To you it's a broken chair. To me it's a new stool.

July 12, 2009

I was a complete maniac this weekend. I had a few things that were lingering on my to-do list for a while and during yet another neighborhood yard sale, I took advantage of my time outside to polish some of those things off my to-do list.

(I apologize for the lack of updates. Both my camera and laptop are messed up, so posting has been painfully slow to impossible)

Before: Given to us by my husband's uncle who got it from his mother who probably got it from her brother. His uncle has the mate to this chair in the same fabric pattern except this is a rocking chair and the one his uncle has is a round. It's so cool to walk into their house and seeing the "matching" chair.


I turned the chair over and unscrewed the seat. I took it outside and wiped it down.


I gave it two coats of clear polyurethane. Look how shiny!


I traced the shape of the seat onto the fabric leaving 3" around. I stapled the fabric down just as I did with the canvas wall art I made last week. Pull it tight when stapling. Trim off the excess.


The fabric had a really pretty, iridescent pattern. I also put the fabric pattern on a diagonal. Screw the seat back onto the chair.


After: Like new!


Before: Hand me down end table. The gold trim really made the table look out-dated. Otherwise, it's a perfectly sturdy table.


After: 2 cans of white gloss spray paint and I have an end table for the sun room for my plants, coffee and magazines. The round, wicker thing is actually a charger plate from Walmart $3.50. I was looking for a runner for the coffee table, but even Target was something like $25 for a wicker/bamboo table runner/place mat, so instead I bought a couple of these instead.


Before: I totally trash picked this from my neighbor's garbage. This belonged to a pink Disney Princess table and chair set. I think someone bought the table at the yard sale. The back of the chair broke off so this is what was left. Some may see this as a broken chair, but I saw a stool!


After: Currently, I'm using it to hold up my magazines in the sun room, but I plan to use it to elevate some of my house plants. I might even get creative and sew a seat for it. I admit, I'm mostly motivated to do this, so I can blog about it and not necessarily because I need it. Then again, who doesn't need a spraypaintedmagazineholderandplantstoolthatusedtobeapinkdisneyprincesschair???


Before: Last, but not least, this was the first project that I embarked upon in the early morning actually. We got these from our neighbor and it's been really useful when we had company, but come on...don't they look like they were from a school gym or church basement? Motivated by the company I'm having over next weekend, I finally decided to give them a new face. I took them outside during the week, thoroughly cleaned them and allowed them to dry in the sun.


After: Each chair required at least 1 can of spray paint. Color "Pebble". Honestly, I can't say I liked doing this. It was such a pain and half way through I just wanted to give up. I bought 2 cans of lime green with the intention of doing 2 of the chairs in some color with a pop, but it looked putrid so I painted over it.


I spray painted a few other things around the house as well. I wish I had something more fun to show you, but that's it for now. I'm exhausted! Spray painting is great alternative to turn something that didn't work with your decor before into something that does making it new and shiny too!

Play Dress Up

June 28, 2009

The neighborhood little girls love to get together and play dress up princesses. Sometimes I see them all fancy with their princess costumes and heels which is the most adorable sight. I had some old dresses that I was about to toss when I thought it would be a great idea to turn them into play dresses.

Before: Size 4 Women's


After: Size 4T


Pretty pretty Princess: Priceless

DIY: Canvas Art

Here's a really quick and easy way to add some color and art to your walls especially if you're renting.



I picked up a yard of fabric $6 (30% off) at JoAnn's and an artist's canvas for $10 (50%). I laid the canvas down and decided where I wanted the pattern to sit.


Cut the fabric leaving 2" over the size of the canvas.


***Practice caution*** Using a staple gun and BOTH hands, hold the gun firmly and staple one edge in the middle. No joke, I watched a girl staple her own hand once, so please be careful especially with the old school staple guns that are all silver and it's not clear which end is the staple end. Do NOT "test shoot" the gun into the air or pointing it towards you or anyone else.


If you've never wrapped a canvas before, this is how you do it. Start on one edge in the middle and staple it. Go to the OPPOSITE edge, pull it super tight and staple it in the center along the edge. Do the same with the 2 other sides.


