Living Room Update: Sofa

I'm not just here to brag on our new sofa - I also want to share that the right sofa can make an awkward room feel normal again.

We have a weird-shaped living room.  It's 20' x 12 ', has an entire wall of sliding glass doors (with a spectacular view), and can be seen from everywhere on the main floor.  The TV can only be hung on the short walls.  See how awkward it was before?

Those specs left me with sort of a design challenge.  Split the room?  It's kind of small.  Add more chairs?  Looks cramped.  Sit a long way from the TV?  Then he'll want a bigger one.

We weren't really planning on replacing our sofa - our premarital one was good enough.  Or so we thought, until we both got the flu (the one that's like a cold that makes you want to die) for a week and spent most of it on the couch.  After a week on the couch, we concluded it was too small and too uncomfortable, and it had to go, like now.  Luckily, it also coincided with the time of year sofas go on sale!

Once we were over the flu for about a week, we hit the furniture stores.  We ended up finding the sofa of our dreams, on sale, at Arhaus. 

We hemmed and hawed with all sorts of options, and finally went with a large-size sectional L-shaped sofa.  We splurged in the comfort department and opted for down-filled cushions.  On the practical side of things, it has a fitted slipcover, so I can take it off and launder it if anything bad happens.  We can also order a different slipcover in the future if we decide white isn't working for us anymore.  Arhaus has carried this style for over 30 years, with plans to keep it in their stock forever, so we can order more pieces in the future if we happen to move.

Oh, and it seats about a dozen people if need be (hello in-laws!) - or at least both of us and the dog all sprawled out! 

And we love it!  It feels like it was made for this room, and it makes the room so much more functional.  We can see the lake, the kitchen, and even the TV (though it is 20' away...).

I topped it off with my Caribbean scrap pillows.  We kept the coffee table (love the storage) and tiny rug.  If you look close, you'll also see Lucky's toy basket hiding in the corner.

You might also notice a new picture ledge and snazzy curtains - more on those soon!

While it's by far the priciest piece of furniture we've ever bought, it's also our favorite!  Well worth the money, if you ask me :)

Are there any pricy pieces of furniture you've been glad you bought?  Share below!

Bonnie Projects

Ironing Board Cover

Remember how when I dyed my wedding dress, some of the dye rubbed off?  With all that blessed ironing I had to do on it, both my iron and my ironing board ended up blue!

I was sick of my cheapo iron anyways, so I relegated it to be more of craft iron than garment iron.  I threw the ironing board cover in the wash.  The dye actually came completely out.  But my cover shrunk so much that I couldn't get it on the board anymore!

Which means I got to do a project!

I know you haven't seen it yet, but in my craft room all the accessories are "Bonnie Pink", so of course I needed a Bonnie Pink ironing board cover!

I dug around and found a large piece of quilting fabric that was perfect!  If you're buying it new, you need about 1.75 yards of cotton.  I also found some leftover batting and cording I had bought for my failed attempt at making roman shades (you'll need 4 yards of cord).

I washed the fabric before doing anything else - I didn't need another one shrinking up on me!  Because I didn't have an ironing board cover, I couldn't iron the fabric first, but this project doesn't require perfection so it wasn't a big deal.  Remember that - perfection is not required!!!!

I laid out the fabric and tried to get it relatively smooth.

Then I laid the batting over the fabric and smoothed everything out.  Our foster kitten told me that it was wide enough to double up, so I did that, too!  (She showed up during a storm a week ago, and is going to her forever home soon!)

I laid the ironing board on top of everything and outlined it with a Sharpie so I'd know how big to make everything.  I pinned all the layers together to keep stuff from shifting.

Then I sewed the layers together, making it so my stitching would end up on the side of the ironing board (it's hard to iron stuff flat if there are lumpy stitches underneath).  Then I trimmed off the excess batting.

I cut the extra fabric off about 2.5" from the edge of the ironing board.  Looking back, I wish I had done 3.5" or maybe even 4".

I sewed the excess into a pocket for the cord to go in.

I forgot to leave a slit so I just cut one instead.  Then I threaded my cord through the pocket using a safety pin attached to the end as a guide.

And that was it!  I put it on the board and tightened the cord! (yay that rhymes)

But... it wasn't a tight as I had hoped.  The ends were fine, but the middle was just eh.

To fix that, I used some scrap fabric and made two sets of ties.  I sewed them to the edges of the cover.  Once the cover was back on the board, I tied the new ties - much better!  Now everything is staying in place.

