NYR #2, Dining Room Chairs Part One

For far too many months, we have been dining on some ugly dining chairs. I bought them at a thrift store with plans to paint and reupholster them.
But that was many moons ago and yesterday my husband admitted that he really wanted me to get on with this project ASAP. Because of the fumes, I won't paint them inside and because of the temperature, I can't paint outside this season, but I figured I could at least tackle the upholstery work. So I ran to fabric store and picked out material.

One final look at the gross rust color. And if that wasn't enough to demand a recover, most of them were stained. Anyway, here's how I did it:

1. Unscrew the seat from the chair base.

2. Remove the staples holding on the old upholstery.

If you are as lucky as us, you may be shocked to discover that the ugly rust colored fabric is actually an IMPROVEMENT on what was originally on the chair.

Really people? Was this ever cute?! Although it's heinous, I decided to leave it on so that the foam would stay in place and the chairs would have a little extra support. Moving on...

3. Lay out your fabric underneath your chair seat. Make sure there is enough to cover the sides. This is actually a picture of the third chair I did so I had already cut out a piece of fabric that was the same size as a discarded rust-colored piece.

4. Wrap the fabric around and staple your first staple on the center front of the chair.

5. Alternating left to right, work your way out from the center. However, do not staple all the way to the corner.

Be sure and pull the fabric TIGHT before you do each staple.

Otherwise, you could end up with a lump like this. If that happens, take out the staple and do it over again.

See how flat this side is? That's what it should look like.

6. After you've stapled the front and back, move to the sides and repeat. Again, it's best to start in the middle and move out.

7. Once all the sides are stapled you can work on the corners. I think it's best to fold the side fabric down first.

Then fold the front/back fabric over the side fabric and staple it all in place. It will take some maneuvering to get it flat, but it's worth the effort to work with it. You want to make sure no extra folds or puckers are visible on the sides. If necessary use multiple staples to hold it in place.

8. Clip the fabric away from the screw holes.

Once everything is stapled down tightly and the screw holes are free of fabric, the seat is ready to go back on your chair.

9. Screw the seats back on.

And you're done! See? All that pulling tight paid off. It looks super smooth on the outside!

Voila! There are two more steps (painting and a surprise that I'm not going to reveal until I post 'after' pictures) to do before I will consider these chairs "done," but for now, I'm happy that they are looking MUCH better.

NYR #1, Christmas Wreath

I have made two New Years Resolutions this year. The first is to have 25 dinners with families from church. The second resolution is to do 25 things worthy of posting on this blog. Some 'design fixes' may be impressive, others may be small, but they are all crafty things that I want to accomplish this year.
I've thought of at least 20 things and I'm sure the rest of them will fall into place soon. Anyway, the first is pictured above. I embellished the Christmas wreath that I bought from IKEA by adding a bow made from jute upholstery webbing. I can't wait to hang it on the front door next Christmas. And yes, even though it is a Christmas wreath, I didn't decorate it until after the new year so it counts!

Model

Here's Caleb modeling the pajamas that I recently posted. Notice how they are folded up on the arms and the legs. Again, the pattern sizing was way off! He's still cute though!

Addy's Kimono Top

Here is the Kimono top that matches Addy's pajama pants. If you would like to make this too, check out the pattern here at Habitual, another fabulous blog.

Put together, it's a lot of pink! But I figured she could wear them together or separately.Regardless, I've learned that making clothes for kids, especially baby girls, is a natural high like no other. It's so easy and the finished products are so cute! Hopefully I'll get a chance to make some more in the coming months. Of course, I've still got that slipcover hanging over my head... sigh.

Addy's Pajama Pants

I made these pajama pants for Addy by making a pattern from a pair of Rock's old pajamas.

First, I measured and recorded the dimensions of Rock's pants. Figuring out the cuffs was a little tricky, but I finally got it.
Then I drew my own pattern... in pencil. I had to erase a few times to get it right.
Then I cut out the pattern...
Pinned it to the awesome fabric I got from SewMamaSew...

And cut that out.

