How to Reupholster a Chair

A few years ago I reupholstered our computer chair... I wrote a post about it HERE. Well.. when I did that one some of the staples I used were poking through and caused tiny tears in the fabric... so over the coarse of three years it got worse and worse... I wish I would have taken a before picture cause it looked BAD. But no worries I did it again... this time with fabric from my Mom's stash... so again FREE!!! I didn't take pictures of the process but its so simple I am sure you can do it.

Original Chair= Super Boring

1st Reincarnation= Super Cuter

2nd Reincarnation= More subtle, looks great with the cabin

What to do:

1. Pick out some upholstery fabric you want... a yard should be more than enough... You can use regular fabric, its what I did the first time but it only really held up for a couple years. If you want more padding (I added more this time) get some sheet foam as well. 

2.Take off the seat/cushions of the chair... they are usually attached with screws. Save the screws you will need them to put the cushion back on.

3. Remove the old fabric if you want... I just left it on... lay the cushion upside down on the foam (if using extra foam) and cut out around the cushion leaving about 4 inches extra on each side. Using a staple gun gently wrap the foam around the middle of one of the sides... staple once, then go to the side opposite that side... then pulling a little harder to the middle of the other two sides... then back to the first side staple once on each side of the original staple... then the opposite side... so on an so forth... Make sure you don't cover the screw holes... when you get to the corners just tuck the foam for a good fit and staple the shit out of them. 

4. Do the exact same thing to the fabric you did to the foam. MAKE SURE THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE FABRIC IS GOING TO BE SHOWING... that means place the seat cushion upside down on the wrong side... check twice, staple once. 

5. Attach the seat/cushion back to the chair... with your saved screws.

6. Have a "look how awesome I am" drink!

If you don't trust me... or want better directions just google it silly, thats how anybody learns anything, right?

Wikihow 

DIYnetwork

EHow

Easter Eggs

This is a project that I started over a year ago... I wanted to make some really cool easter eggs that I could use for a couple of years so I wouldn't spend tons of time every year making really intricate eggs... My thoughts were make some super fancy ones and then every year just makes some simple ones to go with them.

sooo...

I figured I could just blow out some eggs and use them for a while... blowing out eggs is a lot harder then people say... or maybe I am just bad at it... well now that I think about it everyone and everything said it is hard... but stuff that normal people say is hard is normally pretty easy for me... not this... it was hard.

AND this was all happening about a year ago... because of course I am always late... I started this right before easter... not enough prep time... and then Derick shattered his leg and spent two weeks in the hospital and 2 months on bed rest... so I had a bowl of blown out eggs sitting in my studio for a year... lame.

BUT the good thing is this allowed me to travel back to the states (for my sisters wedding) and purchase a sheet of vinyl while I was there... which was critical in my egg decorating plan... so here is what I did... I chose two different designs for my eggs... I chose plaid and blossoms... I was planning on dying them two different colors so I put on one set of vinyl stickers... like so...

I used a craft punch on the sheets of vinyl for the blossoms and then just cut some electrical tape into small strips for the stripes

Dipped them in yellow dye (20 drops yellow food coloring, 1 cup hot water, 1 tsp vinegar) And then I let them dry... took those stickers off put on a new set in new spots overlapping parts of the old spots... and put those in pink dye (5 drops red food coloring, 1 cup hot water, 1 tsp vinegar) but I only left them in the pink for a few seconds because it was so much stronger then the yellow. Let that dry then added a few touches of glitter!!!

Korean Bar

We just had the "Far East Bazaar" here at Misawa (where vendors from all over the world come and try to get us to buy their crap)... this is HUGE event that alot of my friends worked A LONG time on to make happen! I however only donated 48 muffins so I could go to the pre-sale... Anyways when we first got here we saw these bars that are pretty cool, they are on wheels so you can roll them to where ever you are needing some drinks and keeps everything in one convenient location! So we decided we wanted one before we leave, and since we are not sure anymore when we are leaving we decided better safe then sorry and went ahead and got one. Most were super ornately carved and had lots of detail... not my thing, this was the only one that was simple plain and fantastic!

AND here it is... this is why I had to get the mirror on the wall... So I could fit our bar where it had been leaning... but now I don't know where the christmas tree is going...
I'll figure that out when the time comes!

This is what it looks like all opened up... we obviously need more wine... The doors open all the way and the top folds over on top to make a large bar/ serving area!

The red wine glasses in the center are on a panel that rotates so that would normally just be a wooden panel unless you rotated it to get a glass.

New Living room Feng Shui

I have always loved the idea of Feng Shui... although I probably have a simplified understanding of the concept I still enjoy it...

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese system of aesthetics believed to use the laws of both Heaven (astronomy) and Earth (geography) to help one improve life by receiving positive qi.

Anyways sometimes I find myself needing to change everything, or at least some things... I arrange my furnature and painting and photos how  I think they look best and enjoy them like that until one day I just think "THIS IS SO WRONG" and I know exactly what to do to fix it... Maybe its good that I have to move every three years and get to change EVERYTHING! I think if i lived in the same house for 20 years I would end up repainting and changing everything about every three years anyway.

BUT the whole point is I changed my living room... I realize now... looking for old photos of my living room, you guys never really saw it... so I will tell you what changed... cause it looks WAY better!

I hung up my Thailand Paintings, hung up my shelf I made out of a piece of a shipwreck, moved some glass bottles onto it, hung up my mirror on the right and moved the splatter paintings from the right wall to the left wall... I think they look better against the red!