All in all, this project took about 1.5 hours, and cost $0 since I had all the materials!  The new ironing board looks spiffy with my craft room!  Now I can also get around to all those projects where ironing stuff is a crucial step :)

Bonnie Projects

Lemon Drop Martinis

Happy Friday!

I'm sorry I've been so absent lately!  We were making a big push to finish lots of projects in preparation for the housewarming party we threw last weekend, and I didn't leave myself enough time to blog about them as they were happening.  But the plus side is that now I have lots of great projects to share with you!

Since we have a sunny and hot weekend ahead of us, I thought it would be a great time to share the recipe I used for the lemon drop martinis I served at our party.  I'll share both the party-size and single-serve recipes.

These are easy and delicious, but they can sneak up on you, so be careful!  They're also pretty low-calorie, if you're watching your figure :)

Party-Sized Lemon Drop Martinis
(enough to quench the thirsts of 50 people)

• 3 gallon drink dispenser
• Smirnoff Citrus Vodka (1.75 L bottle)
• DeKuyper Triple Sec (1 L bottle)
• 2 gallons water
• 4 packages sugar-free lemonade mix
• Mix and serve over ice!

Single-Serve Lemon Drop Martinis

• 4 oz. lemonade
• 1.5 oz. citrus vodka
• .5 oz. triple sec
• Mix and serve over ice!

We had some left over after the party, so I filled up a used wine bottle with the extra.  We've been enjoying it all week, and it seems to keep pretty well!

Have a lovely weekend!

Bonnie Projects

Display a ticket stub collection

Does your husband have huge collections of stuff that are generally unacceptable as art?  Has he been collecting these objects for over ten years?  Does he love going to events, such as sports games, concerts, and movies, and even have season passes to his alma mater?

What can you do with such collections, you ask?  Look no further!!!  I am here to show you how to make a collection of ticket stubs into tasteful decor for your home.

{All in jest - I love you Tommy!  But seriously, there's a widespread lack of ideas for displaying collections}

I have yet to figure out his shot glass collection, but I have figured out the ticket stubs!

I started with a 20" square IKEA Ribba frame in black.  Their black and white frames in this size are kind of like shallow shadow boxes, and leave about an inch between the glass and the mat.

Tommy helped me cut a slit in one side of the frame - we drilled holes, then connected them using the jigsaw.  I wanted to do a plunge cut with the circular saw, but it seemed really unsafe, so we passed.  Be VERY CAREFUL with this part, and get a partner to help you hold everything!

Cutting the slit messed up the frame a bit, so I touched it up with black acrylic craft paint.  The finish isn't the same, but it's going on the top of a frame, and we're short, so it's not like we'll see it anyways.

There's a square insert for the IKEA Ribba frame, and it was blocking my fresh-cut slit.  I pulled off one of the sides, and put the U-shaped piece back in.  They're stapled together, it was really easy to just pull it apart.

Lucky for me, I had a large 2006 Final Four flag that I taped to the mat to cover the hole.  In other instances, I bet a fresh piece of mat board or a poster or something would also work.

If you just throw all the tickets through the hole, they tend to just land on their sides and bunch up at the bottom - not so pretty.  Instead, I taped a bunch to the mat to create a pretty background.  Don't do this for all of them - save a few.

Then I put the frame back together like normal.

Once I had it hung, I inserted the remainder of my tickets.  Again, they'll bunch up at the bottom, so instead of putting them in one at a time, I would tape two or three together at odd angles, then insert that whole bunch.  That way they look a lot more interesting at the bottom of the frame.

So that's it!  The whole project took about an hour of labor, but spread out over time since I had to wait for paint to dry.  I spent $20 on the frame, and I already had the paint.  All those events on the other hand....let's just call them priceless.

I love that now we can see all these ticket stubs and remember all the fun events we've been to!  I also love that they're all corralled in a 20" x 20" space - they're fun, but not too juvenile.

Bonnie Projects

Low Country Boil for a Crowd {Recipe}

I recently visited my family farm in rural Alabama, where we gather up as many friends and family as possible for our annual Crawfish Party!

any guesses on how many people in this photo are my relatives?

The crawfish are actually cooked in Louisiana and brought to the farm the day of the party, but the low country boil is made fresh!

yummmm, crawfish!

My uncle bought the largest commercially available pot (40 gallons) for the yearly event - if you need a bigger one, it's a custom order.  It's even bigger than the one I saw recently on Duck Dynasty (those guys have nothing on us!).  It's so big that I can fit inside, with the lid on!

