Funky Chair Love
I found this guy on Flickr. Titled, “The Mysterious Vintage Chair,” by fetching. I love the shape and the detached headrest. Wouldn’t this chair be sweet in a bright, funky fabric!?
Another Project Finally Finished
Remember that little stool with the opening lid I got from my grandma a few months ago? It has been on my to do list to redo the stool for a while now, and it is finally finished. See the before here: http://www.makemineeclectic.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/new-little-project/
I took the lid off, which actually made recovering and painting much easier, and ripped up the fabric. I tacked down new fabric and replaced the old black backing since it was still in good shape. Backing helps cover the ugly seems when they are on something like this, as the lid being lifted will constantly expose this back area. I then sanded and painted the wood bottom, put the top back on, and TaDa!
Much better, don’t you think!?
Office Storage
I love the matching office supplies my mom got me a year or two ago. There is a pencil cup, tray, two boxes, and a magazine box, and they are all in different forms of black and white damask with little bits of red here and there. I was thinking lately that I just needed a few more storage pieces for office things. I had recently seen a post online about making your own magazine boxes with cereal boxes. Last night I dug into this project as well.
I cut the cereal box top off and cut the sides on an angle. I then recovered the box by glueing some black and white skull material (I have a thing for skulls right now) over all outter sufaces. It was easy and cheap and I think it goes well in the office space. Now I have one more storage box. More to come in the future.
I didn't take a before picture of the empty cereal box, but here is the finished product.
There it sits next to the other box on the shelf of our pocket office.
Also, another little office update. Tony finally installed the frame for the projector picture. The wall at least appears empty for a reason now. I kind of like it. It almost looks a little purposefully quirky when the projector isn’t on.
Bench Project
When we first moved into our new house Tony and I bought a vintage vanity on Craigslist for $20 to go in our spare bedroom. The vanity is used to hold all of my “get ready in the morning stuff”. The vanity came with a little vanity bench. The problem was that the bench didn’t match the vanity. The bench was painted white and had obviously been recovered with some purple material. I had thought about painting the vanity a shabby white, but that wouldn’t solve the whole problem. The styles and sizes of the vanity and the bench didn’t even match. So, I put the bench up for sale on Craigslist, again. After a couple of weeks the bench still hadn’t sold. Well, another project for me!
I liked the chipped white paint of the bench, so I decided to keep it. I also decided that there were too many things, including another, smaller vintage vanity seat already in the spare bedroom. I thought that the front porch could use something, so that was to be the new home of the bench. We have a small, white ice cream table and two chairs on the porch, but nothing else so far. The white would be a perfect match. I have also had my eyes peeled for some of those vintage metal lawn chairs. I want two of them in red, or to paint red. That helped me make my choice for fabric. I chose a white material with a red coral pattern.
Last night I started ripping old fabric off the bench. Come to find out there was not only one layer of awful fabric, but three! Here’s the before photo:
The next layer. Even worse:
And the final dingy layer:
But, here’s what it looks like all spruced up:
I think its really cute now. I will show you pictures of what it looks like on the porch once I get the ice cream set repainted!
Protect The Camera
Yesterday was my first Thursday off now that I have started working four ten hour days and taking Thursdays off. It was a busy day and I think I may have worked harder at home that I do during a work day in my office! But, this means my house is sparkling and I even finished a few projects. Once simple one that I finally tackled was making a camera pouch! My camera travels with me almost all the time. You never know when you are going to see something blog-worthy! 🙂 This means that my camera has acquired a few scratches and dings along the way, though. To prevent this I could have bought a fancy (and probably expensive) camera bag, yes. But, other than not wanting to fork over that much cash, I think they tend to be a bit too big to lug around in my purse all the time. So, enter my simple DIY camera bag! (I’m not a very good seamstress, so believe me, this is a very simple DIY!)
I used a rectangular strip of some soft leftover leopard fabric that I had lying around the house. I folded it in half with one end a few inches longer than the other, with the leopard print facing each other (inside out). I sewed the sides together next. Then sewed a seam on the extra top flap of material. Once the sewing was done I flipped it inside out and added a bit of Velcro to keep the top flap closed. That simple!
The material and my little sewing kit (I did this little project by hand).
Finished camera pouch:
No more scratches!
Make Mine Eclectic 