Guest Post: Rockin’ Re-Do with Caroline from Atelier Caroline

Happy early weekend everyone!

After a week of tearing apart rooms, building beds and fighting off a wicked case of the flu, we’re finally making some serious progress on our kids’ bedroom swap. (Beds are done and we start sanding and priming tonight!) I’m so excited to show you pictures on Monday.

In the meantime I’m thrilled to have one of my all-time favorite bloggers and first real “bloggy friend” here to share an awesome Thrive-friendly project that I so desperately need to copy. {Like yesterday … my ironing board is soooo bad. Bleh.}  Of course then, it’s hard not to want to copy any (and all) of Caroline’s projects when you see how gifted she is at turning simple, classic materials into something amazing.

Here’s Caroline:

Hello Nike and hello “Thrivers”

My name is Caroline and I’m visiting from

Crafting is my therapy to maintain sanity in a very busy life: juggling family, marriage, household and work is a complicated balancing act. It takes a bit of organization to  save a bit of “Me” time. And “Me” time is dedicated to crafting and blogging.

I like to sew, quilt, paint, glue, bead, in short craft because it makes me happy to make pretty things for my family and my friends, and sometimes for myself too. One of my motivations for crafting is not spend big money for things I can make myself plus I love the challenge of creating on a budget.

I recently made a play tent out of donated canvas and drapes, fabric scraps and some PVC pipes,

a wreath out of a wire coat hanger and some tulle,

That have been adapting for Christmas

Valentine’s day

And St. Patrick’s Day

And a designer bag knock off for $10

OK … it’s horrible, not dirty but sadly a couple of burn marks and goop from Wonderunder, hem tape and other interfacing oopsies made it look pretty embarrassing. That doesn’t wash off. Paying $15 for an ugly new ironing board cover…. nope, paying $25-30 for a cute one, I don’t think so. So I made one the Thrive way: I only used what I had in my stash. This is how:

Pieced fabric is OK (unless you are fussy like me about pressing seams for sewing like me that’s 99% of the ironing I ever do). I used a donated home decor fabric remnant (55″ wide) but you can use most cotton fabrics. No synthetic fibers: Remember it shouldn’t melt when you use the iron on it.  

 A fat quarter is enough to make the length needed here. If you are friends with a quilter, that’s the type of strips used to bind quilts. I had some left overs from a previous quilt. You will have to piece several shorter strips together to make up the whole length.

  I had a pack of old bias tape that I zig-zag stitched to make the length but cotton packing string works fine.

Quilters always have smaller pieces left over from large quilts, you can even piece several together using a wide zigzag stitch to make the size but if you keep the old cover underneath you won’t need this.

Ready ? Let’s tackle the job:

• Take the “ugly beast” and lay it upside down on your fabric
• Trace the outline with an extra allowance for the thickness of you ironing board plus 1/4 inch for  seam allowance.
• Cut the fabric following the outline

• Repeat with the batting (optional)

• Take the long fabric strip and fold it in half lengthwise
• Use your nasty old ironing board cover one last time to press it
• Cut to size (i.e. perimeter of the ironing board + 1/2″)
• Press the ends folding 1/4 inch in and hem them

• Place the batting and top fabric pieces together (again – optional)
• Pin the folded strip as shown starting in the middle of the square end of the board

• Stitch all the way around with 1/4 inch allowance

Now we are getting somewhere

• Use a safety pin to thread your string/ribbon through the channel

• Put your pretty cover on your ugly beast, tighten and knot the ribbon/ string

And there it is all prettified

One last look at the before and after

Much better right ?

And for me the cost was under of $2 

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Caroline, this rocks!

Turning ugly to cute? Using what you have on hand? Thrive heaven I tell you.

Thanks so much Caroline for sharing your awesome tutorial while I’m {still} covered in sawdust, putty and primer.

For more of Caroline’s mad crafting/sewing/creating skills, be sure to stop by her great blog and say hi.

Enjoy your weekend and see you back Monday with pictures!