For the normal kitchen chef, however, a large pot will do.  You only need a pot like ours if you plan to feed 75 people from a single batch.  If you're cooking for Louisianians, it may be more like 35 :)  The cool part is that with only one batch, everyone gets to eat at the same time.

Ingredients:

• Red Potatoes (10 lbs.)
• Corn (50 ears) 
• Onions (1 dozen)
• Seasoning (2lbs. Zatarain's crab boil powder + 1 lb. Swamp Fire powder OR 1 quart of Zatarain's liquid crab boil)
• Lemons (optional)
• Kilbasa Sausage (12 lbs.)
• Shrimp (20 lbs.)

Method:

Fill your pot 2/3 of the way with water and bring to a rolling boil.  Our pot takes an entire hour and at least one tank of propane to come to a boil.  Also, the propane tanks freeze over, so they need their own bucket of water to sit in.  If it freezes up, the tank stops vaporizing and the fire goes out.

While you're waiting for the water to boil, prep the veggies.  The potatoes can go in whole or halved.  The onions should be quartered.  Remove the husk and silks from the corn, and snap in half.  Cut lemons in half.  Slice the sausage into bite-size rounds.  The shrimp go in whole, but it's a good idea to wash them first.

Once the water comes to a rolling boil, add the seasoning and start timing (or, if you like your potatoes and corn less spicy, add the spice later in the cooking process).

0 minutes: Add potatoes
10 minutes: Add corn
20 minutes: Add onions
25 minutes: Add sausage
30 minutes: Add shrimp
34 minutes: Turn off heat
37 minutes: Serve!

I know four minutes doesn't sound like much for shrimp, but overcooked shrimp get a gross texture and are also hard to peel.

Strain the water from the good stuff (we have an insert for our pot, but you could dump a small batch through a colander).  Using such a huge pot with so many pounds of food, we had to develop a special method for this step.  We have a 2x4 board with large hooks on it to get the pot out of the water - two people lift the pot.  A third person dumps the pot into aluminum trays - one for each table!

Serve immediately!

I like to dip my low country boil in a mixture of equal parts mayonnaise and cocktail sauce; others prefer cocktail sauce alone, or nothing at all!  It's up to you.  For the most part, nobody eats the onions or lemons - they're mainly there to flavor everything else.

When we have leftovers, we separate everything into baggies after dinner.  The potatoes make excellent home fries and are a delicious breakfast when paired with leftover sausage.  The shrimp can become shrimp cocktail the next night, or a Cajun pasta.  The corn freezes well and becomes a delicious corn chowder.

Lemon drop martinis or ice cold beer provide a welcome respite from the spice.  (And are best enjoyed in redneck wine glasses made from mason jars!)

I hope you enjoy our family recipe!

Bonnie Projects

Reversible indoor/outdoor pillows

The freshly refinished patio furniture looks great!  But the solid blue cushions needed a little jazzing up.

I was complaining to my Mom about the dearth of cute outdoor pillows, and how the ones that are out there are pricey, and she suggested that she make them for me as a gift.

My specifications were three pillows, 16" square, and fun.  The rest was up to her!

She really hit the mark on this one!  She made us two sets of pillow cases.  We're going for a blue/green color scheme on the deck, so the main pillows are those colors.  She couldn't decide between fabrics, so she got both and made the pillows reversible.

So they can all match with either fabric, or be mixed.  What fun!

On top of that, she's well aware that Tommy's favorite holiday is 4th of July.  She made an extra set just for him in red white and blue that he can put out around Independence Day.  These are reversible too!

She used sunbrella fabrics, which stand up well to the elements and resist fading.  I used special outdoor pillow forms (half off at Joanns) to stuff them.  Even though her pillows measure exactly 16" square, they looked best with 18" pillow inserts.  The 16" ones were really puny, so keep than in mind when you're shopping.

Tommy was weirded out about having pillows that get rained on.  We got almost 1/2" the other day, but by that afternoon, they were already dry.  I would imagine they're also washable if need be.  You don't have to use outdoor pillow inserts - regular polyester-filled ones are OK too.

But wait, there's more!

After going on and on about how much we liked these, and after she saw our freshly painted blue porch swing, she made us two more!

These are also two sided, with a colorful chevron on one side and a flip flops print on the other.

A super big thanks to my awesome Mom!!!

Bonnie Projects