you're just being shelfish

Shelf-ish. Get it?

We forgot to take a "before" picture of our empty babies closet. But all these shelves (except the top white one) are brand new. Originally, I was just gonna put 3 shelves up and call it a day, but S nixed that.

She said she wanted the shelving to be dynamic, and came up with this layout plan: four foot-high shelves on the right, two extra large shelves in the middle, and a ladder leading down to the floor on the far left with shelves of varying sizes.


As usual, S was the lead designer and I was the lead engineer. She had a great vision to make it as functional as possible. I was a little concerned about there being too many shelves, which would make it too crowded in there. Turns out it's perfect as usual.

reupholstering fever!

This is a chair from G's childhood. When we first moved in, G was thinking about throwing it away because it was so tore up, but I thought is has a beautiful shape and wanted to hold on to it. I saw potential in the chair and also I don't like to throw things out from his childhood. I knew that someday I want to do something with it and since we're working on the nursery, it was a great opportunity for another challenge.

we spent an afternoon at jo-ann's and picked out this fabric to reupholster it. but we needed 6 yards, and they only had 4! we were already thinking about going to the joanns in natick until my husband came up with the idea of using white fabric in areas that are hidden from view. so instead of driving all the way to natick, we just bought a little more plain white upholstery fabric.

So we started to take the whole thing apart! Here's G trying to figure out what pieces can be cut out of what part of our two different fabrics. he's good at geometry.

This is a lot of the materials laid out on the floor. it was a mess all week!

After the pieces were cut, I sewed them together.

Our new best friend: a staple gun

I didn't know he was taking pictures or else i would have wore something instead of a bathrobe! i'm using his patriots hammer to put the arm together.

It's starting to look like a chair again...

G says he never thought about how furniture was put together before this.

Revealing some of the white fabric we're keeping hidden.

close-up view

Now I just want to reupholster everything in the house! next project will probably be our media room sofa...another piece from G's childhood. probably even before he was born...even before people started to talk about "clean lines"!

diy updates: baby accessories

G has been busy getting the house ready for the babies arrival. You saw the cornices already...and we'll update other things when they're finished. But i wanted to take a second to update you on some baby accessories i've made over the past month.

since there are no newborns nearby, everything is being modeled by other friends! thanks to snuggles, whisker, and david the bear.

baby tutu

 

baby bear hat

 

baby tutu and baby bear hat (and another gumdrop pillow I just made)

 

baby winter hats

baby mary janes with real pearls!

curvaceous pelmet boxes

Of all the projects we've done, this is one of the ones we're most proud of. When all is said and done, I think the babies room is going to be the dopest room in the house.

For a long time, I wanted to put up a cornice box - also called a pelmet box - above some of the windows in our condo. G and I had done some planning, and we mostly knew how to do it. The problem was that G said we don't have a jigsaw so we couldn't build a cornice with a shape that I like, it would have to just be a rectangle. It wasn't exactly what I hoped for, but G said it was the only way.

But because this was going to be the first cornice in our home, and it was going to be in the babies room, I never gave up hope we could find a way to have a shape. If it was for our bedroom instead, maybe I would have accepted the plain front, but for this room, I was motivated to figure it out.

Just a couple days before we were planning to start on building them, I found a tutorial online that said you could make a beautiful pelmet out of just foamcore! That makes it easy to carve any shape you want! Isn't that a great idea? It's inexpensive and you can choose any shape you want, which allowed us to splurge on the fabric.

When I told G this idea, he was a little hesitant. He didn't think it would be strong - and he also prefers using wood because he thinks it's more tough and manly. But he changed his mind when he realized how much I really wanted some kind of style other than a rectangle on it. Thats something great about me & G together: I tell him what I want, and he helps me make it happen. Without him, I don't feel I can finish any projects. Without me, he doesn't ever want to start any projects!

Here is a step by step tutorial. We didn't do it exactly the same way the Little Green Notebook did, but hers was a good place to start.

First, we designed the front of the box. I was looking for a style that wasn't too ornate, but was still pretty. I definitely wanted a little bit of curve, not just right angles. Here's G drawing the design on foamcore. He's wearing a Randy Moss jersey in support of him since everyone else is blaming him now!

 

Then we used a boxcutter to cut out the right shapes, and used duct tape to connect them pieces together. This is G looking proud of the job he did!

