Make it Do or Do Without: Orange Chair Gets a Makeover

I have this chair.  It's one of my very favorite chairs ever.  I inherited it from my college roommate when she got married, many years ago (hi, Katie!) and I have loved it ever since.  Because it's orange. Because it's old.  Because it makes me think of my friend.  And even though we have two vintage orange chairs given to us by good friends, this is the one we just call "Orange Chair."

It's seen better days.

As much as I love this chair, I have no interest in re-upholstering it, no matter how easy that tutorial makes it look.  I happen to have some canvas fabric in fun patterns, so I decided to patch it instead!

First, I cut my fabric into squares.  Then, I folded and pressed the edges, like so:

My best tips for a project like this?  Put on some music that puts you in a mellow groove (today's sanity was brought to you by Guster's album "Easy Wonderful").  Take deep breaths. If you think you've made a mistake, you probably have - take the time to pull it off the sewing machine, check it out, and fix it if you need to.  And pin like crazy.

From start to finish, this took me just a little bit over the length of the album I was listening to.  Orange chair will live to see another day, and I couldn't be happier.

Saturday Afternoon Candle Making

I was raised by my mom's can-do attitude.  I remember her saying, at least once, "If the pioneers could do it, then so can I!"  And she quite often does.  I grew up thinking that when it comes to do-it-yourself-ing, if it can be done, it should!  So when I woke up last Saturday morning thinking "Today, I shall learn to make candles!" I was so glad we'd bought all that candle-making stuff months and months ago.

Soy wax pieces.

Scent oils.

Color!

Very few of them are perfect, but they all work for giving us light and smelling good, and it was reallyreallyreally fun!  So I'm happy!

And then?  Then things got real frugal, and I melted down the wax from an old spent-up candle that I have loved the smell of for a while.  Now it will last a little bit longer - hooray!

Definitely well worth a Saturday afternoon.

The DIY Holiday Card

I heard a piece on the radio last week about the decline of the annual holiday card.  And you know what?  It made me sad.  I love social media, I love how connected we can be, I love seeing my friend-from-elementary-school's kids growing up on Facebook.  But I also love mail.  Oh, how I love mail!  And I love seeing those cute family photos, I love hanging them up across the mantle, and I actually keep them.  I do.  I have a special album.  I'm not a keeper of many things, but yes, I keep those holiday cards.  

The thing I don't love is how expensive it can be to have a nice card printed.  So - you knew where this was going, didn't you? - I made my own!

First, I bought some kraft paper card stock and envelopes, some cute Christmas washi tape, 

and pulled out my glue and paper trimmer.

Next, I went to an online infographics design house (like Piktochart) and played with one of 

their free pictograph designs, changing a font here, switching up the layout there, 

to make our year-in-review blurb.  

Then, I printed it out, two on a page, and took it to my local copy center 

to have it copied onto my card stock.

Trimmed it all up to make 5"x7" cards.

Then, I took my stack of family photos - which we took ourselves using a tripod and my husband's mad photo editing skills, then had printed at Costco - and using a dot of glue in the middle, and washi tape at the edges, attached them to the back of the card.  

Done!  Here's the front and back.  And each card cost about 70 cents, including the envelope.

Happy Holidays!