back is the new front

I was contacted by a darling lady here is St. George that was in need of slipcovers for her parsons chairs. When she told me her address she said, "We are the house behind the big grey cement fence!" Now the address was familiar to me, it was around the corner from the barn and I have driven past it a million times and wondered to myself, "what is on the other side of that ginormous fence?" Well my friends, I found out! My client lives on the edge of a huge farm that belongs to her family. They had bought their house knowing that Washington Fields Road would widen at some point, just not 10 feet from their front door! So, they did what I think anyone would do.. buy up all the surrounding land/house, build a huge @%$ fence and turn your around by renovating it. The front becomes the back, the back becomes the front, and voila! problem solved. She was a hoot to talk to about their ongoing "projects" but I bet by the time they finish up it will be really amazing!

Her parson chairs are the good old Costco specials. The ones that never die, just get worn over time. Well they look fantastic slipcovered and it gives them some new life too! My client is going for a more french country vibe inside and wanted to change the look of them completely. She washed up some drop cloth and away I went. Here is the before:



We did 4 to start with. I added piping in the seams and a tailored skirt to finish them off. They turned out great and she LOVED them!

I'll be swing by her house again thursday to pick up the rest of her drop cloth to finish off the remaining 4 chairs! I also made her a pair of curtain panels to go in her master bedroom french door windows. I post a picture off all the chairs once I finish them up.

On another note, i am in the process of picking out fabrics for chairs, couches, pillows and poufs for Swiss Days. It is harder than you think.. There are soo many choices!! Anyways, i'll give you a sneak peak once I place my order..

And one last thing.. did I tell you that my heart exploded from joy when I took this picture???

Meet Tuscan, she is a sweet heart of a horse that belongs to the barn owner, who also happens to be the sweetest and most awesome woman ever!! I just adore her! Her kids and my kids had a blast riding and playing on the horses last week. I loved hearing the giggles from my kids while they walked, trotted and cantered around the round pen, by themselves!! They love going with me to see and ride the horses, plus it saves me $$ on babysitters.. All they need is the great outdoors and some friends to explore with! Oh how my heart belongs on a farm!

ruffle me badd!

Now that summer is in full swing i am having to find things for my kiddos to do. inside. since it tends to get a "little" toasty down here is st. george. So naturally we had to have a "kid dance party"! and you better believe we jammed out my best 80's and 90's picks which included Color me Badd of course!! Bless them! But its the perfect lead into my recent load of Salt Lake drop offs..

I seriously LOVE my clients and this one was soo awesome to work with! I slipped a love seat for her a few months back and the next project was her sectional. She knew she wanted to brighten up the room and change the look of the sectional. It was in great shape, just dated. Once she found fabric she we had to have it shipped from 3 locations because we needed 50 yards! Thank you Home Fabrics for coming thru for us! She chose a really pretty soft butter yellow solid heavy cotton. Perfect for making ruffled skirts. Oh and this particular sectional had a sleeper sofa inside, and because they use it quite a bit, the slipcover had to be functional.. Here is the before:

She also wanted to change the shape of the arms and cushions. The couch originally had funky arm fronts and rectangle-ish cushions. They were not quite box style cushions, so we boxed them up to give them a more solid shape, added foam to the arm tops and piping to the entire couch. I love the transformation! Talk about night and day difference! all i can say was I was dreaming of ruffles for a few days after I put it together! She absolutely loved it!! They are in the middle of redoing the family room to make it match the furniture now! And of course i could not leave with her giving me a preview of the next few projects she has for me.. Here is the after!

Pretty great right?! I love the threats to her children regarding the new living room rules… The best part is that she can always wash them!!

I also had the pleasure to drop off this little beauty!

I love this pink chair and there happens to be 2 of them! these are chairs that have been in her family and they all thought she was crazy for wanting them! Um.. no. they are crazy!! How great are they?! Well she only has room for one of them right now, but once she has the room for the other you better believe she is snagging it to slipcover. It had some shallow tufting and a skirt. she hated them both so we popped off the buttons and ripped of the skirt! She had me used white denim fabric and kept it simple with a box skirt. I love older chairs! You just don't see lines on chairs like this any more.. So Of course I kept the lines the same. She was thrilled to see the end results! I think mostly to throw it back in the families face… I know I would! Here is the after:

Now for the important stuff… my baby is 5!!! Oaks and my brother share the same birthday so of course we celebrated together while were up in SL!

I swear these pictures were taken yesterday… tear. Heres to new adventures with our little red head!

