Stuff I Make

Getting back to work

March 17, 2011

I have licked my wounds long enough. It’s time to rediscover my love of making things and bend that muse to my will. So I went out and did what was sure to get my creative juices flowing, I visited all my favorite craft stores and spent some money.

I found some wonderful yarn and a crazy good price, so this might just be the year I finally make myself that sweater I’ve been meaning to make. I got some needlepoint canvas for a long dreamed of project, some large paper for more bedroom artwork.

I’ve been wanting to use up some of my fabric stash, but I didn’t have enough patterns I loved. So I went to one of JoAnn’s super cheap pattern sales, and ended up buying a bunch more super cheap fabric to go with them. Sewing is sounding really fun to me right now.

And I went to my favorite bead store, I’ll show it off to you guys soon, and splurged on some lovely things.

I also got some great vinyl for a couple of projects I have in mind for Atti, and I’ve got a couple of baby quilts in my future. Plus, I finally have that enormous Mondrian quilt on the sewing machine and I’ve been chipping away at it. Spring has brought my mojo back, and now I’ve got to get to work.

Filed Under: Stuff I Make, The Good Life

Refnished table #1

March 7, 2011

This is one of the two tables I’ve been wanting to refinish that are currently listed over there in the sidebar. I got this little guy off of Craigslist when we first bought our San Diego house and it has been patiently waiting for some attention ever since. Since it’s life began probably at least 50 years ago it’s been covered in some unforgiving paint and it has been scarred up almost beyond recognition. The last person who tried to resuscitate it took off the custom drawer pull and replaced it with these odd little plastic pieces that made the table look like it was constantly in shock. It needed a refresher.

I spent a few days trying to get all that black paint off. The wood underneath is still really good, but the poor table has been abused beyond my ability to repair. After a few tries with the stripping gel it became clear that it was either sand the table down until there was just a whisper of veneer left, or commit to repainting.

I spray painted this table with the same primer I used for the bathroom stand.

I went back for more trusty spray paint. I just love how the surface finishes. Instead of that overpowering black that was on the table before, I went with a dark gray with metallic flecks in it. I wouldn’t call it glittery, but it does have just a bit of shimmer. It really changes the look of this utilitarian dresser into something a little bit special.

For greater longevity, I finished it off with a couple of coats of a clear sealer.

Unfortunately, the holes in the drawer were not drilled at a standard length apart, so I was limited in my hardware options. I did not want to go for something round again, I was trying to get away from the face effect of having two dots above that big open mouth. Home Depot had these little glass knobs, and I think that the hexagon shape is as good as I’m going to get.

In the action photos I’m afraid that the table doesn’t look that much different. Especially nestled up to my poor destroyed arm chair. But living with it I can tell you how much neater and fresher the whole thing looks. It was absolutely worth the effort.

Filed Under: My Dreamhouse in Progress, Stuff I Make, Tutorials

Bathroom Stand

February 28, 2011

This project has been living in my head ever since we bought our San Diego house. Actually seeing it to fruition has been like getting that superhuman energy boost after you kick a bad cold.

A few years ago my cousin and favorite shopping buddy Karen and I were strolling through a fancy home decor store when I came upon a really simple side table decorated in nailheads. It was gorgeous and inspiring and totally incredibly ridiculously priced. I’ve been looking for a way to do it myself ever since, but it turns out it is really really hard to find a perfect little table.

Powder rooms never have enough space for all of the little luxuries I wanted to put out, so I wanted to put a tiny little table next to the sink. But have you ever priced those cute little tables? They cost nearly as much as a regular sized table. And my cheapskate streak just couldn’t live with that. Logically I understand that things cost what they cost and that expenses don’t get dramatically cheaper just because the table is slightly smaller in scale, but no amount of logic could get past my sticker shock.

I found this little table at HomeGoods for $20. It was the wrong color, the wrong decor, not quite the shape I had in mind, but that price was so very right.

