{Pinterest} Projects

PIANO BENCH COVER

I guess I’ll fool you and start with a project NOT inspired by Pinterest, ha ha ha!  My piano bench cover has long plagued me and I have been wanting to sew a new one for quite some time.

The cover previously on it was a dark rust orange, which worked perfectly with our living room paint in Las Vegas, but I have since grown tired of it and wanted to lighten it up.


This is what the bench looks like underneath the cover.  The needlepoint it beautiful, but just not my style.  I really wanted to lighten it up and for whatever reason got it in my head that I wanted to do a pleated ruffle all the way around.  I just had to find some time to do it (isn’t that always the problem?)


TA-DA!  Isn’t she pretty?


It definitely changes the feel of the room doesn’t it?


I used some old drop cloth / linen-like curtains that I had previously cut up for another project, so I saved myself a lot of time by using the already finished curtain edges on the bottom of the ruffle and eliminating the need for hemming. I used the existing cover as a pattern for the top; for the bottom, I just measured out the pleats how big I wanted them and then just made a really long ruffle.

CANNING JAR LABELS

I was inspired for this project by a pin originating from Etsy.  I am an Etsy frequenter (and you should be too) but in this case I took the idea and ran with it.

On our trip to Missouri I was planning on taking out some of my home canned goodies for my family and had set aside the jars.  But I wanted to go the extra step and pretty them up a bit.  And I have a small weakness for sewing on paper. 

I started by cutting apart an old brown bag from the grocery store, using a canning ring as my guide.  With black thread, I used a heftier needle on my sewing machine and sewed two straight lines to create an area to label with marker.  Then I made a heart stamp using an old wine cork (I knew I saved that for some reason!) and a red ink pad I picked up for a Valentine’s Day project (and never used).


I do love them, yes I do!

GROWTH RULER

Well, this project has been a long time coming, that’s for sure.  I bought the board forever ago and had even stained it (with free stain from the recycling shed at the dump no less) and bought a paint pen to complete the numbers.   And then it sat.  And sat.  And sat some more in the garage.  I finally got tired of looking at, right around the time my sister-in-law Sarianna was finishing up hers.  Nothing like  a little competition to light a fire under my butt (though I am pretty sure Sarianna didn’t view it was any sort of competition, ha ha ha!)

One afternoon I got out the board and decided today was the day.  I settled on a font I liked (although I don’ remember what it is now so I can't tell you) and measured out my lines as suggested on the website.  To get the numbers on there I used the technique where I shaded the back of the paper heavily with pencil lead, then traced the outline of the number onto the board.  The leading helps leave a slight pencil outline on the board, giving me a clear template to fill in with paint pen.


I love how it turned out.  I plan on keeping it in Emma’s bedroom and I hung it up on the wall with a sawtooth hanger, 6 inches above the ground as suggested (and measured on my board).  Now I just need to get some little girls measurements up there…