Then I came up with a plan for sewing it together and sewed them (sorry, I forgot take pictures of that process!). I was very pleased with the end result. It matches this cute kimono top that I will post soon.

Caleb's Pajamas

For Cousin Caleb in Seattle, I made some manly little pajamas.

These were from a pattern that I borrowed from my friend Missy. I think it was Simplicity. If you want to know which pattern exactly, just ask me in a comment and I'll find out.

Because of cool details like this collar, they were somewhat time-consuming. My only other complaint is that the sizing was a bit off. I measured Rock to determine which size to sew, but the completed pieces were long in the legs and arms. I guess I should have double checked that on my model before I sewed them together, but anyway...

I loved the end result anyway.

Baby Dress for Addy

Now that Christmas is over, I can go ahead and show you what I've been up to. If you hadn't guessed from the pictures that I posted last month, I made some clothes for my niece and nephew for Christmas.

First, I made this adorable Itty Bitty Baby Dress from Made By Rae. She makes awesome things (including this pattern that was 100% free) so go check out her blog.
The fabric for this and Addy's outfit (to be posted soon) were from SewMamaSew.

Daybed for the Barnetts

Okay, so I can show you Bethany and Kelly's Christmas present because they've already seen it. As you can see, the covers on their daybed (which was in my parents house when I was growing up and originally belonged to my Aunt Valeta) were looking pretty sad.

Not only were there stains, but Kelly in particular did not like how after you stood up the seat still bore an impression of your backside.They asked that I recover them (while I was down in Miami for Thanksgiving) as my Christmas present to the both of them.

So, Bethany and I went to Calico Corners and waited around forever for an employee to finally come help us cut the fabric that we wanted selected this fabric.

Then I came up with a plan for cutting out the pieces of fabric I needed. Please do not look closely at my drawing. It is embarrassing how not-to-scale it is.

Then, I cut and pinned and sewed the cushions. And seam-ripped my bad stitching and pinned and sewed them again. Ugh. We also decided that she needed some sort of 'pop' of color on the couch so we picked out some throw pillow fabric (which we got for a STEAL!) and I sewed throw pillows too.

Many hours later (far too many because of my dumb mistakes), Kelly and Bethany have a new look for their daybed.

Part of the reason for this upgrade is because they were moving the daybed into their family room to serve as their couch.

If you look closely at the mirror on this page, you can see the satisfied homeowners in the reflection. I am most satisfied that I was able to get this all done while I was there and I didn't have to mail them a Christmas gift. Merry Christmas to all (well, to Bethany and Kelly) and to all a good night!

A Preview

Remember when I said that gifts for others don't count? Welllllllllll. When I said that, I was talking about how I couldn't keep procrastinating by making things for other people when I needed to be finishing the approx. 372 projects I have started but not finished.

It's a completely different story during the pre-Christmas-gift-making season. I'd love to show you some of the gifts I've been working on, but they are gifts for people who read this blog and I don't want to ruin it. So, you will have to wait until the new year to see what I've been up to. For now, feel free to feast your eyes upon the two pictures above and take a guess at what I'm doing.

Tray

I found my camera, so now I can finally post these pictures of the completed tray for my bedroom. Unfortunately, the camera was missing during the crafting of this tray so I can't show you step-by-step pictures. I'll just have to describe how I did it!

To make this tray, first I painted the tray. This took two coats of primer and three coats of paint. Then, I traced my sketch from the curtain project I did last month onto a sheet of blank computer paper. Then I cut out the design and (using double-sided tape) laid it out on my tray.

Then I sprayed the tray all over with three coats of polyurethane.

After letting it dry for about 24 hours, I peeled off the paper design and -- VOILA! A beautiful tray with a subtle design. It is actually much more subtle than it appears in these pictures. I had to use the flash to get it to show up at all. And so, many months after starting, this project is now COMPLETE! YAY!

p.s. For those of you who are wondering, the bright shiny object on the tray is my phone base. I'm using this tray to hold a few red candles, the bedroom phone, and a notepad and pen for taking messages/jotting down genius ideas that come to me in the middle of the night.