got wine!!

I’m back after a fabulous trip to Mexico. It was just as beautiful and colorful as I remembered it. So nice to leave the cold and snow and enjoy the Mexican weather.
Of course all good things must come to an end. Back to New York with freezing temperatures and snowstorms. I am sad. Stuck in the house. I decided to bring a little of Mexico to me. In the open air shopping stalls of Mexico, I found these wonderful pillow covers. I had seen these my last trip but hadn’t bought any, this trip I was going to fix that.
When I asked how much I was told 900 pesos, I shook my head and walked away. Every day I would walk past the vendors and hear “Pretty Lady” (a nice thing to hear shouted out) with the vendor holding up the pillow cover. I would ask how much, he would reply 900 pesos, handmade”. I ‘d shake my head and walk away. This went on all week. Towards the end of the week when he said 900 pesos. I said 200 pesos. Of course his answer was NO. He said 800, I said 200, then 700 I said 200. You get the picture. Finally I said 200 pesos and turned to walk away. Cash? he asked, yes, I replied, pretty lady he said “you need these, deal.
I thought for sure I would use these as pillows on my couch, that was my plan. When I tried them out they didn’t work. Now what? Recently I had purchased two red leather club chairs and had planned on looking for ottomans to use with them. These pillow covers matched perfectly. I would make my own ottomans.
This is really very simple to do:

Materials
1 wooden wine crate (it helps when your neighbor owns a wine store)
1 piece of plywood cut to size to cover top of wine crate
1 piece of foam padding cut to size of wine crate
4 wooden screw in legs
staple gun
Plexiglas cut to order

First step was cutting the plywood to size to fit top, that was easy

Next, at my local hardware store I found 4 legs that simply screwed in to the base of the box. A quick coat of polyurethane brought out the writing and character of box. I now had my ottoman

At my local craft store I bought a piece of foam for the pillow casing. Unfortunately I bought  the foam too thick. I thought I would have to buy new foam instead I tried slicing what I had in half and it worked. I inserted the foam in to pillow case and wrapped it around the plywood lid. Using a staple gun, I adhered it only at the ends.  Because the case was short and did not cover the entire lid I needed more material to cover the exposed sides.

While shopping at my local drugstore I came across dishtowels on sale 2 for $3.00.  The perfect colors and almost the perfect size.  That was a no-brainier, I bought those and simply tucked the edges in under pillow case and stapled edges down.  I didn’t like the way the staples showed.  Using a like colored nail polish I simply painted over the staples and now you can barely see them. I have ordered a piece of Plexiglas that will fit over the table side to add more stability and will add to dishtowel side for table. This was a very easy project that leaves me with three great options

An ottoman

A storage bin

A cute table

While in Mexico we had a great time.  Unfortunately all my pictures were lost. It seems water and iPhones don’t mix. No pictures of all the cute Goodwill and Salvation Army outfits I wore. I must say I felt very comfortable and was complimented more than once on what I had on.

One picture my husband snapped at sunrise.

A great way to start the day. This group of people we met have been meeting for over 25 yrs at this resort . They wake up early and see the sunrise. They serve cappuccino and champagne. An absolute wonderful way to start the day! My Goodwill black 100% silk sweater came in handy for the 6:45 am wakeup call as it was still a bit chilly.

Black sweater $3.50

Re-cycle Re-purpose, Reuse and Reap the benefits ….. Nancy