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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Out of Toilet Paper?

If you are out of toilet paper or even paper towels, and bored, this is what you do to amuse yourself........First of all, I recommend that you do this after the TP runs out. Otherwise you will have a very messy bathroom from emptying the roll. I thought this one up because I like footstools. I have a lot of them in real life, from tiny ones that are only good for lifting your feet a few inches off the ground to the ones like this where you can really put your feet up and relax.
This was one of those drifting off to sleep or just waking up ideas. Sometimes those are the best kind.
The supplies were a toilet paper roll, some of the lightest quilt batting, some cotton fabric, a scrap of foam core, and a couple of 4 x 6 index cards. They have to be 4x6 because the 6" is the exact size to fit around the top of the footstool for the band. They also should be the lined kind. Each space is 1/4" on those. They are great because you don't have to whip out a ruler and measure things.
Use a 4 space strip(1") to wrap around the tube and mark it evenly. Then cut the tube on the line. Trace the end of the tube on a piece of foam core and cut that out. Glue a strip of the batting around the tube and trim it to the edges. Glue two thicknesses of the batting to the foam core. Then cover the tube with a piece of the fabric. Turn in a small hem on one end of the vertical so that it was neatly finished. Turn in the edges and glued them inside. Cover the round with fabric by cutting Vs in the edges and gluing to the back. If you start with opposite edges when gluing the fabric will stay in place better. Cover a 1/4" strip of the index card with fabric only. Miter the corners at a 45 ° angle.
Then use a piece of matching pearl cotton to wrap around the base. You could use any kind of trim for this step.
Glue the 1/4" strip around the edge of the foam core and trim the top with pearl cotton.
After this, glue the top to the base and run a piece of pearl cotton around the bottom edge of the seat.
If you wanted to, you could put a pleated skirt around the bottom or you could put a piece of covered index card on the bottom and attach beads for feet. There are all kinds of possibilities.
Go make footstools and get un-bored. I am going to go see what kind of other garbage I can find to play with. See you tomorrow.

2 comments:

Katie said...

Your footstool is so cute. I like the material you choose for it! But the idea got me thinking.....come check it out, I used a tp-roll to make a Kitty Condo last night! Thanks for jogging my creativity!!! :)
Katie

Unknown said...

This is EXACTLY what I need!! Thank you SO much for posting, I'm going to give this a try!