shock and awe

I wrote about a "shock and awe" makeover I was planning to this patio set last October.  I actually did the makeover shortly after that post, but never got around to photographing it properly (still don't know if I photographed it well) and blogging about it.

Since one of the chairs is featured on my new header I thought I'd show you the whole thing!

So here is the before.
Not bad - It's actually cute yellow.  But the vinyl on the seats was old and the paint was beyond cleaning in some spots.   I bought this the first year we were married in a charity shop in Palm Springs.  I was so excited to have a table and chairs for our little patio at the time.   But after several years of intermittent use,  I was contemplating passing it on to someone else.

And then, the light bulb moment.

I had seen all sorts of things people were painting with spray paint and I thought, "Huh, I could do that.  It could only look better and if I don't like it, I'll paint it again!"

So here you go! 

Are you shocked it's aqua blue?  And I just love the curly Q design on the table and seat backs. Oh la la! C'est tres French!

The seats needed some pizazz too.  I loved this Pineapple Brocade from Heather Bailey's Pop Garden line.  SO cute.  I took off the ugly yellow vinyl the existing seat covers and got out the staple gun, the fabric and some clear vinyl.

I love these chairs so much they are often inside as extra seating in the kitchen, at the computer desk, or my sewing table.  If we didn't have so many darn mosquitos we might actually sit outside and use the table more often in the summer!  I don't think I could part with it now.

A note about recovering the chair seats.  I bought the vinyl off the big roll at Joann's.  I think it's typically used for table coverings.  I didn't buy heavy enough vinyl the first time and it got easily ripped.  So I ended up going back and buying a much heavier gauge vinyl and haven't had any problems since.

I guess if you used outdoor fabric to begin with you wouldn't have to use the vinyl.  But how could I have found anything this adorable in the waterproof section??

*****
Thanks everyone for your enthusiastic participation in Sew & Tell!  I'm really happy that so many of you find it motivating and fun to share and see what everyone is working on!  It's totally helping me stay on the ball too.

I had an idea about Sew & Tell.  How would everyone feel about moving it to Mondays after the first of the year?  I was thinking it might make more sense so that you all can have the weekend to work on your projects that you might want to share.  I'm happy to keep it on Friday if that's the majority - just wondered if anyone had an strong opinions either way.

Hope you had a great weekend and are enjoying this holiday season!

free stuff i've found

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My friend Mary pointed me in the direction of this wonderful little blog called Heirloom Paperie. She designs paper products that you can purchase, download and print. She features Free Template Tuesday! This one came yesterday! How cute are these little labels? (click on the image to go get the PDF)

image from Heirloom Paperie

*****

Fabric.com has FREE shipping on orders over $35. They have one of the best selections of Amy Butler fabric I've found. And there is almost always a coupon to use. I may or may not have ordered some more Amy Butler fabric yesterday. And then I may or may not have found another site, Quilt Art, (thanks Quilt Dad!) that is having a 50% off sale on EVERYTHING, including pattern books. That means 5$/yard for designer prints! Let's just say I'm looking forward to the mail . . .

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While on a little drive to get out of the house for a few minutes I saw this out in front of someone's house.

With this price tag on it.

It's now joined the other misfits in my garage waiting to be sanded and prettied up! I needed a new sewing table and had one picked out at IKEA - I just saved $100!!


*****
I won a pattern giveaway on the FreeSpirit Fabrics blog! This came in my mail yesterday:
image from HeatherBailey.com


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My friend Robyn has a blog called The Grotto where she posts all sorts of fun things, like giveaways and product reviews!



It's nice out today, I'd better go dust the sander off!!

the land of misfit furniture

Do you remember in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Christmas Special, the Land of Misfit Toys? I'm afraid I'm becoming the social worker for misfit furniture!

