Two pillows, some artwork, and a sick Goose

This weekend has been a little rough in our nest. We've all been sick for the last week with a cough/cold combo, and now Goose has an ear infection. Her first ever. Last night was particularly rough as none of us slept. After she woke up for the fifth time in 3 hours, I put her in our bed. Good idea/bad idea. She flopped around and poked me in the face while she was trying to get comfortable. Finally she'd stop flopping, and J-bird would start snoring. Alternating torture methods all night long.

In spite of our illness, we were still productive, completing two projects.

We moved all of the Asian art from our spare room to the stairway in preparation to move Goose to the other room (look for upcoming posts with plans).

Before (looking up from bottom of stairs):

Blah, boring.

After (looking down from landing):

What a difference! We keep walking by and thinking, Is this our house? It looks so... together.

(Note: the real color of the wall is more like the before photo.)

We have from left top:
1) anatomy drawing from Bodies exhibit, gesturing as if to say, "Right this way." Makes me chuckle.
2) a small piece I got in Vietnam

3) empty square frame-- big plans
4) pea pods made of washi paper
5) Japanese writing
6) photo I took of some workers and ox in field in Vietnam
7) a silk print I bought from some guy in the street in Vietnam.

We're planning on doing something with origami paper in the empty square frame in the middle. In the void above that frame, we will hang another identical square frame, slightly off center to the left from the one below, with either some origami paper or a cool little trinket. And our little anatomy drawing isn't Asian but we liked the yellow color of it and how it works with the yellows and greens  in the other pictures.

If it were left up to me, I would have just started hammering nails into the wall, but J-bird is much more neurotic meticulous when it comes to hanging pictures. He even snapped a chalkline down the wall and measured the distances between the frames. It does look quite nice!

And I made two new pillows for our couch, which previously had ZERO pillows. It looked rather awkward without pillows considering it's so long it easily seats four adults.

I had the fabric from a previously concocted but never completed cart cover project for Goose. Funny, I didn't really have much free time when she was younger-- imagine that! The pillows are 20x20 from IKEA.  I made envelope back pillows so we could wash the covers as they will eventually get dirty from Goose or the cats. The pillows are also washable. WASHABLE is key with kids.

I didn't really measure or iron as I should have-- I'm more of a throw it together and go type-- but they turned out fine. If you want a good tutorial for a quick and easy envelope back pillow, check out this one on A Pretty Cool Life.


What were your accomplishments this weekend? Knock a few off the to-do list, take a good nap, have dinner with friends? Did you do absolutely nothing and enjoy every minute of it? Whatever you did, I hope you enjoyed it.