DIY plans for the apartment

I have successfully created a few pieces for the apartment and I’m ready to keep going.

So far I have completed

• Valence for door/window in living room
• Large art piece for living room
• Curtains for bedroom

On my list to complete are:

• State artwork (instructions from Young House Love book)
• Find some fake flowers for a cowboy boot vase I already have
• Repurpose old painted canvas and mod podge pictures onto it
• Cover shoeboxes with fabric and hang on walls as art
• Complete pillow cover with the same fabric I used to make the valence

  

  

  Its Waverly Pom Pom Play Spa from Joann Fabrics. I ordered it off their website and needed about $6 more to get free shipping so I bought a pillow insert (which has been sitting unopened in the box since it came).

  

  Nolan even managed to store his toy on top of it.

Name Change

So after thinking about the name popsicles and pillows for about a week and looking back at my blog posts; seeing that there was no mention of any food I decided that the popsicles of popsicles and pillows had to go! Actually I have a hard time typing popsicle correctly, so maybe that was part of it too. I always seem to try and spell it popscile. Anyway, I figured it was better to change it now rather than a few months down the line when I possibly still wouldn’t have any posts about popsicles or food for that matter. I decided I needed another p word for the title and it had to do with fitness. Basically it came down to push-ups, pull-ups and planks. I can only do about 1 unassisted pull-up right now and planks, well I just despise them. Pushups are something I can actually do, so pushups it was!

Please excuse my messy apartment and poor self-timer picture taking abilities I’ll work on it!

Putting the pillow in pillows and popsicles

The first pillow!  This blog is about pillows, right?  So shouldn’t I actually be posting about those.  Well I had actually never made a pillow before I came up with the name for the blog.  I just wanted to!  

I actually had a pillow form shipped in an order of fabric I order for a different project at my apartment that I planned to make for myself, but hadn’t gotten around for it.  I asked my mom if she wanted new pillows (mostly because hers have lost their shape), but she was fine with keeping the old ones.  After I completed the curtains for her camper I had a little bit of fabric left and some free time on my hands so I decided to practice making pillow covers.  I found a helpful tutorial on http://nataliecreations.tumblr.com/post/6357454653/diy-envelope-pillowcase and was off!

I still couldn’t find a tape measure so I used the next best thing–a ruler!  I also stole some of the current day’s newspaper (sorry Mom and Dad, hope you didn’t want to read the classifieds!) and cut out some templates for my fabric.  The first one was 17″ x 17 ” and the second was 17″ x 23″ for a 16″ x 16″ pillow.

After cutting out the fabric I sewed a hem on the 2 back pieces for my envelope part of the pillow and then pinned everything together inside out.

It was off to battle with the sewing machine one more time!  This time things went pretty smoothly and I ended up with a not too bad looking pillow cover.

Again I didn’t take a picture of it with a pillow inside of it, but after testing it out my mom decided she liked it and will probably keep it after all!

A battle with the sewing machine

I was so excited to send my mom a picture of my curtains and she was actually pretty impressed that I had made them. Her next question was–can you make me some for the camper? My parents have a pull behind camper that’s about 25 years old that they take to different state parks a few times per year. I would have to say that the curtains were probably about that old as well.  I took a trip home for a nice relaxing vacation and told my mom if she got fabric I would make her curtains.

Skip forward a couple weeks and I’m at home.  Through yelp I find the PA Fabric Outlet and I figure it’s worth a try for some fabric for the curtains.  We walk in to this huge store and mom quickly finds the 99 cents per yard section!  Crazy!  She finds a fabric she likes, which she says will match the all brown interior of the camper.  Not my first choice, but I haven’t been in the camper in at least 5 years, so she gets the final say.  There’s just shy of 2 yards left on the bolt so we get the fabric for I think $1.76.

Mom had her old sewing machine, which she retrieved from her mother’s house, so I figured I would try to give sewing curtains on the machine a try.  This was the manual for the sewing machine, which I’m guessing is at least 30 years old.

I’ve never had any formal sewing training, unless you count about home ec back when I was in middle school.  I can normally figure out how to thread the machine, but this one I decided not to risk anything trying to wing in and throughly read through the manual.

The short story is my mom got curtains.

The long story begins with me barely having enough fabric to cut the 3 panels she wanted me to sew.  I just used the old curtains as a template and eye balled it.  I actually couldn’t find any tape measures in the entire house, so I figured whatever I could make would have to do.  My parents’ cat decided she wanted to help me cut and measure the fabric.