Instead of using all foamcore like the other site, we compromised and used wood on the back so it's sturdier. The wood keeps the front from bending and also is the piece that attached to the wall.

We then covered the front of each box with batting to make it puffy. After that, we wrapped it with this fabric. Initially, we were going to use an amy butler fabric for this project, but based on the design of the fabric and the style of the cornice, they weren't a good match, so we changed our mind last minute. We looked all over the place for the right fabric, and when we finally found this one, we were excited!

Here is G using a staple gun to upholster the cornice. Can you believe it's just made of foamcore?

This is what it looks like on the window. Isn't it pretty?

So what do you think?

tutorial: bootleg gumdrop pillow

i've been sweating this pillow for a long time, but i could never figure out how to make it. i surfed all over the internet for the bootleg version. i even borrowed amy butler's books from the library, but i couldn't find the right pattern for this pillow. just when i was about to give in and buy the pattern for the pillow...which only cost $11.99 anyway, i found a DIY tutorial for a "Moroccan pouf" online. i think it's kinda funny that it doesn't mention Amy Butler at all, when it's almost exactly her pattern, just a couple inches different in size.

When i saw it, it looked so similar to Amy Butler's pouf, that I asked G to reverse engineer and figure out how to change the free bootleg pattern to be more the right size of the amy butler version. that way it looks even more like the original one that i liked in the first place.

BTW, i did support amy butler herself by buying her fabric. a lot of the babys room is going to be done using her fabrics. but the reason i didn't want to buy the pattern is both me & G don't like paying money for ideas. Ideas should be free and we should share them freely!

Here is our process step by step.

First, cut out 8 pieces of fabric in this shape. The design we chose had some regular features, so we tried to make each piece identical. we could have been a little more random, but I wanted the uniform look.

Sew them together like this in pairs, also sew the diagonal edges together but not all the way to leave space to stuff it later. Then sew the pairs together until you have the outer casing of the pillow.

See?

Then start stuffing with whatever kind of stuffing you got. I used polyester fiberfil, although amy butler suggests using some natural stuffing that would cost $100 just for the filling!

It's a convenient time capsule too. We're going to let our kids open it when they turn 21. So we also put in a bottle of gin...

...a Bruce Lee DVD in honor of their dad's favorite guy...

...and a Justin Timberlake bobblehead given to me by Auntie kay.

Next, make a cover for that hole. It could be any shape, we chose something like an octagon.

We're going to make another one for the nursery.

Guest Post / Crafty & Drunk

another guest post from Grouchy G

---

with so much wine in the house. what should i do?

S is away. she would know what to do.

think man. think.

OH! i could try drinking some of it!

the weapon in the war against wine.

what of this cork?

i guess every bottle has one of these.

what can I do with these? oh...

laptop stands to keep them from overheating!

diy menu

this is another project from a while back.

G and I work as creative co-directors for my brothers thai restaurant. last year, we repainted the whole interior with the help of my cousin kunthea in one night using three colors. customers who came in friday or saturday, then came back in on monday were shocked! but we forgot to take pictures of how bad it looked before we painted!

so anyway, this post isn't about that, it's about a more recent project: the menus.

my brother soden who is the owner of the restaurant was going to order new menus because his old ones were so shitty. but it costed like $700 for 25 menus! i thought i heard it wrong, but i confirmed with him that this is actually the cost! so being the frugal person i am, i volunteered the tek-li factory to produce new menus - and he would only have to pay for materials. no labor, what a deal!

I knew I wanted to work with bamboo. it has that raw organic feeling that them folks like. That's just the demographics of our customers.

we found some bamboo place mats, and used them as covers for the menus. but the place mats were too floppy, so i went to broadleaf studios, owned by theresa and sophea for some advice. When I got there, I met with both consultants. They helped solidify a concept. Not only did they helped find a solution to make the place mats stiff by using chipboard, but also recommended using photo corners so that the menu could be easily updated. Thanks Theresa and Sophea for all your help!!

Even though most of the materials were inexpensive, i did not cut corners on paper. I bought exotic paper from the Paper Source for the inside covers. I used different papers so that customers could feel that they're handmade and not all the same.

Giles did the most important piece: he wrote the introduction and rewrote the menu, and formatted it all.

it took a really long time to get them done. but we made 40 menus for less than $300. Our customers thought they were dope! Some even wanted to keep the menu after placing an order so that they can take time to read through. It's good to know that our hard work was appreciated.