While we enjoyed our week up in SL it is nice to be back home! I am working on a few couches, a ton of dining room chairs and like 30 random cushions! Not to mention all the stuff I need to slipcover of Swiss Days! I can't wait to show you the end results! I am not sure when my next trip up to SL will be but hit me up if you are wanting on my schedule! Right now its looking like the end of June or beginning of July.. Have a great weekend!!!

S.A.

Hi, my name is Katie and I am a "slip-a-holic"… Seriously! I am convinced that slipcovering is a sickness. I honestly love what I do! I love that no two jobs are the same, I love the creativity of my clients and I love taking old and tired furniture and making sparkle like new! When ever I get a break in work I still have the hankering to slipcover things.. Its a problem.. I know. Yesterday I found myself in Urban Renewal, a cool local furniture shop filled with new cool furniture to the vintage stuff that is one of a kind. This lady goes cross country "picking" her way thru and bringing back the best of the best! There is also a consignment side too, so you never know what your going to find. So of course I have to go in once every few weeks just to "see" what they have. So while I was there I stumbled upon this!

Um.. are you kidding me?! I have seen this style of couch from Restoration Hardware and other high end furniture companies and they are mucho $$.

Sure it has a fugly brown corduroy slipcover on it but seriously? Take that frumpy thing off and you have a diamond! It is perfect underneath, wrapped in heavy canvas ready for a face lift. and at the price they had it marked at I had to have it. I love seeing the potential of furniture that people toss aside! Just imagine a soft yummy grey linen or subtle ticking stripe on that bad boy! (See, I told you I have a problem..) So now the dilemma, do I buy it, slip it and sell it real quick (not that i really have the time to do this, geeze!) or do I keep it for myself (like i have room) or bring it up to Swiss Days in August and show it there to sell? All I know is I have to have this couch, just to do it justice because it can be amazing!

Also, here is that fabulous red chair I finished yesterday. Remember this?

My client has a pair of these chairs wanted to change the look. These chairs are the best for slipcovering, plus these tired chair now look brand new! She chose to do a white denim slipcover with a box skirt and no piping. She went back and forth between piping and top stitching, but after visiting the Pottery Barn website she chose to do a topstitch. Good choice! I also added darts on the arms to give it a cleaner look. I love how they look so bright and happy and the topstitch adds a little bit of a casual touch. I love how they turned out!

I am working on a large sectional the rest of the week and a few chairs before I head up North next week. I will have that couch today, so if any of you can catch the vision with me, let me now if you are interested in it. I am 100% positive that it will be amazing!!!! Now, off to preschool graduation. My baby is going to be in Kindergarten in the fall!! Where has the time gone????

"hot sewing"

Summer time is just around the corner but here in St George its been underway for a bit now, temperature wise.. Yikes! I am trying to figure out how to survive a summer down here with kids and animals.. My goodness! Poor Bubs is already panting 24-7 and I am going to have to go ride my horse early in the morning (sorry kids! mom is dragging you to the barn mucho early…) but thats better than riding in hot sand! All the horses already have their box fans blasting into the stalls. Its actually kind of funny to see them stand in front of them.

Thank goodness for misters!!

This past weekend we hit a little hike with the kids. We felt it was time we got out and did some "adventurous" things.. Or should I say our friends Kyle and Lacy told us we were going.. But we loved it! He has a list of places we need to hike and see during the summer. Game on! We told the kids we were going to do a waterfall hike (we were hoping that there would be water there period.) They were soo excited! As we began the hike we'd see families coming back with swim gear on so we thought we were good. Wrong.. When we made it to the falls all we were left with was stagnant pools of water that I would not let my dog drink out of! the waterfalls had dried up so the whole swimming thing was a bust. Thanks hikers we past for the heads up..

We still had fun tho! The kids got to explore, climb on rocks and we even saw a bunch of little frogs in the pools. We also encountered some random groups of hikers that included families, BYU students in full safari garb hunting bugs and euro creepers..YA, we had to get a pic of them. they made the trip!

Its always an adventure with this bunch! You better believe we told the families we past with kids and inner-tubes that the falls were dry. Your welcome! After we finished the jaunt we had to go to the city splash pad so the kids could "swim"… and ya, we fit right in with our swim attire… I like to think our outing was a success! Cant wait to see whats in store for the next.

On a slipcover note, I am finishing up a pair of chairs that my hubby hauled back for one of my clients. We are giving them a new look with a white denim top stitched slipcover! Once I finish the seat cushions, I'll post a pic. It is literally a hot box during the day in my garage, so I have to sew early in the morning or later at night. Either way I sweat off a pound overtime I am out there! Some people do "hot yoga". I do "hot sewing".. To each their own..

