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!!!

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.

Thailand Paintings... Finally

So while we were in Thailand we bought these awesome elephant paintings... but to get them home we had to take them off their frame supports and roll the canvas up and put it in a shipping tube in Dericks suitcase... well the lady at the gallery took them off off packaged them up and we put them in Dericks suitcase... 

And as of yesterday there were still in the tube... BUT now that Derick is home and have been revitalized to do projects... I have like 5 going on right now... I am sure they are driving him crazy (he hates disarray) but he doesn't say anything cause he know how much I love to projectsize all over the house!

So I went to "HomeEc"the Lowes of Japan and bought wood... I then took it to the wood shop since I have no saw (except a hand saw and hell no to cutting 45 degree angles with that) and told the dude what I needed and two hours and $10 later I had all my wood cut. 

This is me assembling the frames... Derick was asleep on the couch so I had to use my feet to hold the stuff in place, it probably worked out better this way anyway... cause I got to do everything how I wanted with out his "help" ; )

I just built a frame like you see here using those little middle metel peices to support it before I screwed the wood together for real support, then I added support beam across each corner and strung and wire in the middle and stretched the canvas across....

NOW THEY ARE ON MY WALL! 

FINALLY!

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!