I found this piece of wood at shipwreck beach, I think it used to be part of one of the shipwrecks... I sanded it down, dug out all the rotten parts, and mounted it on these brackets I found at Homac... Those bottles are all bottles I found on beaches here in Japan and I want to put some sand in the clear ones... probably some black sand from the beach right by us.

On this wall is where the splatter paintings used to be and the mirror was leaning on the wall by the door to the kitchen... I finally got the balls to try to hang this thing... it is so heavy and we don't have wooden studs.. we have metal ones... SO our friends the Nations were over while I was contemplating what to do, he saw me measuring and marking and measuring and thinking, and asked what I was doing... he eventually told me about butterfly screws where you put he scew in the wall then it expands behind the wall so you can mount heavy things on the wall without studs... SCORE... so another two trips (I got the wrong ones the first time) to Homac later... the mirror is hung.

Where the splatter painting are now is where our diplomas used to be. Our diplomas are now above the computer... that door is where the mirror used to sit on the floor. We want to buy a bar (they look kinda like THIS) at the Bazaar and we want to put it behind the couch, so good thing the mirror is gone!

There is a giant blank spot on the wall cause that is where our clock was supposed to go but I hung it before I hung a couple other things and when I was hammering it fell off and shattered everywhere... it had a glass face... I think I still have glass embedded in my foot... my bad.

Bathroom and Chair projects

So I was cleaning the house and of course get distracted by a million other projects... I have always hated this chair... its so boring and ugly... so I remembered I had this fabric that my great friend Malinda wrapped around a present for me once! and I thought YES that will be perfect... if I have enough... I ended up having like 3 inches to spare...And BAM this chair is WAY better... and it was free!
And then I thought about how boring my bathroom is.. I am planning on doing this crazy victorian wall stencil... but I just havent gotten around to it yet. And then I remembered I had a ton of seashells from all my beach excursions laying around... hmmmm
So I have sand dollars framing my mirror (I just stuck them on with rolled up masking tape and it is working great!) and little wooden bowl (that I either stole from my mom or got at a garrage sale) of other shells on the counter AND and chunk of fake coral from a fish bowl I had back in the day on the back of the toilet!
At work they were throwing out these frames (but they were gold and ugly) so I scavenged them painted black on top of the gold... sanded it down to make it look distressed, painted the back mat black hot glued sand dollars inside! I think they look great! also free!

Sea Glass Magnets

Problem: I was looking at my fridge thinking that I hate all these random magnents I have

Solution: I went to the hundred yen store spent about $1.20 on a package of super strong magnents, went home hot glued sea glass to them and BOOYAH looks great!

Holiday Tea

The Holiday Tea is a Misawa Officers Spouses Club event, since I am on the board as Special Activities along with my Co-Chair Kat... This is an event that is free to members and we also invite Japanese Nationals to join us, Mostly civic leaders wives, JASDF (Japanese Air Self Defense Force) wives, and community groups. It was a really cool even where we shared our cultures with each other, and give the Japanese a taste of American food and American Christmas. This is the arrangement from my dining room table. Our colors were Blue white and silver and soft gold! Our theme was snowlfakes. When you invite a Japanese person to your house or event instead of them bringing a housewarming gift, you give them a presento.... so our presentos to the Japanese guests were this snowflake bottle stoppers! They were super cute and the Japanese LOVED them!We has assigned seating so that the Japanese would not all sit at one table and then the Americans sit at a different table. We did two Japanese then two Americans till we had 8 at a table. These are the table numbers Kat made, the craft store here is so lame that all they had NO blue paper so we did white card stock with blue snowflake stamps which glitter vellum over the top tied with yarn! it turned out really cute... then we had those clear glass bulbs around the silver chargers for a craft we did... you'll see more of that later
We had two kinds of centerpieces, winter branches and these fresh evergreen arrangements with blue and silver Christmas balls and pine cones and glittery snowflakes!
One of the example balls we had on all the tables for the craft.
Here is the other centerpiece of branches that we spray painted white with touches of soft gold, coming out of a hurricane filled with fake snow!
The brains behind this whole thing, on the left Laura (our faithful and much appreciated helper) Kat (my co-chair) and ME
People who did not have assigned seats could pick up their place cards and put them on the seats they wanted, we had these strips of white card stock with a gold embossed snowflake held in a white and muted gold spray painted pinecone.

We had a gift exchange, combat style, and the Japanese were not shy about stealing gifts! it was great! then we did our craft and the Japanese had a good time decorating their ornaments along with the Americans. We had tinsel, curling ribbon and white feathers people could put inside their ornaments and gold paint pens for people to write on them.
Here the Japanese lady at my table is writing on my ball, so no I have a really awesome hand made Christmas ornament with Merry Christmas written in Japanese.
I think I will go ahead and say the holiday tea was a great success!

Super Cute Christmas House

Fresh evergreen arrangement on the kitchen table... you can see my sea glass mural on the background and my icicle lights in the door... And the really cute snowflake table runner Derick got me from Shimoda Mall... We actually ended up using this arrangement at the Holiday tea (pictures coming)OH... and I finally got curtains in the Kitchen!
Curtain rod in the living room... its the little details that make me happy!
ALL THE MISAWA SNOW! and my really cute front door
I have these poinsettias and wreath out front, becuase the front of our houses are so bland... cream walls, metal door... I decided to do red outside even though I have blue and silver inside
Derick bought be this red berry wreath while he was in alaska and I added all of the pinecones by wireing them in! I think it looks great!