My creative space

My Creative Space today should be about stripping back this roadside find:

Spotted on a quick trip down the street, and only picked up because I promised the Cyclist that I wouldn't leave it in the garage, that it wouldn't be a 'burden' on me [his code for unfinished project I suspect], etc.

I promised, but in fact the first time it's left the garage since the weekend is when I took this photo this morning.  I know it will be brilliant for little Miss A (the little chair we had for the boys was destroyed by my big boy and the bigger one across the road, so who am I to pass up a free-but-in-need-of-work replacement?), but in the meantime I've been distracted by turning this pile of fluffiness into a fairy skirt for her (photos and how-to to come):

What are you up to in your creative space today?  I'm off to Village Voices to see!

Feeding chair [tick]

This afternoon I've completed a long-standing project.  Here it is:

Years ago I salvaged this chair from a rubbish skip down the road:

It didn't look so bad back then - it had a lovely golden glow, but we ended up with too many chairs, it needed repair (the seat started to fall out of the bottom of it), and it ended up in the back yard for a couple of years.  I cut a fresh seat for it from some timber salvaged from another roadside find and kidded myself that placing it under the eaves would protect it until I could get to re-finishing it with exterior varnish.  Well, both the chair and its supplementary seat had seen better days, but I still loved the shape.  In between time I'd also sold off a number of the chairs we had inside, so it was time for the 'captains chair' to be reinvigorated as a feeding chair for the baby's room.

Firstly I reinforced under the original seat:

Then I coated it with several layers of paint (I used interior/exterior primer first, just in case it ends up outside again).

I painted the supplementary seat too.  I left it in two pieces because its such a tight fit that it needs to be in two pieces to fit it into the chair.  I confess to being too lazy to fix the split that had developed on the left though.

I then left it for ages because I didn't know how to proceed next made a cushion for the seat from a combination of a foam cushion insert, a cut up scatter cushion (to fill out the curves), three layers of dacron (to try and make the lot look uniform) and some calico (to hold it all together).  Today, having been inspired by this pin, I made a cushion cover from a men's jumper from the op shop.  The cable knit hides the imperfections in the cushion underneath better than a more traditional cover (I had originally been envisaging something with piped edges).

You can still see the gaps in the timber seat, and I didn't fill all of the holes in the chair itself, but all up I'm pretty happy with the result considering where I started.

Turning the bookcase(s) upside down

My bookcase project is nearly complete!

You might recall that I had two of these bookcases in need of a revamp:

'before'

I'd made them about 15 years ago, then added the doors when the Schoolboy was a baby to stop him climbing on the bottom half.  Somehow I'd never gotten around to painting the doors.  With the Newbie on the way and in need of office storage I crafted a plan to re-use them as part of a hutch over my new desk.

'after'

I need to paint and add some trim on either side of the fabric (Verano Petals from Yardage Design) to neaten the edges, and finish painting the shelves, but I'm so excited that I thought that I'd share their transformation now (its also your last chance to see this desk looking so clutter free!).

Here's the process in brief (fabric decoupage tutorial to come):

Upside down, with the old top cut off & sides shaped...

Painted and in place...

With the doors added...

'mini-desk' from offcuts and $1 'seconds' from Mitre 10

I should be working right now, but I'm off to check out more creative spaces over here instead!

A finished project and one yet to be started

This week I can't resist showing you my first 'go' at baby sewing - I made the Schoolboy and Kinderboy quilts when they were babies, but I didn't make any clothing.  This time round I'm encouraged by those in the blogsphere who regularly sew clothes for their kids, and I'm planning to use up some of the stash to make some new clothes for No. 3.  This is my first attempt:

The pattern is Simplicity 7017 (printed in 1990, and 99c from one of my Savers trips), and the only change that I made was to use two straps tied together at the shoulder, rather than a single strap and button.  The fabric is some that I bought when the Schoolboy was a baby, when I was planning to make something similar for him.  I was pleased with how quickly it came together, and have some ideas for a slightly different version in the next couple of weeks.

In between time, I have some furniture transformation in mind - I have two of these bookcases, which are due to be shortened, turned upside down and painted for a 'hutch' above my new desk once I can find somewhere to offload their contents and some assistance to move them to the garage.

The plan is to cover the doors in some of Yardage Design's new Verano 'petals' fabric (I bought a metre from Nic when she had a sale last week, but now I'm worried that I should have bought more - there are several more places I want to use it!).

I'm trying to work out whether I should be washing the fabric before I glue it down or not - any ideas?  I've only ever done this sort of thing on a very small scale before, and I don't want to ruin the finished job!!

Of course, before I do any of that, I'm heading over to Kirsty's 'Our Creative Spaces' page to put in my link and look at what other people are up to.  Hope to see you there!