10 years later...

Ok, there is a story behind today's reveal. 10 years ago when the hubs and I were first married we went into a vintage store in Columbia Missouri where we went to school. I saw a chair. I loved the chair. I had to have the chair. Hubs looked at my like I was CRAZY! It had some sort of mustard/baby poo colored suede fabric that showed butt and back marks where it had been worn in. But I loved the lines of the chair. It had this unique open back and chrome square legs. I convinced him to buy it for me, which was a big deal because we had no money. I mean we were in college and married people.... NO MONEY!! Which also means of course that my budget for making over said chair was little to none! Now I'll remind you again, I was like 20 so I had no idea what it would cost to just have a chair reupholstered and no clue how much work it would be to do it yourself. That was however when the show Trading Spaces had just come out and I watched it every Saturday night religiously! They had talked about how "easy" it is to make a slipcover so I thought I could handle that. I did. I made a slipcover out of a twin set of khaki wal-mart sheets. And I was so proud of that chair and there it sat in my snazzy $325/mo first apartment. Long story short... we moved the chair with us all over the place (we've moved a lot) and nothing was ever done to it. Except a few years ago when I got motivated to fix it  just long enough to rip off the fabric off, then got overwhelmed. Then somewhere in one of those moves that fabric aka my pattern for new upholstery, got thrown away. Blast!

 So this has been the state of the chair for the last few years.... I know, she's a looker. I actually tried to give it away at my last garage sale and no takers!! Shocking!!!

Well, I decided it was time. A big part of this decision came from the my newly found blog world inspiration. There is something so motivating about seeing other women like yourself out there accomplishing their diy to do lists!!

I would love to tell you that I flew through this. That it was so much easier than I expected. That I don't know why I waited so long. Well, I can't. It was hard and confusing and there are definitely some parts that I am sure would make "real" reupholsterers ( is that a word?) cringe like crazy!

But I kept plugging away... and fudging away...

I wrapped and tucked and stapled.... then unstapled, untucked and unwrapped and tried again...and again and...you get the picture.

Anyway, after it was all said and done, I give you the finally finished chair!!!

 I added nailhead trim both to cover the staples and to try to tone down the modern look of the chair. I found the fabric (actual upholstery fabric) for $3.50 a yard in the remnant bin at Hancock Fabrics. Then I spray painted the chrome legs with Krylon's ORB spray paint. LOVE that stuff!!

Here it looks even better with two cute models! It will be so nice to have some extra seating in my office too!

I hope you enjoyed my story of "THE CHAIR". But more than that, if you are reading this and you have some project you have been putting off because it seems too overwhelming that this inspires you to just dig right in!!!

Can you spot the Spidey?

We have been joking about how this spiderman has become our two year old's new "pacifier". He takes it with him EVERYWHERE  he goes! If we lose it for a period of time, he flips out!! I know a lot of kids have a binky, a blankie, a special stuffed animal. Not my son.... he chooses a spiderman cake topper to become obsessed with! I was looking through the pictures we have taken over the past month or so thinking I would blog about our trip to Nina and Pop's house. And then it almost became a game for me to see how many picutres I could find the spiderman in. So here it is... a game I call Can you spot the Spidey? (He calls it his Spidey)

You may have to look more closely at some of them, but I promise he is there... our friendly neighborhood spiderman. ;)

Not yet

I was hoping to have made significant progress on a big reveal this week. I must sadly admit that it is no closer to finished than it was before the weekend. I have only Suzanne Collins to blame. (You didn't seriously think I was going to blame myself did you???)  This is what consumed my entire weekend!!

I have no self defense other than to say that these books are A..MAZING!!!  I mean,  sit on the edge of your seat stay up till the wee hours of the morning because you MUST know what happens next kind of amazing.

