Pigs in a Blanket: domesticated diva

I have a little secret to share -- I'm a closeted homemaker and I actually enjoy it. Just don't tell The Boy because he'll make me do stuff for him if he knows I enjoy this stuff (don't worry, he doesn't read my blog often and if by the time he gets around to reading my blog, hopefully this post will be off the page and be replaced with newer posts).

I like to sew, knit, cook, bake, felt applique, and even clean the house. And it's all very relaxing and almost a stress reliever for me. Especially cleaning. When I'm in a bad mood, I'll just pick a room and start scrubbing and dusting, and the harder I try to scrub out a stain, the less stressed I feel. It's also just a lot nicer to be in a much cleaner room. I also have to admit that I don't do deep cleaning often because it just takes up a lot of time that I don't have lately. Cooking and baking also relieves stress for me, but only if I'm in the kitchen by myself. Weird, I know.

Oh, oh...I also LOVE putting together furniture. IKEA is a great store to buy cheap furniture, but the only downside is that you have to put everything together yourself, which most people hate to do, but I absolutely love it. It's like a giant puzzle waiting to be put together. And, using a hammer to pound in the nails is a GREAT way to destress, especially if you're extremely angry at someone.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to help L out around the house. She's redecorating her home, so I put my skills to use and helped make some of her ideas into reality.

First, throw pillows. L had some old pillows she wanted to reuse so picked out some fabric and I sewed some new covers for them. After a half hour and about $5 later (it was like $1.75 for the material for each pillow), I sewed covers for three throw pillows.

Then came something a little more complicated -- updating an old lamp shade. I should have taken a before picture, but I was too intent on getting the shade redone that I forgot. The old lamp shade had this hard, beige material wrapped around in an accordian style. We actually went looking for a new lamp shade, but we couldn't find the right type of frame for the lamp. So I suggested we just buy some fabric and cover the old shade with it.

L and I picked out a light blue stripy material (that matches one of the throw pillows I just made) that we thought would give the lamp shade a better look. We came up with the idea of using velco instead of sewing, so that if L wanted to change the material again later, she could take off the material and velco on the new material.

And here's the finished product:

And I'm also working on making stockings for Christmas. I started this one today, and I think I'll be able to finish putting on the last few peices tomorrow.
Next weekend -- reupholstering a rocking chair and painting that lamp stand white. Oh, also putting together an outdoor table and potting some plants.