Make Your Own Ghost Pillow

Two years ago, I took a quilting class because I couldn't find a bed cover I liked. Three years before that, I learned how to crochet because I couldn't find a hat that I liked. What you call pickiness and indecision, I call fuel for creative greatness.

Behold my latest creation: a ghost pillow:

I like switching my pillow covers because they add character to my living space, yet they're cheap to make and easy to store. Here is how I put this one together:

Ingredients

1 Yard white/off-white upholstery-grade fabric

Scrap black fabric (mine was 8" x 5")

Pillow Form (my pillow was 18" x 18")

Ruler

Fabric Scissors

Rotary Cutter

Fabric Marker

Straight Pins

Cutting Mat

Sewing Machine

Step 1

Cut 1 19.5" x 19.5" square for the front of your pillow, and two 19.5"x 12" rectangles that will form the back envelope portion of your pillow.

Step 2

Draw your eyes. I free-handed mine, making sure to leave space for seam allowance between the eyes and the edge of the square (remember that once the pillow is stuffed, the edges of your pillow will wrap around the pillow form and it won't seem like theres so much negative space). You can also use a candle, lid, or any round object as a tracing guide if you prefer rounder eyes.

Step 3

Cut a circle out of each eye that is approximately 1/2 inch smaller than your eye holes.

Step 4

Make 1/4-1/2 inch cuts from the inner circle you just removed to almost the edge of the eye hole. Do not cut all the way to your guideline.

Step 5

Pin back the flaps made by the cuts you just made. Pull the fabric just enough to make sure that all of your cuts are now folded on top of the fabric, but do not pull so much that your fabric becomes distorted. If you want smoother lines, you may also iron the flaps down, but I prefered a not-so-perfect look.

 

Step 6

Measure the width of your eyes from the left side of the left eye to the right side of the right eye, and measure the height of the tallest eye.

Step 7

Cut your black scrap peice of fabric to the size you just measured. 

Step 8

Line up the scrap fabric to cover both eyes (right side down) and pin in place.

Step 9

Flip over the fabric, and you should see this. Wa-la!

Step 10

I won't lie, this part was a little pain-staking. Line up the eyes and sew as close to the edge of the white fabric as possible. There was some finagling required to remove the pins, but if you get past this part, you're home free.

 The hard part is done!

Step 11

Now to make the envelope!

Take your two 19.5" x 12" rectangles of fabric and fold over one of the 19.5" sides about a quarter inch. Fold over again one more quarter inch. Iron this seam and pin in place.

Step 12

Sew as close to the edge of your fold as you can to finish this edge.

Step 13

Lay your large square right side up and one of your smaller rectangles right side down (the right side is the side that was facing up in Step 12). Line up the unfinished 19.5" edge of your smaller square with the bottom of the larger front square of the pillow.

Step 14

Sew a quarter inch around the 3 unfinished edges of your smaller rectangle, securing it to the front of your pillowcase.

 Step 15

Repeat the process with your remaining smaller rectangle, only this time, line the unfinished 19.5" edge up with the top of the pillowcase front. This last rectangle will overlap with the rectangle that is already secured by a couple of inches.

Step 16

Slice off the corners of the completed pillowcase, so that you don't end up with a bunch of fabric jammed in there once you turn the pillow case right-side-out. Make sure not to cut into your seams!

Step 17 

Turn your pillowcase right-side-out and stuff with your pillow form. Wa-la!

Level two is the mummy pillow. Like this post if you want to see the how-to!

*Post written by Sharae Terrell: quilter, crafter, and Digital Marketing Associate for Redwood Living

Moving & Shaking: Apartment Hunting & Moving Day

There are few things in life that I’m better at than apartment hunting and moving. I’m not sure what that says about me, but it’s the truth. I’ve hunted for apartments in four states and moved across the country renting apartments sight-unseen twice.  I’ve done both the “get rid of everything you own” and “just put it in the nearest box” moves. I’ve moved with family and friends helping and I’ve also moved with just me and the dog. I know the ropes and I’m going to share them with you here.

Apartment hunting and moving can be extremely frustrating – but it doesn’t have to be. Let me give you a few tips that’ll make the entire process a lot easier and in the end, a lot less work.

The Hunt

Most of us are going to use the internet to start our apartment search. And, if you’re old school like me, you’ll immediately think to head to apartments.com or forrent.com. Well, those places have been overrun by property management companies paying to circumvent the ranked search. This means that you might set up a very specific search and still be shown apartments that don’t fit your criteria – grrr, arg! This is highly problematic for those of us with pets. I’ve experienced falling in love with an apartment that was shown to me via the custom search, only to find that it wasn’t pet-friendly.

The absolutely best way to get around this is to use sites that aren’t specifically meant for apartment hunting – the best of which is Craigslist! I know, I know, Craigslist weirds you out. But, it’s like any other search engine, you use it as a jumping off point for your research, not your final resource. Craigslist makes apartment searching easy because you can create custom searches and then place that search on a map – A MAP! This is particularly useful for renting sight-unseen. Craigslist also gives you a wider variety of renting options. If you’re looking to rent a condo or a house, you can select those options as well. I found my current Redwood apartment via a Craigslist search – and the map feature is what made me come by to visit. I was also able to do a Street-level view via Google and it convinced me that it was worth a shot.

