Ikea kitchen stool transformation

This basic stool from Ikea has clearly seen better days, so I thought it was time for a little re-vamping. I lightly sanded it before painting with primer:

...and then adding two coats of Farrow and Ball's Ball Green, letting each coat dry in between:

Charlie likes it!

Chest of Drawer Handles

This has been the sad front of the chest of drawers we rescued from freecycle nearly a couple of years ago, sanded down, and left handle-less after I successfully rusted all the orignal brass drawer pulls...eeek.

I had spotted the idea of using an old belt as handles so scouted some used leather belts on ebay for a couple of pounds each.

I cut them into identical lengthed strips and made holes where I wanted the nuts and bolts to go once the strips were positioned in a bent handle shape on the drawers: 

Using these industrial "machine screws" I attached the leather handles to the drawers through the original handle screw holes and tightened the nights on the inside of the drawers:

Handles at last!

Spring has sprung fabric noticeboard

After yesterday's delightful weather (highs of 16 degrees C on 5th March!) I thought it was time to post this blog on how to make a fabric covered noticeboard, after I recently made this floral and blue-ribboned one for Jim's sister's 18th birthday. It would also make a great Mothers' Day present :)

Take one old/new/borrowed (I don't know if you can get blue ones) cork pinboard and some wadding, and cut the wadding so that it is 3 inches bigger than the board all the way round.

I laid the board face down on the wadding and folded the edges round onto the back of the board. I also removed the tiny hooks and pins and kept them safe to re-attach later on.

I cut all four corners off the rectangle of wadding, so that it would fold better and sit more neatly on the back of the board.

Initially I tried using a staple-gun to affix the wadding, but the staples fell out. My very good friend and craft advisor Stephanie Lewis recommended using double sided carpet tape to stick it on. Carpet tape is truly the stickiest and best "attatcher" I have ever come across.

I then cut the fabric I wanted to use to size, again, about 3 inches larger all round than the board. Next I placed the wadding-covered board face down on the underside of the fabric and used the corner-cutting and carpet tape method as above to attach the fabic, making sure it was pulled quite tight.

Next I cut the ribbon to the different lengths required in order to make a nice diagonal criss-criss pattern and pinned them in place. I used a glue gun to stick down each ribbon end to the reverse of the board, again, ensuring that the ribbons were quite taught.

With the back of the board looking a bit scruffy what with the layers of wadding, carpet tape, fabric, ribbon and glue, I took an extra large bit of cardboard, trimmed it down to size and glue-gunned it onto the back to hide the mess.

Using a hammer I gently re-attached the hooks to the back of the board, ensuring the pattern on the fabric would be hanging the right way up.

Last but not least, I sewed some pearly buttons onto each ribbon crossover, also sewing through the fabric to make the ribbons a bit sturdier to hang things on.

This is an example of another board that my beautfiul mum made me a few years ago.

 

It's where I keep all the pretty cards and notelets that come through the post :)

Paris Grey painted chairs

Over the past few months I have been building up quite a collection of dining chairs. As useful as they are for sitting on, standing on, storing and displaying things on, and generally making the place feel more homely, there are only so many that we can fit into our tiny flat. I have now conlcuded that this number is five. We have two lovely spindly ones from my mum and dad, an even spindlier one that used to belong to Jim's Grandma, and an extra, younger, chunkier one we picked up from a charity shop when the need to seat 4 people became absolutely desperate.

The latest acquisitions came from the one and only freecycle.org and were a lovely sturdy pair of wooden dining chairs:

They were painted lovely colours, but had seen better days. I wanted to make our mismatched dining chair collection feel slightly more uniform and part of the same family, so looked into painting them, or at least a few of them the same colour. I began by giving these two a good wash down in the front garden and waited for them to dry while sitting in the last bit of autumn sunshine back in September.

That morning I had dragged Jim to The Forest Bailif a beautiful interior decoration and furniture shop in Raynes Park, where I picked up a sample pot of Annie Sloane's chalk paint in Paris Grey. This composition of paint is absolutely amazing. It has a rugged appearance but soft texture to it and you don't need to sand down or prime the item you are painting before applying the chalk paint. A brilliant time saver for impatient people like me!

Having confirmed that I loved the Paris Grey - this was a mighty achievement as I am so indecisive, but loved the colour for it's name (a sentimental reminder of our trip to Paris earlier this year) and also because it goes with everything in our living/dining room - I dragged Jim to a second Annie Sloane stockist - Tomlinsons in lovely Dulwich Village, where I splashed out on a whole litre pot of the Paris Grey chalk paint and some protective clear wax.

And this was the final result, after two coats of the paint and one of the wax:

Next on the list - two more Paris Grey chairs, and possibly a purple one thrown into the mix??!

First foray into furniture rejuvination

Our neighbours over the road have been doing up their flat with extreme commitment and devotion over the past couple of weeks. Yes, I have been spying on them from our first floor flat living room window.

It all began when I noticed the couple knocking down the lovely, old, metal railing fence around their front garden, and replacing it with a wooden picket fence, which they proceeded to paint baby blue (gasp). Yes, baby blue. At first I was horrified, but they have since colour co-ordinated their front door and added some lovely little windowsill faux bushes in pretty white pots and I can now say, peering judgementally from our living room window, that it looks quite quaint (and much more adventurous than our pair of window boxes, packed with dead, dying, and general reject plants from Homebase).

