IKEA BILLY BOOKCASE Revamped

We are back home!

We came back to our house last Friday afternoon, after three, almost four weeks of kitchen renovation. So, my old habits came back too, looking to decorate with inexpensive accessories and attempt simple and small DIY projects around the house.

In this post, I will show you 2 small DIY projects I did last evening and 1 mini DIY I did a while ago:

Revamping an IKEA billy bookcase with fabric

A couple of weeks ago, I bought the Sofia fabric from IKEA for a DIY project. I made a mistake when I took the measurements and never had time to go back and get more fabric. So, this evening, while watching TV in our basement and looking around to find something to decorate, I had the idea to revamp my black IKEA Billy bookcases by using the fabric I already have.

In the pictures below, you will see the result of one bookcase after I stapled the Sofia fabric.

These are the steps to follow:

1. Remove the back and the shelves of your IKEA Billy bookcase with a hammer and take measurements

2. Iron the fabric to remove all wrinkles

3. Measure and cut the fabric

4. Staple the fabric to the back of the bookcase

5. Place the shelves back

6. Make sure the fabric looks good from every angle

7. Decorate and style your IKEA bookcase

*(this helped me personalize my space)

This is another small DIY project, I did last evening: cover an old small ottoman with fabric to give it a new look

I had some Sofia fabric left over, so I decided to cover up the top of one small white ottoman bought over two years ago. A very simple project, just secure and staple the fabric around the top of your ottoman. You get a new look:

And this last DIY project, I did it a couple of weeks ago:

I used different letter fonts from the “Pages” Mac software, printed the “alphabet” on glossy photo paper and framed them on these inexpensive black frames. This small project took around 15 minutes to do and I am using it as art in our basement (our basement is our little boy’s media room, he loves it there)

Love how everything turned out! Now, we have a white-black theme going on in our basement with some hints of blue (my little one loves the color blue and red)

Thanks for stopping by!

IV

Remember my last DIY?

When I wrapped fabric around a canvas?

What about last week’s, when I wrapped wallpaper around a lamp shade?

OK … so, today I joined both DIY’s  by wrapping the same IKEA TIDNY textile around two hand-me-down lamp shades (from my parents living room)

It was simple and easier than using wallpaper.

I wrapped the fabric around the lamp shade, used fabric glue along all the seams, then used tape to hold them in place while it dried. (I used scotch tape)

The excess fabric was supposed to be cut, I decided to leave it instead because the interior of the shades were old, dirty and ugly.

In less than an hour, I transformed two lonely old lamps into “matchy-matchy” lamps.

(these two lamps will go in my son’s play room … one day he will be able to paint them!)

This is a small DIY project that I did this weekend:

A mini-canvas-textile gallery for my son’s play room:

My inspiration came from a TV segment that aired on Cityline last Thursday, August 16, the “Ikea textile event in New York city”.

When Samantha Pynn (love her show Summer Home) pronounced these words: “ fun and easy project that requires no skills so you don’t need to use a sewing machine”, I knew it was for me. Mary Dobson also from Cityline mentioned this fun black and white inexpensive textile that you can color in.

After viewing this TV segment, I was convinced that I would be able to do my little own DIY project, so Saturday morning I hurried up to the IKEA store. After browsing the store for the 100th time, I went to look for that specific textile and bought a meter of it. (TIDNY at $5.99 per meter)

This DIY project was very simple, I took two old white canvas stretched across a simple wooden frame, wrapped the fabric around it, cut the excess fabric and staple it.

To add a little pop of color, I used some paint and a fabric marker on only a couple of pieces. I used these colors because they are neutral and when my son will get older he will be able to color the rest of the fabric with the colors he will choose.

This weekend DIY project cost under $5.99 + taxes and was very easy to do! I still have fabric left from the meter bought, so I am considering wrapping the rest of it around the lamp shade in Nat’s play room. If I do, I will keep you posted!

If you’re looking for a first sewing project you really can’t go wrong with a flanged pillow.  Samantha and I made this one together.

What makes the flanged pillow perfect for beginners is that it’s so straightforward to make, so forgiving, and so good-looking when finished that it will certainly inspire confidence and motivation to continue with sewing.  Samantha chose this fabric from my stash; it’s one of the newer IKEA designs that you can find on so many of their products right now (glassware, kitchen towels, bedding, etc.).  To help her know where to stitch, I used a dressmaker’s chalk pencil to mark the stitching line.

