The other day I took a critical look around my living room. To be honest, I’m not much of a decorator. My mother was, my daughter is, but somewhere that gene simply skipped right over me! I realized as I looked around the room that it was a pretty sad sight. Very little in the way of knick-knacks left the room less cozy than it could be, the pillows on the couch were saggy, and the curtains looked limp. As I stood in the middle of the room, I tried to decide what could be done—in a hurry—to bring some life back to this room.
I look at my pillows and thought, “I can punch those up and make them fluffy.” I even added a few more pillows without dragging my sewing machine from its hiding place. How, you ask? That’s not even possible. Oh, but it is my friends—and this is how it’s done!
The first thing I did was take the two old couch pillows and used a seam ripper to open a small hole at the bottom of each. Then, I pulled out two sweaters I had felted, trying to do another project (it was for felted dryer balls, but that’s a story for another blog!). These sweaters had been laying around waiting for the perfect opportunity to be used because they had felted up just perfect, and I hated to throw them away. I took the sweaters and started cutting them into pieces. I took the pieces and stuffed them into the droopy couch pillows. Next thing you know two fluffy, like-new pillows. All I had to do was hand sew the small holes shut.
My second idea involved some placemats I had bought because they matched my décor and I was trying to spruce things up. However, I only used them once because I soon realized that I would be picking them up off the floor when hungry people sat down in a hurry at the table. I looked carefully at the mats and realized they were actually two pieces of fabric sewn together. At the bottom of the mat I ripped a small hole with my trusty seam ripper. I then took two old sheets and started ripping them to shreds. Talk about fun—boy oh boy, I never thought hearing that rrriiiipp of a sheet could cause quite so much laughter (or so many strange looks from dogs and children!). Once the fun was over and the sheet was in shreds on the floor, I started balling them up and stuffing the pillow. My old sheets were put to good use, and those unused placemats were magically turned into new, inexpensive pillows to add to my couch.
Now, I have two rejuvenated pillows and two new pillows. Both of which have brightened up the living room considerably, all because I dared to think outside the box when I didn’t have any proper stuffing material. I saved money, reused something that might have ended up in a landfill, and taught myself a new trick for the future.
In my next blog, I will tell you the second surprising way I made my living room less dreary! But until then, I want to hear from you—when was a time you thought outside the box and did something totally unexpected that turned out great? Let me know in the comments below.
Amy Greene is a wife, mother of four children and three dogs, and homesteader from North Carolina. She loves to learn about homesteading and self-sufficiency. Her family plants a large garden, preserves as much as possible, and has high hopes of someday fulfilling their wildest homesteading dreams!
