The Taylor Swift Concert

Cora and Abby have been fans of Taylor Swift for a while now, but ever since the RED album came out, it has catapulted to a whole new level!

The girls have been begging to go to one of her concerts and when we found out that she was opening her RED tour in Omaha, we knew we couldn't miss it.

Abby and her best friend (above) have been completely obsessed with the concert for months!  They have been planning their outfits, hair etc.  They decorated their pants with glow in the dark paint and even had matching hair accessories.  It was pretty adorable.

Cora was also super excited, but she wasn't quite as enthusiastic as Abby.

We had heard that the concert staff picks people from the audience to go and stand in the pit.  We sang our hearts out and were super obnoxious hoping to get picked!  Unfortunately, we weren't the chosen ones, but we sure had fun screaming and dancing before the show!

This picture (below) was taken while Ed Sheeran was performing.  I hadn't heard many of his songs before, but he was fantastic! I was in complete awe of the lights!

Abby and her best friend could hardly contain themselves while they were waiting for Taylor to arrive.

Then finally the moment came!  The stage turned RED...

And Taylor Swift appeared behind the red curtain.

One of the sweetest things about the concert was the incredibly amazing connection that Taylor had with the audience.  Imagine this picture below with 13,000 fans screaming.

Her face was so sweet...

The concert was absolutely amazing filled with special effects and phenomenal dancers!

At one point in the show (during the song 22) Taylor came across the arena to a second stage that was right below us!

She sang quite a few songs on this second stage and Abby and her friend went right down to the railing.  Abby said that Taylor looked at her for a whole 5 seconds!

 This smaller stage rose into the air and slowly rotated. It was pretty amazing how much closer she was to those of us in the upper seats.

After finishing on the second stage, she climbed onto this little platform and floated across the entire arena until she was back at the main stage.

And of course it ended with a big bang and the entire arena filling with confetti!

And just because I love you so much.... here is a little video of Abby at the concert.  She was pretty much like this for the entire 2 hours!  Oh to be 10 again!

The Polka Dot Couch

I am beyond excited with how this cute little couch turned out for Emma's room!

Making a slipcover for this thing has been on my to do list for years!

I found this sweet baby when we lived in England.  It was the perfect size and I loved the lines, but the fabric was hideous!  Are your ready for the before picture?

Pretty bad, huh?  As you can imagine the brown floral was completely throwing off the cuteness factor of Emma's room.

Here are a few more close ups of the finished product...

This was a time consuming and challenging project (It took about 4 days), but I am so happy with the end result that it was all worth it!

Slip covering is a pretty straight forward concept, but can get a little tricky on all the little curves.

Although I can not do a full tutorial (since no two pieces are the same) I will try to explain the basic concept of making a slipcover.

First begin by figuring out how much fabric you are going to need.  I measured each piece of the couch, added lots of extra inches for seem allowances and made a little diagram to figure out how much fabric I needed.  I bought 4 yards of fabric, but I BARELY had enough.  I had to use muslin for the seat bottom, since I had run out of fabric.  I really should have bought 5 yards.

My favourite place to buy fabric is fabric.com.  They have an amazing selection, competitive prices and free returns.  This is a decorator fabric by Premier Prints and cost about $7/yard.

Once your fabric has been prewashed and dried, you can start measuring and cutting.

I started with the seat back and measured the widest part on the length and width.  I then added 3" to both of these numbers.  For example if my back was 45" X 29" at it's widest parts, then I would cut a rectangle 48" x 32".  I made sure that I was quite generous in my initial measurement, always rounding up to ensure I would have enough fabric.

Continue measuring and cutting fabric in this same manner, labelling the back with which piece it was (front back, seat bottom etc) and an arrow indicating the direction the fabric should lay.

Once you have a couple of pieces cut (I did the front back and the back back first), then you can begin pinning.

You are going to lay your fabric onto your furniture with the right side down and pin your two pieces together like so.... Make sure your are pinning your fabric with the right sides together!

Be as precise as possible in your pinning.

After you have pinned two pieces together, then use these pins as your sewing guide.  Remove fabric from furniture and sew straight over your pin line (removing the pins as you go).

I found it helpful to make a little dashed pencil line in between my pins to keep me going in a straight line.  Your pins will not be perfectly lined up, but try to even them out as you are sewing, so that you are sewing in as smooth of line as possible.

Continue this process with each additional piece of fabric, always pinning right sides together.

This is that tiny little side piece.

One trick that makes pinning easier is to first pin your piece of fabric directly to your piece of furniture, then start pinning the seams together.

Here are a few more pictures of the pinning process...

To get the nice little pleats in the arm, I finished sewing the slipcover then sewed the little pleats by hand at the very end.

Notice that I had to use muslin for the seat bottom in the above picture because I was running out of fabric!

After I finished sewing all of my seams, I trimmed them down (to about an inch) and pressed all my seams open.

Lastly I added this little ruffle trim to the bottom that I found at Hobby Lobby.

I covered each of the seat cushions separately to make sure it had a nice tailored look.  I used the same process of pinning my fabric on top of the cushion with right sides together.  I also added an invisible zipper, so that I can remove them for washing.  There are lots of tutorials out there to help with this part.  I am sure I didn't do this part right, but it ended up looking pretty good.

And there you have it!  One more before and after just for fun....

Before

After

Please email me if you have any questions.  It really was not that hard, just took a little patience.

Happy Sewing!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My husband and I just came home from a lovely ski vacation in Steamboat, Colorado!  It was a fabulous little getaway and I was so thankful that my sweet mother-in-law came to watch the kids.

While we were away the kids were busy, busy, busy planning a Valentine's Day surprise for us.   When we got home last night and walked into our room, it looked like this....

balloons everywhere...

and homemade Valentines all over the walls!

It was the sweetest thing!  Here are a few of my favourites...

You Rock!  Be My Valintime!

Our Family by Isaac

Here is what we found in the bathroom...

Our mirror was completely covered in sweet little sticky notes.

and more hearts hanging everywhere....

But wait, there's more!!  They hid these little boxes of candy throughout the room.

I found this one in my sock drawer :)

And just when I thought this day couldn't get any better, my doorbell rang and I found these from my sweetheart!

I love roses!

Happy Valentine's Day!