This little table started life out painted a distressed white with black underneath and a decoupaged image of a map on the top. Boring. I stripped the paint off, gave it a little sanding, and spray painted it with a primer. For a job this small, spray paint is amazing. No brush strokes, easy application and clean up, and these days you can get a pretty interesting selection of colors.

I followed the primer with a few coats of spray paint in this cool peacock blue color, and then a couple more coats with a clear sealer. This was a perfect scale of furniture refinishing for me right now. I didn’t even really need to change my clothes, I could slap on a coat of spray paint in between putting on Sesame Street and changing over the laundry.

I gave the paint coat a couple of days to get a good hard cure, and then I started adding the nailheads. Make sure you use some kind of a softer hammer so you don’t mess up the finish of the nails. A rubber mallet or a sock tied around the hammer would be good. Also, they love to bend at the head, so take your time and hammer straight down.

If cost was no object to this project, I would have preferred a table that offered me enough solid space on the sides to do an ornate paisley pattern, but this way I got to get my suggestion of nailheads while also having the whole project cost less than a dinner out.

Filed Under: My Dreamhouse in Progress, Stuff I Make, The Good Life, Tutorials

Even more framing

February 24, 2011

Before I leave the framing discussion behind for good, I should probably show off these last few additions.

For some reason my studio ended up having the most artwork of anywhere in my house, so I really wasn’t planning on adding more right now, despite the glorious abundance of wall space in here. But then I was gifted those great letterpress prints, and there was really no more perfect place to put them. I love how this wall is filling up.

This one is really almost embarrassing. I’ve had this wordle made up for over 2 years, and I am just now getting around to framing it. Boy, when I stick something in a closet, I do it with effectiveness.

I hung this one up in our guest bathroom. Once again, I want the art I put up to be meaningful of our values, but I don’t want to become some gross shrine to the superiority of our family. Having this hang over the toilet is actually a fairly prominent spot, but it’s also humble enough to not make me take myself too seriously.

Plus, nobody wants to go to the bathroom surrounded by watching eyes of photographs. Who knew there was so much overthinking to be done about where to hang pictures.

Filed Under: My Dreamhouse in Progress, Stuff I Make, The Good Life

Mondrian quilt in very slow progress

February 4, 2011

I’m still not feeling like working on much, but I’m trying to force myself past it. I’ve had this quilt top finished for months and sitting on top of my dresser, so I thought just getting it to the next step would be progress. It’s now back to sitting on top of my dresser, just neatly sandwiched and basted and ready for quilting. Hopefully it won’t take another few months to come down from off the dresser again.

Filed Under: Stuff I Make, The Good Life

Family Wall of Pictures

January 26, 2011

This hallway leads from the kitchen out to the garage, laundry room, and downstairs bath. It sees a lot of traffic as we leave the house from this door most often, but it also sees a lot of guest traffic on their way to the bathroom and visible from the rest of the downstairs. It was a really low priority, but once I accidentally put something there, I realized what a prominent place it really was.

These pictures are not going to be swell. A small dim hallway on top of winter light, I would’ve needed studio lighting to get shots to be proud of.

This whole project began with this picture. I thought it would be a good idea to mix some family photos in with the artwork I had collected for the wall in our living room, so I got this photo – one of my favorites ever – printed up and framed. Then when I put it with the other pieces it just seemed totally out of place. Too small, maybe, too intimate, I don’t know. I couldn’t put my finger on it. So I put this picture in the hallway and realized that I really needed a bunch more to go with it.

I decided that this hallway would be our family photo wall, which is a concept I’d been resistant to. I’ve seen a lot of hallways in a whole lot of homes where family photos plastered the place without any real consideration for aesthetics. But I also want to surround myself with what I really love, so I had to find a happy middle ground.

I spent an entire day sorting through old photos, picking out ones that were a little more artistic

Or were from forever ago and had sentimental value. This picture was from ten years ago, back when we were babies.

A Christmas card picture from last year and one of my favorite pictures of Bear and Atti together.

I chose a selection of frames in different colors and sizes and after a few experiments decided to hang them so that the internal edges lined up down the middle. I think it looks totally classy, and more like a gallery than something you’d see lining the walls of a proud grandma’s house.