Anyway, I will leave you with a couple of pictures of a project I did a month or so ago when inspired by a very talented friend (Go check her blog out if you get a minute). She did a monogram wreath for her daughter's first birthday party. I saw it as a great opportunity to use the coffee filter wreaths I have seen popping up everywhere with the monogram spin! I cut an A out of some cardboard boxes we had taking up space in our basement. I only had the bleached coffee filters on hand, so I literally just died them in the leftover coffee in my pot from that morning. Yes, folks, that is how much forethought goes into some of these projects of mine!! When they were dry, I scrunched them up and hot glued them to my cardboard A. I had some leftover ribbon from another project and strung it up on the mirror to replace my Christmas wreath. Done and done! Oh.... and FREE!!!!

PS It does not smell like leftover coffee.... incase you were wondering. :)

Anthropologie inspired cardigan

I have had this cardigan in my "inspiration file" for a couple of months now. I love the romantic feel of the ruffled lace on the shoulders. Needless to say, anthropologie cardigans are not in my budget!! :) But I thought this would be fairly easy to replicate.

So I headed to our local consignment shop, Ditto. If you live in the KC area and you have not checked this store out... do. (But not if you wear my size. ;))

Then, while I was at Hancock fabric getting supplies for another project (which I hope to show you very soon) I stumbled upon this lace trim in the bargain bin. It cost me all of $0.83. Love that!!

I hand stitched three rows to each shoulder. I didn't measure or anything. I just "eyeballed it" as Rachel Ray would say. Because, you know, making a pot of soup and sewing lace on to a cardi, really are so similar!!

Be sure to actually look up while you are doing this because you are likely to witness this scene if you have small children like me. Yep, he dragged the bar stool right over to the cabinets and started digging through. And the best he could come up with was Transformer bandaids!

  

  

 It is hard to tell from the picture but I also took off the plain jane matching buttons and replaced them with different buttons all in the same color family. I thought it added to that Anthropologie salvage look that I love so much.

And then, because I have a hard time calling it quits. I wrapped up some of the left over lace to make a broach to wear with it. Here is the finished product. 

And what it is finished product without a smokin' hot model! ;) Seriously, how do the rest of you bloggers model your refashions without feeling ridiculously goofy???

 I love the pockets on it that will most likely be sporting super sexy accessories like those you see below. Why yes, that is black spiderman and the green goblin!!

Overall, I am really pleased with how it turned out. My lace doesn't come down as far as the original, but I think my way suits my body shape better. Let me know what you think!!

Passing the creativity on...

Despite the fact that I love to do creative things myself, I have to admit I am often bad about encouraging my kids to do the same. Why??? The answer is simple but sad. Being creative is often messy and those messes can stress me out. I am not a neat freak, but I do have some "OCD" tendencies that make letting my kids have at it and unleash their creative talents difficult for me. I don't like admitting this, but it is true. I am horrible about using the phrase "Maybe later". One of my resolutions is to relax about things like that. The mess is temporary, but their memory of the time they spend with me is permanent. Anyway, I did a little better with it this week and here are a few fun shots of my little artists!! :)

letter "wreath"

I have seen book page wreaths popping up everywhere and I have to say I LOVE THEM. Back in the fall I made my own take on them by cutting the book pages into the shape of leaves.

I loved it, but wanted something more for year-round. I wanted to try something a little bit different. So I came up with the idea to mod podge book pages onto chipboard scrapbookng letters (which have been sitting in my craft area for like 4 years!) Then put the together in a wreath of sorts. I just used foam board for the wreath form. I traced around a couple of sizes of plates and cut it out with my exacto knife the spray painted it a nice dark brown.

Then I traced and cut and traced and cut and traced and cut..... you get the idea. That part took forever! And I Mod Podged all those little letters with book pages.

Then randomly glued them all around my wreath form. Is there anything hot glue can't do?

I just used a scrap of fabric to hang it on the wall.

All in all, I haven't decided if I love it yet. But it is filling a previously blank spot in my office. I'll live with it for a couple of weeks and then decide for sure. I do know that it didn't really satisfy my want for one of these...

You can find the tutorial for this at Living With Lindsay

http://livingwithlindsay.com/2009/11/librarians-please-avert-your-eyes.html