An ottoman slipcover and the death (and rebirth) of a book

Have you ever looked around at your house and realized that your taste and style has changed?  I completely feel this way right now.  I feel ready and motivated to change things up.  Make everything softer and lighter.  It started with the kitchen cabinets and now I feel like I need to paint everything.  Its a sickness.

Suddenly, I am flooded with ideas, plans and schemes to get this house updated to my current style and at the same time, clean and move out the clutter.  It is overwhelming but I decided to start by taking it one (or two or three) projects at a time.

Obviously the kitchen is still a work in progress but it was a relief to finally get the pantry done and the door to the garage painted.

I bought this ottoman like 7 or 8 years ago with the assumption I was going to recover it at some point.

So 8ish years later, I got some duck canvas. scissors, pins and got started.

First, I actually washed and dried the canvas.  It was tough for me to do that and not dive right in but I knew I would be washing this cover and didn't want it to shrink on me.  Then, I placed the canvas right side down over my ottoman and pinned at the corners.

 (If you think I was also going to iron the fabric, you are crazy)

So now it is all pinned.

Then I cut off the excess fabric.

After sewing down the sides, I slipped it on to see how I did.  Which was awesome.

So then I trimmed off the bottom so it was about even and then I started on the ruffle.

I measured the length from the floor to the bottom of the cover and added about an inch for the hem and stitching of the ruffle to the cover.

Than I put my slip cover over inside out.

Then I made a ruffle using the tension method on my machine.  Google it.  It is crazy easy.

Only problem was, when I went to pin it to the slip cover, it was not long enough and I didn't want to have to make more.  So I ripped the thread out and pinned it to the slip cover making a little pleat every 2 inches or so.  Sorry, I failed to get a pic of this step:(  I sewed that on and there you have it.  From this...

Its so cute, I LOVE it!

About the book...

I first saw one of these book page wreaths at my friend Kaiti's house.  I loved it immediately and knew I had to make my own.  And I knew I wanted to make it out of a book that had meaning.  So I ripped all the pages out of the book that I got from Mother's Day this year.  I mean, it was a teen romance book.  I really did not think anyone else in the house wanted to read it.  Until the hubs came home and saw the book cover and all the pages missing and asked what happened to the book because he wanted to read it.  Oops.

(the following pics are from my iPhone.  Excuse the fuzziness)

I used a tutorial I found on Pinterest.  You can find it here.

Sorry dear.  The book was good, but this is better:)