Lately, I’ve been loving some midi dresses that have itty bitty little buttons at the bust. Which is great, except when they don’t know how to handle boobs and start gaping apart.
See how the fabric where the button’s are doing their job sort of pulls away from each side on this pretty dress? Well, if you’re smaller busted it won’t be an issue. But if you’re not… it ruins the line of the dress by stretching apart.
Easy fix: grab a needle and some matching thread! You just have to hold the dress together so that the seams are straight. I used an easy embroidery backstitch to sew it up. I did it completely by hand and while the stitching isn’t perfect, it does the job and the thread blends right in.
Here is the “after” of the dress. It now is sewn up completely, making the buttons just decorative. However, the dress easily slips on and off over your head, so now it is nice and smooth with no peekaboo issues.
It’s been quite a while since I talked about kitchen knobs… so let’s do a little refresher. Way back in 2012, I shared a post showing our bright gold kitchen hardware (Kitchen Changes, Part 1). I’m not a fan of gold, so I got all DIY up in here and spray painted them with Rustolium’s oil rubbed bronze paint. It was a whopping $6 and I was pretty happy with it. Then, four years later I did a little refresher because some of the gold was showing through (Redoing a DIY).
Well, it’s been 5 years… and it was time to deal with the knobs again.
This time, I decided to just buy new knobs so I wouldn’t have to fix them again in the future. I was never a huge fan of the old egg-shaped knobs and the weird bendy pulls. So, I did some online shopping on Home Depot’s website, as well as Amazon. I ended up ordering some options of Amazon… returning one. Then picking up two more options at Home Depot… and returning one more.
While the cabinet knobs were a pretty easy choice, the drawer pulls were a pain the butt. I wanted ones that would fit into our existing drilled holes so I wouldn’t have to re-drill and patch up holes. However, the first ones I ordered off Amazon were supposed to have a 3” space between the screws… but they were about ¼ inch off.
Then, I took one of my pulls off my cabinets and held it up to every possible match at Home Depot, narrowed it down to 2, bought 11 of each of them and brought them home. I tried the options on and gave it a gander.
Top: the ones I picked
Middle: the ones I considered, but decided against
Bottom: our original pulls
Once I had all the proper pieces, the actual switching out of the hardware was super easy. I used a small screwdriver to remove the existing hardware, cleaned the cabinet with degreaser (I like Zep Heavy Duty Citrus Degreaser), and then put on the new knob.
The whole project cost just under $100 and was totally worth it. The new knobs and pulls really updated the look of our kitchen and the ‘hand-feel’ is just really nice and hearty. I’m super happy with the change (and the price) and now I’m looking around the house for some other easy DIY updates!
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Do you guys remember when I thrifted a load of fabric for a steal? That’s right, back in August I found some fabulous canvas or linen floral fabric. I eyeballed it at about 4 yards and it was marked at just $2.49 and then on sale for $1.25. For all of it. INSANE!
After sticking it in my sewing stuff box for a while, I had the random urge to be creative. So, I decided to pull out the fabric, a pillow form and some pompoms that I had sitting around for a little project.
In my opinion, the pompoms totally make the pillow! It’s actually not that much harder to add on the pompoms – you just pin them to the sides of the pillow and sew everything all together at once. I didn’t do a full tutorial because I pretty much just sew using common sense. Need two things to stick together? Pin them and then sew a straight line. Need to add some pompoms? Pin it on the line you are about to sew. Boom. Easy peasy, lemon squeezie.
Anywhoo, I added the pillow to my favorite little reading area in my den and look how cute it is!
Oh and if you want more of an instructional post. I found this one I wrote WAY BACK in 2012 showing how I made a pillow from a pack of napkins: The Hunt for the Perfect Yellow Pillow. It’s kind of crazy how much my house décor has changed over the past 9 years and it was especially nice to get a glimpse of my sweet dog Potter again!