Do the same at all 4 corners and DON'T bother making it look nice. Just pull it tight and staple. When all 4 corners are stapled, THEN go back and fold the fabric over making a nice corner and staple away around the whole frame.


Viola! Instant art!


Other ideas: Use small, square canvases and use fabrics with different patterns and/or color.

DIY: Nursing Covers

Finally! I can post about these! (I didn't want to post till mommy received them first) When my bloggy pal Tiff posted about these nursing covers, my sew-happy little heart lit up to give these a try. She lives in Europe and doesn't have Etsy, so I told her I would sew them for her. Especially since they retail for $32+Shipping for what is essentially a square piece of fabric with a strap and it would be nice to have more than 1.

I made a casual, neutral gray one for her husband (when he gives a bottle) and a fun polka dotted one for mommy. She says it helps keep baby from being distracted while feeding which is why her husband uses it too.



I eyeballed the dimensions and laid the fabric on my chest/shoulders to gauge the size of the cover. I've met mommy and daddy in person before, so I had an idea of their frame and marked the strap to go from edge of collar bone to collar bone.

The nursing covers have a stiffer piece around the neck to allow you to look at the baby while you nurse. I went in search for something and the ladies at JoAnn's suggested boning which they use to make big hoop skirts (think Gone with the Wind). I sewed a little piece into the top edge.


Using 2 D-rings, I sewed a little "tab" through them on one end and the strap to the other end of the boning.



The strap took more trials than expected. I sewed 3 different straps and lots of ^&*($%^^ before I settled on one that I liked. I'm getting better at the seams now too. Then, sewing the strap to the actual cover was frustrating. Next time, I'll have to think about a better way that will make it look neater. I checked out aprons and straps on bags in stores and they were all sewn similarly which I didn't like. It's a "box" with an "X" in the box. Whatever.



With the fabric scraps, I was able to make a few wipes. The white fabric is a fuzzy soft wash cloth fabric. It's so soft like a puppy I kept rubbing my cheek on it. :)



Oh and meet my new pincushion "Pokey". I cut the elephant out of the fabric I used for my GF's baby shower gifts and stuffed him with pillow filling. Viola!

Window Dilemma

June 7, 2009

Before: Here's the delimma. We have an oddly proportioned living room. It's a little colonial that just wasn't meant for a tv and modern furniture. The windows are "inconveniently" placed and the room isn't wide or long enough. This window is the middle of the wall and furniture looks funny when placed against this wall. Everything just seems so vertically stacked ie. stand, tv, window. Also, I thought about how we would decorate the walls and the wall IS wide enough that picture frames would look odd. Several picture frames together might make it look worse.



After: So I had the idea of balancing the room out by extending the curtain rod beyond the edge of the window giving it the illusion that the window is wider than it actually is. I think it worked! I sewed the curtain panels myself. I bought the fabric from JoAnn's and the rod is from Walmart.



Living room in progress...

Pins

May 26, 2009



If I have to sew, I might as well have some pretty pins to play with. Aren't these pretty?

Ottoman Cover

May 23, 2009



Sewing instructions to come...

Bed Cover Sewing Project

May 18, 2009

If you're looking for me, I'm not at home. I'm in the garden! :D

So besides spending every waking moment in the garden, I'm working on finishing up our bedroom. We installed a swing arm lamp, put up some picture frames (photos on order), and now I'm sewing a bed cover. Here's a sneak peak:

Hallway II

May 3, 2009

Here are some better photos of the hallway. You can see here that it's a much prettier, citrus sorbet orange. The faux stain glass decal really adds a nice touch especially when there is a lot of light.



On the right: Different knobs from Anthropologie and hooks from Target for different sized items.


Above the door: My birdie

Showers forcasted for Saturday

May 2, 2009

What am I up to?



More to come...

Organize by Post - It

April 27, 2009



I'm a regular list maker; what to do, where to buy, how to do it, when to do it by. Lately, as the house tasks get bigger and bigger, and the lists get longer and longer, I find that it's simply not working well enough for me anymore. Also, there is such a wide range of things that I feel like no one project is ever completely finished.

So now I'm trying something new. I wrote tasks on individual tiny post-its and stuck them on the door or in the area that the task is needed. For example, the photo above is for our master bedroom. This also keeps the hubs in the loop as well. I feel better already!