On one spying occasion I noticed them removing a large collection of furniture, old plants, pictures and upholstery from their flat and leaving it on the pavement as rubbish. Having the thrifty, "waste not want not", "make do and mend" attitude that I do, I scurried downstairs and across the road to see what I could salvage. With the help of Jim - who mostly does always have better things to do, but I asked nicely - we managed to sneakily rescue an old home-made coffee table and a large, heavy, eclectic gold and red wooden mirror:

Both items had seen better days, and were painted/ stained in dark dreary colours, that would do nothing for our tiny, shoebox flat (apart from the mirror which generally will be quite good at splashing light around and making the living room seem a tad larger!)

I set to work washing the mirror and table down with some mildly soapy water and an old sponge to get rid of dust and dirt, and used an old knife to get trickier marks off, and then let them dry completely. It might have been sensible to sand down the furniture a bit, but I thought as it is not going to be used outside and none of it was varnished, a few layers of fresh paint would stick well enough to the exsiting paint.

There was a small selection of paint pots left in the flat when we moved in nearly three years ago, none of which has had a chance to be used until now. I picked a fairly safe looking Dulux pot in "Egyptian Cotton" and prised the lid off with a screw driver expecting to find algae and frogspawn inside, but with a quick stir the paint looked as good as new.

I gave the table and mirror three coats of the Egyptian Cotton each, lettign each layer dry completely (over night) before applying the next.

When finished and all dry, I was more pleased with the resulting white/cream colour of the paint on the furniture than the yellowy white colour that the paint pot depicted. Also, the carving on the mirror frame was still visible under three layers of paint, which I had been worried about disappearing.

I had fun playing around with the position of the table, which goes well with the neutral and pale scheme of our living room, but I have yet to find a home for the mirror as we already have at least one large mirror in every room!

Happy painting!

Shrunken cardigan part 2: warm winter mittens

After my small, woollen cushion project, the remainder of my cardigan, still too small to consider wearing even as a tiny shrug, consisted of just the shoulders and sleeves:

Having seen a wrist-warmer project using the cuffs of an old jumper elsewhere a few years ago, I decided to attempt to make a pair of mittens, similarly using just the sleeves of the cardigan:

 

All I did was:

Cut off as much of the sleeves as needed to make the mittens, using the cuff as the part that will go around the wrist/arm/elbow (you can obviously make the mittens as long or as short as you like):

I then turned the sleeves inside out and measured a basic hand/mitten shape on the sleeve from the cuffs upwards, and marked it with either a few pins, or some fabric chalk, before cutting out the mittens and pinning the finger ends together:

I checked that the mittens and finger sections fitted on my hands before using a sturdy blanket or back stitch (see here for different types of stitching) to sew the finger part of each mitten together:

And finally, a pair of mittens ready to keep out the winter cold!

Feel free to add embellishments in the form of buttons, ribbons and bows to jazz up your pair!

Shrunken cardigan part 1: cosy cushon cover

It has taken me a good few months to realise that no matter what setting you put our washing machine on, and no matter what temperature, it will do something completely different once the clothes are in it and spinning around - it has a mind of it's own. So, although immediately disgruntled, I soon got over the fact that a few weeks ago, one of my favourite woollen cardigans came out of the washing machine 10 times smaller than when it went in, and barely big enough for a barbie. It was bound to happen one day.

But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining of unravelling woollen thread, so to make the most of my shrunken winter cardi, I decided to transform it into a mini cushion cover, with built in buttons!

To rectify the same sad situation if you happen to experience a washing machine disaster, or even if you fancy purposefully cooking an old piece of knitware in the machine, you will need:

• a woollen cardigan or jumper
• needle, pins and thread
• a cushion (the size depends on the size of your shrunken item)

1. After your jumper/cardigan has been suitably resized in the washing machine in a 60 degree spin, trim off the sleeves, shoulders and neck in one go, until the body left is the correct size for your cushion.

2. Turn the item inside out and pin along the top and bottom edges, then sew along these sides, either by hand or with a sewing machine, and if you need too, sew along the two sides to ensure it fits the cushion snugly.

3. Turn the cover back round the right way, and voila, it is complete!

Vintage cake stands

I absolutely love scouring old antique shops and charity shops for crockery gems. You can often pick up a selection of beautiful cups, plates and saucers at less than £1 a piece. Although it's not Jim's cup of tea, he doesn't mind eating the cakes and tasty treats off them once they've been transformed into handy little cake stands - ideal for parties and picnics.

 

To make a cakestand

You will need:

• Old crockery - tea cups, small bowls, saucers and plates ov varying sizes
• Super glue or a glue gun

 

1. Play around with the colours, shapes and sizes of the selection of crockery you've acquired until you come up with a design you like. 

 

2. Place the largest plate at the bottom, glue one cup/small bowl upside down to the centre of the plate and place a heavy item on the book until the glue sets.

3. Next, glue a smaller plate the right way up to the base of the cup and wait again until it sets.

4. Keep going until you have 2, 3, or even 4 layers...

And finally...

...Tada!

The finished article in use at a summer picnic!