a little chair makeover

so i love the di (thrift store). i go there all the time. like 2-3 times a week. sometimes i buy, sometimes i don't. i always take the same route though and i'm always on the lookout for some awesome stuff. my regular search list is some lamps, a book case, tupperware, vintage pyrex, cute luggage, interesting picture frames and the harry potter books (i only have to find the first and third, hardcover in good condition... in case you were wondering...). my trips are very in-n-out... 10 minutes usually, unless something strikes my fancy, then maybe longer. i also hit up two different stores. the one by my house and the one over by my moms. the one by my mom's has waaay better stuff. like i found some suuuper pricey boots there practically brand new for 5 bucks, and my sister found almost an entire set of plates and bowls from Ikea. awesome. i only glance over the furniture because quite frankly, we are stocked up. but i saw this little beauty and died. i hop/skip/ran over to her because i was afraid someone else might notice how awesome she was.

right????!!!! and she is cover in velvet people. freaking fantastic.

so i text husband to see if i can get her. it goes something like this:

me: can i get this (after sending the picture)
him: how many moneys??
me: 15
him: where fur? (like i said, we don't need more furniture)
me: in our room, where th box of books and pillows are. Obvi i would spray it and do somethin about the cushions...
him: i suppose if it's screaming your name...
me: oh its screaming.

he knows me so well.

so i brought it home and put it in the garage and it sat there. for a month. i got scared, i mean i really like this chair and what if i messed it all up? and then there was the fabric to pick out which,oi,  let's be honest, I LOVE FABRIC. so i found some that i liked well enough and started in on the cushion. i was almost done with it and i realized, i didn't love it. ugh. 5 hours wasted. so it sat some more. finally, i decided that i should spray paint it, so i took it apart and like 15 billion staples later, she was naked and ready to be painted.

good thing i had my little helper and his handy dandy screw driver...

so i primed her with some kilz spray on primer, let it dry and gave it a quick sand and sprayed it with krylon classic grey. pretty. i love grey, it seems so soothing and matches so well with so many colors :)

any whooooo so i got it all painted and then decided i needed to cover the chair in white! it was like a revelation or something... so i ran to the fabric store and picked up their cheapest, heavy weight cotton canvas (3 yards which was like wwaaaaaay too much, even after making a cute little throw pillow for my bed) and ran back home and pulled out the staple gun and went at it.

I even learned how to do some tufted buttons and double welt cording, what what??? yup i feel like a pro. just don't look tooooo close :)

so then all that was left was the blasted cushion. you know, the one i already sewed up in different fabric? well i decided to bite the bullet and get 'er done cause i've make myself a pact not to leave projects unfinished. and i sewed and it went so smoothly, i didn't even have to use my seam ripper once! and just as i was turning it right side out, i realized. i sewed the zipper on backwards. yup right across the front, instead of hidden so neatly in the back.

not so awesome. but holy cow, i'm not sewing that sucker up again, so backwards it will stay. and I don't actually even mind. i looooove how it turned out and Liam even like it too:

and that is good enough for me :)

I'm linking up to these fun parties:
http://theinspiredroom.net/
http://romanceonadime.com/
http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com
http://lilluna.com/
http://adiamondinthestuff.blogspot.com/
http://ladybug-blessings.com/
http://indesignerjeans.blogspot.com

On a roll!

I've been making baby quilts like nobodies business lately. Here is my latest! Like usual I bought too much fabric for it do I can make a second! I wonder which lucky little guy will get that one? Anyway, this one is for my cousin Anna who is having a little boy in September. I'm so excited for her! Boys are so much fun (but maybe I'm a little biased?) :)

Oh. My.

