of transforming the legs :-) There are so many tutorials out there on how to re-cover a stool, so I won’t go into all the details. Basically, Brian removed the brown pleather cover, wrapped the remaining piece of foam with the cotton batting, stapled it on with a staple gun, and trimmed the excess.

And then I forgot to take pictures of Brian stapling on the fabric. But I’m sure you can envision how that went :-) Meanwhile, I was on leg duty. I covered the brass feet with painters tape and then Brian screwed the legs into some scrap wood so they’d stick up in the air for easy spray painting.

I had it in my head that the spray paint was a primer & paint in one, so I didn’t prime the legs. Then after I sprayed on a couple of coats, I realized that it’s regular spray paint and I really should have primed. But oh well, that can be a project for another day if the paint job doesn’t hold up. The colour is Key Lime by Rust-Oleum.

Once the legs dried, I removed the tape and Brian re-attached them to the stool. And that’s it! I love the green legs with the fabric, and how the stool adds some colour and pattern to this very white rental house. It also matches my shoes :-)

I was originally going to put it next to the front door, but the dogs going in and out would get it dirty in no time flat. So I tucked it into this little corner instead, which actually works out better because I see it more here than I would if it was by the door.

Love those green legs!

 

 

Is it just me, or do the black dots look like watermelon seeds? :-)

 

Thank you once again to Minted for the beautiful fabric – now I want Summer Fun everywhere in the house!

DISCLAIMER: I was not financially compensated for this review. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience. I will only review products that I would use myself or would recommend to my family and friends.

Linking up to…

         

Freshly Minted

"Minted is a design marketplace connecting you with the world’s best artists
to create something one-of-a-kind.”

Remember this awesome teak wall unit we picked up at a yard sale on the weekend? I’ve been trying out different ways to style the shelves – I’m really not very good at styling, so I’m pretty much constantly moving things around. But one thing that’s a definite keeper is the artwork from Minted on the right shelf.

Minted has soooooooo many awesome prints to choose from, as well as a wide rage of other paper products. After much deliberation, I decided on Oh Buoy by artist Kirby Lee Smith.

A week after I placed my order, the framed print arrived. Even the packaging was cool!

 

The print was framed and ready to hang.

 

There are 11 different frame finishes to choose from – you know, just so you’ll have to make more difficult decisions ;-)  I decided to go with the Distressed Cottage White finish because the paint finish on old wooden buoys is usually chipped and worn.

I love my buoys :-) Thank you Minted!

Minted is kindly offering my blog readers a 10% discount on art orders placed between now and July 9th. Just use this code at checkout:

K&BADVENTURE10

 

DISCLAIMER: I was not financially compensated for this review. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience. I will only review products that I would use myself or would recommend to my family and friends.