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"!

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.

DIY dress to apron

one really DIY project i like to do is buying a cheap dress with an interesting pattern and turning it into an apron. funky aprons at anthropologie cost about $30! so why not buy a dress from the clearance rack at forever 21 for $7 and just cut it up?

anthrolopolgie's apron mostly just looks like a cut up dress anyway. they want it to look like it's recycled, but you don't pay a recycled price! all their stuff has that look - as though it's repurposed stuff you find in a thrift shop...which makes it real easy for me to rip off their ideas! LOL!

i think i made this one about a year ago, but iwas going through my old photos and found this - and i wanted to share because i think my model is cute.