I decided to go to my local Goodwill again (I haven't had much luck there) and see if there was anything interesting. I've been looking for a table for my entryway. Preferably something with drawers to keep phones, chargers, pocket change, etc. You know, all the stuff that gets lost. And I found this:

Sure it's got some character and needs a little TLC and some sandpaper. And that lonely soccerball knob just looks so sad. But at this price, I think I may be able to splurge for some fancy new hardware.

The only question now is, do I buy new paint? or use a color I already have?


Stay tuned for, Extreme Makeover: Goodwill edition!

extreme makeover: craigslist edition - the reveal

One of my goals for the year has been to bring more color into my all-white rental. The Nester has inspired me to be more creative (like putting my dresser in the closet), to stop pouting about renting and make it beautiful anyway. So I'm trying.

My kitchen is a little challenging - while large square feet wise it is tiny on storage. So I had a baker's rack (read: boring and open-storage messy) and decided a cheap bedroom dresser painted up all fun would do just the trick.

(There is a reason there is not a paint color named craigslist brown.)

plus

and a little modge podge and fabric equals

After the first coat of paint I was really skeptical if I was going to like it. It's SO bright! It is exactly the color I picked out, but in reality brighter than I initially wanted. I moved it into the kitchen so I could give it a test drive, see if I needed to go darker, or calmer, or something-er.

I was thinking about glass knobs, but I was trying to keep this little project within a tight budget. So when I got these cute little fabric covered button magnets (Thanks Lolly!) made with the scraps from my quilting bee quilt, I realized that fabric covered knobs might be just the thing!

and I think they are.

budget: dresser 35$ + paint 12$ + primer 3$ + scraps (on hand) + modge podge (on hand) = 50$!!

(This dresser is going to be re-purposed to my sewing studio when I have a sewing studio. And when it's not needed in the kitchen!)


*****In other magnet news*****

Have you ever made these? little flat glass rocks + modge podge + amy butler scrapbook paper =

I think modge podge is going to be my new best friend.

busy painting

craigslist brown

primer gray

spring green

more later . . .

:*deep breath*:

Okay. breathe in, breathe out. I've decided to share a little something. Something that totally embarrasses me. Something few of my real-life friends have seen because I always shut the door!! I've seen a lot of my blogging buddies keeping it real. And I've decided it's my turn. I get a lot people saying things like, "where do you find the time?". Well, I find the time because I'm neglecting other things.

Things like this.

(but isn't that a nice duvet cover? sad it was lost in the clutter.)

See that dresser? Major clutter magnet. See the stack of cluttered reading material? Needs a home. See all those clothes in the corner? Also need a home.

One of the advantages of a sick sleepless baby is quiet time to nurse and blog surf. I'm not sure how I came across her, but I'm SO glad I did. The nester, as she calls herself, is totally inspiring when it comes to making your home home-y (not homely!). She blogs at The Nesting Place. She uses some of Flylady's principle (who has helped me be a better housekeeper) which I loved!

click above to see more about it!

The nester had a series over the last week or so about 10 minute room makeovers. The thing that I loved is that she also rents. I think I've used that as an excuse for not making my home nice to be in. Sure, I try to keep my main living room clean-ish so it looks presentable when people come over, but the rest of my house needed (some still needs) some serious help. Closet space issues aside, I decided to take the bull by the horns and make some much needed changes.

That's one of the new rugs I just recently bought - I love it in here, even though I originally got it for the living room.

Much better, no? I put our reading material in crates under our nightstands (which I plan on making covers for) and moved the dresser into the closet - per her suggestion. The 'bench' is the ottoman to a chair in our living room (there isn't really room for it in there). Now my husband can put his boots on in the morning without sitting on the bed and waking me up! I have fabric for pillowcases and such and now I'm inspired to get those done. And how about a cool fabric collage for a mock-headboard?

