The lack of a second income for a vacation fund is one of the downfalls of being a stay at home parent.
We usually start out our stay-cations strong, actually doing things at the beginning of the week, and then putter out by the end of the week. But sometimes we do nothing at the beginning of the week and then frantically feel pressure to actually do “something” at the end of the week. This vacation we have come up with a plan. We’ve got a bucket list, fun plans and museum passes.
Therefore, as you might imagine, one of my kids has been struck down with a rotten high fever, exhausted, congested, headache bug. Sigh.
Today, my husband was home, so I took my two (for now) healthy kids bowling and kicked their butts. No mercy. Here is a picture my daughter took of me doing some winning.
I like this shot because it looks nice and relaxing and like the two year old and her parents in the lane next to us didn’t spend almost our entire game standing in our lane to get the best photo angle of the kid’s first bowling trip or walking in our gutters to help along weakly rolled balls or having their legs spread into our lane while teaching their daughter correct arm swinging bowling form. Check my form, obviously they could have just had the kid watch my mad skillz.
When we got home from bowling, I finally moved forward on making box cushions for a couple of chairs I salvaged from my parents basement 5 years ago. At that time we had literally no furniture in my living room. The chairs were just frames and no cushions. I took off their wooden wings, sanded the chairs down and re-stained them. I made simple cushions from fabric I had found in my grandparents basement and some cheap pillow forms. The chairs have been in use together, split up, entirely moved to the basement and now reunited again as we’ve been collecting and rearranging furniture in our ever evolving living room. We’ve been in our current house for 6 years, and the “just put everything up and out” decorating style that we used when we moved in is starting to be revamped throughout our house. Starting with the living room. These chairs are getting real cushions, and an updated fabric.
The last box cushion I had made was a dog bed last year. For the new cushions, it’s basically the same, but I’m using zippers and welting cord. My project kept hitting road blocks. First, I had to order extra fabric because the store I bought some yardage from didn’t have enough. Second, I haven’t started collecting specialty feet for my sewing machine and got it in my head I wanted cording feet. Then looking at feet options online I wanted a whole slew of new presser feet that kept getting clicked into my shopping cart, and I had to stop looking and never bought anything. I’ve had the iron, ironing board, cutting mat, foam pieces, big roll of batting, and fabric cut for 2 of the cushions, sitting in my living room for a couple of weeks. That kind of thing (the clutter and the constant reminder of an unfinished project) can drive me a little nutty.
Today, after bowling I made the two bottom cushions and picked up my mess (until the rest of the fabric comes in). Feeling pleased with myself, I have been thinking about how much stay-cations rock.
If you are a craft sewer, you might never have thought about a project like this, but you can totally do it. It’s no harder than sewing a bag. Honest. Here is a good tutorial on making box cushions:
http://www.designsponge.com/2012/01/upholstery-basics-boxed-cushion-sewing.html
By the way, I used only used my zipper foot and standard zig zag foot, and didn’t need any non-standard presser feet for this project, just some care and patience.
Happy vacations home or away!