Craigslist isn’t the only resource, it’s just a great place to start. I’ve also taken to using Zillow, Trulia & Realtor.com for apartment searching. Again, these sites weren’t originally designed for apartment hunting, so they’re pretty great for apartment hunting. You also don’t want to forget about the best method of apartment hunting – your friends and family

The Move

If hunting for an apartment is frustrating, moving is maddening. But it doesn’t have to be. Once you’ve made your final apartment selection, there are a few key things that you can do that will save you some grey hairs and potential muscle strain.

First, overlap your move-in and move-out dates. Do not (and I repeat Do Not), schedule your apartment move-in on the same day that you have to move out of your previous apartment! This is a mistake that people perpetually make and it leaves them having to forfeit their security deposit. Negotiate with your new apartment to move in a few days in advance of when you have to be out of your old apartment. This will give you a buffer zone for cleaning and repairs to the old apartment. Allowing yourself just 24-48 hours between move-in and move-out will save you hundreds of dollars.

Second, hire movers – even if you have a ton of family or a gaggle of friends. You’re already going to save hundreds of dollars by getting your deposit back – use that money to save your friends and family the hassle of moving your crap! I promise, it’s not nearly as expensive as you think. You can get your own truck and hire movers to just assist you to get your belongings on and off the truck. Not only will movers save you the hassle of wrangling your family, they’ll also cut your moving time by hours. Professional movers can load a two bedroom apartment onto a truck in 45-60 minutes and have it unloaded in even less time! You could be done moving before lunch. Hiring movers requires that you be fully packed, but I’m going to assume that you would have done that for your family and friends as well.

Finally, if you’re moving across the country (or even just across state lines), consider a crate move. When I moved from Arizona to Missouri, I packed all of my things in boxes and had a shipping company come to my apartment and place it all on pallets and wrap it for a cross-country haul. They placed it on an 18 wheeler and two weeks later it was delivered to my door. In addition to not breaking a sweat, it was one of the cheapest moves I’ve had to date. What made it great was not having to drive a truck (or trust a moving company). My belongings were shipped like freight and were insured like freight and was delivered like freight. Easy peasy.

As much as I’ve moved in my life, I consider myself a professional. What I’ve just laid out here are my pro-tips for not driving yourself and your family crazy when it’s time to move. In addition to these tips, I’ll give you one last piece of advice. Find an apartment that you can love for years to come – like I love my Redwood apartment. If you love it, you’ll find more reasons to stay than to leave and when your lease comes up, you’ll find yourself renewing with glee.


*Written by Lindsay S., a proud writer and Redwood resident.

Why I Rent: The Power of Apartment Living

I like to think/pretend that I had a traditional childhood, but that’s just not true. My mother, sister, and I lived in apartments until I was almost 15 years old. Although I grew up mostly in one city, we moved from apartment to apartment on a yearly basis (sometimes less than a year, sometimes more than a year). Of course, when I went away to college, I took up the tradition that my family had cultivated during my childhood. In college, I lived in 3 different dorms and 2 different apartments. I went straight to graduate school from college and did pretty much the same thing. It got to the point that I was always shocked when I renewed a lease…which meant I’d lived in one apartment for over a year!

With that background, you might be thinking that I’m a little wacky and probably a bit of a nomad – both of those things are true and that’s why I LOVE renting! As I’ve aged, I’ve managed to live in a few places for longer than a year, but even then, I absolutely love the freedom that being a renter brings.

Being a renter – a lifelong renter – has given me the opportunity to try out a variety of living experiences. I’ve lived in studio apartments in century old buildings and I’ve lived in brand new luxury apartments. I’ve had landlords and I’ve had property managers. With all my renting experience, I’ve shied away from renting houses, so that is an experience I’ve not had, but it is something that my sister and her husband are currently doing. One of the things I love about Redwood apartments is that I feel like I’m renting a house, without the anxiety that I have about house maintenance. I have a large two bedroom, two bathroom apartment, with an eat-in kitchen and an attached garage. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get any better than this!

So, I mentioned anxiety. Although I am a pretty darn carefree person, I do love my freedom of movement. Just the idea of not being able to take a job in another state makes my heart race…I love my freedom. I like the idea of being able to pick up and travel the country or the world at a moment’s notice. To me, buying a house represents saddling yourself with a liability that requires a high level of maintenance and will take a significant amount of work to be rid of. One of my single friends who owned a house, went to a conference, came home to a broken water heater and a flood in her basement. After she paid for a new water heater and replace all of her belongings, she decided that owning a house wasn’t for her. Well, I don’t have to have that experience to know that I don’t want to have that experience.

I’m grateful that apartment living affords me the ability to comeome to a housing problem – but not have that problem become a housing crisis. Having a property management company means that if the refrigerator breaks (which mine has), it gets replaced the same day – THE SAME DAY!! If I had a house and my refrigerator stopped working…I might end up living out of a cooler for a month. If my garage door opener quits on me (which mine has), a nice young man comes to manually open it, so that I can get my car out…and the opener is replaced within the week. Again, if that had happened at a house that I owned – my car would still be trapped in my garage and I’d have become a professional walker. 

Renting gives me a level of freedom that allows me to really love my life. My dog and I can travel and see the world and not have to worry about what’s happening at home. The ability to share the responsibility of my housing with an apartment manager is exactly the freedom that I need to feel ultimately at ease and in control of my life.

*Written by Lindsay S., a proud writer and Redwood resident.