Refashioned Pillow Before & After

 (moved this post over from a blog I started a looonnnng time ago and then immediately forgot!)



We have had these toss pillows for YEARS. I never used them for anything as they never matched anything I own. But I bought several different styles on clearance for $1 each, with the intention of someday using them. Today was the day.


Before:
Originally, the pillow was 18" (not counting the border) and kinda flat from being stored all this time. So I took a few inches off and cut my fabric 15"x15" (14" finished size) so the stuffing would better fill it up. I wound up with a small handful left over. Not bad!


Fabric Choices: After:
The pillow looks kinda lumpy in the picture, but I think it's because of the camera angle. It looks pretty flat in real life.

I am really excited about using these as accent pillows when we're finished decorating the bedroom. In addition to a pair of pillows like the one above, I want to make a roll pillow out of the backing fabric. I found some great pillow tutorials over at Sew 4 Home while looking at different styles. I was a little intimidated by the skill on a lot of the pillows I saw but I figured a basic square was a great way to work up some courage.

New Life to an Old Chair

(moving this post over from a blog I started a loooonnng time ago and them immediately forgot)

So the next step in our office decorating was to cover our chair. I have a love/hate relationship with this chair. It's comfortable and the perfect height for my tall table. But the fabric is bad. BAD-BAD. The fabric is hot and itchy and staying in it for a long period of time is pretty well impossible.

So we decided to change all that. The only thing I purchased for this project was a staple gun. I've never used a staple gun before and was a little skittish at the beginning, but by the time I was finished, I was a natural.

The hardest part of the whole recovering was getting the original staples out. I don't own a staple puller and have no clue if they'll remove this kind of staple, BUT I did have a teeny tiny screw driver and pliers. That's how I removed all the staples.

I removed the old fabric and pinned it to the new, then cut around it to get the general size I needed. I first staple a double layer of craft batting on both the seat and the back for a little extra cushioning and then followed suit by stapling the fabric on top of that.

Can you tell I cleaned between the two pics? lol

Detail

Overall, for my first try reupholstering something, I think it went pretty well. I can't wait to try something else.

Thanks for looking!

Lamp Redo

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Our office/craft room has no color. It's black, white, and occasionally silver. Blah.  So in order to bring color to this room we decided to go all out and use BRIGHT! COLORS! through the whole thing. When I whipped out pink and orange and green and purple for Jimmy to look at, he was kind of hesitant. But as he has seen things start to take shape, he is getting more into it. The first project I took on was probably also the easiest: The lamp shade. Start to finish, I maybe spent 30 minutes decorating the shade. I'm still iffy on whether to paint the base (it's black) or not, but for right now, I am very happy.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqj1MdKcy0_W9xonb-qXnjJ7gi2swlJ30mmtRVAgHRxOHYxsC62j22NcmhfANjTDHgCqQ77uE16YJLUiL12JFUauc-p3bRbsvTMtCR-Wx2vpsutKATWroesKw9MU13KHkt7bKFZ6NoQs5B/s1600/lamp.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503418943411483170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqj1MdKcy0_W9xonb-qXnjJ7gi2swlJ30mmtRVAgHRxOHYxsC62j22NcmhfANjTDHgCqQ77uE16YJLUiL12JFUauc-p3bRbsvTMtCR-Wx2vpsutKATWroesKw9MU13KHkt7bKFZ6NoQs5B/s320/lamp.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">I love lamp!</span></div>
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Originally the shade was a red textured fabric. I covered over it with a fuschia fabric first. Then I took strips of wired striped ribbon and cut 8 lengths to cover the lamp and then wrapped around one at a time, using the wire to hold position. I secured with my absolute favorite adhesive for just about anything:  sticky strip (tacky tape). That's it!