Check back manna to see the finished slipcover! I am also working on a finishing up a sectional with a gathered skirt and another chair this week and part of next before I head back up north on the 28th. I'll be there from the 28th till the 2nd of June. Hit me up if you are wanting a slipcover fitted while I am in town!

Keep it in the family..

Because my hubby is one of eleven kids (8 boys, 3 girls) I get the joy of having 10 super awesome sister-in-laws! And speaking of sis-in-laws. Tammy, who is super crafty called me up because she was contemplating slipcovering her family room couch and love seat. She has had these couches for ever! But they were old and tired.. She wanted a new look but was not ready to fork over the $$ to buy new ones, especially if they are going to be building a new home in the near future.. I am always happy to come to the slipcover rescue! (Um… Jackie - another sis-in-law. I promise I have not forgot about your cushions.. You will have them soon. well. sooner than later..)Anyways, She sent me a picture of her couches and a picture of what she had in mind for them to look like.

Here is what we were dealing with.:

Not bad. Comfy, just dated. This is what she wanted them to look like:

Nice and light and casual. Its a good change! Instead of getting a brushed canvas she used painters drop cloth. It is cheaper than fabric and washes up great! The back cushions were attached on her couch so we cut them off. Nobody likes saggy cushions that can't be fluffed. Nobody! We also added a simple box skirt to finish off the look. I sent her finished slipcovers up with my husband Monday so she had to put them on herself. I am not gonna lie.. I always get a little nervous when I can't put the finished slipcovers on to make sure they fit perfect. But she nailed it! Here is what they look like now. Happy, bright and fun!

It looks great! And I love being able to help a sister out!! (Again, Jackie.. I swear I have not forgotten about you..)

I am headed up north tomorrow to drop slipcovers off and to do a few fittings. I may have 1 spot open in my schedule. Let me know if you have something you want slipcovered and can get fabric ready to go by saturday. My next trip up will be May 30th- June 1st for my sweet new little nieces' baby blessing. Contact me to get on my schedule! I also have some super fun things in the works right now and can't wait to show you what I have been up too….. Stay tuned!!

The "Ulitmate" cleanse….

We survived Costa Rica! Barely.. And I'll tell you why. First off, let me tell you about our little adventure. It all started on April 12th. Our plans were to drive to Vegas from St. George with another couple, fly to Denver to meet up with 2 more couples and then fly from Denver to San Jose to meet up with the last 2 couples and then drive 2 hours south to a town just 20 min south of Jaco. Sounds easy, right. Wrong. Our flight out of Vegas was at 6:45pm. I figured if we left St. George by 1 we would be good because we had to drive 2 hrs to the airport plus there was road construction in-between.. Well I got vetoed by the boys..They felt that if we left at 3 we'd be fine. Well around 2:30pm I was seeing a bunch of activity on instagram regarding traffic coming out of Vegas. Like traffic was at a stand still for a long time. I finally texted a friend stuck in the mess and she said they had been stopped on the freeway for 3 hrs because of the whole Bundy Ranch Protest. Umm.. What?! She said traffic was still getting thru going to Vegas but that there was a huge protest going on and they were blocking the freeway.

At this point we still did not know what was going on. In my mind I kept thinking, "We should have left at 1…) but that news was enough to get the boys moving. As we pulled into Mesquite we stopped at a gas station to get drinks and I kept overhearing people talking about how they were stuck for 3 hrs and that there was like a riot going on and that NO ONE was getting thru now. This protest was literally a mile or 2 down the road from where we stopped. Um… remember we have a flight to catch… So the cashier told us to take a back road to the next exit down and maybe we will bypass the mess. So thats what we did. What we did not know is that the protest moved right were we had to drive thru. As we turned the bend to cross the river we could see tons cowboys driving cattle on horseback down the river. and the protesters were out!! I have never seen soo many random freedom fighters, militia personnel and little ladies carrying ginormous rifles and automatic weapons! It was nuts! We were able to get thru. I guess by the time we got there the Feds backdown so the protestors were in a sense "celebrating".. It was definitely interesting to see.