I usually make covers for pillows and make the pillows themselves separately (of course you can also buy standard-size pre-made pillows).  It just makes so much more sense for washing, particularly if you use a pillow fill that is not washable like kapok.  But I thought doing that would quash the fun and immediacy of this project, so I was willing to dispense with doing things the right way.  After all, always doing things the right way will only get you so far in life and the polyfill I used is washable, so the whole thing can just go in the wash.  Keep in mind that you’ll need to leave an approximately 4″ opening for both your pillow seam and your flange stitching line in order to stuff your pillow.  I used machine stitching to both close up the pillow and complete the flange edge.  If you’re wondering, a flange is simply a projecting edge – in this case, a decorative fabric one.

Here are the directions for making an approximately 13-1/2″ x 18″ finished pillow.

I found this recipe in the New York Times a few years ago and finally got around to it today.  Have you heard of these?  They come from England; I’ve also seen them referred to as Easter biscuits or Garibaldi biscuits.  They are really nice. Wonderful with coffee.  Apparently the tradition was to give them as gifts on Easter Sunday, tied with ribbon in bundles of three.  You can find the recipe I used here.  The two changes I made were to 1) reduce the amount of currants by 1/4 cup and replace those with 1/4 cup chopped candied orange peel and 2) skip the sugar glaze.

It’s a charming pink gingham the biscuits are sitting on, isn’t it?  That’s my favorite new IKEA fabric.  Such a great pink, a tiny bit of salmon color to it – very easy on the eye.  The bud vases are a recent Target purchase.  They sell them four to a package.  I bought two packages.  They’d be so fun to use down the length of the table.

I love this IKEA fabric as well.  I read about this napkin project on the blog, Chocolate & Zucchini.  When I saw this print, it screamed NAPKIN at me, so I found another IKEA fabric that I’d purchased last year and stitched them up together.  Not the best pairing perhaps, but I certainly didn’t want to go out and buy any more fabric.  I’ll save that for the next napkin I make. I must say, this is a simple and very good-looking way to do it.

I found some other great things on a quick trip to the East Palo Alto store yesterday.  A very lovely cotton pink knit throw and cotton table runners with roses from India.  (I’d actually already purchased these; three in fact – for running across the table crosswise.)  I also fell for these glass mugs from France.  Nicely proportioned, feel very good in the hand, and did I mention – they’re from France!  You can see them here, and here, and here.  Unfortunately, none of these things look as good in the photos as they do in person.

And before I go, I’ll direct you to this link in case you need something else that’s sweet to make for Easter. Nothing says Easter like meringue and these are both meringue recipes that are delicious and reliable and so pretty on your table.

Before

After

Ironing board, that is.  Actually the board is old, but the cover is new.  That’s the before photo on the left and the after on the right.  It’s a big improvement over the last one, don’t you think?  Certainly more lively.  I’m so glad I finally figured out something to do with those bold, large-scale prints you can find for a song at Ikea.  I found this particular print last year.  I was hoping it would get me more excited about using my board and it does!  The reason for this is that I’m starting to sew again and if you sew too, you know that you must press after every line of stitching you make.  Ironing is such a big part of sewing that you might as well try to make it as pleasant as possible.

Making my new cover was easier than I thought it would be.  I used the old one as both a pattern and guide for the construction method.

That’s the old cover pictured above.  It’s gathered underneath the board with a narrow cord that is stitched around – both through and on top of – the folded edge of binding on the cover.  The first thing I did was loosen the cord to lay the old cover flat, so I could use it as a pattern.  Then I laid the cover on top of my Ikea fabric and drew a line right around it.  I cut the new fabric on that line.

Then I took two packages of extra wide double fold bias tape.  I pinned the contents of one of the packages onto the edge of half of the new cover (1 package wasn’t long enough to go around the entire cover) beginning at the midpoint of the pointy end and stitched it on.

Then I pinned the contents of the second package of bias tape to the other half of the cover.  I folded both short edges of tape a bit (just to finish the edges) before overlapping them with the other already stitched side of bias tape and stitching the second piece of bias tape to the cover.

Next, I removed the narrow cord from the original cover to reuse it for the new one.  I found a needle with a large eye and hand-stitched the cord through the edge of bias tape on the new cover, about 3/8″ through the tape and 3/4″ on top of the tape all the way around.  This sounds labor intensive I know, but it’s really only a night or two at most of television viewing.

Finally, I put the new cover on the board and pulled up the gathers to fit before tying both ends of cord together under the midpoint of the board’s pointy end.  And voila – a like new ironing board.