Filed Under: My Dreamhouse in Progress, Stuff I Make

Hibernation

January 12, 2011

This time every year I totally lose my crafting mojo. All the rush and excitement of Christmas just wear me out and I have the hardest time letting it go. When I could bring myself to make something over the last couple of weeks, it was to finish a project I didn’t get done in time for Christmas. Nothing else sounds terribly interesting to me right now.

But of course, every time I work on something and have to go through my supplies, I always end up remembering the millions of things I wanted to make someday when I had the time. So to combat my craft fatigue, I gave my studio a thorough cleaning and organization.

Now I not only have a stack of projects pulled from the stash, but I have an empty canvas of a room waiting for me to make a creative mess. This should get rid of those crafty doldrums in no time.

Filed Under: Stuff I Make, The Good Life

2011 Year of Pleasures #2

January 11, 2011

I just got a great big box of craft supplies delivered to my door!

Long term readers may remember that this time every year I make the Christmas cards I’ll be sending out in December. It may be the smartest thing I ever came up with. All the supplies are on sale, I’ve got a little more time on my hands, and then it’s one less thing to do in the madness of Christmastime. I just pack them away, pull them out with the Christmas decorations, stick in a picture, and pop them in the mail.

The only trick is that I have to estimate how many cards I’ll need in December and how many new people will come into my life between now and then. Last time I estimated low, so this year I’ll be making 130 cards.

Finding that much paper in one place is a bit ridiculous, but I’ve found some great deals by going directly to the paper manufacturers website. My favorite, and the site this paper came from, is SEI. I got this paper, gorgeous flocked paper, for 75% off. And plenty of it.

Now I just have to decide how to use it. My favorite kind of dilemma.

Filed Under: Over the Top Christmas, Stuff I Make, The Good Life, Year of Pleasures

Pucker Pillow

January 10, 2011

I finally got around to adding the last set of new pillows on my living room couch, and since I was having such trouble coming up with what color to do them in, I decided to make them a neutral metallic. I had some of this silk chiffon left over from another project, so I decided this would be a good opportunity to bring in a little bit of luxe.

Since I was going with a solid color fabric, I wanted to do something to make it interesting, and I loved the results of the pleated pillows so much, that I thought it could be fun to do another textured treatment. And this is what I came up with.

To start, I cut the fabric about five inches bigger than I wanted the finished pillow to be. This gave me plenty of space to work with. Then I measured where I wanted the puckers, which ended up being 5″ apart, and then each row was 3″ apart. I offset the pins in each row to make the little pattern.

To make the pucker, I just pinched the fabric together, and stuck a pin to hold it in place. I didn’t find measuring to matter much, I just tried to be consistent. If pressed for a measurement I’d guess that it was about a 1/2″ of fabric pinched together, but really I just grabbed enough to get a decent grip.

In each little spot with a pin, I sewed about an inch worth of zig zag stitch, and then went back over it with a straight stitch. The zig zag helps to keep all that extra fabric in place and adds to the stability and the appearance of the pucker, but it could pull out if left on it’s own. The straight stitch secures it so that you can’t see any threads straining through.

With all the puckers sewn in, I spread it out on my cutting mat and cut it to the size needed for my pillow. I used an 18″ pillow form, so I cut the fabric to 20″ x 20″. You need to allow for a lot of give in this pillow, otherwise those puckers will just press into place instead of looking drapey.

I backed this with another piece of fabric that would be taut against the pillow form, so that the pillow could still feel firm while allowing the pucker fabric to be loose. To do that I cut two slightly smaller pieces of fabric – I used a simple cotton – and arranged the pieces as follows: Back piece (which I stuck a zipper into), right side up, Pucker piece, right side down, Front piece, right side down. Then I sewed around them and finished as you would any other pillow.

Adding that backing piece was a little more work than I initially felt like doing, but it was so totally the right call. Now the pillow still has a shape, while that lovely silk can slide around creating pretty little folds and puckers and preserving the look of the texture.