Unapologetically Cute

This past weekend my siblings came to visit, and brought their dogs with them.
I don't have any dogs (yet,) I have two cats who spent most of the weekend hiding outside or under the couch. Between the five animals (yup, five!) there was so much cuteness going on that I felt the need to share.

First Toby started trying to cause some trouble by batting at Skittles' whiskers while Skittles was trying to eat.


Skittles didn't like it much, but behaved very well, only hissing and swiping at Toby twice.

Moments later my younger sister, Sarah, arrived with her two Pointers, one 6 months old (Mia) and one about 9 years old(Promise), and the cats high-tailed it to their favorite hiding places. The dogs, meanwhile, quickly discovered a motorized mouse toy that made so much noise that the cats were too terrified to play with, so I happily let the dogs at it.

Though they were trained to hunt birds, they didn't seem to care much that this was covered in fuzz instead of feathers.


After my older sister arrived with Oscar, her sweet but ENORMOUS mutt (best we can figure he's some kind of Rottweiler/Great Dane mix), we decided to take the dogs out for a nice walk to tire them out a bit.
Mia, the younger of the two Pointers, loved the idea and decided to help out.


Oscar, though twice her size, played along and let Mia lead him around the house a bit.


What a good sport, eh?
A run through a nearby field had the desired effect and tired the dogs out nicely.


Awww... Which allowed us to do a little shopping. We headed over to the Christmas Tree Shop to check out the early Christmas decoration specials, where Sarah found the PERFECT Christmas outfit for Mia.

The men were appalled that we would do such a thing to the poor, defenseless dog, but she didn't seem to mind too much. And she's soooooo cute!

Aw, so sleepy and so cute... time to go home!

Impromptu Reupholstery

I have this cute little storage ottoman that I bought awhile back, about two years ago, I believe.
It was just what I wanted in the way of footstool/magazine storage/extra seating for under $30, and while I liked the fabric, the colors have never been entirely suited to my style. Hitherto, that's never been much of an issue since my rental apartments usually came with beige walls, and if I added color it was always considerately pale. (except for one notable hallway foray into apple green, which was fun)
So the other day I went to the fabric store looking for some nice velveteen with which to make curtains. Instead I came home with some wild velvet remnants with which to finally recover my ottoman. Which I did:

Isn't it cute?!

The Technicalities:
-I began by removing all the hardware- 8 screws holding on each tiny little hinge!!- and the legs, which screw off.

- I then measured the height of the lower part and cut strips of the tiger-print fabric, leaving about an inch of extra on the top and bottom. Since I was working with a pattern, I carefully chose the bit I wanted to be font and center.

- Folding the fabric under at the edge I used my upholstery staple gun and, starting in the middle, stapled the fabric about every inch.

- To save money I purchase less fabric and ran two strips end to end. To avoid sewing altogether, I simply overlapped the pieces, folding the overlying piece under to avoid a rough edge. I also put a staple in the center of the underlying piece to keep it from slipping out. (the seam in the picture is about an inch from the lower corner.)

- For the top half of the ottoman, I wrapped it like a present and also cut the edges with an inch of seam allowance all around, tucked the rough edges under, and stapled.

- I treated the corner pretty much like a present, too, though I wrapped them square for a neater look. You may need to trim a bit of fabric and use some extra staples to make it lie flat.


One Caveat: If you don't want the dog to sleep on your velvet, don't leave it on the floor.
Once she got on, there was no way she was going back to her own bed. Oh well.

TIME: About an hour.
COST: $8.50
I got a great deal on the remnant table, so one yard of the pink velvet was $3.50, and the tiger was $5.