Have I ever told you how *much* I love fabric? No? Well I love it. Love. It. It is physically painful for me to walk into a quilt store and not buy something. I'm a fabric snob. I like the good stuff. Sure, I'll buy fabric from Joann and HoLo but I'd rather not. So when husband asked me what I wanted for mothers day and I told him a gift card to a quilt store, he looked at me like I was crazy and said "why do you need a gift card? You buy it anyway? How bout I just tell you to go buy fabric?" ha. Smart guy. But really, the reason wanted a gift card is because this fabric is going to be arriving in stores soon and I want it. It's by Sweetwater and I absolutely adore their fabric. All of it. I want to rub my face in it. Hopefully I can think of something to make with this line (like that'll be a problem, ha!) so I can take advantage of the fact t that husband *told me* to buy fabric! What do you think? Any great ideas for a project with this stuff?

a mini project

remember when I gave you a tour of my house, and I mentioned that I got a new piano? well that piano came with a bench that had AWFUL fabric cover it. I'm talking gross. Faux leather that was old old old and discolored and had weird looking stains on it.

well I decided that just wouldn't do. i needed something new up in here. so i went off to the fabric store to see what i could find, and this PERFECT fabric was sitting out on the cut table. and it was fifty percent off!

score.

i bought a yard of it and headed home. after rounding up the tools needed (scissors and a staple gun i borrowed from my father-in-law) i went to work!

now, i'll be honest. my first re-upholstering job i had only completed about 45 minutes before this (pictures to come) , so i'm still not entirely sure i know what i'm doing... but I'm pretty darn pleased with how it turned out!

see for yourself!

much better, don't you think?!

i really love the style of fabric and it looks so nice in my front room!

so here's how much it cost:

fabric- $0 (i actually bought this for a different project... and was hoping i'd have enough left over but wasn't sure.)
staple gun - $0

I love me a free project!!!

Don't you just love fall?

I do. I love the crispness in the air. The leaves changing colors. The smell. The smell that takes me back to elementary school days, knowing that winter was coming and SNOW. Crunching through leaves to go trick-or-treating. The traces of snow on the mountains, snow that hasn't yet made it to the valley floor. The beautiful colors of the leaves on the trees. I love it.

Anyway, this post isn't really supposed to be about fall. Nope. I wanted to show off another project that I have recently finished. Back when Liam was brand new, I stumbled on the perfect boy fabric to make him a quilt. And then I found the perfect pattern for a boy quilt. Of course, switch up the fabric and it would be an equally adorable little girl quilt. Anywho, I grand plans to make if for him quickly but then things happened, and we moved, and I started this little business online that took off way faster than I ever thought it would and that kept me pretty busy. But I was looking through my collection of quilt tops that I have finished that I need to finish completely and I found his! I decided it was time and I went on the search for a back for the quilt. A handful of quilt shops later I had my fabric and I went for it. I quilted it on my little machine at my mom's house and did up the binding while watching some tv. I think I'll give it to the baby for his birthday this month. (WHAT?! He is NOT turning one this month... ) I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. And I finally learned how to connect the loose ends of my binding correctly and it almost turned out right... practice makes perfect. I think I'll start a little tradition. Blankets from mom at the 1st birthday... and who knows when else. Well here it is...

I love the chevron print and I love the orange and blue combo. So perfect for a little boy! And of course, I had to take a couple of pictures of the little rugrat climbing around in the grass:

I think he likes it... :)



a little christmas... and the baby too

so I've been workin on a quilt. I think it is pretty great. some of the blocks have been a little tedious... and some have made me downright angry...

today I finished them all! and I'm going to be sewing them together shortly, but of course, I had to take a picture first!

I'm so excited to put this on my couch this christmas season! I love the way its turning out! Now lets see if I can get it done before christmas comes HA. I just don't know how I'm going to quilt it yet....

Oh and when I plugged in my camera I found these little pics:

How could I not post them?!



What do you think?

oh my fabric.

i have a problem.

its bad.

i want to own all the beautiful fabric in the whole world.

i love it.

i have a new favorite collection.

wanna see?

 

 

 

Don't you worry,

There are some more purples I love.

And Blues.

and blacks.

and...

all of them.

Like I said, I have a problem.