Holiday Trees

The day we created these masterpieces, I was enjoying a rare friday afternoon off from work, having the luxury of getting to make whatever we wanted. I'm obsessive about reusing things, but Selina really takes it to the next level. So, our only limitations were that we use what was on hand, and of course, make it beautiful.

First up, the classic holiday red yarn, we wound it around the styrofoam form, and it stuck pretty great like velcro. Then we had to take it to the next level and affixed giant jewels on it, and topped it off with a circle of felt to keep it all cohesive.

Yarn Tree

For the next 2, you can see the purple one in the background on the right, Selina cut individual felt squares and pinned them on for a shingled effect. I covered the one in the foreground w/ linen scraps left from a bookmark project that you can see Selina hand embroidered!! That was just the base coat, b/c I didn't want any of that green styro showing. Then, those rounds of burlap which were leftover from this project of hers, were layered with pins and sequins for the rustic tree.

Add some tinsel that has been literally in my gift wrap drawer since the 90's, and there you have it!

Next up, we took a circle punch to this beautiful Japanese paper and then with pin and sequin in hand, attached them. It's pretty and fluttery in person. You get the idea. :)

Lastly, going with the hole punch theme, the martha stewart butterfly punch was put to good use, yet again to decorate this linen covered one....

Until it dawned on us that d'oh!!! GLITTER TREE needs some help, and the butterflies, pins & sequins and all flew over to that one.

And our crafternoon resulted in this pretty assortment. I can so see it in the window of a chic little boutique, or in Selina's living room. ;)

Reupholstery-a-rama

Hello Reader!

Which brings me to some of my latest projects, reupholstery. I recovered the seats of  some fabulous danish style dining room chairs which, after over 10 years of use were showing their wear. And it was just as easy as they say it is, pop out the old cushion and staple gun the new one on, presto. Unless you are like me and prefer to remove the fancy backing so you can put it back on when you are done for that less homemade look. ;) all in all, it took me about 8 hours for 5 chairs.


before-ish, what great bone structure!



AFTER!!

Then, my friend Selina and I had been steadily working on recovering a giant cornice for her house. The most challenging part of that project was matching up the fabric & sewing it to have (seemingly) invisible seams. (this is a great resource for an option we didn't try to use) Turns out, we just aren’t the kind of crafters who give up easily, and 6 times is a charm! Stapling it back over the original cornice was comparatively a piece of cake. Here's the story on the fabric used.

hospital corners @ the edges

the back

voila! the front

a better look at that perfect corner

Of all these pictures, I didn't get one of it after it was put up!! D'oh!!

Pride and Parody

Hello Reader!

 

Simple Times by Amy Sedaris

 Sorry for the gap in posts, but you know when one gets to crafting, the blogging takes a back seat. So, to start, I have a review (sort of) of Simple Times by Amy Sedaris. Much like her talented brother, David Sedaris who has written many memoirish, hilarious books, their humor is a little offbeat, and seems to be equally appealling to and appalling people. Sometimes, the same people at different times! I find that more with Amy’s books, they alternately crack me up and creep me out. And her latest is all about how people are on the crafting bandwagon these days in the spirit of saving money and expressing their artistic side with varying results. Craft parody all over the place. I figure, if I can’t laugh about my crafty craziness, then I think I might go off the deep end.