I had been wanting to move things around but our room is pretty small for that dresser AND a bed so I was having a hard time figuring out what to do. Once I thought that I might be able to move the dresser I couldn't go back to sleep! That morning I measured the dresser and the closet to make sure it would fit and it does - barely! Then I spent the rest of the day moving things out, in and around!! (thanks for your help, Megan!) And the rest of the day finding new homes for things. And getting rid of 3 boxes of stuff. Okay so maybe it took longer than 10 minutes. But whatever - it needed to be done.

It's amazing how much the room is opened up by moving the dresser. I love it! I actually want to go in there. And it makes me want to keep it clean.

Don't worry though. I still have piles of things to take care of.

Like this one.

It's not perfect - but it's improving!

a duvet to dream under

Well, it's finally finished! sort of. It's on my bed at least and we slept under it last night. I haven't figured out the bottom where it will eventually have some sort of closure, but I was so excited to see it on my bed that I put it on late last night, right before we hopped in.

The top is from Amy Butler's Nigella home dec collection and I just used the flat sheet to our sheets for the back. We never use it, so it was perfect for the underside, so soft for sleeping under. We like the nordic way of sleeping under a duvet - no sheets (except on the mattress) just under the comforter.

I coached my husband ahead of time that requisite Ooh-ing and Aah-ing was in order or he'd be sleeping on the couch. When he saw it he was genuinely excited. And then this morning I was admiring it from under it's warmth and he said, "yeah, this thing is Awesome! It's nice and warm."

I do love the way it turned out - but I don't plan on making another duvet cover anytime soon. It took longer than I thought for several reasons: (if you aren't interested in minutiae, you can stop reading here.)

1. It's King-sized - that's a LOT of fabric to cut and match and pin together.
   
2. I had to match the pattern in two seams (I didn't want a seam down the middle, so I made two side panels). This was probably what intimidated me the most. Fortunately, the fabric was designed and printed so that matching the designs was relatively uncomplicated. I've never really worked with decorator prints - so maybe they are all printed with this foresight. But I'm going to give the credit to Amy Butler - she's a genius!
   
3. I did have to pin each seam twice. Once with right sides together to match it up and then flipping and repinning so I could sew it.
4. It's hard to cut a straight line that long - sewing the side seams together I had to measure from the seam and draw a line for sewing and then pinning and then manuevering the other 96" of fabric as I sewed the seam. I did, however, break out the Ginghers that my mom gave me years ago - the cut like a dream! I've been using my rotary cutter for pretty much everything - I didn't know I was the owner of such a treasure!
   

I'm sure there's more, but can't think of them right now. I'm so glad I did it! I learned a lot in the process and luckily did the hardest part while my mom was here last month and could hold my hand while I figured out the logistics of it all.

It definitely makes the room seem more put together. I plan on making some pillows and things to go on the bed - some of the blue and maybe some red thrown in too. I wish I could paint the walls. . . .

So I was a day late in finishing for the challenge. I called my mom to tell her and she reported that she just needs to sew on the borders for her quilt. So I guess working out was easier to accomplish last week than our sewing projects - hmmmm. that's weird.

some down time

My mom is here! YAY!! She got here late last night and today was post-travel recovery day. It's nice to have her here while my husband is out of town. Alison loves her Grandma Suzie and was on top of the world today having BOTH grandmas at dinner.

I'm working towards my Etsy shop opening (how many things do you really need to have to have a grand opening?), a giveaway, organizing my ever-growing fabric stash, a comforter cover, a crocheted scarf and the table above is about to have a makeover (it involves paint, Heather Bailey fabric and iron-on vinyl). It will be shock and awe, I tell ya.

I plan on posting more pictures of some projects we are going to be working on. My mom has a beautiful quilt that I need to photograph, and I have some other pics of things I am working on and a few things I've actually finished. But alas, as I am now "entertaining" I can't sit at the computer and blog all day, I actually made dinner and another pie tonight (Pear Apple Pie, to be exact). But don't worry, I'll be in touch.

P.S. remind me to tell you the discovery I made re: potential energy and fabric

P.P.S. what are you working on right now?