What's in a name?

April 24, 2009



I don't know what to call this space. It's not quite a hallway nor a pantry although it leads to the basement where we have a pantry and washer/dryer. I wanted to treat this space as though it were a laundry room/pantry and do something fun with it.

Before:


The walls and ceiling were entirely scuffed up. When we moved in, we dented the walls moving the old refrigerator down the stairs. It was only a matter of time before it got a new coat of paint, but I wanted to wait until the kitchen was done, so as not to scuff up a new wall.

After: (the picture isn't showing the wall color accurately)


I repainted the walls and molding, installed various hooks, replaced the light switch, put a railing, and put a faux stain glass decal on the window. I also painted the little flourish and birdie above the door and along the right wall (not shown).

Wall Paint: Olympic in "Mandarin" semi-gloss
Molding: Behr "Swan Wing" high-gloss
Hooks: Target
Knob hardware: Anthropologie
Light switch and cover: Home Depot
Fabric: JoAnn's
Oversized metal Spoon & Fork: Yard sale find $1
Stain glass decal: JoAnn's



As you enter the basement, the ceiling is exposed which is a real eye sore. We had plans to just put up some dry wall and paint it, but since we have future plans to finish the basement, we didn't want to reduce the height here. The height will allow us to move 2x4 studs, and furniture in easily. So instead, I sewed a little curtain to conceal the duct work and insulation in the ceiling.

Organize by Task

April 20, 2009

We have accumulated quite a few tools with our DIY home projects and things began to get a little disorganized in the basement. We keep our tools in the basement, but when we work on our projects we're always else where in the house. Bringing everything up the stairs and putting them away have become tiresome.

On Sunday, I made a trip to Walmart for some large bings. I decided it would be more convenient to organize our tools by task into individual bins as opposed to keeping ALL the tools in one tool chest and fishing for them. Then I can bring the whole thing with me (which I did anyway) and clean up would be quick.

Here's an example of my "PAINTING" chest. For this one, I chose a long, flat bin on wheels. I can move it around the room easily, store brushes without bending the bristles, store large paint trays and rollers.


[Includes: disposable paint liners, trays, large and small rollers, brushes, stirring sticks, painters tape, masking tape, drop cloths, clean up cloths, edgers, foam brush, plastic gloves, sanding block, tube of Drydex spackle, paint can key, sharpe pen, pencils, screwdriver, little hammer, clorox wipes, and a little bottle of shampoo (to clean brushes).

I made two more; one for "SPACKLING" and another for "TILING". For them, I chose deep bins since the groat float and such have deep handles.

What other storage solutions work for you?

Staining a Railing

April 19, 2009

I found treasure! Ok, not quite, but close enough. In our basement, I found 3 pieces of railing that was untreated, cut to size and with hardware. What a great find! It was obviously meant for the basement, but was never put to use. Of course, I couldn't help it and put my grubby hands on them immediately.

I made my 3rd trip in 2 days to Home Depot to pick up a can of clear polyurethane and a foam brush. I went with clear because I could tell it was cedar and I wanted to bring out the natural red color. Work outdoors, lay some newspaper down, and elevate your railing.



Before and After: After I took this picture, I put 5 more coats on the rail. After 2 coats, lightly sand the rail with sand paper to give it a smoother feel, and repeat until you're happy with it. Allow to dry completely before handling. Avoid drip marks.

Arancia

April 18, 2009

Can you guess what I have been doing today?



More to come...

Jim Anderson Stained Glass artist

April 16, 2009

Adding a new link to my favorites. This artist, Jim Anderson does some amazing stain glass art.

http://www.jimandersonstainedglass.com/intro.html

Ciao

April 6, 2009

Sorry there won't be any updates for the next two weeks, but...we're headed to Italy! When I come back, I'll have new things to decorate the kitchen and spices to cook with! For now, I leave you with these. We still need to put the molding back along the floor, install the toe kick and molding that matches the cabinets, and install some exposed shelving.

Before:


After:




Before:


After:



So far I'm lovin' my new kitchen! I have been keeping it super clean to maintain it's "new car smell". It's really come along way.

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