In our minds we were thinking, SWEET! We dodged a bullet, we are about 45 min away from Vegas and we had 2 hrs to get there. Well, we hit road construction combined with protest traffic. No Bueno! At this point we now have an hour to get to the airport and on the plane. I kept thinking, we just need to get to Denver by 11:30pm to catch our flight to Costa Rica, because at this rate we were never going to make it! Once we got out of traffic and hit Vegas we have 30 min.. Sweating yet? When we got to the airport we now had 20 min to park the car, get tickets, go thru security and run to our gate. The boys dropped us off at the curb and we ran inside. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen. There was not a soul around! I have never seen an airport this quiet. I was the only one in line for security and out gate was right around the corner. When I got to the gate I ran to the attendant and said I have 3 more in our party (I lost one to the checked baggage counter..) and that they are right behind me. All she said was they have 14 min to get here. The plane waits for no one. (Thanks Frontier) I jumped on hoping they'd be right behind me.. I sat there for 10 minutes! Finally at the very last minute they walked onto the plane. Heart attacked avoided.

Now lets fast forward to getting to Costa Rica! We landed and met everyone in Customs. Six couples ready for a great week in the sun! We got thru,got our rental cars and we were off. We had a 2 hr drive to a little "beach town" outside of Jaco. The house was awesome! we all had our own rooms with bathrooms, a pool on the roof and tons of room to play. We had a sweet view of the ocean and the beach was a 5 min walk from the house. We also had a guide that would come to the house everyday to see what activities we wanted to do. He'd set them up for us. Love that Javier! The town was crazy, there were little make shift houses every where. People rode bikes everywhere. And boy did they know how to give a "pump" They could fit 5 people on 1 bike! There was a little market around the corner and a few open air restaurants. Just simple.

The first day we hung around the house and recovered from our travels. The next day we went to the beach and played in ocean. The boogie boarding was phenomenal!

That night we went and ate to one of the restaurants which was delicious but boy were we in for a "treat". The next day i woke up with a stomach ache and the runs (sorry but its part of the experience..) I just figured it was a little food poisoning but Id be fine. I had to be, we were going to the zip lines that day. At breakfast no one else felt sick, just me. I am glad to report that the zip line was a success and that I did not have any bathroom emergencies while up in the trees for 3 hrs.. whew!

Major success! This was my first time on a zip line and it was worth every penny! But, the sickness was spreading.. Now 2 more people were beginning to feel queazy followed by the runs.. Uh oh! Thats 3 of the 12. As the day went on people in our group were dropping like flies. By the end of the night all but 3 people were experiencing the runs. And this was not your typical diarrhea (we only wished it was) we are talking, eat something and 5 min later it was pure liquid.. 2 people we up all night with chills, runs and aches. Me being one of them. I thought I was going to die!! But I also thought I was on the mend and that the worst had passed. Like food poisoning does. At any moment during the day you would see people run off to the nearest bathroom. Mid conversation. It was hilarious and awful at the same time.

At this point we had been stuck in the house for obvious reasons and were ready to venture out. We went in to Jaco to shop and find "american food" because at this point nothing "native" sounded good. Period. It was fun to see how people there function. My husband speaks fluent spanish so it was fun to hear him translate and talk to the people. As people were on the mend (we thought) we decided to venture a little farther away and go on a waterfall hike. It was awesome! You hike up to this place with 3 waterfalls that had pools you could jump into. It was definitely refreshing and we all needed it after shedding 5 pounds from the runs…

It was soo fun! I think Javier got a kick out or group. I swear he thought the boys were a group of teenage boys..They were so funny to watch! We got to experience a thunder storm one night that was insane!! I had no clue it could ran soo hard and thunder soo loud! It was nuts! and boy when it rains, all kinds of creatures come out…We were sweeping crabs, frogs and ginourmous bugs out of our entry way! My kids would have been in heaven.

The rest of the trip was filled with fun, the beach and playing games! And yes,at this point we all had the runs.. Violent runs! It was such a fun group to travel with and I am pretty sure was all had a blast, minus the being attached to a toilet thing.. But we are forever bonded by Montezuma's Revenge. It is VERY real people. and its frightening!!! My doctor laughed, gave me a antibiotic and said, "good luck!" This experience has forever changed my opinion about international travel.. and NO we did not drink the water… I am happy to report I am almost back to normal almost a week later… as the for others…well, some have not been soo lucky…especially the ones who had no sympathy for us early on. lol! He are some picks of the trip!

Thanks for the "Ulitmate Cleanse" Costa Rica, you shall not be forgotten…

On another note, I am back working like mad to get slipcovers finished before my next rip up, which will be over Mother's Day weekend. Hit me up if you want to get on my fitting schedule. I have 1-2 spots open. You must have fabric washed and ready to go!