I eventually got it all cut and started sewing.  There may have been some fighting with the machine and consulting the manual to almost entirely take it apart, but I ended up with 3 curtains!

(Old curtains)

I didn’t get a final picture of the curtains, but just picture the old curtains with the new fabric.

My dad and brother were doing some work on the camper so I didn’t get to hang them up, but I’ll have to have my mom send a picture once they’ve been hung up.

What Workout Should I Do Today

I woke up this morning determined to get a workout in.  I enjoyed a leisurely vacation at home and only worked out 1 day out of 6, but 2 of those days were spent mostly travelling.  I flew back into Houston yesterday and took today (Tuesday) off to do laundry and get settled before going back to work.

For the plane ride home I had downloaded the newest issue of SELF magazine.  They had a training plan for running a half marathon that didn’t look too hard so I decided to copy it to my computer and maybe think about doing it.  I’m also currently thinking of also training for a triathlon.  The only thing really stopping me, is me.  I bought a road bike last summer and have gone on a few organized rides since then.  I tend to get all excited about making a plan and training, but then never follow through with the training.

Well I thought I would start today off with a run…but that didn’t exactly happen.  See I slept in until about 8:30 and lounged around til about 10 drinking my coffee.  At that point the weather channel said it felt like it was 100 degrees outside.  Don’t think I’m going to get that run in today.

Nolan and I took a short walk around the apartment complex, just enough for us both to get sweaty.  Then I decided to do a home based edition of a cross-fit type workout that was in the women’s running magazine I picked up at the aiport.  I’ve never done any cross fit, but have heard great things about it.  I think the cost is really one of the reasons I won’t get into it.  Anyway, I can’t find the workout online yet, but here is a basic synopsis:

100 yard lunge walk

50 sit-ups

25 knees to elbows

50 double unders

50 box jumps

25 squats with weights

50 push-ups

I was able to complete everything except the toes to bar (I actually never even got my toes to the bar!) and the double unders (I just did regular jumps). For the box jumps I didn’t have anything to jump on so I just jumped into the kitchen across the carpet to the fake wood.

It was a nice quick short workout and i think it will make it into the workout mix.  Now I just have to get up early or get motivated to run late after work, oh the joy of running in Houston!

 

My first adventure into home DIY

After 2 years of living in my apartment with minimal decor I decided it was finally time to make things look a little better.  I some how stumbled upon the http://www.younghouselove.com blog and became instantly obsessed. I perused the site for weeks, finally deciding that I could tackle no sew curtains.  I tend to be very indecisive when it comes to decorating decisions (it took almost a year for me to find the “perfect” duvet cover for our bed).  I searched fabric sites over and over until I found something I thought I could live with at ikea.  

 

I ventured to the store and managed to cut several yards for myself.  I also swung by Joann fabrics and picked up some hem tape.  I didn’t bother to read how long the roll was or for that matter figure out how much I would need for my curtains.  That would bite me in the butt when I was in the middle of hem sewing with our iron and I manged to run out of hem tape.  One more trip back to Joann’s.  The finished curtains turned out pretty well, even Nolan liked them.

Pre-curtains

Post curtains

Nolan giving the curtains some love before they went up on the wall

 

I was very proud of myself for actually finishing a project and even more pleased that they actually looked half decent!  I basically followed the instructions on young house love step by step, except I bought my curtain rod and curtains rings at IKEA.  I think it turned out okay, but after buying some curtain rings from target I realized you definitely get more curtain rings from Target than you do IKEA. Oh well, you live and learn

first post

Welcome to my brand new shiny blog! After months of reading blogs about fitness, food and a lot of DIY home designing I decided to finally make the plunge and start one of my own.

A few months ago I started reading blogs on a daily basis.  I loved seeing what new projects were going on over at http://younghouselove.com, keeping up with a few of the younger dietitian blogs out there and starting to find more running/workout blogs such as http://www.runeatrepeat.com and http://www.skinnyrunner.com

On my blog I plan to write about my typical daily life.  I want to re-design my entire apartment with a ton of DIY thing, but I’m holding off because we plan to move in the next 6-8 months.  I’ve been trying to become more motivated to stick to a consistent workout schedule.  Also the dietitian in me is always looking for new recipes.  I hope to use my blog to chronicle my adventures through home decorating, keep me accountable to my workout plan and share new recipes!

Happy blogging!

-Suzie