On someone else's time...

I saw the cutest homemade child's watch on a great creative website, it was up as a giveaway, but seeing as I didn't win and that I loved it so much I decided to give it my best effort and make my son one.

Here's my what it turned out like:

It didn't turn out just like the other, but for a first try and with limited supplies I think it's a pretty darn good job. Not to mention, my son LOVES! it. He wouldn't even take it off at bedtime.

New Life

I wish that I was talented enough to show step by step with explanations of how I was able to recover this poor well loved chair (the well loving part came from my son in the form of a permanent blue marker and a friend of mine in the form of red punch). However, I'm only just starting out and all I have are the pictures as I went along.  I can say that there is a fabulous book that is great on explaining though!

Here's the fabric I bought from JoAnn's for 50% OFF :)

Hooray for sales!

There was A LOT of pinning to be done

Laying out...moving around...more pinning

Finally towards the end - stapling the fabric underneath.

Are you ready for it?

The final product...?

Well here it is!

Pretty darn good for a first try I would say.

Thanks Aunt B. for all the help - you are a magic sewing teacher!

A facelift

I took a special buffet I was given by my grandparents and gave it a bit of a facelift.

First I had to sand the whole thing and take the back off (to be re-upholstered later)

My base coat was a gray and my top coat was an ivory cream color.
I used a mini roller because I liked the smaller crackling that it makes.

I was doing a crackle coating so I went to Lowe's and bought weathered crackle.
Once I applied the crackle I waited a little more than an hour before applying my final coat.

My final coat was an ivory/cream color.

Once the painting was done I went to JoAnn's and searched high and low for the perfect fabric to change the backing. I found Jayda Bramble (now with the name Abril Spring).

Because it was not going to be against a wall I decided to do the backing on the back as well. I ended up using Aleene's OK to Wash-it fabric glue and attached it to itself. I attached one side completely to the wood with the fabric glue and then folded the second side over and began to attach fabric to fabric. I folded the fabric under to create a mock hem/finished edge.

It turned out quite well if I do say so myself...and I do!

The plates came from Khols. The Pitcher and birds came from Old Time Pottery and the basket came from JoAnn's (50% off too!)

I just loved the little birds.